About the farm











    Sun & Bee Farm is located in the center of Bainbridge Island, WA on a historic property currently farmed by several entities including Laughing Crow Farm, Butler Greens Farm, Bainbridge Vineyards, and Bainbridge Island Farm. Originally owned by the Suyematsu Family it now is managed by the City of Bainbridge Island and Friends of the Farm, a non-profit devoted to helping farmers and would-be farmers like myself.
     I named my farm for two critical aspects of growing-- sunlight for photosynthesis, and bees for those little beings who got me interested in farming & permaculture in the first place.
     This year for Sun & Bee Farm my main goals are to start building a customer base of folks who are interested in local-grown or wild-harvested herbal products, and to start working towards my main farm “dream” of growing and producing herbal tea blends. Because I am starting on my own from (financially at least) scratch, I am keeping the farm small this year. I am currently offering a humble selection of hand crafted salves made from fantastic “weedy” herbs gathered from around the farm, as well as herbs I collected last fall on my travels up the West Coast.
     Soon I am planning on offering more variety, as well as herbal lip balms, lotion bars, and a small selection of vegetables—mostly head lettuces and beets/radishes/turnips which are easy to grow and harvest. Because I do not have the resources to create herbal tea blends this year, I am growing a smaller selection of multi-use herbs to increase my herb-growing knowledge, and to sell fresh or in other value-added products. At the same time I am making connections with people so that when I am ready to make teas, I’ll already have a plan of action. A lot of what I am working on right now farm-wise is the behind the scenes stuff. There is quite a bit of  research, formulating herbal mixes for salves, making signs, figuring out finance tracking/ license requirements, and- my favorite- going out and carefully harvesting select wild herbs for future use.      
    

 

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