I met with Farmer Ron Dunham over Zoom in late January to talk with him about his experiences with farming, health and herbs. Ron grew up farming with his father first in Illinois and then Iowa. He continued to grow in backyards and on his parents’ land during his childhood and young adult life.
While living in Atlanta, he experienced a healing crisis from years of working around toxic chemicals in landscaping, carpentry and cabinetmaking industries. He would later be diagnosed with Multiple Chemical Sensitivities. He relocated to Asheville for cleaner air, where he attended an herbal studies program. After graduating from this program, he continued his herbal studies in Alabama with a fourth generation Creek medicine woman, who taught the art of ethical wildcrafting, among many other skills. He would wildcraft as well as wild tend herbs in the forests there including Ginseng (Panax quinquefolius) and Black Cohosh (Actaea racemosa). His love for wildcrafting has continued and he harvests sustainably from the wild to this day.
I asked Ron more about his farm today in California.
Peregrine: What are you growing? Are you growing herbs and vegetables?
Ron: I only grow a little bit of vegetables just for us. But I am currently growing Zhi Mu [Anemarrhena asphodeloides], Elecampane [Inula helenium], Echinacea purpurea, She Gan [Iris domestica], Goji berries [Lycium barbarum], jujubees [Ziziphus jujuba], two varieties of chrysanthemums, safflower, and saffron.
Peregrine: What USDA hardiness zone are you in?
Ron: Depending on who you read it’s 9a or 9b. We get 20-30 frosts per year. They’re not hard frosts, they're gone as soon as the sun comes out. We have had a couple of snows. We do have temperatures of 110° - 140° during the summer.
Peregrine: So you work only at night in the summer?
Ron: We start at 6 until 2pm.
Peregrine: So it’s you, your girlfriend and did you say you hire people too?
Ron: Yeah, it’s really hard to find people that are good. No one wants to weed. Sometimes I have found good people but then they move on. I have hired up to 10 people for weeding sometimes but usually we have just 1 or 2 people working.
Peregrine: What do you hope to grow or change on your farm in the future?
Ron: Huang Qin [Scutellaria baicalensis] Dan Shen [Salvia miltiorrhiza] can grow here. I haven’t really tried yet, but I’d like to try those. Leslie, my girlfriend, wants to grow cut flowers too so we’re going to start that. I’m 62 years old. I am not as energetic as I used to be. I’d like to get the farm really going and then sell it in the next few years. I need to get a farm manager.
Peregrine: How many acres do you have?
Ron: We’re on 13 acres give or take.
Peregrine: What are you wild harvesting?
Ron: California peony is a great medicinal. There’s a lot of Yerba Santa (Eriodictyon californicum) which is in the borage family.
Peregrine: Are you certified organic?
Ron: I am not certified organic. I do organic farming. I have chronic illness and multiple chemical sensitivities, so I can’t use any chemicals or it will make me sick. I have the application and I am working on it. There’s an organic farm near me who is helping me to work on certificates to get up and running.
Peregrine: Do you make a profit on the farm?
Ron: We would have this year but we only harvested 10% of the Ju Hua, because we couldn’t get enough people to help us harvest. But if we did I would have made a large profit.
We are grateful Ron joined us for this interview. Ron is a farmer in San Luis Obispo as well as a current Board Member at LI. He has grown Ju Hua - Chrysanthemum morifolium for the Lilium Initiative.