Caring for land means restoring the wider ecological community we belong to.

A portion of the Ranch was intensively grazed in the 1950s, leaving the topsoil degraded and less able to hold water. This disturbed grassland will become our main market garden. We’re rebuilding topsoil through composting, biochar, and rotating our chickens—restoring soil organic matter, encouraging groundwater infiltration, and renewing fertility.

Alongside familiar crops, we are cultivating native food plants. Building a climate-beneficial future means expanding our flavor profiles and tasting much more locally. Native and naturalized plants are already adapted to this place; they need less water and provide habitat for our wildlife neighbors.

Another part of the Ranch holds an intact native grassland seedbank and a natural seep—ground that still remembers how to hold water. Here, along our sculpture path, you can see how we’re encouraging the grassland through selective clearing that supports understory natives alongside coyote bush, and by planting riparian species along the seep through a grant from the Xerces Society.

Guided by a carbon farm plan developed with the San Mateo Resource Conservation District, we’re using regenerative and permaculture practices to rebuild soil and habitat health, returning carbon to the ground.