Tools to help you put the right price on your products
Post your farm-made tool on Instagram or Facebook with #toolsforgrowingformarket. If author Josh Volk picks your tool, you win a $50 tool gift certificate and a Full Access subscription to GFM. Like many farmers I know, I’ve always struggled with setting prices. I want to charge a “fair” price for my customers, and I want […]
Strategies for balancing parenting and farm work
On a record-cold night in December 2009, my husband, Casey, and I walked slowly around our frozen fields. I paused and leaned on him as each labor contraction interrupted our circuit, my mind focused more on the new life inside me than on the winter vegetables. Eventually, I returned to our house and continued laboring […]
Transitioning to cover crops as the main source of fertility
Managing soil health and fertility organically is one of the most challenging and exciting aspects of organic farming. There is no single right method, and our process has evolved over time. How we each approach this depends on our climate, soil type, labor, philosophy, and available resources. We are an organic vegetable farm in […]
Radicchio rising
This article originally appeared in the May 2021 issue of Growing for Market Magazine. For two other related articles, see How Italian Sagre Inspired the Culinary Breeding Network’s Joyful Celebrations of Local Vegetables, also by Lane Selman at https://tinyurl.com/2tu4vkrw. And, for a not-very-practical but mind-blowing article about the bonkers festivals that preceded modern sagre, read this article: The […]
Carrots from seed to storage
Carrots Carrots can provide high yields for the time invested and space occupied. They thrive in mild weather, store well, and are popular traditional foods. They can be useful as insurance crops for lean times — offer more of them when other crops are scarce. Carrots do, however, stay in the ground longer than some […]
Tool safety tips for farmers | #toolsforgrowingformarket
Post your farm-made tool on Instagram or Facebook with #toolsforgrowingformarket. If author Josh Volk picks your tool, you win a $50 tool gift certificate and a Full Access subscription to GFM. In Pam Dawling’s review of my new book on DIY farm tools in the August issue of GFM she pointed out an important safety […]
Soil: A living, breathing ecosystem
It’s challenging to properly care for something we cannot see. One of the most complex ecosystems on earth lives beneath our feet and is mostly invisible to the naked eye. There are billions (perhaps trillions) of organisms in a small handful of healthy soil, with millions of different species. Less than 10 percent of these […]
Sell seedlings for spring cash
Published originally in Growing for Market Magazine By Carolina Lees When we started our farm in 2010, the very first thing we sold were seedlings. Since then, we’ve increased our sales annually and I can’t imagine operating our farm without them. Vegetable and flower starts are a great source of spring revenue and an early […]
Strategies for reducing plastic use on farms
Growers share what’s working for them We asked growers how they were reducing plastic on their farms. You shot back with ideas and alternatives to petroleum-based products large and small. Obvious in your replies and interviews was an impassioned dedication to the Holy Grail of zero plastic. We sensed your guilt about the plastic remaining […]
A wintertime reset for our most important tool: our bodies
Make time to give yourself the gift of wellness I often joke that farmers never get holidays. By holidays I mean that time that most people spend away from home doing recreational activities. I started farming six years ago raising goats on my husband’s mom’s property, but we lived in town for the first two […]