Our Beginning

Sol Gardens really began on a small organic farm in Olympia Washington.  There, I not only fell in love with sustainable agriculture, but also the woman who would later become my wife.  Lara, the sol of our operation, and I began dreaming of one day owning our own organic farm.  This dream led us to study and work on a wide variety of organic farms in New Zealand and the U.S., achieve B.A. degrees in sustainable agriculture, and finally purchase our own farm.  Sol Gardens, our USDA certified organic farm in Yorkville IL, is this ever evolving shared dream.

We feel that healthy farms have few off-farm inputs.  Here at Sol Gardens, we intensively manage and rotate not only our vegetable production, but our animals as well, to put them to work for the greater good of the farm.  Our black angus cattle are moved to fresh pasture every few days, our laying hens are moved every two weeks, and guinea hogs and broiler chickens are moved in "tractors" twice a day.  All this movement reduces overgrazing, fertilizes our land, and reduces pest and disease pressure on both plants and animals.  We utilize cover crops and manure to help build our soil.