Happy Friday, and happy September! We are down to the last four months of the year, and I am so excited! I get a very specific feeling in Autumn(so close!). It is this heavy nostalgia that is full of warmth, beautiful colors, happy memories, and delicious seasonal food.
Goldenrod is certainly one of the brightest and most naturally abundant contributors to the early fall color spectrum. It is especially illuminating one particular area on our farm at the moment: the bee habitat. The bee habitat is about two acres of wildflowers and whatever else happens to pop up, right in the middle of one of our farms. A few years ago my dad began noticing more and more how many native pollinators there actually are around us. There are way more than just honey bees. So, in order to help out the natural pollinator populations(which does include honey bees), we stopped farming a very hilly piece of ground, and let it turn to wildflowers. The majority of these flowers are goldenrod, which helps make a big portion of the honey we harvest in the fall time.
Half of our hilly be habitat with my wife Mandy , and our fur babies having the best time.
Fortunately, I am not allergic to goldenrod, so I can enjoy it a bit more than some of you might like to. However, if you are allergic to it, or if you have other allergies from pollen, eat local raw honey! Especially from the season that you are allergic to most (spring, summer, or fall). I have heard from a LOT of people, raw honey can significantly help reduce your seasonal allergy symptoms. Raw honey is not heated, so therefore all that powerful pollen the bees drop in there isn’t destroyed. When consumed, the pollen acts like antibodies and helps battle your allergic reactions. We have plenty in our store for sale right now from our friend, Bob’s Bees who lives just two miles around the corner from us (only 1 mile as the bee flies!). Which means his bees could actually be foraging nectar from our farm! Bees fly up to two miles away from their hive in search of nectar sources. Fascinating creatures. Back to produce:
What Summer means to me.
This is what my Friday’s schedule consisted of. Peaches, tomatoes, all sorts of peppers, cantaloupe, pickling cucumbers, plums, and sweet corn picked just before I delivered it. This is why I love what I do, who wouldn’t enjoy working with such beautiful and delicious food!
My monarch caterpillar friend.
That’s all for this week. Stay tuned as we dig into apple harvest season! And with apples comes pumpkins and all that fun stuff. As always, thank you for reading and see you back here next week!