Welcome to Growing for Market! - Growing for Market

Time 2020-11-01 12:04:37

Web Name: Welcome to Growing for Market! - Growing for Market

WebSite: http://www.growingformarket.com

ID:101440

Keywords:

to,Welcome,Growing,

Description:

Click here to download a sample issue.Every issue has current information about growing and direct marketing vegetables and flowers.Prefer paper? Click here to email us your name and address and we'll send you a paper copy at no charge.Sign up for our email newsletter!We send one or two a month, reminding you to download the new issues when they become available, and letting you know of breaking news and special offers. Sign up and don't miss another issue!Growing for Market is America's most respected trade publication for local food and flower producers. GFM keeps you informed about the business of growing and selling vegetables, fruits, cut flowers, plants, herbs, and other food products. If you are market gardening or farming, whatever your scale, we guarantee you'll find valuable information that will help make your business more profitable and enjoyable. Please join us today!Read our story about staying healthy and in business through COVID here.In the October issue: Join as a Full Access member to get every issue as a PDF plus have access for one year to the Growing for Market archive. Or join as a Full Access PLUS member to get GFM by mail and have archive access.Start a print subscription.Start an online subscription.The Best Books for Market FarmersGFM subscribers get 20% off these and all books. To get the discount, log in first using the information provided in your current issue. Or phone us at 1-800-307-8949.Click here to see all books The Organic No-Till Farming Revolution by GFM Editor Andrew MefferdHigh-Production Methods for Small-Scale FarmersLearn how to use natural no-till systems to increase profitability, efficiency, carbon sequestration, and soil health on your small farm.Farming without tilling has long been a goal of agriculture, yet tilling remains one of the most dominant paradigms; almost everyone does it. But tilling kills beneficial soil life, burns up organic matter, and releases carbon dioxide. If the ground could instead be prepared for planting without tilling, time and energy could be saved, soil organic matter increased, carbon sequestered, and dependence on machinery reduced.The Organic No-Till Farming Revolutionis the comprehensive farmer-developed roadmap showing how no-till lowers barriers to starting a small farm, reduces greenhouse gas emissions, increases efficiency and profitability, and promotes soil health. This hands-on manual offers:Why roller-crimper no-till methods don t work for most small farmsA decision-making framework for the four no-till methods: occulation, solarization, organic mulches grown in place, and applied to bedsIdeas for starting a no-till farm or transitioning a working farmA list of tools, supplies, and sources.This is the only manual of its kind, specifically written for natural and small-scale farmers who wish to expand or explore chemical-free, regenerative farming methods.The Farmer's Office by Julia ShanksWhen you decided to become a farmer, you also became an entrepreneur and business person. In order to be ecologically and financially sustainable, you must understand the basics of accounting and bookkeeping, and learn how to manage a growing business.Author Julia Shanks distills years of teaching and business consulting with farmers into this comprehensive, accessible guide. She covers all aspects of launching, running and growing a successful farm business through effective bookkeeping and business management, providing tools to make managerial decisions, apply for a loan or other financing, and offering general business and strategy advice for growing a business.Whether you've been farming for many years or just getting started, The Farmer's Office gives you the tools needed to think like an entrepreneur and thoughtfully manage your business for success.The Greenhouse and Hoophouse Grower's Handbookby GFM Editor Andrew MefferdEvery year, more growers are turning to protected culture to deal with unpredictable weather and to meet out-of-season demand for local food, but many end up spinning their wheels, wasting time and money on unprofitable crops grown in ways that don t make the most of their precious greenhouse space. With comprehensive chapters on temperature control and crop steering, pruning and trellising, grafting, and more, Mefferd s book is full of techniques and strategies that can help farms stay profitable, satisfy customers, and become an integral part of re-localizing our food system. From seed to sale, The Greenhouse and Hoophouse Grower s Handbook is the indispensable resource for protected growing. Floret Farm's Cut Flower Garden Grow, Harvest, and Arrange Stunning Seasonal Blooms by Erin BenzakeinBy GFM writer Erin Benzakein, a leader in the locaflor farm-to-centerpiece movement and owner of internationally renowned Floret Flower Farm, Cut Flower Garden is equal parts instruction and inspiration a book overflowing with lush photography of magnificent flowers and breathtaking arrangements organized by season.This beautiful guide to growing, harvesting, and arranging gorgeous blooms year-round gives readers vital tools to nurture a stunning flower garden and use their blossoms to create showstopping arrangements. With irresistible photos of Erin's flower farm that showcase exquisite blooms, tips for growing in a variety of spaces and climates as well as step-by-step instructions for lavish garlands, airy centerpieces, and romantic floral d cor for every season, Floret Farm's Cut Flower Garden informs and entices gardeners of all skill levels.Compact Farms: 15 Proven Plans for Market Farms on 5 Acres or Less; Includes Detailed Farm Layouts for Productivity and Efficiency by Josh VolkSmall is beautiful, and these 15 real farm plans show that small-scale farmers can have big-time success.Compact Farms is an illustrated guide for anyone dreaming of starting, expanding, or perfecting a profitable farming enterprise on five acres or less. The farm plans explain how to harness an area s water supply, orientation, and geography in order to maximize efficiency and productivity while minimizing effort. Profiles of well-known farmers such as Eliot Coleman and Jean-Martin Fortier show that farming on a small scale in any region, in both urban and rural