Thanksgiving is a time to give thanks, to pause with family and friends, and to enjoy the day. Sometimes it can be easy to find the things we are thankful for – a new job, addition to the family, or some other fortunate event in our life. That can be the easy part. While we reflect and consider what we are thankful for, our thoughts can wander to think about what we don’t have, what others have that we may not, and instead of focusing on what we have, we focus on what we don’t have. In the moment, we can’t change what we don’t have, and for some things, even time can’t change them.

We might want a better job, a bigger house, newer car, or some other material possession. In the moment, we can be thankful for where we are and recognize part of what we are thankful for is the drive to do better and to help others do better. There could be loved ones that left us too soon and the Holiday’s are always a tough time. While we miss them dearly, we can be grateful for the memories we have shared with them and the imprint they made on our life that makes them missed.

At Foxdale Farms, we are thankful for our family, friends, and customers. Some of our customers we never see, some it’s a passing wave, email, text, or phone call while some we have ongoing conversations about families, what’s going on in the area, or just catching up on the latest happenings. Many of our customers have become friends and we look forward to connecting with more people over the years.

This Thanksgiving, take a moment to be thankful for what we have, recognize and helps others who have less, and not focus on our wants and what we do not have.

Wishing everyone a very Happy Thanksgiving from all of us at Foxdale Farms to all of you!

The post Grateful for What We Have! appeared first on Foxdale Farms.

Homesteading is on the rise with more Americans starting their journey in the last 5 years than ever before. You don’t have to own a large farm or even any land to start homesteading. With the ultimate goal of homesteading to be more self-sufficient, you can do a few simple things at home to start the journey, even without owning land.

First, what does it mean to homestead? At the basic definition, it is focusing your efforts on becoming more reliant on yourself for your needs. This could be growing and preserving your own food, using alternative energy sources, or just ensuring you have minimal waste in everything you do.

If you do not own your own land, there are many ways you can homestead. You can start by purchasing your produce and preserving it. This not only helps the local farming community, but gives you a freezer and canning closet full of great healthy treats! Some areas have community gardens where you can grow your own vegetables or help in the care of the garden and enjoy some of the harvest. Other ideas include making your own soap, laundry detergent, or other household goods. Minimizing waste can be accomplished by cooking less for meals, freezing the leftovers, or composting food scraps and coffee grounds.

Once you make the decision you want to join the movement, there are so many great blogs and websites to give you ideas on what to do. We are going to focus on some tips so you do not get overwhelmed and give up.

Start small! This means in how many new efforts you take on as well as how much of each effort. Make a list of all the new things you want to do. Prioritize the impact each will have on your family and estimate how much of a time commitment each will have. Pick 3-4 that you will enjoy the most and that will not become too much work. Start small in each selection as well. Chickens are a common first thing people do. Instead of raising enough for you, the office, and the neighbors, just get a few to supplement your family’s needs. You can always add a few more over time. The same with growing your produce. If you have never raised a garden before, start with a few different varieties and a few plants of each. When you start preserving your own food, store what your family will use until the next growing season. Grow over time. As you will find, each of these tasks will take more time than expected. Master each of those, then keep growing!

Research & patience. You will make mistakes but try to minimize them by doing your research. Speak to the professionals at the local store where you are buying your seeds, vegetables, or chickens. Reach out to your county extension offices. They have experienced staff as well as brochures or can direct you to online literature or courses. When you start preserving your own food, start with some easier varieties and freezing. Keep notes from each year – what you learned in growing your crops, tips or tricks in preserving food, how much corn did you actually use, how much space in the garden do you have – these will only make you better and more productive.

Enjoy the journey! Homesteading shouldn’t turn into something you feel you have to do each day but part of the day you look forward to. Adjust what you do along the way. If you enjoy growing crops more, back off on some of your other tasks. Try to balance out and identify little wins. When growing crops, those wins can be when the seeds emerge, start to flower, and first vegetables start to appear – not just when time to pick the ripened veggie! Mixing up shorter season crops like radish, beets, or lettuce with longer season crops can help as well. If we can be of any help, do not hesitate to reach out! We have been fortunate to have our previous generations pass along knowledge, learned a few things along the way, and enjoy passing along what we know to the next generation. Best of luck along your journey!

The post Homesteading for Beginners appeared first on Foxdale Farms.

There has been a lot of discussion in the last few years on sustainability. In fact, if you go by online search popularity, in April of 2022 the term “sustainability” reached its peak in all time searches. There could be many reasons why the increased awareness of sustainability, it is not such a bad thing that people are more aware of how their food and products are made.

