When I first visited the place now known as Wanderment Farms a decade ago, it was a scraggly vineyard known as Paredon barely clinging to life on a rocky cliff perched over the Carpinteria coast.
When I talked to the woman who bought the 56-acre spot a few years later, I assumed Margo Redern’s glasses were overly rose-tinted as she spoke of her hopes to turn the angry land into a happy model of regenerative farming.
When I went there again earlier this year for a story about agave — one of the dozen or so crops she’s cultivating across 14 planted acres — I was blown away by how quickly a dedicated farmer can turn marginal land into a magical wonderland. It is a thriving demonstration of farming in tune as much as possible with the earth, with 70 percent of the land intentionally left wild, serving, explains Redfern, as “a sanctuary for the flowers, fauna, beneficial insects, and wildlife that keep our ecosystem humming.”