Growing For Market Podcast
Growing for Market is the farmer-to-farmer magazine for local food and flower growers, for 33 years and growing. GFM keeps you informed about the business of growing and selling vegetables, cut flowers, plants, herbs, and other food products. If you are market farming or gardening, you'll find valuable information that will help make your business more profitable and enjoyable, all written by farmers, for farmers. Please join us today! Link: https://growingformarket.com/pages/growing-for-market-podcast
10
Late-season superstars: heirloom chrysanthemums from propagation to sale with Kate Dagnal of Goose Creek Gardens in Pennsylvania
<p>Heirloom chrysanthemums fill an important role for local growers- as very late bloomers they can be one of the last flowers in the fall to keep cash flow going after others have succumbed to the cold. Our guest this week, Kate Dagnal of Goose Creek Gardens, grows thousands of bouquets every year for grocery stores, and heirloom chrysanthemums are the anchor flower she uses to finish out the season. In this interview we go deep on everything you need to know to grow great heirloom chrysanthemums, including propagation, growing, harvesting and postharvest.</p><p>We discuss why new varieties...
Perennial vegetables to plant once and harvest many times with Michalina Hunter of Cicada Seeds in British Columbia
<p>This week Michalina Hunter tells us how she got so interested in perennial vegetables that she started a seed company specializing in them, Cicada Seeds! In this interview with host April Parms Jones, we hear about the advantages of vegetables that you can plant once and harvest many times, including crops like skirret, spinach vine, perennial kale, perpetual leeks, perennial celery, sweet lettuce and more.</p><p>They also talk about how to propagate perennial crops, since some of them involve techniques like cold stratification or vegetative propagation to get them going. Lastly, they discuss how to prepare ground...
Breedng biodiverse Pacific Northwest-adapted seeds with Andrew Still of Adaptive Seeds in Oregon
<p>This week Andrew Still tells us how Adaptive Seeds started in 2009 as an outgrowth of the Seed Ambassadors Project to steward and keep rare and heritage vegetable and flower varieties alive. In the intervening 15+ years they have furthered their mission of preserving open pollinated varieties and breeding new ones that are adapted to the Pacific Northwest. Interviewer Andrew Mefferd had the pleasure of visiting the farm where they grow much of their seed a decade ago- now we get to catch up and hear about how this farm-based seed company has grown in the intervening decade.</p><p>We...
The fertilizer you make every day: fertilizing with urine with the Rich Earth Institute
<p>Farmers are used to the idea of fertilizing with manure, however one species’ output is usually not used: our own. This is despite the fact that effluent from water treatment is a large contributor to excess nitrogen in our waterways and the nutrient pollution that’s responsible for the “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico. If we could recapture those nutrients, not only could it give farmers a cheap, readily-available source of fertility, but it would reduce the amount of pollution going into our waterways.</p><p>Our three guests this week just finished a SARE grant project looking...
Breeding regionally adapted vegetables with Edmund Frost of Common Wealth Seed Growers in Virginia
<p>There are very few one-size-fits-all solutions in agriculture- most things depend on the weather, soil, pests, diseases and a host of other conditions for a particular farm. One of the most exciting trends in agriculture right now is the development of varieties that are suited to specific regional conditions. Common Wealth Seed Growers breeds open-pollinated vegetable varieties that are adapted to their region- in this case the southern USA.</p><p>This week’s guest Edmund Frost has managed seed production and research at Twin Oaks Seed Farm in Central Virginia since 2008. He also leads Common Wealth Seed Growers, a...
Healthy soil as a remedy for pest and disease problems with Jen Aron of Blue Raven Farm in Oregon
<p>Jen Aron is an agroecologist and owner of Blue Raven Farm in Corbett, Oregon. She also worked as a farm educator for seven years with Oregon State University Extension. About five years ago, Jen wrote four articles for Growing for Market Magazine talking about how she built her farm on raw land east of Portland, Oregon, focusing on creating a healthy soil ecosystem and dealing with a whole slew of pest and disease problems along the way.</p><p>The thread running through Jen’s work and her articles is both the wonder and the power of healthy soil to...
Urban flower farming on multiple plots with Elizabeth Lutz Kelly of Happy Dragon Flower Farm in Ohio
<p>When Elizabeth Lutz Kelly’s flower growing hobby turned into a business, it outgrew the space she had available in her yard in Akron, Ohio. Even though there wasn’t a lot of open space, she asked around her neighborhood and found places that could be growing crops that weren’t. Thus she was able to expand her business with one of the most viable strategies for growing a farm without having to buy more land.</p><p>In this interview we hear about Elizabeth’s strategies for growing a lot of flowers in a small area, what crops she grow...
Harvest Bucks- making farmers market SNAP dollars go twice as far with Emily Grassie of the Maine Federation of Farmers Markets
<p>This week we welcome Emily Grassie, the Director of Food Access Programs at the Maine Federation of Farmers Markets (MFFM) to talk about Harvest Bucks, an innovative program that helps SNAP recipients double their dollars when spent at farmers markets. MFFM works to fund and administer the program so when SNAP (formerly known as food stamps) shoppers use their benefits at participating farmers markets, CSA farms, farm stands, and food co-ops, they receive “bonus bucks” (usually in the form of a coupon) to redeem for fruits and vegetables.</p><p> </p><p>These “bonus bucks” add a percentage to the value...
How to price your flowers with Lennie Larkin of Flower Farming for Profit
<p>Flower pricing can be tricky with so many factors affecting value, between different crops, different markets and varying types of arrangements. You want to make sure you’re putting the price of your flowers high enough so you’re making a profit, but not so high that you price yourself out of the market. Listen to this week’s podcast with Lennie Larkin for pricing strategies to make sure you can keep your business going.</p><p>As a flower farmer herself and business coach for other flower farmers, Lennie put her experiences and business expertise into the book Flower...
Improving tunnel tomato production by picking the low-hanging fruit with Vern Grubinger from the University of Vermont
<p>As the Vegetable and Berry Specialist at the University of Vermont for 35 years, Vern has a lot of experience with helping growers improve their high tunnel tomato production. One of the best ways to find out what is working on actual farms is with a survey- in 2024 Vern and his team did a survey of 48 tunnel tomato growers (heated and unheated) that included growing practices and yields, in order to correlate the best practices to the best yields.</p><p>In this conversation, we talk about the conclusions we can draw from this survey, highlighting the best practices and...
