This Month On The Farm: 🍂
From Our Family to Yours — Holiday Updates & Farm Day News
Dear Farm Friends,
November has arrived, and with it comes that familiar shift toward warm kitchens, cozy gatherings, and holiday preparation. With Thanksgiving only a few short weeks away, we’re deep into harvesting, blending, baking, tying herb bundles, and getting the farm ready for one of our favorite times of year.
We love sharing this season with you — and here’s what’s happening around the farm this month.
Rain or shine, we’re here each Friday with fresh produce, teas, seasonal blends, Soup Socks, and all the holiday essentials that make cooking feel a little more special.
Everything is grown organically in healthy compost soil, tended with care by our family — and it’s our joy to share it with yours.
If it rains, we’re happy to bring your weekly standing orders right to your car.
This is the time of year when the farm feels most like home — apples baking, citrus brightening the kitchen, herbs bundled together for holiday meals.
Our fresh Holiday Herb Bundles are back — a beloved yearly tradition.
Each bundle includes fresh-cut thyme, rosemary, marjoram, and sage, all hand-tied with rustic twine, just like we’ve always done it.
These are fresh herbs, not dried, so we ask that they be pre-ordered.
We’ll harvest them right before pickup so they’re vibrant, fragrant, and ready for your holiday cooking.
Pickup Options:
• Farm Day (Nov 23)
• Your weekly online order pickup (Tuesdays,Thursdays, Fridays)
Nothing makes a kitchen smell more like Thanksgiving.
If there’s one blend that captures the sweetness of the season, it’s our Apple Pie Spice.
We’ll be sharing photos of our family’s apple crisp recipe soon — check out our Instagram.
Cooler weather has everyone reaching for warm mugs and simmering pots.
Our Soup Socks make it effortless — filled with dried farm-grown herbs and a bay leaf, ready to steep flavor into anything you make.
They’re available in packets, jars, and a 5-pack of individual socks (Shannon’s favorite for sipping broth).
Recipes carry stories. And we love sharing ours
This is truly one of our favorite days of the year.
The whole family comes together, and the farm feels alive with friends, familiar faces, and new visitors discovering us for the first time.
This year, several of our family members will be grilling and offering samples of meat seasoned with our blends.
We won’t say what’s going on the grill — you’ll have to come and see!
But the tastings will be served until we run out, so the earlier you come, the better your chances of trying everything.
We’ll also have:
• A bonfire burning in the big fire pit if the weather turns chilly
• Complimentary wine, Lisbon lemonade, herbal tea tastings, and warm apple cider spiced with our Apple Cider Seasoning
• Our yearly gift-wrap station
• And a free gift (21+) with every “All Things Lemon” basket purchased or picked up at Farm Day
There’s something special about this afternoon — every year it feels like gathering with extended family.
Thank you for being part of our farm community and supporting our small family farm.
Whether you come for fresh produce, seasoning blends, tea, gift baskets, or just to wander near the lavender field — we appreciate you more than you know.
We hope this November brings warmth to your home, joy to your table, and moments of rest in the middle of the beautiful holiday bustle.
If you would like to receive our newsletters send us your email.
We can’t wait to see you soon.
Warmly,
Shannon & the Warwar Family Farms Family
This Month On The Farm:
Happy New Year to all of you! As we say goodbye to 2024 and to the whirlwind of the holiday season, we are excited to embark on a new year filled with possibilities. We hope that you and your loved ones had a fantastic holiday season, and we wish you nothing but the best for 2025. Last year had many challenges along with the death of a dearly loved family member in the summer. A lot of our plans for the farm had to be put on hold, but we still managed to have three Farm Days and loved seeing your faces and spending time with you.
Our passion is biodiversity, regeneration, and healthy do-dig soil. After more than three years of farming this way, We are very proud and excited to announce that we are officially able to be called a Certified Organic Farm!! We couldn’t have done this without our customers. Thank you for believing in what we do - we truly appreciate you!
