The Open Gate Farm On Camano Island, Washington

Red Russian Kale Ready to Go!

The Open Gate Farm

269 Russell Road

Camano Island, WA

May 24, 2011

Fences and Gates at The Open Gate Farm

Dear Friends:

Kale.  That magical green that halts and some times cures macular degeneration of the eye will be available once again this weekend.  And for those who live on the edge, we will have some white Russian kale which has a pretty strong flavor, but tastes like it has more health per bite than anything we’ve chewed on in a long time.

If you want to have any of the items below delivered to the Snow Goose Bookstore in Stanwood for pickup Saturdays after 10 a.m., call, write, or stop by our web page store http://www.shop.theopengatefarm.com and we’ll show you how this can be a regular thing for you!  It’s our spin on the CSA programs that are making the rounds.

Don’t forget the free movie!  “A Sea Change” which looks at what we are doing to the oceans will be June 3^rd at the Blackbird and June 11^th at the Snow Goose Bookstore in our new Second Saturday At Snow Goose Series.  This will be in addition to, not instead of, the First Fridays at the Blackbird.  Email us back to make your reservations for the movies and what you would like from the list below to pick up on Saturday morning in town or here at the farm!

The American Poet Laureate, Robert Frost, once wrote that “good fences make good neighbors.”  He wrote of annually walking a New England stone fence with his neighbor and replacing stones knocked off by winter storms.  They might exchange a few comments, but the symbolism of the fence kept them apart; it kept them from creating community as well.

Fences are useful and do produce interesting results.  Here at The Open Gate Farm, when we got up the fence along Lake Grove Road, our happy farm dog was much happier.  He finally understood he was no longer responsible for all those people and dogs who walk along what he thought was his road.  Now he just yells at them to be careful in the traffic and to invite them to come in to his yard and buy some flowers.  His job is now to protect our yard and anyone in it and he does that quite well.  Even bald eagles take a sharp turn and glide away when he chases them from 50 feet below.

The best fences, however, have gates in them.  And that is the most important part of any fence.  It is where the hard wall stops and movement between two lives can happen. It is where control occurs.  It is where signals are sent and who we are inside show the world who we really are.  If we live with our gates open, we are strong enough to trust anyone who would enter our lives.  When we keep the gates closed, we say we are not.  An open gate is a statement of knowing we have enough to share, whether it is lettuce or love, berries or beauty, peonies or peace.  An open gate is a symbol of a confident bounty within.  There is plenty…even enough to share.

The hardest part to build in any fence is the gate.  From setting the posts in cement to making the right hinges and latch, it takes a lot longer to build a 4 foot wide gate than to put up 4 feet of wall.  It takes a lot more thought too.  After all, what is the purpose of the gate?  Here on our farm, we try to make them all about 4 feet wide so a wheelbarrow can go through without scraping our knuckles.  And put the bottom close enough to the ground that the ducks can’t scoot under.  But we also want to be able to see what is on the other side so we don’t open it into a flock of chickens sunning themselves in the dirt.

Our gate is a signal to the world of whom we really are inside.  Is it a welcoming gate?  Does it make an approaching visitor want to open it, confident that goodness lies inside?  Does it open easily with a light latch and easy swinging hinges?  Does the gate hint at the beauty behind it, of the special surprises waiting if you just press on the latch and push a bit?  Or is it like an accordion wire junkyard gate we saw in a big city which said, “Only trouble lives here.”?  Whether it is a gate to our property or a gate to our hearts, making sure it works for both us and those who approach it is the key.

Without a gate that opens however, we are isolated.  We’ve seen gates in old fences so rusted from lack of opening it takes a lot of forcing to swing them wide enough to enter the neglected garden within.  We’ve seen those same gates in the hearts of people.  It’s been the neglect of loving neighbors perhaps that has kept those gates closed.  Or possibly the pain of past heartbreaks which has left the latches unlifted.  We must remember though, that we should not fault the owners for the rust.  We all are doing the best we can and besides, sometimes it’s hard to find the oil and paint.

