Our Story
Gathering Together Farm is an enterprise in certified organic vegetable and fruit production that began in 1987. Our home base is just south of Philomath, Oregon on Grange Hall Road. Many of our fields are small, odd-shaped parcels of land, 1 to 5 acres in size, hugging the Marys River. All totaled, we farm over 67 acres. We believe that tending to the soil is pivotal to the quality of our produce. To do this we produce a variety of composts to meet the different growing needs and in turn develop rich, fertile soil.
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Who We Are
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Gathering Together is owned by John Eveland and Sally Brewer, husband and wife. John and Sally provide not only the vision that is Gathering Together Farm but are also the first ones to get their hands in the soil. They highly value the diverse staff that the farm requires to be successful. In the height of production, there will be over 120 of us working hard to nurture and harvest high-quality food, prepare it for customers, and sell it at market. Our field crews perform a variety of duties such as irrigation, cultivation, trellising, mudding greenhouses, seed propagation, harvesting, hand weeding, ditch digging, planting and transplanting both by hand and mechanically. We have 15 year-round farm field crew, which grows to around 20 come spring planting season. At the height of the summer, we can have up to 30 farm field crew members working through to the fall harvest. The portion of the crew most people see are our 'marketeers'. These are the wonderful staff that make the farm-to-you produce connection. For the winter markets we have seven marketeers on staff and as the season progresses and spring outdoor markets start opening, the staff increases to around 20. Come summer there is a total of 40 marketeer's slingin' the finest in organic produce. To keep all of this running efficiently we have a full time mechanic and assistant, who are continually maintaining our farm equipment, tractors, and transportation vehicles. We also have our office staff, chef and crew, our farm lunch cooks and our seasonal Farmstand employees.
The Farmstand
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In 2003 we expanded our on-farm offerings by building our beautiful Farmstand. In the Farmstand you will find all of our in season produce, Chad's Bread, our coveted potato doughnuts, plus other baked goods, our delicious house salsa, GTF whole chickens, and other farm made grab-n-go items. The Farmstand is proud to carry an assortment of local vendors as well, from artisan goods to local dairy farm products, local brews, meats, eggs, and grains. It has truly become a whole diet and more one-stop stand. We offer dinner three nights a week by reservation only on Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings. We prepare our menus and dishes with deep respect for the Pacific Northwest cuisine that is local, sustainable, and farm-to-fork. It is a wonderful location for tasting some of the fruits of our labor. The season's best produce is combined with locally grown meats and regional seafoods in the expert hands of our chef.
Farm Snack
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We love to eat the food we grow! One of our most cherished farm traditions is farm snack, where the true essence of 'gathering together' over food takes place. Five days a week, a farm cook will prepare a hearty brunch time meal affectionately called "snack". There is a symbiotic feeling of eating the food you have grown to fuel your body so you can go grow more.
What We Offer
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Diversity is one of the keystones of our farm. Each year we grow over 50 different types of vegetables of over 300 different varieties. Our customer base ranges from the individuals we see at our Farmstand and our farmers' market booths to local and regional food co-ops, markets, and many premier restaurants in the Corvallis and Portland areas. We distribute wholesale quantities of many items through Organically Grown Company. Our Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) membership program now includes over 350 households in Philomath, Corvallis, Portland, and Newport.
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Where We Give
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One of the wonderful things about being supported by a community that loves organic produce is that we can support local organizations in return. Some of the organizations we have supported are the Heartland Humane Society, Chintimini Wildlife Center, The Oregon Chapter of Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, OSU Organic Growers Club, Gleanors, CSA Scholarship Fund, Benton County Fair & Rodeo, Corvallis Environmental Center, Corvallis, Philomath, and Alsea area schools, and many others.