Welcome to the Burnham Family Farm Market website! We hope you enjoy your visit. Please feel free to provide your comments using our feedback form.

Market News

An apple a day...and why not throw in some sweet corn and fresh beans for good measure!

Market Hours:

Location:

We are open June 1st until Dec 23rd.

Monday through Saturday 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.

Sundays 10 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

The market is located on County Road 2, between Port Hope and Cobourg, in Hamilton Township, Northumberland County, Ontario. Click here for a detailed map.

Recent Newsletters

Burnham Family Farm Market Newsletter No 3 [ barely squeaking into] August 2010

Crop Report – by Paul –

Raspberries- Wow, what a crop this year. Our biggest yet. They went on and on to our delight!

Beans- We are currently picking our last section of beans for the 2010 season. Since everything is a couple of weeks ahead we should have planted once or twice more to extend the season but hindsight is 20-20.

Sweet Corn- We had some challenges keeping up with demand but now are doing just fine. Should have sweet corn until at least late Sept.

Apples- This year’s crop is looking better every day. Hope to pick some Macs early next week. Everything is about 2 weeks early. The MacIntosh are the first to be picked of the true fall apples. Mmm.

Field crops- The wheat this year was excellent. Farmers further north suffered because of excessive ice in the winter but here we had excellent yields and quality.

Peaches-?! –What a delight. Our own peaches. We harvested about 12 bushels in total of three varieties. They sold out quickly.

Flour Mill- Thinking of ordering it tomorrow. Should have wheat ready to grind into flour in a couple of weeks.

Anne’s turn:

Our 2010 MAZE is open. – the theme this year is Our Carbon Footprint. We have environmental questions inside the maze and a cool way to mark your answers with special hole-punches. A number of folk have been through it already. Feedback on how you received the maze is always welcome.

And throughout the season of the maze we will donate 50cents toward Trinity United Church’s solar panel project for each person who goes in the maze and mentions Trinity!

Staff Party

On Thursday last week we had our own little corn roast, potluck supper and campfire on the farm before our university students leaved for school - Nelson [ ESL training], Taylor arts/Science at MacMaster] and Taelor [ vocal performance/choral conducting at Acadia. After our meal a number of our employees raced through the maze in the dark and came back all enthused. And we handed out some light –hearted awards which I will share in case you too find them amusing.

Ruth – the Sherlock Holmes award for her work on solving the mysteries of baking by using a methodical and empirical approach

Karly – Frequent Flyer Award – in Switzerland at the moment

Jess – What’s up Doc award for effectively analyzing and soothing us all.

Calla – The Best Freak Out Award for her reaction to a surprise in the dark.

Vera – the Fox on The Run award for the way her feet scurry about

Aislyn – The Fast Head – Slow Feet Award – her body does not all work at the same speed!

HeatherP – Best First Mate – inspired by her recent sailing excursion and her supportive personality

Abbie – Most Improved for stepping up her game now that she is no longer the newest employee!

Chris – Souper Dude – for creating a new line of great soups for us

Taylor – Get Down award for a little tripping incident she had – no one was hurt!

Remi – Farthest Away at Award Time – in Belgium!

Taelor – Most Melodic laugh – have you heard it??
Heather V – Most Likely to be Found Outside

Rachel – Most Likely to be Unable to Stop giggling after Pizza

Jenna – Best Doe Eyes

Megan – Best Ice Cream Scooper

Irra – Biggest Appetite

Paul – Efficiency in delivering Corn

Mark – Prolific Planner Award

Mac – Forage Ahead Award – get the farm pun there??

Felix – Best Soccer Ball Dribbling – you should see his skill!

Marco – Jolliest Rancher

Saul – Most Often in the News – three times this year!

Asael – most Philosphical

Villa – Best Nickname – El Grande

Nelson – Culture Collector Award – so far he has experience with El Salvadorian. Mexican, and Canadian cultures and he wants to add African!

Thanks for reading friends!

Anne

Newsletter No2 July 2010

Since we last wrote you we have finished a disappointing strawberry season and we are almost done an amazingly abundant raspberry season. Pies made with our own fresh raspberries have been flying off the shelves! Sweet corn has arrived early as well!

