The Open Gate Farm On Camano Island, Washington

Dear Friends:

Well that was fun!  By golly another New Year’s Eve was survived and we’re still on speaking terms with the chickens and ducks.  When you are out late carousing, it’s hard to drag yourself down to the pen to close the door and gate and lock them in safely for the night.  But we did and they relaxed.

Note:  The bakery is still available, if you are yearning for any breads or…gasp…cinnamon rolls!  One family took some of those rolls for breakfast to welcome in the new year.  Great idea!  Fight sugar with sugar, we say.  Order here and email it back…

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Dear Friends of the Farm:

Gosh we wish we’d planted more lettuce as summer was slowing down!  We could sure use it now, with the response to our “box” program!  It’s growing faster than the produce.  In fact, the beets have said they want to take a couple weeks off to see if they can put on more weight, the carrots have just about given their all and the dinosaur kale has gone into hibernation.  The leeks finally decided to join the produce parade and are a great addition to soups or sliced on salads.   At least the bakery can chug on through the winter months!  So here’s what we have available this week:

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Dear Friends of the Farm:

Thank you for the pause!  Refreshed and ready are words too weak to describe what it did for us!  More on that below.

This week, the boxes will be back and ready for your orders.  Again we have gone to the garden and discovered the items listed below.  All you have to do is send this email (or another one) back to us noting on it how much of what you would like and we’ll have it fresh and ready for you on Saturday morning by 10:00 a.m. in a bag or box with your name on it up inside the stand.  The green tackle box will be out there for your money.  We may be around or we may be down the island cutting some firewood.  Winter’s coming!

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Dear Friends of the Farm:

Boxes are popular around here!  Especially those in the produce stand on Saturday mornings around 10:00 a.m. with your names on them!  Thank you all for your great response to this new program.  We’re having fun with it and hope you are too.

But for one week we are going to hit the pause button.  Not because we’re sold out, but because we’re going out.  Your friendly farmer is going to run up to Seward, Alaska to visit a dear buddy and Mrs. Farmer has some visiting to do closer to home.  We’ll be back next week though, and if the weather continues like this, we’ll have beets and kale on the list again along with the large heads of lettuce you love!  So nurse the goodies you got last week for a bit longer and we’ll be ready for orders again next week.  We thank you for your patience.

When you have ducks, you do have to be careful what you say.  They have their own way of putting what they hear into practice.  Take the kale for instance.

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Dear Friends of the Farm:

Two more weekends and our season will be over.  Officially.  October 23 will be the last day! L  Of course if you have a hankering for a head of lettuce give us a holler and we’ll have one for you long as the lettuce lasts.  Or any of the other tasty tidbits growing out in the gardens.  360-387-4449 is the magic number.  Operators are standing by.  If a duck answers, don’t worry, they’ll get us the message.  The cat on the other hand…

The rain washed out the plant sale last Saturday, so we’re going to have it again this weekend.  “Name Your Price” on all the stock up there in the nursery!  Jacinto Caamaño would be proud of us…hanging in there until we’ve cleared the decks.  And this weekend, it will be all three days!  Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.  And when you come by for your plants, bring that shopping list for these healthy goodies:

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Dear Friends of the Farm:

There is plenty, here at The Open Gate Farm.  Look at this list!  Notice the variety, and come fill your larder (you do have one, don’t you?) or at least your crisper in the fridge.  And by the way, Christmas is just around the corner and if you want to get a jump on the season, pick up a couple handfuls of the note cards.  They make great gifts and you’ll have a fun Thanksgiving teasing everyone about how you’ve done all your shopping already and stayed well under budget!  You have until October 23^rd to do this.  That will be our last day of having the stand open this season!

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Dear Friends of the Farm:

The storm has passed.

The floods of folks with eager eyes and quick questions have left and we’re back to being our regular small farm again.  But thanks to each of you who did come by and celebrate Harvest Jubilee last weekend.  At times we felt like a swarm of friendly, laughing locusts had descended on the stand and we were being cleaned out!

But a careful survey of the fields has shown we still have plenty for sale.  Here’s what we found!

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Dear Friends of the Farm:

Harvest Jubilee is hard upon us!  This local festival of farms is this Saturday, September 25^th and will give all you families a chance to show your kids where their food comes from.  They will be surprised.  Lettuce does not come from the grocery store.  Really!  It comes out of the ground and has roots and everything!  We can show them!

There will be 18 Harvest Jubilee farms around us open for tours and great times.  We’ll have plenty of maps to point you to your next stop.

And while you get a map here, you can see all of this too…

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Dear Friends of the Farm:

A lot of you folks voted this last weekend.  And we thank you for your vote!  You voted for us with your feet and voted the straight local ticket.  Lines formed at our stand and we moved more lettuce and beets and radishes and leeks over the counter than ever before.  Not to mention all the tasty breads and cookies!  Thank you all for your votes of confidence!  We will do our best to exceed your expectations again this weekend.

And here is what you can expect this weekend!  Look especially for that gorgeous Mareveille des Quatre Saison (Marvel of the Four Seasons) lettuce.  It is a red tipped buttercrisp with glowing yellow tinged interiors.  It was introduced from France back in 1880 and has long been a favorite! A new bread…cheese / olive boats look like Italian gondolas floating down the canals of Venice.  And more!

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Dear Friends of the Farm:

Opening as we do this year at 9 a.m. has taken a lot of pressure off.  Or it did until the sun came out.  On these brilliant blue days filled with blazing sunshine, we hustle out to the gardens as early as we can sneak away from rising breads and cinnamon rolls.  We run to madly harvest produce for the stand and prepare plants for the nursery while they are cool and not melting in the heat.  We work feverishly, nervously waiting for the tomato timer in our pocket to ring to tell us it’s time to get back in and pay attention to the oven.  It’s a rush. We’re getting the hang of it, so here’s what 9 in the morning should have for you this weekend.  If not 9, then 10 for certain!  What’s new is in blue.

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