From the time you get seed catalogs, order seeds, plant out plugs and seeds, water, weed, fertilize and finally harvest your flowers, you need to know where they are going to be sold. For most people it is growing of flowers that draws us in, not selling flowers. Rarely does someone say I love selling […]
Direct marketing flowers part 1: Farmers markets and CSAs Read More »
Managing weeds so they don’t interfere too much with crop growth or harvest can suck a lot of time from market growers. I’m grateful the weed-choked plots I had when I was growing full-time are now a distant memory. I recall afternoons as a new grower furiously pushing the wheel hoe between rows of veggies
Tools and strategies to reduce time spent weeding Read More »
Many of us only know safflower as an oil we might use in bulk to fry some potatoes, and while it is very tasty that way (ask me about my French fry addiction), it is also an exceptional cut green for growers with hot dry summers. I first learned about safflower from my mentors Calvin
Safflower as a cut green for arid climates Read More »
Cut out trips back to the barn for commonly needed supplies: #toolsforgrowingformarket Post your favorite farm-made tool on social media using #toolsforgrowingformarket or email it to us at admin@growingformarket.com. If Josh picks your tool, you win a $50 tool gift certificate and a Full Access sub to GFM! At the end of February Little Wings
The field box: Cut out trips back to the barn for commonly needed supplies Read More »
Strategies for getting kids interested in flower farming My daughter came home from preschool one day years ago with a message: “Be a bucket filler.” I had never heard this before, and it is based on a simple, human concept. Be kind to others. The entire idea behind bucket filling is to make someone feel
Sowing the seeds of the next generation Read More »
Slowing down before returning to work On a busy September harvest day in 2012, our farm’s two employees drove in and out of the fields with totes. Meanwhile, my husband, Casey, and I were shut up in our farmhouse, curtains drawn, focused on a different project: the birth of our second child. Giving birth during
Birth and postpartum healing for the farmer Read More »
This is the third of four quarterly articles on the many members of the onion family that can provide allium flavor year-round. In the early winter months at Twin Oaks Community in central Virginia, we plant garlic and potato onions; sow bulb onions to overwinter under protection and plant out in early spring; harvest winter-hardy
Alliums all year-round part three: The onion family through the winter Read More »
#toolsforgrowingformarket Post your favorite farm-made tool on social media using #toolsforgrowingformarket or email it to us at admin@growingformarket.com. If Josh picks your tool, you win a $50 tool gift certificate and a Full Access sub to GFM! Last month I pulled our old Earthway “Precision Garden Seeder” out of the back of our tool shed,
The Ode to the Earthway Read More »
Review the season while it’s still fresh in your mind It is September. Two months or so until it starts snowing here in Québec. You’re in the home stretch. What’s the most important thing on this month’s to-do lists? Harvest those storage carrots and potatoes? Get the plastic on the greenhouse? Finish cleaning the garlic?
Do your end-of-year check-in before the season is over Read More »
When GFM was looking for someone to write about flower farming, I jumped at the opportunity. A farmer for more than 20 years — also vegetables but now mostly flowers — I have a lot to offer readers. I will describe all the mistakes we have made and show all the successes, too. Currently on
Becoming a flower farmer Read More »
