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| Naomi at the register, The Sellwood Bee |
We use OMRI and WSDA's Generic and Branded Material Lists to help identify any products that, while great for most, might not be useable by a certified organic grower. Products that are certified for organic use are marked with an O on our Product List, products that must be verified for organic use with your certifier are marked with an (O). It is always best practice to confirm all materials you will be using with your certifier first. Crop and Livestock guidelines and interpretations of NOP, National Organics Program, can vary and change. Working farm, landscaper and full pallet pricing available, please contact us.
We are an equal opportunity employer and an equal enjoyer of all of you fabulous, unique people who come visit us. We believe everyone should be appreciated! We strongly support equal marriage rights and are a rainbow of gay, straighties and bi peeps and surrounded by a marvelous rainbow of uniqueness of all of you. Please sign this pledge, Love. Commitment. Marriage. = Equaliy. Thank you!
Naomi Montacre, named after her grandma Jewel Naomi, squirreled away her money for 5 years, working a number of unique jobs in NY, with the goal to farm. She and her husband Neil, moved
to Oregon and farmed on leased land in Helvetia as 2 Donkeys Farm,
until she broke her foot and found a sitting down job managing an ag supplier in Portland. She now owns Naomi's Organic Farm Supply with her husband and mom and is so happy to
be working with them and her friends. Nerdiness
dept = Master Gardener with Organic Gardening Certification, (OGCP),
and has taught workshops for Oregon Tilth, OSU Master Gardeners, OGCP
Courses, WSU Small Farms, PCC, Portland's Urban Growth Bounty Series and local garden groups. Very grateful to have a space to bring a community of people and agriculture ideas together and grow plants! As a kid, she wanted to craft a lending library in her backyard.. and is giddy to have a diverse collection of books as part of our shop. She loves to get her hands in the dirt, and is happiest when surrounded by plants, bees, chickens, ducks, goats and people like you.
Neil Montacre
crafts, builds and hand-paints most of our signage and displays, along with have excellent forklift skills. He changed his name from Whitacre when he married Naomi, and they merged
their two names, Montgomery & Whitacre, to become Montacre. They
met in art school in Milwaukee, WI in 1997. Neil is a multi-faceted
person with wide-ranging talents and interests, from art to marine
animals to woodworking and cooking. He is the main Chick Chatter, to
help you select your peepers and also the Hen Papa... taking diligent
care of them all. He grew organic vegetables for market in Iowa City in
his youth and was wooed to do it again with Naomi. When they suddenly moved to Portland, he found a job working with interior plants. He created and drew our logo, made almost all of the signage and shelving for the shop, eyeing scrap wood full of nails, 
"oops"
paint and other discards and envisioning a neat old-window greenhouse..
a pink and red pirate chicken coop (N. Williams 'Hens for Obama')... that later becomes the little goat & hen barn here. And yes, he is the bearded one.
Mary Montgomery
is Naomi's mom a.k.a Mamo! Often up in the office, being an elf extraordinaire, kindly taking over a number of Naomi's office tasks, along with answering your calls, emails and working in the shop. Lives with her husband Eric, Neil and Naomi on the same .4 acre property in the Ardenwald neighborhood & often run to or from work together with Poppy and sometimes Binga. Retired after 21 years of teaching
first grade and Kindergarten, she was excited to move from Wisconsin to
Oregon in 2008. She began working part and then full time, back to part with
Naomi and can't quite be considered "retired" anymore, (thanks mom!). She is owned by a loving cats Kennie Pepper, Tito and cutie Fizz Gig from our old shop (Pi' Cat's daughter) and dog Poppy. She is the resident Worm Bin Queen at home, has taken Oregon Tilth's Comprehensive Organic Gardening Course and loves gardening in this milder climate. She makes the best green smoothies and enjoys foraging with Naomi in the garden and the wild for ingredients... And, yes, she honestly is Naomi's mom, and contrary to what some of you so sweetly exclaim, we're both a bit older than you think... yeehaw!
