About Sleepy Hollow Herb Farm

About Us

 

In 1993 Cindi Beavers and her husband Randy recognized they would one day be faced with the choice of selling her grandfather’s farm or moving there and attempting to make a living.

Cindi's Grandfather had purchased the farm in 1932 when her Dad was three years old. The couple found it difficult to place a price on the years of work that had gone into the farm so, after three years of researching crop options and various other factors relating to mid-career transitions, they decided to develop their long time interest in medicinal plants and committed to a Five-Year Plan to convert the farm to organic production methods. 

That goal was accomplished in 2001 when Sleepy Hollow Farm was certified organic by what was then the Georgia Organic Growers Association. It was also at that time the couple saw a pressing need for reliable information regarding how to sustainably produce plants that were, for the most part, wild collected.

Their focus turned to Goldenseal (Hydrastis canadensis), a plant that had recently been placed on the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species List II, and the research necessary to domesticate a wild collected plant without losing the attributes that make it valuable such as chemical marker content and bioactivity.

The couple developed a method of producing goldenseal on small, family operated farms. The picture below shows three generations planting goldenseal on Sleepy Hollow Farm. The method was taught to more than 25 other small farmers across the Southeast which resulted in the establishment of Botanipharm, LLC, the first 100% grower owned botanical processing company in the U.S., to cooperatively process the goldenseal into high quality products.

More than a decade of research later, Sleepy Hollow Farm's leadership in the area of sustainable goldenseal development has been recognized by the USDA and the National Institutes of Health/National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NIH/NCCAM) through a series of eight awards from the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program. 

This research resulted in the development of a USDA National Organic Program certified production, processing, and standardization system for goldenseal which was also compliant with FDA Good Manufacturing Practices guidelines. The system was used to produce a series of highly characterized goldenseal products suitable for use in NIH funded human clinical studies.

Today, the Beavers' use this same approach, i.e., small family unit quality combined with leading edge science, to produce a wide range of goldenseal products including dietary supplements, soaps, creams, lotions, and other personal care items as well as pet care products.

The Beavers' also offer a variety of group educational experiences at Sleepy Hollow Farm such as medicinal plant workshops and seminars, herbwalks through the forest, and catered picnics by the creek.

Randy and Cindi's commitment to sustainable production, reliable potency, and uncompromising purity has resulted in the highest quality goldenseal products available.

They invite you to try them today and experience the positive difference goldenseal can make in your life!!!