The HOT Season... for July 1, 2023

Farm happenings: Our cool, dry spring is over and conditions are now HOT and WET. Vegetable plants don't love these conditions, so a lot of our energy is now focused on trying to mitigate the disease that takes hold in this weather. Interestingly, bugs also love the heat and humidity so bug pressure is also on the rise and unfortunately the two problems compound.

Heads up: Our tomato harvest yield has decreased dramatically, so we have fewer Tomatoes available for you. We hope this will turn around soon and will keep you updated!

We do numerous things to decrease the chances of disease pressure on the plants we grow. We alter the timing of the planting to avoid times of year when a particular disease for a particular crop is most common (some mildew diseases travel on the wind at a certain time each year), we purchase varieties of plants that are resistant to a disease that we know is problematic here, and we graft some plants onto root-stock that is resistant to a known disease.

What is grafting vegetable plants?? (Pictured above = grafted tomato plants growing in our greenhouse after their healing chamber phase is complete. The plastic clip and tiny stake are still attached for support.)

Dan dove into Tomato grafting 10 years ago as a way to increase our tomato plant health and harvest yield. Grafting = this process: Seed two different tomato varieties on the same day. One of the varieties has very strong soil borne disease resistance but yields unappealing fruit. The other variety grows delicious fruit but is quite susceptible to soil-borne disease. When both plants grow to a particular size, Dan cuts the stem of each plant at a precise angle, tossing out the top half of the variety that grows gross fruit and tossing out the bottom half of the variety that is susceptible to disease. Then he aligns the bottom half of the root stock (soil born disease resistant variety) up against the matching angle of the top half of the delicious fruit variety and places a gentle clip over the spot where the two stems meet. Then the plants go in a healing chamber with specific temperature, humidity, and light. After the needed number of days, the plants are ready to go back to the greenhouse to get growing again. Then we plant them in the ground and hopefully get to enjoy the benefits of BOTH soil born disease resistance AND delicious tomatoes.

It’s a challenging and time-consuming task to do well, but a sweet reward when it all works.

Our Carrots are coming out of the ground by the thousands each week and they are fantastic! These are a product of years of specific attention by Dan on his "Carrot Babies" and represent a lot of hard work and determination. We've earned a good reputation for #BFFCarrots so please enjoy them!

Our Flowers continue to bring us smiles each day! Our Bouquets this week look like this:

Bread Share members: You'll get a SEPARATE email to customize your bread share in just a few moments.

To Customize Your Share:
Each time you are scheduled to have a share, you'll receive an email from us 2 days prior. It should have subject line "Time to Customize Your Share." The software will create a default share for you (based on your indicated preferences and what we have available to harvest) and list those default contents in the email. The email also contains a link saying "Want to make changes to your share or add extras?" Click on that link to customize your share! Customization ends between 6 and 7 am on the day before your pick up day (depending on the time of year and thus how early we start harvesting). The cut off time is always specified in the email.

For Pick Up:

- Please remember to bring your own bags each week.

- At Self Serve locations: Our vegetables are in plastic boxes at the pick up location, labelled with members' names. Find the box with your name on it. - Empty the vegetables into your bag and leave the empty box for us to collect.

- Loaves of bread and bags of Tomatoes during Tomato season, for those who have ordered them, will be near the green boxes, labeled with your name. Pick up your bag(s) if you are due one or more. (Some people have purchased a Bread Share for a loaf each week of the season. Some people order a loaf when they please.)
- Same for cooler(s) at pick up locations with any cold items that aren't vegetables (eggs, fermented vegetables, etc...See below for more info.)

- At Staffed locations: One of us will be there to quickly gather your items for you to bag up and bring home.
- Preparation ideas and recipe suggestions are in your email. Also check out our Pinterest Page for lots of recipe ideas, organized by vegetable.

EGGS: Steve Ault of Aults' Family Farm and Ring-a-Bell Farm in Pamplin offer their eggs for sale through us. Their chickens live on pasture and are fed supplemental non-gmo feed from Sunrise Farms. Their eggs are fabulous and we trust their farming practices completely. You can purchase their eggs in our self-serve FarmStand at our farm and you can order them through the Harvie system "Extras" when you customize your share.

Our FarmStand is at our farm and open every day of the week, 9am-dusk (or 7pm, whichever is earlier). Visit us to see where your vegetables grow and pick up some extras for yourself or a friend. We have vegetable and herb plants for your garden available in the Spring, in addition to a host of our vegetables, and we have flower bouquets most weeks of the summer. Driving directions here.

You are also invited to shop for our goods at the farmers' market where we vend on Saturdays: Farmers' Market @ St. Stephens.

Additionally, we send an e-newsletter a couple of times per season to let folks know what's growing and happening on the farm, what recipes we're digging, and any special events. We've added your email address to our list of recipients.

Finally, we have a Facebook group for our members to share recipes ideas, etc. Visit and join here.

Any questions? Just reach out! And remember to log in and check your delivery days and location details.

We so deeply appreciate the opportunity to farm for you. Thank you for being the most important part of our farm! We love you!

With blessings on your meals ~
Janet, Dan, and the whole Broadfork crew (Julie, Siera, Leah, Erica, Tait, Alisa, Jen, and the farm kids)

Owned and operated by Janet Aardema and Dan Gagnon, Broadfork is a small family farm in Chesterfield, VA providing the metro-Richmond area with Certified Naturally Grown vegetables, herbs, and flowers.
We use traditional European methods of biointensive, raised bed production while maximizing soil and plant health for nutrition and sustainability. No synthetic/chemical fertilizer, pesticide, herbicide, or fungicide is ever used in any part of the process of growing your food. Everything we sell is grown by us, and we farm full-time, supporting ourselves and our four children through our farm business.

Growing practices at Broadfork utilize only ecological methods: compost, cover crops, organic fertilizer, and minerals are used to feed the soil that feeds our plants. Raised beds are used to prevent soil-compaction, allowing for happier plant roots. We use organic potting soil and fertilizer, as well as amendments like fish emulsion and sea minerals. No chemical fertilizers, herbicides, fungicides, or pesticides are ever used on your food and we are Certified Naturally Grown (which follows the same national standards used for Organic Certification). We are also proud members of the Virginia Association for Biological Farming and Slow Food RVA. Janet and Dan both hold Bachelor’s Degrees in Biology from Davidson and Lafayette Colleges, respectively. Janet holds a Master’s Degree in Education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. We both thrive on putting our biology backgrounds to use in a farm setting and share a passion for farm education.

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