We are busy making plans and goals for this upcoming year and once again our focus is expanding and improving our farm. We weren't able to accomplish all of our goals last year. But we plan to keep working towards them this year. We plan to increase our egg production with the addition of more chicks this year as we had a terrible predator problme last year and lost over half of our laying hens. We also experieced "robbing" a natural occuring phenomonen in the bee world where other hives come in and rob a hive. This happened just before we planned to harvest honey and it was quite devastating. The greenhouse had to be put on hold as well but we plan to get it done this year, allowing us to grow even more varieties of fresh and delicious produce.
With the holidays behind us, we are now eagerly preparing for the upcoming avocado and Gold Nugget mandarin season. Beginning in February, these delicious fruits will be available along with our year-round Lisbon lemons. Honey will be in limited supply until spring. We plan to expand our apiary with several new hives again this year, so we anticipate our spring and mid-summer honey harvests will be bountiful! We may even have a late summer harvest as well. Our herbs, spices, and tea blends are also always developing and we are grateful for your support and encouragement. If you have any questions or need further information, please don't hesitate to reach out to us.
We will let you know when we have our Farm Days in 2025 in a future newsletter, but as always, we promise to make each event truly special. We had an amazing time during our 2024 Farm Days, and we want to thank all of you who joined us. Seeing familiar faces and meeting new friends fills our hearts with joy. We appreciate your continued support and loyalty, and we are committed to serving you to the best of our abilities. If you would like to stay updated on our events and news, please let us know, and we will add you to our email newsletters.
January 27, 2025
This Month On The Farm:
We hope this finds you all well and enjoying summer. We regret that it has been so long since our last post. Much has happened in the past 6 months including the death of a loved one in our family. We have had to put many things on the back burner for several months, but we appreciate all of you who have reached out to express your condolences and support. We are so appreciative and grateful for you all. We are slowly getting ready to celebrate fall and all that comes with it. Our next Farm Day of 2024 is just a couple of months away! We are busy making plans and look forward to seeing many of you there. Our farm store will be stocked with our regular favorites.
We are also preparing for the Baker Creek National Heirloom Exposition that we have been invited to participate in as a vendor at the Ventura County Fairgrounds. It will be held September 10th - 12th from 9am to 9pm each day. We would love to see you there!
Our next Farm Day will be in October on a Sunday afternoon between 1:00 pm and 6:00 pm. Check your emails.
Some items you can expect to see at Farm Day:
Organically Grown Produce: fresh herbs, vegetables, avocados, lemons, mandarins, oranges, apples, honey, and eggs
Herbal Products: teas, spices, and spice blends
Home and body: soaps, candles, and lip balms
Lavender: bouquets, bunches, sachets
As usual, enjoy a complimentary glass of wine, classic Lisbon Lemon Lemonade or Lavender Lemonade as you relax and enjoy the view, watch the bees, or shop in the Farm Store. We will also have some samples of what we grow and make, including baked goods, guacamole, some of our teas, and more. We will also be offering Jack’s Street Tacos using his very own and extremely popular Jack's Taco Seasoning. We look forward to seeing you all again soon! If you have any questions don’t hesitate to reach out.
Check your emails for the SAVE THE DATE for our last Farm Day of 2024 in December. Many of you requested the gift basket station again this year to customize your holiday gift giving and we are so happy to provide it at this final Farm Day of the year! More details coming soon.
This Month On The Farm:
Spring has arrived! 🪻🌺 We are busy growing lots of herbs, vegetables, and fruits. We have also installed our 6 new packages of Buckfast and Carniolan honey bees. We also had a swarm take up residence in some of my empty hive boxes that were being stored next to the barn. We were so happy to welcome this free hive onto our farm! We plan to have our first honey harvest in the next couple of weeks. Buckfast are excellent pollinators for the orchards, and are known for their high honey yields, as well as having a gentle temperament. Carniolan honey bees are also known to be excellent honey producers. 🐝
At Warwar Family Farms, our passion lies in fostering harmony with nature, promoting biodiversity, regeneration, good stewardship, and nurturing healthy no-till soil. We're thrilled to share that we're just a few months away from achieving Certified Organic status—a milestone made possible by the unwavering support of our valued customers. To each and every one of you, thank you for believing in our mission and joining us on this journey. We couldn’t have done this without our customers - we truly appreciate you!
