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About 8 years ago, when we first switched our business over from growing bedding plants to cut flowers, we called our new enterprise Texas Specialty Cuts. We soon ran into an identity crisis , though. People thought we were either a butcher shop or a hair cutting place, so we quickly added “flowers” to the […]

A kaolin clay product called Surround WP is gaining credibility as a pest and disease preventative for numerous fruit and vegetable crops. Its most common use is on apples, and that’s the subject of the article on the next page. But Surround WP is also being used for other crops since it was approved for

A new particle film spray, marketed under the trademark Surround WP Crop Protectant, may prove to be the key to making organic apple production economically viable in the Eastern U.S. In addition to suppressing plum curculio, Surround provides adequate control for most, if not all other insect pests of apples, with the possible exception of

In recent years, I have seen many new market gardeners go into garlic production with the thought that it is an easy cash crop. As a ten-year veteran of small acreage farming, I have yet to find a crop that would be considered easy. High-quality, certified organic, gourmet garlic will bring a generous price per

Now that the rainy season is over in most parts of the country, growers are confronted with the question of how much to irrigate, and when. The old prescription for watering – an inch a week – may be an easy answer, but it’s not necessarily the right one. Especially at this time of year,

Sixteen months have passed since we erected our first pair of hoophouses here at the Growing for Market farm, and we are already convinced that these simple, low-tech structures deserve a place on every market farm. Our twin hoophouses are 20 by 96 feet, unheated, covered with a single layer of greenhouse poly. They are

Fifty years ago, when Don Harvey was working on his family’s flower farm in central Iowa, gladioli were immensely popular as cut flowers. Several farms in the Des Moines area produced acres of them and they were sold all over the Midwest. Over the years, the demand for gladioli has floated up and down on

On New Minglewood Farm in upstate New York, Tammara Van Ryn and Chris Lincoln have their share of make-do systems for tasks from seeding to selling. These include some unusual applications for old appliances. Last season they were having trouble with pepper germination when another farmer told them about the germination box he built. The

We’ve known for some time now that the Texas Hill Country has been attracting movie stars. Kevin Costner has moved in and so has Tommy Lee Jones. John Travolta was stopped for speeding here in Blanco, but the police let him go after they asked for his autograph. (The asked for Frank’s autograph once, but

Lou Lego of Elderberry Pond Country Foods in Auburn, New York, has come up with a new system of cover crops and plastic mulches that may just offer the best of both worlds. Lou alternates strips of living cover crops with strips of plastic mulch in a system that increases plant yield and quality while