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Farmers’ markets in small towns generally have one big obstacle: a small customer base. In Staunton, Virginia, a town of 25,000, the market has to deal with that issue, but it also faces the problem of being in the orbit of the lucrative Washington, D.C., markets, which have lured away many of Virginia’s larger farmers.

Imagine losing your roots and growing new ones in 7-10 days! This is one of the common miracles occurring in the plant kingdom. It’s called vegetative reproduction, and you can use it to your advantage when you want to create more of a particularly superior plant, or when you want to expand production without spending

On May 21, The New York Times ran a story by Melissa Clark entitled “A Yak Attack on Beef and Bison.” No, the Times wasn’t covering an assault at the New York Zoo. Instead Ms. Clark’s story told of the recent introduction of hairy, horny, Himalayan bovines onto Western rangelands. Apparently already some 30 yak

When several farmers and vendors decided to move our market to a more desirable location, I’m sure it was assumed our nonexistent relationship with the Kansas City Health Department (KCHD) would continue. In the three years we had sold at that location we had seen the health department once, and that time they checked our

One year after the Washington State Department of Agriculture (WSDA) restricted clopyralid use in the state, contamination of manure and compost is still widespread, according to testing by WSDA and others in Washington. While farmers and gardeners struggle with tainted manure, managers of compost facilities have filed a lawsuit seeking class action status to recover

One of the challenges facing small, diversified growers is that we don’t have much buying power when it comes to purchasing supplies. We spend a lot of money on inputs, but most things we buy in small enough quantities that we don’t get much of a volume discount. Yet when we get to the marketplace,

I’ll never forget it – my worker share, Dan, was assisting some other farm members in the activity for the weekend, digging potatoes. I left them temporarily, and when I returned, Dan was telling the children about earthworms, some of which had been disturbed in the digging process. He told the kids about how the

It’s just after dawn on a Saturday and Frank is driving around downtown Austin looking for a car wash. There’s not much going on in a downtown area at dawn, and there are very few car washes. But the lady at the convenience store said she thought he could find one. That was right after