#this is also heirloom tomato from farmer market too

[mildmayfoxe]

avocado toast btw. if you even care

[tomorrowsgardennc]

Seed Sourcing Guide: An Opinion

i was listening in on a seed saving nerd zoom meeting last night when one of the best quotes ever said was said said: "the best seed 'store' is your own backyard." and the lady is totes right. downside is... you gotta source the seeds before you start saving them. with it being seed buying season, and a lady totally saying the best quote for any and all seed nerds to fuel my drive to finally sit down and write this, i have come up with:

tier list for seed sourcing websites NOT SPONSORED BTW

✨ top tier best tier ✨

ok so, i never really heard of true leaf until last year. but i have been sourcing almost all of my seeds from them since! they're not the same grow zone as me, but utah has some of the best soil in the nation so maybe that's why their seeds are the absolute best when it comes to germination. they also have a huge variety of seeds, all gorgeously designed in a quick-to-understand format (like their icons for heirloom versus hybrid, container friendly or not, etc.) their information is all legit and comprehensive as shit. my microgreen farmer friend gets all his microgreen seeds from here, too. couldn't recommend them enough!

if your looking for tomatoes specifically, then tomatofest is legit the best. they were recommended to me a few years ago by my farmer mama, and legit they are the best for any and all tomato types. if i ever need a new tomato variety, this is where i go no matter what. if they don't have it, then must not be worth growing. germination rate is always high, the plants come out great, and always fast with shipping.

i have not met a home gardener or farmer friend who doesn't have hoss in their seed library. their selection is small and their website is mid, but damn do they have the best germination rates out there along with the healthiest looking plants i ever did done see or grow. and tbh that's really what matters at the end of the day - not the germination rates, or shipping, or quantity, but rather how the vegetable or fruit plant thrives and produces. and hoss ticks off all those boxes beautifully.

😐 middle tier is mid 😐

eden brothers is mid tier only because i have attempted to germinate about 12 different seed types from them over the past 5 years and never have i ever gotten anything better than 10% germination rate. but their BULBS, their bulbs are absolutely amazing! if i need a flowering bulb to add to my cut flower garden, then this is where i source them from. never any issues with molded bulbs, and they grow true to what they say they will and how (so information is accurate). just... don't bother with the seed section.

i really truly and honestly and want to put renee's garden seeds in top tier... but i have tried over 20 different herb seeds from renee's and the herbs just never germinate. ever! the flowers, amazing. the vegetables, pretty good. selection, absolutely amazing. but the herbs, bro i don't know where they're sourcing their herbs from but it ain't happening. at least for me. maybe others more north would have better luck.

grow organic is great for supplies such as fertilizers and such, but not so much for seeds. i sourced my California softneck garlic from them and they were wonderful. i've had another farmer friend say she gets all her onion starts from them as well and her onions are phenomenal. but i've tried only 3 seed varieties from them with decent germination but didn't live long at all. if you're looking for tubers or vegetable bulbs, then totes. otherwise, be weary of the seeds even if the germination is great. (me thinks they save seeds regardless of how the plant lived, compared to saving seeds only from healthy plants.)

💀 worst tier don't bother 💀

johnny seeds used to be my go to for seeds when i was only focused on transplants. this was because they're the only one who sells in bulk, and honestly that's the only perk for them. you have to buy their seeds in bulk to get any decent germination out of them. but if you want 200 basil plants, then buying 500 basil seeds from them will be just fine. if you just want 2 basil plants, then don't even look at this website. they have one of the best seed starting soil mixes, but the shipping costs more than the soil. and they have some nice supplies. but this is a seed tier list, not a supplies tier list.

hopefully the fiasco with the purple galaxy tomato in January of 2024 has shed some light to how bad this company is, but if not then i'm including them on this list. they were pretty bad before that, but at least they live up to their name. i have sourced a few vegetables from them, but only because nobody else had them. which honestly should be a red flag. BUT c'est la vie, i bought seeds from them 3 years ago and haven't gone back. they're overpriced, germination rate is OK but considering the price tag their germination rate should be better and they're not. they try to pull themselves off as the "small guy" when they're clearly not.

https://www.burpee.com/

burpee seed company is legit the worst. they're so bad that a link to their website breaks tumblr and makes my tier list look ugly. they might lure you in with their gorgeous website, and with the huuuuge variety they have. but the website NEVER works, the varieties are almost 99% hybrids that don't grow or produce well, and the germination rate is abysmal. yes, they sell in all major and minor box stores but that's because capitalism, not because they're the best. stay. away.

🏅 honorable mention 🏅

so first off, let me say i have never bought from this website. but i have been gifted many seeds from them from several people. not sure if that's good or bad, hence the honorable mention category.

the seeds i've been gifted from 3 different farmers, and they're all winter varieties. and they've all done amazing!! i did buy some flower and herb seeds from the local hardware store, and the seeds were acceptable for germination rate. i do not blame that on the company, though, since that hardware store is so old school that they don't even have A/C inside. creaky wood floors, smells like old metal, that kind of hardware store. so not the best environment to store seeds in. but i will be buying some for this year to try out directly from their website, seeing as how if 2 year old seeds germinate pretty good and ones stored in horrible conditions are OK then fresh from the source MUST be great!

📝 let me know who i forgot and where you would rank them 📝 plz thnx luv u

maybe i'll do a tier list for even smaller seed companies, like my size seed companies?? whatchu think?? i've only tried a few so it would force me to try out some more!

[penig]

Look. I am on a low-sodium diet. A teaspoon or less per day. If I have too much sodium it affects my quality of life. I HAVE TO REDUCE THE SODIUM OR I CAN'T EAT THE FOOD. And there is far, far more sodium than necessary in every recipe. If I eat out for one meal, I pretty much have to assume that it's going to meet or exceed my quota and cut sodium completely out of any other meal I have that day. When I was bedridden this winter and couldn't cook for myself and had to live on what my husband could cook (he can't really and in any case was taking care of me 24 hours per day while holding down a fulltime job) I just had to reduce my food intake because highly-processed commercial foods were all that were available.

Therefore advice like this is completely infuriating to me. I already have to be a pain in the ass to anybody who feeds me and ask about the sodium content and bring my own self-prepared food because they make it clear they're not even going to try to accommodate me. I already have to deal with people dancing around saying things like "the vegetables were canned but I washed them off," making it quite clear that I am far more trouble than I'm worth. I don't need posts like this going around confirming the general impression that Too Much Salt is the True Road to Flavor.

But you know what? Everybody likes it when I feed them. I am a good cook and a good baker and everything I cook is low-sodium.

Some people need or enjoy more sodium than others, and they can add salt at the table. I do not have that luxury. But people not on high-sodium diets very seldom add salt to the things I prepare for them.

