Meet The Farmer
My name is Jake, I grew up in the suburbs of Minnesota but begged to travel to my family's farm in Hillsboro ND every chance I got. I would spend my school breaks on the family farm helping out in the field, feeding the cattle, sorting potatoes, and helping my grandma in her garden. This is where my passion for farming developed and for as long as I can remember I have wanted to be a farmer.
My wife and I moved to Fargo right after high school graduation to attend college and so we could be closer to the family farm. While in school I was exposed to market gardening and found my passion with growing food for people in my local community and closing the waste stream. My grandparent gave me a small plot of land on the farmstead to test out my market farming skills and composting abilities. Since then, we have slowly grown the farm's infrastructure and expanded into more local markets.
The farm started with a lot of passion for agriculture and one small tote with a handful of worms to supply some of the garden with some extra fertility. Today we are growing on a 10-acre plot developing an orchard with annual flowers and vegetables intercropped, along with two 16’ worm bins that supplement the farm's fertility needs.
Nature’s Roots Philosophy
Our Farming Practices
We follow organic practices along with mindful tillage methods to grow all of our produce. Following these practices helps facilitate the microbiology to improve our soils fertility while growing healthy produce for us to consume.
We use naturally created amendments, like our worm casting, to supply the farms fertility while improving the soil condition. Our methods have allowed us to start our small farm and continue to grow more produce in the same space.
Our Composting Methods
We started composting to provide our farm with fertility and to decrease the amount of food scraps going to waste. We are continuing to expand our composting ability to convert as much waste into healthy soil as possible while diverting waste from our landfills.
We use a variety of composting methods, but specialize in vermicomposting which is also known as worm composting. We use vermicomposting to harvest the worm castings that are rich in nutrients and microbiology needed for healthy plant growth.
About Our Farm
We are currently growing on two plots of land located just southeast of Hillsboro North Dakota. Our home plot is a third of an acre, this is where we started our farming adventure back in 2020. The new farm plot is ten acres located a few miles north of our home plot, we started growing here in 2023. On both of our farm plots we intercrop our annual vegetables with our perennial fruits in hope of increasing our production in small spaces. We are currently growing everything that can survive in our climate in the hopes of bringing a diverse array of crops that aren’t common in our local markets.
Separate from our growing areas, we have a vermicomposting operation to help feed our farms fertility needs. We collect organic waste from our farm and our composting subscription to help divert waste ending up in our landfills while being able to feed our worms. As the worms eat through the organic waste, we then come in and harvest their worm castings to use on our farm to promote soil and plant health.
One of our goals is to build a sustainable farming operation that provides a diverse array of locally grown produce for our local community, in addition to diverting organic waste from our landfills and creating a biologically rich soil amendment.