A kitchen apothecary that grew into a farm

Terraroot was founded in 2014 by Maren Osgood, a clinical herbalist who had spent nine years explaining to patients why the tulsi on a supplement label might not be tulsi at all. Adulteration is common, sourcing is usually opaque, and a jar bought in March can hold root harvested four years earlier on another continent. Her answer was not a better supply chain audit - it was a farm.

In 2016 Maren and Wes Cardoza bought 46 acres of depleted hayfield outside Rhinebeck and spent three seasons in cover crop and compost before harvesting anything for sale. We have not tilled since 2019. Sheep rotate through the perennial beds, the herb mash left over from tincturing goes back into the compost windrows, and the Cornell Soil Health Lab measures the result every spring so we are not grading our own homework.

We grow 31 of the 40 botanicals we use. The other nine - things that will not thrive at 42 degrees north, like ceylon cinnamon and turmeric - come from four partner farms we name on the label and have bought from for at least eight years, at prices we publish. Everything is extracted, blended and bottled in our own facility nine miles from the field.

What we will not do is tell you what these plants cure. Terraroot products are traditionally used to support rest, digestion, skin and steadiness, and we describe them in exactly those terms. We publish a certificate of analysis for every lot, we put the harvest date on the jar, and we would rather you ask your clinician than take our word for it.