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Last month, we told you how to choose onion varieties and start seeds in the greenhouse or a seed bed. This month, we’ll tell you what’s recommended for planting, harvesting and storing onions. As we mentioned last month, onion plants usually perform better than onion sets. Sets are more likely to bolt from temperature fluctuations, […]

Our reputations are ruined! All those years spent as liberal, “Yellow Dog” Democrats – right down the drain. As we mentioned last month, we went to the Inaugural Ball in Washington, over the protests of some of our friends! “We’ll just blend in and no one will notice that we’re Democrats,” we thought. Ha. They

I am a strawberry enthusiast. In fact strawberries are my favorite crop. The fruit is stunningly beautiful.It’s more than delicious. At their peak the plants are dark green and confident. We don’t have to plant them every year. I sell every berry my plants can produce.Yet strawberry culture and marketing has left many a home

The other day we heard on National Public Radio that southern California was being hit by a “major winter storm”. “Some areas had received as much as an inch of rain,” they reported, “and another inch of rain is possible.” A major winter storm? Oh come on now! Just the day before we had 2

Onions are one of the most important crops on a direct market farm, and it behooves you to learn to grow them well. What’s so great about onions? They can be sold at virtually any stage of maturity, they give you some leeway about when to harvest them, they don’t have to be thrown in

If you’re looking for a real alternative crop, take advantage of one you might already have – leafcutter bees. You may not know it, but if your peonies, lilacs or roses show missing half-moons in their leaves or if you have woodpeckers demolishing your shingled outbuildings, you probably are being visited by leafcutters, and may

As implausible as it may seem, Anchorage, Alaska now has its own winery. In fact, every state in the union hosts at least one winery, most with vineyards attached. In recent years, small vineyards and wineries have made inroads into the wine industry in similar ways that small produce farms have developed markets within the

The Whole Farm Cooperative sells vegetables, grains, meat, eggs, cheese, maple syrup and a myriad of other farm products produced by about 50 family farms in Central Minnesota.We started three years ago in a basement. We’re still in a basement. A bigger basement. In our first year we sold about $30,000 worth of products. In

A few weeks ago Frank went out to till up some beds in preparation for planting. The tiller was soon impacted with a strange, sticky, soil-like material. This substance was entirely new to us, so we sent a sample off to Texas A&M’s soils lab. After much deliberation, the lab said that it hadn’t seen

As market farmers mature, many find themselves ready to slow down or to change their focus. But they are loathe to abandon the business they have built up, the relationships with customers, the farm system, the improved soil. And what if they don’t want to move away from the farm? Here at Growing for Market,