Hi, a bit about us and our philosophy.

We are Dennis and Jan McClure. Dennis grew up on a dairy farm, but went to Penn State for electrical engineering. He met Jan there who grew up in the country but not on a farm. She was majoring in agricultural engineering. They got married after Jan graduated college and moved to the Philadelphia area. They both always wanted a farm. But farms in eastern PA were expensive. Dennis worked at Sperry-Univac and Jan went to grad school for Industrial Engineering at Lehigh Universe. After several years they moved back to State College. Denny worked at HRB Systems, C-Cor and finally ARL. Jan went to grad school, worked as a software engineer in the College of Agricultural Sciences and then was an adjunct faculty at Penn State Altoona, now retired. Still interested in small scale farming.

Dennis’ parents owned a farmette in Armstrong county where they raised corn and potatoes for their own use and a lot of grass. Eventually, Denny and Jan were able to buy that farm and have been slowly changing and growing vegetables while still working. Commuting from State College to Kittanning every weekend is difficult.

We have three children, all of whom are adults and do not live on the farm. Ben is a software engineer, Peter is a material scientist and Sarah is also a software engineer.

Our Philosophy:

We believe that we should make the farm sustainable and we should be as self sufficient as possible. We try to honor the environment and do as little harm as we can. Our trees and bushes are native if possible.

Practically this means that we only use OMRI approved fertilizers and pesticides. Although we follow organic protocols, we are not certified organic. We follow sustainable practices. We use wild flower banks for predator insects. We capture the rainwater from the roof of the high tunnel and use it for irrigation. We plant clover on our pathways. We keep honey bees for pollination.