Growers Daily

Hey Composters and compost lovers, it's Jayne Merner of Earth Care Farm! Episode one of season two of The Composter will air Monday, August 21st, and continue with a new episode every Monday for ten weeks. We have an awesome lineup, chatting with composters behind many compost facilities like LA Compost, Vermont Compost, Champlain Valley Compost, and more. And, I'll be headed to Austria to tour compost facilities in late-August. Expect some news from me from the country that composts the most organic matter in all of Europe. I'm hoping to bring back some tips for all of us to adapt. It's going to be a rich, fertile season two. If you love compost as much as me, join me!

Paul and Sandy Arnold of Pleasant Valley Farm in upstate NY are seasoned expert winter growers. They have been involved with winter growing since they first purchased their 60-acre property 35 years ago. With three large RIMOL high-tunnels, numerous caterpillar and field tunnels, dedicated wash/pack, and climate controlled storage facilities, they have honed their year-round systems on three cultivated acres and have achieved financial stability for themselves and their family. Until recently, 90% of their sales were from farmers markets. Due to the initial impacts of COVID, they transitioned to almost all online sales without missing a beat. As they are approaching retirement, their farm business is in transition and they are considering how best to keep the land actively farmed. Their two children, Robert and Kim, Followed in their footsteps and each have their own farm businesses, Smart Farm Innovations and Pleasant Valley Flowers, respectively. Both Sandy and Paul offer an incredible wealth of knowledge and experience with winter production and farming for the long haul. It was truly and honor to speak with them for the last episode of this fourth Winter Growers podcast season.

Folks who make the show possible...

Vermont Compost Company premium living soils, composts, and potting mixes. Invest in your soil!

SeedTime Planner crop planning tool for home gardeners and market farmers. Get your free account and $5 seed coupon ->> seedtime.us/notillpodcast

Johnny's Selected Seeds vegetable, flower, and cover crop seeds. Visit the Growers Library for a wealth of growing resources.

RIMOL Greenhouses quality greenhouses and high-tunnels.

Joy Longfellow is a flowers trial technician on the flowers team at Johnny's research farm. I invited Joy to speak about their overwinter flower trials and the info they have gathered over the past few years. The Johnny's research farm is 200+ acres acres in size with 60+ acres in crop production that includes both field and greenhouse growing for plant breeding, seed production, trialing, and cover crop rotation. The overwintering flower trials focus on cool season annuals, and a few perrenial, biannual, and bulb crops. Everything is grown for research purposes. Using unheated high-tunnels and meticulous record keeping, they're able to determine the best timing of the top five flower crops to grow in an over-winter tunnel for northern climates. All of their work is a great free resource for farmers interested in getting early high quality flower crops without having to do the time consuming and often costly experimentation on their own. Joy offers a wealth of of information about growing, selecting, and managing overwinter flowers and her expertise is an excellent resource for winter growers.

Folks who make the show possible...

SeedTime Planner crop planning tool for home gardeners and market farmers. Get your free account and $5 seed coupon ->> seedtime.us/notillpodcast

Vermont Compost Company premium living soils, composts, and potting mixes. Invest in your soil!

Johnny's Selected Seeds vegetable, flower, and cover crop seeds. Visit the Growers Library for a wealth of growing resources.

RIMOL Greenhouses quality greenhouses and high-tunnels.

Located in the Pacific Northwest, Brian and his partner Chrystine first started as a fresh market farm is 2004, producing their first seed catalog in 2007, and then transitioned entirely to seed production in 2011. Uprising Seeds is WA fist 100% certified organic seed company, producing over 70% of the seeds they sell with the rest being sourced from a network of regional family farms. Brian is passionate about exploring the relationship between grower security and open pollinated seeds and the ability to seasonally adapt varieties to climactic conditions specifically through seed work. Brian is also involved with a collaborative project between Uprising Seeds, The Culinary Breeding Network, and northern Italian vegetable breeder Smarties to further establish radicchio as an anchor crop for the fall and winter seasons in North America. Overall, a great conversation for better understanding how seed production and selection can effect winter crop production.

