Pollinate's flowers for Oregon's wine country (left); the men of Pollinate, from left: Zach Goff, John Peterson and Jeremi Carroll
John Peterson, Jeremi Carroll and Zach Goff welcomed me to Pollinate's gardens in Dundee, which is in the heart of Oregon's wine country, about 40 miles southwest of Portland.
I wore my mask and enjoyed following them along the paths and through the beds and borders of their overly abundant, integrated garden where flowers and food thrive in community. When it came time to record our conversation, we sat safely apart from each other under a tree in the garden, with chairs arranged around a table where I placed the digital recorder. Nothing beats recording a podcast episode in the garden!
Pollinate began when John (left) and Jeremi (right) chased their dreams of growing a "food forest" from a suburban rental house outside Portland to a beautiful, 2.5-acre gardens in Dundee, Oregon
The path to flowers began for John and Jeremi in 2009 when they lived in the Portland suburbs and planted a beautiful garden in the backyard of a rental house.
As the story is told on Pollinate's web site, it quickly became clear by the juxtaposition between their vibrant garden and the Astroturf on the property's front lawn, that their intentions had overgrown the available gardening space. The fence surrounding that tiny suburban yard was a physical limitation; yet, Jeremi and John discovered they had cultivated an obsessive love of nature's abundance and diverse beauty. They set their sights on a new property and developed a plan to take a broken piece of land that they could “re-wild” into a bio-diverse habitat for flora and fauna alike.
Over recent years, the focus on growing food, fruit and herbs has expanded to flowers for pollinators and humans alike
In the summer of 2012, armed with textbook theories and a single dull shovel, the men moved to 2.5 acres in Dundee, and they began to turn that dream into reality.
Over the past several years, they focused on building permanent, no-till beds surrounded with lush perennial plantings, which together develop habitat where life thrives. Their efforts have created a regenerative ecosystem; a healthy environment for plants, animals, insects and microbes as Pollinate grows beautiful varieties of luscious, nutrient-dense produce and vibrant cut flowers that customers feel good about shoving their faces in to take a sniff.
More Pollinate flowers (left) and the dynamic team behind them (right), Zach Goff, John Peterson and Jeremi Carroll
As John and Jeremi began to focus more on flowers than edible plants alone, their business got a boost when a third partner joined them in 2017. This is the third growing season that Zach Goff has been part of Pollinate. Like Jeremi and John, he has a background in culinary and hospitality, and he brings marketing, branding and photography skills to the team.
Zach, John and Jeremi (left) with their retail partner Pam Baker of the Little Lavender Farm (right) at their new shop in Newberg, Oregon
There is a lot of change happening for Pollinate right now, including the June opening of a new retail shop in Newburg, Oregon, an adjacent town that's known as the gateway to Oregon's wine country. Pollinate shares its flower shop with a fellow grower, Little Lavender Farm, owned by their neighbor Pam Baker. I stopped by to check out the charming shop after we recorded this episode.
Things are moving so quickly that now the men are working on a new ecommerce web site to support the retail shop. They expect to launch that platform later this summer, so you'll want to find and follow Pollinate's social places to catch the announcement when the new site goes live.
Here's how you can find and follow Pollinate:
Pollinate & Little Lavender Farm's Retail Shop is located at: 108 S. College St., Suite C, Newberg, Oregon 97132. Open Wed - Sat, 2-6 (Wed until 8)
Follow Pollinate on Instagram