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To find out all of our market locations please

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We also try to update as to when they open and close for the season and the days and times during which they operate. If you see errors please let us know. Just hit reply to this email.

ONLINE ORDERING

For pre-order and pre-pay  "Grab and Go"

Click on shop if you already have an account

 on the new site and are ready to pre-order.

Link to the new website for signing up  

to create an account.

Email us at  [email protected] or call 717-334-4582, if you have some concern that needs to be addressed person to person. You may get the answering machine, but an actual human will call you back ASAP.

We have two periods for taking orders:

1. Ordering for the weekday markets opens up at 1:00 P.M. on Monday.

Ordering becomes unavailable on Tuesday at 1:00, for Wednesday markets, and subsequently on Wednesday, at noon, for Thursday markets.

2. As of Wednesday at 5:30 P.M. we open up the Website for taking orders for all of the weekend markets.

We do this by taking down weekday markets as pick-up locations, and show only weekend locations as active pick-up sites.

At noon on Friday we will remove the Saturday market locations as active pick-up locations, and only the seven Sunday sites will remain. These will shut down at noon on Saturday.

We would also love to have the boxes returned.

But then I suspect you know that by now.

Jesse took the opening photo, above, of a native bumblebee working on a bunch of blueberry blossoms, while below is a shot of a honeybee working on a strawberry bloom. The reason these two photos stood out from some others you'll see further down is that if you look really closely you will actually see the tongue on each of these pollinators. 

The above native bumblebee has a much longer, thicker tongue than honeybees, and is capable of pollinating flowers of which honeybees just aren't able to reach the bottom, where the nectar is located.

Honeybees are great at working on apple, peach and strawberry blossoms but can't reach the nectar in blooms that are quite deep, as are the ones you see above. Blueberry blossoms are quite small, but it is still too much of a reach for your average honeybee, as well as some of the many smaller native pollinators.  

If you saw the recent newsletter in which I showed a couple of bumblebee hives, one is seen below, which Jesse purchased to help with the blueberry pollination, you are seeing bumblebees, but not the same native ones as you see in the first picture. Jesse found that our native bees are quite a bit larger than the species in the hives which we bought, almost twice as big, which doesn't necessarily translate into twice as good at pollinating, but we can always hope. We can also try to protect such a wonderful natural resource.

I'm sure hoping that our locals are the best apple pollinators, however there simply aren't the numbers of native bees to do

the full job.

The local bumblebees will work at both higher and lower temperatures than honeybees. That fact alone was, perhaps, a significant advantage during all of the damp and cool weather we have been having. Honeybees are quite picky about things like that. They won't even leave the hive if is too cool or too warm.

Beyond honey: 4 essential reads about bees

From today's MorningAgClips

The photos are Jesse's, the text is from various writers.

The above bumblebee is one of the members of the hives which we purchased, thus smaller than the natives. Jesse pointed out that even the pollen in their "pollen baskets" is a different color than what you see on the larger native gals. The bumblebee in the top photo has pollen which is more orange; the one just above has

more pale yellow pollen.

"It has often been said that bees are responsible for one out of every three bites of food we eat. Most crops grown for their fruits (including vegetables such as squash, cucumber, tomato and eggplant), nuts, seeds, fiber (such as cotton), and hay (alfalfa grown to feed livestock), require pollination by insects. Pollinating insects also play a critical role in maintaining natural plant communities and ensuring production of seeds in most flowering plants. Pollination is the transfer of pollen from the male parts of a flower to the female parts of a flower of the same species, which results in fertilization of plant ovaries and the production of seeds. The main insect pollinators, by far, are bees, and while European honey bees are the best known and widely managed pollinators, there are also hundreds of other species of bees, mostly solitary ground nesting species, that contribute some level of pollination services to crops and are very important in natural plant communities." - Michigan State University

Above is Dan Banan's photo of the start of the blossoming of the Crimson Clover, one element of a cover crop mix we often plant; the clover "fixes" nitrogen into the soil, free fertilizer. Bees just love clover so the planting may act as competition for the bee's attention.

Female bees need support, especially early in the year when foraging options are few, doctoral student Lila Westreich notes. “It’s best to provide female bees with many early spring flowers – they rely on nectar from flowers to fuel their search for a nesting spot. Planting early-flowering plants such as willow, poplar, cherry trees and other spring blooms provides nectar for queen bees,” she writes.

