Food and food production stirs up feelings in people. It is one of the things that I love about being a farmer — we can open up deep wells of feelings and connections for people as we feed them. The downside, though, is that the idea of urban agriculture — of neighbors growing and selling […]
Urban farming fears: disease, noise, commerce Read More »
Celery and its rooty cousin celeriac are slow growing, but easy to care for once established. Celery can provide harvests all summer and fall, while celeriac is an eye-catching winter storage root vegetable. Celeriac is sometimes called “turnip-rooted celery.” Its flavor is starchier and sweeter than celery, with hints of parsley, and a nutty taste.
Celery and celeriac: seeding is the hardest part Read More »
Tomato prices in May and early June in northern Indiana, where we farm, are nearly triple that of mid-summer tomatoes. Customers can’t wait for the first local tomatoes! But prices are high for a reason — early tomatoes cost more to grow, mostly because of heating costs. Our market is open year-round, so we
Dont heat the whole greenhouse Read More »
Erin Aquino wrote this essay last year for the newsletter of Lane’s End Farm in Lowell, Indiana, where she grew up. Erin’s parents, Liz and Corey Aquino, have been growing organic vegetables for 18 years and selling through Chicago and local farmers markets as well as an 80-member CSA. “This was very inspiring to us
A daughter reflects on her family farms lessons Read More »
The benefits of growing produce and flowers in hoophouses are well-documented: higher yields, better quality, a longer season, even better flavor in some crops. But hoophouses come with their own set of problems. Among the prominent management challenges are soil quality, fertility, insects, diseases, and weeds. So far, research on these topics is limited to
Managing hoophouse soils, weeds, pests, disease Read More »
Growing for Market in partnership with Johnny’s Selected Seeds has created a library of expert information about growing and selling vegetables and flowers. Links in the article will take you to johnnyseeds.com. Subscribe to Growing for Market for more great ideas about growing and marketing! For more topics in the series, click on Market Farming
A Quick Crop of Vegetables Read More »
Of all the flowers we grow on our little farm, sweet peas are my all-time favorite. I have never seen a flower have such a strong impact on the recipient as these exquisite blooms. Tears, joy, nostalgia; no matter how tense, cold or brittle a person, sweet peas always cut through and touch the heart.
A quest for long-stemmed sweet peas Read More »
When Clayton Carter left his job as a software developer to start farming in 2006, he found little in the way of software to keep track of the multiple crops and tasks on his diversified vegetable farm. “Our first year of growing, the largest obstacle I had was making sure I could keep track of
Free crop planning software Read More »
One of the most powerful and versatile tools on many farms is the computer spreadsheet. A basic spreadsheet application like the ubiquitous Microsoft Excel can function as a calculator, database, analytical tool, planning tool, and even as a very editable piece of graph paper for making maps in time and space. I’ve been using these
Mapping crops on a spreadsheet Read More »
