Tara Firma Farm, McEvoy Ranch, and Chileno Valley Ranch

After moving to West Marin, I was eager to start exploring my surroundings. Here are a few of the favorite organic, sustainable farms and ranches I’ve visited and recommend checking out!

Tara Firma Farms

There is so much great stuff happening at Tara Firma Farms. I first visited as part of the SonomaCounty Farm Trails tour weekend, but the farm is very accessible, and visitors can stop by any Saturday and Sunday for a free tour. Tara Firma is a 260-acre, certified organic farm that raises cattle, pigs, chickens, and turkeys that are antibiotic/hormone free, pasture raised, and non-GMO. They do also grow fruits and vegetables. Although, it doesn’t seem those are available to the public just yet.

Since I visited on a bustling day, the owners of the farm were mingling about, and I spoke with Jen, who was in charge of the goats. 

She told me that she and her husband, Mark Squire, owner of The Good Earth Natural Foods in Fairfax (and recently Mill Valley), bought and moved to the farm a few years ago. The two now live alongside their extended family and a few other community members, with whom they share weekly dinners and other cohousing-type responsibilities. 

One of the other residents I also spoke with that day was Mia Andler, the founder of Vilda Nature Programs for kids. In addition to serving kids in Marin, Vilda now runs daily programs and seasonal camps at the farm. Mia and Jen both told me about their plans to eventually implement a smaller children’s farm on the property since they have a steady stream of kids coming through, which intrigued me and is something I’ll come back to in a later post.

The property is stunning, with a lake, access to a creek, endless rolling hillsides and lots of animals for the kids to ogle. 

 

 Also on site is a large event barn, used for hosting gatherings like the occasional community BBQ and their Pumpkins on Pikes festival during Halloween. Families are invited to carve pumpkins and stay until dusk, when they pumpkins are lit and placed on stakes to create a glowing field of orange spooky heads. I can’t wait to go back and see that in action!

Their kid and family-friendly ethos extends to the entire local community, which they invite to have “full access to our farm.” Jen confirmed this to me, saying (and I paraphrase) that she really wants the community to feel like this is their farm, and that they welcome input, ideas, and volunteers from those who value this space.

The farm has an active CSA, a small store on site, and endless reasons to go visit!

McEvoy Ranch

On the drive from West Marin to Tara Firma, it’s impossible not to notice and become curious about McEvoy Ranch. Their signature lone windmill spins high on a hilltop, and just as the winding road through Nicasio crests over a hill, McEvoy shines in distance below like some sort of Oz.

 

McEvoy and Tara Firma are both part of the area called the Petaluma Gap, a microclimate outside of Petaluma that includes northern Marin County. As far as ranches/farms go, McEvoy is upscale, but for a splurge, I cannot think of a better place to pass an afternoon, sipping their wine and taking in the natural splendor.

While the ranch hosts some animals, like chickens and sheep (mostly used for soil fertility and weed management), the ranch primarily functions as a certified-organic olive farm and grape vineyard, with an olive mill on site. Their windmill generates enough electricity to power half of their energy use, and they only plant on about 15% of their 550 acres, in order to maintain harmony with their surrounding environment. They also produce a line of beauty products, called ODE, that are sourced from their olive oil and other natural products.

We took a tour of the ranch (pricey at $35 per person), which led us through the interplanted olive grove and the vineyards. (Not all the groves and vinyards are interplanted, but some shared similar space and soil requirements.)

 

Olives growing alongside grapes

We also got to tour the olive mill, where we learned about the process of making olive oil, the subtleties in taste, and what all the various labels of olive oil mean (extra virgin, cold pressed, etc.) It goes deep! I didn't realize that olive oil is best when it’s fresh pressed, as opposed to aged. The older the oil, the worse the taste and lower the quality. 

Olive mill

This is more traditional equipment used to extract oil from the olives. They only use this for small batches.

At the end of the tour, we tasted the oils and wines, bought a bottle of the latter and enjoyed it by the lake, which I highly recommend.

A great place to pass the day!

While this ranch is easy to love, I have to say I was somewhat disappointed at not being able to see and learn more during our tour. It seems they save that for the higher-priced, $95 Walkabout option. I was hoping to get a glimpse of the vegetable garden and some of the architecturally interesting out buildings/event spaces. But the ranch has an interesting and somewhat affluent history. The current CEO of the ranch, Nion McEvoy, is also the CEO of Chronicle Books, another local favorite. Nion inherited the ranch from his mother, Nan McEvoy, the ranch founder and granddaughter of Michael DeYoung (as in DeYoung museum), who was also the founder of the SF Chronicle in 1865. The story goes that when Nan drove over the same crest that I mentioned earlier and saw what was then a working ranch in the distance, she too was charmed. The ranch was not for sale, but we were told that according to Nan, “everything is for sale,” and she made the rancher an offer he or she couldn’t refuse. She then planted olive orchards as a hobby and started the olive press that still exists to this day.

So, the ranch holds an interesting place in the cultural history of the Bay Area. Nion McEvoy is also a musician, and were told the ranch houses one of Elton John’s custom-made, red pianos somewhere, which also appears on select wine labels. 

 The olive oil is also pricey at around $30 a bottle, but when the 2017 Olio Nuovo came out, we splurged again and bought one so we could try the harvest that we saw when we toured. And I have to say, there is a certain pleasure in eating olive oil (or any food) that you know exactly where it originated, down to the very trees, and that only traveled about 20 miles to arrive in your kitchen. Was it good? Yep. But that fact alone made it feel valuable.

Chileno Valley Ranch

While McEvoy is hard to match for its natural beauty, Chileno Valley Ranch is also quite striking and a working meat ranch to boot. We visited the ranch in the fall, when they are open to the public as a U-pick apple orchard for a few weeks during the harvest.

 

Organic, heirloom apples

This was a quicker visit than the others, where we spent the whole day/afternoon, but the ranch has such a deep history and renewed commitment to sustainable agriculture that I wanted to share it here.

The farm has been in owner Sally Gale’s family since the mid-1800s, and Mike and Sally Gale restored the 600-acre ranch after it was left untended for many years. They restored many of the dilapidated out buildings on the site and reconstructed the crumbling Victorian main house. 

They also did extensive native plantings (bays, oaks, willows, and aspens) to restore the section of Chileno creek that passes through the ranch and eventually drains into Tomales Bay, inspiring neighboring ranches to do the same. They have occasional work days where volunteers are invited to help with the creek restoration in the fall. 

The cattle are grass-fed and grazed rotationally to preserve the native grasses, and are all hormone and antibiotic free. They also raise a smaller amount of lamb. Since the Gale’s began their restoration back in 1993, the ranch has become an important contributor to the sustainable land stewarding taking place in West Marin.

Here is a nice, short video about their work.

It’s inspiring to see what these farms and ranches accomplish and contribute to their communities. I have a few more on my list to check out, but if anyone has other ranches/farms in the area that you recommend, I’d love to hear about them in the comments!