Farming in Oregon?? (Grants Pass: house, organic, live)

[ali92]

My husband and I are trying to find places in Oregon where we can have about 5+ acres of land for organic farming. We want a couple of cows and some pigs, maybe a horse, and chickens. Also, we would obviously want land available for some crop farming. I was wondering if anyone knows of some areas of Oregon good for this, and what are some nice, safe cities nearby. Of course, there's the Willamette Valley, but is this the best? Thanks for suggestions!! Oh, my father says that it is always overcast and never sunny. But is this over all of Oregon, or certain areas in certain seasons. Thanks again, Alison.

[Silverfall]

For farming the Willamette Valley is the best. If you want to sell some of your organic produce you can join forces with GardenRipe or Dennisons which are CSA's with fantastic produce.

If it was always overcast things wouldn't grow. It is overcast from Nov-March will sun breaks in there, but mostly cloudy.

There are a lot of great towns in the valley.

[ali92]

Do you think Grants Pass is another option?

[PNW-type-gal]

There are a ton of small specialty farms in Oregon, in pretty much all the climates (even the short-season ones like mine).

Here's a link to OSU's Oregon climate Service:
Welcome to the Oregon Climate Service

You can get climate data, including growing days, precipitation, minimum and maximum temperatures, amount of snowfall, length of time between frost probabilities.

Check altitudes, though - if you are looking at land that's 500' or more higher than the climate station the records were created for, you'll have a very different climate.

[timber mt]

Oregon has a huge variety of climates . One region can be very different from another. I live about 14 miles from Grants Pass and love it. Summer is very dry with irrigation a must. Winter has more sunny days than northern Oregon. Grants pass is kind of in a bowl and has way more fog than my house in the winter . Sunny winter days often end up being foggy most of the day in Grants Pass .