We’re Wes & Megan
The owners and operators of Orie’s Farm Fresh
Orie’s Farm Fresh was started in 2015, the same year we welcomed the arrival of our son. We’ve grown our farm together as a family, working alongside one another throughout the seasons to expand our garlic crop and continue to hone the farm’s focus. Growing healthy food, cooking healthy food, and eating healthy food ... they're all passions of ours. In fact, it's those passions that motivated us to turn to farming in the first place.
More About Us
Meet Wes
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, circa late 1930’s
Wes with his father, Harold Johnson, in the greenhouse at Johnson’s Garden Center on W. 13th Street in Wichita in 1979
Meet Megan
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
As bona fide plant people, we always wanted to have a big vegetable garden, but while running a wholesale greenhouse operation, there wasn’t the time or energy to make it happen. After that business sold, we came across a few acres for sale in west Wichita and we fell in love. It wasn’t a farm then, but we knew it could be. Feeding our family the highest quality food free from chemicals and other toxins became a calling when our son was born. We knew other people had to feel as passionately about an alternative to a broken, industrialized food system as we did. When we say we grow food for our family and yours, we mean exactly that. Our gardens provide much of the food our family consumes. We eat very seasonally, but preserve all sorts of things to be enjoyed later on.
Sensitive Crop
While these signs are intended to signify we have food crops growing that are sensitive to residential herbicide drift, we think they’re also applicable to the most important thing we’re raising — this youngin’ right here. Our regenerative farming practices don’t just affect the vegetables we sell. We’re rooted in this way of growing for multiple reasons. We farm without chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides for the health of our family. We live, work, eat, and play here, so it’s imperative to us that we can do all those things safely. When you purchase from us, you’re receiving food from the same bounty that we feed our family from. We take the trust you place in us very seriously and are humbled to know our foods grace so many tables within our community.
