Our Farm
Mountain Bounty Farm is a 50 acre organic family farm located high on the forested contours of the San Juan Ridge near Nevada City, California. Our main fields are on Birchville Road, where we currently cultivate 18 acres. The rest of land is a beautiful mosaic of forest and meadows. We are the oldest and largest CSA farm in the Sierras. Our Farm was founded in 1997 by John Tecklin. John has been farming since the early 1990’s and is native to the San Juan Ridge. Since then, Mountain Bounty has become an increasingly collaborative effort, with a team of farmers making decisions and working together.
Our Land
In October 2020, our current farmland on Birchville Road, was officially bought through a partnership with the Bear Yuba Land Trust (BYLT), Sierra Harvest, BriarPatch Food Co-op and Tahoe Food Hub, called Forever Farms. With community support of this program, BYLT has bought and will hold the property in perpetuity, protect it from development and safeguard affordable access to the farmland by providing a long-term lease to Mountain Bounty Farm. BYLT will manage this property to ensure it continues to produce local, organic food in an ecologically responsible way for the benefit of the community.
We look forward to building on the momentum of this first Forever Farm and establish a land security model, through community support, that creates a lasting legacy.
Nisenan Land Acknowledgements
We acknowledge these are the ancestral homelands of the Nevada City Rancheria Nisenan Tribe.
We acknowledge this land was taken repeatedly with no compensation or regard for the lives and ways of the original people, until they had no land left.
We acknowledge we are settlers here, that we live, love and work on land the Nisenan never ceded.
Our Practices
Our farming style and philosophy are very simple. By being very attentive to the land, the crops, and the weather, we can succeed at the very challenging art of growing good food. Our techniques involve time-tested organic farming practices that above all prioritize care for the soil. We make heavy use of cover crops, beneficial insectary plantings, compost and organic soil amendments. We are certified organic by CCOF. However, we see the organic standards as a starting point and believe that a much better job is possible. Our efforts and investments are rewarded with a bounty of exceptional produce and a farm that continues to improve year by year.
our mission
We aim to provide a reliable local source of the highest quality produce for our area, and to work towards the economic sustainability of our rural community. We also want the farm to be a place of inspiration and beauty, a place to reconnect to food and the joys of food culture. We hope that Mountain Bounty will be a farm to celebrate, a farm that you help create and sustain for the future.
thank you for your continued support
After all these years, we remain as committed as ever to the CSA ideal of building a relationship of trusting support between farmers and eaters. We are grateful to all of our members for their continued support. Thank you for believing in us.
Press
Farmers at the Forefront: Management Changes at Mountain Bounty Farm (Moonshine Ink, 2021)
As Food Supply Chain Breaks Down, Farm-To-Door CSAs Take Off (NPR, 2020)
Gateway Gardens: Pandemic gardening, farm boxes, and food equity (Moonshine Ink, 2020)
Bear Yuba Land Trust, Sierra Harvest and BriarPatch Food Co-op launch Forever Farms partnership to protect local food production and supply (Yuba Net, 2020)
Forever Farms Partners Raise More Than $780,000 to Protect Critical Farmland in Nevada County (Yuba Net, 2020)
Bear Yuba Land Trust asks for public’s help in raising money for land purchase (The Union, 2020)
We’re Compiling a List of CSAs in All 50 States (Modern Farmer, 2020)
Stay food secure with CSAs (The Union, 2020)
Working Lands II, Mountain Bounty Farm (Sierra Harvest, 2016)
Working the land at Nevada County’s historic farms (The Union, 2016)
Farmers find their niche (The Union, 2005)
