View previous posts What is Companion Planting? Biointensive farming expert, John Jeavons, defines companion planting as “the placing together of plants having complementary physical demands.” He broadens the definition even further, saying it is “the growing together of all those elements and beings that encourage life and growth: the creation of a microcosm that includes vegetables, fruits...
View previous posts “If you get the soil biology right, there’s absolutely no reason to rotate to a different crop. Our understanding of agriculture is flawed. As human beings, when we start paying attention to how nature manages things, we start changing our agriculture to work the way nature works. Nature has been managing to do this process for the last three and a half to four billion years...
View previous posts Crop rotation is the practice of changing the crop each year on the same piece of ground, in an effort to confuse pests, reduce weed pressure, and ensure the soil does not get depleted of certain nutrients. Eliot Coleman, considered to be one of the godfathers of market gardening, says that crop rotation “is the single most important process in a multi-cropping program” (The...
Having an efficient wash/pack station on your farm is one of the most critical pieces of infrastructure to have in place when you first design your farm. When the first harvest starts, you don’t want to be scrambling around piecing something together last minute. You need to be able to wash, package and cool your product. Otherwise, all your hard work to finally reach the point of the harvest...
Over the last 10 years or so, the use of black silage tarps on small farms has become more and more common. This growing popularity of using tarps can largely be attributed to Jean-Martin Fortier from his book, The Market Gardener. JM was, and is, a huge proponent of the benefits of tarping when it comes to weed management and no-till soil preparation for new plots. Occultation is the term for...
A 30” wide bed is the most common standardized width in the world of market gardening today. It’s an easy width to straddle for most body types, doesn’t hyperextend the back when reaching into the center of the bed from the pathway, and most tools and supplies are built to accommodate this size. If such is the case, it would seem that it would be counterintuitive for a grower to deviate...
Now that financial goals are set, crops selected, and seeds ordered, the next step is simple: follow through with the crop plan. After that, simply keep good records and analyze your crop profitability. Crop Planning Step 8: Carry Out the Crop Plan Do the work! Crop Planning Step 9: Keep Records As Allan Savory says in Holistic Management, the word “plan” is a 24-letter word:...
After the initial planning for financial targets comes the field planning—crop choice, planting schedules, crop maps, and, finally, filling out seed orders for each crop. Crop Planning Step 3: Make Field Planting Schedules Two things to consider in this step are when and how much to plant. When to plant. This is calculated by subtracting the days to maturity from your target...
In the previous post, we examined the first of Dan Brisebois’s 11 steps for crop planning: setting goals. Today we’ll look at the second: developing a marketing plan. Crop Planning Step 2: Develop a Marketing Plan Your marketing plan will be based on your salary, budget, projected expenses, and financial goals. Since you’ll be aiming to meet your financial goals, it only makes sense to plan how...
In the first post in this series with grower Dan Brisebois, we gave an overview of Ferme Tourne-Sol. Today we’ll examine the first of Dan’s 11 steps for effective crop planning. Before You Start Dan can’t stress this enough: before you even consider beginning your own farming operation and growing for a living, get some training. Find a good farm with a system that works and learn the...
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