Carissa Albin is now on a rockin' sunny triple lot in the Ardenwald neighborhood (yes, represent!) and creating Ardenwyld Farm, when she is not here she is often workin' the broadfork and sowing seeds. She's worked with Hawthorne Valley Farm in NY and in Oregon at Square Peg Farm for CSA and market and with Fraga Farm, an organic goat dairy in Sweet Home, OR. She has a graduate degree in teaching at Lewis & Clark, has taught kindergarten and currently works as a private tutor as well. She is smart and hilarious and we enjoy every day. Bring on your garden, farm and animal questions (seen here with visiting guinea pig, Top Gear...), she'll share ideas and help research with you. We have a lot of projects up our sleeves, including a lot more educational signage and hand outs for you. She and her husband Clay are bike powered and fabulous. Their hen Tom Cruise, is a bit of a bully.Chris Randolph - Has joined Neil in crafting cool projects for the shop like our sassy new plant corral tables and so much more. He is also an excellent garden designer, find more on his Shared Earth site. He joined us in the beginning of 2011 and is
very
multi-faceted. Helping in the shop with your garden, farm and
livestock questions, with plants and in the warehouse. He has come up
with a lot of creative solutions to our many projects and is bursting
with energy. He has studied Permaculture with Andrew Millison and herbalism with Cascade Anderson Geller and is continuing his herbalism studies. He
and his husband Brendan have a really neat flock of hens and ducks and a
lush 5 acre farmstead in Damascus - and that is why he is not here on the weekends (unless one of us seriously barters with him), that is his time with Brendy, workin' on the farm. (Chris on left with one of his new baby Pilgrim Geese) 
Adam Marx - is nice, and also pretty. He has been with us since early 2012 and helped save a lot of plants in 2011 facing the Tyranosaurus Les demolition. He
comes from a proud lineage of liars. His father and brother have both
won the coveted Nebraska Liar's Contest, and although Adam has not
yet won that prestigious award, he is a licensed ninja, a finalist in the
Mr. Bald Universe pageant, a five-time winner of the World's
Strongest Mustache competition, and Baby of the Year in 1971 and
1992. He loves bees, funk, books, making up absurd stories, and
plants, except for passionflowers, which he thinks are trying too
hard, and cauliflowers, which he thinks aren't trying hard enough...
Carissa Wolfe of Karova Farm Services - yes two awesome Carissas! oh my goodness... where do we start with how awesome she is? Raw milk dairywoman + brilliant bookkeeper + honest, kind and super smart. She is the foundation of having excellent relationships with our vendors and smooth
finances amidst the energy of our growing shop. She was farming in Oregon City (with their lovely milker Opal) and now she and her partner Karyn are dairy farming in Australia and she is still the master brain of our books from down under. Kellee Boyer of Blackthorn Bookkeeping and Farm Services - Kellee works with Karova and takes care of bi-monthly in person bookkeeping tasks for us. Photo and info to come, Kellee rocks.
Toussaint Dollarhyde - shop rooster, crowing daily from the lanai off our office above the shop. He wants you. All of you. To be his ladies. He is a French Cowboy. He may have more to say here (he definitely does), whether we'll have to censor him a bit... remains to be seen. Oona Bee Riot and Binga Von Flair - Naomi's furry little ladies. Work too much sometimes? The perk is getting to bring your goats to work in the truck and run home with one of them some nights (that'd be Bings, as Oona loves hiking, but with rather stop off for groceries on the way home with Neil). Yessss... Little life enhancers. Love them. Oh
Naomi's Organic Mineral Mix and making your own COF, 'Complete Organic Fertilizer':
In March of 2009, Naomi created Naomi's Organic Mineral Mix: with equal parts Azomite Volcanic Ash, Glacial Rock Dust, Jersey Greensand, Soft Rock Phosphate and Limestone. There were different batch experiments from the original all powder mix on up to its current all granulated green and cream mix. Somehow you all spread the word amongst yourself and over 20 tons have been dug into gardens and farms in Oregon and Washington. The mix is registered with ODA and we may add another blend we think you'll enjoy. We have all the ingredients to make your own fertilizers on a small home garden scale on up to acreage.
