Full-tilt fruity blitzkrieg has crashed upon the Produce Porch at long last. Whether you are a lover of that most savory of fruits, the Heirloom Tomato from Spring Rain Farm, or blueberries so exquisite they “taste of the color purple” (actual utterance overheard with regard to Stellar J Blueberries by Sensei Aaron of the Produce Dept), there is an all-out fructose assault descending upon our retail shores. Fruit abounds in the Nursery out front as well, whether on vigorous vines or bodacious bushes. Refreshing beverages (including C2O by the case) awash in summer flavors are resplendent and there for the taking. To borrow from one of our favorite fearless artistic leaders, David Byrne, the sheer grandeur of all on offer in the Produce Department has “stopped making sense.” Step up to the spectacle and treat yourself, family, and friends to great deals on cases of the finest fruits in the land. You guessed it - by and large, that means one word: Tonnemaker. Okay, Walchli too. :)  

Melon Madness has descended upon the kitchen counters of Chimacum. ‘Tis officially the season of the fruit fly, and also the season of whoops-I-just-spent-fifty-bucks-on-fruit-hastag-sorry-not-sorry. It’s hard to keep it all straight out there on the Produce Porch: do I get Rainier cherries, local raspberries, Tonnemaker peaches, or Tonnemaker Apricots, Walchli cantaloupes, or Ladybug black seedless? It’s enough fructose to make anyone’s head spin. Out in the Nursery, pollinators are dancing about through the rows of gorgeous blooms, capturing their own nectar. The chaotic energy of later summer is officially here, and it’s time to make hay (literally!). Here is how every day should start for the next several weeks: a Hermiston, sliced in half, a spoon, a little yogurt, and your favorite berry, consume, consume, consume. Of course, when you’ve come up for air from your musk melon, there is lots more to celebrate at the Corner, so come take a “written walk” with us about the shop.  

We hold this truth to be self-evident: that Chimacum is an exceedingly rad place to live and work, and we are surrounded by charming and scintillating humans that bring joy and effervescence to the scene. We at CCF look forward to Chimacum Interdependence Day every year, as it falls right when we are starting to get weary of the summer influxes, and it provides a joyful boost to re-energize us around our mission statement: celebrating all the local connections possible, in all areas of human (and non-human) life. So whether you listen to Couer Criminel or DJ Lunch Lady, buy Spring Rain English cucumbers or Midori Mini English cucumbers, drink Finnriver cider or Alpenfire cider, there is something to bring us all together in this wacky land at the end of the continent. And that something is a new and vital Chimacum Pride, as exhibited on our special day of Interdependence. So, make a day out of it, and come dig all that Chimacum has to offer, including walking tours of the new Chimacum Commons, with whom we are field mates!

Ladies and gentleman we have officially launched into HIGH SUMMER. Hot winds out of the north and burn bans are in effect. The farmers are pulling their garlic so they can plant their fall sets. The Farm Hacks softball team has posted back to back W’s and are riding high heading into the dog days. The zucchini elongates by the hour. High summer at CCF means cherries, melons, corn, basil, fresh culinary lavender, and more! Heirloom tomatoes and Hermistons are just around the bend. High summer also means its time for us to offer the community great deals on plant starts to clear out the greenhouse! Our overstock can be your gain. Next time you come, take a detour through the Nursery and see everything that the staff has been working hard to put together for y’all. Everybody’s still got one little patch of soil that could use an above-ground companion. Tack a few more fireworks of blooms into the garden on us. Stay cool out there Chimacum!  

Summer looks to be just around the bend, after a proper spell of some “Juneuary.” However, time waits for no plant, and new Northwest fruits are rolling into the store on the daily. As Alice Cooper once decreed, “SCHOOLS OUT FOREVER,” or so we hope every summer when we are young. In celebration of the end of the scholastic year, and the beginning of lakeswimmin’, hay buckin’, fruit pickin’, et al., we’ve put together a little run-through of all of our current “summer loves,” with the “hot girl” being the Tonnemaker Hill Farm Red Cherry, at the screaming deal price of $4.99/lb! After summer solstice lands, there is something new to celebrate every week down here at the crossroads. Thank you so much for continuing to support our little fifteen-year-old experiment in providing good, local foods.

Ah, solstice. You eager beaver. Up at 5, not even thinking about sleeping til 10ish. Mrs. Candle-at-both-ends. What a time to be alive! Peas appreciate solstice the most. They always seem to hit their stride around this time. Whether planted in February or April. Tendrils unfurl, catching one another in a magic escalator to the heavens, tossing out white blooms all along the way. Peas definitely listen to Akon, J Boog, Rebelution, et al. So live your best life, get the reggae records out, and party on along! There is much summer to capture at the Farmstand. Beautiful water-wise plants abound, as well as choice cuts in the beef aisle. We got cold noodles, we got ready rices. Waves don’t die baby, so surf on through this newsletter and soak up the vibrations of high summer.