Because the things I prepare for them have complex flavors. The trick to tasty beans is not sodium but mustard + bay leaf + time. Dill and mustard in the cheese sauce. Fresh vegetables. Don't peel the potatoes before you boil them (texture, flavor, vitamins, yum!) Garlic on the roast. Saute in (unsalted) butter or olive oil, not water. Simmer the rice in vegetable stock, which I'm afraid you will have to make yourself because most commercial stocks are basically salty water. Heirloom tomatoes, when you can get them; otherwise homegrown, the reddest ones at the farmer's market, or if you must use the grocery store those ones that still have the vines attached when they ripen on the truck.

Yes. Yes, I do get very tired sometimes and sometimes it's too hot to chop vegetables and no I can't do all this stuff every day but you'd b surprised what you can do with plain rice and frozen ingredients if you know your way around a spice cupboard, too. Cooking with complex flavors isn't any harder than cooking bland crap once you get the pantry stocked properly. Tell me your food limitations and I will accommodate them in a way you will enjoy. Even if you've been a little bitch to me about mine in the past.

Baking is tricky because sodium affects rising, but a little experimenting and you can figure it out. Most baking recipes involve some combination of salt, baking soda, and baking powder. Of these, baking powder is the lowest sodium, and you can get lower-sodium baking powder. Most of the time, substituting soda for the salt and powder for the soda is sufficient for the rising. Three teaspoons of powder is plenty of sodium to make fluffy pancakes. Soda and baking powder raise banana bread beautifully if you don't overmix it. I do have a problem with yeast breads and it makes me sad. I also don't have the spoons to try it often enough to separate out yeast problems from sodium problems from kneading problems.

And the salt does not, in fact, improve the flavor of most sweet baked goods; it's just that you consume so much salt your tastebuds don't detect it anymore. Get the salt out of the way and the core flavors just bloom! In things like pie crust, which primarily consist of flour and fat and salt, and will be tasteless if reduced to flour and fat, you can easily substitute another seasoning for the salt and get good results. My rule of thumb is to use curry for savory pies like quiche and cinnamon for sweet ones like fruit pies, but of course you have to consider the filling's individual qualities and how best to complement them. How about a little extra sugar in a lemon meringue (not, obviously, if you're feeding a diabetic. But you're probably not feeding meringue to a diabetic, either. Not unless you've got a really good sugar substitute)? Or maybe lemon zest? Never tried that, fresh lemons not being an ingredient I keep on hand. I also recommend you use a more interesting fat than vegetable shortening. Anything shortening can do, butter can do tastier.

OP is just plain giving bad life advice here. Believe me, most people who are cutting sodium, or sugar, or onion, or milk, or gluten, or any other overused ingredient are not doing it faddishly, but because we need to. If you want or need to cut down an ingredient, you first need to understand what that ingredient does nutritionally and flavorfully, and then you can learn how to reduce it without reducing the nutritional or pleasure value of the food. You can even enhance them both. Slavishly following a recipe that uses large amounts of an ingredient you have a problem with is no wiser than just dropping the ingredient wholesale.

The important thing is to understand what you're doing.

Put salt in your baked goods. Put salt in your desserts. Just do it. Please. Salt isn't just for savory, it's literally a flavor enhancer so even a pinch can take a meh recipe to one people can't stop eating. Listen to me. Your cookies and cheesecake bars are bland and uninteresting. I'm taking your hand. I'm guiding you with a gentle touch to the back. We can do this together. Trust me.

[onlineshoppinguaedeals]

Tomato varieties: A guide to choosing the best tomatoes for your needs

Tomatoes are a staple ingredient in many recipes and a versatile fruit that can be enjoyed raw or cooked in a variety of dishes. However, with so many different tomato varieties available, it can be challenging to know which one is the best fit for your needs. In this guide, we'll explore some of the most popular tomato varieties and offer tips for choosing the perfect tomato for your recipe.

First, let's start with the most common tomato varieties: beefsteak, Roma, cherry, and grape tomatoes. Beefsteak tomatoes are large and juicy with a meaty texture and a sweet taste, making them perfect for sandwiches and burgers. Roma tomatoes are oblong-shaped with a firm texture, making them ideal for sauces, soups, and stews. Cherry and grape tomatoes are smaller and sweeter, making them perfect for snacking, salads, and roasting.

Another popular tomato variety is the heirloom tomato, which comes in a range of colors and sizes, each with a unique flavor. Heirloom tomatoes are open-pollinated, meaning they are not genetically modified and have been passed down from generation to generation. These tomatoes are often more flavorful than hybrid tomatoes, making them perfect for salads, sandwiches, and eating fresh.

If you're looking for a tomato with a little more heat, try a hot cherry tomato variety, such as the Cherry Bomb or Sweet Heat. These tomatoes pack a spicy punch and are perfect for adding a kick to salsas, sauces, and salads.

When choosing tomatoes, look for firm, smooth-skinned fruits with no bruises or cracks. Tomatoes should feel heavy for their size and have a bright, vibrant color. Avoid tomatoes that are too soft or have a mealy texture, as they are likely overripe.

If you're not sure where to find fresh tomatoes, consider shopping at a local farmers' market or grocery store that specializes in fresh produce. You can also order fresh vegetables online and have them delivered right to your doorstep, which is a convenient option for those who don't have time to visit a physical store. Many online fresh vegetable delivery services offer free delivery near me, making it easy to get fresh produce without leaving your home.

When storing tomatoes, keep them at room temperature, away from direct sunlight, and do not refrigerate them unless they are already cut. Tomatoes will continue to ripen after they are picked, so if you buy tomatoes that are not quite ripe, leave them out on the counter until they are ready to eat.

In conclusion, choosing the best tomato variety for your needs comes down to your personal taste and recipe requirements. Whether you prefer a meaty beefsteak tomato for your burgers or a sweet cherry tomato for your salads, there's a tomato out there that's perfect for you. Remember to look for fresh, high-quality tomatoes, and consider ordering fresh vegetables online for a convenient and hassle-free shopping experience. With these tips, you'll be well on your way to enjoying the perfect tomato every time.

[urban-homesteading]

How to Make Money from a Mini Farm

Chickens, Ducks, Quail

Eggs for Eating – You can sell your eggs to your friends, family, neighbors or farmer’s market. I wrote more about that here – Selling Eggs From Your Backyard Homestead. You’ll get the best price for free-range or pastured eggs.

Fertile Eggs – If you’re able to have a rooster on your property you may find a a business selling fertile eggs for others to set in their incubators. You’ll get more money for rare or popular breeds so do a little research on what people are looking for in your area.

Day Old Chicks or Ducklings –  Some homesteaders do not want to deal with incubation. They’d prefer to to buy young chicks for their brooder. You should also check with your local feed stores – they make be interested in carrying chicks, quail and ducklings; and on a regular basis.

Rabbits

Fiber Rabbits – I see more and more homesteaders spinning their own yarn. I believe fiber rabbits may become even more popular in the next few years. You can sell the rabbits or just their fibers (which does not require dispatching them). You’ll need a mentor to show you how to properly harvest the hair from your fiber rabbits for sale.  See Raising Fiber Rabbits.

Pet Rabbits – As a mom that was bent on only raising meat rabbits, I still got suckered into a little pet Lionhead. Pet rabbits are fun and many seek them as alternatives to cats and dogs in the house. Lionheads are particularly popular with kids because of their sweet temperaments and fluff.

Rabbit Droppings – Yep, you CAN sell rabbit poop. Gardeners love that rabbit droppings can be composted or put right into their gardens for as a fertilizer. You can sell it by the bag full – and if you have a rabbit you know how much just one can produce each day.

Worms & Compost

Meal Worms – I can tell you my chickens and quail have always loved receiving fresh and dried meal worms as a treat. And raising meal worms is fairly easy. You can have a market through direct sales to owners of poultry, pet birds and pet lizards; but you may also have pet stores who will buy your stock.

Red Wigglers – Great for vermicomposting and fishing, red wigglers are a popular worm that you can grow for your own use as well as for sale. See How to Get Started Raising Red Wigglers.

Compost – From worm castings to compost for planting; if you have extra to sell you will quickly have a market.

Herbs

Sell fresh herb plants or cuttings – If you have the space to grow herbal transplants in small pot this can be a viable business. Also cuttings for people to dry for their own use, is another option.

Sell dried herbs – Or sell your herbs already dried and packaged.

Make your own herbal teas for sale – Do you make tea blends? You can make some from your own herbs or ones you purchase.

Garden

Seeds – Do you save seeds? You may have a market for selling your own seeds, especially if they are organic and/or heirloom varieties.

Transplants – I always seem to have more pepper and tomato seedlings than I really need. If you do too, or you want to do it on purpose, you could offer seedlings up for sales. Some people just don’t want to wait on seeds when they are planning and planting their gardens.

Fruit and Vegetables – Check your local rules and regulations first; but selling your excess harvest can bring a good income in. If you have enough, you may want to consider a booth at your local farmer’s market.

From Your Kitchen

If you’re skilled in the kitchen and have the time to produce extras, you might be able to sell your goods. You’ll need to see what laws there are about selling foods and see if you can meet the standards of your state first.

Jams, Jellies and other Canned Goods

Artisan Cheeses

Fresh Baked Breads

Starters for sourdough, kombucha, keifer, etc.

Crafts

This could be an entire post on it’s own because handmade items are popular at locally, in farmer’s markets and even online. If you have a gift for crafts you might just have a budding business right at your fingertips!

Homespun Yarn – Knitters and crocheters appreciate homespun yarn for their special projects.

Candles – Make candles in cute containers for sale. Or offer candles made from special ingredients like your homegrown beeswax.

Soaps, Lotions, Salves and Balms – If you love to make these handmade personal items you could have a wonderful business! Consider using locally grown / sourced, organic or specialty items whenever possible.

Needlecrafts – Do you sew? You could make reusable pads or offer mending or tailoring services. Do you knit or crochet? Make afghans, scarves, sweaters, or even wash clothes for sale! Do you quilt? Make handmade quilts to order and you could make a nice profit.

Woodworking – If you’re willing to practice woodworking, there are many products you could make and offer for sale. For best profits consider using woods offered for free or inexpensive scraps.

[kelyon]

Is there anything you are doing right now (either in writing or in life) that you want to just swoon about for a moment? Anything at all. Maybe you made a super awesome cookie three days ago or have a new chapter of something coming. I wanna hear about it 'cause I appreciate everything you do. :) Thanks.

Thank you for asking, because it gives me a chance to brag about myself.

I was on vacation last week, which allowed me to unleash my favorite version of myself: FARMER'S MARKET KELYON! This is when the purchase of seasonal fruits and vegetables leads to the creation of foods I make basically once a year.

Over the course of three days I made: Fried green tomatoes; lasagna with heirloom tomatoes and fresh onions, garlic, and green peppers; rhubarb cream (which is basically just cooked rhubarb smothered in whipped cream, like a strawberry shortcake thing, but I never get around to making shortcake), and HOMEMADE BUTTER (out of leftover whipped cream).

These are the sorts of foods I use to hype up my cooking skills. I used three separate cookbooks! It was so great to have the time and energy to make these recipes. And they all taste really good too! It makes me feel like I'm actually appreciating summer instead of hiding from it.

I was also going to make bread to go with the butter, but the power going out meant I couldn't run the bread machine or the oven. Ah well.

[livingcorner]

12+ Ways to Make $1000 a Month from Your Garden (Year Round!)

They say when you do what you love, you’ll never work a day in your life.  Well, I love my garden and given a choice I’d be out there amongst my garden beds day and night.  There’s a big difference between gardening and farming though, and while I love my garden I’m not cut out for the life of a farmer. 

While bringing in a full-time gardening income is a bit tricky, making a side income from your garden is easier than you’d think.

You're reading: 12+ Ways to Make $1000 a Month from Your Garden (Year Round!)

Most people see gardening as a seasonal endeavor, that starts in the spring and ends in the fall, coming and going each year.  Up here in Vermont, our summer growing season is only a sad 100 days or so, and if I confined my efforts to those short months it wouldn’t make for much of a side hustle.  I think it’s important to find a way to earn a consistent side income, so I’m providing options for every month of the year (even in a cold climate like ours).

Beyond that, our land is mostly forested, which means the definition of “garden” is a bit loose.  We grow mushrooms in the shady spots and tap maple trees in season.  We also forage the wild bounty that nature’s garden has provided, meaning that we don’t have to limit our “gardening” to a small tilled section of the yard. 

Even if you’re lacking space in a small suburban lot, expanding outside of the traditional garden into local parks, or taking your garden indoors with salad sprouts, closet mushrooms, and seedling trays will allow you to make use of the space you have year-round.

Here are a few options to earn a substantial side income from your garden every season of the year, with ideas for both city and country folk. 

(Be sure to check local laws and restrictions before you start with anything, as those vary widely from place to place.)

Winter Garden Income

While you’d think winter would be the slow season for backyard garden income, believe it or not, it’s actually the best time for making money from your garden.  You’re generally less busy with planting and weeding, but everyone is stuck inside dreaming of the garden bounty to come.  

Indoor Salad Gardening

January is when everyone’s making new years resolutions to live healthier and eat more salads, but it’s a pretty rough time for gardening in most places.  If right around the end of the year you plan ahead with an indoor salad gardening setup, you’ll be in the perfect position to market microgreens and sprouts when they’re in high demand.

Local farms around here sell winter micro greens CSA’s and unlike summer shares where they net less than a dollar on a head of lettuce, winter greens command high prices.  A small bag of specialty microgreens runs $12 to 15 each.  And I really mean a small bag, maybe 3 cups of at most.