Mentioned in the show…

Brian's favorite tool, the Winnow Wizard by Luterra

Lane Selman and The Culinary Breeding Network (A podcast with Lane on Collab Farm about CBN)

For more on seed production, check out The Seed Growers Podcast with Dan Brisebois

Folks who make the show possible...

SeedTime Planner crop planning tool for home gardeners and market farmers. Get your free account and $5 seed coupon ->> seedtime.us/notillpodcast

Vermont Compost Company premium living soils, composts, and potting mixes. Invest in your soil!

Johnny's Selected Seeds vegetable, flower, and cover crop seeds. Visit the Growers Library for a wealth of growing resources.

RIMOL Greenhouses quality greenhouses and high-tunnels.

Erin and Sam started Long Season Farm in Ulster County, NY, in 2014 as a winter-only operation, but have since expanded to year-round production and market the majority of their produce at two year-round farmers markets. With seven acres in production, they have four 30' x 96' unheated high-tunnels, plus a prop house, multiple cat/ tunnels, a moveable tunnel, and a large heated greenhouse that includes their wash station. Unheated winter tunnel crops have been very successful, especially when coupled with a diverse array of storage crops. Erin is also very active in her local community and was elected to the town board in 2019. While they both appreciate the year-round cash-flow and access to new markets that winter production allows, the farm revenue only covers expenses, and they've found it challenging to save meaningfully while also avoiding the burnout that can come from year-round farming. I enjoyed hearing about their experiences and insights and what motivates them to continue farming year-round.

Folks who make the show possible...

RIMOL Greenhouses quality greenhouses and high-tunnels.

Johnny's Selected Seeds vegetable, flower, and cover crop seeds. Visit the Growers Library for a wealth of growing resources.

SeedTime Planner crop planning tool for home gardeners and market farmers. Get your free account and $5 seed coupon ->> seedtime.us/notillpodcast

Vermont Compost Company premium living soils, composts, and potting mixes. Invest in your soil!

Jamila Norman of Patchwork City Farms in Atlanta, GA, is a first generation daughter to Caribbean parents whose history is rooted in agriculture. After a career in environmental engineering, she founded Patchwork City Farms in 2010, an acre+ urban farm with one 30'x96' high-tunnel and four caterpillar tunnels that supplies two farmers markets, a couple of local restaurants, and a farmstand. I reached out to Jamila in January after an arctic blast with lows in the teens hit Atlanta and decimated 90% of her winter crops and severely impacted local winter crop availability. I wanted to see if I could offer any help or suggestions in preparing for future extreme cold weather events not normally experienced so far south, but what I learned from Jamila was just how difficult it is to prepare for extreme unpredictable cold unless adequate infrastructure, like high-tunnels, are already in use, which are not typically needed for winter hardy crops in the south. We also talk about her television series, Homegrown, on Magnolia Network, which just launched it's third season. The series focuses on helping families in the Atlanta area transform their outdoor spaces into beautiful and functional backyard farms and gardens. It can be streamed on HBO Max. Jamila is a warm-hearted leader and resource for the urban farming community and I truly enjoyed this conversation.

Mentioned in the show…

Homegrown from Magnolia Network on HBO Max

Folks who make the show possible...

Vermont Compost Company premium living soils, composts, and potting mixes. Invest in your soil!

SeedTime Planner crop planning tool for home gardeners and market farmers. Get your free account and $5 seed coupon ->> seedtime.us/notillpodcast

RIMOL Greenhouses quality greenhouses and high-tunnels.

Johnny's Selected Seeds vegetable, flower, and cover crop seeds. Visit the Growers Library for a wealth of growing resources.

In 2015, Amy Frye and Jacob Slosberg of Boldly Grown Farm in Bow, WA, started a one-acre farm at an incubator farm shortly after meeting and working on their university farm. Now, in their ninth season, they've purchased their own farm property and currently cultivate 30 acres of vegetables, a couple acres of grains, dry beans, seed crops, and flowers. Winter crops have always been the focus from the beginning. Eighty percent of sales are through wholesale channels including distributors and food hubs, plus they operate a 250+ member winter CSA and recently opened an on-site farmstand. Amy and Jacob's story is a great example of rapid growth of their farming goals combined with mechanized and scaled winter production, while simultaneously raising a family and anchoring their farm business and home on permanent land.