But whenever someone does pry open their gate a wee bit and whisper to the world that they are lonely or afraid or in pain, we must be ready to respond with the oil cans of love and tenderness and patience which can get those hinges moving again.  We’ve seen it done in our lives, in our families, and heard it in stories you bring to our produce stand.  It is always a beautiful story when it happens. Your stories make it all worth the waiting, worth the time we take with each of you as you select your lettuces and leeks and cookies and head out to pour more of your oil on the rusty hinges you encounter.  And by the way, a cookie can make a pretty good oil can at times like that.

In closing, we would like to pass along a poem by Charles Edwin Markham which your farmer memorized in the 9^th grade back in Saginaw, Michigan.  He memorized it not because he had to, but because it made sense.

“He built a wall that shut me out.

Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.

But love and I had the wit to win.

We drew a circle that took him in.”

So keep those oilcans handy, tell any barking dogs you see that you are their friend and come visit us our farm where the gates swing easy and the latches are light.

Happy Hoeing,

Jon and Elaine, The Open Gate farmers, Snickers the gate watching dog, Mystery the swinging cat, Harley and his gate blocking sunshine girls, and the Parson Dudley Brown and his flock of gate scooting ducks, all of whom live in peace at

The Open Gate Farm

269 Russell Road

Camano Island, WA 98282-8512

Email: jon@theopengatefarm.com

Blog:  www.theopengatefarm.blogspot.com

Website: www.theopengatefarm.com

Farm Store: http://www.shop.theopengatefarm.com

Facebook: The Open Gate Farm

The wonders of grafting...

Lettuce delivered via the Internet!

The Open Gate Farm

269 Russell Road

Camano Island, WA 98282

May 18, 2011

Grafted In At The Open Gate Farm

Dear Friends:

Art Linkletter on his TV show, “Kids Say The Darndest Things”, asked a young lad to explain how television worked.  “That’s easy” was the reply.  “Straws suck up what is in this room and squirt it out on your T.V. at home.”

Looks like that has happened to our lettuce now.  It’s been sucked up here and squirted out on this new fangled television called “The Internet”.  And you can see the result at our farm store at http://www.shop.theopengatefarm.com/.  And you can order some too!

But if you want to order by sending back an email to us, here’s the tip of the iceberg we have available this weekend…

School teachers are really smart.  We know because we have a friend who is one and he’s brilliant.  He suggested this week that we farmers need to figure out how to graft plants on to weeds.  Weeds grow so well if we just grafted plants on to them we should have bumper crops!

This is a great idea!  As you may recall, it is the rootstock which controls the vigor and size of the plant while the part grafted on determines what kind of plant it is and the quality of the fruit or vegetable.  Considering the wheelbarrows full of weeds we’ve been hauling down to our “landfill” by the fire circle, he may be on to something.

It is interesting to note that grafting vegetables is not a new thing.  Now the Maxifort tomato is on the scene.  This plant produces a fruit the size of a walnut which is pretty much inedible.  But it grows and grows and grows.  So some farmer with too much time on his hands grafted an Early Girl onto it and the rest is history.  Loads of fruit.  Loads and loads and loads.

Our recent WWOOFers had experience doing that very thing at their previous employer’s organic farm back in Massachusetts.  They said it does work, but the plants were pretty delicate and the actual production per square foot required did not produce that many more tomatoes.  One plant might produce the volume of two, but it takes up the space of two so you’re not that far ahead for all the time and expense of it.

Grafting is an amazing process.  That we can take a plant, slice off one of it’s branches and stick one in it’s place from a different variety and have that wound heal over and the new branch produce fruit is awesome.  You have to make sure the branches are the same size and that the interface between them is as even as a sheet of paper on a desktop.  That way the juices from the parent plant can flow up and be taken up by the new branch, that the same kinds of cells (especially the cambium) align so they can grow together and bond…but this is done all the time.

