The Abridged version:
- Tahoe couple Todd Karol and Stacie Schultze turned a humble microgreens operation into a full-time farm serving North Lake Tahoe.
- At 6,500 feet, Little Roots is likely the highest elevation commercial farm in California.
- Their biggest obstacle as farmers is the weather — even in the summer.
A little over a decade ago, Todd Karol and Stacie Schultze were a typical young Lake Tahoe couple. While they’d both graduated from a four-year college, they didn’t really feel the urge to jump into careers in their fields of study. Instead, they skied a lot while working seasonal jobs at the resorts and in construction.
Then, they did something wild.
In a spare bedroom of their home, they started growing microgreens — the tender and nutrient-dense vegetable seedlings harvested soon after their first tiny leaves appear. Their goal was to eventually turn that humble beginning into a full-time farm serving North Lake Tahoe. Soon, they moved to the Prosser neighborhood of Truckee and took their operation outside to a 12-by-10-foot greenhouse in the backyard.
Today, their Little Roots Farm sits nestled in a clearing in the forest 10 miles east of Truckee, near the base of Martis Peak. The farm is one of only a handful between the Sierra foothills and the Nevada border. At 6,500 feet, Little Roots is also likely the highest elevation commercial farm in California, although there is no official source that can confirm that.
Figuring out what works in the high Sierra
From May through October, you can find Karol or Schultze — or both of them — in a booth at the weekly farmers markets in Truckee and Tahoe City, where they sell greens, mushrooms, carrots and other produce, all of it certified organic.
“We kind of just gave it a whirl,” Karol said, chatting between customers at the Tahoe City market. “We started real slow. We didn’t come in with a big investment. We just slowly made enough to keep reinvesting while we figured out what worked.”
The couple sought advice from fellow farmers, including Gary Romano of Sierra Valley Farms in Beckwourth, north of Truckee, whose family has perfected high-elevation farming for a quarter-century. Among other things, Romano, whose farm sits at about 5,000 feet, counseled them on how to overcome the highly acidic Sierra soil and advised them to start their plants from seed and move them outside as soon as possible each spring to help them build resilience.
Karol said they also found guidance through “a lot of YouTube, a lot of Google searching, a lot of reading books.” And, crucially: “A lot of trial and error.”
Karol, 35, grew up in New England, and Schultze, 34, in Portland. They met at the University of San Diego before transferring to Sierra Nevada College in Incline Village. There, Karol earned a degree in sustainability and Schultze in international business.
“We wanted to start our own business, and somehow we came upon microgreens,” Karol said. “I thought that was something we could do in in Truckee and Tahoe. It’s easy to grow, it has a fast growing cycle, and we realized oh, we could sell this.”
They grew the greens — and the business — while Karol worked delivery jobs, construction and a stint at Northstar ski resort. Schultze worked at Olympic Village Inn.
As the business began to flourish, they gave up their jobs and moved from Truckee to their current location near Glenshire, which allowed them to expand the farm’s footprint to about 2 acres. They were off the grid at first, using a generator for power and a well for water, which they still do. They cleared some trees, built greenhouses, started growing a combination of indoor and outdoor crops, and never looked back.
Weather poses biggest obstacle for the Tahoe farm
Their biggest obstacle, not surprisingly, is the weather, even in summer. In their 11 years of farming, they’ve experienced only two months free of frost. And their current location sits in what Karol describes as a “monsoon belt” that brings frequent summer thunderstorms and damaging hail.
“Then there’s lots of squirrels and other critters that love to come into the farm and eat things,” he said. “That’s farming. Everywhere has a challenge in one way or another.”
Romano, the Sierra Valley farmer and mentor, advised Little Roots not to try to compete with Central Valley farmers but to instead find their own niche and diversify their operation to survive the inevitable bad weather and pest invasions.
“Mother Nature will win every time,” Romano said. “The Sierras are very unforgiving. You’re going to have losses. But I told him not to think of them as losses. They’re setbacks.”
One revelation was mushrooms, which can survive Tahoe’s weather more easily than row crops. Little Roots has become locally famous for its fungi, which it sells fresh and dried and uses as the base for mushroom salts that can add an unusual spice to freshly cooked dishes. It also sells pickles and sauces.
The couple works nonstop all summer, then spends the fall winterizing the farm, planning for the year ahead and catching up on paperwork. In the winter they ski, head to the beach for surfing and visit family. Despite the hard labor, or maybe because of it, they consider farming to be an idyllic lifestyle.
“We enjoy it,” Karol said. “I’m sure we’ll be doing it, hopefully, for a long time to come.”
Daniel Weintraub is a regular contributor, writing Tahoe Loco for Abridged.