Farming with focus on Sustainability, Education, & Biodynamically connecting inputs and outputs of life all in a beautiful Symbiosis.
Our goal is to educate the community on sustainable food production and methods of growing food at home! It’s fun, cost effective, and healthy to grow your own food. Let us show you how!
A quick trip from anywhere in the North Bay Area, we are conveniently located in Santa Rosa, California.
Come Learn!
Chickens Vegetables Fruit Nuts Hops Grapes Berries Grains Brewing Fermenting Pickling Canning
A short video made at our previous location, in Cupertino, of Hollyhill Hummingbird Farm’s accomplishments!
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We are a federally approved 501(c)(3) public charity, i.e. all donations are tax deductible!
Donations of Money Donations of Items Donations from Businesses
Often the Hummingbird is used to describe the term Symbiosis, it is fed while it feeds. This is our model and final goal within the community and all other communities we will connect with.
So far we have had visitors/donations from as far away as:
Bulgaria, China, Costa Rica, England, Eritrea, Ethiopia, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, Philippines, Russia, Sumatra, Switzerland, Taiwan, Vietnam, Ukraine!
What is special about Hummingbird Farm?
As a Sustainable Farm, we try to find a use for each output and locally source each input.
- It’s great to eat fruits and veggies from our Garden, but did you ever wonder what is happening to the parts of the plant that you do not prefer to eat?
- Some people like to drink fresh Craft Beer or “Homebrew” made from whole grains. What happens to the grains after they are “spent” in the Brewing Process?
- Children and adults alike love to eat fruit straight from the Orchard; sadly, so do many insects. How can we turn our pest problem into a source of omega-3s and fertilizer?
The answer to all of these questions is easy! Our Chickens love to eat those things! Besides eggs, our Chickens also produce nutrient rich compost for our Veggies, Hop Yard, and Orchard.
Where is the Money?
“When a sustainable agriculture is sustainable, it is because there is an overlapping of these three goals: It is (1)socially just, (2)economically viable, and (3)ecologically safe. It is like a stool that has three legs. When one of those legs lacks; then, the stool falls down; therefore, the agriculture is not sustainable.” ~Miguel Altieri (Professor of Agroecology UC Berkeley): [Ripe for Change, 2005]
The first and last goal from Miguel Altieri are outlined above, but what about that middle part?
Donations have taken us thus far! People have heard what we are doing and share however they can. Our first corporate donation came from Smart Seeds. They gave us every seed that was requested by each volunteer at the Farm! Smart Seeds did it three years in a row! Nichols Garden Nursery gave us Hops Rhizomes year after year! GoPro and Volkswagen sent us monetary donations and teams of brilliant volunteers who had a blast developing educational gardens and chicken runs. The Deputy Sheriffs’ Association of Santa Clara County and Walmart have charitable sides that support small organizations with large donations. There are individuals who give namelessly as well and in the words of PBS, we also give thanks to “Viewers like You”.
Why do people donate? We offer free education through our website and Facebook (also a large donor). We bring families together under the sun to see where their food comes from. We hope to improve the health of people who visit by providing clean exercise, healthy food and inspiring know how to take with them wherever they go.
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Want to help us make a difference?
Click the yellow button below to make your donation via PayPal – Thank you!
This above photo is the product of the original cross!
This one sprout from the original cross came out all white! It is one of hundreds of sprouts! We will save its seeds and be able to propagate it further!
This bed of corn is shaped like California! The middle row and outside rows are the first generation of cross (F1). The sandwiched rows will have their tassels removed to ensure only the F1 pollinates them. The tags at the bottom of the photo are possible names for the F1 cross.
The F2 is a cross of the original F1 with its good eating parent Golden Bantam. Evergreen is a great good eating heirloom. Both of these will be the female plants sandwiched between the F1 rows.
This year Golden Bantam will be the female. Last year she was a he and our F1 was a she. Just checking which way works better. The beans are planted as part of the three sisters Native-American tradition. Beans provide nitrogen the corn needs and the corn provides the pole the beans need! KT Blue is our cross of Kentucky with Blue Lake! And Black Eyed Peas are actually beans or a sweet band if you wanna be technical.
