Pike muskmelon. Photo Southern Exposure Seed Exchange I have written a couple of posts about growing melons, so go to those links for the basics. Here I am going to dive deep into tips for increasing your success by paying attention to the details. I dove so deep I made two pots. part 2 will follow in a couple of weeks. I wrote a post, Fruit for the Month: July, in my monthly series about small fruits that can be grown sustainably in a mid-Atlantic climate, with melons as the focus. In our climate, July is the month to start harvesting muskmelons (often called cantaloupes), Asian melons ..read more

Compact farms by Josh Volk, front cover Compact Farms: 15 Proven Plans for Market Farms on 5 Acres or Less, Josh Volk Storey Publishing, 2017. 226 pages, 8” x 10”, full color photos and illustrations, charts. $19.95. This book will be very useful to those preparing to buy or rent land for a small vegetable or flower farm, or those expanding, or downsizing, or re-thinking their small farm model. It is both practical and inspirational. The photos are treasure troves of beauty and ideas. The main part of the book consists of 15 well-organized presentations of a small farm, offering a range of pos ..read more

Row of Epic eggplants with flea beetle holes. Photo Pam Dawling. We are about to transplant our eggplants, so I can tell you all about it. I’ll skip over the details of sowing, assuming you’ve already done that. After the growing info, I’ll summarize our variety trials in case you are considering which to grow next year. If you already grow more than one variety, I encourage you to track how each one does, to refine your future plans. Eggplant Crop Requirements Eggplants benefit from fertile, well-drained soils high in organic matter, with a pH of 6.0-7.0, with 6.0-6.5 ideal. Average moisture ..read more

  Our first year shadecloth with ropes to hooks in our cedar baseboards. This post is not for everyone, but it shows where my head has been this week. Even if you don’t have a hoophouse, or are not even thinking about getting one,you might be interested in recycled plastic decking boards, or buying repurposed material from an “industrial thrift store”! We made cedar baseboards when we put up our hoophouse 20+ years ago, and they have rotted. We have done partial replacements, including a major one maybe five years ago, but are now considering either plastic decking “lumber” (recycled plas ..read more

Spiny amaranth – a weed to exterminate by careful pulling. Photo Pam Dawling Following on from my recent seasonal posts on How to succeed with transplanting crops and Direct sown vegetable crops, I reckon people are now thinking about weeds. Below is material excerpted from the Sustainable Weed Management chapter in my book Sustainable Market Farming, which was also published in Growing for Market as New Ways to Think About Weeds, back in 2011. Do you need a justification for having some weeds visible among your crops? Do you crave a system to help you get a grip on your to-do list, so yo ..read more

Cover of Plant Science for Gardeners Plant Science for Gardeners: Essentials for Growing Better Plants, Robert Pavlis, New Society Publishers, June 2022. 224 pages, 6” x 9”, photos, drawings, diagrams. $22.99. This is a valuable, concise, accessible book for home gardeners, homesteaders, market gardeners, small-scale and large-scale crop farmers. As I noted about Robert Pavlis’s first book in this series: Soil Science: “I recommend this book to all gardeners who have hesitated to open a soil science text for fear of dry, incomprehensible overloads of numbers.” The same is true of Plant Science ..read more

Young senposai transplant. Photo Pam Dawling I wrote very recently about Direct Sown Vegetable Crops There I referred to my Nov 2021 post, Preparing for Spring Transplants  (handle replacements, seed compost, aphids, soil blocks, Winstrip trays). I have written previously about the Advantages and Disadvantages of Direct sowing and Transplanting and also about  using Bare Root Transplants. Here I am going to give many tips for success with transplants. Succeeding with transplanted crops Tomato transplants in pots, ready to plant out in mild weather. These are for our hoophouse. O ..read more

Reliable rhubarb, the earliest fruit. Photo Bridget Aleshire This is the last of my monthly series about small fruits that grow in the Mid-Atlantic and other places with a similar climate. Here are links to each of the other posts: March: Rhubarb February: Blueberries January: Grapes December: Quince November: Persimmons October: Fall Raspberries September: Watermelons August: Grapes July: Melons June: Blueberries May: Strawberries The focus fruit for April is still rhubarb, as it was in March The book, Rhubarbaria by Mary Prior. I have just learned about a fascinating book, Rhubarbaria, by Ma ..read more

  Young rows of September-sown Eat-All Greens in early October. Direct sown in September. Photo Bridget Aleshire I wrote a post recently that discussed transplanting, mainly as a way to get earlier crops in spring. Now I’m going to write about direct-sowing. This is the word for putting the seeds directly into the ground outdoors. As with transplanting, some crops are just not going to thrive if you start too soon: cucumbers, peppers, and even tomatoes, for example. Make sure you can provide conditions that meet the minimum temperature requirements for these tender crops. See my book Sust ..read more

At the Organic Growers School Conference, Ira Wallace and I co-presented a half-day workshop (twice!). I uploaded the slides as a pdf on SlideShare.net, and here they are. Year-Round Growing on the Farm and Garden.pdf from Pam Dawling Those who start early in “spring” (late winter) might get earlier crops, but when is it worth it? Some crops are just not going to thrive if you start too soon: cucumbers, peppers, and even tomatoes, for example. Make sure you can provide conditions that meet the minimum temperature requirements for these tender crops. See my book Sustainable Market Farming, for ..read more