Staff for 2010

More Changes – Wendy has gotten a new assignment teaching at Loyalist College this fall. This will certainly make good use of Wendy’s intellectual enthusiasm and her people skills to boot. Congrats Wendy. Marin has found work with a family business, assisting with office work and more. Good luck to you Marin! Very soon Karly will be flying to Switzerland for 2 months with the love of her life who is a Swiss citizen. Later and probably before the next newsletter Remi will be off across the Atlantic as well. Remi was accepted for a Rotary exchange in Belgium where he can practice his French and learn Flemish as well. By then Heather P will be back from her month on a Spanish sailing vessel. All the rest of our new staff are fitting in well and learning all the in’s and out’s of serving you!

Outdoors, as well, we have some change. Francisco returned to Mexico to be with family and we have a very tall replacement in Villa.

There’s nothing more certain then change!

BAKERY NEWS

We had some issues with butter tart filling earlier this year but we think we have figured out that the brown sugar had a different texture and while most products did not show any change butter tarts are very sensitive to brown sugar quality! So now that we have that learning behind us, you should see more tarts on the table. We are also attempting to make our mini pies on a more consistent basis. And lastly fruit loaves are also part of the items we hope to display consistently. So far they have been selling really well!

Crop Report – by Paul –

Strawberries- we are sorry about the poor season. Worst yet with no PYO! Next year can only get better with lots of new plants put in.

Raspberries- Anyone visiting the patch this season has seen what is possibly our biggest crop ever. They are in the last days of production but they have been plentiful and of good quality.

Peas and Beans- Pea season was short due to the excessive heat. The heat caused the peas to harden very quickly in the pods even though they were not filling the pods out. Beans on the other hand adore the heat and are producing very vigorously.

Sweet Corn- Our earliest start yet for picking. As usual, the first variety wasn’t our tastiest but we are now into later plantings and better quality corn. Our special Super Sweet corn should be ready around August 1^st. Probably about 2 weeks early.

Apples- Wow, I actually ate an apple today off our own trees. It was sour but edible. Again, they are at least 2 weeks early. We had our first taste of 2010 apples today [ Fri July 23]

Field crops- Wheat-Again, early harvest. Quality is excellent and yield looks good.

Grain Corn- Ahead of schedule also. Looking forward to bin busting yields!

Same for Soybeans-We are also growing some food grade Soys this year.

Peaches-?! Yes, Peaches. Last year we planted 45 trees and we will actually be harvesting some peaches I’d say in about a week. We won’t have a large quantity to sell, but if you ask on the right day, we may be able to let you sample!

Flour Mill- We are thinking about purchasing a small, counter mounted flour mill so we can offer you our own wheat for you to grind for your own supply of flour. Please let us know what you think of this idea.

Looking Back and Ahead:

STRAWBERRY DAYS were fun indeed! On June 26 and 27 – Mr. Strawberry was a bit busy on Saturday dodging raindrops but Sunday was nicer. While we didn’t get record crowds this year we had families who stayed for hours enjoying all the festivities. Thanks to our staff, especially the newer ones who had no idea what they were getting into, for being such a great team. Mr. Strawberry got his very own song this year and he was so happy with it he danced all over the lawn.

Thanks to Maplewood Stables for the great pony rides – always a treat . Karly deserves her own mention for the fabulous face-painting. She took fine-art at university! Thanks to: Elizabeth Barlow on celtic harp, Matt Williams on guitar, Kyler Tapscott and Scott Li on dueting guitars and vocals, Brooke Sturzenegger and Gord Hunter on guitars and vocals with some original compositions of Brooke’s. Happily Ever After with Sarah Pudwell as their lead vocalist were awesome. Tim Wisznicki on keyboards, Brendan MacDonald on keyboards and vocals and last but not least, the second engagement of Toast[ Warren and Kelly Ambrose, Jeff Pudwell, Dave Seale, and Paul and I ] [ It’s one of my bucket list items to be in a band!] Our charity for our BBQ was the local chapter of the Canadian Cancer Society and we were able to give them a cheque for over $500 to go towards their breast cancer research. Special thanks to burger flippin’ volunteers – Beryl and Craig Cable-Williams, Pat Groombridge, Katie Burnham and the whole Mireault family.

