April 2025 – Sustainable Market Farming
Striped cucumber beetle in a squash flower. Photo Pam DawlingInsect Pests of the Month in May| Sustainable Market Farming
Striped cucumber beetle in a squash flower. Photo Pam DawlingInsect Pests of the Month in May| Sustainable Market Farming
Do you know if these are pests or beneficial insects?And what about this one? Pavel SporishWhat 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?| 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
Suitability of the climate for blackcurrants In winter-hardiness zone 7a and Heat Zone 7 (60-80 days above 86°F/30°C), European blackcurrants (Ribes nigrum) can survive the winters but will struggle with the summer heat and humidity. Choose locations with afternoon shade or add shadecloth. Cooler heat zones will be fine for blackcurrants and other ribes. Hotter … Continue reading "Growing blackcurrants in the upper south"| 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 in a different climate, you can use the Search Box on this site, where I have frequent mentions of … Continue reading "Pests of the month in August: grasshoppers, brown marmorated stink bugs and Japanese beetles"| Sustainable Market Farming
Book Review: Waterwise Gardening: Everything You Need to Know About Efficient Watering to Grow a Healthy Yard. Richard Restuccia. Rizzoli International Publications, Inc, New York, 2025. 240 pages, USD $29.95, CAD $40.00 paperback. This is a book for home gardeners who want to grow productive healthy plants, both food plants and landscape plants, while wasting … Continue reading "Book Review: Waterwise Gardening by Richard Restuccia"| 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
Organic Growers School Spring Conference: March 14-16, 2025| Sustainable Market Farming
Virginia Home Grown is a local public television program presented by PBS Virginia Public Media (VPM). Virginia Home Grown features interviews with experts and enthusiasts from around the state. Viewers are invited to submit questions via email to VHG@vpm.org or on Facebook (facebook.com/VirginiaHomeGrown/). The program airs monthly from March through October.| Sustainable Market Farming
Here’s the third 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 …| 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
