Farmer Al began farming in 1972 with just two papayas, a shovel, and some Dixie cups. In just two hours he had planted 300 seeds in his backyard in Honolulu, Hawaii and started his first farm. He didn’t end up farming papayas, though. In 1976, he moved back to California where he had grown up and planted his first peach trees on just 13 acres of bare ground outside of the Bay Area. For the first few years, Farmer Al grew corn as he waited for his peach trees to grow. As a new farmer, he followed the advice of the local agricultural extension program, who recommended the use of pesticides, herbicides, and chemical fertilizers. That never sat well with him so after going to conferences and meeting farmers in the burgeoning organic movement, in 1988 he was inspired to begin farming organically. It was a new beginning for the farm: a new way of farming, new markets, a new name, and a new label. The irrigation canal that runs along our land had so many frogs in it, at night the sound of all that croaking was deafening. And so the name “Frog Hollow Farm” was born. Our label is inspired by the “Wind in the Willows,” an allegorical tale of life on a river.

Today, Frog Hollow Farm is a 280-acre regenerative organic farm located in Brentwood, California. Everything has expanded: the land, the people, the products, markets, the delicious food and our community. The list is long but a few of the highlights over the years have been creating a mail order (now e-commerce) business, building a kitchen on the farm to create small-batch gourmet products, expanding into farmers markets across the Bay Area, buying more acreage, and beginning our Community Supported Agriculture program. Lastly, is our amazing compost operation. We produce 3,000 tons of compost a year out of our own fruit waste, tree prunings, our neighbors' manure, decommissioned boxes, and coffee grounds. Everything gets used here, a stark contrast to our wasteful food system that throws away 40% of the food that is grown to landfills where it produces methane gas, contributing to climate change.