JeffFries has been at our place twice now – on Strawberry Days and Sat the 17^th of July. It was soooooooooooooo nice to see Mr JeffFry himself on the 17^th after a long roller coaster ride in hospital for 10 weeks! Yeah for renewed health! JeffFries next engagement will be at Estival July 31 and August 1 in Port Hope and then back at our place on August 7^th!

Weetabix cereal is now on our shelves and the reason is they are using local Northumberland and Ontario grown wheat in their products. It’s very cool when large successful companies like Weetabix care about where things come from!

Opening August 1^st ! – our 2010 MAZE – The theme this year is Our Carbon Footprint. We are going to have carbon footprint questions inside and a cool way to mark your answers with special hole-punches. I still have to do some work on it before August 1^st the opening day! Half price admission on opening day!!! And throughout the season of the maze we will donate 50cents toward Trinity United Church’s solar panel project for each person who goes in the maze and mentions Trinity! Anne and Paul

P.S .Our solar panels were connected about 10 days ago!

Burnham Family Farm Market Newsletter No 1 June 2010

Welcome Back - We’ve been open for 20 days now and I am late with my newsletter!

STRAWBERRY DAYS! FAMILY FUN!! June 26 and 27 – Mr. Strawberry is getting excited and practicing his silly jokes. We have ordered his sack full of candy and we’re making sure the wagon is ready to roll. The ponies are being groomed and we’re brushing up on our face-painting! Musicians are lined up to play while we remember how to make our strawberry sundaes. Our charity for our BBQ is the local chapter of the Canadian Cancer Society. JeffFries will be there both days for all your fry “needs”. As always it should be a really fun weekend [10:00 -5:00 both days while pony rides are offered only from 11:00 -3:00 as the ponies get weary before we do!

Staff for 2010

Big Changes - This year we have lost and gained a lot! Back for more are Ruth, Karly til August, Jess, Calla, Doug [only in the fall], Vera, Wendy, Aislyn, Heather, and Abbie. Gone for the time being and still being mourned are: Amy and Katie who are travelling in Australia and working in Guelph respectively. Camille is dancing in Toronto and Josh is working in England/ studying in Ireland. Joel is now a surveyor! Donna’s scrubbie business has taken off!

So we have been busy welcoming a long list of wonderful NEW employees!

Chris and Marin have joined our bakery team! Taylor and Taelor are part of the fruit and veggie team plus Heather, Remi, Rachel, Jenna, Kassie, Megan and Anne Sanders more in the fall. So you will see some new faces as you come in - we have a new photo staff chart to help you keep us all straight.

Outdoors, as well, we have some change. Bryan is working out west this year and Nelson is our Frontier College rep for 2010 working with our amigos, Francisco, Felix, Marco and Asael. Asael is also new to our farm this year. Pat is a returning picker while Mac is new in assisting Paul and Mark in field work. Thanks to everyone for being part of the Burnham Farm Team!

What’s New?

Mini sponge cakes for easy individual fruit desserts and yummy triple chocolate cookies are new. We have some new salsas and salad dressings. A couple of new jam flavours. Come in and check out our new products section. We are out of wasabi pea snacks already but should have more by Canada Day.

Crop Report

Strawberries- You may have already heard the bad news about strawberries. A lot of the plants died over the winter. We are not sure why. Some had been victim to the same phenomenon the winter before. This is not just happening at our place but in varying degrees around our area. Then the May frost hit and killed a lot of blossoms that had come out early with the heat in April. Lack of rain in May made the berries a bit smaller than some years. All in all, the lowest number of berries in the patch in 17years! So far there is not enough to open the pick-your-own patch. Sorry to disappoint you. We’d love to have enough to have you all happily picking and singing in the patch but it may not happen this year! We will keep the market supplied, however. There seem to be enough berries for that.

Raspberries- On the other hand the raspberry patch is looking very prolific. Early July should see us all happy about the raspberries. So save your urge to pick-your-own for the raspberries!

Peas and Beans- The peas we picked for the first time today [June 21^st!] having almost a bushel to sell. They are so yummy when they are THAT fresh. The beans should be along soon.

