Green Fun for All Ages!

Greetings from the Farm,

Our second annual Earth Day event is tomorrow, and we’re practically green in the face with preparations! Join us from 5pm-7pm, Friday April 21st at the Willowsford Boathouse to celebrate Earth Day! Featuring a live band, kids activities and plenty of green space to enjoy. Say hello to a member of the Conservancy and Farm teams, we’re happy to kick back and get the conversation rolling about our green practices! If you ordered a Farm Picnic box, please see Farmer Anna by the grill station to pick up your order from 5pm-6pm. 

History Lesson: Did you know…Earth Day is widely recognized as the largest secular observance in the world, marked by more than a billion people every year as a day of action to change human behavior and create global, national and local policy changes? Senator Gaylord Nelson, Senator Pete McCloskey and activist Denis Hayes organized a national teach-in for April 22nd, on college campuses nation-wide to educate about air and water pollution. Recognizing its potential to inspire all Americans, Hayes built a national staff of 85 to promote events across the land and the effort soon broadened to include a wide range of organizations, faith groups, and others.  They changed the name to Earth Day, which immediately sparked national media attention, and caught on across the country.  Earth Day inspired 20 million Americans — at the time, 10% of the total population of the United States — to take to the streets, parks and auditoriums to demonstrate against the impacts of 150 years of industrial development which had left a growing legacy of serious human health impacts. By the end of 1970, the first Earth Day led to the creation of the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the passage of other first of their kind environmental laws, including the National Environmental Education Act,  the Occupational Safety and Health Act, and the Clean Air Act.  Two years later Congress passed the Clean Water Act.  A year after that, Congress passed the Endangered Species Act and soon after the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act. These laws have protected millions of men, women and children from disease and death and have protected hundreds of species from extinction. Earth Day went global in 1990, with over 200 million participants in 141 countries. Today, we still celebrate Earth Day to spread awareness about environmental issues, green practices, and respecting our planet. If you’d like to learn more about the history of Earth Day, please visit the official website: earthday.org

Egg FOMO?: We may have sold out of Egg Shares for the 2023 Summer season, but we will still be offering limited a la carte sales during the CSA. In addition, we will have eggs for sale at the Farm Stand in the Grange. A la carte and Farm Stand eggs will be available on a first-come first-serve basis, so please be aware that we may sell out from time to time. If you don’t want to miss out next year, we recommend signing up for the Summer CSA program early to lock in your shares for 2024. 

Connect With Us : Join us for one of our upcoming programs or volunteer alongside us. Visit the Conservancy Events, Instagram or Facebook pages for details.

Eat well, be well,
– The Willowsford Farm Team

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2023 Off- Season Retail Program

Willowsford Farm will be offering limited a la carte sales of farm-fresh eggs, meat, pantry products and some root vegetables during the CSA off-season. Our growing season is over, but we have a bumper crop of root vegetables in proper storage to offer along with our Farm Stand pantry products and bounty of eggs. We understand that avian flu outbreaks in commercial operations and ongoing supply chain issues are causing a squeeze at local grocery stores, and we’ve decided to offer a trial program to continue sales of some of our products outside of the regular CSA season. If weekly participation is strong, we will continue to offer this smaller a la carte menu through April.  The farm is excited to trial this new off-season retail cycle, which will operate in the following manner:
  1. The Online Farm Store will be open for limited a la carte retail sales 10am Monday through 3pm Friday.
  2. There will be one location option for fulfillment: Saturday Pick Up at the Farm Pack Shed, with two time slots available, 9-10 am and 2-3 pm. We are not offering off-season home delivery.
  3. The cycle will function according to the following example: Orders placed between Monday 1/23 and Friday 1/27 will be available for pickup on Saturday 1/28 during the selected pick-up timeslot. Unclaimed orders will be notified via email EOB Saturday.
  4. A la carte purchases can be made using Store Credits and/or credit and debit cards. Please use your existing Barn2Door account. All inventory will be kept current in Barn2Door, please consider any low stock alerts to be accurate.
  5. Eggs will be available by the dozen, and inventory will be based on flock production. Our current flock has blessed us with abundance, but availability will be on a first-come first-served basis.
  6. Pantry products inventory will be according to current stock. Pantry product items are from the 2022 Farm Stand season and inventory will not be refreshed until the beginning of the 2023 CSA/Farm Stand season.
  7. Root vegetables will be available in current a la carte weights and packages.
  8. Meat bundles will be available for purchase based on current inventory. Throughout the off-season, we will be creating new bundle options as we work towards opening new space in our freezer.
  9. This will be ongoing beginning the first cycle, Monday, January 23rd tentatively running through Monday, April 24th. There will be no dedicated email communications announcing the Open/Close of the Online Farm Store, but there will be a reminder with a link to the Online Farm Store page in the weekly Farm Newsletter.
  10. This trial program is interest-based, and we encourage participants to spread the word to friends and neighbors. The Farm may announce and schedule a hiatus of retail sales or make changes to match interest in off-season purchasing. Any changes made will be communicated at least a week in advance.
  11. Questions about the off-season sales program can be directed to farm@willowsfordfarm.com

Highlights This Week


Willowsford Farm Eggs
Willowsford Farm Eggs
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GF Spanakopita Quiche
GF Spanakopita Quiche
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Whole Chicken
Whole Chicken
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Photos From the Farm

Photos :  Let’s talk onions! A Farm favorite was transplanted this week, right in view of the Pack Shed. You can see the Farm Team covering the freshly transplanted onions with row covers. This is a form of pest management, specifically to exclude the onion maggot fly, seen below. In onions, the newly hatched larvae crawl behind the leaf sheath and enter the bulb to feed on the roots, stem and developing bulb. Feeding damage also encourages the entry of soft root pathogens, so it is vital that we take steps to protect our growing crops!

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To protect our land and promote conservation and sustainable farming so that our community discovers a deeper connection to nature and each other.

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www.WillowsfordConserrvancy.org

Our mailing address is:
23595 Founders Drive, Ashburn, VA 20148