VABF Conference – Sustainable Market Farming

Conference Season, cold damage update, potato yield error in my book

Conference Season

It’s busy season for conferences, so I’ll tell you about the next two I’m speaking at. You can go to my Events page to see what’s further ahead.

This weekend (January 6-8 (Fri-Sun), 2023) is the Virginia Association for Biological Farming at the Hotel Roanoke and Conference Center

Virginia Association for Biological Farming

23^rd annual Virginia Biological Farming Conference

VABF Conference INFO Home Page

The 23rd annual Virginia Biological Farming Conference is Virginia’s premier organic and sustainable agricultural conference! The Conference brings together farmers, gardeners, eaters, educators and advocates of biological and organic farming and gardening. The Conference will be held in person January 6-8, 2023 at The Hotel Roanoke and Conference Center.

The three-day Conference includes: Full and Half Day Pre-Conference intensive workshops, 50+ sessions and workshops, presentations and panel discussions, 40+ tradeshow exhibitors, locally sourced farm meals and book signings. The Conference features a Silent Auction and networking opportunities including regional networking meetings, and the Taste of Virginia Expo & Social!

Keynote Speakers

Dr. Elaine Ingham, Soil Food Web School

Leah Penniman, Founding Co-director Soul Fire Farm

I will be presenting a half-day workshop 8am-noon on Friday Jan 6, on Year-Round Hoophouse Vegetables

90 minute workshop Sunday January 8, 8.30 am – 10 am Alliums Year Round

90 minute workshop Sunday January 8, 10.30 am – noon, Asian Greens in the Winter Hoophouse

See the 2023 Session Summaries

Taste of Virginia Expo and Market & Social

Included in the Conference Registration and free and open to the public is the Taste of Virginia Expo & Market on Saturday, January 7, 2 – 9 PM in the Crystal Ballroom at Hotel Roanoke. Featuring sampling and sales of Virginia-crafted foods, local libations, handicrafts, and herbals. Complete the evening with music, dancing, and socializing from 8-10 PM.

Locally Sourced Meals

VABF and LEAP Local Food Hub are working together to procure the majority of our Conference food from local member farms. We look forward to supporting our member farms and enjoying delicious, fresh, local food from the farms below! All Conference Registrations include lunch and dinner on Saturday, lunch on Sunday and morning coffee and tea.

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NOFA-Mass Annual Winter Conference, January 12-14, 2023

Northeast Organic Farming Association, Massachusetts Chapter.

The Conference will be held at Worcester State University on Saturday January 14 and online Sunday January 15. We encourage you to make the most of the range of possibilities – i.e. tastings in person, international discussions over Zoom, tool modifications, storytelling. Creativity is welcome!

An organic lunch on Saturday is sandwiched by over 40 educational workshops for a full day of learning and socializing.

This is a valuable opportunity for farmers, gardeners, homesteaders, educators, and environmentalists to share resources and ideas to grow our vibrant organic community. We are excited to come together around this winter’s theme, “Cooperative Foodways: Building Our Future Together.”

The conference hosts 40+ workshops and draws hundreds of attendees from throughout the Northeast.

I will be giving a workshop on Crop Planning for Sustainable Vegetable Production

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Cold damage update

Bright Lights chard with cold-damaged stems.
Dec 27.
Pam Dawling

I reported very little damage to our hoophouse crops last week when it was 2F (-17C) outdoors. Since then, no plants keeled over, but some leaves are showing tan patches of dead cells, either where the leaves touched the rowcover. or where they were not properly covered. So, we have lost some leaves of senposai, a few of spinach, some on the yarrow we planted for beneficial insects. But, overall, I’m extremely happy with the good condition of our crops.

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Mistake about potato yields

Sorting potatoes two weeks after harvest to remove problem potatoes before rot spreads.
Photo Wren Vile

Yes made a mistake back in 2012, when I wrote Sustainable Market Farming, which I hope has been corrected in reprints since I was first notified of this in August 2019. If you have an older edition of my book, it might still have the error. In yield numbers on page 376, it says about potatoes, “Yields are likely to be 150 lbs/ac (168 kg/ha); 200 lbs/ac (224 kg/ha) is a good yield”.

I posted on my blog about this: https://www.sustainablemarketfarming.com/2019/08/20/ice-for-lettuce-seed-mistake-in-my-book-fall-sowings/

“Yes, my mistake indeed! On page 45, I have the (better!) info that potatoes can yield at least 110 pounds/100 feet, or 49.9 kg/30m. I think I probably meant to write on page 376, that a low yield could be 150 pounds/100ft, which is equivalent to 11 tons/acre. In the metric system, that’s 223 kg/100m, or 24.4 tons/ha. Other sources suggest average yields could be almost twice this. And good yields, even 4 times the low numbers.

