Explore the Farm

Urban Permaculture, Food Forest Gardening & Sustainable Living in Portland, Oregon

Parkrose Permaculture began with a quarter-acre of sod and weeds and a vision for something more productive. Founded by Angela and Casey, the property has grown into an abundant urban food forest, organic vegetable garden, and living example of ecological design.

Our Portland, Oregon, property is both a family home and a working permaculture system, where food production, wildlife habitat, water management, and everyday life are interconnected.

An Urban Food Forest on a Quarter Acre

Our food forest incorporates fruit and nut trees, berry bushes, perennial crops, and companion plantings arranged to make productive use of a small urban landscape.

Fruit tree guilds are an important part of the design. By combining trees with beneficial understory plants, we create growing spaces that support pollinators, improve soil conditions, and encourage biodiversity.

Alongside the food forest, our organic vegetable gardens provide seasonal harvests, while our rain garden helps manage water and creates additional habitat.

Explore Our Farm

Animals, Pollinators & Wildlife Habitat

Animals are an integral part of our permaculture system. Our heritage poultry, including chickens, ducks, and turkeys, forage throughout the orchard, contributing to pest management, soil fertility, and food production.

Honeybees, native pollinators, birds, and other wildlife are equally important to the ecological relationships we cultivate.

Parkrose Permaculture has earned recognition through the Backyard Habitat Certification Program, administered by Columbia Land Trust and Bird Alliance of Oregon, and as a Certified Wildlife Habitat through the National Wildlife Federation. Both programs recognize efforts to create and maintain landscapes that support wildlife, biodiversity, and ecological stewardship.

Meet the Animals & Explore the Farm

Earth Care, People Care & Fair Share

The three permaculture ethics, Earth Care, People Care, and Fair Share, guide our approach to gardening, resource management, education, and community involvement.

We believe growing nutritious, organic food should be accessible, economical, sustainable, and joyful. Sharing knowledge, supporting local food systems, and recognizing the value of domestic labor are essential parts of building resilient communities.

For us, permaculture extends beyond the garden. The ways we use land, distribute resources, and care for one another reflect the larger systems in which we live.

Permaculture is political.

Explore Our Permaculture Ethics

Learning, Homemaking & Community

The farm is also a place for ongoing education and experimentation. Through the Parkrose Permaculture YouTube channel, Angela shares practical knowledge about organic gardening, ecological design, food production, and sustainable living.

Her Parkrose Hausfrau series explores traditional domestic skills, homemaking, and the often-overlooked labor involved in maintaining a household.

Our work also extends into the local community through the Parkrose Honesty Farmstand, occasional workshops, plant sales, and opportunities to share what we grow and learn.

About Angela

I'm Angela, a permaculture educator, homemaker, and lifelong gardener with more than 25 years of practical experience in ecological design, sustainable living, and food production.

Science, Education & Permaculture

I grew up in a family that valued both scientific inquiry and traditional domestic skills, including gardening, baking, and making things by hand. I earned my degree in Biology with a minor in Education from Grinnell College, where my capstone research examined the impacts of invasive species on songbird migration.

It was during college, at a Women, Food and Agriculture Network conference, that I first encountered permaculture and its approach to understanding the relationships between ecological systems, food production, and human communities.

25 Years of Gardening & Ecological Design

My gardening experience has taken me from containers on a St. Louis apartment balcony to a large rural garden worked with a tractor, and eventually to our quarter-acre urban property in Portland, Oregon, where Parkrose Permaculture took root.

Homemaking, Advocacy & Community

Education and advocacy have been consistent threads throughout my life. I've worked with La Leche League and homeschooled my four children, who are now young adults attending college. My husband, Casey, is also an educator, and education has always been central to our family. Casey and our children are Indigenous, and their heritage and cultural identity are an important part of our family life.

I'm also a strong advocate for recognizing homemaking as valuable, skilled labor that deserves respect and support, regardless of gender.

"Who benefits?" is a question I return to frequently when examining the systems that shape our lives. I believe permaculture is political because food production, access to resources, environmental stewardship, and the value we place on labor are inseparable from the social and political structures around us. Understanding those connections is central to my work as both an educator and an advocate.

Fiber Arts & Life Beyond the Garden

Outside the garden, fiber arts are one of my greatest interests. I'm an avid knitter, enjoy spinning some of the wool I use in my projects, and have recently discovered just how much I love weaving on my inkle loom. Apparently, there's always room for one more fiber hobby in my life. Except crochet. Despite my enthusiasm for nearly everything involving yarn, crochet and I have never managed to reach an understanding. I also sew much of my own clothing, partly out of necessity in a family of tall people. My interests have also extended to roller derby, where I participated as both a skater and a non-skating official with the Rose City Rollers.

Today, I continue to explore the connections between ecology, food security, domestic labor, and community resilience through Parkrose Permaculture, sharing practical knowledge and encouraging thoughtful conversations about the systems that shape our lives.

Continue the Conversation

The work we do at Parkrose Permaculture extends beyond our quarter-acre garden. Through educational videos, political commentary, local projects, and community discussions, we explore the connections between ecological living, practical skills, and the systems that shape our lives.