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Market closed a month or more ago, the holidays are coming and, yes, you could use more money! A Winter Holiday Market just might fit the bill. Our farmers’ market has hosted a Winter Holiday Market in early December for several years and it has become a very good source of extra income. It provides […]

Imagine you and your partner are full-time farmers, and you enjoy your lifestyle so much that you decide to take on another full-time job on top of farming, then double or triple the work you do for your second job over the next several years. Sound crazy? Well, trying to farm and raise three kids

I have been a market grower for 10 years at the Ann Arbor Farmers’ Market. I grow bedding plants in the spring, cut flowers through the summer, mums in the fall and value-added products at Christmas. My husband works at Ford Motor Company and I manage the farm. We own 14 acres, but I farm

This fall we have had a rash of folks dropping in on us, wanting to see the farm. They are they latest wave of newbies that think they want to be farmers. We have always encouraged folks when they want to do this, but lately, we have decided to be brutally honest with them. “You’re

Un rato is not the buck-toothed, naked-tailed rodent gnawing at your profit margins (that’s la rata) but a somewhat ambivalent Spanish unit of time. En un rato means in a little while. A really short while is un ratito although, if you’re waiting impatiently, a ratito can pass like a bunch of ratos strung together.

It’s a broiling hot day here at Morning Song Farm, the kind of heat that makes every worker, including this ambitious farmer, dream of slinking off to some shady spot to stare quietly into space. But not today. It’s time to celebrate! I just got the call from my husband saying the IRS has decided

One of the certainties in the uncertain world of farming is that businesses must change in response to market conditions. No one knows that better than Chet Anderson of The Fresh Herb Company in Longmont, Colorado. In his 21 years of farming, Chet has taken his business through several dramatic transformations. His farm today is

If something interesting is going on in the realm of sustainable agriculture and local food systems around Albany, New York, chances are the Regional Farm and Food Project is involved. Harvest dinner for 200 people? RFFP does one every year. Farm tours? 13 this year alone. Three-day intensive workshops for farmers? At least two every

Troy, New York, like many northern cities, is trying to renew itself after a period of decline. Coffee shops, brew pubs, and art galleries have located on the ground floors of old brick warehouses and factories. Urban pioneers are renovating and moving into lofts and houses in areas that were run down not so long