March Love Letter

And while Michael was tending to the greenhouse and building english pea trellises, Andrew our Livestock Manager and the team was outside welcoming a delivery of 750 Sexlink hens (not the day to wear your Sunday best to work). They are settling in now, scratching and finding their rhythm, and before long they will begin producing beautiful farm eggs. Those eggs will stock the Market and anchor our Egg Share CSA, giving guests the chance to take a steady piece of the farm home with them throughout the year.

Then, like a gift from the farming goddess Demeter, the seed delivery arrived, the whole year in cardboard boxes. Tomatoes we will obsess over and talk about way too much come July. Root vegetables that dress up the Market cooler in the colors of early spring. And some of my favorites, Bolero carrots!! You have heard that one before.

And now it is March. Well, that’s what the calendar says.

The cottages are open seven days a week. March is when the farm stretches back into its full rhythm.

The Market runs Thursday through Sunday, 8:00 to 3:00.

The Chalkboard Menu from the Kitchen runs Friday through Sunday, 8:00 to 2:30. Breakfast and lunch are built around greenhouse harvests. Spinach folded into morning eggs. Greens piled onto plates. Fennel shaved bright over lunch salads, Best enjoyed warm and comfortable inside our heated Hoop Houses.

The Bakery keeps its regular hours Friday through Sunday, 8:00 AM to 2:00 PM, tucked into the Western Garage, the new KitchenAid mixer mixing muffins early in the morning, sweet breads hitting the oven racks before most of the town is awake. Sue’s delicious scones, still warm and just sweet or savory or gluten free enough, disappear faster than we can bake them. Sandra stands behind the espresso machine pouring a perfect latte and greeting every guest with a smile.

Saturday farm to table dinners return. Long tables. Seasonal plates. Chef Russell and the team cook what the land allows, not what a menu says we should.

And then there is the Garden State Dinner Series, and this one matters to us. It is not just a dinner, it is a vision about who we are and where we are. On March 21st, we welcome Wood Song Mushrooms to open the season, with Lin hosting the evening and guiding the conversation. It is about fungi and the farm’s weekly harvest, but more than that it is about resilience, about soil and grit, about flavor that starts underground and ends at the table. We begin with real conversation and end with a meal that tastes like New Jersey in early spring.

For the cottages, March and April bring Rooted Gardening.

When you join us for Rooted Gardening, you are stepping into the real rhythm of the farm. You will stay in one of our cottages, private, beautifully appointed, and deeply connected to the land, offering the feeling of something both luxurious and completely rooted in nature, and spend time in the raised beds with Christina Albert, working with seeds, soil, and the patience it takes to grow something meaningful. Fresh baked goods will be delivered each morning, lunch will be dropped at your cottage, and the experience culminates in a farm to table dinner in the Market with Chef Russell and the team, where you will taste the direct connection between field and plate. Since 2016, our kitchen gardens have been the living link between Beach Plum Farm and Cape May’s culinary community, giving our chefs direct access to ingredients harvested just steps from the stove and reinforcing our belief that the best meals begin in the soil.

March is not flashy.

It is greenhouse greens. It is scones and lattes. It is muddy boots. It is farmers standing up to tell their story. It is seeds in the ground that no one sees yet.

February tested us.

March reminds us why we do it.