What We Actually Do
Sustainability, Honestly
Not a marketing page — a running account of what we've changed, why, and what we haven't gotten to yet.
Zero Pesticide Sourcing
No synthetic pesticides or herbicides have been used anywhere on the property since 2017. The 15-acre property operates on the same principles as certified organic farming, though we have not pursued formal USDA certification (the paperwork burden doesn't change anything we're actually doing on the ground).
Our pesticide-free commitment is verified annually through the third-party lab testing we do on every honey batch. Every batch's lab panel confirms zero residue across 200+ compounds.
Verified: 0 pesticide detections across 200+ compounds, all 22 tested batches
Pollinator Habitat Preservation
Three acres are kept as permanent pollinator meadow, never mowed during bloom — left to the mix of native grasses, Oregon wildflowers, clover, and phacelia that establishes naturally in this part of the valley.
A 0.4-mile riparian buffer along the creek protects water quality and habitat for native pollinators beyond our own hives — no vehicles, no foot traffic during nesting season, no bank clearing.
3 acres of permanent pollinator meadow · 0.4 miles of riparian buffer preserved
Packaging Choices
We moved every jar to Type 3 amber glass in 2022, off the plastic squeeze bottles we started with — recyclable everywhere glass is accepted, reusable for dry goods, and manufactured without plasticizers that can leach into acidic foods like honey.
Shipping materials are compostable or recycled wherever a suitable option exists. We use no styrofoam or air pillows. For cold-weather shipping, we use thermal bubble wrap mailers made from recycled content — the only synthetic material in our packaging chain.
100% glass honey containers since 2022 · Compostable + recycled shipping materials
The 1,000+ Hive Ceiling
We keep exactly 1,000+ hives, by choice — not as a marketing statement, but as a farm management principle. At this scale, we can still track colony health hive by hive, monitor Varroa counts by hand, and know which hive blocks produced the willowherb honey in late August versus the ones that foraged the buckwheat fields.
Doug turned down a Portland restaurant supply contract that would have required tripling production — scaling past that would mean becoming a business instead of a farm. Read the full story in Our Story.
Hard cap: 1,000+ hives. Enforced by choice, not by resource constraint.
What We're Working On
Not There Yet
No carbon accounting
We don't yet track or offset carbon emissions from shipping or operations.
Why we're not USDA-certified organic
A deliberate choice, not an oversight. We've operated with zero synthetic pesticides since 2017 — the certification paperwork burden doesn't change anything we're actually doing on the ground, and every batch is already independently lab-verified for pesticide residue. We'd rather put that effort into the farm than the filing.
No jar-return program
We don't currently have a system for customers to return and reuse empty jars.
No solar, yet
Solar for the farm's outbuildings is planned for 2026, not yet installed.