Our Roots in Northern Arizona

Our Story

The farm was founded by Cory Rade in1995 when he moved to the property from Flagstaff with a dream to homestead, garden and grow enough food for the family. As the garden and passion for farming grew, he began selling veggies from a little red wagon they pulled around the neighborhood. The following year, he attended the inaugural season of the Prescott Farmers Market. Shanti joined the farm in 2003 and helped expand the operations including starting the CSA program and adding flowers to the mix. The farm grew slowly from that initial quarter acre and they now grow on approximately 20 acres producing a wide range of vegetables and cut flowers.

Whipstone Farm is located in Paulden, about 25 miles north of Prescott in the high desert grassland adjacent to the piñon-juniper forests of Northern Arizona.

How We Farm

We farm with the health of the land in mind, along with the people who work it and those who enjoy the products we produce. Our livelihoods are reliant on the land where we live and farm. We believe in sustainable and regenerative farming practices. We do not use any synthetic fertilizer or chemical pesticides. We aim to create a farm ecosystem where the soil and biological communities are constantly improving. To achieve this goal we employ cover cropping, crop rotation, IPM and beneficial insects, pollinator habitat, crop diversity and many other strategies. We employ food safety protocols aligned with GHP/GAP standards to ensure our products are healthy and safe for you and your family to consume, as well as being clean, beautiful, flavorful and long lasting.

We have been farming for over twenty-five years on this land and we are still learning how to be the best land stewards we can, while striving to keep the farm profitable and sustainable. We enjoy growing food and flowers for our community, not only as a means of providing healthy sustenance, but also as a way to bring people together. We hope that by buying directly from the farmers you will feel closer to the process and embrace the seasonality and regionality inherent to the process. To learn more about our daily farming practices, sign up for our newsletter.

Our Team

I came into farming by chance through a high school internship, and I knew almost immediately that is what I wanted to do with my life. After interning and working on several different farms, I went back to school to get a degree in Agroecology from Prescott College, which is what brought me to Arizona and is how I met Cory. While my initial interest in farming was in vegetable crops (planting a seed that grows into something you can eat is pretty life changing), I eventually discovered flower farming and that really ignited a new passion for me. While I do the lion’s share of the administrative work for the farm (office management, bookkeeping. marketing, crop planning, ordering etc) you will usually find me out in the flowers - planting, harvesting, or making bouquets with the flower crew. I love working on soil health and cover crops and really enjoy digging into the numbers and assessing farm profitability. I appreciate being a part of the larger agricultural community and have served on many different boards and taken part in numerous grant studies and education programs. My goal is to always keep learning, improve what we do on the farm and to never cease in my awe and inspiration of the natural world.

Being a self-taught farmer, I learned through trial and error and lots of determination. What I really love about farming is the food and how it brings people together. Growing relationships and community is what is most important to me. But coming in at a close second is my love for growing and eating chiles. If you happen by the farm you will most likely find me fixing something, as I am the resident repair man and something seems to break almost every day.