The trick is to grow high-quality, specialty greens that get people excited when the grocery store options are minimal.  The book Year Round Indoor Salad Gardening is a great resource to get started, and covers all you’d need to know to grow your own greens.  At that point, the problem is scaling up and marketing.  

Start a Small Backyard Seed Company

You may think you need to be some kind of multi-national to sell seeds, but in reality, customers are looking toward sustainably grown seed for specialty heirloom varieties these days.  It doesn’t get much more sustainable than a backyard garden, and buying seed locally ensures that you’ll get varieties perfectly suited to a particular growing region.

Choosing the right crops is key to generating a good income selling seeds.  Tomato seed, for example, is very easy to save and a single tomato often has enough seed to supply a dozen seed packets.  The flowers are self-contained, and it actually takes work for plant breeders to hybridize a variety, which means they’ll come true to variety even with many different types grown in the same garden. 

Most importantly, people get really excited about tomatoes.  Ever wonder why 1/3 of any seed catalog seems to be tomato seed?  With all that love for tomatoes, customers are liable to drop $5 for a locally grown packet of seeds for a really great variety.

While tomatoes are really easy, there are many varieties that aren’t much harder.  You need to know a bit about seed saving, not only harvesting and cleaning the seed, but about how pollination and selection works by variety.  Some varieties require a minimum population size to avoid inbreeding in the long term, and all that’s important to know before you get started. 

Seed to Seed is generally recognized as the most encyclopedic book on seed saving, covering just about every variety you can imagine.  It has great breadth to get you started, but not a whole lot of depth.

The Seed Garden is hands down my favorite seed saving book.  It’s well written and covers varieties in great depth.  It’s authored by The Seed Savers Exchange which does great work in the field of preserving heirloom varieties.

The Complete Guide to Seed Saving has a lot of stellar reviews, and it’s the next one I’m going to add to my gardening library.

Even in a small town environment here in Rural Vermont, there are about a dozen local seed companies.  High Mowing Seed started out really small just down the road from us, and now they’re a big national brand.  Milkweed Medicinals sells specialty seed that’s hard to find, and they now sell in all the local coops. 

Find your niche and there’s a great income to be made with homegrown seed.

Selling Cuttings

Even easier than saving seed, selling cuttings is an easy way to make a healthy income from your established plants in the winter months.  There are a number of varieties, like grapes for example, that need to be cut back or pruned in the winter.  Those cuttings are perfect for starting new plants and many gardeners are willing to pay good money for tiny pieces of your established crops.

I just bought 30 elderberry cuttings from Norms Farms at $4 each to propagate at home.  Elderberries grow readily from cuttings, and it’s an economical way for me to get a huge bed of them started.  Elderberry plants from a nursery cost about $30 each, so I’m happy with the transaction and the seller just made $120 off a tiny box of trimmings.

There are a number of plants that grow well from hardwood cuttings, some like black currants, are as simple as snipping off a tip and sticking it into the ground.  Others require a bit more attention and prep work to the cuttings, but they’re still beginner level.

Scion wood, or cuttings from apple trees to be grafted onto rootstock, is similarly lucrative.  All you need is a couple of established apple trees of known varieties and you can harvest cuttings for sale. 

Usually, each cutting is only a few inches long, so shipping them isn’t a big issue.  There’s a marketplace on the seed savers exchange website, and a scion wood cutting sells for about $4 each.

Start by learning a thing or two about plant propagation, first so that you can establish your own cutting beds, and then so you can educate customers on how easy it is to grow plants from cuttings.  Try reading Practical Woody Plant Propagation for Nursery Growers to get you started.

Read more: Why Does My Garden Hose Keep Bursting? | GardenAxis.com

A handful of elderberry cuttings that sell for $4 each.

Growing Mushrooms Indoors

Learning to grow mushrooms is a bit different than most standard garden crops, so this one will take some studying for even seasoned gardeners.  Still, there’s the potential to grow large crops from a small indoor space year-round.

The book Organic Mushroom Farming and Mycoremediation describes in detail how to set up a back closet, extra nook or spare bathroom to grow mushrooms with minimal time investment (2 hours a week). 

He has a great breakdown of costs, inputs, and yields…but in summary, you can make about $100 per week from a small setup that takes up a 4’x4′ footprint.  The system scales easily, with minimal extra time investment, meaning you only need slightly more space to increase that to a grand per month.

The best part, they can grow in recycled 5-gallon buckets picked up from restaurants, and they consume waste products like spent coffee grounds, that you can often pick up for free.

If you have access to outdoor space and hardwood logs, growing shiitake mushrooms is also a great place to start for beginners, but outdoors, harvests would be in the warmer months rather than winter.

I don’t know about you, but when I had an office job my co-workers would have loved to buy fresh mushrooms to take home for a fancy Friday night meal.

  Spring Garden Income

Spring is when everyone’s mind is dead set on their own gardens, and it’s a great time to capitalize on the surge in interest in all things green.

Selling Dandelions (and other wild weeds)

While countless suburbanites are spraying their lawns trying to eradicate the dandelions, more savvy gardeners are realizing that one person’s weed is another’s delicacy.  Dandelions are edible root to shoot, and better yet, they’re also highly medicinal. 

Dandelion root tincture sells for about $12 per ounce, and it only takes a root or two per ounce.  The spring greens are highly sought after by local food coops, where they sell for $4-5 per bundle.  Not bad for a pile of weeds.

Beyond dandelions, there’s all manner of early spring green “weeds” that can command high prices if you know how to identify, harvest and process them.  Chickweed is incredibly invasive, but also delicious, and chickweed tincture has plenty of medicinal uses too.  

There’s nothing like making a bit of side income from weeding your garden early in the spring.  You’ve got to do it anyway, might as well make it pay.

Dandelion roots harvested for homemade tincture.

Growing Spring Ephemerals

An ephemeral is a crop that has a very short season, and it may only be around for a few weeks before the plants go dormant (or unharvestable) for a full year.  Ramps, or wild leeks, are a slow-growing ephemeral that’s only around for a few weeks in the spring, but during that time they’re in high demand by both home cooks and fancy chefs.  Knowing where to find a good wild patch is hard, but they’re actually remarkably easy to naturalize in your own backyard.

Growing ramps from seeds just requires the right conditions.  Moist soil, under the shade of deciduous trees.  The more leaf cover the better. 

You’re not growing anything else in that much shade, so growing your own ramps is a great way to earn top dollar from an otherwise unproductive patch of land.  This is a long-term venture though, as leeks are slow-growing, and they’ll require about 5-7 years before your first harvest, but after that, a well-tended and sustainably harvested patch can last indefinitely.

Fiddleheads are another crop that’s generally wild foraged, but it’s remarkably easy to cultivate.  They can actually be pretty invasive, and I spent a long time weeding them out of my garden so I could grow anything else.  I just dug them up and tossed them into a heap, and they kept on growing and spreading from there as if nothing happened. 

