Hanging Rock Farm

Lovettsville, Virgina

“If you’re not growing something you enjoy the whole process of, I don’t know how you’d do it.”

-Chris Van Vlack

Owner of Hanging Rock Farm

Chris Van Vlack started Hanging Rock Farm out of the simple joy for growing. With a life-long interest in being on the farm and an earned knowledge of conservation practices from his job at Loudoun Soil and Water Conservation District, Chris let his heart put his hands to work. Eventually, Hanging Rock Farm came together from odd pieces around his home in the shadow of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Currently, the farm comes in eight pieces, cultivating eight different plots in the neighborhood for a combined total of 40 acres.

Chris has always enjoyed experimentation. After years of bailing hay, he moved into growing grains, despite the skepticism of extension agents, mostly because it was something he enjoyed eating. Now the farm grows winter wheat and oats, along with bailing hay. 

Deep Roots Pancake Mix is one of Chris’ favorite ways to eat the wheat that he grows. The mix combines wheat, buckwheat, and corn. But nothing has been able to top the homemade pumpkin bread, zucchini bread, and banana bread friends and neighbors make with his grain. 

Hanging Rock prioritizes no-till farming and soil health. Chris preps the fields in the fall with light, vertical plowing and sows wheat in early October to overwinter. Oats, which are not as cold-hardy, come later in the spring. Late in July and early August, Chris comes to harvest the ripe heads.

About a quarter of that harvest goes to Deep Roots.

Find out more about Hanging Rock Farm at https://www.facebook.com/HangingRockHay/

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