We’re glad you’re here.
We’re glad you’re here.
Welcome to Blue Gate Farm.
Who We Are
Blue Gate Farm is located in Warren, Connecticut and is run by Bruce and Yobana Young. Our goal is to create a sustainable and resilient micro farm that nurtures and respects the animals, people, and plants in our care. We view our soil as an irreplaceable natural resource and constantly work to maintain, enrich and improve its health.
The Daily Grind
What We Do
From the outset our goal was to explore and combine the many ways to produce and profit on a small acreage farm combining organic (and beyond organic) vegetable and fruit production, respectfully raising and harvesting our animals and at all times seeking to become as diverse and resilient as possible.
Keeping our goals modest but meaningful to our lives, we combine our love of small-scale farming with our cottage industry bread production in order to live what we feel is a balanced one-income farmstead livelihood. We trade and barter with our local farming friends and neighbors and we produce- and most importantly preserve- as much of our own food as possible. We also sell to our local community through farmers markets, directly from our farm and through our own bread CSA. Our offerings are constantly changing and reflecting our own growth and that of our farm.
Ground Up
What We Produce
In our third year (officially) of running Blue Gate farm we have raised Freedom Ranger chickens, American Guinea Hogs and we currently have three American Aberdeen beef cows - Dewey, Clover and our lovely heifer calf Pepita. They are a wonderful breed of cattle with easy temperaments and they do very well on limited pasture such as ours. We often look out to see neighbors and their children stopping by to say hello! We took well over a year learning from other farmers, reading and talking to breeders before deciding on the American Aberdeen. Time well spent, and we couldn’t be happier. We put much the same effort and thought into selecting the crops we grow. We’ve agonized over which blueberry varieties to give us the longest season, where to plant the asparagus and endlessly struggled to keep our tomatoes at a manageable population!
Currently in our third year we have in various quantities and stages of development apples, apricots, cherries, raspberries, blueberries, strawberries, currants, lemons, figs, rhubarb, hazelnuts, chestnuts, herbs, a large and varied vegetable garden where we produce for our own consumption as well as several things in much larger amounts for sale. We find that by having the widest variety possible yet focusing only on a smaller subset for larger production and sale we’ve so far avoided spreading ourselves too thin and becoming overwhelmed. We are consciously avoiding the ‘indiscriminate pursuit of more’ that we see so many examples of these days.
Looking Ahead
Where We’re Going
Blue Gate Farm is certainly growing and we are really pleased to see so many of our ideas and dreams become reality. We have recently joined the Farmers Market at the Judy Black park in Washington Depot and couldn’t be happier with the reception that our breads have received! We are transitioning from our current organic flours to locally grown and milled organic flours from Ground Up Grains, supporting the resurging wheat industry in local New York, Massachusetts and Connecticut. A lot of our offerings feature our own ingredients as the season allows. We also use local eggs from Warren Valley Farm and butter from Ronnybrook Farm in Pine Plains New York.
Our overarching vision is to help chart a blueprint of sorts for other like minded people with smaller properties who would like to live a little simpler, a little smaller, and a whole lot closer to their families and communities. We eventually hope to write about our experiences along the way and offer what we can for others trying to get back to something a little more real. To gain back a little more control over our own lives and to cherish the hard work along the way.