The Open Gate Farm On Camano Island, Washington

Dear Friends of the Farm:

One of the delights of our wildly fun and incredibly successful plant sale last Saturday was meeting new folks and greeting old friends.  It was wonderful to see your faces, to hear your stories, to discover together how your worlds have changed and are being changed.  “Make new friends, but keep the old.  One is silver and the other gold.”  So true, so true.  Each of you is a treasure to us.

More than once did we hear someone new to the farm comment excitedly to their partner, “Look!  These folks are actually doing it!” with hope flowing from their heart for their own dreams.  People seem to take encouragement from seeing someone actually living the small farm dream, someone who has walked away from the 8 to 5, the mind numbing commute, the never ending noise, the smelly gas stations, and who are actually living on what a small piece of land can produce. (more…)

Dear Friends of the Farm:

The grey mists of time can mute memories, but somewhere back in the depths of the cranium is a story told by Grandma Stevens.  It was of another young fellow who suddenly inherited a farm.  Problem was, he was from the city, not the country, and had no idea how to farm.  However the idea of trading a pencil for a plow was attractive, so he moved the family to the place figuring he could learn quickly how to do this farming thing.  “How hard could this be?” thought our brave young fellow. (more…)

Dear Friends of the Farm:

The closer you live to the land, the less the calendar matters.  Take the first day of Spring, for instance.  For those dwelling in concrete canyons or in slumping suburbia these days, a look at the pretty wall calendar shows Spring as March 20^th.  Those in the know talk at length about the Vernal Equinox and the tilt of the earth and the distance from the sun and other astronomical influencers of the weather and temperature and length of daylight. (more…)

Dear Friends of the Farm:

Grafting is a curious thing.  You take a twig and whack off the end.  You take a twig still on a tree and whack it off.  You put the two surfaces together, wrap with some tape, cover the tape with some goop, and if all goes well you can have a black plum growing on an Italian plum tree.  Or a Concord grape growing on a Niagara vine.

The key in this is “if all goes well”.  How do you make sure that “all goes well”?  It is not as simple as it looks!  We’re learning to graft, here at The Open Gate Farm, and it is most interesting. (more…)

Dear Friends of the Farm:

The drumbeats are quickening at The Open Gate Farm and we’re not talking just about the rapid march toward Spring and Summer.  It seems Pastor Dudley Brown, the Indian Runner duck has decided to go with modern music at his next revival meeting. Yesterday, while sitting in the farm office putting the finishing touches on the material for The Honorable Farmer class, the peace was broken by rapid drumming heard just on the other side of the wall. (more…)