We are now in full swing with avocado and Gold Nugget mandarin season. They are presently available along with our year-round Lisbon lemons. Honey will also be available in the next month. With the addition of our six new hives, we anticipate our spring and mid-summer honey harvests to be bountiful! We may even have a late summer harvest or fall harvest as well. Our herbs, spices, and tea blends are also always developing, and we have added several new ones.
While we will only host three Farm Days in 2024, we promise to make each event truly special. We had an amazing time during our December 2023 Farm Day, and we want to thank all of you who joined us. Seeing familiar faces and meeting new friends fills our hearts with joy. We appreciate your continued support and loyalty, and we are committed to serving you to the best of our abilities. If you would like to stay updated on our events and news, please let us know, and we will add you to our email newsletters.
We are so excited to announce that we have been invited to be one of the six Ventura County farms represented at this year’s Baker Creek Seed Exposition in September at the Ventura County Fairgrounds. We are so honored and beyond excited to be included. We are working hard to build our inventory so we have plenty of stock for the three full days of the exposition. We hope to see you there at least one of these days!
You can also find us at the Ojai Community Farmers Market on Thursday afternoons, and we continue to make deliveries to Hannick Hair Salon in Thousand Oaks. We look forward to seeing your friendly faces and sharing the bounties of our farm with you.
We'll have our first Farm Day of 2024 in June
(details will be sent out in the April newsletter)
We’ll have all the usual samples and lots of fresh herbs, honey, eggs, and produce, as well as our specialty bath and body products. Enjoy a glass of wine, our own Lisbon lemon lemonade, or a sampling of one of our hot teas while you shop in our farm store or relax and enjoy the view next to the lavender field. We will make sure our farm store is well stocked for everything you need. More details about Farm Day will be in the next newsletter. In the meantime, if you need anything for Mother's Day gifts, don't hesitate to reach out.
April 15, 2024
This Week On The Farm:
We are stepping into a cherished time of year for our family. 🍂Fall🍁 We love this season with its cooler, shorter days. It’s a chance to slow down a bit and remember what we have. We count our blessings in a spirit of gratitude before the chaos and whirlwind of Christmas arrive. We hope you and your families feel the same way. And, of course, hot apple cider is a central delight throughout the full holiday season.
To those who joined us last Sunday, thank you for being part of our Fall Farm Day! Your presence lit up our day and we're so grateful for each of the many new faces we met. It was a joy to see old friends as well as our loyal regulars. We had a great time! We feel fortunate to have such loyal and kind-hearted customers. Your support and friendship means the world to us and our goal is to continue serving you well. Thank you for believing in what we do - we truly appreciate you!
With Fall Farm Day behind us, we are officially announcing the close of avocado and Gold Nugget mandarin season. However, we are now offering oranges, apples, and our year-round Lisbon lemons. Honey is also in short supply until Spring, when we’ll add six new hives to the apiary while continuing to harvest honey from our existing six hives. Our new seasonal blends will be available exclusively through December. Some of our seasonal items sold out at Farm Day and we are hard at work replenishing them so we have a large inventory at the market and at our next Farm Day in December, which will be the last one this year and until Springtime in 2024. As a preview, you can expect a spread of winter wonders like kale, Swiss chard, gourmet lettuce, beets, turnips, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, along with the usual array of fresh herbs and seasonal fruits. Oh, and we're introducing some exciting new tea blends and spice blends too! December Farm Day promises to be a festive affair bedecked in holiday cheer with carols filling the air.
You can find us at the Ojai Community Farmers Market this Thursday and then every other Thursday afternoon.