Read more: Spring signals female bees to lay the next generation of pollinators.

At this point in the article there is a video of "The Waggle Dance".

2. Some bees are curious, others are focused

All bees forage, but they do it in different ways. Some become very focused on the smell, colors and locations of known food sources and return to those flowers over and over. Others are more willing to explore and will change their behavior when they learn about new food sources.

As part of an experiment, Marquette University biologist Chelsea Cook and her colleagues bred populations of bees that were genetically programmed to be either curious or focused, and a colony that mixed these two styles together. Then they offered the bees a familiar food source and novel sources. Sure enough, the focused colony concentrated on the familiar source and the curious colony visited both known and novel sources.

In the mixed colony, bees came to concentrate more on the familiar source than the new ones over time. Why? The researchers observed how the bees communicated through their “waggle dance,” which tells nestmates where to find food, and saw that the focused bees were dancing faster. This conveyed their message more intensely than signals from slower dancers.

“Because curious bees are interested in everything, including new information about possible food locations, they are perfect listeners and are easily convinced to visit the chosen feeder of their enthusiastic nestmates,” Cook observes.

Read more: Some bees are born curious while others are more single-minded – new research hints at how the hive picks which flowers to feast on

At this point in the article there is a nice video of the "Waggle Dance".

3. It takes a colony

Bees communicate with one another about many things besides food. For example, bees use dancing to persuade their colony to move to a new nest site, write Providence College biologist Rachael Bonoan and Tufts University biologist Phil Starks.

And bees work together to defend their colonies against external threats. Bonoan and Starks analyzed how honeybee colonies of varying sizes protected themselves against a fungus that causes a bee disease called chalkbrood. To do this, the researchers infected the colonies with the fungus and tracked the bees’ responses with thermal imaging.

The pathogen needs cool temperatures to infect bees, so the bees respond with heat. “When this pathogen is detected, worker bees protect the vulnerable young by contracting their large flight muscles to generate heat. This raises the temperature in the brood comb area of the hive just enough to kill the pathogen,” the biologists explain. Worker bees also remove diseased and dead young from the colony, which reduces the chance of infection spreading.

Read more: Honey bees can’t practice social distancing, so they stay healthy in close quarters by working together

4. Straining for the good of the swarm

Computer scientist Orit Peleg at the University of Colorado Boulder studied yet another way in which bees work together for the good of the group. Peleg and her colleagues analyzed swarms that European honeybees form when a colony becomes so large that it’s about to split into two new groups. The relocating group forms a swarm that can hang from objects such as tree branches, and can change its shape, with each bee essentially holding hands with others next to it.

The scientists used a motor to shake a wooden board with a swarm of 10,000 honeybees hanging from the underside. By seeing how the swarm responded to shaking in various directions, they hoped to gain insights that could inform the creation of adaptive structures made up of robots linked together.

“Using a computational model, we showed that bonds between bees located closer to where the swarm attaches to the board stretch more than bonds between bees at the far tip of the swarm,” Peleg recounts. “Bees could sense these different amounts of stretching, and use them as a directional signal to move upwards and make the swarm spread.”

Put another way, the bees moved from locations where bonds stretched less to locations where they stretched more. “This behavioral response improves the collective stability of the swarm as a whole at the expense of increasing the average burden experienced by the individual bee,” Peleg concludes.

They found that when they shook the board horizontally, the swarm spread out into a wider, more stable cone. But it was less able to react to vertical shaking and eventually broke apart. That’s because vertical shaking didn’t disrupt the bonds between individual bees as much as horizontal shaking, so the swarm didn’t respond to vertical shaking by changing its shape.

Read more: What a bundle of buzzing bees can teach engineers about robotic materials.

Goddard Farmers Market Now Open!

Goddard Space Flight Center (closed to the general public) reopened today, after two years, Thursday, 5/12/22.

Marty was there, and it was open from 9:00-1:00. Please spread the word amongst employees and anyone else allowed onto the campus.



The opening of the New Half Street Market

was a Great Success,

and on a rainy Saturday a that.

1250 Half Street SE

Washington, DC 20003

Metro

Less than a five minute walk from Navy Yard-Ballpark on the green line

Parking

There is garage parking on N Street and lot parking at First and N Street

Jesse went down to get us off to a good start at the new

Half Street Central Farm Market

last Saturday, at which there was a lot of rain, and yet the day

was surprisingly strong. He took the above of the Nationals' mascot

as well as the three following photos.

