Hello, January! The Latest News from Farm & Larder and Bella Luna Farms

Happy New Year! As 2018 gets underway, we would first like to convey our heartfelt thanks: We have been delivering our weekly boxes filled with fresh, seasonal fare and housemade provisions for four years now! We couldn’t do it without you and truly appreciate your enthusiastic feedback and support. To our new 2018 subscribers, welcome! We cannot wait to share the best of the farm with you in the year ahead.

As we wind down from the busy holiday season, now is a time of planning here at the farm. After our Christmas snowfall, the year has so far graced us with beautiful clear and cold weather, the dry spell affording us with more opportunities to work in some of the new growing areas now heavily mulched for winter with composted straw and hay from the barns. It seems as if we are always racing against the setting sun on these short winter days, also trying to get other garden chores like pruning the apple and pear trees finished before the daylight wanes. But, when it does, we head inside to the barns, where our resident farm animals are staying warm and toasty, snuggled up in extra straw to weather the cold nights.

January is also the month for slating out upcoming cheesemaking, gardening and cooking classes for the spring, and for pouring through seed and plant catalogs looking for new vegetable varieties to order for this summer. But, the kitchen is where most of the action is these days as we test new recipes and perfect old favorites—like our signature risotto or rich, flavorful pasta sauces—to share in the year to come.

We hope your New Year is off to a terrific start—here’s to good growing and great eating in 2018!