When it comes to farming, to be successful or even survive, farms have always embraced sustainability as a way of life. It isn’t a slogan, a statement, or a marketing gimmick, but understanding and respecting the land and resources you are fortunate to till your crops on. Sustainability means different things to different people. There is no right or wrong way for a farm to define what it means to them.

There are numerous examples of how early on Foxdale Farms was utilizing sustainable practices. When things started out, we sold fresh berries and produce through newspaper ads. While we planted and grew our own berries, we had large patches of legacy berries growing around the farm. We cared for and cultivated the old patches and always had more berries than we could sell, freeze, or make into jams and jellies! Fertilizer was another commodity that we had plenty of.

Raising horses and rabbits, we would store the manure throughout the winter, then put it on the fields and around the crops as they grew. For weed control, we would place old newspapers around the vegetable plants and cover them with old hay or grass clippings. While these are sustainable practices, they weren’t planned, they just made sense and we did it.

Today, Foxdale Farms incorporates many practices that are considered sustainable, and we grow our crops responsibly. We minimize space by double planting short season crops in between longer season crops. Our tomatoes are put in cages, which also reduces space. We still utilize paper, grass clippings, and old hay for weed control.

It is not just how or where we grow our products that makes us responsible, but growing up we learned the value of supporting local businesses. Whenever possible, we buy our products locally from seeds, to potting soil, to packing materials. If we cannot find something local, we focus on finding products that are truly Made in America. Many of these vendors are family-owned businesses with a long history of supporting their local communities.

We do have customers inquire about our farming practices and always enjoy the conversation. Our goal, which we feel we accomplish, is to grow and make our products responsibly. Foxdale Farms in on its fourth generation – that isn’t by accident but by doing what is right for all parties involved.

The post Farming is Sustainability appeared first on Foxdale Farms.

The start of a New Year is always filled with optimism as people and businesses create new plans, new goals, and set out to do better than the previous year. While continuous improvement is a key to continued and long-term success, there is also value in looking back at the wins and accomplishments of the previous year. Looking back helps put in perspective the many blessings you received, and that in itself can get you motivated for the next year.

At Foxdale Farms we are always planning for the future, evaluating how our crops are doing in real time, what people are buying, and looking for new and exciting additions to the farm. 2024 is sure to be an exciting year with some of our expansion plans and improvements from the previous year, but that will be shared in future posts.

Here are a few of the things we feel we were blessed with during 2023:

This marked our first year pushing our CSA after a soft launch the year prior. We hit our subscription goal, had a great group of customers, and really enjoyed providing fresh vegetables and fruits. No question it is a lot of work, but well worth the effort and we appreciated the interaction with our customers.

This year we added hanging mum baskets for fall sales, and they were well received. Phil also added a few muti-color pots, and they were fun to watch unfold. The heat was tolerable this summer helping with steady growth and a prolonged flowering period.

Sweet corn has been a staple at Foxdale Farms for nearly 50 years. This past summer we had several different plantings that extended our sweet corn harvest to nearly two months. In the past we have had bumper crops but had to share them with the deer and racoons. A combination of deterrents allowed us to eat, freeze, and sell more of it this year. There is a great deal of satisfaction pulling some bags out of the freezer in the middle of winter and enjoying them for the holidays or Sunday dinner!

We tried new products last year in and out of the greenhouse. After trying a small batch of Christmas Cactuses in the previous year, we loaded up on several colors and varieties this summer and learned a lot on their growing needs and habits. The learning process is enjoyable, and a lot of our success is reading about other growers’ lessons, and we love to share our lessons as well. Daylilies have been a favorite flower around the farm for decades – there are probably over 100 different types of all sorts of colors, sizes, and blooming periods. Adding a summer flower to our offerings, we started over 20 different varieties. They did quite well, and many ended up at our customers’ houses and we will start more this spring. Expanding our canned products, we added some new jellies, jams, and pepper products. The banana and bell peppers did extremely well and we sold, froze, gave away, and canned as many as we could.

Those are just a few of the many blessings we had in 2023 that will help propel us into a prosperous 2024. We look forward to sharing more successes with our customers, neighbors, and friends as Foxdale Farms enters its 52^nd year of existence.

The post New Year Brings New Plans appeared first on Foxdale Farms.

The post Harvesting Sweet Corn appeared first on Foxdale Farms.

Planting corn early May for an early season.

The post Spring Corn Planting appeared first on Foxdale Farms.