By all accounts, the local area farm fields are exploding with growth. The first stirrings of early summer crops are percolating in from Quilcene, Chimacum, and Port Townsend. Gorgeous blooms like ranunculus and peonies have made their triumphant arrivals to the flower rack. And there is enough salad mix available to feed King County it would seem. Perfectly timed abundance for the dual-celebration of fathers and the conclusion of the academic year. As we inch so close to that special celestial day, Summer Solstice, remember that as so many lean toward vacations and pleasure, farmers are buried deep in the trenches of their own crop plans, straining in 5th gear to stay ahead of the task curve. Celebrate your loved ones and the hard work of the local farm crew by joining in to the abundance of early summer in Jefferson County. Follow along through these digital scrolls to earn your diploma in Locavorics!

 In Northwest farming, there is a concept called “the June gap,” which refers to that moment when a farmer has spent all of their early spring crops, while there is still nothing to harvest from all the newly planted summer hot crops. Much attention is paid to try to fill the gap, and shorten the low-yield window before July, August, and the full bounty of September. Yet at the Corner, it feels like summer has already exploded. A double miracle of Tonnemaker “Benton” strawberries coupled with some shots of local deliveries has got everyone “berried out” to the max. The latest fruit-news is a whisper of Tonnemaker cherries before the fourth of July! Make no mistake, we love all of our fruits down at the Corner. So if you’re feeling blue, orange, green, or just plain violet, come on down to the Corner for some good cheer, and remember, as Kacey Musgraves reassures us, “Darlin’ I’m just tryin’ to tell ya, that there’s always been a rainbow hangin’ over your head.”

It’s that time of year that separates the grill masters from the weekend warriors. Three letters: B,B, and Q. Summer officially arrived on Wednesday, with a cute little mini-heat-dome to turn up the pressure in the fields. It’s also the time of year when farmhands come into the Corner for lunch with semiahmoo-stained knees and burnt necks, wrung out from planting hundreds (if not thousands?!) of linear bed feet of transplants. The icing on this Chimacum Corner Cake? A one-shot-wonder delivery from Handsome Luke of Tonnemaker Hill Farm of the finest strawberries in the land. One cannot exist merely on strawberries, much to the CCF staff’s chagrin. Find out what delectable grillables are lining the cedar boxes and metro racks of our hallowed halls. 

It is that spectacular time of year when we have crossed the threshold of the average last frost date! While we can still be surprised (as we have been on Memorial Day weekend in a recent season), time is of the essence to get all of one’s cold-sensitive plants in the ground, to make the most of our short PNW summer! Hoophouses and greenhouses all around the region are being crammed full of tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, squash, and basil. Our larders here at CCF are also crammed full of yummy value-added items derived from local hot crops, plus an item or two from out of town to accompany them.

From a PNW farmer’s perspective, May is an absolutely critical, stressful, blown out month. Everything needs to be planted all at once, while simultaneously starting to harvest the early plantings you’ve assiduously babied along all the livelong cold spring. A song that perfectly captures the lived experience of a farmer in May is “Month of May,” by Arcade Fire. May is also an explosion of beauty in our ecosystem. Our deciduous brothers and sisters are all leafy and lush, lilacs are bloomin’ in the dooryards, and the crowned queen herself, Rhododendron, does the can-can all over town. And can you believe the festival in her honor is 90 years old?! It all goes back to Mr. Clive Buttermere endeavoring to show off his native bloom to the world, and lil Miss Myrtle Olsen, the first “chosen lady” who starred in the Hearst newsreel. Wild to think about what town was like in 1936! Rhody fest always seems like the beginning of all of the summer frivolity, which is part of its charm, we reckon. Before you get your (last!) slice of cake, come on down to CCF and see what’s blooming for us. One whiff of the Daphnes and you’ll need a whole hedgerow!

As the contemporary grunge band Blondshell puts it in their track “What’s Fair,” on the brand new album “If You Asked for a Picture”: “I know there’s nothing less perfect to a girl than a mom.” And so it is that we have arrived at that hallowed day when we honor and celebrate that most fundamental and core of relationships, between mother and child. We have some groovy gift ideas for ma all throughout the shop, whether they need a hanging basket for the porch, wine and chocolate for the pantry, fresh local tulip bouquets for the vase, or a bar of soap for the commode. The cheeriness of spring time and these glorious sunny clear days are a perfect occasion to take a break and create some memories with mom. After all, spending time with family is what it’s all about, right? Turnip thinks so. 

There’s a beautiful rhythm to the coalescence of a farmers market. First, the market manager and dedicated, selfless volunteers arrive and begin to build the container. One-by-one, canopies arise in rings around the space. A flotilla of box trucks, pick-up trucks, sprinter vans, and even a station wagon or two rumble in and rumble out, exhaling tent weights, folding tables, tills, coolers, and local product. Weary chatter percolates amongst the vendors, and then the cow bell rings and the chatter turns to small talk amongst patrons and the calling out of orders from prepared food vendors. The music kicks in, and the party is on. The Chimacum Farmers Market is back and more bustling than ever (and earlier than ever, too!). We are proud to host CFM on our grounds, and wish all the prosperity we can muster on all of the talented, revered vendors that co-create our local economy together out on the lawn. Follow along to take stock of what’s springing into action all about the store!