Hope to see many of you on Strawberry Days this weekend!

Anne and Paul

Burnham Family Farm Market Newsletter No 3  [ barely squeaking into] August 2010

Crop Report – by Paul – 

Raspberries- Wow, what a crop this year.  Our biggest yet. They went on and on to our delight!
Beans- We are currently picking our last section of beans for the 2010  season.  Since everything is a couple of weeks ahead we should have planted once or twice more to extend the season but hindsight is 20-20. 
Sweet Corn- We had some challenges keeping up with demand but now are doing just fine.  Should have  sweet corn until at least late Sept.
Apples- This year’s crop is looking better every day.  Hope to pick some Macs early next week. Everything is about 2 weeks early. The MacIntosh are the first to be picked of the true fall apples. Mmm.
Field crops- The wheat this year was excellent.  Farmers further north suffered because of excessive ice in the winter but here we had excellent yields and quality.
Peaches-?! –What a delight.  Our own peaches.  We harvested about 12 bushels in total of three varieties.  They sold out quickly.
Flour Mill- Thinking of ordering it tomorrow.  Should have wheat ready to grind into flour in a couple of weeks.
Anne’s turn:
Our 2010 MAZE is open. – the theme this year is Our Carbon Footprint. We have environmental questions inside the maze and a cool way to mark your answers with special hole-punches. A number of folk have been through it already. Feedback on how you received the maze is always welcome. 
 And throughout the season of the maze we will donate 50cents toward Trinity United Church’s solar panel project for each person who goes in the maze and mentions Trinity!   
 Staff Party
On Thursday last week we had our own little corn roast, potluck supper  and campfire on the farm before our university students leaved for school - Nelson [ ESL training], Taylor arts/Science at MacMaster] and Taelor [ vocal performance/choral conducting at Acadia. After our meal a number of our employees raced through the maze in the dark and came back all enthused.  And we handed out some light –hearted awards which I will share in case you too find them amusing. 
Ruth – the Sherlock Holmes award for her work on solving the mysteries of baking by using a methodical and empirical approach
Karly – Frequent Flyer Award – in Switzerland at the moment
Jess – What’s up Doc award for effectively analyzing and soothing us all.
Calla – The Best Freak Out Award for her reaction to a surprise in the dark.
Vera – the Fox on The Run award for the way her feet scurry about 
Aislyn – The Fast Head – Slow Feet Award – her body does not all work at the same speed!
HeatherP – Best First Mate – inspired by her recent sailing excursion and her supportive personality
Abbie – Most Improved for stepping up her game now that she is no longer the newest employee!
Chris – Souper Dude – for creating a new line of great soups for us
Taylor – Get Down award for a little tripping incident she had – no one was hurt!
Remi – Farthest Away at Award Time – in Belgium! 
Taelor – Most Melodic laugh – have you heard it?? Heather V – Most Likely to be Found Outside
Rachel – Most Likely to be Unable to Stop giggling after Pizza
Jenna – Best Doe Eyes
Megan – Best Ice Cream Scooper
Irra – Biggest Appetite
Paul – Efficiency in delivering Corn
Mark – Prolific Planner Award
Mac – Forage Ahead Award – get the farm pun there??
Felix – Best Soccer Ball Dribbling – you should see his skill!
Marco – Jolliest Rancher
Saul – Most Often in the News – three times this year!
Asael – most Philosphical
Villa – Best Nickname – El Grande
Nelson – Culture Collector Award – so far he has experience with El Salvadorian. Mexican, and Canadian cultures and he wants to add African!
Thanks for reading friends!
Anne 



<hr />
 
Newsletter No2 July 2010




<a href="mailto:burnham.market@sympatico.ca"></a>
 
Since we last wrote you we have finished a disappointing strawberry season and we are almost done an amazingly abundant raspberry season. Pies made with our own fresh raspberries have been flying off the shelves! Sweet corn has arrived early as well! 
Staff for 2010
More Changes – Wendy has gotten a new assignment teaching at Loyalist College this fall. This will certainly make good use of Wendy’s intellectual enthusiasm and her people skills to boot. Congrats Wendy. Marin has found work with a family business, assisting with office work and more. Good luck to you Marin! Very soon Karly will be flying to Switzerland for 2 months with the love of her life who is a Swiss citizen. Later and probably before the next newsletter Remi will be off across the Atlantic as well. Remi was accepted for a Rotary exchange in Belgium where he can practice his French and learn Flemish as well. By then Heather P will be back from her month on a Spanish sailing vessel. All the rest of our new staff are fitting in well and learning all the in’s and out’s of serving you!
Outdoors, as well, we have some change. Francisco returned to Mexico to be with family and we have a very tall replacement in Villa. 
There’s nothing more certain then change!