We see a lot of newcomers to our island at our stand.  They stand in line, mixed in with the old timers and we see this grafting process at work.  Interest in healthy food or happy flowers or gardening are discovered to be in alignment and before you know it they are sharing information and ideas and someone has become part of the growing, blossoming life here.  The new folks have become grafted in to their new home, the graft “takes” as we say, and some church gets a new member or a dentist a new patient or a beach a new visitor.

Sometimes we are the rootstock, the one grounded in this place with our roots sinking into the soil and bringing up the minerals needed for growth.  Sometimes we are the grafted branch, taking the water and minerals from our new friends and growing the leaves that capture sunlight and produce the carbohydrates and sugars the roots need to grow.  And sometimes we are the farmer, providing the care and place to make it all happen.  Look around you and you may be surprised to see these same patterns in your life.  When you do, you may find yourself with deeper roots as well as some beautiful new branches to enjoy.

Grafting is so effective that almost 100% of the apples, pears, peaches, and cherries we eat come from trees which have been grafted.  So the next time you bite into one, you can remember that somewhere a tree gathered what was needed from the soil where it was growing and shared it with a stranger, a branch from a different variety, and grew that fruit so you can be healthy and do the same.

Happy Hoeing,

Jon and Elaine, the grafted farmers, Snickers the scion dog, Mystery the adopted cat, Harley and his flock of blossoming chickens, and the Parson Dudley Brown and his flock of budding ducks, all of who live joyfully at

The Open Gate Farm

269 Russell Road,

Camano Island, WA 98282

360-387-4449

Email: jon@theopengatefarm.com

Blog:  www.theopengatefarm.blogspot.com/

Website: www.theopengatefarm.com

Facebook:  The Open Gate Farm

©2011 Internet Millennium Copywriter applies. May be reproduced without further permission if source is acknowledged.

Getting Ready For Bed

The Open Gate Farm

269 Russell Road

Camano Island, WA 98282

May 10, 2011

Bugged at The Open Gate Farm

Dear Friends:

This weekend the stand will again be open Thursday, Friday, and Saturday with lettuce and rhubarb and for your pesto…garlic!  Replace the basil with a garlic plant and be ready for some heady food.  In the nursery, we’ve loads of color…Baskets of Gold, Dahlias in bloom, hanging baskets with those awesome Supertunias which never need deadheading.  And don’t forget the ever charming deep yellow wall flowers!  With white bacopa tucked in around the base you can make a lovely pot of color for your deck or your neighbors.

Note cards are popular too!  We have a selection up on the web site store.  Go to www.theopengatefarm.com and click on the farm store button in the lower right side.  Note that with all the store items, you can specify pickup at the farm at 10 a.m. on Saturdays and avoid any shipping costs.  Items are being added as fast as photos get snapped!

But if you want to order by sending back an email to us, here’s the tip of the iceberg we have available this weekend…

The chickens want to know what’s going on.  They lined up the other morning, ready to head out of their house and get on with their hard jobs of eating bugs and slugs and grass and sunbathing and laying the very occasional egg, when they paused and asked, “What’s with these small eagles swooping down and around the yard?  At least,” they said, “that is what the ducks are calling them”.

When we explained it was the violet purple swallows which have finally returned, eating the bugs out of reach of the chickens and ducks, the chickens chortled and turning to their cracked corn said, “Just wait ‘til we tell those ducks!  Hah!  Those know it alls!”

Seems the ducks had told the chickens those were eagles.  They wanted to scare the chickens away from the yard to leave more bugs for them since their mud puddles are drying up.  And while the straw litter in the raspberries has punch holes left by their beaks, there still may be a few hiding in there too.  The ducks take their responsibilities seriously around here.  But there will be bugs enough for all.  They needn’t have worried.

By the way, we’re putting the finishing touches on the packaging for small bottles of a bug repellant which works well here.  A couple drops of pennyroyal in some unscented hand lotion and you can go play in the yard all day long.  Soon as it’s finished, we’ll get it up on the web site farm store and have it in the stand so you can see if it works at your place too before sinking your savings in the jugs of ingredients.

