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...
For those of you who have worked with a BCS walk-behind tractor, you have learned that the heavier your implement is, the harder it is to turn the machine around at the end of a bed. The Power Harrow, for example, is an extremely heavy implement. In order to turn the tractor at the end of the bed, the operator will typically disengage the PTO for safety, lower the handles for leverage, and then...
In the market gardening world, permanent raised beds generally refer to beds that are raised 4-6” above the pathways, creating a mound. The mound is then leveled off to create a nice “tabletop” surface for planting crops, typically 30” wide. Pathways are often 18” wide. The 18” width is not only for the convenience of allowing a comfortable space for harvest totes and wheelbarrows, but it also...
When doing a task on the farm that can require long hours and repetitive motions, it’s essential to factor in the toll it will take on your body, and also how you can eliminate unnecessary steps or movements in your system. When designing my nursery space back at Winding Road Farms in Petaluma, California, I made it a personal goal to think of a more ergonomic and efficient system for filling...
When you are leasing land, or on a tighter budget, constructing an adequate nursery space can be a challenging prospect. While a beautiful high tunnel with cement floors, a drainage system, permanent plumbing, polycarbonate end walls, and automated heating and cooling systems would be IDEAL, it’s often not within reach–at least when starting out. When I was faced with this dilemma at the...
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