Welcome to the Blue Owl!

Blue Owl Garden Emporium herb farm offers locally and sustainably grown culinary herbs, edible flowers, herbal seasoning blends and teas, and a variety of other herbal concoctions. With about 200 dried herbs available during the winter and as many as 175 fresh ones during the summer, it's likely we can fill your every culinary herb need. All grown in Licking Co. Ohio without synthetic pesticides or artificial fertilizers.

We also offer culinary mushrooms, grow-your-own mushroom logs, native fruits, and various other forest edibles in season from our forest farm, Blue Owl Hollow. Our mushroom selection is seasonal and includes: shiitake, nameko, chestnut, mukitake, several oysters, wine-cap stropharia, lion's mane, reishi, turkey tail, and maitake. Not content with mere comestibles, we have a growing line of forest-derived crafts, such as rustic "rosewood" buttons (cleverly created from that invasive shrub every forest landowner loves to hate, multiflora rose!), fatwood firestarters, and Swedish log candles.

Our fascination with unusual-but-useful plants ensures that we always have something of interest on hand. Blue Owl products are available at several Central Ohio farmers markets and small businesses. Yes, inflation seems to be the new normal, but you can keep more of those dollars within our community by visiting your favorite Central Ohio farmers markets and patronizing other locally-owned businesses!

A rainy welcome to spring!

After last year's drought and a relatively dry winter, _some_ rain is desireable, not sure that the forecasted 6 inches is quite necessary though.

Rain and warmer temperatures do mean at least one thing: RAMPS are ready! And fresh mushrooms, too. There'll be some other green leafy things availabe, esp. for those of you who have developed a fondness for that evil invasive weed, garlic mustard. Curious about garlic mustard? Check out some Blue Owl recipes. My husband's favorite is garlic mustard pesto, while I'm particularly fond of garlic mustard spaetzle (delightful when sheet pan-roasted with ramps, asparagus, shiitakes, squash, fiddlehead ferns, stinging nettles, sunchokes, and/or whatever other early foraged edible there might be). Spring is a crazy-busy time of the year, with not much time to cook. Both pesto and sheet pan-roasted suppers are great: they come together fast and are replete with healthy, strengthening, green vegetables. After this year's flu season, my strength is in dire need of rebuilding....

What's keeping us so busy on the farm right now? Mushroom inoculations, of course! We've harvested our 250 or so logs and hauled them home to be inoculated with a variety of culinary and medicinal mushrooms: so far I've done shiitake, reishi, mukitake, and nameko logs with more shiitake, 3 kinds of oysters, chestnut, turkey tail, and lion's mane still to go. Are you interested in growing mushrooms? Blue Owl offers 2 ways to help you towards that goal. First, this is the time of year when ALL of the different types of mushrooms we sell at market are available for purchase as grow-your-own mushroom logs. Normally, we only offer shiitake logs, but from mid-March to mid-May, everything is on offer. Grow-your-own mushroom logs are $50/ea. and come with complete care and feeding instructions. Second, there are still open spots for our Blue Owl mushroom inoculation workshare days, Tuesdays and Sundays, through the first week in May. Check out the details below and send me an email if you are interested in learning more about this sustainable method for growing some of your own food.

Speaking of sustainability, Blue Owl is committed to reducing waste as much as possible. Did you know that one reason Blue Owl herbs, teas, and seasonings are packaged in those nifty glass jelly jars is to minimize waste? Glass canning jars are re-useable, recycleable, and RETURNABLE. We'll take back any and all Blue Owl jars if you don't have a use for them, and we'll even pay you a jar deposit in exchange. As many of you know, ever since COVID, the availability of jars and other canning supplies has been somewhat erratic. My supplier of canning jars went out of business in 2021 and I've had to identify new sources; it hasn't been easy and costs have risen. Returned jars for re-use is one way to address that problem. And it keeps them out of the landfills. Or, if you're like me and can't bear to throw them away, out of overflowing cupboards.

And tea reminds me that my husband sent me an interesting article about how brewing tea can remove heavy metals, e.g., lead, from the water. Tea drinkers rejoice! And drink more tea. Not sure if you coffee drinkers enjoy the same benefits... undoubtedly a good subject for future research. The original story comes from Northwestern University, where the research was conducted.

So we'll be at the Worthington indoor market at the Shops of Worthington on Saturday with ramps, mushrooms, leafy herbal greens, as well as a variety of teas, seasonings, and dried herbs; we hope you'll drop by. Only 4 more indoor markets before we move outdoors to High St. in downtown Worthington for the summer season. A reminder that we do fewer markets during the summer, to allow for more time to grow Blue Owl's extensive herb repertoire, check the dates.

Note: if you are already a fan of the Worthington market, it has once again been nominated for USA Today's Best Farmer's Market. Last year, Worthington Farmers Market was voted #1 in the country! Vote to ensure a repeat performance before it's too late.

2025 Mushroom Workshare Dates & Times:

Signups for Blue Owl's 2025 mushroom workshare dates are open; come learn everything there is to know about growing mushrooms on logs. Here's how it works:

Every Sunday afternoon (noon-4) and Tuesday all-day (10-6) for about 8 weeks in very early spring, you have the opportunity to join me in renewing Blue Owl Hollow's mushroom production infrastructure by inoculating new hardwood logs with various types of culinary mushroom spawn. You'll learn the process, get a tour of our mushroom production area, and have the opportunity to earn your own log to take home. Email if you are interested, pre-registration is REQUIRED. If a date is marked FULL but it's the only time you can make it, please let me know anyway; we can add you to a waiting list, since cancellations do occur.

Here's the 2025 schedule:

Introducing the Blue Owl Herb Growing workshare!

OK, so this was supposed to happen last year and for several very good reasons -- flooding, drought, orphaned oil well plugging, death in the family -- didn't get scheduled. But this year it will! Many people have asked about an herb-focused workshare and I think I've finally found the right project: herb bed re-vitalization and maintenance. With 60+ raised production beds for growing herbs, the need to be reinforcing, re-planting, weeding, fertilizing, and generally maintaining beds is never-ending. Sometimes it's just a matter of weeding and mulching existing plantings, but often a bed pretty much needs to be rebuilt from scratch. One weekend of every month during the growing season (May - October, Saturday or Sunday afternoons, depending on weather), you are welcome to join Janell in renewing one of the Blue Owl Garden Emporium production beds from the ground up. While we work, we'll talk about soils and fertility, crop rotation, pest control, the history and growing requirements of specific herbs, planting techniques, weeding strategies, etc. The workshare is free and participants will leave with a better understanding of how to construct long-term planting areas... and most likely also take away plant starts, herb cuttings, seeds, or other gifts from the garden.

You are also invited to join us on a weekday the week before the workshare to assist in gathering the necessary materials for bed building, primarily rocks gathered from along the forest farm trail system. Some trail maintenance may be necessary to accomplish this task -- cutting up downed trees, filling in washed out areas, putting in water bars, etc. -- so it's a great opportunity to learn hands-on about forest farming, too.

Note: this will be a new workshare, so there'll undoubtedly be some refinement required as we go along, please be patient. As with the mushroom workshare, pre-registration is REQUIRED. Email if you are interested or have any questions!

Tentative 2025 schedule (subject to rescheduling due to weather):

Past news items of interest, including links to various presentation materials, are also available.

April 2025

Fresh this week:

Loose-leaf teas $10:

Seasonings $8:

Dried herbs
(~150 varieties)

Forest products:

Crafted products: