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Great Country Farms

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Corona Virus and Community Supported Agriculture

March 25, 2020 by Mark Dewey

Dear CSA members and members of the Western Loudoun foodshed,

We want to let you know that Great Country Farms is responding to the ever-changing circumstances surrounding the corona virus by growing as much food as we can. Our greenhouse is full of new starts: peas, lettuce, onions, spinach, broccoli, beets, radishes, red kale, green kale, lacinato kale, bok choi, kohlrabi, Swiss chard, carrots, sweet corn, egg plant, Brandywine tomatoes, jalapeños, leeks, and basil. We have potatoes and onions in the ground already, and we’re starting to move out early peas, radishes, and beets.

Our exploration of no-till planting last year taught us how to get even more food out of less space, and we expect to learn even more — and grow even more — this year. So even though it’s impossible to predict what restrictions and other surprises might come our way in the next few weeks, rest assured that we’re following the guidelines of the CDC and the State Health Department, and we’re ramping up production. We plan to supply Western Loudoun County with a lot of health-sustaining, nutritionally vital food. Red kale, green kale, and a number of other items are currently available through our online farm store. We’ll keep you posted as more items come in.

Thanks for supporting us, and for supporting each other.

Filed Under: Big Pictures, Local Farming, Uncategorized Tagged With: COVID-19 and local food, CSA 2020, Local Food, Loudoun farming

Custom CSA

January 23, 2020 by Mark Dewey

This change is a big deal.  It means far less wasted food, both for you and for us. It means you can eliminate unwanted items from your box, and add extras if you like.  It means we can add some unusual crops to our growing plan, knowing that people who want them will get them.  It means you have an easy way to buy surplus items in bulk, and we have an easy way to sell surplus items.

It’s a big deal.

Here’s what’s different:

  1. This new system will show you the weekly price, even though you’re buying a seasonal share, and the base price shown is for market-style farm pick-up. If you want join a group site, you’ll be invited to do so after choosing your share, and the delivery charge will be added automatically.
  2. We’ve reinstated home delivery, with two different pricing zones.
  3. When you sign up, you’ll be asked to set your preference level on every item we offer. Then each week you’ll get a chance to adjust your customized box contents.
  4. At group sites, you’ll have to find the box with your label on it. In the market, we’ll give you a customized list, and you’ll pack your box accordingly.
  5. If you use the installment plan, you’ll be charged 25% of your share price at sign-up, another 25% on the day of first pick-up, and the remaining 50% on a weekly basis throughout the season. Any extras you choose will be added to your weekly charge. You may choose to pay in full at sign-up, in which case you would see a weekly charge only if you add something to your box.

The new system is quite user-friendly, and there’s a lot of support available. We think it’s going to be a whole new world of great local food.

Filed Under: Big Pictures, Local Farming, On Foggy Bottom Road Tagged With: CSA, customizable shares, home delivery, Local Food, western Loudoun farm

What’s My Delivery Day?

May 27, 2019 by Mark Dewey

CSA 2019 begins next Tuesday. This year all deliveries will arrive on either Wednesday or Thursday. Members of each group will receive an email when boxes arrive. Please remember that all shares must be claimed the day of delivery. Unclaimed shares will be donated, according to Great Country Farms’ policy. Here’s a list of group sites by day:

Wednesday

Zip codes: 20105, 20120, 20121, 20164, 20165, 20166, 20175, 20176, 22033, 22180

Leesburg Chiropractic,  Brew Loco,  Romaezi (Westmoreland St.),  Sonak Chiropractic,  Mirra (Tramore Ct.),  McNerney (Tree Line Dr.),  Musci (Water Birch Ct.),  Wellness Connection, Great Harvest Vienna, Clifton Townes (Jenny Leigh Ct.)

Thursday

Zip codes: 20147, 20148, 20170, 20191, 22003, 22030, 22031, 22042, 22043, 22152, 22201, 22203, 22205, 22207, 22302, 22310

Great Harvest Herndon, Great Harvest Ashburn,  Wine’ing Butcher,  Broadlands Nature Center,  Montana Street,  Caputo (N. Abingdon St.),  Herzfeld (John Marshall Drive),  Krieger (N. Wayne Street),  Huntington Forest (Gentle Lane),  Moomaw  (Fontaine St.),  Fontana (Lamarre Dr.),  Hamaker (Collier Rd.),  Bishop (Fleming Dr.),  Gildea (Wynford Dr.),  Olio2go  (Hilltop Rd.),  McClure  (Powder Horn Rd.),  Reston Children’s Center,  Garvey (Holly Berry Ct.), Murphy (Gilson St.)

Filed Under: On Foggy Bottom Road

Why Drink Apple Cider Vinegar?

April 10, 2019 by Mark Dewey

Why Drink Apple Cider Vinegar?

  1. It lowers your blood sugar, decreasing your risk for insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes.
  2. It turbo-charges the energy centers in your cells, your mitochondria.
  3. It nourishes the bacteria in your microbiome.
  4. It helps you think better.
  5. It boosts good cholesterol.

Learn more here from Dr. Mercola.

Filed Under: Big Pictures, Eat Tagged With: apple cider vinegar health benefits, insulin resistance, micro biome health, mitochondrial health

Microbiome Is Our Inner Soil

February 18, 2019 by Mark Dewey

In our last post, we concluded that when soil is healthy, plants and microbes dwell in symbiosis which produces high concentrations of the nutrients both need to thrive. Well, it’s becoming increasingly clear that the same relationship exists between people and the microbes that live in our digestive tract.

   Ironically, however, the human species seems hell-bent on destroying those microbes, or at least reducing their numbers. One fundamental law of nature is that biodiversity is good, but modern culture seems to be at war with biodiversity. Most industrial agriculture functions on the principle of anti-diversity: single crops grown from genetically homogenous seed in soil rendered sterile by industrial grade antibiotics. And industrial medicine seems to work on the cleanliness principle as well: in 2016, the number of antibiotic prescriptions written in America corresponded to five out of ever six people in the country, and nearly a third of those were demonstrably unnecessary. We believe that cleaner is better, even though that may not be true.

   It’s becoming clear that fighting bacteria is both futile and wrong-headed. It’s futile because within any given person, non-human cells out-number human cells by a factor of 1.3, and the number of non-human species living within a single person is comparable to the number of individual people living in one large city. And it’s wrong-headed for the same reason it would be crazy for a city to attack its own population. Sure: some people in town are deadbeats who pee in the pool and shoplift candy bars, but that doesn’t mean you fumigate the village with mustard gas.

   We’re learning, for example, that some nutrients that play crucial roles in human health are produced only by the non-human species living in our gut, including three amino acids required to make the neurotransmitters serotonin and dopamine. What’s more, many of those species appear to communicate with our human cells in ways that tell our DNA what kinds of proteins to manufacture. So in a real sense, the bacteria we’re fighting actually makes us who we are.

   As Dr. Zack Bush says, we should stop thinking of bacteria as invaders and realize that this space is more theirs than ours. We should thank them for letting us stay.

   One way to encourage that thought shift is to deliberately cultivate the growth of bacteria in our bodies, especially our digestive tracts, which do far more than process food. In our next post we’ll talk about things we’re doing on the farm to help bacteria grow inside us.

Filed Under: Big Pictures, Eat Tagged With: antibiotic use, gut bacteria, microbiome

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18780 Foggy Bottom Road Bluemont, Virginia 20135
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