Another beautiful early autumn weekend, and another potluck and farm tour full of laughter, good cheer, and a pint-sized harvesting crew. You can see from the photo that the patch where our winter squash sat growing all summer long has been cleaned up. What you can’t see is the cover crop of barley and hairy vetch that we planted in the middle of last week. With a little rain it should germinate soon. It will keep our fields healthy during the winter by preventing erosion, keeping moisture in the soil, and converting atmospheric nitrogen into nitrogen next year’s crops will be able to use. In the spring we’ll turn it into the soil before planting something new there.
Yesterday it was our great pleasure to be joined at the farm by some members of St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church. This community has been enormously supportive of our farm since our first days in the Richmond area. Early this spring, we spoke at the church about our CSA program and about farmers markets — about the concrete ways that buying from local farmers keeps families like us solvent, keeps rural economies strong, and keeps urban communities vibrant and healthy. We sell our vegetables at the Market at St. Stephen’s on Saturday mornings from 8am to noon. St. Stephen’s is also the site of our largest CSA pick-up, on Saturday mornings during the summer and on Wednesday evenings during the winter.
It’s really quite impossible to imagine our farm without their support. Thanks so much, y’all!
