Seeking Lenders for Farm Future...Please read

PLEASE REMEMBER that your TOMATOES are always kept separate from the rest of your vegetables. Gather up those bags with your name on them.

>> the photo above is a throw back! Little bitty Beckett, our youngest child, loading up the van with Dan <<

September! This is such a welcome date every year. September signals the return of more mild weather, which means more enjoyable farming. :) Fall crops continue to emerge on our harvest list...Kale, Chard, Scallions, and Arugula (!!) lead the charge. Cabbages and Salad Mix are close behind. Then root vegetables will hit harvest stage (turnips, beets, and radishes first, then carrots). But I'm getting ahead of myself. It's a lot to get excited about! 

(the Salad Mix pictured above will be ready to cut at the end of this week)

This week started with Labor Day, a preliminary marker of fall for farmers. We give our staff this day off (paid) each year as a small way to honor them and their dedicated labor to farming all season. However, the plants (and computer tasks) still need attention, so it's a week of fitting a fully staffed week of farm work into a shortened week. Labor Day itself is always a bit more demanding than usual days for us as farm owners. Our kids definitely don't know of Labor Day as a holiday. :-)

Our Okra plants are still doing very well and are happy with the current heat. Here's what it looks like while harvesting Okra while nestled between the plants and checking all the layers of understory for pods:

Lettuces will increase as we approach and officially begin fall. We're happy to been able to harvest some each week through August, though our ideal is to bring a greater quantity to harvest each week. Each year we take notes and tweak a few things as we are able in order to improve something. 

Speaking of continually seeking to improve...We've recently mentioned that we have a new farm project underway. We are now ready to share details and also put out a significant request to our community. Short version: We have the very unique opportunity to purchase an old farm in Nelson County (just south of Charlottesville) by finding private lenders - with a firm deadline of this December. In order to do this, we need to find individuals willing to lend us a collective total of $240,000. We need to pay the current owners no later than January 2025. 

We know this sounds bizarre. Read on for more information. 

The longer version: "Retiring" as farmers is a interesting notion, and we know we will need to continue working until older than the average American. We are fine with this, and we've known this since starting the farm when we were in our early thirties. Now we're approaching 50 years of age (gulp) and we're starting to better map out our plan for the next couple of decades. We won't be able to indefinitely continue the physical work that Broadfork requires. We know that eventually we will need to sell our current farm. Over the next 8-10 years, we'd like to plan to transition from Broadfork to a new and very different farm. A farm that doesn't require the physical work that Broadfork requires. In order to afford this and establish perennials and improve soil health in advance, we need to make the purchase for this plan soon. We're thinking of our 60 year-olds selves and planning for a lighter version of farming (centered on perennials, growing seed for seed companies, and a greenhouse-based business), plus likely some farm education work, and our very strong desire to sell Broadfork to someone who will want to continue operating the farm. 

We are planners. We are deliberate. We're cautious and conservative with our planning and projections, yet we are bold with our vision and goals. And we are very hard working. We've taken on debt in numerous forms in order to start and operate this farm. We've paid off numerous loans over the past 15 years. We've invested heavily in the farm's soil and infrastructure. We have just four years remaining on our mortgage. We have excellent credit. We've never carried any credit card debt. 

Our financials are good for a farm yet look unacceptable to banks and traditional lenders. This is because we have consistently used the majority of the business profits eaech year to further invest in the farm - rather than paying ourselves more money as the farm owners. We have asked banks for a loan. They have said they would only approve us if we were paying ourselves a significant salary. (Why would we do that instead of improving our farm?) They have only approved us with a co-signer and a high interest rate. We're not willing to go that route. Thus, we are turning to our community with this request. 

We know what we're asking is unconventional. But - We know how to responsibly set up and repay private loans. The new, "old" farm will serve as collateral. (We're already part owners of the farm in question. Friends of ours own the majority of it and need to sell their portion as of January 2025.) If we defaulted on loan repayment, we'd sell the farm, worth more than $240,000, and lenders would be repaid. 

We are open to one $240,000 lender (though that would astound us) or ten lenders at $24k each, or any variation thereof. We constantly run farm financial projections and are prepared to set up a repayment plan that will have us re-pay lenders for the new farm before we sell Broadfork.

By the way, currently none of our children have any desire to run Broadfork after we can no longer do so. However, they are young, and one or more of them may change their mind. We shall see what the future brings. But our thought is that, with help from our community, we can purchase the new farm land now and build a house for ourselves on it after selling Broadfork. (We'll need to sell Broadfork in order to have funds to build a home at the new farm.)

We've found a sweet little spot in Nelson County that we'd like to have time to ready to be our future "retirement" farm. We know it takes time to build up a place. We won't have that time if we wait to purchase our elder-years farm after we sell Broadfork. 

As full time farmers, we live a modest life. We are comfortable, but our budget is modest. Material possessions are humble. Vehicles are old. Vacations for our family are camping trips. We live this way intentionally and happily. In order to be responsible about our older years, we want to purchase future farmland now, at 2024 prices -- rather than at the cost of land ten years from now. 

We'd really, really like to find members of our community who are willing to collect interest in non traditional ways, such as through our produce, flowers, bread, and/or access to the new farm to enjoy what it has to offer visitors. The new farm has a sweet (tiny) little pond, a few open fields, beautiful forest, and a bold creek -- all tucked back away from a quiet country road. Private, yet minutes away from Rt 151 breweries, wineries, the Rockfish River, and trailheads. Would you like to collect interest through visiting for day trips or camping trips? When you want to visit, we'll give lenders the code to the gate. (It does NOT have a livable house.) 

We feel really great about how over the past 14 years we have shown our community what we're capable of and committed to. We are incredibly uncomfortable asking for financial assistance, but here we are - pushing ourselves out of our comfort zone!

Want to know more? There are so many things to say! Reply to this email, talk with us here at the farm, give us a phone call (804-337-6540), or swing by our market booth during the last hour of market. We're happy to share more details and answer any questions from serious inquirers. 

Thanks for reading this far, and we'll move forward with belief that the universe is a positive place and we'll find a way to make this work. 

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

Recipe suggestions: 

- Stir fry onions, tomatoes, and garlic in a saute pan. Then roast them on a baking sheet in the oven. Then pan-sear some white fish in a pan until nice and crispy at the edges. Top tomato/onion mixture with fish plus toss on some capers, lemon juice, salt, and pepper. 

- Panzanella!  Chunks of bread plus tomatoes plus basil plus onions plus cheese...and add in Cucumbers, just because. 

- Eggplant Parm Lasagna. It's a thing. It takes a while. Plan ahead. Then savor. 

- Pickle yo' Okra. Here's how. 

- Slice Tomatoes and include them in grilled sandwiches with mozzarella cheese and slices of turkey or tofurkey. Bonus points for using our Cranberry & Pepitas bread or Seed bread for these super tasty sammies. 

- Roast Cherry Tomatoes as in this recipe and put them on anything! Pasta, sure, but also...anything. 

- Stuff Jalapenos with cheese and top with breadcrumbs and roast. Serve with a cold beverage. 

- Toss whole Okra with oil, salt, and curry powder. Roast (whole!) on a baking sheet until almost crispy. Deeelicious!

- Pan fry WHOLE Shishito peppers in oil until they blister, then sprinkle with sea salt and eat by holding the stem and biting just up to the stem. 

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

- 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. 

- Stuff our Bullhorn Peppers with tofu salad/chicken salad/tuna salad. 

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:

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.