We are proud of our partnership with JEAN's Farm and value the service they provide to our community in helping our students understand the connections between our food and the land. With the help of Portland State University students we are able to provide our older students with field trip experiences that expand and enrich our classroom work.

INTRODUCTION TO THE FARM

Project Background
JEAN’s (Johnson Environmental and Nutrition) Urban Forest Farm was seeded in January 2005 by Portland State University’s PIIECL (Portland International Initiative for Ecology, Culture and Learning) Program. The goal of JEAN’s Farm is to serve as a learning and demonstration farm for K-12 Portland Public Schools and PSU students. From the beginning, JEAN’s Farm was designed and developed by students across PSU alongside students from Portland Public Schools. The mission of the project is to promote cultural competence, health and nutrition and academic achievement in education that enhances sustainable and healthy food systems through hands-on experiences of urban farming.

JEAN’s Farm is hidden in the floodplain of the Johnson Creek Watershed on 40th Ave. and Johnson Creek Blvd. in SE Portland. The farm is privately owned by the Johnson family who has leased it to the PIIECL program for the creation of JEAN’s Farm. The farm includes an acre of fertile farmland adjacent to Johnson Creek and is surrounded by forest.

Since its inception, students have created a learning farm that demonstrates several sustainable gardening/farming methods including raised beds with companion plantings, sheet mulched beds, traditional row crops, permaculture keyhole beds with culinary and medicinal herbs, a three sisters garden, and a mixed-berry hedgerow. Students have also built an incredible chicken coop and chicken tractor with reclaimed materials, as well as propagation tables for the greenhouse, an outdoor kitchen, and a solar cob oven with benches.

Farm Location – green mailbox marked SE 4005 Johnson Creek Boulevard - MAP
We have limited road access and parking so please park on 40th or 41st Ave and walk down unless you are alter abled or have pre-arranged to drive materials down! Thanks! You will enter to the right of the green mailbox and then take the Left of the Y down the gravel road to the farm!

Bus: TriMet #75 stops right at the entrance.

Car: Sellwood/99E Take Tacoma East to 32nd Ave. There is a blinking light here and a corner store, take a left onto Johnson Creek Blvd. Go past 40th Ave and the entrance to the farm is on your left-hand side immediately after the green mailbox (4005) on Johnson Creek Blvd.

Woodstock Take 45th Ave. down the hill and take a right at the bottom of the hill onto Johnson Creek Blvd. Go past 41st Ave and the entrance to the farm is on your right-hand side immediately before the green mailbox (4005) on Johnson Creek Blvd. Take the left fork of the gravel road down to the farm