But in the evening, when the insects are hurrying to get all the biting in before darkness sends their targets behind screens, it can still be a sweet time.  Last evening as the light was fading, we saw all 8 of the ducklings gathered around their little pool, leaning over the edge and sipping water.  They had brushed their teeth and were almost ready for bedtime stories.

Mother Margaret was standing in the background, making sure every one of them had brushed their teeth properly.  We heard their father, The Parson Dudley Brown, remind them they only needed to floss the teeth they wanted to keep.  We heard Scooter chuckle and whisper to the other older ones who were all sitting around watching the action that “heh, heh.  We don’t have teeth.”  But she did not spoil the joke on the kids.

Then trotting into their house like a tired football team at half time, they peeped at Margaret about what book to read to them before lights out and we slid their door closed and said our good nights.  The older folks finally called it a night too and joined the already sleeping chickens.  We shut them in and heard their prayers as well.  A sweet evening had come to a close.

It’s sweet here for them because it’s safe.  Behind four foot fences and behind latched and locked doors, inside a good, tight house with chicken wire skirted out a good foot all around to discourage digging, our poultry know they can sleep securely.  We shut them in because while that helps egg production, it is also the right thing to do.  When we take on the care of another life, we have to do what is right.

That’s what makes relationships so powerful.  It may be in a marriage and the couple has to do what is right…him to provide a place for her to flourish and she to provide the support that keeps him whole.  It may be a child…giving unconditional love over and over and over and learning not to judge but to celebrate their encounters with life.  It may be a chicken or a duck who needs clean water, healthy food, and safe shelter from the dangers of life.  Those are the right things to do.  And while not always easy, they are necessary if we are to be whole ourselves.  We must do what is right in our relationships  if we are to sleep well.

We don’t have to look far to see folks doing this.  We saw it yesterday in the bittersweet email from a charming couple who were planning to be here late in the summer as WWOOFers.  They were coming from a far away country but just discovered, after quitting their jobs, selling their houses, buying their tickets and starting to pack that she is now pregnant.

So…as he said, they must now find jobs, a flat to live in, and get ready for a sudden turn around a blind corner they had not seen on their map for their lives.  Traveling through America and learning how we farm organically and seeing the sights over here will have to wait.  Maybe a long time.  But as any of us know who have had them, the adventure of children will send them on more trips than they ever dreamed.  But their postponing this international adventure probably is the right thing to do.  And so we celebrate with them as they do what they feel is the right thing.

But the chickens suggested we send these good people some bug repellant in case they don’t have ducks and chickens to eat their bugs. “It would be the right thing to do”, they said.

Happy Hoeing,

Jon and Elaine, the bugged swatting farmers, Snickers the bug biting dog, Mystery the bug watching cat, Harley and his flock of bug snacking chickens, and the Parson Dudley Brown and his flock of bug gobbling ducks, all of who live joyfully at

The Open Gate Farm

269 Russell Road,

Camano Island, WA 98282-8512

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Happy Campers!

The Open Gate Farm

269 Russell Road

Camano Island, WA 98282

May 4, 2011

Breaking News from The Open Gate Farm

Dear Friends:

Well, the breaking farm news this week comes from the good man, the Parson Dudley Brown.  He is busy trying to order cigars over the Internet to hand out to friends and family to celebrate the hatching of 8 more offspring.  And spring is a good descriptor.  These little balls of soft duck fuzz bounce around and hop all over their yard like windup toys.  Pictures are taken and movies made and they are up on our Facebook page.  They’ll be at the web site soon too!

This is also the week we open the produce stand on Thursday for the summer!  Same hours as last year…Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays from 9 to 5.  See you in church on Sundays and we’ll be running errands and farming the other days.

