Hello, January! The Latest News from Farm & Larder and Bella Luna Farms
Happy New Year! As 2019 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 five years now! We couldn’t do it without you and truly appreciate your enthusiastic feedback and support. To our new 2019 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. The year has so far graced us with milder weather, affording us with more opportunities to work in some of the 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, trying to get other garden chores like pruning the apple and pear trees finished before the daylight wanes. But, when it does set, 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, floral arranging and cooking classes for the spring and summer, and for pouring through seed and plant catalogs looking for new flower and vegetable varieties to order for the upcoming growing season.
In the kitchen, we are busy looking through cookbooks new and old for inspiration for seasonal winter fare to share. From hearty soups and rich pasta sauces to luscious risottos and more, we always love making the best of what the Northwest has to offer during the winter months.
Our gardening company, Parterre, is busy each day in our clients’ gardens as well, with wintertime tasks such as pruning, mulching and planning new designs for spring. The snowdrops and narcissus that we planted in the fall are beginning to peek their heads out of the soil, and the hellebore and witch hazel are also beginning to bloom, adding cheer to the otherwise grey winter palette.
We hope your New Year is off to a terrific start—here’s to good growing and great eating in 2019!