On tiny farms, market gardeners might flip—or transition—beds from one crop to another several times per season to make the most of every square foot. With these rotations, you effectively double or triple your production area by planting the same beds two or three times each year. That is, a 1/3-acre plot literally becomes equal to a 2/3- or 1-acre farm growing one crop per year. This justifies applying a large amount of compost to keep fertility levels high for multicropped beds ..read more

I grew up on a small farm about 12 miles from where I now farm in the high desert of Oregon (zone 6b). That farm was in the middle of the Grande Ronde Valley where there are 200 feet of “topsoil.” If asked about our soil, my mom’s joke was always, “I found a rock — once.” It was a dream to garden in and to dig a post hole. I thought that’s just how soil was — friable, rich, and deep brown ..read more

Back in the mid-1990s, I was at a SSAWG (Southern Sustainable Agriculture Working Group) conference in Austin, Texas. I’d been hired by Potomac Vegetable Farms (PVF) in Virginia to develop a satellite property with organic sweet corn as the main crop. That goal daunted me: 15 acres of organic sweet corn on ground that had not been improved ..read more

Some flowers are more difficult to deal with than others. They may be hard to hydrate, particular about the time of day for harvest, or have an ideal harvest stage.  We have eliminated some flowers that are overly difficult, such as basil and euphorbia, but there are some that we just can’t live without, so have learned to deal with their pickiness. We are also updating our post harvest care each year based on efficiencies and systems that are developed ..read more

Three years after starting up our Oregon farm, my husband, Casey, and I decided it was time to grow our farm family. In April 2009, I found out I was pregnant with our first child. Looking at the pregnancy test double lines felt like the start of a whole new adventure in our farming life, one that would require me to carry almost all of the physical burden of the pregnancy while together we operated our farm ..read more

Farming an acre of vegetables in Wilton, Ontario, Evan Quigley has always aimed to bring the highest quality and consistency to market with a keen eye on profitability. Evan has achieved high quality and yields with a combination of techniques and careful management at The Kitchen Garden farm ..read more

Farming an acre of vegetables in Wilton, Ontario, Evan Quigley has always aimed to bring the highest quality and consistency to market with a keen eye on profitability. Evan has achieved high quality and yields with a combination of techniques and careful management at The Kitchen Garden farm ..read more

I had been a farm manager for more than 10 years when I decided the lack of sustainability in my farm life needed an alternative management approach. I spent most of the previous 10 years wishing for more hours in the day and was convinced that everything was top priority and had to be done first. Ultimately, I felt I was not achieving or accomplishing anything ..read more

Part of our scaling up process was figuring out how to deal with weed control. We knew wheel hoeing the whole farm was not sustainable unless we hired a horde of college kids. We first tried laying black plastic (with and without a plastic layer), but ended up with too many weeds on the edges. Then we tried burning holes in black woven landscape fabric and planting into the holes. But it was challenging getting those little statice plants to grow up through the holes and keeping the holes weeded. So we looked to the cultivation practices of larger growers for inspiration to see what we could b ..read more

I’ll share that awareness with you, explain why sun-exposure matters, and provide guides for taking care of your skin (while still getting important farming work done). In addition to official sources, I also gathered tips from several farmers via social media and a listserv discussion. Some of my research surprised even me, so I encourage you to read to the end even if you think you’re already well-informed about sun and skin protection ..read more