Chris and Marven Winters have farming in their bones.
To quote Chris, “What else is there to do?”
Since 1938
Chris and Marven’s father, Howard Winters, started farming at the west end of the Columbia River Gorge back in 1938. He married Ruth Winters in 1945 and by age four, their sons were shifting tractor gears without using the clutch or grinding. As the family acquired more acreage near Troutdale, the farm built strong relationships with produce wholesalers and brokers. Red and green cabbage, potatoes, and corn were their star crops, and the brothers reminisce about planting cabbage at night and turning off the tractor lights illuminating the fields to watch the Soviet Union’s Sputnik 1 orbit past. They recall that same cabbage being loaded onto railcars headed as far as Texas and New York.
Howard Winters and his father-in-law on a tractor and grain combine in the early days of Winters Farms.
By the late eighties, the wholesale and brokerage industry felt shaky, and in 1987 Marven and Chris entered into the world of farmers markets. This shift led them to diversify their crops in order to have something delicious to offer their growing customer base year round. Appreciating the connections made and relationships built through in-person sales, farmers markets became the brothers’ focus. Chris, Marven, and their team now have a year-round presence at number of Portland area markets. View their current schedule here.
Chris and his grandson out for a tractor ride. Scroll down for more photos from the farm!
Today, the brothers farm about 90 acres season to season, including the very same land their family began farming almost a century ago. People flock to Winters Farms market booths for seemingly infinite varieties of berries, beans, sweet corn, leafy greens, root crops, honey produced from their free-range bees, jam from their berries, and far beyond. Customers are amazed to find crops at the booth earlier and later than elsewhere at the market. “They ask me, how is it possible to grow broccoli and have it ready in January?”, Chris says. “I’m a farmer, that’s what I do!” For the brothers, farming never gets old. There’s always a gamble to take with crops and a new task to tackle as the seasons cycle. Chris’s grandson, not yet two, already enjoys riding on Winters Farms tractors just like the brothers did as little ones.
Enjoy the fruits (and veggies) of nearly a century of labor and love!
