Tangled Thicket Farm: Big dreams on a little bit of land

Melissa Correia and Joanna Kenyon (with dog Virgil) of Tangled Thicket Farm, Mount Vernon. Photographed in their “food forest” by Bryony Angell.

Tangled Thicket Farm is every bit as enchanting as its name suggests.  

Native trees and plants meander along three acres of wetlands. Vegetables, herbs, and flowers thrive in hoop houses that not long ago were covered by invasive Himalayan blackberries. A living willow bench sprouts in a meadow. Chickens wander contentedly until Heckler and Speckler, the two Guinea fowl, spy an eagle and scream the poultry to safety.

It’s the kind of place where tasks might be handled by tractor, scythe, or even sword; where during the fall open house event, activities included a catapult for slinging pumpkins.

And there is a thicket—the farm’s namesake.

Two acres of this former tree farm are closely planted in hedge cedars, cypress, hedge laurel, and other nursery specimens that were never harvested and have grown into a thick, dark hedge with no understory.  Clear-cutting the trees and digging up their roots with a backhoe would remove them once and for all. But Melissa Correia and Joanna Kenyon, who purchased the 14-1/2-acre property in 2019, don’t mind what they call the Hedgewood Forest.

The ominous-looking “Hedgewood Forest” on the Tangled Thicket property. Photo by Anne Basye.

By integrating trees with crops and pasture, “we are creating an ecological farm that speaks to our values, a place that helps members of our community,” says Correia. If every tree suddenly vanished, the farm work—including keeping weeds and blackberries at bay—would be overwhelming for two farmers with off-farm jobs. Owls and coyotes would be evicted, and Tangled Thicket would lose the buffer that separates their organic farm from the conventionally farmed acreage next door.  

Instead, they are improving their tangled acreage one step at a time, clearing small patches of trees in the Hedgewood Forest to create “rooms” for row crops, native plants and trees that are good for people and ecosystems.  

“We try to tackle one large project a year,” says Correia. One of their first was planting a different kind of forest—a food forest of plums, aronia berries, and lesser-known fruits like autumn olives.

Four weed-abated hoophouses have been rebuilt and now shelter eggplant, herbs, peppers, cucumbers, ginger, peas, and an astonishing 45 varieties of tomatoes and edible flowers—all sold to restaurants like Union Block Bistro and Mount Vernon Farmer’s Market customers or through their own farmstand or subscriber vegetable boxes.  Squash and other row crops are tucked in small fields among the trees. Several small orchards with mixed fruit trees speckle the property. 

The wetlands lining the east border—once a stream bed of nearby Carpenter Creek—have been cleared of invasive reed canary grass and blackberries. The Skagit Conservation District  provided federal and grant funding to install 1500 red flowering currant, cedar and other native species that filter pollutants and store standing water. A second Conservation District “Wet Feet Farming” project running to the south end of the property teems with filberts, chestnuts, heartnuts, elderberry and other wetlands-friendly species.  

In this farm learning lab, some experiments work, some don’t. Kenyon and Correia have learned that “no till” fields and tilled fields yield similar results for food quality and quantity. Four hives have taught them lots about raising bees and making honey.  Using a clover mix as a living mulch among winter squashes? “We won’t do that again,” says Kenyon, “because the fastest-growing varieties grew so tall they outcompeted the squash for light, water, and nutrients. It did improve the soil, so now we pretend it was an intentional cover crop.”

About three acres of their property are devoted to crops. Six are in hay, grown by another farmer.  Some of the hay is used to mulch their garlic. Perhaps one day it will feed pigs or goats. “When trying to reduce off-farm inputs, like fertilizers, hay helps,” says Correia.

“Little by little” could be Tangled Thicket’s motto—along with “many hands make light work”. In addition to bringing in partners like the Skagit Conservation District, Kenyon and Correia host work parties where local non-profits and farm box subscribers tackle their long to-do list. A work-trade program gives subscribers a $100 discount for six hours of labor. “Most people do more, because it’s fun!” says Kenyon, who loves physical labor and spent years commercial fishing in Alaska.

Melissa with dog Rosie along the eastern border of the property where rewilding of a creek bed with native plantings now filters pollutants and holds standing water. Photo by Bryony Angell.

“We have a community plan, not a business plan,” says Correia. To make sure their healthy, delicious produce, eggs, and honey can feed all families, Tangled Thicket recruits sponsors like Scratch and Peck Feeds of Bellingham to underwrite the cost of vegetable boxes. Subscribers can choose to pay extra, getting healthy food to families served by Family Promise, a non-profit organization focused on housing solutions. provide healthy food to homeless families as they work to provide their children with loving homes. Clients of the Skagit County and Whatcom County Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Services and the YMCA Sedro Woolley Rec Center also receive produce and are invited to work parties and open houses.

Many of these connections were initiated by Correia, once a data analyst specializing in the foster care system. “We have studied the problem to death,” she says, “but now we need to focus on solutions. We’re trying to create opportunities so families have a space where they can be part of everything happening here.”

Through slow and steady work, Tangled Thicket is making very big dreams come true—on very little land.

“Some people wouldn’t consider this a farm, because we’re not trying to make a profit off every acre,” says Correia. “But we are producing food, just in a different way.”

“There’s room for all different types of farming methods,” adds Kenyon.

Five years in, Kenyon and Correia are finding joy in the balance they’ve created—earning a living, nourishing their community, and savoring life among their trees, chickens, and neighbors.

Meanwhile, they’re already contemplating what to plant next in the little pockets they’ll clear from the Hedgewood Forest.

Story by Anne Basye info@skagitonians.org