When we first started our farm here in the Hungry Hollow in  1983 years ago, guess what was here? To put it simply, twenty acres of dirt. Level (mostly), with the remains of a fallow Milo field, and two olive trees. So we planted trees. Six hundred Casuarinas trees, actually (yes, we were rather ambitious...)and two and a half acres of fruit trees

And then we planted native flowering shrubs, and native grasses, and native California trees. (We planted a few kids, too.)

And over the years we established a farming system that includes over seventy annual and perennial crops.

And whatta-ya-know, in the time it took to get three kids through high school and into college, we have a blooming, buzzing, flowering, fruiting, diverse community that scientists call an "agroecosystem".

So we don't just farm, we provide habitat for an enormous range of species who like to rest in, nest in, feed on, and reproduce in the several hundred different types of plants growing on our farm.

Cheese Weed
White Stem Filarre
Puncture Vine
Turkey Mullein
California Poppy
Wild Radish
Sheppard's Purse
Common Chickweed
Common Purslane
Red Maids
Curley Dock
Lamb’s Quarter
Rough Pigweed
Scarlet Pimpernel
Common Broadleaf Plantain
Common Manzanita
Wild Morninglory
Fiddle neck
Common Mullein
Blue Vervain
Common Horehound
Western Redbud
Bur clover
White Sweet Clover
Winter/Spring Vetch
California Fuchsia
Ceanothus
Coffeeberry
Common Snowberry
Coyote Bush
Common Yarrow
Pineapple Weed
Bull/Star Thistle
Chicory
Dandelion
Annual Ryegrass
Little Seed Canarygrass

PLANTS

BIRDS

Turkey vulture
White-tailed (black-shouldered) kite
Swainson's hawk
Ring-necked pheasant
Wild turkeys
Quail
Killdeer
Barn owl
Long-eared owl
Rufus hummingbird
Northern flicker
Black phoebe
Ash-throated flycatcher
Western kingbird
Cliff swallow
Scrub jay
American crow
Common raven
American robin
Northern mockingbird
Cedar waxwing
European starling
Yellow-rumped warbler
White-crowned sparrow
Golden-crowned sparrow
Savannah sparrow
Lincoln's sparrow
Red-winged blackbird
Western meadowlark
Brewer's blackbird?
Brown-headed cowbird
Northern (Bullock's) oriole
House finch
Lesser goldfinch
American goldfinch

MAMMALS

REPTILES

Pond Turtle
Striped Races Snake
Gopher Snake
Common King snake
Garter Snake
Western Rattlesnake

Red Fox
Opossum
Jackrabbit
Desert Cottontail
Raccoon
Stripped Skunk
Mule Deer
Brown Bear

As an organically-farmed agro-ecosystem, Good Humus Produce supports a wide diversity of plants, animals, reptiles, insects, and microorganisms. Visitors to our farm include raptors, pollinators, predators, and many, many types of herbivores!

STARTING OUT