It’s garlic planting time for many of us again and many growers are searching my site for information. Here are quick links to all of my many garlic posts over the years. I’ve added in ones from the past couple of years, since I wrote my post Garlic Almanac and Phenotypic Plasticity in May 2021. … Continue reading "Garlic Almanac – it’s planting time!"| Sustainable Market Farming
Book Review: The Self-Fed Farm and Garden, Eliot Coleman. Chelsea Green. November 2025. 208 pages, $29.95 USD, $40.00 CAN Eliot Coleman has been one of my vegetable-growing gurus since he wrote The New Organic Grower in 1989, and his latest book, The Self-Fed Farm and Garden, confirms our alignment once again. Biologically based agriculture … Continue reading "Book Review: The Self-Fed Farm and Garden, Eliot Coleman"| Sustainable Market Farming
What a glorious photo of a spotted lanternfly caught in a zipper spider web! Zipper Spiders Our 96’ x 30’ (29m x 9m) hoophouse has done us proud with zipper spiders (often simply called gard…| Sustainable Market Farming
Two summers ago, I wrote about Hunting Hornworms on Tomato Plants. Here we are in July again, and here are the hornworms again! Yesterday, in two 80 ft (24.4 m) rows of tomatoes, I found 53 …| Sustainable Market Farming
Using hose repair clamps to fix broken hoses.| Sustainable Market Farming
Tomato with blossom end rot. Photo K-State.eduI was spurred to do some research into Blossom End Rot by an email I received from a grower in Oregon (a long way from Virginia), telling me that the Virginia Select Roma VF paste tomato strain that I developed had done extremely well for him and he got no Blossom End Rot on those tomatoes. I was pleased, of course, but also surprised. Paste tomatoes in general are more prone to getting blossom end rot than slicers.| Sustainable Market Farming
I was spurred to do some research into Blossom End Rot by an email I received from a grower in Oregon (a long way from Virginia), telling me that the Virginia Select Roma VF paste tomato strain that I developed had done extremely well for him and he got no Blossom End Rot on those … Continue reading "Avoid Blossom End Rot"| Sustainable Market Farming
Here’s another post on pests, which I post monthly. I feature the pests I’m most familiar with here in central Virginia. If you are in a different climate, you can use the Search Box on this…| Sustainable Market Farming
Striped cucumber beetle in a squash flower. Photo Pam DawlingInsect Pests of the Month in May| Sustainable Market Farming
What bug is reddish-orange and black and is found on your vegetable plants? At least two, harlequin bugs and ladybugs. You probably recognize adult ladybugs, and if you have them, adult harlequin bugs. But what about their junior stages and their eggs? It’s worth being certain about who is who, because ladybugs are beneficial, especially … Continue reading "Harlequin Bugs and Ladybugs: Remove Confusion!"| Sustainable Market Farming
I wrote a post “Searching for the Perfect Tomato”in January 2025 and Tomato Varieties We Tried in our Hoophouse in August 2023. This year we ran a small hoophouse trial of slicer and salad varietie…| Sustainable Market Farming
Book Review: Manage Weeds On Your Farm: A Guide to Ecological Strategies, by Charles Mohler, John Teasdale and Antonio DiTommaso. SARE Handbook 16, 2021, 416 pages, color photos, drawings, charts, …| Sustainable Market Farming
Large (4″/10 cm) tobacco hornworm on the ground.| Sustainable Market Farming
… Continue reading "Book Review: What Your Food Ate, Montgomery and Biklé"| Sustainable Market Farming
Brassica Caterpillars, Blister Beetles and Allium Leafminers. Here’s another post on insect pests, which I publish at the beginning of each month. I feature the pests I’m most familiar with here in central Virginia. If you are in a different climate, you can use the Search Box on this site. All the crop chapters in … Continue reading "Pests of the Month in September"| Sustainable Market Farming
I wrote in this post in May, saying that we are trying some Molokhia (Egyptian Spinach) this year as a hot weather leafy green. It is recommended as a versatile, continuous-harvest vegetable…| Sustainable Market Farming
