The people behind the soil

Meet the Team

Family-run since 2001. Two owners, a small crew, and the long-form work of putting Northern California ground back together one yard at a time.

Owners

Who runs the yard

Joel White

Owner

Bought Earthworm Soil Factory three years ago from the original owner and kept everything that worked — the recipes, the standards, and the in-house Worm Juice that's been brewed on the Clark Road property since the early 2000s.

Joel tunes the recipes to Butte County's ground: the valley clay, the foothill decomposed granite, and the post-fire ash up on the ridge — three soil profiles, three different jobs to do.

He also runs the forest-to-farm protocol — thinning Northstate timber stands for wildfire fuel reduction and routing the biomass into high-fungal compost and biochar instead of burn piles.

The crew

The people who make it work

John Thompson

General Manager

Runs the day-to-day at the yard — soil production, deliveries, and the crew — so Northern California growers get the right blend on time.

Sarah

Executive Assistant

Keeps the day-to-day running on Joel's side of the business — scheduling, contracts, contractor program admin, and the dozen things every week that would otherwise fall through the cracks.

Aidan

Tech & Web Operations

Builds and maintains the website, the order automations, and the data plumbing behind the scenes. If something ordered online ends up on a truck the next morning, the path between those two points is mostly Aidan's work.

Angie

Gardener

Runs the gardens at the yard — the demonstration beds, the trial plantings, and the seasonal cuttings that customers see when they walk in. The visible answer to "does your soil actually work?" is whatever's growing in Angie's plots.

Terry

Soil Production

Runs the soil-mixing side of the yard. Every blend that goes out — Garden, Premium, NorCal Growers, worm castings — passes through Terry's hands. He's the one who decides when a batch is ready and when it needs another turn.

Greg

Mechanic

Keeps the trucks, the scale, the loaders, and every piece of yard equipment running. Same-week deliveries don't happen without Greg making sure the fleet shows up.

Want to talk to us?

Call the yard at (530) 895-9676 during business hours, or drop a line through the contact form. We're here Monday through Saturday, 8:30 AM to 4:00 PM.

Get in touch