settings, can provide enough income to turn the endeavor from hobby to career. These real-life plans and down-and-dirty advice will equip you with everything you need to actually realize your farm dreams.Interested in growing flowers? Start here!Growing for Marketis Information Central for Cut Flowers. GFM founder and former editor, Lynn Byczynski, wrote the book on small-scale commercial cut flower production:The Flower Farmer: An Organic Grower's Guide to Raising and Selling Cut Flowers.Every issue of GFM has an article specifically about the business of growing cut flowers. You can read them by becoming a subscriber.Frank and Pamela Arnosky wrote a regular flower column for Growing for Market for more than a decade. Their columns are collected in the book Local Color, available in print from the GFM bookstore. Or read it right now by downloading the E-book!We also sell Floret Farm's Cut Flower Garden by GFM flower writer Erin Benzakein, which is a year-round guide to growing cut flowers along with design ideas.I own and operate Bluma Flower Farm, currently located on a rooftop in downtown Berkeley, California.Going into this year my plan was to try to replicate what I did the year before, one of Bluma s best years yet. This would have been the first year I didn t make any big changes. But then the pandemic hit and, of course, like many other businesses, I had to pivot and find ways to survive.Last month I wrote about wet-seed processing. That s more of a summer activity as you have to deal with the ripe fruits in a timely way. Dry seeds develop in pods, husks or ears, and dry on the plant rather than inside a fruit. While you obviously want to get seeds into the hands of growers before they need to plant, and into seed catalogs before they get printed, often there is no urgency to extract the dry-seeded crops from their pods. You can wait for a slower time, or use seed cleaning as a rainy-day job.Another simple and relatively inexpensive tool drew me in on social media this month a magnet in the place of a knife sheath submitted by Kat Johnson, the Produce Manager at Fields Edge Farm in Floyd, Virginia.In Kat s post she wrote, Ever since Victorinox stopped making the removable inserts in their sheaths it s been impossible to keep the sheath clean or anywhere close to sanitary, this eliminates that problem, but keeps your harvest knife right by your side during harvest. That was pretty much the same reason I gave up the lettuce knife and the truth is that even though you can run the Morakniv sheath through the dishwasher, it still gets a bit gunked up.For the past two years, I have roamed northern California and southern Oregon, and have closely followed the activities of small farms in the region. It has been a great adventure for this South Dakota native, transplanted from New England. California is an absolute Eden about 97 percent of the time; the other three percent is utter catastrophe. In my time here, there have been a hearty handful of farms I have known to have been swept up in the actual flames and left in a pile of char and ash. Although, there need not be flames on site for the fires to figuratively burn a business to the ground.This month s submission is from Dogpatch Urban Gardens in Iowa and it s a simple one a grabber being used to reach Tomahooks obviating the need for a ladder. It s quite possible that many of you have already thought of this, but I had never seen this before. I love the idea and I don t even use hooks but I might after seeing this.Get ready for garlic planting and extreme weather with links to two archived articles in the Growing for Market email newsletter- read it here.With modifications for the COVID eraIt is said that 50 percent of labor on diverse vegetable farms is harvesting, washing, and packing. Would your farm be better off if you cut out those tasks and allowed the eaters to do the work instead?In early 2018 our family bought 10 acres of an old farmstead just north of Ann Arbor, Michigan. Armed only with theoretical knowledge gleaned from Chris Blanchard, Jean-Martin Fortier, and Curtis Stone, and no practical farm-scale growing experience, I wrote up a description for our new member-harvested CSA program and posted it on our website.Our mid-month email newsletterlinks to an archived article on Korean Natural Farming and a chance to win one of two copies of a new book about KNF and more! Also, an opportunity to share what you've learned about operating in the COVID era with other growers.Read the newsletter here.Predictably, since a new word is easy to co-opt, regenerative has quickly become the darling of the large industrial agriculture companies who are now able to mouth ecological platitudes, formerly associated with organic farming principles, but without any intention of following them. We are seeing well-honed, corporate co-opting skills used very effectively by professionals.The suspicious old organic hippie in me finds the new re-generative movement to be a devious attempt to displace organic in the public mind with a more manipulatable word, easily controlled and redefined by the agricultural industry. I can understand many of the large mid-western long-time chemical farmers not liking the word organic and thus a new word being useful to communicate with them. All well and good. Use the word regenerative to lure them in to being better farmers.My wife, Megan, and I grow cut flowers on half an acre of a twelve-acre property in Hurdle Mills, NC. We are in the heart of tobacco country. When we bought our property in 2013, our sales contract stipulated that the farmer had the right to harvest that year s tobacco crop. Based on our best guesses, that marked at least the 100th consecutive year of tobacco/wheat rotations on this property. The farmer was kind enough to disc in the tobacco stubble after the harvest.We are blessed to be farming at a time when there is a lot of available information about organic no-till farming. With inspiration from Tony and Denise and many other farmers, we developed a no-till method that works for us: basically, a compost mulch method with additional landscape fabric mulch and occultation. Through trial and error, we ve developed methods that work on our farm for managing our beds and dealing with cover crops. We would like to share these with you, along with what we wish we d done differently from the start.

TAGS:to Welcome Growing 

<<< Thank you for your visit >>>

Hot Websites