Fiddleheads can be really productive, and they sell for about $20 a pound here in Vermont where they’re common.  You might get even better prices somewhere they’re more scarce.

Since they’re productive, fern heads can be pickled to extend their season, so you can market the bumper crop a bit longer.

My daughter holding a harvest of fiddleheads and ramps.

Selling Spring Seedlings

Selling spring veggie seedlings is an obvious choice.  Tomato seeds cost about a tenth of a cent each, but a healthy started plant can easily sell for $5.  Sure, there’s the cost for potting soil and pots, but the profit margin is still huge on seedling sales. 

The trick is, you’re investing your time and energy into starting plants off right, so others don’t have to.  This is one of the most lucrative ways to make money from your garden if you invest in the right equipment and can master the process. 

A greenhouse, even a small backyard model, is essential for producing seedlings early enough in the season.  As for resources to get you started, The New Seed Starter’s Handbook covers everything in detail, including troubleshooting guides if your plants aren’t performing.

Beyond the income from selling seedlings, you’ll also save a boatload by starting your own seeds instead of purchasing starts.  That’s one of those penny saved is a penny earned propositions, and any seedlings you don’t sell can just go right into your own garden.

Take a look at the local market this spring, and see if there are any gaps.  Do all the tomato seedlings sell out quickly, or is the market flooded?  If there’s plenty of other vendors, consider growing something niche like medicinal herbs.

Start a Backyard Nursery

Similar to growing out your own veggie seedlings, starting your own backyard nursery extends the income beyond the busy spring season.  If you’re growing perennials, you don’t have to worry about any unsold plants at the end of the year.  Just tuck them in for the winter and try to sell them next year.

Propagating plants from cuttings is remarkably easy, and all it takes is a bit of time and patience.  Those elderberry cuttings that sold for $4 each (above) as trimmings will sell for $25 to $30 as full-sized potted bushes in a few years.  Just the patience, time and space required to grow out the plants pays back in dividends later. 

This is actually a big part of our retirement plan, and we’re putting in perennials throughout our land to serve as cutting sources later when we open our nursery.  In the meantime, they’re beautiful, and most are edibles like elderberries, so we’re harvesting the fruit for our table while we patiently bide our time to retirement.

Backyard plant nurseries don’t require that much space, as potted plants can be stored fairly close together.

Summer Garden Income

Summer is peak growing season and it’s a great time to earn income from what you’re growing at home.  The big farms and CSA operations have the lettuce market cornered, but backyard gardeners can break into the market by offering really novel crops.  Start by focusing on high-dollar items and unique crops that get people’s attention.

High Dollar Specialty Crops

You’re never going to compete with the 100 acre organic CSA down the road on most generic crops, but those big operations cant grow everything.  They can grow a lot of the staples most families use every day, but backyard gardeners can grow small amounts of truly specialty crops that demand high prices.  Here are a few good options:

Husk Cherries – Also known as ground cherries, these plants produce huge crops of sweet pineapple/strawberry flavored fruit.  They grow on plants similar to tomatoes, and each bright orange fruit is wrapped in a papery husk.  Just one taste and you’ll want more. 

Before we were growing our own, I’d buy them for $5 a pint…now I know that each plant can produce more than a gallon of fruit even with neglect.  If you hand out samples, these will sell themselves.  It also helps if you give people creative ways to use them.

Cucamelons – Also known as mouse melons, these tiny little grape-sized cucumbers taste like a cross between a cucumber and lime.  They’re really wonderful fresh out of hand, and they make great pickles or mixed drinks.  The cuteness factor means that these sell for about $5 per half-pint.

Berry Pick Your Own

To complement our backyard nursery retirement plans, we’re also planning a pick your own operation.  This requires more space than most of the other ideas on this list, but after the initial setup, labor is pretty minimal. 

A while back I calculated the rate of return on a raspberry pick your own, and you’d need about 250-row feet to produce $1000 worth of raspberries.  For us on 30 acres, that’s a drop in the bucket, but that may be more space than you can devote to any one crop.

Strawberries are similar, in that a plant generally yields about a pound of fruit in a season, and requires 1-row foot.  At $4 per pound, you’d need the same amount of row feet as raspberries.  The benefit there is, strawberry rows are much more closely spaced so this may be more practical for some.

  Read more: 37 Garden Border Ideas To Dress Up Your Landscape Edging

Garden Tours, Tea Times & Classes

Though it’s not my cup of tea, garden tours and country tea times are a good option for flower gardeners.  A local nurseryman around here makes a good side income hosting tea time in his home garden, and runs an annual tour of his extensive plantings, along with specialty days for big blooms (like daffodils).  Our gardens are more down-to-earth and “homestead” than they are attractive, but many people’s are just the opposite.

All it takes is a few tables, a decent scone recipe, and a few good teapots, and you’re ready to run a weekly afternoon tea time in the garden.  Add in tours and maybe a few gardening classes and you’ve got yourself a ready source of income from your own beautiful backyard.

Medicinal Herbs

With the increasing demand for more alternative remedies, there’s never been a better time to grow medicine in your backyard.  Locally grown herbs are still hard to find in most areas, but plenty of people are looking for them.

Many medicinal herbs are perennials, which means you plant them once and you can harvest them for years.  And the same compounds that make the plants medicinal also make them resistant to deer and insects, which means less maintenance than garden veggies.  For the most part, they’re perennial, persistent and more importantly…profitable.

There’s a high demand for medicinal tinctures since they’re ready to use, and our local coop has half an aisle dedicated to them.  Tinctures sell for $8 to $12 an ounce, but they only cost about $1 to $2 an ounce, even if you’re buying in the herbs rather than growing them. 

Add in another $1 for the tincture bottle, and you’re still making a pretty sizable profit per bottle.  Choosing crops that are common and in high demand, like echinacea tincture can help you break into the market.

As you’re just getting started, I’d recommend Backyard Medicine as a way to dip your toe into harvesting and making your own herbal remedies, especially from wild crops.  If you’re considering growing herbs for profit I’d highly recommend The Organic Medicinal Herb Farmer: The Ultimate Guide to Producing High-Quality Herbs on a Market Scale.  It’s written by farmers that grow just a few towns over from us, and they’ve inspired a lot of people to take up growing medicine for the market.

The Herbal Academy of New England also has a course designed specifically for herbal entrepreneurs.  The course walks you through the basics of creating your own brand identity, marketing, sourcing herbal ingredients, manufacturing herbal remedies and creating a business plan around herbs and herbal remedies.

Fall Garden Income

The end of the garden season, fall is generally when the crops come in.  In my mind though, it’s one of the more challenging times to make income as a small producer. 

There are a lot of products on the market,  and it’s hard to stand out.  With the holidays right around the corner though, marketing yourself as a niche producer of really unique homegrown gifts can work to your advantage.

