But Gigot admits she had second thoughts shortly after buying the farm. Gigot and Luce each have a calm, nurturing presence that matches the serenity of their surroundings. Since 2018, she’s been a member of the Organic Farmers Association Governing Council. Today, he keeps busy caring for their children and handling projects on and outside of the farm, and she manages many daily farm operations and teaches college classes during the winter. Luce and Gigot-who now have two daughters (ages 4 and 2)-met in a bar during a singer-songwriter series and started playing music together. Originally from Bainbridge Island, Luce attended the Art Institute of Seattle for graphic design, worked in restaurants for a while, and then started doing construction. It featured a 1930s farmhouse flanked by fruiting apple trees. In 2011, after earning her graduate degrees, she bought the 5-acre property in Bow that would become her and Luce’s farm. Gigot started growing some crops on a little “postage stamp” of land at Ralph’s Greenhouse, a large-scale organic farm in Mount Vernon. Through her agricultural research at the Washington State University Mount Vernon Northwestern Washington Research & Extension Center, she got to know the local farmers and became inspired to join their ranks. Her pursuit of a master’s degree in plant pathology brought her to the Skagit Valley in 2004, and she continued on to get her doctorate in horticulture. Gigot moved to Vermont to study biology and anthropology in college, and then she returned to the Pacific Northwest, where she interned on a couple of farms. She grew up in suburban Washington, where her dad worked in advertising and her mom tended to the home. The lyrical beauty of the Skagit Valley is what attracted Gigot to move there about 15 years ago. The forking roads that lead through Bow, Washington, to Harmony Fields roll past apple orchards, berry patches, and hillside pastures. They’ve been learning about the challenges beginning organic producers face and evolving their plans ever since. The first-generation farmers were determined and resourceful novices when they started Harmony Fields in 2011. At Harmony Fields, their 10-acre farm in western Washington, the couple are raising sheep and two daughters as they develop markets for their cheeses, meat, and certified organic medicinal and culinary herbs. Organic farming runs deep for Jessica Gigot and Dean Luce-not ancestrally but in their commitment to a place, to a way of life, to producing food that’s healthy for people, animals, and the environment. A pair of beginning farmers in western Washington sing the praises of organics as they nurture their growing operation.
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