For the Love of the Local – Sustainable Market Farming

Crop Planning Slideshow and Book Review

Crop planning for sustainable vegetable production 2016 Pam Dawling from Pam Dawling

I gave my presentation on Crop Planning to a small group at For the Love of the Local, in my home town of Louisa, Virginia last Thursday (3/10). This weekend I have been in Asheville, North Carolina, at the Organic Growers School. My presentation on Intensive Vegetable Production on a Small Scale is available to view on SlideShare.net.

My next task this week is to upload my presentation Growing Great Garlic to SlideShare, and make it available here on my blog. Currently there is an older version of the presentation, from 2013, up there. By next week I should have the new version posted.

Book Review: Crop Planning for Organic Vegetable Growers, by Frederic Theriault and Daniel Brisebois

This compact and practical workbook is for small-scale vegetable or flower growers wanting to increase the success of their enterprise by better planning, or for new farmers wanting reliable help to get started. Clearly written, it follows a fictional couple (Hanna and Bruce) working through the eleven step planning process. This is a concise focused workbook with lots of charts, not a chatty bedtime read. But for small-scale farmers, this won’t be a dry book. As well as the excitement and relief of “Aha!” moments, readers can enjoy the chance to cement the practical tips of each chapter with a real-life example – a description of a farm tackling that chapter’s planning stage.

The approach of this book is very similar to the one I spell out in my book Sustainable Market Farming and in my slideshow posted above, although I have not yet met the authors , and we constructed our plans independently. This book leads the reader with every necessary detail and worksheet. The planning sheets are available to download as Excel spreadsheets from the Canadian Organic Growers website. You can then customize them for your own use. Or you can print them out and use as worksheets as they are, if you are not at ease with spreadsheets and would rather just have a ring binder of worksheets. One very important aspect of planning is to choose a method that works for you. If you find your record-keeping or planning method easy and comfortable to use, you are much more likely to use it and hence it will give you more useful results.

The eleven steps are:

Decide your financial goals
Decide on your markets
Make a preliminary planting schedule
Map your fields
Choose varieties and finalize your planting schedule
Make a greenhouse schedule for seedlings
Compile your seed order
Make a field operations calendar
Carry out your plan
Analyze your success
Plan next year

Crop Planning is written by two farmers from Quebec, so growers in other climate zones will need to keep this in mind. Hanna and Bruce’s harvest season starts at the beginning of July and runs to late October. Planting season runs from May 1 to mid-October. You will need to extrapolate at both ends if your winter hardiness zone is higher than theirs. You will also need to look at summer plantings – perhaps you won’t be planting lettuce, kohlrabi or arugula in July. You’ll need to apply your experience to the methods and decide on planting dates to fit your own harvest date goals.

Also, you won’t find info on growing Southern staples like okra, sweet potatoes and lima beans in this book. But you can feed information from elsewhere (including your own experience as a grower) into the format provided.

The fictional Hanna and Bruce in this book run a CSA as well as a farmers market booth, so that planning for both are conveniently included. Measurements are included in both the metric system and the feet and pounds of the old imperial system (more common in the US). Appendices provide reference charts; tips on designing a modular field layout to facilitate crop rotations and ease the transfer of standardized lengths of row cover and drip tape; a detailed money budget; some recommendations for further reading. Sadly, no index, but the contents list is clear and straightforward.

Crop Planning will quickly repay the $25 cover price. It’s all too easy to make a mistake costing $25 or more if you are under-informed, or under-prepared in some other way. Pay now and save!

Growing for Market issue for March, upcoming events, return of the ticks

The March issue of Growing for Market is out. It includes my article on planning and siting a hoophouse. This is a good time of year to scope out good sites for a hoophouse (high tunnel) if you don’t already have one. Or if you want another!

I address NRCS funding; what to look for in a good site (sunshine, drainage, good soil, fairly level land, wind protection, road access, electricity and water supplies); size and shape; and DIY versus professionally made frames (my advice – don’t skimp!). I go into the debate on single layer versus double layer plastic and special types of plastic.

I will be writing a follow-up article soon, talking about hoophouse end wall design, windows and doors, fixed walls, roll-up and roll-down walls, interior design (bed layout) and questions of in-ground insulation or even heating, as well as rainwater run-off and perhaps collection.

Our hoophouse site before construction. Photo Twin Oaks Community

Our hoophouse when brand new.
Photo Twin Oaks Community

Other articles in this issue of Growing for Market include one on Integrated Pest and Disease Management by Karin Tifft; one on how to plan to make more money, by Jed Beach; Edible landscaping by Brad Halm; and Gretel Adams on how to best look after flowers at harvest, to cope with their particular and sometimes peculiar needs. An issue very packed with information!

My talk at the Culpeper County Library last weekend was very well received. Most of the audience were small-scale growers themselves, some were CSA farmers.