Honey & Bee Products

Gardeners need bees and bees need gardeners!  Raising honey bees is a great way to support pollinator communities, but with all the challenges that face hives these days, it’s best to be educated before you start.  There’s a really great book called Natural Beekeeping: Organic Approaches to Modern Apiculture that covers just about everything you need to know to keep your bees healthy naturally.

In a good year, with our short Vermont growing seasons, bees can produce as much as 100lbs of honey for harvest.  The current bulk price at our coop, meaning bring your own container nothing fancy…is $7 per pound.  Pre-packaged just in mason jars, honey goes for $10-12 per pound, and considerably more in specialty gift packaging.

Add in things like bee pollen or propolis for medicinal use, or comb honey, and you have yet more high-dollar items to market.

Honey, especially locally sustainably raised honey is in high demand just about everywhere.  People are realizing that bees are important to our environment, and many will be happy to pay for local honey just knowing that it means supporting someone who is stewarding such an important resource in their neighborhood.

Apples, Cider and Cider Press Rentals

My doctor has a small apple share side hustle that she runs with her sister, selling harvest shares to neighbors in her spare time.  They have a few full-sized apple trees, and each one produces around 100 to 120 pounds of apples per year.  These days, conventionally grown supermarket apples are about $3 per pound…and locally grown apples fetch a premium above that.

She sells shares ahead of time and then divides the harvest as each tree comes to bear.  Distributing them to shareholders every week or two as each variety ripens over the season.

We have other neighbors who sell fresh cider that they press from their trees, at $12 per gallon.  Last year we pressed nearly 80 gallons from our trees, most of which went into hard cider and homemade cider syrup (like maple syrup), but we easily could have sold it instead.  Instead of selling our cider, we have a different strategy for earning our income during apple season. 

We invested in an efficient double-barrel cider press, with the thought that we can rent it out to other small apple producers.  People with one or two trees in their backyard love the novelty of pressing their own cider, and around these parts a press rents for about $50 for the afternoon.  Over the course of the season that can really add up…

Year-Round Garden Income

Beyond different things you can do seasonally to earn a few thousand a couple of months a year, there are things you can do year-round to earn a steady income related to your garden.  

Garden Blogging

I know, making income from blogging seems too good to be true, but writing about diy, gardening, and self-sufficiency is now my full-time job. Within 6 months of starting this blog, I started making an extra $1000 a month.  After 9 months of writing, I was able to quit my day job, and now at 18 months in I bring in more each month than any job I’ve ever had.

The best part?  All I do is write about what we’re already doing here in our daily lives, and I spend my days playing in the garden and out foraging in the woods with my kids.

I was inspired to take the leap into blogging when I read the book Make Money Blogging at Any Level by my blogger friend, Victoria at A Modern Homestead.  She outlines in detail how to earn a substantial income, even from a very small blog.  

She was able to retire her husband and supports her family exclusively with her blog.  If you’re considering blogging as a source of income it’s worth the investment.  It’s $27 for the book, and I made that back in my first week with my blog following her tips.

She also has a much more comprehensive blogging e-course that takes you through everything you need to know to launch your own profitable blog.  It’s a bit more of an investment, but it’s the perfect way for a beginner to learn everything they need to know to launch their blog fast and start earning money.

Garden Micro-Influencer

Making money on Instagram is all the rage these days, and you’d be surprised how many companies are willing to send you free products just for a promise that you’ll post at least 1 picture of it to Instagram with honest feedback.  Once you have even a small following, companies will pay you for your time reviewing it (and you still get to keep it for free…)

Looking for a little inspiration?  You can always follow along on my Instagram for ideas…

Hopefully, this helps inspire you to turn your gardening passion into a meaningful side hustle.  If you have any other ideas, let me know in the comments below.

More Income Inspiration

How to Make a Full-Time Income Off-Grid

8 Ways to Make an Extra $1000 a Month on a Small Homestead

Making Money with Small Scale Maple Sugaring

Related

Source: https://livingcorner.com.au Category: Garden

source https://livingcorner.com.au/12-ways-to-make-1000-a-month-from-your-garden-year-round/

[galacticidiots]

Friends to lovers AU

one 

Every Saturday, the city of Coruscant hosts a Farmer’s Market that is very popular with locals and out-of-towners alike. It offers a wide variety of fresh produce and handcrafted products, from organic, freshly baked bread to artisanal soaps and gourmet chocolates.

Rey has been selling her flowers there for coming on two years and she loves the market not just for the amount of business it brings her, but also for the people and the camaraderie. Mrs Kenata, for example, has been her stall neighbor since Rey’s very first market day. That’s why it takes her by surprise, when on the first Saturday of May, she gets to her stall to set up shop for the day and instead of Mrs Kenata’s homade bath & beauty products, she sees rows and rows of neatly stacked fruits and vegetables, artfully arranged and beautifully displayed. She frowns when her eyes land on the sign above the stall. 

Who the fuck is Skywalker Family Farm?

She gets her answer not a minute later, when an older man wearing a t-shirt that says ‘Friend a Farmer - Eat Locally’ comes by carrying a crate of bright, plump strawberries. He smiles at her. 

“Hi there! I’m Luke Skywalker. Are you our neighbor?”

She nods. “Hi, yes, I’m Rey. Here for all your floral needs,” she points to her bouquets of lillies.

“Oh, those are my sister’s favorite. Here, let me introduce you to my nephew.” He turns, calling out to somebody on the other side of the divider. “Ben!” 

Ben is 6-foot-too-tall, dark-haired and broad-chested, clad in an impresssive amount of flannel. Rey’s mouth goes dry because she sure would like a taste of those heirloom tomatoes. 

That’s what he’s carrying when he walks up to Rey and his uncle. Obviously.

two

She takes to calling him Hot Farmer Ben in her head, because he’s a farmer and he’s hot and his name is Ben. Sometimes simplicity is best.

He’s actually very nice and always volunteers to help Rey carry the heavier crates of blossoms back to her car at the end of the day. When the crowds disperse, Rey usually goes over to his stall and they hang out and laugh about the yoga moms who always ask if the cucumbers are locally grown and pesticide-free or gossip about the other vendors - it’s a tight-knit community and everything has the potential for scandal. 

At the end of each day, Ben gives her a basket full of a wide variety of fruits and vegetables. At first, Rey is reluctant to accept, but he insists, saying that it’s all surplus, and it would go bad anyway.

“Besides, you need to try the rhubarb,” he says on their very first Saturday as stall neighbors. “I’ve been told it’s pretty life-changing.” 

Rey can’t tell if that’s supposed to be a joke, because his face gives nothing away and his tone is always deadpan, so she snorts and thanks him for the freebies. 

When she gets home, she makes rhubarb pie. And fuck if it isn’t life-changing. 

three

There’s a sign next to the apricots. Don’t press the fruit. It doesn’t bite, but the farmer will. Rey laughs when she sees it, wondering if it’s an empty threat or a promise, and whether she can get Hot Farmer Ben to make good on it. 

