Persephone Farm - Celebrating the Farming Legend
Our first vendor story is actually a farewell to a longtime vendor and pillar in the Willamette Valley food community, Persephone Farm. But before the seasons shift, we wanted to do our best to capture the magic of this historic farm and share it with you all.
originally published at Masa Fresh
Perhaps it was birds chirping from the moment the sun rose, or perhaps it was the spell that a warm sunny day puts on you after a long winter. But perhaps it was the delicate vibe of Persephone extending out from the tucked-away farm all the way to the start of an hour-long drive to the east. Blue skies broke through the morning clouds, vibrant green pastures lined the road and soon made way for tall pine trees the closer into the hills one went.
It’s a bit of an “over the river and through the woods” situation, heading out to Persephone. The winding country roads, followed by a couple sharp turns, and the crossing of the mighty Santiam river before one last left down a long gravel drive. A sign peeks out from the brambles to politely inform you that you’re headed in the right direction.
There is a slowing down of the world that starts before even landing on the property. From the gentle tone of Elanor’s emails beforehand and repeated reminders along the winding path to drive slowly for the neighbors’ sake. The single-lane road begins to narrow, fresh exuberant blackberry vines spill into the roadway, and you come upon a large deer-proof gate. After parking just ahead of the gate and stepping out my car to open it, the farm beyond comes into focus.
A maternal hill watching over from above bursts with pine trees and below a colorful patchwork of overwintering brassicas fills the valley floor. Two people in bright orange waterproof overalls were harvesting rapini between the rows.
For the past few weeks, we’ve all been enjoying the delicious gifts that spring has to offer from Persephone Farm. From their wide array of flowering rapinis, including mustards, kales, and purple sprouting broccoli, to greens that come packed with a punch, such as sorrel, Persephone has had it all.
After parking my car, sanitizing my hands, and securing my mask into place, I walked back to the main property to find Elanor sitting at the table on the porch eating breakfast. We chatted a while as the morning dew melted off the plants, got on our boots, and went out to the field to harvest.
Persephone has been growing certified organic produce in Lebanon since 1985 in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains along the Santiam River. The property was purchased by Jeff Falen and his father, and just a few short years later Elanor found her way to the farm as well.
Jeff and Elanor were both new to farming in their youth, a part of the back-to-the-land movement that got many of our now established farmers started. Elanor grew up in Brooklyn, New York, and moved to Indiana for college. She started getting into agriculture there and ended up dropping out to farm. After working on a farm there for a while, she wrote dozens of letters out to farms in the Pacific Northwest looking for work, and ended up getting in touch with Persephone.
She came out to visit the farm in December of 1989 and then ended up coming back to live and work on farm the following April, 1990. She says she didn’t expect to stay so long at the time. But as we stood on her porch overlooking the fields thirty years later, she said without hesitation, “This is home.”
Jeff and Elanor, 1991, photo shared by the Portland Farmers Market on April 24th, 2021
After thirty years farming together, Jeff passed away this past December, 2020. Jeff’s passing has been hard on his family and the local food community to say the least. The community outpoured with kind words and stories about working with him over the years to celebrate his life and his impact in the farming scene. And when you step foot on farm, you can feel that his and Elanor’s hard work tending the soil all of these years is still shining strong in the plants thriving throughout the farm. Read more in this beautiful essay that Jeff wrote about how farming shaped his life, and this article in memoriam on their website to honor his farming legacy.
Jeff Falen, Photo by Shawn Linehan
After breakfast, Elanor and I made our way out to the field to go harvest sorrel. Sorrel is a relative of rhubarb and has a similar fresh, lemony flavor, a wonderful addition to salads and for juicing. We counted out our twist ties, each grabbed a tote and a knife, and stepped in between the rows. Elanor had sprained her ankle just days before and wore a brace on her left leg, but that didn’t stop her from diving right into the harvest.
She showed me the basic steps for sorrel harvest. Slice a handful of greens from the row and take out any weeds and any older or damaged leaves. Handing me a bunch to use as a size reference, I held it in my hands and attempted to mimic what her hands knew how to do so seamlessly. We chatted back and forth as we went down the row, talking about everything from farming the property to the state of society to the things as farmers we hate to bunch the most. When I asked her what her favorite vegetable was, she said, “I think my favorite things to eat and grow are fennel and kohlrabi.” Being that she was nestled on top of the soil just like both fennel and kohlrabi grow, hair a little wild atop her head, it seemed a suiting answer.
The microclimate at each farm is unique, and over the years Jeff and Elanor have learned what the land likes. “It’s been a challenge to farm it, and a beautiful one,” she said. “You come in with ideas on how to shape the place, and then it shapes you.”
