New tools unveiled
By George DeVault POCANTICO HILLS, NY (Dec. 11, 2004) — Imagine, if you will, the following futuristic market gardening scenes inside a high tunnel: •Harvesting 100 pounds of mesclun – all by yourself – in just one hour. You don’t burn any fuel, use any electricity or have any worries about accidentally slicing your fingers […]
Popular merchandising book is full of ideas for farmers' markets
Down here in Texas, the news about the weather is typical – torrential rains and thunderstorms again. The Blanco River is flooding in Wimberley, expecting to crest at 26 feet above flood stage. Thankfully, our long field season has come to an end, as far as wholesale flowers go. Right up to the final delivery […]
Asian greens a good choice for high tunnels in winter
Well, we finally had our first frost on November 5th – you know, the one we’ve been looking for since about mid-August, when market growing started feeling like a bad idea. So, we’re finished for a few weeks until time to start next season’s transplants, right? Well…not really. We took a couple of weeks off, […]
How to prevent winter deer damage
When beginning growers get together with veterans, one of the questions that inevitably crops up is “What do you do about deer?” The question is an excellent one. For many market gardeners, deer are a serious management problem, as much or more so than insects, diseases or other vertebrates. Deer populations are growing rapidly, and […]
Urban agriculture: Growing in the city
I was recently invited to speak at a conference on the subject of urban agriculture. As someone who dislikes public speaking I am always reluctant to agree to these requests. However, as an urban grower for the last eight years, I feel a responsibility to explain the practical perspective of urban agriculture’s potential role as […]
Stocks a great local cut flower
Last month, we wrote about sweet peas, one of our favorite fragrant greenhouse crops, and this month we will continue along those lines with another fragrant crop–stocks. Stocks are a commonly grown cut flower, and there have been companies in the past that have flooded the market with them, but local growers have a secret […]
Home delivery provides winter market
Everyone is talking about season extension and winter growing, but just what do you do with the greens when they are ready to sell? There are the wholesale restaurant or store options and the winter CSA option. Wholesale is great, but the prices aren’t as good as retail. CSA is a good option, but depending […]
Point system creates a fair way to assign spaces at farmers' markets
Assigning spaces at farmers’ markets can be one of the toughest jobs for a market manager or board. Farmers tend to have very firm ideas about where they want to set up for business, and it’s easy to upset them with space assignments. Some markets have spaces that are clearly superior – for example, the […]
International interns enliven farms
Where can you find a hard-working, enthusiastic employee who sincerely wants to learn farming and who is willing to put in 48 hours a week at less than minimum wage? For a few dozen farmers each year, the answer is MESA, Multinational Exchange for Sustainable Agriculture. MESA is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization that matches aspiring […]
Cool-loving sweet peas are great in the winter greenhouse
We are finally to the point at our farm where we are praying for that early frost. Some of you probably have already had a freeze by now, but here in Texas the summer can stretch out well into September. By that time we’ve had just about all of the fire ants and scorpions and […]