White Gate Farm specializes in fresh organic produce, poultry, eggs, and flowers. Situated in Southeastern Connecticut on 100 acres of lovely New England landscape, it is a great destination for shopping at our farm stand, visiting the animals and seeing a small family farm that above all values the health of its customers and the environment.
At the Farm Stand
Summer Farm Stand Hours:
Wednesdays 12 to 7 pm
Saturdays 9 to 4 pm *** OPEN JULY 4
Available at the Farm Stand:
- Asparagus
- Strawberries
- Peas -- both edible pod ("snap") and shelling
- Carrots
- Kale
- Swiss chard
- Hakurei turnips
- Lettuce
- Garlic Scapes
- Garlic bulbs
- Kohlrabi
- Beets --red, yellow and pink striped (Chioggia)
- Gourmet salad mix
- Wave Hill Bread
- Gourmet Salad Mix
- Eggs (if you are lucky) beige, brown and blue -- sell out fast.
- Herbs: parsley, rosemary, cilantro, thyme, oregano, dill
- Organic coffee roasted at Ashlawn Farm
- Local honey
- Vinaigrette
- FLOWERS Mixed bouquets are always changing and all grown organically for the health of people and planet.
Cornish hens will be available beginning July 4 and turkeys in October.
We operate the farm stand on a self-help, honor system basis, so it is helpful to bring your check book or you can make change from the cash box. Please write down your name and itemize your purchases.
Thanks!
Contact Us to receive email alerts about what's new at the farm stand.
Announcements
Happy July All!
We will be open July 4, offering our frozen Cornish chickens for the first time this year. The baby turkeys arrived June 25 and are in the barn brooding room for all to admire.
The sheep are very friendly and often come when you call them or at least will engage in conversational baa-ing. (See story below of their acquisition.)
DINNERS AT THE FARM: Once again, in year 3, we will be a venue for the dinners. Our dates are Thursday through Saturday August 13 to 15. This is a Major Local Food Happening and does sell out! See the website dinnersatthefarm.com for information and ticket purchases.
CSA Note: We will not be offering a CSA this year and it looks like a permanent change. Demand for our produce by restaurants and through the farm stand is too high to also supply CSA shares. CSA is a wonderful model and we loved running it for nine big years. However, many of our former CSA customers prefer the farm stand alternative where they can usually find what they want without worrying about dealing with a sudden overload of cabbage or eggplant. They continue to be a part of the "farm family" through trips to the stand, exploring the farm and receiving emails with farm news and what produce is available.
We thank you for your interest and look forward to seeing you!
The White Gate Farmers
RUMINANTS RETURN TO WHITE GATE FARM
Alpacas -- An Au revoir Overdue?
When the idea was floated 2 years ago that we sell our alpaca herd, I was the lone holdout. True, there were too many of them. True, managing the aggression of the males was a challenge. True, alpacas had nothing to do with our mission of growing and providing delicious healthy food.
Most true of all was that none of us had the talent time or temperament to train alpacas for the show ring or then endure the event. All of which is necessary to demonstrate the award-winning qualities of your animals so people will pay handsomely for their offspring.
But the reason I resisted the will of the group was this: alpacas are unusual and cute and the customers loved to bring their kids to watch them. Eventually I relented, we sold them, and thank goodness for that because there is nothing that can lose its value quite so fast when the economy collapses as a “show quality” alpaca.
They left behind one of the nicest alpaca barns ever built, home now to swallows, sparrows and spiders.
Re-envisioning: Poultry Penthouse and Pasture-raised Meat
Letting that structure sit idle was depressing, so I persuaded our creative team David and Dick to transform the building to accommodate chickens. And so they did, moving a wall, installing roosts and laying boxes and windows. All it now lacks is calico curtains.
But the largest of the 3 pastures was still empty and this weighed on me too. Like everyone else, we had read Michael Pollan’s Omnivore’s Dilemma about Joel Salatin’s pasture-raised meat. So we decided to put our toe in the water – lambs for one season. No need to help them birth at 2 AM on a wintry night and no need for new coyote-proof fencing. Plus, a friend of a friend (we’ll call her “Mary”) suddenly needed to divest herself of lambs. We’d take them!
Picking up the lambs
Although David and I had planned the lamb collection for Saturday at 5, rain was threatening and we figured whatever the process entailed it would be easier done dry. So we arrived early, spotting the herd before we found the house or Mary. 3 ewes, 5 lambs, 1 horse, 1 mid-size poodle. Mary emerged from the greenhouse. We caught up extensively on this and that, took a little tour around, and eventually headed for the sheep area, which was about 5 acres in size of pasture, dense woods and a few listing structures. Mary confessed that she was not a livestock person and appeared to be downright terrified of Blackbird the horse. As she had been my chief consultant heretofore, pronouncing sheep “no trouble at all,” this was important news.
We ascertained that no one else was there. Her husband Tom (“the real farmer”) was working on the boat. But the neighbor, luckily, was a real sheep person and Mary would call her to come help. The neighbor, Mary explained, was such an expert that she had taken it upon herself to neuter the male lamb the day before, evidently on a whim. Note to visitors: before performing surgery on any animals at White Gate Farm, please check with one of us first.
As it happened, the neighbor was away, but her 7-year old Annie soon arrived. Annie, at 3 feet, was decked out on this cool misty afternoon in a sundress, high yellow rubber boots, a beaded hair wrap and enthusiasm for the chase. She careened from one end of the field to the other, with the herd either in pursuit or fleeing, depending on whether Annie had grain. The stampeding horse was eventually deemed unhelpful and was sequestered. However Cleo the mid-size poodle seemed to be part of the herding operation and was cheered on with “Get ‘em, Cleo!”
By the time Tom arrived we were ready for a new approach, particularly since rain and nightfall were now imminent. His instruction to make ourselves scarce was most welcome. Affecting a calm demeanor, Tom walked them all into the hay barn from which our 3 lambs were extracted for the ride home.
This piece of the journey was remarkably calm. Unlike the alpacas, they did not fill the cupholders in the back of the SUV with urine. Like the alpacas, they do lose traction at unplanned stops, so a missed stop sign and sudden braking resulted in a lamb pile up, but no injuries.
Introduction to the new digs at White Gate Farm went well. The trio seemed pleased with the pasture and delirious at the clover, which they went to work on right away. Later that night we herded them into the stall and nice bed of hay. The little guy ate grain from our hands – Such a soft nose! Such warm breath! – the girls went down on their haunches to go to sleep. The chickens were arranging themselves on the roosts in the next pen, the barn swallows entering mud nests overhead, and the peepers singing from the wetlands. All was well.
Good night little lambs. Good night Moon.
Pauline Lord May 19, 2009