Farmer Profiles

"Claire and Rusty Orner"
Quiet Creek Herb Farm and
School of Country Living, Brookville, Pennsylvania

"We share our community-building philosophy with you because we sincerely believe in the importance of living sustainable lives."

Late fall at Quiet Creek Herb Farm.

The Farming Operation:   Rusty and Claire Orner have a 30-acre farm in Jefferson County in northwestern Pennsylvania. After living and working in various parts of the country, they returned to the area where they both grew up, buying their farm in 1996.

They grow a wide variety of herbs, vegetables, cut flowers, and fruit. They operate an on-farm gift shop, where they sell a large assortment of herbs, herb plants, and handcrafted herbal products. They also stock homemade bread, soap-making supplies, and an assortment of locally handcrafted items such as wreaths and birdhouses. They maintain a demonstration beehive and vermicomposter for customers to experience and sell bagged vermicompost produced by the nearby Orner dairy (and worm) farm. So far, the bulk of their income has come from the sale of herb plants - on farm and at the yearly herb festival they attend at Cook Forest. They find that potted herbs sell well, even into the fall.

Rusty and Claire began a small CSA operation in 1998 by enlarging their vegetable garden and offering free-range eggs and poultry produced by a neighboring farmer. The CSA is currently serving 15 people. They began high tunnel production in the spring of 2002 to extend their season and found success the first year. Rusty calls their production style a "Steve Moore/Eliot Coleman" hybrid. They had participated in a local farmers' market, but withdrew from it because they wanted to have a closer connection to their customers than the market provided.

What makes this farm so unusual, though, is their School of Country Living. Rusty and Claire offer a wide variety of classes, workshops, and special events at Quiet Creek. Herb classes - therapeutic uses of herbs, cooking with herbs, herb-crafting - make up the bulk of their offerings. Soap-making and whole grain bread-making are the most popular classes, but many enjoy weekly drop-in yoga classes, monthly basket-making workshops and occasional classes on topics as far-ranging as plant propagation, holiday wreath-making, and Thai cooking. Rusty and Claire teach some of the classes, but they also recruit instructors and guest chefs from the local community and occasionally from farther afield.

The farm is quite picturesque and the gardens well-maintained - important because Quiet Creek Herb Farm is also used for events such as reunions and weddings. Rusty and Claire built a large covered pavilion that does double-duty as an ice-skating rink in the winter. The second floor above the gift shop has a large classroom area equipped with a commercial kitchen and the loft above hosts an extensive gardening library.

To further their mission of providing environmental education, Rusty and Claire applied for status as a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, and this was approved in late 2002. The non-profit status covers the entire farm and educational operation. The pool of available grant money is greater for non-profits than for other types of organizations, and they hope to establish stable funding relationships with a few larger, philanthropic groups. They will use grant money to cover expenses and their salaries, although they anticipate that Rusty will continue working off-farm part-time for at least two more years.

The Farmers' Background:   Both Rusty and Claire grew up on farms. Rusty's family had a dairy farm, and Claire's grandfather a perennial plant nursery. They both have advanced degrees and both had a wide range of work experience before coming back to farming. Rusty has a general agriculture degree from Pennsylvania State University with liberal doses of art, wildlife, and religious studies to balance the ag classes. After graduation, he worked on the family dairy farm, then began a landscaping career that involved design, installation, and maintenance. Claire has two master's degrees and is certified to teach. She's worked in the fields of hydrogeology, hazardous waste (coal), and environmental and science education. Both are currently working off the farm. Rusty has his own landscape company, and Claire teaches high school science at her alma mater. They have two young sons - Walker and Ashton. Pesto, the Labrador retriever, chases off the deer, while Woodruff, the tabby, is in charge of rodent control.

Guiding Principles:   Both Rusty and Claire enjoy being with and talking to people. They have strong ties to their community, their children and extended family, and their church. Education is important to them - both receiving it and extending it to others. Along with a commitment to serve people is an equally strong commitment to care for their land - to steward it carefully using organic methods. They have decided not to bother with the process of organic certification, because they are able to share their principles and production methods with their customers directly. They have no need for organic certification. They also believe that good nutrition is vitally important. All of these guiding principles are evident in their conversations, their writing for their local paper and their website, in the courses offered at their farm, and in their daily activities.

Goals:   They want their farm to become profitable enough so that they can both retire from their off-farm jobs. They plan to continue to learn and continue to teach others. They aim to take January off every year (it happened in 2002!). And they want to steward their land well and teach their sons to do the same.

Sources of Information:   Both Rusty and Claire believe in the value of education. They are members of PASA and attend that conference and other workshops. They are very interested in the work that Elaine Ingham does with the Soil Food Web. Her lab was helpful in the development of Worm Wonder (vermicompost from dairy cow manure) that Rusty's family's farm produces. Rusty is interested in John Jeavon's work on biointensive gardening. Claire has grant-writing experience, and they seek grants to help them develop their business. They also are eager to work with university researchers and extension specialists - anyone who can help them further their goals.

Tips:   Claire says that when she teaches soap-making, she creates customers. Of the 250 people that have taken her classes - 10 have continued to make soap and 100 have continued to buy handmade soap. Claire sells both supplies and handmade soap.

Rusty likes to take people on a walk around the garden, to have them smell and taste the herbs and vegetables. He thinks it increases their connection to the farm and increases sales in the gift shop fourfold.

Claire has people pre-register for most classes with a 50%, non-refundable payment. Then they have only 50% to pay at the time the class is held, so they're more likely to buy from the gift shop that day. She also serves tea and bread as refreshments, and those are available for purchase after the class.

From the author - Both Rusty and Claire are creative in their problem-solving. When they began having a yoga class, they contacted the local YMCA and were given a list of people who were turned away from the YMCA class (because it was full). They sent information to this list about their upcoming yoga class as a means of generating customers for themselves.

They are also adept at requesting financial assistance for projects from grants. They've received money to revise and upgrade their farm brochure from the Small Farm Success Project. They have received 30 hours a week paid labor for a local youth to work for them in the summer through a grant. The 30' x 50' mobile high tunnel they recently constructed was partly funded by a Sustainable Agriculture Research & Education (SARE) grant, in collaboration with Pennsylvania State University researchers. The grant is to research the use of beneficial insects and Integrated Pest Management (IPM) in conjunction with high tunnel production. They have requested another SARE grant to research vermicompost use.

Contact:   Rusty and Claire Orner, Quiet Creek Herb Farm and School of Country Living, RD #4, Box 302-A1, Brookville, PA 15825 phone: (814)849-9662 e-mail: quietcreek@usachoice.net website: www.quietcreekherbfarm.com (class schedule, articles, and mail-order information). No calls or visits on Sundays, please.

Profiles of Sustainable Farming Systems