Willow Creek Farm Preserve is a Certified Organic family farm located on the outskirts of Philadelphia, PA.
I am Melissa, head shepherdess and flower farmer. I'm passionate about people and I've come to love raising Shetland Sheep and growing specialty flowers. And that's because there's nothing better than sharing one of my cozy wool blankets which can be traced back to my sheep or a dose of kitchen counter sunshine from my flower garden. Life is truly more vibrant with farm fresh flowers & fiber!
Our 135-acre property has a rich history, having been inhabited by indigenous peoples, including the Lenape Native Americans, and has been continuously farmed since 1754. Our land has been permanently preserved through an agricultural conservation easement ensuring its use for agriculture into perpetuity...we love farming!
The path to creating Willow Creek Farm Preserve (WCFP) began in 2002, with a dream of establishing an organic orchard and inviting the community to pick-your-own and shop at a retail farm market...This was our former business, Willow Creek Orchards. It was a business about us...about our family, about what we could accomplish, and it was a business that wasn’t very…fruitful.
WCFP is built on the foundation of these trials, failures, and learning. In 2018, we returned to the farm to begin the process of transitioning our land back to Certified Organic status. During our hiatus, our family started raising Shetland Sheep for wool and over the past five+ years since founding WCFP, through the Covid-19 pandemic and more challenges, we have leaned into growing our herd of sheep even further. We have added new pastures, stop growing fruit (just too unpredictable!) and started growing tulips and peonies. And in late 2023, we added our own Belfast Wool Mini Mill into the mix, so we can create our own wool products from sheep to skein.
We are now a Farm for Spring...a special place for the community to meet our newest lamb crew and to enjoy our specialty Spring Flowers and Wool products. And we are more dedicated than ever to steward this land for others in order to share our farm for purpose-driven initiatives…We hope to see you out on the farm each Spring!