Regenerative Farming in Upper Ojai

On a crisp October morning, I met Natalie Buckley-Medrano at Mama Tree in Upper Ojai. We talked as we walked the land, pausing to admire walnut trees and a trio of deer, and to meet members of the farm’s core team, human and animal alike. It was a tour punctuated by moon sightings, baby goats nibbling our shoelaces, and other gentle interruptions—almost enough to belie the hard work being done here by a handful of extremely committed people.

Mama Tree was founded in 2019 by Loren Bouchard and Holly Kretschmar with the goal of converting a conventional orchard into a regenerative organic farm. In 2020, Natalie and her partner Jeffrey Reidl joined as co-directors, bringing their backgrounds in permaculture design and education. This included their time at Quail Springs, a nonprofit focused on ecological restoration in the Cuyama Valley, where they first met.

Since then, the team has grown to include Abudu and Madeline Nenwero, and Madeline Steiner, who, besides all being educators, work on infrastructure, and product development respectively. Together with several other team members, (including hard-working Logan Oliver who leads the animal systems), they’ve co-created a 20-acre farm adjacent to a 40-acre woodland, working with the land and rejecting the idea of “making the land pay” that Natalie describes as prevalent in conventional agriculture.

“We’re convinced that the way we grow our food is a powerful force for change,” Natalie says. “There’s no such thing as truly cheap food—most food produced in the U.S. has a negative impact on our health and our climate.”

AGROECOLOGY IN ACTION

Mama Tree’s approach is rooted in agroecology, a term Natalie prefers over permaculture, which she says has become a loaded word. Agroecology, she explains, is about tending the ecology while growing food—designing systems where every element serves multiple functions. Goats, for example, are brush trimmers and soil-fertilizing machines. Their milk, along with olive oil from the farm’s olives, is used to make soap, pressed into bars featuring beautiful goat-shaped bas-reliefs. After morning milking, the goats head out to work in the orchard and pasture. The baby goats show off their mood-lifting properties at baby goat yoga classes hosted on the property.

The farm’s walnut trees, planted in the 1800s, are a source of pride for Natalie. She describes them as “some of the best-taken-care-of walnuts in the Valley.” They’re also a living testament to resilience. Grafted onto native California black walnut rootstock, these Persian walnuts require no irrigation, thriving in sync with the local climate. “Finally, a nut butter without a water bill,” Natalie laughs, referencing the label on their walnut butter jars.

PLANNING FOR VOLATILITY

Water is a central theme at Mama Tree. When Natalie and Jeffrey arrived in early 2020, Lake Casitas—the reservoir that stores water for the Ojai Valley—was around 33% capacity. The farm, formerly a conventional citrus orchard, was pumping hundreds of thousands of gallons of water into thirsty trees. “It didn’t feel appropriate,” Natalie says. Instead, they began transitioning part of the orchard, slowly replacing citrus with arid trial crops like mesquite, carob, pomegranate and pineapple guava, as well as natives like oak.

They also redesigned the landscape to capture and retain water. Natalie shows me a swale—a depression dug on contour—that slows and spreads rainwater, allowing it to infiltrate the soil rather than erode it. “We’re planning for volatility,” she says. “These systems are tremendously valuable in extreme weather events, which we’re seeing more of.”

This approach has already paid off. During the atmospheric rivers of 2023, the farm received nearly 60 inches of rain—triple the annual average. While other farms lost trees and topsoil, Mama Tree harvested fertility. “We collected tons of mycorrhizal-rich topsoil from the oak woodland,” Natalie says. “Instead of erosion, we had deposition.”

The hedgerows planted along berms are another example of thoughtful design. They include nitrogen-fixing trees like black locust and mulberry, plus deep-rooted native grasses that act as carbon pumps. “These grasses take carbon out of the atmosphere and push it into the soil, and can grow deeper than two meters,” Natalie explains. “And they do it just by being grazed or pruned.”

EDUCATION AND COMMUNITY

Mama Tree’s vision extends beyond farming. Education is core to their mission, and they host workshops on goat care, chicken care, agroforestry, pruning and natural building. They are working with local schools, including public Nordhoff High School and private Thacher School, to develop hands-on learning experiences. A small early-education program called Saplings meets on the farm a few days a week, giving young children a chance to learn and play in nature alongside their parents.

That preschool program, along with the baby goat yoga classes, takes place under the farm’s namesake. The Mama Tree is an actual tree—a sprawling specimen of a walnut, also planted in the 1800s but much larger than its peers. Natalie theorizes that its size is due to its exceptional access to water. The ground below is strewn with the Mama Tree’s leaves and dappled sunlight, and nearby, a cob bench—made of locally sourced clay, sand and fiber and decorated with inset glass bottles—provides another place to relax and learn.

Mama Tree opens its farm stand only when it hosts events, allowing visitors to choose from its walnut butter, olive oils, soaps and an extensive selection of jams and jellies made with their produce, including (depending on the season) Meyer lemon, nectarine and peach, pomegranate and persimmon. Their olive oil is also sold at Rainbow Bridge grocery store, and their popular fruit shrubs are featured at the Ojai Valley Inn and Spa. You can also find their wares at the Sunday Ojai Farmers’ Market.

THE WORK AHEAD

Of course, farming this way isn’t easy. The team faces challenges: lack of access to proper tools, a saturated produce market, economic instability, drought, flood, fire and the high cost of living. “We’re ambitious and hungry for change,” Natalie says. “Sometimes we bite off more than we can chew.”

Still, the vision is clear. Mama Tree is about “showing people that things can be done in a different way—ways that are life-giving to the natural processes, to the water cycle, to the carbon cycle. We can farm and increase our groundwater basin instead of depleting it. We can increase the carbon capacity in our soils instead of depleting it.” As if on cue, Natalie’s partner Jeff appears with an excavator, readying the land for the rain forecast in the week ahead.