Potomac Vegetable Farms

By Mariette Hiu Newcomb

In the early 1980’s some local activists got together with Fairfax County planners to see what could be done to save farmland that was rapidly being converted into subdivisions, shopping malls, and office parks. They came up with the Agricultural and Forestal District ordinance that would make qualifying lands eligible for lower real estate taxes based on its agricultural use instead of its market value which was increasing due to development pressures.

In 1985, our farm became the Potomac Vegetable Farms Agricultural District which was committed to not developing or changing its use for the eight year term of the district. We have since renewed our district each time the term expired. It originally included the 30 acres on Leesburg Pike and a noncontiguous 8-acre parcel owned by the family on nearby Beulah Road, on the other side of the Moutoux Orchard which also had its own agricultural district. This 75 acre block devoted to farming became notable as land in the surrounding area filled up with large houses.

Three years ago, the Moutouxs decided to sell and move their orchard operation out to Loudoun County. We have written in these newsletters about the impact of the loss of this beautiful and productive orchard and our historic access to our Beulah Road land. We are continuing to grow vegetables and cut flowers there, but Fairfax County no longer allows it to be part of our agricultural district, now that it is more obvious that it is noncontiguous to the rest of our farm, and we are paying much higher taxes based on its market value as a house lot.

The County attorney has ruled that noncontiguous parcels cannot be part of an A&F district even though the ordinance stated at the time our district was established that noncontiguous parcels, if located within a mile of the core of the A&F district, would be allowed.

I have spoken with our Supervisor John Foust and consulted with the Fairfax County Planning Office but have been told that some legislative action might be necessary in Richmond to allow our noncontiguous parcel to be included in our A&F district. We need some help and advice to make the necessary connections to pursue this. We were wondering if any of our customers and associates might have more experience and expertise in this area than we do. Can any of you help?

As the official bean planter at PVF-East, I diligently plant a new bean patch every two weeks starting the first week of May.  On August 7 I planted the last beans of the season, which means that we are officially on the downward slope of 2008.  We planted the last squash too, but that doesn’t feel the same.  For me the beans create a steady seasonal pulse — they germinate within a week of planting, they are ready to pick 57 days after the seeds go in the ground, and we only pick them for two weeks before they are turned back into the soil.  The last planting is always a gamble because frost is unpredictable.  As often as not, beautiful plants with teeny weeny beans are blackened by an early October freeze, and that’s that.

We are currently picking the fifth patch out of nine.  That’s another way to read the bean calendar.  Any way you look at it, we are cruising toward the finish line.

Hope you’re all enjoying your summer shares so far!

The newsletters section is up-to-date (through last week) and in an effort to get some more activity happening on the PVF blog/news section, a few new voices will be popping up here and there. The author name will now appear in the same line as the time/date stamp, so you know whose voice you should be imagining.

The summer has officially started – PVF’s farm stands are opening for the first time this week. The Vienna farm’s stand opens Tuesday, July 1, and the Purcellville stand opens Saturday, July 5. Come by and see us!

Directions:

Vienna
Four miles west of Tysons Corner on Route 7 – the stand is on your left.

Purcellville
From Leesburg: Take 7 west for two miles to Route 9. Stay on 9 for five miles and make a right at Berlin Turnpike (287). Make a left on John Wolford.

There’s picking and there’s harvesting. We pick parsley, we pick beans, we pick flowers. Picking means that you are not collecting it all up at once, or for the last time. Harvesting is a much bigger job. You harvest field corn or wheat or potatoes. On our farm, we do a lot more picking than harvesting.

We are in the midst of the garlic harvest now. Even on our tiny farm, it’s a monumental task. Last fall we planted 500 pounds of garlic cloves, one at a time, by hand, and we covered them with a layer of hay mulch and left them alone for the winter. They grew beautifully. In the first weeks of June we harvested all the garlic curls – a light task – and a few weeks later the green tops turned yellow and the bulbs underground were mature enough to dig.

Our harvest methods are probably the same as they were a millennium or two ago. We stick a big fork in the ground and loosen the soil around each garlic plant, then we bend over and pull on the base of the stem. It’s very simple. A child can do it. The hard part is that the garlic patch goes on and on.

On some farms, the garlic harvest is done with a mechanical digger (we have one out in Purcellville) and the process is completed in one day. On our Vienna farm, we dig garlic for about a week, cleaning each muddy bulb as it comes out of the ground. We dry the garlic in the greenhouse and then fidget with it all season long, trimming and cleaning it again before it goes into the CSA bags.

- Hana

Baskets of fresh heads of garlic in the field wait for transport

Matthew loosens the bed of garlic with a digging fork

Carrie cleans off the harvested garlic cloves

PVF West registration is now closed!

