Farm Candy Specialty Nursery
Farm Candy is a very small nursery located on Vashon Island, in the beautiful Puget Sound. Our Farm Stand is at 9505 SW 192nd St, just off Vashon Highway one mile South of town. The farm stand is stocked seven days a week in the growing season, and on occasion in the off season, weather permitting. We can be found live and in person at the Vashon Island Farmer’s Market (see the links page for VIGA details) at the corner of Bank Rd. and Vashon Highway right in the down town area on Saturdays between 10:00 AM and 2:00 PM, from March 21st through late fall; our final date depending on our stock and the weather. We are in the company of many other fine crafters and farmers at the market, so plan to bring a basket and make a day of it if you come If you have not had the fortune to visit our fair Island before, we have a link to the Washington State Ferry schedule also on our links page, as well as one to the Vashon Chamber of Commerce, so you can plan on where else to eat, shop and sleep if you’d like to stay. Should you wish to see the greenhouse or meet with the owner in person for any reason, visit our contacts page and call or email to set up a greenhouse visit appointment. Visits are by appointment only, sorry, but we cannot accommodate drop-ins. Our mission is to make sure everyone can afford to enjoy beautiful, healthy plants, be it for their gardens or their window sills. We leave the high end items to the big nurseries, but we don’t stint on rare and beautiful plants, especially in the geranium (pelargonium) department. We search antique seed catalogues and the internet to find those plants that are hardy and hale and just waiting to get back on the gardening scene. We also look for plants that will do well in our environment, which lucky for us, covers a lot of plants. Our geranium collection is quite lovely and unique, and we offer them in our small “window sill” size at a whopping good bargain. In fact, almost all our plants come available in smaller sizes that are very well priced and also have quantity discounts. In short order they’ll be as big as a larger and more expensive plant, and if you bring in your geraniums for the winter, you’ll have them just about forever anyway. You can afford to add some flowers to your vegetable garden to draw in pollinators, sometimes chase off pest bugs and lend the wonderful fragrance that people around the world have adored for centuries. And don’t forget the beauty of color and ruffle all around your vegetables... that’s what we like to call, “Farm Candy”
Being environmentally responsible doesn’t have to be dull.
There are a lot of ideals at work at Farm Candy. We want to grow the most beautiful and delicious flowers, herbs & vegetables that we can... that’s the goal of any good grower, but like an ever increasing number of small growers you will find at local nurseries and farmers markets, we want to do that without hurting the environment or ourselves. We pledge that in addition to our Eco-friendly pest management, we do not use commercial herbicide. If we need to get weeds out of an area we use a vinegar, soap and oil solution on a sunny day, and nothing else. For mildew we use only (and sparingly) organic fungicides, primarily a water, baking soda and soap solution. And fertilizers come from organic or mineral sources. By law, minerals cannot be considered organic and therefor we feel compelled to make this distinction. We are very careful, however, to purchase only from companies that carry organic and safe products. There is a lot of trial and error, but it is a bit of an adventure as well-somewhere between a science experiment and a petting zoo when you add in our frog, ladybug and spider friends.
Other things of beauty in addition to plants, may include beautiful woodland wreaths created by Lelia Lydecker, potpourri made from our own scented pelargoniums, photo post cards by Rachel Lydecker and more, depending on the season.
