In Oregon Wine Country, One Farmer’s Battle to Save the Soil

HOPEWELL, Ore. — Mimi Casteel hates the word “weeds,” particularly when referring to unexpected plants growing in her vineyard here in this hamlet in the Willamette Valley.

At Hope Well in the Willamette Valley of Oregon, Mimi
Casteel raises ducks and other animals. She also grows
grapes, vegetables and apples.

To think of weeds as invasive species, she believes, is to vastly simplify the intricate workings of nature that humans, in their efforts to assert agricultural control, have disrupted with disastrous consequences.

It’s a view that might be dismissed as romantic or sentimental. But Ms. Casteel, who has a background in forestry science, botany and systems biology, is rigorously scientific and empirical.

Read the story from The New York Times by Eric Asimov - “In Oregon Wine Country, One Farmer’s Battle to Save the Soil.”