Elanor described that the soil there is pretty darn heavy and cold, and despite thirty years of building soil health, the climate really limits what they’ve been able to grow there. She said it’s not the best property for growing heat-loving crops such as cucumbers and tomatoes, and that Persephone was most certainly never the first one to market with much of anything. The more I wove through the fields and listened to her speak, the more I realized how strongly their farming ethos has driven their actions.
Just about every organic farm you know of probably uses a good deal of plastic, whether in the form of hoop houses or plastic mulch. It is very difficult to make it as a small organic farmer if you don’t have those two tools which allow you to extend the seasons out significantly. But at Persephone, there’s not any plastic in sight. As we continued down the row, our totes filling with bunches of sorrel, Elanor described how being a market farmer often depends on how flashy you can make your produce, beating other farmers to market with the first tomato or zucchini of the season, and although it hasn’t been the most profitable decision in the world, she and Jeff were just never interested in pushing their plants.
“I can’t help but think they’ll be more nutritious when they’re allowed to do things their own way,” she said with a chuckle.
Before I knew it, albeit scooching on her bottom with a sprained ankle, Elanor was done bunching her forty ties, and I still had over half mine left to do. She scooched her way back out of the field and went on to check on the rest of her team as I finished up.
Persephone is located in Lebanon, Oregon, and is pretty far out from any major city centers, so workers and interns have often lived in on-farm housing. After years of people filtering in and out of the farm, on this spring day there were just two people left working to harvest for market. With Jeff’s passing, Elanor’s plan is to harvest the overwintered crops to finish out their twenty years vending at the Portland Farmers Market, and workers Rob and Brittney were there to help. Rob (pictured in main image above) has worked and lived at Persephone off and on for many years, and Brittney (pictured below) is a young college student who had worked her first season at Persephone the summer prior.
After I finished my bunches and loaded our tubs of sorrel up onto the truck destined for the packing shed, I walked back to the house to check back in with Elanor. With her sprained ankle she wasn’t up for walking around, so she gave me a few landmarks and told me to finish up touring myself around the farm.
Past the solar panels and the poplar trees that fill the air with that unmistakably sweet spring smell of propolis, past the barn finished with cob walls and guarded by Jeff’s collection of bicycles, and past the field of vibrant purple cabbage going to flower, I took a left at the leeks and found my way to a gate that separated the fields from the riverbank. Just a few feet away the mighty Santiam was roaring through the valley. Brittney said working there last summer, hitting the river after work was the highlight of the day. I could have stayed there for hours on the bank, watching the water flow over the moss-covered rocks. But alas, the day was coming to an end.
I walked back to the house, picking a bunch of that fresh and juicy purple cabbage rapini to take home with me as I went. On my way back, I passed by the propagation greenhouse and took a peek inside. On any other farm this time of year, that house would have been filled to the brim with spring seedlings getting ready to be planted out into the field. But this year, for the first time in over thirty years, the house was empty. Not empty as in over, but one got the sense that if this farm were a long book, this moment was a pregnant pause, a necessary moment of rest before transitioning into whatever is to come next.
Elanor explained that once the overwintered crops were done being harvested, her plan was to let the land rest cover-cropped. For a bit of cash flow and to do some tasks she can manage on her own, she’s going to be growing out some seed crops for Adaptive Seed since her property allows for a nicely isolated area perfect for growing out stable seed lines. She’ll be growing out some cylindrical beets, summer squash, lettuces, and peppers. With everything that has happened in the last year, both in her life and in the world, she said, “It’s not necessarily an exciting time, but one full of potential.”
Persephone, named after the goddess of the seasons, is truly one of the most dedicated seasonal farms I’ve ever set foot on. The dedication to Jeff and Elanor’s farming ethos is palpable in the land, in the soil tilth, in the vibrant albeit final harvest of the year. This past Saturday, April 24th, Elanor herself came to the Portland Farmers Market to celebrate her final market after twenty years there. The community stopped by to show their love and appreciation and gobble up the last of their delicious veggies that will be available in Portland and on Masa Fresh for the foreseeable future.
As I wrapped up my visit chatting with Elanor back on her front porch where we had started our day, I didn’t want to leave. There is so much beauty and so much potential in this place, and our community will be patiently waiting to see what comes next.
“It’s an important time in the world,” she continued, “and I’m in a very unique position to be of use to others, to new young people looking to farm.” Although we don’t know what’s next for this beautiful little farm nestled out in the hills, one thing is clear--this story is not over, it’s just the seasons that are shifting. Who knows what may spring up from these lands as time goes on, but as Elanor reflected looking out at her fields, “all of this was for something.”
