Our six week, western states, Farm To Fork Across America Tour continues to lead us to remarkable places. We meet innovative people to interview, people who are making a difference in the quality of our food supply. We hear of a 100-acre collective backyard, Luscher Farm in Lake Oswego, just outside Portland. 

All the more profound is the fact that Luscher Farm is owned and run by the Lake Oswego Department of Parks and Recreation for the benefit of its citizens. 

The Rogerson Clematis Collection is a two-and-a-half-acre botanical showcase of everything Clematis, home of over seven hundred species and cultivators landscaped as a living flower museum. 

Guarded by 92 whimsical, handmade scarecrows, the 180 plot community garden they are a personal theatre of expression. They oversee a committed all-organic exercise... a prescription that Karen says is "easy to police... and is in fact, self-policing." Originally only 26 plots, now 180 plots with a long waiting list, the program is a testament to the innate desire to connect to the earth, to grow nutritious food and to cultivate trust.

Through the unique combination of city-provided land and partner-provided funding, programs and labor, Lake Oswego has intuitively actualized a sustainable community farming model for other cities to follow. This city gets the importance of retaining its agricultural heritage, securing the legacy at the front door of its suburban inhabitants. Testimony to its commitment, the community has purchased adjacent rural property to increase the size of the farm to 100 acres, expanding a valuable treasure.

In a time where trust in the big-ag business is at an all-time low, Luscher provides a connection that evokes primal security. Here, personal growers, educators, certifiers, farmers and CSA members come together in a common cause... restoring trust with their own community backyard, finding the satisfaction of participation in the food supply and by knowing their local grower. At the end of the day, this connection and the knowledge that our food is uncompromised is what truly sustains us.