Greetings From Morningsun Herb Farm

Greetings from the Farm;

After many years without a consistent newsletter, we are once again ready to take the plunge and commit to a monthly newsletter!  If you have been a long time customer you may even remember when we used to mail out quarterly newsletters on canary yellow paper.  At the start of the pandemic I told my husband Dan ‘Oh now we can write newsletters again, we will have plenty of time’.  He just laughed somewhat cynically.  As it turned out, the pandemic was our busiest time ever as everyone turned to their gardens and backyards for both their physical and mental well being.  Our crew has been busy the last two and a half years just trying to keep up with all of the new customers, many of which have also been brand new gardeners.

So this is a great time to ‘introduce ourselves’ – We have lots of people working at the farm, and since we are a seasonal business there are times when there may be many of us running around to keep the nursery going.  Dan and Rose (that’s me) have owned the nursery since 1995.  It was originally a walnut orchard that my grandfather and father planted in 1956, when my parents purchased the 3 acre property.  The ranch house on the property is where we live, and it’s where I grew up.  I joke that I literally have moved zero feet away from where I grew up.  It does mean a very short commute to work, so if you sometimes see me in the morning still in slippers and jammies it means I started working while I was out with the dogs and never made it back into the house to finish getting ready for the day.  Of course, lots of people are out in public that way now, so no big deal at the farm.

Dan manages the mail order section of our nursery.  We ship our plants all over the US, from March-July and Sept-Oct.  It has been a small component of our business, but has definitely increased during the pandemic.  He also fixes things I break.  I even bought him a tee shirt that declares that to be his purpose.  I break a lot of stuff, push incorrect buttons, do not read instructions thoroughly, and often do not carefully analyze what is going wrong with whatever piece of equipment has stopped functioning.  Fortunately Dan is a retired mechanical engineer and is much better at equipment repair, as well as reminding me to turn things off and then on again to get them to work.

Hillary has been with Morningsun for 10 years and manages farmers markets, propagation and is the wreath maker extraordinaire.  She makes sure there are more plants of all kinds being seeded or grown by cuttings, and is the main face of Morningsun at our two farmers markets.  Our wreath making classes in November and December are always sold out, and Hillary not only is the primary instructor, she also is responsible for all the growing and gathering of herbs and flowers for the wreaths.

Rosee is the retail manager, and also helps to coordinate mail order.  She has also been with Morningsun 10 years, and now there are many things I have to ask her how to do since she is the person doing all of the set up!  If you have been to the farm or called on the phone, you have probably talked to Rosee.  She is great at sleuthing out answers to every kind of question we get about plants, bugs, even lawn (my answer is always to remove the lawn and plant herbs).

We have between 4 and 10 people working at the farm during the year, depending on the season. Our crew is always busy, especially since we do much of our own propagating from seed and cuttings, and have a large garden space to tend.  We hope our long-time customers have enjoyed some of the recent growth we’ve had at the farm – we had the property surveyed and found that our back property line was actually 30 ft beyond where my dad built the fence.  And we welcome all of you who have found us in the last few years.  Dan and I love seeing people out in the gardens, visiting with the donkeys and Goose The Goat, having lunch, strolling with their pups, riding the tricycles, and just generally relaxing and enjoying themselves. It is the vision we have always had for the farm and it’s sweet to see it come to fruition.

Thank you all, 

Rose Loveall-Sale & Dan Sale

Owners, Morningsun Herb Farm