So it should say

“Yields are likely to be 11 tons/ac (24.4 tons/ha); 22 tons/ac (48.8 tons/ha) is a good yield”

That’s US tons of 2000 pounds, metric tons of 1000 kg. Or for a smaller scale, probably closer to what most of us are growing,

“Yields are likely to be 150 lbs/100ft (223 kg/100m); 200 lbs/100 ft (300 kg/100m) is a good yield”

I hope I’ve got all the conversions right.

Conferences, Growing for Market articles and books

What with the pandemic, snowstorms, power and internet outages and related travel limitations, you might be forgiven for thinking I’d faded away or something! Except for my regular weekly blogposts, which I have kept up, come whatever!

This week’s blogpost is a reminder about other aspects of my work. Conferences, magazine articles, and my books. First the conferences. I do have an Events Page, in case you haven’t discovered that yet, and one with videos and podcasts I’m in. I’m also including a list of other Organic virtual conferences

Virginia Association for Biological Farming

2022 Virginia Biological Farming Conference,

January 22-24 (Saturday to Monday)

Hotel Roanoke and Conference Center

Conference website

Saturday 1/22 will be half-day and full-day pre-conference sessions. The general conference is on Sunday and Monday.

Lodging and Travel

Workshops

The three-day Conference includes: Pre-Conference intensive workshops, 48 concurrent sessions of workshops, presentations, and panel discussions, 50 tradeshow exhibitors, locally sourced farm meals and book sales with author signings. The Conference highlights include a Youth Program, a Silent Auction and networking opportunities including regional meetings and fireside chats, morning yoga for farmers and the Taste of Virginia Expo & Social.

Update:

I had planned to give a half-day pre-conference intensive on Year-Round Hoophouse Vegetables, and two 90 minute workshops on Growing Sweet Potatoes from Start to Finish and Lettuce Year-Round. But then it all looked too risky for me, and I had to cancel. Very sorry.

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February 10-12, 2022 (Wednesday to Saturday 2.30pm)

PASA

Lancaster Marriott Hotel and Conference Center, 25 S Queen St, Lancaster, PA

PASA is taking great care to make the in-person conference as covid-safe as possible. See the website. https://web.cvent.com/event/495529cf-5f11-41ed-9a1d-c9e55d151c6a/summary?RefId=home

I am giving three 60 min workshops:

Optimize Your Asian Greens Production Thursday 2/10 9-10 am

Beauty in a tatsoi plant.
Photo Wren Vile

This workshop covers production of Asian greens, outdoors and in the hoop house, for both market and home growers. Learn to grow many types of tasty, nutritious greens easily and quickly for fast returns. This workshop includes tips on selection of over 20 types of Asian greens, the timing of succession planting, crop rotation in the hoop house, pest and disease management, fertility, and weed management throughout the year.

Winter Vegetable Production Methods from the Field to the Hoophouse, Fri 2/11 9-10am

Harvested turnips ready for storage.
Photo Pam Dawling

Grow cold-hardy vegetables in the open and with protection varying from rowcovers to hoop houses (high tunnels). Learn about tables of cold-hardiness, details of crops to keep growing into winter, crops for all-winter harvests, overwintering crops for spring harvests, and winter hoop house crops. We’ll also discuss how to plan harvesting and planting dates, and how to maximize production with succession planting, follow-on cropping, and with stored vegetables.

Growing Sweet Potatoes from Start to Finish, Saturday 2/12 11am-12.00 noon

Sweet potatoes on a plate.
Photo Brittany Lewis

At this workshop you will learn how to grow your own sweet potato slips, plant them, grow healthy crops, harvest good yields, and select suitable roots for growing next year’s slips. You will also learn how to cure and store roots for top quality and minimal losses. This workshop will be useful to beginners and experienced growers alike.

Handouts

Booksigning Thursday 2/10 4.30-5.30 pm at the Book Nook

Book sales at the Book Nook

The is also a virtual conference in January and early February.

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Maryland Organic Food and Farm Association (MOFFA)

Virtual Conference February 26, 2022

https://www.marylandorganic.org

I am giving a 45 minute recorded workshop on Cold-Hardy Winter Vegetables.

There will also be a pdf handout.

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Mother Earth News Fair at Seven Springs, Pennsylvania

September 16-18, 2022. Early Bird discounts are available already!