It’s the first Saturday of July and Rey has had to endure exactly eight days of Ben walking past her in a tank top and low-hanging jeans. She lets out a long-suffering sigh.

Oh, to be a stack of hay, being carried around on his shoulder.

four

Rey makes it her mission to pester Ben with the worst fruit and veg puns Google has to offer; partly because she loves a good pun and it’s fun, but mostly because she enjoys getting a reaction from him.  Every time one of her awful jokes manages to elicit a snort, a huff - or better yet, an unimpressed ‘really, Rey?’ - from him, Rey does a mental high-five. 

“Hey Ben, what did the baby corn ask the mama corn?” - a pause for effect - “Where’s popcorn?” 

And 

“Did you hear about the two flowers who went on a date?” - a sigh from Ben - “It’s a budding romance!”

He looks over at her and Rey swears he’s trying not to laugh.

“Really, Rey?”

It’s their thing. 

four

She never expect him to reciprocate, though.

“Hey Rey, why are flowers so good at kissing?”

She blinks.

“Because they have tulips.” 

It surprises a laugh out of her and if it’s louder than the - admittedly awful - joke merits, Rey blames it on the fact that Hot Farmer Ben just winked at her. 

five

On the first saturday of November, the last of the season, just as Rey is done cutting the stems of her hyacinths and wondering whether she can sneak a few into her new arrangement, Ben comes up to her booth and presents her with an artfully arranged bouquet of vegetables, tied together with a bow made of burlap. 

“I thought it would be a little redundant to give flowers to the florist, so…” He lets it hang, and his blush spreads all the way to the tips of his ears. 

Rey giggles, and Ben’s smile, when it comes, is sheepish and boyish and so endearing, she wants nothing more than to jump into his arms and kiss him silly.

So she does. 

(It’s blooming brilliant.)

[fazlerabbiiubat]

                          Health Benefits of Cherry Tomatoes

Delightfully sweet, cherry tomatoes deliver a burst of flavor as a snack, in salads, or in a surprising variety of both savory and sweet dishes. Although typically used as a vegetable, they are officially a type of fruit because they come from flowers.

The cherry tomato was first cultivated in South America and eventually found its way into European and Israeli gardens. They were finally commercialized by British grocery chain Marks & Spencer during the 20th century. The store's owner sought a new take on commercialized tomatoes to entice customers.

Now popular as both a snack or primary meal ingredient, cherry tomatoes are one of the most well-loved types of produce you can find in grocery stores today.

Health Benefits

Cherry tomatoes are chock full of vitamins and minerals that promote excellent health. They are packed with vitamin C, which plays a major part in many body functions. The nutrient levels in cherry tomatoes can vary based on when you harvest them, but they can still be an important part of a healthy diet any time of the year.

Other health benefits of cherry tomatoes include:

Stroke Prevention

Like other types of tomatoes, cherry tomatoes are a wonderful source of lycopene. This compound can help with issues like inflammation and blood clotting. These benefits may minimize your risk of ischemic strokes, which occur when blood clots form and prevent blood flow to the brain.

Prostate Cancer Prevention

Several compounds in cherry tomatoes are associated with a lower risk of multiple diseases, including many types of cancer. Research suggests that a higher intake of tomatoes and tomato products may reduce your risk of prostate cancer in particular.

Bone Health

The lycopene in cherry tomatoes may support bone health, especially in women at risk of osteoporosis. A study found that women who consumed tomato products saw lower rates of bone density loss compared to those who consumed less lycopene.

Nutrition

Cherry tomatoes are rich in lycopene, which is great at fighting free radicals that cause disease. Lycopene can also limit UV damage to your skin from sun exposure and promote better heart health.

Cherry tomatoes are also an excellent source of:

Vitamin A

Vitamin C

Vitamin E

Potassium

Nutrients per Serving

A one-cup serving of cherry tomatoes contains:

Calories: 25

Protein: 1 gram

Fat: 0 grams

Carbohydrates: 6 grams

Fiber: 2 grams

Sugar: 4 grams

Things to Watch Out For

Eating too many cherry tomatoes can give you acid reflux and other negative digestive side effects. This may be due to the malic acid in cherry tomatoes.

How to Prepare Cherry Tomatoes

You can find cherry tomatoes year-round in grocery stores, co-ops, farmer's markets, and several other locations. They are also notoriously easy to grow in backyard gardens — or even as potted plants. Expose them to plenty of sun and water, and you'll be rewarded with a healthy treat you can enjoy right off the plant.

Most recipes that use cherry tomatoes call for raw ones, but they can also be steamed, sauteed, or roasted. Cooking them can reduce the amount of vitamin C they contain, but it may actually boost the other antioxidants your body can absorb.

Try some of these ways to add cherry tomatoes in your diet:

Enjoy cherry tomatoes as a snack with hummus or spinach dip.

Include them with carrot sticks, celery, and slices of bell pepper on a veggie tray.

Add sliced cherry tomatoes to a stir fry.

Toss them with parmesan cheese and olive oil in a pesto-flavored pasta.

Combine cherry tomatoes with chopped red onion, jalapeño, and lime juice to create pico de gallo.

Fold them into an omelet with your favorite types of cheese.

Add them with lemon juice and Feta cheese to a couscous salad.

Use heirloom cherry tomatoes in a tasty fruit salad.

[sparrowpraxis]

Solarpunk stuff for really broke people

Hey! I’m excited about sustainability, but I’m really poor! So here are some tips if you are also poor. 

Some starter tips

There are some things you can take that, while not stealing, people won’t expect you to take. This includes seed collecting from untended gardens, portions of plants that grow in the wild, and soil from parks. This kind of stuff can cut down on expenses.

Seeds can be sold in expensive stores, but can also be taken from produce you buy. Stuff like garlic, onions, green onions, tomatoes, and potatoes are all really easy to reproduce by themselves. Care enough to want organic, heirloom, ect? Go to a farmers market, take the seeds.

Some places also do seed libraries or seed swaps. Keep an eye out for these, especially if you live in or near a big town. Dollar tree also sells seeds in the spring.

A lot of this might involve bending rules. Be sneaky and be careful.

Plants

Ideally, land to plant on in a garden is how food is produced. However if you’re like me you live in a cramped, overpriced studio on the second floor or something.

Yeah containers work. But you need soil for that, and you can’t grab all of it from potting soil bags ripped open at your local garden store. Maybe if you’re patient. But I’m not.

Hydroponic setups work better. One like this requires a plastic bottle, some kind of mesh, and fertilizer. 

Fertilizer is, in a lot of places, seen as a bright blue powder sold in gardening stores. You could buy that. I wouldn’t personally. You could steal it from a chain store. But more likely, you could make your own. This article talks about fertilizer from food and food waste. And you can learn about nutritional needs of plants here.

