February 2024 Newsletter
Cardamom Bread - available at the Nordic Winter Market
It’s almost Farm Stand Season!
It’s almost time for the farm stand to reopen, and we are busily preparing for opening. Here’s what’s going on at the farm.
Finnish things
The urgent news comes first, that is, where to get your baked goods. This Saturday, February 17th at Suomi Hall in Astoria, is the Nordic Winter Market. Starting at 10:00 am, we will be there with cardamom bread, scones, and cookies. It goes until 3:00, but it’s fairly likely that things will be sold out if you show up that late. On the topic of the bakery, we are still looking for an assistant baker. The full description can be found here.
The Farm Stand
Starting March 1st, our hours will be Friday through Tuesday, 10:00 am - 5:00 pm.
We got a new tent!
It might not seem like newsletter worthy news, but for those of you who have visited us before, you might understand why it is. Our old tent was cold and a bit leaky in heavy rain. This tent nearly doubles our out of the weather space and it has walls! This should be much, much better, and quite a bit warmer. We are hoping it will do quite a bit to alleviate our wintery weather woes that seem to occur anytime we have a large gathering of people at the farm. We invite you to our “Come see the big new tent” opening on March 9th. We will be open on March 1st, but due to some people being gone, baked goods will be at a minimum.
The pansies and primroses are looking great and will be accompanied by cool season vegetable starts, fruit trees, berries, and perennial shrubs.
Build your own hanging basket!
Speaking of large gatherings of people, we do have a few spots left for Build Your Own Hanging Basket! This is a fantastic opportunity to put together a hanging basket (or a couple) that meet your unique artistic vision. We provide the plants, the baskets, the soil, and any advice you might want. If you would like, we can grow your basket in our greenhouses until early May, or you can take it home with you that day.
SNAP
All of those plants and baskets need potting soil… Lots of potting soil.
We can take SNAP payments! SNAP can be used for our baked goods, jams, pickles, and Vegetable and Herb Starts! We also take Farm Direct Dollars (FDNP), but those are only good for produce, which we still won’t have for a couple of months.
CSA
If you had a CSA last year and want one for this year, please look for an email from us explaining how and where to pay. If you are not interested, please drop us a line and let us know, as it lets us open up spots to other people. We are in the process of updating our email system to get our emails into your inbox, but you might want to check your spam folder, just in case. If you didn’t have a CSA last year and would like to be on our wait list, click here and let us know about your interest.
No sharpie for size comparison, but those are the same petunias from the last newsletter. For scale, that pot is 12” across.
Build your garden starter pack
There are still a few more days to order a garden starter pack. If you do choose to get one, or if you have one already, the first pickup is coming up on March 9th. The veggie starts are looking wonderful and we are excited to get you started on your gardens!
Calves
Calving season is coming up soon. Our baby Scottish Highland Cows are absolutely adorable and we will post pictures as soon as they start being born.
What else is happening?
Blackberry Bog Farm
The first batch of hanging baskets got planted! This year we made around 700 baskets in the first batch. Perennial plugs of Coral Bells, Clematis, and Peonies have also been potted up, and the first batch of herbs is well on its way to being ready to go. The greenhouse is quickly filling up.
Brownsmead Bog Farm
Brownsmead is being prepped for the new year of vegetables. Soil tests are being conducted, amendments are being added, and the fields from last year are being tilled and cleaned up for another year of production.
Other projects include putting together a new (to us at least) walk in cooler to store all of the vegetables we will be growing.
Blackberry Bog Bakery
In case you missed it above, the bakery will be at Suomi Hall on Saturday, February 17th, from 10:00 am - 3:00 pm. There will be cardamom bread, scones, and cookies. There will be a few other bakeries as well as handcrafted Nordic crafts and other goods.
Ashley has been hard at work organizing the bakery and making plans for the upcoming year.
What’s Next?
Tea in the Tent
Our hope is to offer a small afternoon tea service inside our new tent on weekends in the later part of March. We will keep you posted on how that process is going.
Farm to Table Dinners
We are almost ready to release the 2024 Farm to Table Dinner Schedule and Tickets. Stay tuned for more updates.
Pigs
We should be getting pigs in the next three weeks or so. This batch will be a Duroc, Berkshire, Kune Kune Mix. More information and share availability will be posted in the coming weeks.