For organic farmer Diane Green, not only is "small" beautiful, it’s also profitable. Diane and her husband, Thom Sadoski, operate Greentree Naturals, a small certified organic farm nestled between the Cabinet and Selkirk mountain ranges in rural northern Idaho. Enjoying some of the deepest topsoil in the world, they grow herbs, vegetables, berries, and flowers to support a lively community enterprise on only two acres of cultivated ground. How do they support themselves from such a tiny farm?

Diane Green

Marketing is a big part of the Greentree business. Diane has carved out a valuable niche by growing a wide range of unusual and hard-to-find produce and supplying them directly to five fine-dining establishments within driving distance. She grow 37 different kinds of salad greens, 60 culinary herbs, 15 varieties of squash, 8 different peppers, 7 varieties of eggplant, and much more. Greentree carrots come in three different colors: orange, yellow and purple! They get top dollar for these unique crops that chefs can't get through the normal produce suppliers. They also sell their produce at the local Farmers' Market, and operate a Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA) subscription service for produce as well as fresh flowers.

Cooperation is another key to making their business work. Diane manages a Growers' Collective, marketing several farmers’ combined produce through the CSA, farmers’ market, and restaurants. The Collective currently includes four organic growers in the county. "By ourselves, we couldn’t meet the demands of the market, but by working together, we all do pretty well," she says. "There's also safety in numbers. If one grower has a crop failure, we can count on one of the other farms to meet the order, so we don't lose a customer."

The blueprint for their combined success is achieving a modest economy of scale and pursuing diversity – diversity of supplies, products and marketing strategies. Each farm in the collective is at a different elevation, enabling them to extend the availability of crops through a longer growing season. Collectivity provides access to and the ability to fill larger orders. Though the growers market their products collectively, they don’t do so anonymously. "We always let the buyers know that ‘these potatoes come from Bountiful Gardens, this celery comes from Rivendell Farm, and so on.’" For marketing on behalf of the Collective, Diane gets a percentage of sales which augments her own business income.

"I got into this when I watched a 3rd generation family farm in southeast Michigan get sold, subdivided and developed," says Diane. "All over the country, large family farms and farmland are being lost to development. Soil is being depleted by poor practices. Meanwhile our population is growing." She decided that a better model for agriculture was small farms feeding people locally.

On her own small farm, Diane has developed some unique approaches to farming. For example, her corner of Idaho may be "the Aphid Capital of the northern hemisphere," with more varieties of aphids than anywhere else in the U.S. – but Diane knows that makes it excellent ladybug habitat. "We put out bails of hay to encourage the ladybugs to cache up by the thousands for the winter. Then in the spring we plant ‘catch crops’ like patches of wheat interspersed throughout the garden. It’s the earliest sweet green crop, so the aphids go right to it. It provides the ladybugs with an early crop of aphids, so they stay all summer. Sweet wheat makes sweet aphids make sweet ladybugs. We have the sweetest ladybugs in Bonner County."

To Diane and Thom, sustainable agriculture is "being able to take care of the land and support ourselves in a way that we have as little off-farm input as possible. It means utilizing what we have on our land, through cover cropping, composting and seed saving. It all starts with the soil, and feeding the soil, giving back what you take from it. It’s a delicate balance." They have expanded their farm slowly, beginning with _ acre and adding a little more ground every year. They cover crop "green manure" on the unused portion of their land to build the soil in preparation for growing.

Every year they have a little more waste material to work with, and have developed an intensive composting system, using manure from their chickens, and all the waste from the garden and their household. They also import some straw, grass clippings, and leaves to add to the mix. "Next year we are going to double our composting system, and put in worm beds to use the redworms naturally occurring on our land. Worm compost is beautiful, the richest most fertile compost you can find."

This combination of innovative marketing and production strategies sprang out of Diane’s passion for gardening and community. "I think it is important that we have a community of farmers working together. Community food systems give people a whole new perspective on their food, and on what community is all about. What I have learned is that you can't have healthy food without healthy soil. You can't have healthy communities without healthy food. Community is people working together."

She shares her passion generously with others through education. Diane offers gardening workshops on her farm and apprentices aspiring organic farmers. She also teaches organic gardening through the Master Gardeners program at University of Idaho (UI) Extension. "Education is the greatest gift we have to share. It’s one thing to know what I know, but what good is it if I keep it to myself?"

"When I ask children where their food comes from, they name the local grocery stores. So I started an education program with 1st and 2nd graders called the Pumpkin Project. I took a pumpkin into the classroom and had the kids remove the seeds. They grew them out for 4 weeks and then planted them on my farm at the end of the school year. Then in the fall they returned to harvest the pumpkins. I wanted to connect kids with where their food comes from, with the farmer who plants the seeds and grows their food. I think they got it."

She also teaches small farm marketing through UI Extension. "I think most of the students in the University are into conventional agriculture. They need to see there are other ways to do farming – that you don't necessarily have to have 1200 acres and use a lot of chemicals to be successful as a farmer. Diversity is going to be the key to survival of farms in the future, not only how you market, but also what you grow. I always encourage aspiring farmers to establish a market before they plant. When we plant, we know where 80% of it is going."

Diane serves on the State of Idaho's organic food advisory council, and on the Board of the Sandpoint Farmers' Market. She also writes for the publication Growing for Market, and has written and published a small booklet entitled "Selling Produce to Restaurants."

How can she do so much and still keep her garden up? Diane explains "You have to have a passion for it – planting seeds, working the soil, and harvesting crops. It's 7-days-a-week, 16-hours-a-day work. If you don't love it, you're not going to be successful as a farmer."

Diane Green
Greentree Naturals
2003 Rapid Lightning Road
Sandpoint, ID 83864
Tel: (208) 263-8957

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