Hours

Friday Sept 16: 12:00 – 6:00 p.m.
Saturday Sept 17: 9:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.
Sunday Sept 18: 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.

Location

Seven Springs Mountain Resort
777 Waterwheel Dr.
Seven Springs, Pa. 15622

http://maps.google.com/?q=Seven%20Springs%20Mountain%20Resort

The Fair at Seven Springs is unique, as speakers, staff and attendees co-mingle throughout the weekend at this beautiful four-season resort. Take advantage of complete lodging and ticket packages, which can be booked directly through the resort. Packages are available including rooms or condos. For more information and to make a reservation online click here, or please call 1-800-452-2223.

I am presenting two 60 minute workshops at outdoor stages:

Cool Season Hoophouse Crops

Hoophouse winter greens.
Photo Kathleen Slattery

How to fill your hoophouse with productive food crops in the cool seasons. Suitable crops; cold-hardiness; selecting crops; calculating how much to harvest, how much to plant; crop rotation; mapping; scheduling; seasonal transitions; succession planting and follow-on cropping.

Growing Sweet Potatoes from Start to Finish

Sweet potatoes in storage. An ideal crop for winter meals, as they store at room temperature for a long time, maybe seven or eight months.
Photo Pam Dawling

At this workshop you will learn how to grow your own sweet potato slips; plant them, grow healthy crops and harvest good yields, selecting suitable roots for growing next year’s slips. You will also learn how to cure and store roots for top quality and minimal losses. This workshop will be useful to beginners and experienced growers alike.

My books will be on sale in the Mother Earth Bookshop

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I have presented at several Mother Earth Fairs Online.

Online: Food Independence Course Part Two

was released on 3/26/21.

It consists of eight video presentations, most of which come with pdf handouts. My contribution is Growing Asian Greens, and pairs nicely with Guide to Asian Vegetables by Wendy Kiang-Spray, author of The Chinese Kitchen Garden: Growing Techniques and Family Recipes from a Classic Cuisine. Other topics include Dandelion Wine, Homemade Teas, Food Conversations, Passive Solar Greenhouse Design, Productive Growing from Home, and Growing Your Own Spices.

Part One of the Food Independence Course includes seven videos, most with handouts, and there is a free preview of DIY Sourdough Basics with Jessica Moody. other topics include Your Edible Yard, the Chinese Greenhouse, Community Meat Buying Club and Mindful Meat Eating, Practical Yogurt and Emma’s Cool crops.

You can subscribe to the All-Access Bundle for $2.99/month (or $35 for a year).

Once you register for All-Access, you will receive access to all 47 current video workshops and prerecorded webinars plus anything new that is added.
All the workshop videos are pre-recorded and can be viewed whenever you like and however many times you like.
Because the videos can be viewed at your convenience, you can watch them on your own schedule!
At MOTHER EARTH NEWS, all of the content, including these workshops, are designed to empower you to become less dependent on systemic products or services. What does that mean? This is an opportunity learn how to save a lot of money on things such as groceries, expensive health products, energy, and more!
Unlike at the physical FAIRS, where workshops take place simultaneously, you don’t have to pick and choose which workshops to watch! Most folks can enjoy only 10 to 12 workshops maximum at a physical FAIR. Now you can see them all!
No additional travel expenses, such as hotel rooms, airfare, gas, pet care, dining out, etc.
All dogs are allowed!!!

I have also contributed an 8-part Garden Planning Course

Before that, I did a workshop on

Winter Cover Crops for Gardeners

as part of the Winter Gardening Course.

Fall broccoli undersown with a mixed clover winter cover crop.
Photo Nina Gentle.

All these and many more videos and handouts are available as part of the All-Access Bundle

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Podcasts and Videos

Check out my page for Podcasts and Videos!

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More Virtual Organic Conferences in January and February

Here’s a useful list from eOrganic. I’ll be at PASA, but not the others.

eOrganic is the organic agriculture community of practice with eXtension. Theirr mission is to foster a research and outreach community, engage farmers and ag professionals through trainings and publications, and support research and outreach projects.

Growing for Market articles

January 2022 Growing for Market magazine cover

The January 2022 issue has my article on Greensprouting and planting potatoes. The November/December issue has my article on Planning an asparagus patch.

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Heads up on Sustainable Market Farming price increase elsewhere but not through my website.

After nine years at a cover price of $34.95, it is going for another reprint, and will be $39.99 as of February 25, 2022. Fortunately I have plenty of copies on hand for direct sale.