Prices, however, will not be the same.  Cinnamon rolls, the big ones, will be going to $3.50, specialty lettuce $2.50 / head, tasty rhubarb $2.50 / pound, and so forth.  Cookies, those sweet Frisbees sized treats will still be the same, $1.00 each.  This is the first price change in 6 years, so it’s probably time.  Hopefully, by the time you get this, we will have our produce up in our web page store and you can order on line for Saturday pickup here at the farm!

Or you can send us back this email and let us know what you’d like from the list below…

Part of preparing for the season has been to get our labor situation sorted out.  It now looks like we’ll have WWOOFers here most of the summer.  Whew!  Our neighbor, David, has been very kind and loaned us his hunting trailer for the season.  It’s tucked under the big fir by the rhubarb and looks as natural as a police car outside a doughnut shop.  Next WWOOFers in are a couple from Massachusetts for just 4 or 5 days next week.  They have deep organic farming experience and we’ll probably learn more from them than they will from us!  After that, two Chinese girls doing graduate work at the University of Chicago.

It’s this spirit of loaning things that helps make living in the country livable.  David has a trailer and lets us use it.  We have a tractor and brush hog and they keep his field tidy.  John sharpens our chainsaw chain and we give him some left over plastic for his greenhouse.  Mike needs his chickens watched for a couple Saturday nights when he goes to visit his brother and he’ll look under the hood of the pickup if need be.  It is all back and forth over the course of the year and no one bothers keeping books and it’s not barter but more recognizing that we’re all in this together.  When the snow is deep we’re all stuck, but at least we’re stuck together.

Funny how when folks migrate to the city that spirit of neighborliness drops off like a dirty shirt at the end of a hard day.  When someone protests and says they have a great block party every 4^th of July, that is so unusual it always gets written up in the newspapers and admired city wide as something everyone should do. Get to know your neighbors and crime drops.

It’s so neighborly out here that today we got an email from a friend reporting some young men this afternoon were taking pictures of garages with doors open, scoping out a neighborhood it seems.  That email was forwarded around the island so fast those lads probably went home with lots of unused film in their camera still.  Doors were dropping like rain in Seattle.  See, here in the country, the Internet is faster than a speeding Camry.  White, by the way.  Write if you want the license number.  The sheriff already has it.

Anyhow, we can talk about how we all see our neighborhoods as a community tool chest but the trick to unlocking it is that first step out of your house to go see who lives way over there at the next place.  We have found it not that hard to do.  Not because we’re such cheerful outgoing types, but because we have long known the power of the cookie.  Spend a happy Saturday morning (rainy, preferably) in the kitchen making up a couple dozen of your favorites, load some on a paper plate left from that last block party in the city, and trot on over next door.

All you have to say if you find someone home is “Hi!  My name’s Chucklehead, your new neighbor who bought that house over there and we thought we’d drop these off to see if you like them.”  Odds are they will.  Especially if they have nuts and chocolate in them.  Then chat about the weather, what height they think best for grass to be cut in the area, does it rain a lot here, how long have you lived here and maybe even why did you move here, then say a nice goodbye and head home.

If you do it right, there will be some warm cookies and glass of cold milk waiting for you.  And a cigar from the Parson, if his order comes through.  Life in the country has its little rewards.

So do come by the stand this weekend while on the Mother’s Day Art Tour.  We’re right on the route.  And you might find a cookie to take home to your milk.

Happy Hoeing,

Jon and Elaine, the cookie happy farmers, Snickers, the cookie search dog, Mystery the cookie colored cat, Harley and his flock of cookie crunching girls, and the Parson Dudley Brown and his flock of very proud mother ducks all of whom live joyfully at

The Open Gate Farm

269 Russell Road,

Camano Island, WA 98282

360-387-4449

Email: jon@theopengatefarm.com

Blog:  www.theopengatefarm.blogspot.com/

Website: www.theopengatefarm.com

©2011 Internet Millennium Copywriter applies. May be reproduced without further permission if source is acknowledged.  As always, if you no longer wish to receive these periodic notices from The Open Gate Farm, let us know and we will remove your name from our email list.  And if someone sent this on to you and you want to add your name, let us know that too!