Crop Talk: March 20, 2017

Crop Talk, March 20, 2017

Spring Equinox

Today marks the halfway point on our journey toward the longest day of the year, and we're leveraging our 12 hours of sunlight by using the green house and field hoops to warm the air and soil. We have chard, cabbage, broccoli, leeks, okra, and various lettuces thriving in the green house, and kale, spinach, potatoes, and garlic are already growing in the field.

Our 2017 season opens on April 1 and 2 with our annual Egg Hunt and Marshmallow Harvest. Admission to all festival events is included with CSA memberships, so come on out to search for eggs reconnect with the earth.

Non-members may purchase advance tickets to our celebration of the egg and the marshmallow here.

Remember that membership cards will be available in the market on your first visit.

Only 8 Peep Packages Left!

Our annual foster chicken program is up and running! Take home four cheeping fluff balls, keep them until the kids lose interest -- or the HOA finds out -- and then bring them back. Order from our website today, because we have only 8 packages left. Pick them up at the farm between April 8 and April 15.

About Our Bee Keeper

The Wall Street Journal runs an article series called Second Acts, which profiles people who have taken up second careers later in life, and last fall they included Bill Bundy, our beekeeper, in that series. Julie Halpert’s article begins thus:

“When Bill and Sue Bundy bought an eight-acre farm in Leesburg, Va., in 1996, it was to help Ms. Bundy pursue a dream of raising sheep. Mr. Bundy had no idea it would lead to a second career for him as well."

Read more here .

Waste Not, Want Not: 10 Ways to Reduce Your Food Waste Footprint

By Brian Barth, from Modern Farmer

The next food revolution is here: stemming the tide of food waste. Roughly 40 percent of the American harvest never reaches our mouths. Fourteen percent of the contents of the average landfill is food that has been thrown away. Meanwhile, nearly 50 million Americans are “food-insecure"; globally, one in eight people go to bed hungry each night.

The shopping, cooking, and eating habits of every day consumers are responsible for the bulk of wasted food, which is actually good news—it means we have the power to make a significant and immediate change in the food waste equation.

Of course there are also big structural issues at play—from regulations that encourage grocery stores to discard food prematurely to an industrialized agricultural system that is not nimble enough to make sure the entire crop actually makes it to market—but changes in consumer behavior will ultimately coalesce and move those larger levers in the global food economy as well. Here are a few tips to get started with shrinking the food waste footprint of your own household.