Thank You
Here’s Jai harvesting Prickly Pear fruits, called “tunas” in Spanish. Jai also harvested LOTS of marigolds. We also had volunteers help us with weeding, special projects and event management. Thanks!
As we wrap up the 2023 season and head into 2024 Starr and I would like to thank you all for your support. The folks that volunteered to help out on the farm deserve special recognition for their help and good will; we could not have made this season the success it has been without you.
The lavender labyrinth proved to be a joyful and aromatic attraction for bees and for human guests to gather and pick fragrant bunches of flowers to take home. In 2024 the young plants will be even fuller and more mature with lots more blossoms to pick.
We enjoyed hosting a number of special U-Picks on the farm this year. As we look forward to 2024 we hope to build on the progress we’ve made in making our farm a destination for people who appreciate food, flowers and quiet meditation.
Besides seeing our lavender labyrinth come of age we were successful in producing a wide range of other floral, herbal, and vegetable crops in 2023. We’re already buying seeds- and saving seeds- for our 2024 harvests.
The Zinnias have been a fun and beautiful project this year. Zinnias, like the corn, squash, beans, tomatoes, chiles, and marigolds that we grow, originally come from Mexico.
Zinnia flowers that Starr is saving for seed.
Our “Top Cat,” Samson, relaxing in the red corn. Besides the red corn, which is good for corn meal, we’ve also grown a lovely green Oaxacan corn for corn meal and a yellow corn, Otto File, which is an heirloom Italian corn appreciated for making polenta.
This is an heirloom bean from Oaxaca that can be appreciated as a purple”green bean,” or as a dried bean. We have enough seed saved now to plant a generous sized crop in the new year.
For our edible harvests on our home ranch in 2023 we focused on the “Three Sisters,” or the “Holy Trinity,” of the traditional Mexican milpa-corn, squash, and beans. We will rotate our crops around the farm in the new year but plan to plant to the same logic and schedule in 2024. We like to focus on heirloom, open pollinated varieties from seed we save ourselves for our food crops.
We are saving seed of the heirloom Italian Zucchetta Rugosa. In my estimation this is the most flavorful winter squash variety. We always save the nicest examples of the variety to replant so that the crop doesn’t degrade genetically over the years.
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Victoria sorting beans. The Akahana Mame and Shirohana Mame that we grow are so beautiful they’re like little vegetal jewels.
We can’t forget the sunflowers; here’s Starr with a beauty. We grow Mongolian Giant, a lovely variety that is as ornamental as it is edible.
Our neighbor’s horses are grazing our lower field, getting rid of the grass thatch and preparing the land to be sown with wildflower seed. In 2024 we will convert this land into a bee pasture for 100 bee hives. The site will be a study area for an experimental way of raising bees in a chemical free manner. Details to follow as the study develops.
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Starr harvesting the Akashiso we grew under contract for a farm supporter who makes her own herbal based dyes for fabric.
Happy Holidays from Mariquita Farm
Don’t forget that you can still share the farm’s harvests with your family and friends by gifting them one of our holiday baskets.
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