October 29, 2023
This Week On The Farm:
So much has happened these last few weeks! We went on family vacation for a week which was wonderful, we left early in the morning after our last Farm Day. We survived the historic hurricane turned tropical storm as well as one of the strongest earthquakes we've ever felt. Yet, we were thankful for a slow and steady rainfall which gave us a really good soaking. Reports said that our area got about four inches. We had no flooding or run off problems and were very grateful. Our last Farm Day was great! Thank you to all who came out again! We can't express how thankful we are for our awesome customers and friends and family. The street tacos we served, using Jack's Taco Seasoning were a huge success. Jack cooked the tacos on a fish fry stove and they were awesome! We sold Jack's Taco Seasoning at a discounted rate that day since we were promoting it. We had more new customers come out and our regulars that we love and appreciate so much!! Thanks to everyone who came out and showed their support. This is still a relativley new way of farming for us and we are learning so much as we go along. When we feel the love and encouragment we are motivated and excited to keep going. We decided to take a break and not have a Farm Day in September. We will have our next one in October when the pumkins and apples are ready. Our delicious Gold Nugget mandarins traditionally have a good year, then a bad year. It's an every other year type of fruit, and this year has been the bad year, not too many fruit. We are slowly winding down with what's left for this year as well as the avocados for a last few weeks. They have been very popular at the market and in our weekly deliveries. Due to the crazy rains we had this past season we have a bumper crop of mandarins for next season. We've never seen this many baby fruit for the next season. It's very exciting! Our watermelons are a couple weeks away from being mature, our apples and Navals are slowly getting there and the pumpkins are looking great! We'll be sending the details for our upcoming Farm Day in our next newsletter. Look for it in your inbox. If you didn't get it, let us know, we'll be happy to get you back on the email list. We decided after 4 or 5 emails if we don't hear feedback or see those folks at our Farm Days that we would remove those email addresses. We don't ever want to be a bother or nuisance. Please let us know if we shouldn't have removed your email address.
August 26, 2023
This Week On The Farm:
The days have been so warm. It has been good to water and tend to the plants early in the morning and later in the afternoon. The gophers have been quite a struggle the past month but we are getting that under control slowly with traps, and then we feed them to the hawks and vultures. I am thankful for Santiago, our longtime loyal friend and partime worker who seems to know exactly how to catch them. He has taken good care of our property for many years and over time has become a dear friend to our family. Another lemon harvest was picked and hauled to Limoniera, our packing house, wrapped up earlier this week. We are getting a few more nucs in the coming week and hope this helps our honey business grow. We seem to sell out of honey every time we harvest it. I'm also thankful for our good customers who support us in what we are doing. My customers are the very best!!! We are busy making our plans and preparations for the next Farm Day.
July 21 , 2023
This Week On The Farm:
We had our first Farm Day recently and wanted to express a heartfelt thanks to all who made it out. We learned a lot and plan to make it even better for the next time. In particular, we won't sell out of your favorite products! We are also thankful for those who signed up for Farm to Table deliveries. We are so excited to see this part of our business grow. Meeting others who see the value in organically grown, healthy, local food is so encouraging! We have had a handful of volunteers come out and help with planting and weeding. It has been wonderful making new friends and we are thrilled to see people get as excited about seeing a handful of earthworms and healthy soil as we are, and we are so thankful for a little extra help along the way. We've had a little problem with a few uninvited gophers, and they seem to be our main problem at the moment. Our pumpkins are in the ground and growing well. We are looking forward to having a huge pumpkin patch ready in time for our October Farm Day. We are a small farm, but we have big hopes!
My favorite parts about these warm, summer days are seeing the monarchs come and go, watching the swallows, and listening to the birds while I'm out working. Having hummingbirds hover right in front of my face, almost as though they are telling me that I need to fill their feeders, is especially sweet. I can't believe I get to spend my days doing what I do, as hard as the work is on some days. I'm going to start posting videos occasionally on our Instagram page. I've been told this is something that I need to do, so stay tuned!