While Earth Day is perhaps the more popular sister of the annual eco-celebrations, Arbor Day has a stately, civic-minded sentiment that seems particularly special and suited to our bioregion. We are tree-oriented humans in the Pacific Northwest. Evergreens are perhaps the sine qua non of our local spirit and flavor. Did you know that the first documented “Arbor Day” of sorts was organized by the mayor of the Spanish village of Mondoñedo way back in 1594? Gifford Pinchot (for whom one of our state’s National Forests is named), head of the US Forestry Service under President Roosevelt, was instrumental in the creation of a US national Arbor Day celebration via his insistence that President Roosevelt spread the gospel about conservation to the American public. From the mighty Nolan Creek Cedar to the scraggliest vine maple seedling, trees are a potent and limitless life-force on our planet. The Corner has some of its best stock of trees of a whole panoply of varieties this year. Perhaps this is your year to join our owner Phil in his mission to repopulate the Peninsula with Giant Sequoias. Kendrick Lamar said “Money trees is the perfect place for shade,” but we would put our chips down on a nice Western Red Cedar for shade over a money tree any day.

In a recent video segment posted to her social media, Erin Benzakein of Floret Farm concludes her overview of the recent history of the local cut flower movement by (roughly) stating, “Every time you buy locally grown flowers, you’re investing in someone’s dream of making the world more beautiful.” We couldn’t agree more. Fortunately we are flush in amazing cut flower growers and designers in our county who are actively making our world more beautiful. The blooming bulbs of April are the first call-to-arms of the floral world in our bioregion. Arriving on the cusp of Earth Day and Easter this year, they are a perfectly timed gift from the fields for spring celebrations. In addition, full and thriving lavenders abound in the Nursery, a reminder that July isn’t far off. And there are bouquets of ingredients patiently awaiting your culinary hand in the Grocery Department, including cuts of local lamb from Humbleberry Farm in Quilcene. T.S. Eliot famously claimed April as “the cruellest month,” but we think it’s quite nice. Here’s to celebrating the earth in all her forms this week!

Everyone has their own image of a “food forest” in their mind: healthy trees underplanted with annuals and pollinators, alongside some rows of berries perhaps, maybe a few 50 foot veggie beds, and a row of nut trees as a wind-break for the space. Maybe it exists in the middle of a city (Beacon Food Forest) or on hundreds of acres of heartland (New Forest Farm). Perhaps the finest example we’ve seen of a Northwest food forest is the Bullock Permaculture Homestead on Orcas Island. Expertly pruned mature trees of unusual varieties completely blanket the hillside, dotted with small plots of annuals, ponds, marshes. Something we can all aspire to. So whether you are going as big as Mark Shepard or starting in your own backyard, we’ve got an entire forest of food waiting for you at the Corner Store. The Nursery is chock full of unusual, delightful varieties of berries, trees, and annuals. And the Produce Porch is welcoming more and more newcomers of spring favorites from the flagship locals. Read on to see what’s “in store” for you.

As Kermit once said, “it isn’t easy being green,” especially when you are a tender sprig of arugula or baby lettuce, just a-hoverin’, at the mercy of any passing pest. Fortunately for us, we have stellar local farms that prioritize healthy soils to grow vibrant vegetables that can withstand the pest pressures that come their way. Whether bunched, bagged, or by the head, local greens are coming on-line, and will be here to stay for months to come. Spinach and raab are the chief producers of the day. Whether you grow your own or prefer them pre-stacked in a delectable sandwich, the Corner is your stop for all things “Mr. Green Jeans.” 

There is an expression in small farming called “greenhouse tetris:” It’s when you have exceeded the amount of comfortable, most-usable space you have in your propagation zone, and have to turn to secondary make-shift set-ups to accommodate all of your plant starts, often leading to headaches and inefficiencies with moving things around. Greenhouse tetris is most acute in April, when you have been steadily seeding trays, but it is not entirely safe to plant out all types of crops yet. The Nursery staff at Chimacum Corner has been busy “tetrising” in all of the fresh and happy plant babes from Midori and Red Dog into our own greenhouse. And the Grocery team has tetrised in some new products and deals on the floor in the store. Meanwhile the Produce team has been busy playing “tray tetris” with all of the fresh local bunched brassicas. The best farmers are the ones who can stay organized amidst the accelerating chaos of nature reawakening. Perhaps the same is true of grocers as well. Spring is on, so spread your cotyledons and get growing!

This week we are manifesting that most pleasurable of seasons: the berry one! Local berries are still a glimmer on the horizon, but the Corner is chock full of berry flavored items to get your taste buds a-simmerin’. Whether in scones, ciders, kombuchas, or potted plants, there is berry much to get excited about in the store. Follow along to get your fructose on. Berries are our jam! 

There’s an old Irish expression: “You’ll never plow your field by turning it over in your mind.” Wise words for March, as the farmer’s to-do list metastasizes into a never-ending priority chain. Let us strive for action, then, this week. There is much ado in the kitchen and the garden this week. Those spuds don’t peel themselves, after all! Read on for all the ways CCF can help you get stuff done. A pot of brisket awaits you at the end of the flavor rainbow.