A farmstead built on the same line as the world's great growing regions.
Lake-cooled, wind-shaped, and studied one season at a time.
Door County sits within a few miles of 45° north latitude — the same band that wraps around the globe through several of the world's better-known growing regions. We didn't pick the name to sound clever. We picked it because it's true, and because it's the reason a lake-cooled peninsula in Wisconsin can grow great products.
Lake Michigan moderates the swings: it holds back frost in spring and slows the heat in fall, stretching the season just enough for things that would struggle a hundred miles inland.
Parallel 45 Farms is a living laboratory in the heart of Door County, dedicated to understanding how native ecosystems and invasive species shape the environment we share. Through our tall-grass prairie work, conifer plantation, and native Wisconsin perennial testing beds, we explore how plants interact, compete, and coexist.
Our vision is to grow with intention by cultivating resilient landscapes, restoring ecological balance, and deepening our knowledge of the natural systems that define our unique region.
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The prairie, the plantation, the testing beds, and the lake that makes it all possible.
About the farm
Parallel 45 Farms began as a simple question: what actually thrives on this particular peninsula, at this particular latitude, once you stop assuming and start watching? That question turned a working piece of Door County land into an ongoing study of how the region's ecosystems hold together — and how easily they can be pulled apart.
Rather than farming a single crop, we tend a set of parallel experiments, each one built to teach us something different about the land.
- Tall-grass prairie restorationReestablishing native grasses and forbs to see how a historic Wisconsin landscape re-roots itself over time.
- Conifer plantationA managed stand used to track growth, resilience, and the long game of forestry on the peninsula.
- Native perennial testing bedsSide-by-side trials of native Wisconsin perennials, watched season over season for what actually holds up here.
Not only is it decorative, but every planting is a data point in a longer conversation about invasive pressure, native resilience, and what "growing with intention" really requires on a lake-moderated peninsula at 45° north. The more seasons we log, the clearer that picture gets.