Beauty is a full greenhouse, satisfaction and fulfillment are having almost every square inch growing something edible!

Planting Time

Two varieties of potatoes are in the ground, Russian banana fingerling and the Makah Ozette fingerling. Two down, two to go! Go, go, go!

The first hatchling

Hi there!

This duckling was the first to make it out of the incubator this year. So sweet...

Daylight savings already? For us it marks the coming or possibly even the presence of spring! The greenhouse is packed pretty full of starts like tomatoes (we're growing at least 6 different varieties this year), broccoli, swiss chard, onions, celery, cauliflower, cabbage, and a few others. The peas and salad mix in the ground inside the greenhouse must be at least 3 inches tall; the salad mix looks almost ready to eat, yum!

We have begun offering a CSA this year which is quite exciting for us; we decided after a successful year at the market and food bank last year, we are ready for a few CSA shares this year. If you'd like more info. just email Jon at jongergen@msn.com and we'll get you a brochure.

The large blacks (formerly known as Jack and Lily), Frank and Lucy are so big and healthy, here's a pic of Frank's big snout. We hope Lucy will have her first litter early this summer and will be offering piglets for sale.

Helga and Olga, the scottish highlanders, had their first calves last august, and are due again mid-summer. The calves were both bulls and we hope to offer our lean pasture raised beef about a year or so from now.

It's an amazing process to really get to know your food and it does seem the better you know your food the more it affects the choices you make in all aspects of life. I find that as I watch the amount of energy that goes into an animal, the raising, the growth, the feeding, the loving, the killing and processing, the more conscientous I am about how much of that meat I eat.

Our Newest Arrivals

We made it! 14 hours in the car with a 4 year old and a 2 year old and we made it home with two new friends of the farm. They are Lily & Jack, the Large Black Hogs that will be the beginning of our herd. Lily & Jack are 8 weeks old and came from the Dalan farm in Walla Walla, WA. Jon is working speedily to finish their home out back while they wait patiently in the comfort of the barn.
As promised the turkey poults are arriving daily, they sure are a noisy bunch. One can always tell if something is not quite right as the loud peep,peep,peep,peep,peep,peep seems to go on and on! Overall they are doing great, and the incubator continues to fill.
Out in the gardens it's raining, daily, which makes it hard to prepare the ground. We are anxious to get the potatoes in and just waiting for the moment when it's dry enough to till once more before planting. The greenhouse is giving us lots of fresh greens and the red head lettuce should be ready in about 4 weeks. Other areas of spinach, red & green lettuce and mixed salad greens should also be ready to pick in 4 weeks!
When we make those first harvests we'll be on our way to the Birch Bay Farmer's Market, thursday evenings from 4-7pm, so come see what Birch Bay has to offer!

Spring is here!

We feel it, do you? Salad greens are on the way (we've harvested small batches already over the last 4 weeks) and potatoes are going in the ground! Most of the early spring seeds have been planted, now we wait...for the weeds first of course! We expect to be harvesting larger quantities of spinach and salad greens by April 15th, so be sure to stop by on Saturday the 17th to get some. Jon and I are also excited to offer broiler chickens this year. We'll raise 100 in the first round and are taking orders now, send us an email and we'll get you an order form. The broilers will be pastured, organic and the breed will be "Red Broilers" or "K-22" which is similar to the no longer available "Freedom Ranger". The expected average weight will be approximately 4.5 lbs dressed out and we're offering them for $4.00/lb. That's much less than the competition! The turkeys are doing well, they've been laying eggs for about 28 days now as the first poult is due to hatch out tomorrow around 4pm. Honestly these birds aren't usually very timely, but we can hope, can't we? The incubator is full of eggs and we hope your tables will be full of turkeys this November, turkeys raised right here at Jordan Creek Farm. The average dress out weight should be a bit bigger as this flock will be slightly older than last year's. Those turkeys sure can be tricky, we've had relations with a neighbor who has tried his darnedest to obtain an equal number of hens and toms for a nice breeding stock, unfortunately he just keeps ending up with hens. Last week we traded him once more for what he thought was a hen, Jon said "Now you're sure, cause they can fool ya', you're sure the one you have is a hen?" "Yeah, I'm sure, this is the one." He replied. Yet, this morning Jon came in the house with three eggs from the hen that was supposed to be the tom that he DID NOT take. Well, maybe turkeys just aren't for him. They do seem to be causing him a lot of trouble.
Other news around here...we're three months into the Food to Bank On program and almost finished with a startling business plan for the farm, we'll be ready to deliver produce to the Ferndale food bank come June 1st.
It doesn't end at the food bank though, we're making our way to the Dalan Farm in Walla Walla, WA on the 27th to pick up some Large Black Hogs, a breeding pair to be specific, only 4 weeks old. We'll pack the whole family in the truck and head on down, this was the road trip we missed in January because our septic tank failed, but that's another story! Happy Gardening

Available as of 01/02/10

Eggs - $4.00 Doz
Carrots - $1.00 lb
Parsnips - $3.00 lb
Potatoes - $1.00 lb
Leeks - $3.00 lb

Try roasting carrots, parsnips, potatoes and leeks together in olive oil for a yummy dinner time vegetable.
Or peel and slice up parsnips in a saute pan and fry in olive oil for about 30 minutes. You can't cook them too long. They are excellent. Nothing elese like them.