Nicky and Dave Schauder are passionate about helping families grow their food, and medicine and find God in the garden. Learn how to build your own permaculture garden Get our Guild Guide when you sign up!
The farm is almost ready. Are you?
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Dear Reader, Meanwhile, at Bethany Farm, every day has been planting day for our family. As soon as the kids get off school, we do a nature walk/run at a nearby trail. And then head home where I unplug the wifi and get the kids moving mulch, building rock borders, transplanting or watering microgreens. There is still so much to do prepare for our upcoming farm tour on May 16-17 but we are excited to welcome you, Reader! One thing Dave and I have been considering is our hope that everyone who visits Bethany Farm gets closer to nature and therefore closer to God, no matter what faith they are coming from. We hope everyone finds peace here. It's very green and beautiful this time of the year. You'll hear and see lots of birds and wildlife. So we hope that amidst the tours and talks, garden demos and garden shopping, you will find a quiet, cozy spot to sit and take in all the beauty the natural world has to offer. And just soak it all in and relax. So we do hope you can make it to Bethany Farm on the weekend of the Loudoun Spring Farm Tour! It's free to the public, we only ask that you register so we can best prepare for your visit.
And if Virginia is too far, we'd love to have you join us virtually. We're hosting "The Solanaceae Festival." a webinar celebrating Solanaceas (The nightshade family of tomato, potato, eggplant and peppers). Grow abundantly, Nicky & Dave PS. Bug spray, long pants/sleeves recommended. Below you will see me getting bitten to shreds during a late summer farm tour with my cousins, nephews and nieces. So when you come, please be prepared for inclement weather and bugs. For more details, register here. |
Dave & Nicky Schauder
Nicky and Dave Schauder are passionate about helping families grow their food, and medicine and find God in the garden. Learn how to build your own permaculture garden Get our Guild Guide when you sign up!
Dear Reader Why We Grow You may already know what first got us into growing food. Our first two children were born with food allergies. Ethan, our second, had eczema so severe we could see it on his face after every meal. 2 year old Ethan with eczema Dave and I started questioning everything. What was in the food we were buying? What were we actually feeding our children? We wanted to know where our food was coming from. And we wanted to be the ones growing it. We switched to organic. At the...
Dear Reader, Last February, one of the growers we mentor, Lindsey knocked her curtain rod loose in her kitchen. The rod that held her seedling trays in place. Every seedling she had started, lettuces, microgreens, pepper, went flying. Soil on the walls. Trays on the floor. An hour of cleanup. She could have cried. She almost did. But she didn't quit. By March she was filling raised beds with cardboard, straw, old leaves, and half-finished compost from a bin that had spent the winter getting —...
Hello, Reader, We are beyond grateful that right now on our farm, we're getting the following from our garden so far: 1 lb of beans/day 5 lbs of tomatoes/day cucumbers blackberries raspberries peppers corn small Japanese tiger melons and we're spoiled for herbs on top of it. Pro-tip: Harvest tomatoes at first blush. They tend to produce more that way. I was out weighing today's tomato harvest from our research beds, where we've been comparing compost tea, organic fertilizer, and an untreated...