BAKERY NEWS
We had some issues with butter tart filling earlier this year but we think we have figured out that the brown sugar had a different texture and while most products did not show any change butter tarts are very sensitive to brown sugar quality! So now that we have that learning behind us, you should see more tarts on the table. We are also attempting to make our mini pies on a more consistent basis. And lastly fruit loaves are also part of the items we hope to display consistently. So far they have been selling really well! 
 
Crop Report – by Paul – 
Strawberries- we are sorry about the poor season.  Worst yet with no PYO!  Next year can only get better with lots of new plants put in.
 
Raspberries- Anyone visiting the patch this season has seen what is possibly our biggest crop ever.  They are in the last days of production but they have been plentiful and of good quality.
 
Peas and Beans- Pea season was short due to the excessive heat.  The heat caused the peas to harden very quickly in the pods even though they were not filling the pods out.  Beans on the other hand adore the heat and are producing very vigorously.
 
Sweet Corn- Our earliest start yet for picking.  As usual, the first variety wasn’t our tastiest but we are now into later plantings and better quality corn.  Our special Super Sweet corn should be ready around August 1st.  Probably about 2 weeks early.
 
Apples- Wow, I actually ate an apple today off our own trees.  It was sour but edible.  Again, they are at least 2 weeks early. We had our first taste of 2010 apples today [ Fri July 23]
 
Field crops- Wheat-Again, early harvest.  Quality is excellent and yield looks good.
            Grain Corn- Ahead of schedule also.  Looking forward to bin busting yields!
            Same for Soybeans-We are also growing some food grade Soys this year.
 
Peaches-?! Yes, Peaches.  Last year we planted 45 trees and we will actually be harvesting some peaches I’d say in about a week.  We won’t have a large quantity to sell, but if you ask on the right day, we may be able to let you sample!
 
Flour Mill- We are thinking about purchasing a small, counter mounted flour mill so we can offer you our own wheat for you to grind for your own supply of flour.  Please let us know what you think of this idea.
 
Looking Back and Ahead:
STRAWBERRY DAYS were fun indeed!  On June 26 and 27 – Mr. Strawberry was a bit busy on Saturday dodging raindrops but Sunday was nicer. While we didn’t get record crowds this year we had families who stayed for hours enjoying all the festivities. Thanks to our staff, especially the newer ones who had no idea what they were getting into, for being such a great team. Mr. Strawberry got his very own song this year and he was so happy with it he danced all over the lawn.
Thanks to Maplewood Stables for the great pony rides – always a treat . Karly deserves her own mention for the fabulous face-painting. She took fine-art at university! Thanks to: Elizabeth Barlow on celtic harp, Matt Williams on guitar, Kyler Tapscott and Scott Li on dueting guitars and vocals, Brooke Sturzenegger and Gord Hunter on guitars and vocals with some original compositions of Brooke’s. Happily Ever After with Sarah Pudwell as their lead vocalist were awesome. Tim Wisznicki on keyboards, Brendan MacDonald on keyboards and vocals and last but not least, the second  engagement of Toast[ Warren and Kelly Ambrose, Jeff Pudwell, Dave Seale, and Paul and I ] [ It’s one of my bucket list items to be in a band!]   Our charity for our BBQ was the local chapter of the Canadian Cancer Society and we were able to give them a cheque for over $500 to go towards their breast cancer research. Special thanks to burger flippin’ volunteers – Beryl and Craig Cable-Williams, Pat Groombridge, Katie Burnham and the whole Mireault family.
JeffFries has been at our place twice now – on Strawberry Days and Sat the 17th of July.  It was soooooooooooooo nice to see Mr JeffFry  himself on the 17th after a long roller coaster ride in hospital for 10 weeks! Yeah for renewed health! JeffFries  next engagement will be at Estival July 31 and August 1 in Port Hope and then back at our place on August 7th! 
 
