Bakery & Farm Market Open March 4, 2023!

The Farm is closed for the season.   The Bakery & Farm Market open weekends starting March 4, 2023.  Get your Fan Season Pass Today so you don’t miss a minute of Family Fun on the Farm!

Sunflower Joy shines in the face of a young girl holding a cut your own sunflower at Great Country Farms

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Great Country Farms

Community Supported Agriculture, CSA, Produce Farm, U-Pick, Field Trips in Loudoun County, VA

Farm Market & Play Area

Open Saturdays & Sundays in March 2023

10am-5pm

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2023 Tix Coming Soon!

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Our Pledge, Your Pledge

May 28, 2020 by Kate Zurschmeide

Our Pledge to You~Updated  5/28/2021Farmhand driving the tractor at Great Country Farms

  1. Our Farmhands are trained in CDC guidelines for hand washing and sanitizing and and everyone who handles food — in the field, in the packing barn, or in the market.
  2. Our team is educated on CDC Mask guidelines and understand the privacy of our team and guests is of utmost importance.  
  3. All Farmhands certify that they are  temperature and symptom free before each shift.
  4. Frequently touched surfaces are sanitized regularly during operation.
  5. We will provide hand sanitizing options before entering the field for our farmhands and PYO guests.
  6. We will provide new containers for pick-your-own for guests.
  7.  Our CSA Farm Shares will be packed in single-use liner bags, which will be sealed with tamper-evident tape. That way, members can be sure their food has been touched by only the picker and the packer.

Your Pledge to UsTwo young girls with lovely braids hold their pick your own box between them while awaiting the Great Country Farms tractor ride to the apple orchard.

  1. CDC guidelines protect you, as well as our other patrons and employees, and you agree to take responsibility for understanding and following the new guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)  while visiting the farm.
  2.  If you are sick, have been exposed to COVID-19 in the past 14 days, or have symptoms of COVID-19 (including a fever, cough, or shortness of breath), you will stay at home and will not enter the Farm Market or PYO Fields.
  3. For PYO Reservations and Advance Tickets,  you agree to arrive on time and complete your visit within your ticket window.
  4. You agree to wash/sanitize your hands and assist your children in doing so prior to and after picking produce and frequently while visiting the play area.
  5. You agree to not sample any fruit in the field to comply with the guidelines from the Virginia Department of Agriculture.

 

 

 

Filed Under: Big Pictures, On Foggy Bottom Road Tagged With: COVID-19 and local food, COVID-19 precautions, Farm Re-opening

No-Till Saves Time

April 27, 2020 by Kate Zurschmeide

In the last post, we talked about switching to no-till in order to preserve the soil’s micro-biome, which is crucial for bringing crops to their full nutritional capacity. This post focuses on another reason not to till: weeds.

If you’ve ever grown a garden yourself, you’ve probably found that when you come out with your seeds in the spring, your garden plot is covered with debris, including plants you didn’t put there. The easiest way to get rid of that mess is to rent a Roto-tiller, which turns the surface of the soil under and brings a lower layer to the top. It looks great: loose and clean and ready for your spinach seeds. But three weeks later, your row of spinach is engulfed by thousands of invaders. Where did they come from? You planted spinach, not chickweed!

They came from that lower layer, which is full of dormant seeds that pop to life when you turn the soil and expose them to the warmth of the sun.

That same process takes place on a much larger scale when you till a 40-acre field with a tractor. Industrial farming solves the problem by spraying the field with Round-up, which kills everything but plants genetically engineered to tolerate it. Well, we don’t use Round-up, so we had to pull those weeds by hand, which takes a long time.

But when we stopped tilling the soil, we stopped bringing those seeds to the surface, so they stopped germinating.

There’s a trade-off: it’s hard to sow seeds directly onto un-tilled soil because of all that debris, including left-over weeds. So instead of turning under that debris, we cover it with compost. After a couple of years, most of the weed seeds are pretty well buried. And as long as we don’t turn over the soil, they stay that way.

Filed Under: Big Pictures, On Foggy Bottom Road Tagged With: industrial farming, no-till planting, Round-up, weed control

Why No-Till Planting?

April 8, 2020 by Kate Zurschmeide

Regenerative agriculture is a way of farming that fosters the health of our ecosystem in this moment, while also building toward a healthy future. This approach has many components, one of which we instituted last year: no-till planting. That means that instead of preparing the fields for seed by overturning the soil from a depth of six to eight inches below the surface, we’re leaving the soil intact and transplanting seedlings from the greenhouse directly into undisturbed topsoil.

One of the benefits of no-till planting is that it dramatically reduces erosion. It takes a long time to create topsoil — countless centuries of cyclical growth and decay — and scientists estimate that 23 billion tons of that precious commodity are washed into rivers, lakes, and oceans every year. At that rate, it will be gone completely in four or five generations. The primary cause of so much soil loss is industrial plowing, because loose soil is carried away by water, whereas undisturbed soil is like a great big sponge.

So one of the reasons we’ve stopped tilling our soil is to keep it on our fields, where it can grow delicious, life-giving food for many years to come. Next week we’ll talk about another reason: preserving the soil’s ecosystem.

Filed Under: Big Pictures, On Foggy Bottom Road

Custom CSA

January 23, 2020 by Kate Zurschmeide

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 Kate Zurschmeide

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

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Farm Market & Bakery Open March 4, 2023!

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