Flowers
Being flower farmers is one of the most rewarding jobs here on the farm. Every season provides its own harvest of beautiful flowers—acres and acres of flowers in our fields, delicate and exotic blooms in our greenhouses and one-of-a kind tulips and lilies during winter in an 1865 fieldstone basement. So many flowers call Wolf Pine Hollow home, including tulips, dahlias, sunflowers, cosmos, zinnia, gladioli, marigolds, snapdragons, lisianthus and even a ridge of lavender. With our flowers available at our farm store, cutting gardens and cut-your-own events, as well as at local retailers, there are many opportunities for you to enjoy nature’s blooms.
Our flowers are grown for more than their fragrance and beauty. We grow edible flowers that we use in baked good, jellies, and even salads. Dried petals also find their way to many of the artisan items we sell in The Stand. We even harvest the seeds of our sunflowers which we then dry, clean, and press into sunflower oil. Sunflower oil (and pumpkin seed oil) are available in our farm store.
One of the more fun ways to interact with our flowers is through photography. Whether you’re an amateur looking to capture a fun family outing or a professional photographer searching for that perfect shot, our flower events are the perfect chance to set up great photo opportunities.
Winter Tulips
Jack Frost and the drifting white snows of the New Hampshire winters do not stop the colorful parade of tulips at the farm. During the cold season, we offer “forced grown” tulips—flowers that are grown indoors so that temperature and humidity can be controlled. The field-stone basement of one of our 1800s-era farm houses provides just the right environment for our winter tulips to grow and thrive. The striking bouquets are just the thing to brighten a chilly winter day.
Orchard
Our orchard contains a wide range of delectable fruit, from the traditional to the unusual. It’s a place where you’ll find comforting favorites like apple, pear, peach, and cherry, alongside more exotic trees such as quince. The orchard is divided into two separate areas interlaced with grapes and kiwiberries to promote the benefits of agroforestry practices and avoid the many problems associated with monoculture.
We are also the caretakers of several venerable and gnarled apple trees—all that remains of the orchards that dominated this rolling landscape more than a century ago.
There’s no shortage of pickings when the seasons are right: rolling hills of blueberries, strawberries, raspberries and blackberries; fruit trees of all kinds just waiting to be plucked, trellises cloaked with grape vines.
Walk through our fruit patches, on a crisp, sun-kissed afternoon, with all its overhanging delights, and you’ll feel like you’ve found a Garden of Eden right in New Hampshire.
Vineyards
Rows of wooden posts and taut wire form picturesque trellises to support our cold-hardy, seedless table grape and kiwiberry vines. The lesser-known kiwiberries have the flavor of a kiwi, but have the size and the smooth skin of a grape, making them an easy and delectable snack.
We grow these grapes and kiwiberries with the consultative assistance of the University of New Hampshire which is studying and perfecting these delicious varieties.
Produce
It’s exciting to be part of a local food movement, growing fresh produce for our community and our farm guests. No monocrop culture here as we thrive on diversity. Look for yummy root vegetables, a colorful variety of peppers and tomatoes, shallots, onions, many different potatoes (including sweets), loads of garlic, squashes, pumpkins, zucchini, eggplant, cucumbers, herbs and rows and rows of asparagus.
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Our overnight guests can join our farmers in the field, planting, nurturing and harvesting when the bounty is ready. We not only make our veggies available in our farm stand, we incorporate what we grow into the Tasting House menu for a true farm-to-fork experience.
A specialty here at The Hollow is our tasty garlic. We grow eight different varieties—enough to satisfy even the most demanding palate—all from organic seed garlic. But the cream of the garlic crop is our black garlic which not only has an enticing, delicate flavor, but also has more antioxidants than regular garlic. We produce black garlic here on the farm through an ageing process of East Asian origin which turns ordinary garlic cloves soft and black.
Berries
In addition to our orchard trees and trellised grapes and kiwiberries, we grow lots of other fruit at the Hollow. We have over 1,000 blueberry bushes on Blueberry Hill. Seven different varieties that fruit at different times allows the farm to enjoy an extended blueberry harvest season. In addition, the farm has a field of strawberries and a trellised slope filled with blackberries and raspberries. Look for Pick-Your-Own events or stop by our farm store to enjoy our berries as fresh as they get.
Like much of the beautiful Monadnock region, our farm has well-draining sandy soil that’s fairly acidic. Since many of the berries we grow love this environment, our farm is perfectly suited for berry growing.
Maple Sugaring
Maple sugaring is a time-honored craft in New England and New Hampshire is no exception. Here at The Hollow we continue that tradition when the trees begin to shake off the winter chill. We tap a grove of maples on our more than 75 acres of forested land and then patiently reduce the sap by way of heat and filtering until it reaches that thick, sugary consistency that we all love on our pancakes and waffles.
During sugaring season, our guests can watch and participate in the process and taste the delicious results.
During the rest of the year, you can enjoy the maple flavor in many of our baked goods or take home some syrup to enjoy at your leisure.