First row: Incredible crystals drying in our greenhouses, Tyler working his magic at PCC, our favorite caramel sauce from Hot Cakes.
Second row: Brady in the middle of harvesting, Sawyer and Mitch becoming best buds, Brady leading the kindergartener's through a salthouse tour.
Third row: an incredible collage of the kindergartener's tour from Mrs. Rice and Mrs. Nibler, Brady enjoying a salt fam Saturday, Leah's new brookies at the salt store!
Hey folks! Our summer 2024 newsletter is here, giving you a heads up on our day-to-day at the salt farm! Here at SJISS, we have two busy seasons… summer and winter. The summer season on San Juan is in full swing– we are having temperatures some might even describe as “hot”, and our greenhouse production for all of the salt for 2024 is a-go. Plus, the island is at its liveliest– seasonal folks and community events are accented by the incredible greenery and sunshine, and sometimes, the ultimate treat of a quiet hike or a whale sighting!
This summer…
Our Seattle friends, Hot Cakes, are coming to do an on-island demo at our store this Saturday– 6/29, 1-3pm! They’ll be serving up scoops of vanilla ice cream (vegan and dairy versions!) paired with their incredible sauces, which are already a shop fave. Come snag some free ice cream from one of our favorite vendors ever!
In other store related news, Leah is continuing to whip up some of the best dang baked goods in town. In the last couple of months, we’ve added homemade biscuits and brookies (cookie shaped brownies, topped with our made-in-house honey caramel), but she’s also got another of my favorite sweets coming down the pipeline… want to take a guess which is coming next?!
Plus, we’ve got some new favorite products for the summer, including chocolate covered licorice from Lakrids by Bülow that has converted even the licorice-adverse among us, wild octopus by one of our store-staples, Ekone, and the balsamic pearls (the caviar of vinegar!) from Sticky Balsamic. And, you can get our collab with Holm Made Toffee Co. in town to get your toffee fix ASAP… or on our website! This is definitely one of our favorite collabs we’ve done in a long time so make sure to check this seasonal treat out!
Tyler braved the big world and did Popcorn Blend sampling at PCC! If you didn’t know, all 16 PCC Community Markets, a staple in Seattle and beyond, carry an array of our blends. Ty said: “I loved meeting new people and sharing our salts. The PCC grocery stores are gorgeous and I feel like I could move in and eat everything they have to offer. We sampled out about 36 gallons of popped corn with our seasoning blends on top!”
In farm related news… Mitch, the salt farm puppy, is getting SO big. Every weekend we come back in, he’s shot up like a weed! He’s a curious guy who loves to run around in the big open fields here.
We also have some seasonal folks here, which has been a fun part of the last couple of summers as we've expanded! We’d love to give a big shout out to returning Salt Crew Brittany and Jupiter for being such a sweet part of the season and helping fill and label every jar!
Another big part of the summer is seeing the greenhouses fill with salt for the coming year! Brady and Ian, our only two salt maestros, have harvested 10,000 pounds of salt already… way ahead of schedule. It’s just the two of them, and they crush it every year in the crazy hot greenhouses, sweeping the dried salt beds and hauling buckets out to drain.
And finally, we had a Salt Farm tour first last month and had two kindergarten classes totaling almost 40 kiddos (plus the incredible Mrs. Nibler, Mrs. Rice, and parents) come to tour the farm! We had a make-your-own-blend station headed by Anna and Tyler, a coloring station with our beautiful shop bags, a tactile sea water/greenhouse tour with Brady and Maddy, and Ian and Jonna helped each of the kiddos pick out their own salt crystal to take home after showing them our sifting process! We’ve never done anything like it. Seeing each of the kids get to experience something totally new was magical, and they made us the cutest booklet, where each of the kids wrote about their favorite parts of the trip– one of my favorites being: “My favorit part of the sullt farm is tastinge the seesing”. Hats off to the crew, parents, teachers, and kiddos for an amazing day.
We can’t wait to see you in our shop this summer as folks come to visit our beautiful blue island. Have a wonderful rest of the season and stay salty, folks!
Essine