Jefferson County Farm Tour set this weekend

PORT TOWNSEND — The Jefferson County Farm Tour will offer a wide range of opportunities for tourgoers this weekend.

Main activities will run from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday and include chances to see Arabian horses, vineyards, flower farms, turkeys, chickens, wool sheep, fiber arts, vegetable production and school farm projects.

The farm tour, started by the Washington State University Jefferson County Extension in 2002, is now in its 22nd year. In 2019, The Production Alliance took the lead on the event, though the extension is still involved, farm tour manager Megan Claflin said.

The event is a time to connect with local farmers, to see their work and to learn about the local agricultural community, Claflin said. It also will be a weekend event full of parties and celebrations, hosted in natural agricultural spaces by farmers, she added.

“Farmers are opening their homes and their hearts this weekend, and they pull out all of the stops,” Claflin said. “They are excited to host the community. This is their time to shine. They will create on-site maps and walking tours, and they’ll have demonstrations going, and they’ll bring folks to make food, and they’ll have music and kids activities. It’s just a fun weekend. It’s like going to someone’s house for a party, but you get to see what they do for all of their passion and their productivity.”

The self-guided tour will take place across Jefferson County with 15 host farms open for visit, along with a number of the farms setting up booths to answer questions and to sell produce, fiber wares and value-added products.

The tour has suggested a donation of $10, and attendees are encouraged to carpool if possible.

A full map of participating farms can be found on the tour’s website, https://theproductionalliance.org/events/jefferson-county-farm-tour#dynamic-section-9-anchor.

A number of the farms participating will only be open for visit one day, while some farms will be open both days. Attendees should see the full schedule on the official website under the self-guided tour header.

“All of the farms should be visited,” Claflin said. “I think everybody should come out both days ‘cause you’d probably be hard-pressed to do all 15 locations in one day, but you could probably knock everybody out in two. Plan your whole weekend around the farm tour; it only comes once a year.”

Claflin said Glendale Farm will have food trucks, Kodama Farm & Food Forest will host Sol Smoothies, Blue Jay Kombucha will be at White Lotus Farm offering food and drinks, and Finn River will have an open kitchen through its normal operating hours.

Festivities will continue at Finn River with Combo Choro, a Brazilian Choro band, playing from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Saturday and The Hot Club Sing Jam happening from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. on Sunday.

Valley Revival Mini Music Festival will take place at Glendale Farm both days. Details about the music festival, including costs and artist lineup, can be found at https://www.glendalefarm.org/events-1/event-two-a93t5.

Claflin said there will be no White Lotus barn dance, despite what the brochure says.

Details about the farms and additional information can be found on the farm tour website.

‘Agricultural community’

“With 80 small- to mid-sized regional farms, I feel like what you’re looking at is a different agricultural community than what you might see where there are large, more industrial-style or more mono-cropping-style farms like you see in other places like the in Midwest or the South or even some of the farms in central Washington,” Claflin said. “A lot of the farms here in Jefferson County are family owned and operated, or have been purchased by what I like to call the next generation of farmer. These individuals are either 30 or 50 years old and they’ve either taken over for their parents or they’ve purchased a farm from a farming family that is retiring out of agriculture.

“There’s a lot invested in our agricultural community,” she continued. “There’s also a lot of diversity on each farm in regard to the agricultural products being grown and raised.”

Salish Coast Production Farm at Salish Coast Elementary School will host farm visitors all weekend. The farm is one of a number of farms across Jefferson County school districts and is used both as an educational farm as well as a producer for the schools’ cafeterias.

Claflin said there are multiple cooperative farms in Jefferson County, where farms are operating on a single property. Natembea Farm is an example. The property’s Heartwood Nursery, Mallayo Farm, Soft Step Farm and The Hedgerow are each participating on Sunday.

Jefferson Land Trust, which will have a booth at Kodama Farm & Food Forest, is another agricultural presence as it works with farmers and funding sources to purchase agricultural conservation easements on farms, ensuring the protection of the lands as agricultural in perpetuity. Kodama Farm and Finn River Cidery are among the protected farms.

“In 2002, we did not have as much of the marketing and communications around local agriculture as we do today,” Claflin said. “Today we have our Eat Local, we have the Co-op, we have the Chimacum Corner Farmstand, we have a vibrant farmers market. It’s a lot more prominent these days, the connection between our local food systems, our local economy, and the culture and heritage behind agriculture in Jefferson County.

“Twenty-two years later, I think you would be hard-pressed to find someone who doesn’t know that we are very fortunate in Jefferson County to have such a vibrant agricultural community,” she said. “That said, people still need to make the choice as consumers to choose local.”

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Reporter Elijah Sussman can be reached by email at elijah.sussman@sequimgazette.com.