Ever since I was a little girl, I dreamed of living on a farm.

I remember long car rides with my mom and sister when we would talk about our dream homes. I always envisioned a big piece of property with a pond, a barn, animals, an orchard and a garden. While I don’t have the pond…yet, I now have just about everything else, and I couldn’t be happier.

I was about seven years old when my family planted our first garden. There weren’t many pollinators around (at least that’s what my dad told me), so it became my job to go out with a paintbrush and “paint” the tomato, pepper and squash blossoms. We had a bountiful harvest, and I like to think my “painting” played a big part in it. From that moment on, I was hooked. I begged my parents to plant a garden every year, joined FFA in high school and earned my FFA state degree in horticulture senior year.

Alongside gardening, I’ve always loved animals. We had horses and goats for a short time, and I was the kid constantly begging to visit anyone who had critters. The summer I turned sixteen, I started working at my uncle’s dairy in Idaho and went back almost every summer until I was twenty-three. Those summers were some of my favorites. 

When I met my husband, I told him right away: “Someday, I’m going to have a farm—so if you stick around, you better be on board.” In the early years, we lived in apartments, so I got creative—growing orchids, planting in pots on the patio, or borrowing space in a cousin’s backyard. During that time, we were also blessed with two boys, who quickly became my (sometimes reluctant) farm hands.

Eventually, we bought our first house, and I was able to begin living out my farming dreams on half an acre in Grantsville, UT. We raised chickens, planted the biggest garden and orchard I could squeeze in, and even started Double Bloom Farms with my sister, creating bouquets, arrangements, and flowers for weddings and parties. 

But life shifted, as it does, and Double Bloom Farms came to an end. In 2022, our family packed up and headed for California. We upgraded to three acres (even though I boldly declared I would NOT settle for anything less than five) and that’s when Hillside Harvest Farms was born.