Earl signed the lease in spring of '76. His daughter Margaret took over in '99. Her son Jesse runs it now. All three are still on the payroll. The farm sits on the same eighty-two acres outside Halfmoon Cove, on the Mendocino coast.
No outside investors. No silent partners. The three people who own the land are the three people who work it. Earl signs off on cultivar selection every spring. Margaret runs production and the farmstand. Jesse runs the business, the harvests, and most of the hand-trimming. There’s no fourth job.
Signed the lease in '76 after moving up from Berkeley. Set the cultivation discipline that hasn’t shortcut since — sun-grown, hand-trimmed, 32-day cure, single-strain harvests. Still chooses the year’s cuts. Still writes the harvest letter every quarter.
Took over in '99 after the medical legalization era opened up. Runs production, the farmstand floor, and the long relationships with the two retail partners. Reads every allocation request the website sends in. Has worked the seasonal trim crew every fall for twenty-six years.
Came back to the farm in '18 after eight years in Oakland working in restaurants. Runs the business, harvests, the hash program, and most of the day-to-day. The first Hadley to bring the brand into a serious form — this website is on him.
An honest record of how a small Mendocino farm survived from prohibition through medical through adult-use legalization without selling itself off or going under.
Eighty-two acres on a coastal parcel called Halfmoon Cove. First crop in the ground that May. First cure that October in the same barn we still cure in.
Earl’s original property-line phenotype gets stable through the third selection cycle. Still in our line today as F.02, F.03, F.04, and the dry-sift hash that builds from it.
Medical cannabis legalization passes. The farm continues as it always had, now legally selling to a small handful of co-ops.
Margaret takes over day-to-day operations from Earl. Production scales modestly. The farmstand opens to local customers for the first time.
Adult-use legalization passes. The farm gets a Type 1A license. We are now selling cannabis through the regulated retail system.
Jesse leaves Oakland restaurant work and comes back to run the farm. Begins building the hash program. The first formal wholesale relationship signs.
Fifty seasons in. The cultivation discipline is unchanged. The brand finally gets to match the work — renamed to Halfmoon, rebuilt by Roamad, ready to ship the fall '26 harvest.
The parcel sits about four miles inland from Highway 1, on a south-facing slope above a cove called Halfmoon. Coastal sun, marine fog every morning, cold nights from October on. The Pacific moderates everything — we don’t lose crops to summer heatwaves, we don’t lose crops to early frost.
The cure room. The original 1976 barn. Cedar beams, dark fir walls, two west-facing windows. Earl built the drying racks himself. They’ve held every harvest since.
The cultivation. Sun-grown outdoor, on the south-facing slope. Twenty plots, mostly Boundary OG and Mendocino Sun, with one experimental plot per season for whatever Jesse is selecting. No greenhouses. No lights. We get one harvest a year.
The farmstand. Half a mile up the road from the cultivation, at the gravel pull-off on Highway 1. Weathered wood building Earl and Margaret’s late husband built together in '02. Open Thursday through Saturday. Closed when we feel like it.
Earl set the cultivation discipline in '76. It hasn’t shortcut once. These are the five practices that produce the flower in every jar that leaves the farmstand.
Earl rarely gives interviews. When he does, he keeps it short. Three things he’s said in the last decade, written down because they kept getting quoted at the farmstand.
“The fall harvest is the only one that matters. Everything before is preparation.”
“If you can’t cure it for thirty days, you can’t sell it. I don’t care what the market does.”
“I’m amused that all of this is legal now. I'm not surprised about how much of it is bad.”
Outside the farmstand, Halfmoon is sold through exactly two California retail partners. Both are independent. Both have been with us multiple seasons. If you are a retail buyer and you’d like to be the third, write to Jesse directly.
Wholesale inquiries: jesse@halfmoon.farm
The farmstand is open Thursday through Saturday. We don’t do tours, but we’ll talk if the floor isn’t busy. Cash and cards. Bring time.
Get directions