Christmas tree farm branches out

Tucked away in bucolic Rixeyville lies a family flush with farm and home duties, but they wouldn’t have it any other way.

While normally open to the public during the winter season to supply generations of families with trees for their holiday celebrations, Oak Shade Farm on Waterford Run Lane opened a store on its property in January to fill with their homemade bits and bobs from honey to wood bowls to dried mushrooms.

For years, farm founder Jim Mello, 85, grew Shiitake mushrooms on the land by drilling holes into Oak logs, placing spores or spawn inside and sealing with wax. The farm has stacks and stacks of logs placed under tarps in order to force fruit - or force grow - the mushrooms before harvesting them to make some of their most desired products.

However, growing and harvesting Shiitake mushrooms only scratches the surface of all that’s going on at Oak Shade Farm.

Jim Mello, originally from Warren, Rhode Island, met his wife Sally Mello, 85, originally from Middletown, Connecticut, while the pair attended Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.

Jim Mello recalled seeing Sally for the first time in class when he saw her looking for a place to sit. He patted the chair next to him and invited her over, only for her to ignore the invitation and take a seat in the front row. It’d be a year later before they met officially.

After marrying and having children, the Mellos found themselves living in Fairfax as Jim Mello, who earned his Ph.D. in paleontology, worked as the assistant director at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C.

After visiting central Virginia to hike on the weekends in the late 1970s, the Mellos fell in love with the tranquil atmosphere. 

“We just fell in love with the place,” Jim Mello said. “We couldn’t wait to get out here. She’d have the car packed on Friday night when I got home from work.”

They bought a plot of woods in Rixeyville for ease of camping while hiking but soon found themselves visiting only to clear the land of trees. Once trees began to hit the ground, the Mellos found perhaps the biggest perk to their new adventure: a clear view of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Before they knew it, they were buying an adjacent plot of land - totaling their plot to 25 acres - building a barn and taking gardening and grow classes at the local extension office.

“We started gardening almost immediately,” Jim Mello said. “We started planting cover crops and food for ourselves.”

The Mellos began growing vegetables to take to the Warrenton Farmers Market in 1986.

“You can be small and profitable if you work hard,” she said.

In 1985, they built a log cabin home in order to move there full time. 

In their older age, Jim and Sally Mello don’t quite make it up to the farmers market nowadays but are lucky some of their children have stayed close by to attend to some of the farm duties.

Son Roger Mello and wife Ulrike “EK” Mayer-Mello live just beyond the tree line from the original log cabin. The couple built their home there a few years after marrying. When they’re not tending to the shop or helping with other projects, the couple raise chickens and three Norwegian pygmy goats.

One of Jim and Sally’s other sons, Craig Mello, won a Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 2006 for his work in the discovery of RNA interference.

Between tending to bees and harvesting honey, weaving on his loom and more, Jim Mello decided his plate wasn’t full enough recently and decided to tackle another venture.

He and Mayer-Mello opened a woodworking business in one of the property’s buildings where they make Adirondack chairs, benches, bowls, cutting boards and more.

With the help of Mayer-Mello’s husband, the pair even use an onsite sawmill they use to slice their own wood slabs.

Mayer-Mello recalls pondering the prospect of opening shop while her business partner was all but putting together the first of what would become their next successful product venture.

When the sawdust clears, though, across the way Sally Mello’s studio becomes an oasis for art lovers. Specializing in painting and dabbling in hook rugs, she finds inspiration in the outdoors and animals. Her pieces can also be found in the shop alongside her jams, Jim’s honey, Mayer-Mello’s chicken eggs and more.

Oak Shade Farm is open from 9-5 p.m. on Friday through Sunday.

maria@culpepertimes.com