Rusted Gate Farm: Farm Stand and FREE U-Pick Flower Garden
Southern Oregon is brimming with kid-friendly activities to get our kids outside and connect them with their world. Rusted Gate Farm in Central Point Oregon is a terrific place to teach our children where their food comes from.
Farm Stand: Location, Hours, and Accepted Payments
Rusted Gate Farm is located at 5461 Upton Road, Central Point Oregon, and they are open Tuesday through Friday 10AM-5:30PM and Saturdays 10AM-4PM. They are a non-profit organization and sell no-spray produce, antibiotic & hormone-free grass-finished and grain-finished beef in their farm stand. They accept SNAP, Farm Direct coupons, dollars, and card.
Produce, Beef, and Other Items for Sale
They are a non-profit organization and sell no-spray produce, antibiotic & hormone-free grass-finished and grain-finished beef in their farm stand. In their farm stand you’ll find a lovely representation of products produced in our community. There are tables with baskets and crates overflowing with local fruits and vegetables, coolers and freezers stocked with more delicate items like berries, lettuces, and beef. Counters are filled with jams and herbs and fresh baked sourdough bread (which fills the shop with its tempting aroma). There are displays of locally made items like soap, cutting boards, barbecue tools, and pottery. It’s truly like having an indoor farmers market almost every day of the week.
Beyond the tastiness all the farm stand has, I love that this is a real life opportunity to talk to your kids about where food comes from, what grows where we live, what produce each season brings, and maybe most importantly, it is a chance to start planting the seed of how important it is to buy locally grown/made items.
FREE U-Pick Flower Garden
If you’ve been following my blog, you probably know all about this FREE family friendly activity! I’m still amazed by how many people haven’t heard about it so I’ll keep spreading the word. The photos should help you understand why this is such a special place for our toddlers and families. Rusted Gate Farm plants this large flower garden for the public to pick and enjoy for free. They even provide kid friendly scissors and adult snippers to cut the flowers, a wrapping station with brown paper and twine to secure your bouquets, and sometimes they have jars and vases available from people who donate their extras. They ask you take a max of two bouquets each visit. Donations are appreciated.
Their U-pick flower garden has a diverse variety of flowers. I’d love to list them out for you but I am not a person who knows flower names. They do have huge sunflowers all along the perimeter of the garden, and an abundant amount of flowers in every color. I hope photos will help those of you who know flowers.
We’ve taken our toddler to pick their flowers since the garden opened in July. She loves running down the rows, choosing flowers to pick for mommy’s vase, and making new friends with the other toddlers doing the same thing. One of my favorite things to do there with her is to stop and watch the bees on the flowers. What a great opportunity to talk about endless bee facts.
The garden is open, weather permitting, from mid July until mid October. Follow them on Facebook to stay in the loop of what the farm stand has in stock and to know when the flower garden is open.
I hope you’ll take a trip out to their farm, grab some local produce and goods at their farm stand, and enjoy the free u-pick flower garden while its open.