Growing Tips

Ada in a field of Common Buckwheat The health and productivity of your home garden are tied directly to the quality of your soil composition, so it’s essential to replenish nutrients after a growing season. Cover cropping is an effective and environmentally friendly way to achieve this. Cover crops are plants that can increase soil health, nutritional content, aid...

Nicolas Donck of Crystal Organic Farm in Newborn, GA In recent times, chicory has become a popular addition to farmstands, restaurant menus, and home-made meals alike. Cultivated since the Roman era, this versatile vegetable has a rich history and features a diverse range of varieties. Embedded within its history are tales of community and family, with each type carrying...

Return to part 2 of our 2023 catalog series- the future: let's plan(t) it Nivek Anderson-Brown Leaf and Bean Farm in Lawrenceville, Virginia Nivek Anderson-Brown and her family realized in 2018 that they no longer wanted to live in the city. They purchased land in Lawrenceville, Virginia and a homestead was born. “We went all in, packed up everything, relocated...

There are few things that truly celebrate the summer sun more than a fresh harvested ear of sweet corn. This precious treat, along with the dent, milling and popcorns, is a true nod to what the summer heat and thunderstorms can bring. Corn is a warm-season tender annual that requires high soil fertility to produce uniform ears. Considered a cereal...

When it comes to growing crops, it is easy to look around at all of the living creatures in and around your growing space with suspicion and worry. While it's true, there are many organisms that become pests on farms and in the garden, there are multitudes of other beings that naturally occur in our bioregions that bring many benefits...

The abundant summer heat and sunshine is notorious for drying up soils and baking the life out of tender greens. While it might feel impossible to get your salads at the same time as your okra and tomatoes, growing greens in the summer is an option in almost every region. With a few management techniques, the right varieties and some...

Growing Lettuce in the Winter When we think of winter crops, we think of tough, leafy greens and durable roots that grow close to the ground and survive the low light and cold temperatures of winter, in part due to their robustness and strength. These crops are often delicious, sweetened with the frosts and hardy to the difficult growing conditions of the cool seasons. One crop that...

While we busily harvest the great bounty of fruiting crops, nutritious leaves, roots, flowers and herbs erupting from the garden in mid July, the sneaking thought that winter is coming plays like creepy horror film music in the back of my mind. We're all doing our best to can our tomatoes and make our cabbage into sauerkraut for use in...

There’s a new pest entering the scene and it is wreaking havoc on brassicas crops such as cabbage, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, broccoli and kale. It’s called the swede midge and it's larvae feed off of and destroy the growth point of plants.  As a new and invasive pest that currently has no organic approved pesticides that work to eradicate it, early detection and...

There's no labor of love on the farm quite as time consuming and stressful as attempting to raise a healthy tomato crop. After years of honing in on a system, we find what methods work best for our spaces and what varieties outperform others. This cumulative experience of growing tomatoes, season after season, serves as the wisdom that ultimately leads...