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:

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:

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:

Life should have spice in it they say.  So if your life is a little flat lately, come try one of these Chinese Rose Radishes.  It will clean out your tongue clear to your tonsils.  We probably should sell them with warning labels on them, but now you’ve been told.  When you are able to talk again, let us know how they were!

And the lettuce drought is over!  We have more of the magic Merlot, the ruffled Bergam’s Green, and now…Red Flame.  Flame is a leaf lettuce with green and rose and red and gentle colors from stem to tip.  And don’t forget, the buttercrunch lettuces are high in Vitamin K, essential for health!

So circle your salad fixings below and come on by this Thursday, Friday, and Saturday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.!

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Dear Friends of the Farm:

One of the hardest things as a truck farmer is to know how much of what to plant when.  We can know from experience within a couple weeks how long it takes for something to grow, though lettuce planted in February takes a month longer to reach maturity than lettuce planted in July.  How much to plant is always a question because we never know how a change in our signs or our marketing will impact the flow of carrots over the counter.  And what you folks are looking for is always a wonder too.  Last year we couldn’t give away the lovely green leafed Bergam’s lettuce.  This year we can’t keep up with your appetite for it.  Last year the speckled lettuces sold like hot cakes at a church fund raiser.  This year they sit looking for a home.  All of this is to say we may be short on a few things while the next crop puts on weight until the scales tip it toward the stand.  But they will once again!  All it takes is patience.

So click “more” to see what we’ll have for you this Thursday, Friday, and Saturday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.!

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Dear Friends of the Farm:

Careful marketing studies here (a.k.a. chatting with a couple customers) have confirmed we try a change in the format of these newsletters.  We are going to put a simple shopping list at the beginning, noting what is new on the stand for the weekend, and then share the goings on toward the end of the newsletter.  Turns out the farmers are the only ones who actually know all the great products available at the farm stand, Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays from 9 to 6!  And who knows, between now and then, something else may show up, ready for your shopping pleasure!

Available at The Open Gate Farm Stand this weekend… (more…)

Dear Friends of the Farm:

This has been a roller coaster week at The Open Gate Farm.  Not only have we ranged from uncommonly heavy rainfall to days of bright sunlight, we have also swung from the valley of death to the celebration of new life.

Our dear, classic rooster, Jerry, developed gangrene in one of his toes and so has now gone on to the big corn field in the sky.  He will be well rewarded there for he was much loved here.  He was probably the best rooster we’ve ever had, gracious to the ladies, gorgeous without vanity, and a crow with all the deep tones a rooster crow should have. We were so sad to have to say goodbye to our friend.  But he had lost the ability to walk, limp, or even hobble from food to water and back again so it was time.

And then we lifted up Margaret the Muscovy Duck who has been setting on a clutch of duck eggs and discovered a little black quacker under her looking back at us! We quickly lowered her into place and have not disturbed her since except to sterilize her little swimming pool and top off her food bowl with cracked corn and oyster shells (for her gizzard) and load up a bowl with duck baby food.   Then we peeked again and saw the little fellow…black bill, black down on top and yellow on the bottom, just like he’d been swimming in a pool of yellow pollen. (more…)