Meet the Farm

Moon Family Farm, run by Garrett and Jessica Moon, grows several grain varieties and hosts cattle from nearby ranches for grazing. They also keep bees, support burrowing owls and native insects with habitat, and have placed raptor perches across the property. A partnership with local Ethos Bakery connects their grain to a regional food system that values how it’s grown.

Ethos Bakery sources directly from Moon Family Farm for breads and pastries sold in the community.
 

The Horse Heaven Hills, near the Tri-Cities area of Washington, gets just six inches of precipitation a year. Deep silt loam soils and native sagebrush define the terrain, and this land demands a particular kind of farmer. The Moons understand that soil and water are their most precious resources and every decision they make keeps that in mind.

The Moon Family Farmstead

The Challenge

The Horse Heaven Hills present a unique set of conditions. Rainfall is so variable across the region that no single recommendation applies to every farm, which makes diversification difficult when moisture is this limited. And as input costs continue to rise, growers are under mounting pressure to fine-tune every practice, not just for profitability, but for the long-term health of their land.

The farm’s approach centers on working with the land’s constraints rather than against them. Recognizing that water used by weeds is water lost to crops, and that every disturbance to the soil risks the moisture stored within it, Moon Family Farm committed to a system built on conservation from the ground up.

No-till and field fallowing conserve water in an arid region

What They’re Doing

No Till and Fallowing
By using no-till practices, they preserve the stubble from the previous crop and seed directly into it, following a fallow rotation every other year to accumulate two years of moisture in the soil for each crop.

Integrated Grazing
Integrated livestock graze down large weeds and return fertility to the soil through urine and manure.

Native Habitat
They also plant and conserve native grasses and shrubs in the canyons and other sloping areas of the farm where growing wheat is impossible. These include sagebrush and rabbit brush, which support parasitoid wasps and Common Yarrow, which is extremely attractive to a range of beneficial insects including predatory true bugs, flies, and parasitic wasps. 

Moon Family Farm supports native species like this Common Yarrow that attract beneficial insects

"The benefits to land and wildlife are real," says Garrett. "These canyons can be reservoirs of native species, wildlife corridors. They can be places of beauty and synergy, where one can feel the balance tilt toward health rather than degradation. And so, we plant native grass. With tractor; but also with bucket, rake, and sweat. How good it is, after all that effort, to see new grass strong and tall."

Kernza Trials
Moon Family Farm was also the first in the Northwest to pilot Kernza trials – a perennial grain developed by The Land Institute. As part of an ongoing multi-state research network spanning Washington, Minnesota, Colorado, and Kansas, they are exploring whether perennial grain systems could one day reduce or eliminate fallow periods entirely, keeping living roots in the ground year-round and further protecting soil and water resources.

The Research

David James, researcher at Washington State University, recently visited the farm and confirmed the benefits of native species on the land. His team has studied 120 species of flowering natives to determine which plants insects were visiting. In order to measure the attractiveness of multiple native plants they used clear sticky traps placed on the native plants and then took them back to the lab to count and identify the insects that visited the plants. Over four years, with multiple traps per species of plant, they looked at more than twelve thousand traps!

David was surprised to learn that many of the plants were visited by beneficial insects even when they were not flowering. This is likely because the plants are providing refuge from sun, rain and predators, not just food resources.

Several plant species were clear winners based on the total numbers of beneficial insects that visited them. The top ten were: Sagebrush, Gray Rabbitbrush, Oregon Sunshine, Western Clematis, Northern Buckwheat, Showy Milkweed, Slender Hawksbeard, Tall Buckwheat, Yarrow and Snow Buckwheat.

David James looks for beneficial insects at Moon Family Farm with Salmon-Safe's Brian Muegge in the foreground

Moon Family Farm has four of David James' Top Ten Plants:

Sagebrush

Sagebrush was number one with an average of 500 beneficial species per trap. Just being present on the landscape is enough to draw in native beneficial insects. Interestingly, very few pests were found in sagebrush. However, it is only attractive to five of the ten groups of insects James’ group was interested in. Sagebrush is home primarily to parasitic wasps as well as a predatory true bugs like minute pirate bugs and mirids.

Rabbit Brush

Rabbit Brush is known for its bright yellow flowers in autumn. Compared to sagebrush, rabbit brush attracts a wide diversity of insects.

Buckwheats

There are several species of native Buckwheats, not to be confused with the exotic buckwheats growers might plant as a cover crop or for grain. They are in an entirely different plant group. Native buckwheats are low growing hardy species which are extremely drought adapted. There are ten species of native buckwheats in Central Washington that range from spring to summer flowering and are attractive to a wide range of beneficial insects. Buckwheats have a potential as ground covers because they can be cut and driven on.

Yarrow (Achillea millifolium)

Native yarrow is extremely attractive to a range of beneficial insects, but ornamental yarrows do not seem to be attractive. Yarrow attracted predatory true bugs, flies and parasitic wasps. Yarrow also showed potential as a ground cover. It can tolerate mowing which will stimulate re-flowering.

Native sagebrush and rabbit brush flourish in areas too steep to farm

Certifications

The farm has achieved three independent, third-party certifications for sustainability and environmental stewardship: Salmon-Safe, Farmed Smart, and Food Alliance.

What It Means for the Region

In a landscape defined by scarcity, Moon Family Farm demonstrates that efficiency, ecological health, and long-term viability are not competing goals. Their work with perennial grains points toward a future where fallow periods shrink, soil biology strengthens, and dryland farming becomes more resilient.

What works here, in one of the driest corners of the Northwest, offers a model for every farm navigating the limits of a water-scarce world.