July 6 , 2023
This Week On The Farm:
We have been working hard tending to our summer crops and keeping the succession planting with the gourmet lettuces and beets, and green onions going. Everything is looking great and harvesting should be happening in a few weeks. We are getting ready to plant our pumpkin varieties for the pumpkin patch so they will be ready for picking in the fall and Halloween time. We continue to dry and bottle our herbs and are always trying new tea blends. We have some new flavors for making iced herbal teas coming out soon. Perfect in time for the warm summer days ahead. Our seasoning blends like the Dried Herb and Vegetable Mix are perfect to add to your salads, and the BBQ Beef Rub is amazing for your spring and summer barbecues.
Looking forward to this weekend for our big honey harvest! Weeds are one of those love hate relationships. Our bumper honey harvests since transitioning to organic have been unbelievable! The weeds are definitley problematic, but they are also wildflowers and look beautiful, and most importantly, they provide a variety of forage for the pollinators. As always, we never feed our bees sugar water and we have been told by many that our honey is the very best!! We agree!
We are super excited and very busy planning and preparing for our first "At the Farm Day" for our loyal customers, friends, and family. Check your emails this week for our newsletter and if you don't get it but would like to, let us know so we can add you to the email list.
May 29th , 2023
This Week On The Farm:
Get your Mother's Day Baskets ordered by May 9th for May 10th delivery.
Tea Lover Basket
Bath and Body Basket
Chef Lover Basket
Deluxe Combo Basket ( a wonderful mix of all three)
May 6th , 2023
This Week On The Farm:
We checked the hives that were installed a few weeks back and..........Whoa!!! So much honey already being made. The older established hives have honey ready to be harvested now, so we wil be doing that in the next few weeks!! Getting a lot more seedlings going for successional planting, and looking forward to getting the pumpkin patch area prepared and ready to plant pumpkins in June. Lot's of good stuff happening! We have beautiful soaps and bath salts using many of the botanicals that we grow. Extremely thankful for Hannick Hair Studio in Thousand Oaks for displaying and selling our bath and body products as well as a select number of our teas and other products.
May 6th , 2023
This Week On The Farm:
Enjoyed a little adventure on St. Patrick's Day. A Moorpark resident had heard that I keep bees and called me about a swarm in his front yard in a tree. I'm not a swarm removal professional but if the swarm is relativley simple to reach and in good range I'm willing to try. So I called my Botany Professor friend Helen Holmlund from Pepperdine University who comes out regularly and helps me with my hives and harvesting honey. She was excited to help catch a swarm, a bit braver than I, and even brought her colleague, a marine biologist Professor along. Between the three of us, planning our strategy, lighting the smoker, spraying down the bees with sugar water, and pruning a few branches (we were given permission), we gently lowered the cluster of seemingly gentle bees into the box I brought with me. Fifteen minutes later we got back to the farm and carefully poured them into some empty boxes I had set up for them and they were in their new home sweet home. We were sad about leaving behind a few scouts and bees flying around the tree - an unavoidable part of it. Thankful for people who prefer, or at least first try saving a swarm of bees over removing them with an exterminator. I've promised the family a few jars of honey from the first harvest. The funny part is I was hosting a St Patrick's Day party that evening and we were a little late, but all was good.
March 19th , 2023
We are at the Ojai market on Thursday afternoons from 3-7pm now. We only have our dried teas, spices, and blends available there. Back at the farm, we are getting our seedlings in the ground and the summer crops going. So very thankful for the rains this year, we can truly see the difference in our crops. Our online store is almost ready!
March 12th , 2023
Happy Thanksgiving! Wishing you all a very happy, enjoyable, and restful Thanksgiving with your families. We won't be at the market next week. Taking a week of vacation, but we'll be back the first week of December. We are also working hard to get our online ordering going. We are just about there. We are also planning to get another honey harvest in real soon. We look forward to seeing everyone tomorrow at the market and then when we are back again on December 7th.
