Three generations. One little farm. More then 35 years of history.
In 1990, my parents drove up from Los Angeles with a U-Haul, a dog, two young girls, and a bird. After looking at properties all over the Portland area, they stumbled upon this little piece of land in Oregon City. They bought it with a handshake and a promise to keep it in the family—and somehow, without quite intending to, they began building the homestead that would become Maggy’s Farm.
My dad, Tim, has always been a plantsman at heart, while my mom, Jackie, has a lifelong love of growing flowers and bringing people together. What started with a garden and a few hens soon became a little homestead, with ducks, rabbits, geese, and more vegetables than we probably knew what to do with.
My sister and I spent our childhood exploring the woods and creek. We learned early that there was always something to discover outside, something growing in the garden, or some animal that needed tending. The land became a part of us.
In the early 2000s, the homestead began to grow into something more. My mom became pulled her deeper into the local food movement and eventually led to an invitation to help start a farmers market in Oregon City.
The Oregon City Farmers Market was born in 2005. My mom helped build the market from the ground up and later managed it for more than a decade. At the same time, my dad was leaving behind his career as a house painter and leaning fully into what he loved most: plants.
That was when Maggy’s Farm began to take shape.
The farm is named after Maggy, our beloved rescue dog who suddenly passed away in 2011. She spent much of her life happily riding around with my dad, and her favorite place was the driver’s seat of his old pickup truck. Naming the farm after her seemed like the perfect way to keep a little piece of her here.
My dad began growing vegetable and herb starts from seed and taking them to the farmers market each spring. Today, he is affectionately known as the “Tomato Man,” offering more than 70 varieties of heirloom and open-pollinated tomatoes, along with herbs, greens, and just about every vegetable you could want for a summer garden.
A few years later, a very unofficial farm stand appeared along the fence. At first, it was little more than a few buckets of flowers. But those flowers quickly developed a following.
My mom began growing more and more, learning through every season, saving seed, experimenting with new varieties, and refining her craft. She began growing flowers commercially in 2018. Her dahlias—a love she inherited from her grandfather—along with roses and sweet peas, have become some of the farm’s signatures.
There is something special about growing on this land. The soil is deep, rich, and remarkably free of rocks, with excellent drainage. More than 20 feet down, it remains beautifully friable and full of life. And for more than 35 years, no chemical fertilizers or pesticides have been used here. It is the kind of soil that makes you want to keep planting.
In 2019, after several years living and working around the country, I, Freya, came home to Oregon with my husband from New York City to start our family. I had spent years traveling, but coming back to this place felt like returning to something I had never really left.
In the summer of 2021, with a one-year-old in tow, my husband and I bought the farm from my parents. We wanted to preserve this little corner of the world—not just the land itself, but the feeling of it. The woods, the creek, the gardens, the animals, the quiet mornings, and the sense that there is always something growing.
Today, three generations of our family live here. My dad grows his vegetable starts, my mom tends her flowers, and I care for the chickens and bake for the farm stand. My husband and I are raising our two boys here, and they are already spending their days in the same woods and along the same creek where I played as a child.
And so, Maggy’s Farm continues.