Farming Conference Tips, Hoophouse Cool Season Crops slideshow.

I’ve just been on an intensive conference hopping jaunt, three weekends in a row with not much time at home mid-week. One notion I heard discussed is the “Actionable Nugget”. It’s an idea you learn from someone else that inspires you as a possible solution to a problem or challenge you’ve noticed. I’m going to share some I picked up this month.

First I’m going to share my half-day presentation on Hoophouse Production of Cool Season Crops. To view it full screen, click on the diagonal arrows icon. Use the forward pointing triangle to move to the next slide. There are a lot! It was a full afternoon!

Hoophouse cool season crops 240 mins Pam Dawling from Pam Dawling

Here are some of the Actionable Nuggets:

Asparagus Beans (Asian Long Beans, Yard-Long Beans) as a summer hoophouse crop.

Purple-podded asparagus bean.
Photo Southern Exposure Seed Exchange

I got this idea from a Year-Round Organic Vegetable Production workshop at the Virginia Association of Biological Farmers Conference. It was presented by Rick Felker of Mattawoman Creek Farms on the Eastern Shore of Virginia. Rick said that Asian long beans are a star crop for them, and produce extremely high yields compared to outdoors. Yes, they need trellising, and yes, they need frequent harvesting. On the plus side they are a legume, so they are adding nitrogen to the soil the whole time they are growing. At Mattawoman Farm, they harvest these from June to October. In recent years we have not been growing bean seed crops in the summer hoophouse as we used to do. Last summer we grew Iron and Clay cowpeas as a cover crop, but were disappointed to need to cut them back every 6 days, because we’d decided not to stake them in any way.

Trellised Liana asparagus bean.
Photo Southern Exposure Seed Exchange

Sulfur: The Forgotten Nutrient, Secret Ingredient for Healthy Soils and Crops.

At the Future Harvest Chesapeake Association for Sustainable Agriculture Conference, I much appreciated this workshop by Ray Weil. A whole workshop on one element! When deficient, the plant has symptoms resembling nitrogen shortage. It caused me to wonder how often I have made this mistake. Brassicas and legumes are the crops to pay closest attention to. I learned that the standard soil test for sulfur is fairly meaningless – I have been putting my faith in a poor source of information. The key piece of information from Ray Weil is that with a S shortage, the yellowing starts on the younger leaves, which is opposite to nitrogen shortages, when the yellowing begins on the older leaves.

S-deficient plants will be thin, spindly and slow-growing. The leaves will be high in nitrates, because the poor plant can’t use all the N it has absorbed from the soil. I already know from winter hoophouse growing that high levels of nitrate are not healthy. Legumes cannot do a good job of fixing nitrogen if S is too low. Sulfur shortages can affect the nutrient density of the crops, the protein level in beans. Now I know what to look for and what to do if I find the problem. Add 5-10 pounds per acre of S if plants seem deficient.

Cucurbit Blossom End Rot

Is this an unpollinated squash or one with Blossom End Rot?
Photo Pam Dawling

At the same FHCASA conference, I learned about cucurbit BER in a workshop by Emily Zobel. I had not known cucurbits could suffer from blossom end rot, which is a problem caused by limited calcium uptake, often in cold weather and when water supplies are too variable. I do see a little BER on our first hoophouse tomatoes to ripen, but the plants quickly grow out of it as the weather warms up. The photos of young yellow squash Emily Zobel showed looked just like what I have been thinking was lack of pollination!! Now I will need to see if encouraging the plants to take up more calcium can solve the problem. This “actionable nugget” arrives in good time for this growing season!

I also learned that duct tape can be used to remove squash bug eggs. (I’d given up trying)

Yellow Shoulders on Hoophouse Tomatoes

Hoophouse tomatoes with yellow shoulders. Glacier or Stupice.
Photo Pam Dawling

From a workshop on Organic Soil Management for High Tunnels at the Southern Sustainable Agriculture Working Group Conference, presented by Krista Jacobsen, I learned some valuable tips about dealing with salt build-up in hoophouse soils. – she referred to hoophouses as “irrigated deserts”!

I also learned about yellow shoulders on tomatoes. Previously I had read that the green/yellow shoulders were (unfortunately) genetically linked to good flavor in some varieties. At this workshop I learned that yellow shoulders (as opposed to green), can be a sign of potassium deficiency. Temperatures above 90F can also be a factor. The determinant hybrids have less of a problem than other varieties. Excess magnesium can be a factor, as can the choice of variety, a virus infection, pH over 6.7. Our pH isn’t over 6.7. Ideally, the grower would increase the magnesium to calcium ratio to 1:6 or 1:4, and/or increase the potassium. Perhaps we are short of magnesium. I will need to study our soil tests more carefully.