Consort rust-resistant blackcurrant. Photo Grow OrganicSuitability of the climate for blackcurrants| Sustainable Market Farming
We are right now on our cusp for switching from sowing summer lettuce varieties to sowing cold-hardy ones. August 12 is my last date for sowing heat-resistant lettuces (mostly Batavians, plus Jeric…| Sustainable Market Farming
Crimson Sweet Watermelon. Credit Southern Exposure Seed Exchange Watermelons are delicious as a snack on a hot day in the garden, helping improve your heat tolerance. If lightly salted to balance the electrolytes, they can cure dehydration. The seeds, if well chewed to break up the indigestible seed coat, can provide amino acids, fatty acids, vitamin E, potassium and phosphorus. Watermelons are easily digested and add fiber to the diet. Second only to tomatoes as a source of lycopene (said...| Sustainable Market Farming
Here’s another in my monthly series of posts on insect pests, which are posted at the beginning of each month. I will feature the pests I’m most familiar with here in central Virginia. If you are i…| Sustainable Market Farming
This week’s post is a combination of two features. First explorations of a myth about lettuce seeds needing light to germinate, and how to germinate lettuce when it’s hot. Second a soc…| Sustainable Market Farming
Molokhia (pronounced “mo-lo-HEY-ah”), Egyptian Spinach, Corchorus olitorius (Jute) is a summer cooking green that grows quickly to a multi-stemmed plant with a height of 6′ (2 m) or mor…| Sustainable Market Farming
Here’s the second in my new monthly series of posts, which will appear at the beginning of each month, until April 2026. This year the topic is insect pests and will feature the ones I’m mos…| Sustainable Market Farming
Now I no longer need to work on the new edition of Sustainable Market Farming, while it rains I am tackling some other indoor projects that need attention, (2” in 2 days – we got off lightly compa…| Sustainable Market Farming
Insect Pests of the Month in May I’m starting a new monthly series of posts, which will appear at the beginning of each month, until April 2026. This year the topic is insect pests and will feature…| Sustainable Market Farming
In December I wrote about noxious weeds and included some info on Crop Rotations to reduce weed problems. In January I wrote about planning and preparing for weeds. I wrote about mowing; sow…| Sustainable Market Farming
I’m now home from the Future Harvest CASA conference in Silver Spring, Maryland. As I said in my report from the VABF Conference, “if you’ve never been to a farming conference, I encourage you to …| Sustainable Market Farming
Future Harvest CASA Conference 2025 Farming Into The Future Thurs Jan 16- Sat Jan 18 2025 New location, Silver Spring Civic Building, downtown Silver Spring, MD (Near Metro) More than 40 sessions o…| Sustainable Market Farming
In November, I wrote about tackling some summer perennials, especially quackgrass (couchgrass), wiregrass (Bermuda grass) and mugwort. In October I covered winter annual weeds, mostly Henbit, Groun…| Sustainable Market Farming
This month I am going to write about tackling some summer perennials, especially quackgrass (couchgrass), wiregrass (Bermuda grass) and mugwort. November is a good opportunity for digging our invas…| Sustainable Market Farming
First an updated link. Use not eOrganic.org which I linked to previously. In September I wrote about Late Summer Weeds, chiefly purslane, velvetleaf, flower of an hour, horsenettle, fall panicum an…| Sustainable Market Farming
Perhaps you also have hornworms eating your tomato plants? The upper leaves stripped to stems, the fruit munched, and big fat caterpillars getting bigger and fatter? Ours are tobacco hornworms, not…| Sustainable Market Farming
This is the second of my once-a-month series of posts focusing on weeds. One weed that is making itself very evident on our farm in late May and early June is the dock. We have both the broadleaf …| Sustainable Market Farming
This is the first of my new monthly series of posts. All about weeds. Sustainable (or Ecological) Weed Management: A Holistic Approach to Organic Weed Management In the early days of organic farmin…| Sustainable Market Farming
