Jam and Honey Festival

Owl Creek Organics to Host Jam and Honey Festival

Join Owl Creek Organics & Natural Products on Aug. 11, 2024 from 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. MDT for their first annual Jam and Honey Festival. Celebrate these South Dakota made specialty crop products during this free festival.

The event will take place at the farm’s retail store, 12130 Sagebrush Rd. in Nisland, S.D, in the northern Black Hills. Attendees can look forward to a day of family friendly activities including a tasting station with jam, jelly, toast and thumbprint cookies, a honey bar filled with treats, a lemonade & tea stand, vendors, kids games and a photo booth.

Bernadette Jensen, owner of Owl Creek Organics & Natural Products, sells local honey as well as jams made with honey, small honey gift boxes, and beeswax candles.

“South Dakota honey is one of the best available, especially the kind we produce. The plants, such as alfalfa and sweet clover from which the bees get nectar, make the absolute best honey around,” Jensen said.

Honey is an ancient food and natural remedy that has been utilized for thousands of years. Not only do we eat this sweet treat, but it is also known for soothing sore throats and coughs and its antiseptic properties. It is considered a specialty crop along with other products like fruits, vegetables, nuts and flowers. According to the S.D. Dept. of Agriculture & Natural Resources (DANR), there are 185 South Dakotans keeping bees in the state. South Dakota usually ranks in the top five states in the nation for total number of colonies.

While working as a teacher in Minnesota in 2011, Jensen signed up for her first honey beekeeping workshop. The following summer, Jensen bought several hives and each year continued to increase numbers.

In 2014 Jensen learned how to make jelly from her grandmother using wild plums she harvested. Initially she was using sugar to sweeten the jams, but as honey production increased she decided to try sweetening her jams with honey. With some trial and error her products came together.

“Some of my favorites are raspberry jam and grape jelly, but huckleberry and lingonberry are by far the most popular with my customers,” Jensen said.

In 2018, Jensen started making creamed honeys and added spices like cinnamon or dried wild berries like lingonberries or organic blueberries for flavor. She has added more specialty honeys including German chocolate cake honey and gingerbread honey. In the future she intends to experiment with making lemon poppy seed honey and different kinds of specialty jams like sea buckthorn.

Jensen produces her own fruit as well as sources fruit from organic growers for her jams. She hopes to expand her fruit tree and shrub production, but also looks forward to sourcing more local fruit from organic producers in South Dakota.

This ‘Fresher is Fun’ event will provide an opportunity for visitors to sample a wide range for jam, jellies and honey products. It is the seventh of eight retail store events in the state promoting the purchasing of South Dakota grown specialty crops.

This year Owl Creek Organics has a new storefront that is open for special events or by appointment. You can also find Owl Creek products in stores at Lueders Food Center in Belle Fourche and Spearfish, Lynn’s Dakota Mart in Sturgis and at Staple and Spice in Rapid City as well as online at www.owlcreeknaturalproducts.com.

The final ‘Fresher is Fun’ event will occur at Rock Valley Gardens in Rapid City on Aug. 17, 2024.  The event is sponsored by the S.D. Specialty Producers Association through the Specialty Crop Block Grant program overseen by the S.D. Dept. of Agriculture and Natural Resources.