By Deborah Wechsler (2003)

Ellen Polishuk
Potomac Vegetable Farms
38369 John Wolford Road
Purcellville, Virginia 20132
epolishuk@juno.com

PVF has been in business for 40 years. It has well-established markets and is well equipped and capitalized. The farm now run by a partnership of three women: Hiu Newcomb, her daughter, Hana, and Ellen. The Newcombs run the home farm (in Vienna) and Ellen the "satellite farm"in Loudoun County. Very little production equipment is shared between the two sites. Ellen produces compost for both locations and all the marketing is combined. According to Ellen, PVF has more market than it can explore; the limiting factors are production, labor, and lifestyle.

The farm relies on homemade compost and cover crops for fertility. Ellen makes 200-300 tons of compost a year using the Leubke method and a tractor pulled turning machine, adding purchased steer manure, hay, and leaves to the farm's own hay. A little fish emulsion and seaweed are used in the greenhouse. Rye, barley, crimson clover, and vetch are grown as winter cover crops. She green manured extensively in the past, but has gotten away from it in the last few years. Tillage is mostly with the Imants spading machine plus a 3-point hitch s-tine cultivator right before planting.

Crop rotations are informal, generally with two years rotation before any family is replanted to the same ground. Tomatoes, which make up about a quarter of total acreage, drive the rotation.

Crops are raised on flat ground using 60-inch center-to-center beds, except for sweet potatoes, carrots, and garlic, which are on raised beds. All transplants are grown on the farm and set out with an old tobacco transplanter or water wheel transplanter. Beans are direct seeded using an old no-till corn planter. Small seeded crops are planted with a 3-row Stanhay or a push seeder on marked beds. To control weeds, hay/straw mulches are used extensively, and the organic matter additions are considered substantial contributions to fertility as well. The farm makes most of its own bales for mulching, so haybining, raking, and baling are important farm tasks. For crops planted at one, two, or three rows per bed, cultivation is with a brush-hoe (3- point hitch street sweeper with plant protection tunnels) plus hand hoeing. Irrigation is by t-tape using pond water via high quality sand filters.

Pest controls are rarely used. "We hate to spray anything," says Ellen. For Colorado potato beetles, an increasing problem, they rely on handpicking and sporadic Bt spraying. Pediobius parasitic wasps have been used on Mexican bean beetles. Row covers are used to control cucumber beetles on cucumbers and flea beetles on greens and eggplant. By far the major pest problem is deer. A 7-strand electric fence is no longer effective, so Ellen is planning to install as second fence (a single-strand, 2½ feet high) outside this fence.

Over the years she has worked at the farm, says Ellen, she has been able to become "less conscientious" because of the investments in soil fertility and equipment made in previous years. She is no longer conquering and expanding, only improving and streamlining. Her goal now is to get more yield and income from the farm without additional land or workers.

Potomac Vegetable Farm, as a whole, grosses $300,000-350,000 per year. One-third of this income goes to salaries and wages. Each of the three partners receives a $20,000 salary, plus housing and health insurance, a major expense. The farm real estate has been in the family for a long time and debt load is low. Ellen is a non-family, salaried partner with very limited equity: she now owns a 10% share in PVG, Inc., which owns the operating equipment but no land, and the plan is to increase her shares 5% each year. Because she would like additional financial security in her position, the partners are working to make it possible, within the farm's financial constraints and local zoning requirements, for her to also own her house and some of the acreage of the farm she now manages.