Now I’m gearing up for a Crop Planning class at For the Love of the Local in my home town on Thursday 3/10 6-7pm. 402 West Main Street. Louisa, Virginia. (540) 603-2068.

Immediately after that I’m headed to Asheville, NC for the Organic Growers School. On Saturday 3/12, 2-3.30pm I’ll be presenting (a shorter version of) Intensive Vegetable Production on a Small Scale, which was a big hit at the Southern Sustainable Agriculture Working Group Conference at the end of January. On Sunday 3/13 , 4-5.30pm, I’ll be presenting my Growing Great Garlic slideshow.

Two weeks after that, I’ll be back in Asheville for the Mother Earth News Fair. Click the link to see the draft schedule. I’ll be giving presentations on Crop Planning and on Fall Vegetable Production. We decided that although the Asheville Fair is always in April, people there also may be just as interested in fall vegetable growing as much as in spring vegetables!

For the stay-at-homes I’ll put these presentations up on SlideShare after the event and share them on my blog.

Margaret Roach A Way to Garden — Margaret Roach **A Way to Garden**

Spring has reached Virginia and it’s time to be on the lookout for ticks. I found a really good interview with Rick Ostfeld of the Cary Institute on A Way to Garden. This blog is by Margaret Roach, a long time garden writer, who interviews many interesting people. You can listen to her podcast or read the interview. Learn why the black-legged tick (which can transmit Lyme disease) is called the deer tick and why that isn’t the best name; why mice, chipmunks and shrews (but not voles) contribute to the spread of Lyme disease, and why foxes, opossums, raccoons and bobcats can reduce Lyme disease incidence (by catching the small mammals). Possums also “hoover up” and eat the ticks directly.

We’ve finally started planting! We transplanted some spinach and sowed carrots on Saturday. The new spinach is covered with hoops and rowcovers, just as our overwintered spinach is. This has been a tough winter. The cold-damaged spinach had bleached frozen spots on the leaves, but we have been able to harvest it about once a week.

Weeding overwintered spinach in March Wren — Weeding overwintered spinach in March. Photo by Wren Vile

Speaking at Virginia events, Organic Broadcaster

I already mentioned some upcoming events I’ll be presenting workshops at. In the next few months, a lot of them are in Virginia, so here’s a heads-up to fellow Virginians. I’ve added one more, very local event. here they are in date order.

Culpeper County Library, VA Date: Sun, Feb 28, 2016 2-4 pm.

Location: Culpeper County Library, 271 Southgate Shopping Center, Culpeper, VA 22701

Workshop topic: talk about my book, research, importance, etc. for 30 – 45 minutes, then 15 – 30 minutes Q&A. CSA Farmers at an info table. (It’s National CSA sign up day). Signing and selling books.

Here’s the new one:

For the Love of the Local, 402 West Main Street. Louisa, Virginia. (540) 603-2068

Parks and Rec Class of 6-12 people – Designing and Planning Your Vegetable Garden.
Date: Thursday, March 10, 6:00pm-7:00pm
A close look at how to make the most of the area you are going to be using for your vegetable garden, including spacing needs of plants, what plants grow well in Louisa, what plants grow well together, and more. Handouts. Book-signing.
Attendees receive a goodie bag from For the Love of the Local after the class.

New Country Organics, Waynesboro, VA

Small class, about 15 people

Date: Saturday March 26, 10am-noon.

Workshop topic: Succession Planting

Location: New Country Organics 801 2nd Street Waynesboro, VA 22980

My contact: Jillian Lowery jillian.lowery@newcountryorganics.com

www.newcountryorganics.com 540-184-1956 844-933-3337

Handouts, Selling and signing books

Louisa Master Gardener class tour of TO gardens

Date: Thursday, April 21

Location: Twin Oaks Community

The January/February issue of the Organic Broadcaster is out. this publication comes from MOSES, the Midwest Organic and Sustainable Education Service.

This issue includes articles about the state of Organics in 2016, food safety rules and the relatively new USDA Whole Farm Revenue Protection (crop insurance for the rest of us). Previously crop insurance did not cover unusual crops (which we might not consider that unusual – vegetable seed crops, medicinal herbs. . . ) Other articles cover organic cropland in Illinois, a book review of Marketing Organic Grain by John Bobbe, research on labor efficiencies on organic diversified vegetable farms, preparing livestock for a healthy birthing season, supplying methionine in organic poultry rations, setting goals for successfully transferring your farm to new farmers and a new publication on keeping children safe on farms .

Meanwhile, here at Twin Oaks, I’m bracing for really cold weather for a couple of days and the possibility of large amounts of snow on Friday and Saturday. And I’m getting ready for my trip to Lexington, Kentucky for my presentation on Intensive Vegetable Production on a Small Scale at the SSAWG Conference.