Beech Hill Farm, Maine

On our recent trip to Maine we stayed in Bar Harbor and visited the amazing Acadia National Park, stay tuned for future posts. We loved driving across to the other Quiet side of the Island and through Southwest Harbor. A delightful little town with an amazing bakery and cute shops. On the drive down we took a side road and saw a sign for Beech Hill Farm. As a farmer and food lover I always love visiting local farms and farm stands, seeing whats in season and local to the area and chatting to the growers. This is well worth a visit if you visit Mount Dessert Island. Its a diverse organic farm associated with College of the Atlantic and they train farmers. 

It has a wonderful farm stand with a great variety of freshly harvested vegetables, eggs, local cheese, bread and more. The young farmers are friendly and enthusiastic and happy to answer questions.

There wasn't an official tour but they are fine allowing you to wander around and look and visit the little pigs. Maine is a cold and Northern state with a fairly small growing season so greenhouse and high tunnels are used lots. 

So when you visit Maine as well as Lobster, great seafood and the famous wild blueberries enjoy fresh vegetables from its many farms.

They have 6 full time staff and such wonderfully weeded beds. 

This was such a wonderful idea. 

 oink!

Hope you enjoyed the wee virtual tour.

Hugs

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How to Make Elderflower Syrup

Growing up in the U.K. there are many elderflower cordials and soda's with elderflower. Its a drink I often buy when visiting. Funny when I was getting the raised beds built at the farm one of the guys sold me an elderflower bush. It grew so quickly and I happily harvested some. I then walked down the end of the field and noticed the exact same bush growing and in fact they are all over the place. So maybe you will notice them in your area too. 

A simple syrup is easy to make and its great added to soda water for a fun summer drink and to cakes.  I think it would also be great in cocktails.

Freshly Harvested Elderflower, I even had a super cute little helper. 

Ingredients:

• 3 large bunches of elderflower 
• 4 cups of water
• 2 cups of sugar 
• the juice of a lemon and the slices

Method:

1. Add the water to a pan and bring to a light simmer
2. add the sugar and lemon and stir for about 5 minutes until its all dissolved.
3. let the syrup sit and cool then add the elderflowers to the top.
4. cover and place in the fridge overnight.
5. the next day sieve through a cheese cloth and add to jars. It can stay in the fridge for a couple of weeks. 

How will you use your syrup? 

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