Farm Happenings for August 3, 2024

For our every-other-week members, here is repeat of photos and updates from last week:

It was so hot and dry. Now it is soooooo rainy. Many plants seem to just melt in this weather. We are still harvesting a lot of delicious produce, but while 2023 was our best growing year in our 13 year history, 2024 is shaping up to be one of if not THE worst year in our 14 years of farming. Sigh. This is just how it goes. We still have plenty of vegetables, but Farm Share members have fewer options than usual, and we have less on our market table, but it's okay. We're hoping for a fall farming season of easy weather!

Lettuces are happier when there's regular precipitation (but not THIS much precip!), but plants in the nightshade family (tomatoes, peppers, eggplants...) don't love this much moisture on their foliage. It's a tricky thing to try to guide each of these different plants toward a successful harvest.

Here are some views of different parts of the farm right now:

Pictured above are our green bean plants. We start harvesting them TODAY!
(We usually time this planting to allow us beans in August, as August is usually a time when many other crops have a harder time staying alive!). As I looked closer in the bean plants, I found this little critter:

Hopefully he doesn't eat the bean plants or the flowers that are about to form beans!

Leafy greens get scarce this time of year as "fruits" (botanically speaking, any produce that has seeds inside it) rise to prominence. Tomatoes, Eggplants, and Peppers grow best this time of year. Cucumbers and Summer Squash actually struggle due to a number of diseases that travel by wind or bugs, but we still have cucumber and summer squash plants alive and we are very very happy about this!

The few weeks are the toughest of our season. It's hot and multiple forces make it harder to allow a crop to reach harvest. Thank you for enjoying what we grow! We sure think it's delicious.

Need to check on or make changes to your pick up dates? Log in here.

More recipe suggestions:

- Roast big chunks of Tomato, Eggplant, Pepper, and Squash. Serve on pasta with a roasted-vegetable sauce of your choice.

- Slice Summer Squash and Eggplant (any variety!) into long strips, 1/4 inch thick. Marinate in just olive oil if you're in a hurry. Add minced garlic and balsamic vinegar and salt and pepper if you have more time. Grill to perfection!

- Roast Eggplant and make Roasted Eggplant Dip a la Cava and make at-home Cava bowls. Apparently folks on TikTok show you how to do that here.

- Pizza with Roasted Pepper Sauce is extra yummy and requires a little more time because you need to roast the peppers. But it's worth it!

- Lettuce Wraps save us many a night during our busy summer. Load them up with tofu salad, chicken salad, egg salad, you name it...

Bread Share members: You get a SEPARATE email to customize your bread share.

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 usually ends at 6am on the day before your pick up day, and sometimes at 5am when our harvest days need to start extra early.

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: Ring-a-Bell Farm in Pamplin offers 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 they are available.

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.

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

Visit and join here.

Also see recipe suggestions on our website here. We also have a Pinterest page with recipes here.

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, Alisa, Jen, Clara, Tabea, Christina, Jackson, and the farm kids)

Want to follow along during the week, including Farm Stand updates? Visit us on Facebook or Instagram

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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