The Field Guideby Moss & MarrowBoerderij het startpunt
- Pigs and poultry live free range: outdoors on pasture, in woodland or a run
Boerderij Het Startpunt is a small farm in De Kraats, between Bennekom and Ede, that sells eggs from its own free-range hens and walnuts from its own orchard through a vending machine by the road.
The hens are outside during the day and sleep at night in a mobile henhouse, and their website notes that the yolks are a deep colour. The walnut trees are never sprayed and stand in herb-rich grassland bordered by hedgerows, planted to support a working ecosystem around the orchard. A beekeeper keeps bees in the same flowering grassland and makes raw honey from it; whether that honey is sold from the machine we haven't yet confirmed.
The vending machine on the Harnsesteeg is open Monday to Saturday from 7:00 to 21:30, so you can buy eggs and walnuts whenever it suits you, and the farm welcomes questions in person or by phone.
The orchard does double duty: the flowers in its grassland feed the bees, and the bees pollinate the walnut trees.