Organic Weed Management

A carpet of weeds, but the crop is easily seen!
Photo Bridget Aleshire

In this SSAWG workshop by Daniel Parson, I learned a technique for training newbies on weed control: Make them get down on the knees and point to and touch the crop plants before hoeing or pulling weeds. He says : “If you can see the weeds without getting down on the ground, you’ve waited too long! ” Weeds should be dealt with while tiny. Bring your trainees back in a week to to see the results of their hoeing. I like this idea! Too often it is hard for new workers to learn from their experience because they don’t study and critique their work as they learn!

Lean Farm Ideas

Ellen Polishuk gave this workshop, and I went because I had both enjoyed and been challenged by Ben Hartman’s Lean Farm book. I wanted to hear someone else’s perspective and remind myself of the best bits. To my surprise, one idea that stuck out was to work in 90 minute chunks, with short breaks (or longer meal breaks). I’m not sure I fully embrace this idea, but I’m mulling it over.

Potato and tomato yields, VABF Conference, weather extremes.

Potato harvest October 2014. Credit Nina Gentle.

We got our June-planted potato harvest finished last week, and I counted the crates – 122. That makes 3660 pounds, a pretty good amount for the space we used. The Red Pontiac seem to have done a whole lot better than the Kennebec – the same result we got from our March-planted crop. One thought is that maybe the Kennebec seed pieces were cut too small, although I’d be surprised if the whole crew managed to do the same thing twice.

We use discarded plastic crates for our potatoes. They are lightweight, stack easily and don’t grow mold. We store our crop in our root cellar, which is built into the ground, a kind of constructed cave. Nice, fossil-fuel free and low-tech. And, like natural caves, it is prone to damp. It’s prone to mice too, but we have our organic solution to that problem: a black snake lives in there. We have been known to commandeer a snake, if none has chosen to move in. It’s a good winter home for snakes

Our organic pest mouse remover. Credit Nina Gentle — Our organic pest mouse control expert.
Credit Nina Gentle

We also tallied our Roma paste tomato harvests for the year. We gathered 313 5-gallon buckets. If we’d had more workers we could have harvested more. Our plan was to harvest the whole patch of 530 plants twice a week, but during the peak of the season we were lucky if we could get one half harvested each time.The plants stayed in good health throughout the season, and the fruit stayed a good size. This is thanks to the selection work I have been doing when we save our seed (Roma Virginia Select). Also thanks to drip irrigation we have reduced water splashing on the leaves, which can spread fungal spores.

Geek Special: See our harvest data here:Roma Harvests

Roma is a determinate variety, meaning the number of trusses (branches) of fruit is genetically predetermined, but as with many crops, the more you pick, the more you get. Leaving mature fruit delays development of immature fruit. I have not found anyone to tell me how many trusses of fruit Roma has, and despite growing 530 plants each year for over 20 years, I have never taken the time to count them. Maybe next year. . .

If you read descriptions of determinate tomato varieties, you would think they are all tiny plants with a three-week harvest window. Roma is a large determinate, at least 4ft tall, and our harvest period lasts from mid-July until frost (usually late October here). Our peak period is about a month (early August to early September). Here’s a general description from www.seedaholic.com: “Determinate varieties are generally smaller and more compact than indeterminate tomatoes. . .”

The Twin Oaks Garden Crew is getting ready to have our annual Crop Review meeting. We work our way down an alphabetical list of crops, noting what worked and what didn’t. And at the same time, we pop our garlic bulbs into separate cloves for planting.

My next speaking engagement is at the Virginia Biological Farming Conference January 30 and 31 2015, with pre-conference sessions on Thursday January 29. Online registration is now open. I’ll be presenting my workshops on Asian Greens and Succession Planting for Continuous Harvests. Lots of other great workshops too, including from Jean-Martin Fortier. Follow the link to get to my book review of The Market Gardener.

If you looking for a chatty online group of homesteaders, try Earthineer or, of course, the Mother Earth News blogs (I write for the Organic Gardening Blog)

Guess which was our hottest day this year: September 2? July 2? June 18? May 26? I recorded 97F, 98F, 98F and 90F. August didn’t get a look in! June 18 tied with July 2. And our wettest day was April 29, with 3″. Hurricane season didn’t bring us anything to blog about. I’m not complaining!