We can also help interpret your soil tests and help calculate how little you can use to get what you need for your soil and plants. We love your feedback.
Helping us on special projects:
Katie Eldridge
- Part of our special forces. Extremely capable builder, helps on many
projects and sometimes in the warehouse on the weekends. She has been a
baker for over 14 years and is also a natural builder. In 2010, she
apprenticed for 7 weeks with House Alive!,
building an amazing straw bale home on the Pine Ridge Reservation in
South Dakota. Her current focus is building affordable earthen cob pizza
ovens, which is areally delicious combination of all of her skills as baker and builder. We love Katie. (on left on the Pine Ridge Reservation)
Seth Belber -
Farmed with Persephone Farm, a 25 acre organic produce and egg farm, in
Lebanon for 7 years, and as the Farm Manager for the past 3 years. You
may already recognize him from weekly Farmer's Markets. He has also
worked with Growing Gardens and graduated from nearby Reed College. He
looks forward to applying the skills he learned about sustainable food
production on a rural, commercial scale, in projects within urban
settings. Focusing on youth education and mentorship, and working with
under-resourced communities toward food security. Working
in both our warehouse and helping in the front, he is all around
awesome, kind and filled with great knowledge and plays the banjo, yeow!
Trevor Williams -
Here on the weekends with a happy smile and so much positive energy!
Worked with Janus Youth Program's Food Works Farm as the Summer Program
Leader and co-created and managed Aprovecho Farms' CSA. He has worked
and volunteered with organic farms and gardens in the US, Europe and
Mexico, teaching and learning about land and food systems. Passionate
about working with non-profit hunger relief and alternative farming
advocates. He also does garden design work, creating sustainable, edible
landscapes, if you'd like to hire him during the week. 
Emily Gowen
Currently a licensed Massage Therapist, with studios in NW and NE
Portland - she is excellent,
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Emily-A-Gowen-Licensed-Massage-Therapist/240283299315942?sk=wall.
Emily is a powerhouse, farmed in Vermont and with Gaining Ground Farm in Oregon. She's taken the Master Gardener program in both states and the OGCP, Organic Gardening Certification Program here.She is part of the OnGoing Collective of good neighbors, goats, hens and garden - Going Goaty. Emily worked with Growing Gardens for two years and organized 
the awesome 2009 Tour de Coops & Tour de Goats, which toured by bicycle around urban sites. She can be seen bicycling to just about everything.We feel very lucky Emily will be here on neat projects.(Emily biking and painting the orange stripe around our building in late summer 2010)
Amanda Kopchinski - Currently a Licensed Massage Therapist! Weekend super-star helper from the Going Goaty Collective! Back for spring of 2011.Yay!!! Currently in massage school, too : ) (on right in that lovely hat)
Erika Fey - hoola hoop garden goddess - has moved to Bend, as her husband was offered a job teaching wilderness survival skills and we will miss her a lot!! She's made a lot of really neat handmade signs around the shop, is really smart and her enthusiasm and kind nature is amazing.
Jordan Brown - just moved - before we got to write about him, he moved to Corvallis for a neat job surveying endangered plants throughout Oregon. It was so nice to have him here!
Jon Wagner is a biologist and artist from Kentucky. His girlfriend, Prairie Hale, works with Zenger Farm, the non-profit that provides education, urban farm space, manages the Lents Farmer's Market, and houses the Eastside Egg Cooperative. Checkout Jon's Treehouse! he makes super neat drawings, aka Journals, illustrations and animations.
Aaron Maroni - Physicist and Carpenter, boat builder, man of many intriguing thoughts (invest in Silver), loading goodies in your vehicle. He helped put our greenhouse back up and many other projects around the property, more on him to come..... (Jon and Aaron finishing the duck hutch)Ben Alley - from the area of the world affectionately known as upstate new york, he's worked for a number of farms, now here in oregon and was fun to work with.
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