November 17, 2024
Greetings on this sunny November day!
We’ve had a stellar year, with Camelot-like growing conditions - bright sunny days and enough rain that plantings flourished but never bogged down. I’ll write more on that, but first, I need to make the following announcement:
WE WILL PAUSE INTERNET ORDERS DECEMBER 3, 2024 - JANUARY 3, 2025.
Over the past 4 years, we’ve had increasing anxiety mailing through the USPS during the holiday season. Packages have been delayed and gone astray. Since everything is handmade, replacing these orders isn’t always possible and I hate to disappoint people. My little old nerves just can’t take it…..
We will ship through December 15 (if you want your package to arrive closer to Christmas) but I don’t dare wait any longer than that. When you place your order, just let me know your preference. (Right now I’m mailing about a week after getting an order.)
We’re still putting up preserves nearly every day, trying not to run out, but everything is limited.
And now, a little look back at 2024…
We started in the greenhouse in April, my favorite place to spend the spring, and seedlings flourished. I do think that my greenhouse work is my favorite. My greenhouse is big enough to grow everything we need to plant here, but small enough that the work never feels overwhelming. We use a local organic soil from Vermont, and the texture and aroma combine with the bright sunlight and misty atmosphere to bring me to a state of bliss.
Planting went smoothly - I had some extra plants and sold them at Tiny Farmstand under our farmers’ market tent. We had extra tomatoes and I think we wound up planting nearly 200. Their yield was tremendous and I think it was the best tomato year of my life. In fact, I still have some on the porch for sandwiches - and they started around July 4!
Salad greens and strawberries came in June, and it’s wonderful to have strawberries back after last year’s fatal freeze in May. We don’t have many though; it’s a small planting and we’re nearly out. Kale and calendulas and bachelor buttons are other early delights.
July brought lots of red currants, raspberries, and more blackberries than I’ve ever seen! We picked a small amount of black currants too, and the first blueberries, peppers and tomatoes. We had a much smaller garlic planting this year, but we still harvested a lot of great big beautiful bulbs, and lots of basils for vinegar. (We grow 6 kinds - Genovese, Purple Ruffles, Lemon, Piccolo, Tulsi and Thai.). We harvested and dried lots of lavender for Lavender Sugar, and Greek oregano - an essential element of our Tomatoes Rustica.
August was as busy and beautiful as July. We picked blackberries every day, and more blueberries and lots of flowers for beautiful bouquets. We grow many kinds of zinnias - they’re just so jolly - and sunflowers, amaranth, ageratum, celosia, nasturtiums, salvias, scabiosa, cosmos - all shapes and sizes. And we like mixing in herbs like Thai basil and lemon basil as aromatic fillers. We also discovered that folks like to make up their own bouquets, so we let them take as many as they like in their favorite colors, and pay whatever they feel is a fair price.
Peaches were back this year and everybody is so happy! We’d been out for more than a year because of past freezes and droughts - and yields were better than expected because our 4-year old trees bore fruit alongside our 20-year old trees. The autumn Caroline raspberries began in mid August, and kept on coming into November - another record-breaker and we are so grateful!
September brought the wild grapes, and more berries, peppers, and tomatoes, and lots of preserving. (We needed to buy another freezer!)
All along we made pies and Mooncakes nearly every day, and tried to keep up with preserves and pops. We both really love making pies! Ralph rolls out the bottom crusts and I make the tops - we both enjoy the work - the satisfaction of rolling - and the house always smells so good when the berries and butter are baking! And just about every day, someone new tells me “that’s the best pie I’ve ever had” or “that’s the best crust ever!” or “I’ve never had a pie that tasted so good!”
Dearest Abbey the Joyful turned 12 in October. She had a great summer, following her beloved friends Elisha and Lara all through the gardens. She has slowed down and doesn’t run up to the Farmstand every time someone comes, but she’ll bark from the house, and will wiggle her way up there once or twice a day. Someone came from Connecticut one day because they’d heard that we have the best pies, then asked Ralph, “and is there a big fluffy white dog we can pet too?”
Really, the whole season is kind of a blur, but a really good blur that makes my heart sing! Life is good and we are so grateful!
Sending love and light,
Patti and Ralph and Abbey
P.S. I almost forgot! We have not been able to make mustard because we haven’t been able to get organic mustard seed from Canada! We have a lead so maybe next year, but for now, we have no mustard. For this reason, we also don’t have our “Gift Samplers” since most of them included mustards. I’ll redesign the Sampler page - but not today.
Tiny Farmstand