Above you can see just how close the Navy Yard Metro Station is to the Twin Springs Fruit Farm booth. You are seeing out the back of Jesse's display. While below you are looking out the front.

If you’ve never tasted an Irish boxty, you are in for a treat.

This boxty recipe is simple and truly delicious. They really are the best ever potato pancakes, in my humble opinion!

My favorite way to eat them is as part of a British breakfast. However, I’ve also made miniature Irish boxty and served them as a luxurious appetizer! They’re so versatile.

Traditional Irish boxty are the holy grail of pancakes for potato lovers! Combining mashed and raw potato with buttermilk (you can order that from us online) makes a dreamy, yet simple meal. Also called Irish potato cakes, they are often made for St. Patrick’s Day here in the US. 

A combination of raw and cooked potato is what sets boxty apart from other types of potato pancakes or scones. Once the batter is mixed, they are cooked on a pan or griddle as normal pancakes. Just follow the step by step directions below for perfect results. This boxty recipe will give you the results you want.

Greenhouse Photos

Current Apples

Parsnips - will be available at all locations. 

Carrots - We have red, orange, purple, yellow, but have run out of white carrots.

Spring Mix - We will have much more than the last couple of weeks, but still not enough.

Arugula - We will now have a fair amount, at least close to what we need.

Basil, "roots on" - There is plenty again this week.

Watercress "roots on" -  We will be able to pull almost enough.

Twin Spring's Canned Goods

No preservatives have been added to these products

Chipotle Ketchup - I once wrote that we may change the recipe slightly; I got this response from a customer "Don't you mess with my ketchup!"



Marinara Sauce - Both the large and the small sizes, great as is, or can be used as a base for other recipes and additions.

Medium Salsa - Not too hot, not too mild.

Chopped Tomatoes - A great base for many tomato dishes, and at a really great price.

Tomato Soup - Alas, we are out of our fabulous soup at this time.

Tomato Juice - Good and "tomatoey", great for a Bloody Mary.

Peaches in jars - Canned in a light syrup, now out of stock, waiting for some nice, fresh, ripe freestones.

Apple Sauce - No sugar or preservatives added, it is smooth and semisweet. If ordered online specify either Cortland or Stayman. At market it is more the luck of the draw, but is stamped on the lid as to what variety of apple we used.



Apple Butter (Fruit Spread*) - Some spice added, but no sugar or preservatives. If we were to call it "apple butter" the regulations say we must add sugar - go figure?

All canned goods may be purchased individually, or by the 12 jar case at 10% off. Many items may be ordered by going on the pre-order website. Cherry Juice may be ordered and is actually less expensive than purchasing the case right at market; i.e. it is considerably less expensive at $60, than the 10% off would make it.

*Fruit spread is a designation for preserves, as well as our Apple Butter, which are low on added sugar, the way we prefer it. Roseanne, who, along with her husband Philip, produces all our jams and jellies has all of her products lab tested for sugar and lets us know whether to call the product Fruit Spread or Preserves.

Golden Raspberry Fruit Spread

Fig Preserves

Strawberry Fruit Spread*

Blueberry Fruit Spread*- out of stock

Blackberry Preserves

Black Raspberry Fruit Spread*

Blackberry Seedless Jelly

Red Raspberry Preserves  

Red Raspberry Seedless Jelly

..............................................

The items in this section are only offered at "Certain Locations". The list is underneath the following entries:

Fresh and Local - Ramps (seen above), Spinach, Red Radishes and Spring onions.

Delaware Strawberries - At "Certain Locations", Michael says these are quite good.

Arturo says our strawberries are looking good, and that we may be able to pick for next weekend!

Free range pastured beef - as of this time only Friendship Heights on Saturday, and Wednesday's Brookmont take the frozen meat to market. From Amazin Grazin Farm, 100% grass fed beef. We are assessing other possible ways of making it available.

Jerusalem Artichokes

Lenka Coffee - We have both whole bean and ground. This is a "bird friendly" coffee, as it is truly shade grown.

Elizabeth's Breakfast loaves - which are local to us; she and Gary live just up the hill; Gary brings them down to us the evening before market, just after coming out of Beth's oven.

Mrs. Kaufmann's Coffee Cakes - We now only carry these at Friendship Heights.

