Below: The author’s last harvest of field-grown flowers including zinnias, dahlias, and marigolds, usually comes in mid to late October. This season went by so fast, and the end is near for outdoor production in our area. September is always our busiest month so I think of it in terms of a marathon, where you […]
Preparing for frost and beyond Read More »
Below: Amy’s Sugar Gem One of the crops we grow in our hoophouse in spring and early summer is a range of heirloom and other open-pollinated tomatoes. Because we use drip irrigation and it doesn’t rain in there, our plants don’t get water falling on the leaves. Naturally, they have some dew in the
Assessment of heirloom/OP tomatoes Read More »
“I’ve never seen anything like this!” Farmers say this all around the Columbia Basin in Eastern Washington, an excellent region for growing a variety of crops. But extreme heat, low water supplies, catastrophic wildfires, sunburned crops, earlier harvests, and shifting crop-growing zones are impacting crops from our changing and unstable climate. As of this writing
WA farmers struggle with heat Read More »
Disease pressure from late blight was high during the summers of 2012 and 2013, and I made a fair number of farm visits looking for the pathogen. Once the disease was found in New Jersey and the weather conditions were conducive to its spread the alert went out to growers that they should use preventative
Copper-based fungicides and soil health Read More »
With the end of the year in sight, it’s time to start thinking about evaluating your farm’s business performance for the year – and that means it’s time to think about the creation of the three key financial documents that provide a picture of the financial state of your business: the balance sheet to show
Financial statements every farm should use Read More »
