August 2025 – Sustainable Market Farming
Consort rust-resistant blackcurrant. Photo Grow OrganicSuitability of the climate for blackcurrants| 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
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. I appeared in Season … Continue reading "See me on the Virginia Home Grown TV program"| 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
The Seed Farmer: A Complete Guide to Growing, Using and Selling Your Own Seeds. Dan Brisebois. New Society Publishers, 2025, 214 pages, USD $39.99, CAD $44.99 paperback; USD $26.00, CAD $29.25 digital. This excellent, well-organized book is a valuable new go-to resource for small-scale vegetable and flower farmers or gardeners planning to grow seed crops … Continue reading "Book Review: The Seed Farmer, by Dan Brisebois"| Sustainable Market Farming
Two separate items this week, both with a “bigger picture” theme, ideas you might not have thought of. Ideal for an uplifting read at this time of year! Farming Hacks Modern Farmer is a…| Sustainable Market Farming
Now my new book, Sustainable Market Farming, 2nd Edition, is out, I am spring cleaning all the website pages and resources I hadn’t paid so much attention to recently.| Sustainable Market Farming
Now my new book, Sustainable Market Farming, 2nd Edition, is out, I am spring cleaning all the website pages and resources I hadn’t paid so much attention to recently. I have updated my slideshows on SlideShare.net and I’ve searched out every one of my slideshows in a post on this site, and installed the most recent … Continue reading "Refreshed Resources on my Website, and more on sweet potatoes"| 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
