Cropthorne Farm
REAL. GOOD. HONEST. FOOD. From our family farm in Ladner BC.
Farm Stand
Open Saturdays 10am-3pm in November and December
We run a seasonal farm stand at our farm on Westham Island from June until December.
We grow a wide array of organic vegetables, lots of specialty items as well as many staple crops. We also have beautiful bouquets of seasonal flowers and eggs from our pastured hens.
We are open daily in the summer until Labour Day Monday from 10am-5:30pm Monday to Saturday and from 10am-5pm on Sundays
In September and October we are open Tuesdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays from 10am-5pm.
In November & December we are open Saturdays from 10am-3pm.
We are located on Tamboline Road, which is your second left after the Westham Island bridge. Our address is 4362 Tamboline Road.
Hope to see you and your family at the farm!
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Cropthorne Farm on Instagram
Just a reminder now that November is here, the @cropthornefarmstand is only open on SATURDAYS from 10-3 until December 21 🥕🍠🥦🥔
Always nice to get away and always nice to come back to this magic.
I didn’t grow up going anywhere tropical or to Disneyland, I never pinned for those trips I just knew our family did things different.
Instead our family holidays were full of road trips to northern Saskatchewan or the Alberta foothills or the Peace. Car camping, listening to hours of CBC radio, fishing and being out in nature as much as possible. So going to Hawai’i felt totally luxurious and strange, the good kind of strange though!
I don’t think Hawai’i will be an annual pilgrimage but what a beautiful place in the world to check out for a few days.
This past season has been like no other. While being self employed makes maternity leave for me impossible, I knew for my own mental health and to really enjoy the first year with #minimega I would scale back what I would do at the farm this season.
Isabelle and Crysta who’ve been co-managing the day to day stuff this year have been amazing as well as the team as a whole, to the point that I felt a bit redundant whenever I could submerge myself back into the day to day rhyme of the farm.
It is a terrific problem to have, to have a crew who can get it all done although I am desperate to get my hands in the soil again and to get back to work full time.
I know babies don’t keep and I’ll cherish this year for the extra moments with my family and am so grateful to our crew for letting me step back and even sneak a trip to Hawai’i!✨✨✨
🍂🍁Thanksgiving is here🍁🍁
And we’ve got you covered @cropthornefarmstand this weekend!
The farmstand is brimming with Sieglinde Potatoes, Watermelon Radish, Celeriac, Pie Pumpkin, Eucalyptus, Radicchio, Parsnips and so much more! (And at the West End and Kits Farmers Markets too!)
Well can’t say we get bored around here!
By 8am I had broken the bar off the undercutter, which basically rendered it useless just as we were about to start sweet potatoes and still had a bed (or 2 😬) left off carrots.
We should have been able to do it all today but with a new bar being most likely, at minimum three days and a big shipping cost away and the rain setting in tomorrow, it meant we really needed to find that bar!
After running the cultivator through 300’, hoping to hear a ‘ting’ or have it come up to surface, we made the call for a metal detector. (Oh technology!) All the while, the guys were hand digging the sweet potatoes in HEAVY clay soil (🙈🙌🏼👊🏼) So after a trip to town and our new handy-dandy rental unit we were able to find the bar fully intact (🙌🏼🙌🏼🙌🏼 thank you shear bolts)
So yeah got to say when I was lying in bed at 4:45 starting to plan out my day this morning, this was not in the books but I’ll tell ya that as soon as the rains come I’m calling up the parts dealer and getting a spare on hand!
The Good
The Bad
The Ugly
At first glance it looks like it’s been a tough month here on the farm.
Our fall broccoli is done-ski, too much rain has rotted the crowns.
Bulk harvest is stalled. We are trying to chip away at beets and radishes while we wait for the fields to dry for carrots.
It is a lot of checking the forecast, switching up the day’s plan based purely on, the ever so important ‘mud factor’. We’ve still got to get garlic in and hoping for some cover crop too.
It doesn’t look great, but it is. Every season is different, that is the constant. The crew is killing it, spirits are high.
We’ll get the garlic in, we always do, and if we don’t, then that’s ok, there’s more to life and happiness than a few veggies. 💛
Not the most ideal soil conditions but slowly getting spuds out of the ground. 2 rows down, 13 to go!
Wash’n’pack
New crop, who dis?
Fioretto, sprouting cauli is looking mighty fierce coming out of the field today.
Farming has always been my first love but with any passion I’ve (finally!) learned you can’t do it all the time or it wears and I do not want to wake up one day and discover that farming has become ‘work’. I rarely mind the long hours and the attachment to the farm, I truly love being grounded in this place, on this little island. But for me to do the best I can that means stepping away once and a while and refresh.
I know it’s not always easy to do but it’s always worth it.
And as always big love to the field team and #mamacropthorne for making it so easy and stress free. Y’all be carful or all do it more often!
I don’t know what it is, their agility, their determination or their ability to think like a chicken but kids sure do make catching look easy when the chickens fly out of their pasture.
@riverandseaflowers daughter is head chicken catcher around here and we’ll certainly miss her when she’s back in school in a few weeks, although it looks like she’s got an apprentice who she’s training up!
Friday Washpit Vibes
Hours & Info
On the 'gram
Just a reminder now that November is here, the @cropthornefarmstand is only open on SATURDAYS from 10-3 until December 21 🥕🍠🥦🥔
Always nice to get away and always nice to come back to this magic.
I didn’t grow up going anywhere tropical or to Disneyland, I never pinned for those trips I just knew our family did things different.
Instead our family holidays were full of road trips to northern Saskatchewan or the Alberta foothills or the Peace. Car camping, listening to hours of CBC radio, fishing and being out in nature as much as possible. So going to Hawai’i felt totally luxurious and strange, the good kind of strange though!
