Celebrate “culture” in agriculture & share skills like growing, cooking, canning

Small Farmers

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You are not an urban homesteader (or suburban) Your farm is more than an acre and may be hundreds of acres. You grow sustainably. You might have livestock out on grass. You sell what you sow direct to your customers via CSA, farmers markets, etc..

Members: 28
Latest Activity: on Monday

Boulder belt Eco-Farm's Fall/Winter crops. Lots of leeks and carrots under the row cover in the fore ground. Further back are strawberries, kale, collards and other hearty greens.

HOMEGROWN 101: All Categories

Dealing with drought 3 Replies

How are you dealing with the drought?Do you irrigate? Mulch? Have a lot of organic matter? Or are you having a failure year and plowing it all under?Continue

Started by Lucy Goodman. Last reply by Rick Nichols Aug 29, 2012.

My Winter CSA 2 Replies

Today is the 1st pick up for my winter share members. I have been doing a winter CSA for the past 4 years in order to move all the crops we grow almost year round. This year is by far the biggest…Continue

Started by Lucy Goodman. Last reply by Lucy Goodman Dec 15, 2011.

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Comment by Lucy Goodman on September 5, 2012 at 8:58am: Got almost 2" of rain from Isaac. I believe it was April when we had close to this amount in a 48 hour period.

The winter garden is loving it!

Comment by Val Ohle on August 13, 2012 at 6:01pm: Just wanted to introduce myself. My husband and I are reclaiming a portion of an old farm parcel. We keep livestock (horses, chickens, geese and ducks) on the majority of it, and I am (slowly but surely) annually increasing the amount of growing space on what's left. We sell our eggs and our produce via a traditional farmer's market near our home and also online through our community's locallygrown dot net market. We're currently considering adding an e-commerce aspect to our website since both of those markets have shut down periods and I can't seem to convince our hens that the markets are closed! Our market crops are all produce. We also build and sell planters, chicken coops and other items from reclaimed materials and I do my fair share of "farm crafts" during the winter. I'm anxious to learn from those of you who are more experienced than we are!

Comment by Lucy Goodman on August 12, 2012 at 6:29am: Started selling to a local co-op this week. The added income and venue for getting rid of excess produce is nice.

I have been a member of this co-op for over a decade, though it just opened a store in the past year but I was able to deal with the former produce manager who is a very strange woman who basically kept lying to me as to what they wanted from us as far as how produce should be delivered, how we should charge them and she was very bad about telling me when they needed to be restocked, etc.. But now they have a new (and hopefully saner) produce manager who seems to be a good person with which to work.

I hope this becomes a long and beautiful relationship as this co-op is in the town where we were selling at a farmers market for almost 10 years and we are sorely missed by our customers and almost all of them shop this store so everyone should be happier that Boulder Belt Produce is in Oxford, OH once again.

Comment by Solomon Sweeting on July 24, 2012 at 11:47am: Had a bunch of rain here finally in the last couple days.

Comment by Aliza Ess on July 24, 2012 at 11:08am: Glad to hear you have water Lucy, I have been feeling for the southern farmers... we actually just had a few days of really heavy storms here in Maryland with lots and lots of rain, but in a few days the temp should be up to 106. I think our okra is going to go bonkers!

Comment by Lucy Goodman on July 23, 2012 at 3:39pm: how's everyone's season going?

We have drought here but because we have a decent well (knock wood) and drip irrigation we are able to keep our CSA members happy and our farm store filled with produce.

Peppers are beginning to come in and tomatoes are starting to ripen.

Comment by Lucy Goodman on November 4, 2011 at 7:32am: And now that i don't do Farmers Markets and probably will drop the lone wholesale account we have and stick with my farm store and growing CSA I have zero need for any piece of paper that says how i grow

Comment by Ray T. Goss II on November 4, 2011 at 6:58am: I can't say that I blame you...chuckle...smile... I am the same way... I deal direct with customers and restaurants myself... My real love is saving seed strains and I know that even though I don't have the "certification" I have good quality seeds grown without chemicals!...smile

Comment by Lucy Goodman on November 4, 2011 at 3:59am: Ray I did for about 5 minutes but decided I did not need a 3rd party certifier to tell my customers how I grow my food when I can do this myself because I sell direct to my customers.

Even though my farm is no longer certified Organic it is still known as an organic farm to everyone in the region even though we never use the term Organic in our marketing

Comment by Ray T. Goss II on November 3, 2011 at 5:34pm: Lucy... Have you ever thought about going with the Certified Naturally Grown certification?...