About Orie's Farm Fresh
The story behind our family-run, regenerative garlic farm in Wichita.
Welcome to Our Farm
We started Orie’s Farm Fresh in 2015, the same year we welcomed the arrival of our son. Since then, we’ve grown our farm together as a family, working side-by-side through the changing seasons to expand our specialty garlic crops and continually hone our farm's focus.
Our backgrounds in commercial horticulture left little time for a personal garden, but after Wes sold his wholesale greenhouse business, we discovered and fell in love with a few uncultivated acres in west Wichita. The birth of our son inspired a commitment to chemical-free food and a desire to offer an alternative to industrial agriculture, which became the foundation for how we grow food today.
Deep Roots in Horticulture
Meet the growers behind the farm.
Wes Johnson
Wes grew up in the garden center business in Wichita. As a kid, Wes remembers helping his grandfather, Orie Johnson, in the greenhouse filling seed trays, sowing seeds, and taking cuttings. When he got older, he was the greenhouse manager for a number of years before moving to Oklahoma to start his own greenhouse business.
After a time, Wes decided to move his family back closer to home and settled in Hesston, Kansas. There he started Hesston Plant Company, a wholesale greenhouse operation that grew annuals, perennials, poinsettias, and bougainvillea — to name a few things. He owned and operated Hesston Plant Company for more than twenty years before selling it in 2014.
As a grower, Wes has enjoyed the shifted focus to food crops. He finds the entire process of production — from seed to plate — very satisfying and the results speak for themselves.
Locally produced and naturally grown food has unmatched flavor. Freshly harvested produce is not only better tasting, it has more intact nutrients. It’s been a fulfilling journey to share the harvest with family and community.
Wes’s grandfather, Orie Johnson (far right) outside Johnson & Binford Farm Store, located at Douglas & West Street in Wichita in the 1930’s
Wes with his father, Harold Johnson, in the greenhouse at Johnson’s Garden Center on W. 13th Street in Wichita in 1979
Megan Greenway
Megan was born and raised in Wichita and has had an affinity for plants all her life. Notable childhood memories include deadheading marigolds in the front flowerbeds and tending tomato plants in the backyard with her mom, as well as collecting Snowball Viburnum flowers each spring and being surrounded by houseplants at home.
She began working at a garden center when she was 16. Later, she earned a Bachelor’s degree in horticulture from Kansas State University. Megan has more than twenty years of industry experience ranging from retail garden center to wholesale greenhouse management.
Megan felt called to turn to food crops, perhaps in part due to family ties. Her great grandfather was an avid gardener and much of the food his family had was because of his large vegetable patch.
Megan shares many of the same sentiments regarding growing food that Wes does, but is also constantly inspired in the kitchen by its bounty. It’s a fun and worthwhile challenge to eat mostly seasonally. She is a passionate recipe developer and finds sharing her cooking knowledge and creativity a really rewarding part of her job as a farmer.
One of our favorite ways to get lots of veggies in, we’re enjoying a green smoothie made with homegrown spinach
Megan’s great-grandfather, Herman Gardenhire, was featured alongside his prized sweet corn in the Hutchinson News-Herald in August of 1950
Our Why
When we say we grow food for our family and yours, we mean exactly that. Our farm gardens provide much of the food our family consumes throughout the year. We eat very seasonally from the fields, and preserve all sorts of things to be enjoyed later on. While we are just one small farm and certainly don’t have all the answers to a complex food system, we always felt passionately that there was a place for a local alternative, and we are incredibly grateful to share the clean, honest food we raise for our family with yours.
While these FieldWatch signs signify that our food crops are sensitive to residential herbicide drift, they apply even more to the most important thing we’ve raised here — our son. Farming without chemical fertilizers, pesticides, or herbicides is a direct choice for the health of our family. Because we live, work, eat, and play on this acreage, keeping our environment safe is absolutely imperative to us, and we are humbled that the same clean bounty we raise for our table gets to grace yours.