Michele's Granola - Baked fairly locally (near Baltimore), this granola 

has been a mainstay at these locations for a few years. I've found that this is a great topping for cobblers and such. It comes out super crunchy, and is so healthful that guilt has no place to lurk around.

Baked Goods - From Stonehearth Bakery, located in Frederick; all items are baked "that" morning, and now individually wrapped or bagged: Baguettes, innumerable kinds of fresh breads, both sliced and unsliced, as well as croissants, scones and cookies, bags of rolls, as well as the delicious Asiago Cheese Baguettes.

Tart Cherry Juice - Full of antioxidants, this tangy, pure fruit juice, no sugar or preservatives added, is great at taming aches and pains from conditions such as arthritis. It also helps extend your sleep time by perhaps 84 minutes.

"Family of Nuts" - lightly salted roasted cashews, pistachios, almonds, hazelnuts, and mixed nuts, all are nicely done, light on the salt. There are also dry fruits: apricots, figs, dates and raisins.

HERE is an article on tart cherries entitled "Cardiovascular disease remains the No. 1 killer of both men and women in North America. Changes in diet and exercise can go a long way in helping to keep your heart healthy."

Increase sleep by 84 minutes per night. See below for a write-up* 

Allen's, as well as some from other sources, fresh local eggs - Brought to Twin Springs weekly, both white and brown eggs from happy "free walking" hens, raised just outside of Gettysburg.

Pure Local Honey - Jim Small continues to keep us supplied with his local wildflower honey, totally unadulterated, and minimally heated -only when needed to get it to flow for bottling.

Honey - more popular than ever.

Fresh Hard Pretzels - Locally made, coming in both regular and Honey Whole Wheat. Hand made and freshly baked in our area. 

Artisanal Cheeses - Curt's locally produced cheeses: sharp cheddar, cheddar, Conall's lava cheddar, smoked cheddar, as well as smoked Jalapeño; also available are goat gouda and goat cheddar. 

Maple Syrup and Maple Sugar - Tapped and bottled on the Patterson Farm in Pennsylvania. Did you know that a jug of syrup may be frozen to keep it fresh; it will still flow, though quite slowly, when brought out of the freezer. Unlike honey, which simply won't go bad, other than perhaps crystallizing, maple syrup should at least be refrigerated, once opened, as it can develop mold.

I'm going to LINK HERE to an article, from Canada no less, which enumerates many recent discoveries about the benefits of replacing some sugars with natural maple syrup. Studies have uncovered a multitude of compounds in the sap, therefore the syrup, which can act as anti-inflammatories, many of which will be familiar from past newsletters, but who knew they were in maple syrup?

McCutcheon's Products - We carry an extensive line of jams, some fruit sweetened, ie. no cane sugar or corn syrup, and jellies, as well as many other great products, like Bread and Butter Pickles, Chow Chow, Relishes, and much more created right in Frederick Maryland. 

*Health Benefits of Tart Cherry Juice

A study of distance runners by Texas A&M University, in College Station, determined that short-term supplementation of dried tart cherry powder* improved running times, decreased inflammation and increased muscle metabolism and immunity.

The researchers divided 27 endurance-trained young adult athletes into two groups. Eleven participants were given a daily powdered tart cherry supplement for 10 days, and 16 were given a rice flour placebo. All completed a half-marathon near the end of the 10-day trial. The researchers tested fasting blood samples and a quadriceps muscle soreness rating prior to the run, 60 minutes after the run and 24 and 48 hours post-run.

The tart cherry group reported 13 percent faster average running times, as well as significantly lower inflammatory markers. They also reported 34 percent lower quadriceps soreness prior to the run. Tart cherry supplementation also increased immunity and resulted in better muscle metabolism. 

And another write-up, from the AARP Bulletin:

From the AARP Bulletin: "Talk to your doctor about ways to relieve pain without drugs. Heat, massage and acupuncture, for example, are effective for lower-back pain. Or try tart cherry juice. Drinking eight ounces twice a day has been shown in preliminary research in older adults to reduce pain and increase sleep by 84 minutes per night, says Robert Oexman, director of the Sleep to Live Institute in Mebane, N.C."

*We, of course, sell the 100% tart cherry juice bottled by our cider mill, Kimes, in Bendersville Pa. A case may be ordered at 10% off. 

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