February 19, 2024

Greetings from New Hampshire, where it’s been a mild winter so far, but with enough snow to protect the fruit crops and give Abbey plenty of places to roll, shake, and make snow angels.

It’s in the mid 20’s now and she’s outside soaking in the sunlight under the cherry tree where the bird feeders hang and she can protect the seeds from marauding squirrels. The birds are all around her singing merrily. I wonder if she loves hearing their songs as much as we do.

It’s a down time on the farm, but we’ve been busy in the kitchen. We spent most of January putting up preserves and enjoying all the steam created as the berries cook down. We’ve now replenished our stocks of all our preserves - even Black Currant after a scarce harvest.

We’ve also made lots of Elderberry Syrup. Many, many folks have told us how much this helps them fight colds and viruses, and how much their families enjoy the flavor. We’ve been growing elderberries for nearly twenty years now and we had a really good year (they love wet conditions). Whereas lots of Elderberry Syrups are made with dried, imported berries, we make ours with our own berries, picked at their peak and immediately frozen - and our syrup is generously packed with fresh berry goodness and flavor that dried berries can’t match. I’m enjoying some in my tea right now as I write!

While I’ve been busy with bookkeeping and tax work, Ralph has been busy doing a deep cleaning of the kitchen (as we do every winter) AND painting the ceiling and walls. He changed the lighting too, and everything is as bright as new! The final coat is still drying but we’re nearly ready to put everything back in place and start cooking again!

The website is back up and we’re happy to take orders. Available preserves are Raspberry, Blackberry, Black Currant, Triple Berry, Seedless Raspberry and Red Currant, Seedless Blackberry, and Red Pepper. We also have plenty of Tomatoes Rustica - our tomato pesto.

For vinegars we have Raspberry, Blackberry, and Blenda d’Italia, and Lemon Italia.

Mustards are another story…Long time friends may remember that we’ve had a hard time sourcing organic yellow mustard seed from North America due to climate changes in California and Canada . (We’ve experimented and found that seeds from India and China simply don’t have the sharp flavor that we love and yield a milder mustard.) Rather than compromise quality, we’ve decided to no longer make mustard until we can get it from North America once again.

The last two mustards we were able to make are Lavender and Tarragon. (We’re really sorry not to have Garlic and Dill as they were really popular and enthusiastically enjoyed - garlic especially - we’ve been making it since 1995!)

Tiny Farmstand is closed until spring when it will be easier to keep it heated - hopefully in about a month. Until that time, local folks are welcome to message me by email (patti@cheshiregarden.com) or text (603-439-7374) and I can put anything you’d like up at the stand and you can pick it up there at a convenient time. I’ve done this about a dozen times since we closed December 31 and it’s worked out well.

I’m also happy to make pies for folks this time of year. We had a wonderfully busy autumn and holiday season and busily baked lots of 5” berry pies and dark chocolate cakes filled with raspberries and cream. During this quiet time I have more time to bake full size 9” pies and I enjoy making people happy with them.

A great winter joy is seed ordering and I’ve already ordered five times (yikes!) - lots of flowers and herbs and tomatoes and peppers. We made so many beautiful bouquets last year - and I get through the dark days by revisiting the photos of the long garden beds and dazzling arrangements.

Garlic is sleeping under a bed of mulch, but the kale and parsley are actually still good enough to pick for soups and stews! Strawberries are also comfortably covered by straw, and all the raspberries, blackberries, currants, and peaches look happy that they haven’t seen temperatures lower than about 5 degrees F.

I’m optimistic about 2024. The rains of 2023 gave rise to lots of foliar growth which bodes well for fruiting this year. We had put down more good compost, and fed the foliage with a seaweed spray, so the plants had lots of good nutrition as well as water. We shall see…

Coming up, there’s pruning to be done and canes to remove. We’ll move and replant more elderberries, and remove one variety of red currant which is petering out. We may move a volunteer row of our favorite summer raspberries - Taylors - but I’m not sure where I’ll put them!

I’m aching to start seeds but I know better than to start anything for at least another month. (Ha! I did start some perennial lupines in the greenhouse - but they’re another story…)

My tea with elderberry is done and Ralph has roused Abbey and they’ve set off on one of their daily walks through the gardens. She loves to check out the neighbors to our south who have dogs and chickens and ducks and horses and a young team of oxen - so many good smells!

She tours the farm with both of several times a day, sniffing merrily and leading us wherever she wants to go. At 11 1/2, shes happy to be in charge, telling us when she wants to eat, when she wants to walk, when she wants to come in or go out. She sleeps a lot, but she still prances and dances for breakfast and supper. Then she sleeps some more. We cherish every day with her. She’s come to love all the visitors to Tiny Farmstand and takes her job of welcoming them very seriously - and some people even bring her doggie biscuits.

I’m happy for these slow days and time to read and bake just for Ralph. At 70 I can finally allow myself the rest that winter time demands without feeling that I must be productive every minute. (Ralph is three years older and still can’t relax but I guess that’s just the way he is…)

I hope you, too, get some time to just relax this winter and enjoy the return of the light and warmth of the sun. By the end of February we’ll have 11 hours of light, and by mid March we’ll have nearly 12. Take a cue from the resting animals and rest yourself - soon it will be time to rouse and rally. Rest is the work of winter.

Sending love and light,

Patti and Ralph and Happy Abbey

Happy Abbey playing in the snow