Weetabix cereal is now on our shelves and the reason is they are using local Northumberland and Ontario grown wheat in their products. It’s very cool when large successful companies like Weetabix care about where things come from!
Opening August 1st !  – our 2010 MAZE – The theme this year is Our Carbon Footprint. We are going to have carbon footprint questions inside and a cool way to mark your answers with special hole-punches. I still have to do some work on it before August 1st the opening day! Half price admission on opening day!!! And throughout the season of the maze we will donate 50cents toward Trinity United Church’s solar panel project for each person who goes in the maze and mentions Trinity!   Anne and Paul 
P.S .Our solar panels were connected about 10 days ago! 

<hr />

 

 



 




 

Burnham Family Farm Market Newsletter No 1 June 2010 

 
Welcome Back  - We’ve been open for 20 days now and I am late with my newsletter!  
 
STRAWBERRY DAYS! FAMILY FUN!! June 26 and 27 – Mr. Strawberry is getting excited and practicing his silly jokes. We have ordered his sack full of candy and we’re making sure the wagon is ready to roll. The ponies are being groomed and we’re brushing up on our face-painting! Musicians are lined up to play while we remember how to make our strawberry sundaes.  Our charity for our BBQ is the local chapter of the Canadian Cancer Society. JeffFries will be there both days for all your fry “needs”. As always it should be a really fun weekend [10:00 -5:00 both days while pony rides are offered only from 11:00 -3:00 as the ponies get weary before we do!
 
Staff for 2010
Big Changes - This year we have lost and gained a lot!  Back for more are Ruth, Karly til August, Jess, Calla, Doug [only in the fall], Vera, Wendy, Aislyn, Heather, and Abbie.  Gone for the time being and still being mourned are: Amy and Katie who are travelling in Australia and working in Guelph respectively. Camille is dancing in Toronto and Josh is working in England/ studying in Ireland. Joel is now a surveyor!  Donna’s scrubbie business has taken off!
So we have been busy welcoming a long list of wonderful NEW employees!
Chris and Marin have joined our bakery team! Taylor and Taelor are part of the fruit and veggie team plus Heather, Remi, Rachel, Jenna, Kassie, Megan and Anne Sanders more in the fall. So you will see some new faces as you come in - we have a new photo staff chart to help you keep us all straight.
Outdoors, as well, we have some change. Bryan is working out west this year and Nelson is our Frontier College rep for 2010 working with our amigos, Francisco, Felix, Marco and Asael. Asael is also new to our farm this year. Pat is a returning picker while Mac is new in assisting Paul and Mark in field work. Thanks to everyone for being part of the Burnham Farm Team!
 
What’s New? 
Mini sponge cakes for easy individual fruit desserts and yummy triple chocolate cookies are new.  We have some new salsas and salad dressings. A couple of new jam flavours. Come in and check out our new products section. We are out of wasabi pea snacks already but should have more by Canada Day.
 
 
Crop Report
 
Strawberries- You may have already heard the bad news about strawberries. A lot of the plants died over the winter. We are not sure why. Some had been victim to the same phenomenon the winter before. This is not just happening at our place but in varying degrees around our area. Then the May frost hit and killed a lot of blossoms that had come out early with the heat in April. Lack of rain in May made the berries a bit smaller than some years. All in all, the lowest number of berries in the patch in 17years! So far there is not enough to open the pick-your-own patch. Sorry to disappoint you. We’d love to have enough to have you all happily picking and singing in the patch but it may not happen this year!  We will keep the market supplied, however.  There seem to be enough berries for that.
 
Raspberries- On the other hand the raspberry patch is looking very prolific. Early July should see us all happy about the raspberries. So save your urge to pick-your-own for the raspberries!
 
Peas and Beans- The peas we picked for the first time today [June 21st!] having almost a bushel to sell. They are so yummy when they are THAT fresh. The beans should be along soon.  
 
Hope to see many of you on Strawberry Days this weekend!
 
Anne and Paul