November 22 , 2022
During this season of harvest and pumpkins and the changing colors of the leaves, I am reminded of how grateful I am and what an honor it is to be a steward of the small piece of land and the animals I've been blessed and entrusted with. I am thankful to be able to care for, plant, grow, cultivate, and provide food to my community. We love the friends we've made and all the loyal customers on Wednesdays at the Midtown Ventura Farmers Market. We are thankful for you all.
November 17, 2022
It was good to be back at the market yesteday after missing last week due to family vacation time. Thankful for Midtown Farmers Market for stopping by and taking pictures and posting about our booth and farm on their Instagram. Here is the link!.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CiNvEvNJWja/
Looking forward to next week and will finally have my dried teas at the booth.
September 7, 2022
Happy flowers make happy polinators.
August 17, 2022
We had a great second day on Wednesday at the market. We are learning what our customers like and don't like and what they want. Working hard to deliver. Tried to get out early the last couple of mornings this week before the sun so I could cut stems of lavender before the bees came out. They were already there and I tried to stay out of their way. That's one of my favorite things to do. Hanging it to dry for next week's market. Will also have some freshly cut lavender.
July 26, 2022
First day at the Farmers Market. Jack and I had a great time meeting new friends and customers on my birthday. :) Looking forward to next week.
July 20, 2022
Staking the cucumbers and seeing lots of blossoms on the bush beans. Little by little, getting the permit and certification process wrapped up. Hopefully we'll see you at our booth at the market very soon.
July 8, 2022
Getting the beet and gourmet lettuce blend seedlings in the raised beds this week. Filled lots of sachets with dried lavender, and getting herb seeds in the four inch pots to sell at market.
June 23, 2022
Hanging bunches of thyme, oregano, and rosemary to dry for our spices and spice blends. Also, thinning the sunflower seedlings and getting pumpkin seeds growing in time for fall.
June 14, 2022
Hanging lavender bunches to dry for our teas and spice blends.
June 7, 2022
Harvesting the lemons and getting ready to thin 100 herb seedlings.
June 1, 2022
Harvesting the lemons and getting ready to thin 100 herb seedlings.
June 1, 2022
The Lavender Field
The Apiary
Pure, unfiltered, raw honey with a variety of notes: wildflower, lavender, avocado, eucalyptus, lemon and mandarin blossom
Our Orchards
Haas Avocados and Lisbon Lemons and Gold Nugget Mandarins
The Apiary
Pure, unfiltered, raw honey with a variety of notes: wildflower, lavender, avocado, eucalyptus, lemon and mandarin blossom
Our Orchards
Haas Avocados and Lisbon Lemons and Gold Nugget Mandarins
The Happy Hen Yard
Warwar Family Farms
Shannon Warwar 805-908-1608
warwarfamilyfarms.com
Instragram: @warwarfamilyfarms
Moorpark, California
Proud of the Way We Grow Our Food
Our family has been farming in the beautiful community of Moorpark, California for over 20 years. We are considered a transitional farm, which means we are moving towards becoming fully USDA certified organic. We grow seasonal and year-round fruits, vegetables, and herbs. We grow Haas avocado, Lisbon lemon, Gold Nugget mandarin, olive, and cherimoya trees. We also grow an extensive variety of organic herbs that we sell fresh and also dried or ground as spices, seasoning blends, and herbal teas. Our lavender field, which grows year-round forage for our honeybees and the native bees, is also dried and used in the tea blends and in some of our spice blends, and also in our sachets. Sunflowers and pumpkins, and seasonal gift baskets are some of our seasonal offerings, and we grow year-round organic vegetables. We are new to the Farmers Market, but excited to see where it takes us. We would love to see you at our booth at the market in the certified growers section. Right now we are are at the Ojai Community Farmers Market on Thursdays from 3-7pm. We also carry a few of our soaps, bath salts, lip balms, candles, teas, spices, and accessories at Hannick Hair Studio in Thousand Oaks. You can find all of our products in our online ordering section as well. Our fruits and vegetables are all sold seasonally. Please check before ordering. Spices, herbs and seasonings are sold year round.