Wow, shares went quickly this year! Please let us know if you have any feedback on the registration process this year.

The National Wildlife Federation pick-up location for PVF West is full. All other PVF West locations still have open spots.

The shares from PVF-East are sold out! Thank you for your interest, and please come see us at the farmers markets from May through October.

PVF West is still open for registrations.

You can now register for PVF East - Vienna and PVF West - Purcellville! Please Contact us if you have any problems.

Note that this year, there is a two-step process for registering online. Be sure to read more about what we have to offer this year and about Community Supported Agriculture and ecoganic farming.

As a quick reminder, if you use a feed reader, you’ll want to subscribe to our feed. We plan on posting more to the news section of the site this year!

(Updated 2/8/08: PVF East is sold out!)

(Updated 2/26/08: PVF West is sold out!)

CSA veterans, please share some of your experiences so that others might be able to imagine what belonging to this CSA is like. Be specific! It’s okay to talk about the downsides too.

Please leave your comments here.

There was something odd going on with the recipe section where it wasn’t properly displaying recipes. Everything should be fixed now.

I did have to take away the comment/rating feature of the recipes, though, as it was getting overrun with spam. I’ll have to comb through, find the real comments, delete the rest, and then spam-proof the comment form before bringing it back.

Just a quick reminder to those of you that usually get your bags on Wednesday, this week bags are ready today because of the holiday.

The regular schedule will resume next week for Wednesday pick-ups.

Our registration forms are now available in PDF format for PVF East (all the pick up locations from Vienna east: Arlington, Falls Church, Alexandria, Fairfax, Bethesda) and PVF West (Herndon, Leesburg, Ashburn, Reston and Purcellville). For information on share sizes and prices, click here. For information on PVF West delivery sites, please contact ellen -at- potomacvegetablefarms.com.

We will open our 2007 registration on February 15. Forms and information will be on the PVF website, so remember to check back in late February. Summer shares start on June 5 and go for 16 weeks. Mini shares will be $250, regular shares $425, robust $600. We also have an eight week fall share that starts in late September and runs until mid November, with prices roughly half of the summer prices.

We will have an early bird discount in effect until March 1, and we think we could be sold out by early March. We will close the CSA when we sell 400 shares.

We will have pick-up locations at our farms in Vienna and Purcellville, and will also drop off in Herndon, Leesburg, Arlington, Falls Church, Alexandria, and Bethesda. Folks who don’t pick up at the farms will also pay $3/week for delivery (or $48 for the summer).

The new CSA season is upon us and with one week of vegetables behind us, the PVF site is kicking back into full gear. The first week’s newsletters are online and I upgraded Wordpress (the engine behind the site news… this only matters to the techies in the audience).

I’ll be doing some tweaking of the recipes section over the next week or two and just generally cleaning things up around here. Let me know if you have any ideas or suggestions.

CSA shares for 2006 are all sold out! Registration for 2007 starts in mid-February. You can get our vegetables this season at the farmers markets and the roadside stands.

For those of you that got registered in time, those veggies are coming next week!

Thank you for your interest in the CSA this year. We have now sold all of our shares from the Vienna farm. However, the Clifford Ave location in Alexandria is still open. We have many spaces left from the Purcellville farm. Shares for 2007 will be available in mid-February, 2007 from this website.

The wait is over! The 2006 CSA registration is now available for the Vienna farm. The Loudoun brochure will be available in a day or two. You can also download the 2006 CSA Brochure.

Get your forms back soon to make sure you qualify for the early bird discount and reserve your spot! Interest is growing, so spots are limited!

The autumn shares have begun! Hopefully everyone enjoyed all the great veggies from the summer share and are ready to start making soups, stews, and baked butternut squash recipes. Mmmm…

For me, it’s all about the kale. Bring it on.

I’ve gotten a bit more caught up on the newsletter archives and recipes. Also, if you were able to attend the Purcellville potluck and have pictures, could you please get in touch? I’m getting together pictures for the various open houses and potlucks the farm has held this year.

Eat well!

Some good hints on cooking vegetables appear in last week’s “In the Bag”:

Blanche: To briefly immerse in boiling water, then plunge into cold water to stop the cooking. Greens will retain their bright color.

Braise: To brown meats and vegetables in a small amount of fat, then cook, tightly covered, in a small amount of flavored liquid for a long time over low heat.

Sauté: To cook quickly, in fat, over high heat.

Steam: To steam, in a steam basket over simmering water in a wide, tightly covered saucepan.

Stir-fry: To cook small pieces of food quickly in a large pan in a small amount of very hot fat over high heat. Stir constantly.

Wilt: To wilt, first rinse the leaves, then place the wet leaves in a pot or skillet over low heat and cover tightly. Greens become limp and pliable.