I don’t think Hawai’i will be an annual pilgrimage but what a beautiful place in the world to check out for a few days.
This past season has been like no other. While being self employed makes maternity leave for me impossible, I knew for my own mental health and to really enjoy the first year with #minimega I would scale back what I would do at the farm this season.
Isabelle and Crysta who’ve been co-managing the day to day stuff this year have been amazing as well as the team as a whole, to the point that I felt a bit redundant whenever I could submerge myself back into the day to day rhyme of the farm.
It is a terrific problem to have, to have a crew who can get it all done although I am desperate to get my hands in the soil again and to get back to work full time.
I know babies don’t keep and I’ll cherish this year for the extra moments with my family and am so grateful to our crew for letting me step back and even sneak a trip to Hawai’i!✨✨✨
🍂🍁Thanksgiving is here🍁🍁
And we’ve got you covered @cropthornefarmstand this weekend!
The farmstand is brimming with Sieglinde Potatoes, Watermelon Radish, Celeriac, Pie Pumpkin, Eucalyptus, Radicchio, Parsnips and so much more! (And at the West End and Kits Farmers Markets too!)
Well can’t say we get bored around here!
By 8am I had broken the bar off the undercutter, which basically rendered it useless just as we were about to start sweet potatoes and still had a bed (or 2 😬) left off carrots.
We should have been able to do it all today but with a new bar being most likely, at minimum three days and a big shipping cost away and the rain setting in tomorrow, it meant we really needed to find that bar!
After running the cultivator through 300’, hoping to hear a ‘ting’ or have it come up to surface, we made the call for a metal detector. (Oh technology!) All the while, the guys were hand digging the sweet potatoes in HEAVY clay soil (🙈🙌🏼👊🏼) So after a trip to town and our new handy-dandy rental unit we were able to find the bar fully intact (🙌🏼🙌🏼🙌🏼 thank you shear bolts)
So yeah got to say when I was lying in bed at 4:45 starting to plan out my day this morning, this was not in the books but I’ll tell ya that as soon as the rains come I’m calling up the parts dealer and getting a spare on hand!
The Good
The Bad
The Ugly
At first glance it looks like it’s been a tough month here on the farm.
Our fall broccoli is done-ski, too much rain has rotted the crowns.
Bulk harvest is stalled. We are trying to chip away at beets and radishes while we wait for the fields to dry for carrots.
It is a lot of checking the forecast, switching up the day’s plan based purely on, the ever so important ‘mud factor’. We’ve still got to get garlic in and hoping for some cover crop too.
It doesn’t look great, but it is. Every season is different, that is the constant. The crew is killing it, spirits are high.
We’ll get the garlic in, we always do, and if we don’t, then that’s ok, there’s more to life and happiness than a few veggies. 💛
Not the most ideal soil conditions but slowly getting spuds out of the ground. 2 rows down, 13 to go!
Wash’n’pack
New crop, who dis?
Fioretto, sprouting cauli is looking mighty fierce coming out of the field today.
Farming has always been my first love but with any passion I’ve (finally!) learned you can’t do it all the time or it wears and I do not want to wake up one day and discover that farming has become ‘work’. I rarely mind the long hours and the attachment to the farm, I truly love being grounded in this place, on this little island. But for me to do the best I can that means stepping away once and a while and refresh.
I know it’s not always easy to do but it’s always worth it.
And as always big love to the field team and #mamacropthorne for making it so easy and stress free. Y’all be carful or all do it more often!
I don’t know what it is, their agility, their determination or their ability to think like a chicken but kids sure do make catching look easy when the chickens fly out of their pasture.
@riverandseaflowers daughter is head chicken catcher around here and we’ll certainly miss her when she’s back in school in a few weeks, although it looks like she’s got an apprentice who she’s training up!
Friday Washpit Vibes
It’s world breastfeeding week and these days I’m all about that mama life.
Anywhere, anytime, I’ll feed my baby.
As I am hustling to set up our booth at the farmers market, nursing a baby while putting up price signs.
As I am driving the tractor with the crew behind transplanting broccoli.
As I’m on my lunch break, shooting one handed texts to chefs, with the other cradling a nursing babe.
As I’m sitting in a meeting with a bunch of other farmers, trying to coyly feed what sounds like the noisiest dinosaur ever.
As I’m sitting on a pallet in the barn, having just come in, all sticky, from the field to a hangry babe.
The sweetest moments have been, in the middle of a busy day whether a long line at the market stall or just an endless hectic day here on the farm. It’s all dropped when a baby needs to eat.
I melt into the moment, relax, reconnect and remember that this little human is a big reason all this hard work is worth it.
Of course, not ever moment has been bliss. Sometimes it’s the frustration of being anchored to my babe, day in and day out or the mastitis, oh how could I forget the 5 times (!!) There is no doubt in my mind #fedisbest and I know it is not for all whether by choice or circumstance but I do feel super lucky and proud to bond and nourish and I know there’s a band of crafty farmers across this world doing just the same. 💙
#musesfromafarmingmama #worldbreastfeedingweek #normalizebreastfeeding
Isabelle, Jenna and Renee are in the West End today with a 🌈 of produce.
🏳️🌈 🥬🏳️🌈🥕🏳️🌈🍅🏳️🌈
Whenever a big project comes up on the farm, I lean on my dad.
He’s usually not around on a daily basis but when a big project comes up he certainly is here to help.
He’s an absolute perfectionist so we went over again (and again, and again) the dimensions for our lean-to build out this morning.
Some times his endless rehashing makes my eyes roll but in the end I love that he’s got my back and the ol’ ‘measure twice, cut once’ rule rarely fails.