Mentioned in the show…

VIVA Farms farm incubator, listen to their conversation on Collab Farm here

NOLS Leadership Course, Year in Patagonia

Folks who make the show possible...

RIMOL Greenhouses quality greenhouses and high-tunnels.

Johnny's Selected Seeds vegetable, flower, and cover crop seeds. Visit the Growers Library for a wealth of growing resources.

SeedTime Planner crop planning tool for home gardeners and market farmers. Get your free account and $5 seed coupon ->> seedtime.us/notillpodcast

Vermont Compost Company premium living soils, composts, and potting mixes. Invest in your soil!

Order The Ecological Farm: A Minimalist No-Till, No-Spray, Selective-Weeding, Grow-Your-Own-Fertilizer System for Organic Agriculture by Helen Atthowe

Hey, Farmer Jesse here, and we've got a special treat for you today. We are re-releasing the interview I did with Helen Atthowe from back in 2020, some of you may have heard it, some may have not. There are a couple reasons for the re-release: First, this was one of those early episodes we got a ton of positive feedback on because it's just a great episode all the way through, but second and more importantly, she just released a new book through Chelsea Green called The Ecological Farm: A Minimalist No-Till, No-Spray, Selective-Weeding, Grow-Your-Own-Fertilizer System for Organic Agriculture

It is super excellent and extremely nerdy and, as the reader, you get to dive even deeper into the details of the systems Helen describes in this conversation we're posting today. Honestly, I think every serious ecologically-minded grower should own a copy of this new book.

Mentioned in the show...

Studies:

https://eorganic.org/node/14129

https://eorganic.org/node/15582

Jillian and Ross Mickens of Open Door Farm in Cedar Grove, NC, work collaboratively with previous podcast guests Vera and Gordon of Ten Mother Farm to fill CSA boxes with many of the land intensive crops like potatoes and winter squash. With 5 acres under cultivation, and eleven seasons under their belt, they recently made the transition to winter-only sales from mid-August to the end of March, while using the main-season to tend to storage and root crop production, as well as rest during the hottest months of the year. Both the focus on winter-only sales and the collaborative relationship with neighboring farms creates an interesting farm business model that we get to better understand the opportunities and challenges of as a potential approach to growing in a warmer winter climates of the South.

Folks who make the show possible...

RIMOL Greenhouses quality greenhouses and high-tunnels.

Johnny's Selected Seeds vegetable, flower, and cover crop seeds. Visit the Growers Library for a wealth of growing resources.

SeedTime Planner crop planning tool for home gardeners and market farmers. Get your free account and $5 seed coupon ->> seedtime.us/notillpodcast

Vermont Compost Company premium living soils, composts, and potting mixes. Invest in your soil!

Rebecca and her husband, Mark, started Moonshot Farm in East Windsor, NJ, in 2019 after relocating from New York City to begin their dream of growing year-round cut flowers in a northern climate. In just four short years, they have built their 3.5 acre flower farm to include four high-tunnels, two of which are heated by a geothermal heating system, and they sell at two year round farmers markets, manage a 130 member CSA bouquet-of-the-month club, and an on-site farmstead. Just this year, they were able to quit their off-farm jobs to work full-time on the farm. Also, in the last four years, they had two children, Rose and Violet!

We talk extensively about their geothermal heating system which allows them to offer customers blooms 12 months of the year. I learned a ton about flower production from our conversation, she offers such great info for anyone looking to add winter flowers to their farm.

Follow Moonshot Farm on Instagram

Mentioned in the show…

The Association of Specialty Cut Flower Growers

NRCS EQIP High-Tunne Grant Program

Rural Energy for America Program

Folks who make the show possible...

RIMOL Greenhouses quality greenhouses and high-tunnels.

Johnny's Selected Seeds vegetable, flower, and cover crop seeds. Visit the Growers Library for a wealth of growing resources.

Farmers Friend for caterpillar tunnels, harvest equipment, tarps, & more! Get free shipping through ->> farmersfriend.com/notill

BCS America for two wheel tractors + implements.