This method could grow herbs, leafy greens, and some vine plants like pole beans, with support. this is not recommended for root plants like potatoes, for a lot of reasons.

Of course if you have access to dirt (not necessarily potting soil) you’re in a better place. Do a few tests, like drainage and composition. PH shouldn’t be a huge deal if you’re digging it up, just find dirt that shit is already growing in. Find a container that can hold a lot of dirt, poke a few good sized holes for water drainage, and plant that shit!

If you manage to bring some of your shit past usable to seed, congrats! Maybe learning about seed collection would help you spread the love to your other friends.

Oh and since there are no bees in your apartment (I hope) you’re gonna need to hand pollinate fruiting plants.

Recycling and reusing

Perhaps the most efficient way of doing this is having friends who also reuse things. You’re not gonna be able to save every candy wrapper most days, and I’m in no position to give up simple luxuries like candy. If you got the money, finding local producers who use compostable/recyclable materials for your little luxuries is nice though. But some of us ain’t got that kinda money. And that’s ok.

As I said before, bottles can be used to make hydroponic gardens. Maybe if you want you can help your friends set up some gardens if you got one too many two liters from Little Caesars.

Plastic bags can be turned into plarn (plastic yarn) and used to knit or crochet. If you feel so inclined you can learn to make cool shit, like reusable shopping bags or something. You could also make a bunch of plarn and outsource this to your friend who likes to knit in exchange for something you wanna do, or are good at.

Egg cartons can be used as seed starters. If you use the cardboard kind, they’ll dissolve into the soil if you break em down a little before planting them.

Aluminum foil can be used to keep algae out of your hydroponic garden, or as an alternative to steel wool. 

There’s a lot that I could say, but reuse stuff is popular right now. Ideally, it should be reused into something that has a good use. And remember, sharing your talents and outsourcing things you can’t do is good and pure.

Green Power

This is gonna be a little more expensive. If you got a little money laying around, this could help reduce your power bill or something. But this isn’t gonna be free or next to free.

Phone chargers are an easy one to power. They charge up and don’t vary in their power needs.

This tutorial is, quite frankly, brilliant, and takes away a lot of the barriers to making solar powered stuff (like soldering). They tear apart a garden light to do this. That light could be used for some plants or something.

Wind and hydro are kinda unrealistic for an apartment, but it’s something people do.

Local resources

Food banks, community gardens, borrowing land, pooling resources. Buy an empty plot with your friends and start a community garden. 

[tomorrowsgardennc]

garden update // june 11th, 2024

havn't been in the garden too much this week, been mostly cleaning inside. been working outside so much this winter and spring that my to do list for inside got too big, and now that i work on my to do list inside my outside to do list begins to grow. c'est la vie.

for example i need to transplant these picklebush cucumbers into pots. i sold out completely at the farmers market with this variety so i germinated a batch just for me. shh don't tell anyone. i also learned too late that cherry bomb tomatoes are actually a hybrid... the seeds i saved from last year germinated well, but i sold every transplant i had because that was also popular. so i am germinating some more just for me to grow and hope they're ok... still 100% germination rate, though. we'll see how they produce.

my other tomatoes are doing wonderfully. the leaves on my orange hat microdwarf tomatoes are being eaten, but still thriving and producing. these are the most expensive seeds i buy, so i hope i get a decent amount of seeds saved this year. also got moonbeam and the green doctor cherries climbing like they got some place to be. i always grow yellow pear, but another farmer at the market said moonbeam is better. so i'm trying it out this year and will compare side-by-side.

ok so another secret... i don't really eat tomatillos. but MAN do i LOVE growing them!! they're so much easier than tomatoes, and the pollinators are always swarming them. i'm totes saving seeds this year since i confirmed i have an heirloom variety this year... but i either need to find a recipe for them or have a pound or two of seeds.... and that's a lot considering the seeds are half the size of a tomato seed!! my snaps are almost done seeding... altho worried they'll be like violas and pop out before i can catch the seeds. i might harvest them soon and let them dry out inside.

one variety of sunflower i wasn't so sure about is this "sunfill purple". i had cut 2 as accents in my flower arrangements this past market weekend and people noticed even though they weren't the star of the show - and they loved them! the petals aren't good lookers, but totes gonna save seeds anyway to grow more for cut flowers next year. they're big but now showy, so perfect for arrangements imo.

i know i already did a post about the giant lily but just look at these monsters!! only 4ish feet tall but bigger than my hand, and i have large hands!! cannot wait to buy more next year. no market this weekend for me - not worth when the high is going to be 95° - so these lilies will be all for me to enjoy this year.

[farzanatrading]

Tips to Purchase Seasonal Fruits and Veggies

We all seek ease, particularly when it comes to food and health. Many individuals assume that buying in-season fruits and vegetables is too difficult, similar to the fallacy that healthy eating is expensive. Going to your local farmer's market can be the first step toward eating seasonally. But if you're not sure why you should sacrifice your Saturday morning in pursuit of fresh, seasonal fruits and vegetables, keep reading.

Taste and aroma

Finely selected produce that has been allowed to fully ripen in the sun tastes incredible - crisp, fragrant, juicy, and colorful. All other tomatoes pale in comparison to those summer heirlooms. You can eat it raw, warm from the sun, and right off the vine, much like an apple.

Health Nutrition

The sun and soil provide nourishment for plants. Seasonal produce is gathered when it is ripe and fully matured. Because the plant has had greater light exposure, it will contain higher quantities of vitamins.

Commerce

It's just supply and demand. Prices come down when there is an abundance of a commodity, such as watermelons in the summer. Seasonal food is far less expensive to produce for farmers who would rather sell their products at a loss than not at all. Profit from the seasonal abundance.

Cooking food

Dining regularly also encourages you to cook more, which is excellent for your health. When you begin to reclaim control over what you put into your body (the oils you choose to cook with, how much sugar and salt you add to your food, and so on), you will deliberately make even more healthy choices. Cooking is also an enjoyable pastime to do with your children, family, and friends.

Farzana was founded on our passion and desire for fresh and safe products, as the name suggests. It was created by a group of like-minded people who wanted to deliver fresh fruits, Online Vegetables in Sharjah to your family members and friends. Service quality is of the utmost importance to us, and it is at the heart of our operations. Farzana's business is contingent on the happiness and contentment of our consumers.

[kelyon]

LOL! I have tried sending you an anon message three times, and every time, tumblr keeps telling me not to include links in my message, and I'm like there is no ^*^% link! Anway, your RG here, and let me tell you I just read the latest chapter of GC and Wow, I was on the edge of my seat the entire time! I really wish you could watch reaction videos of your readers, so you can experience every emotion on our face while we are reading. Quick question. What is your favorite fruit? Vegetable? Flower?

Hello RG! I'm sorry Tumblr was being its... very Tumblry self.

People's reactions to my fic are why I live and die by comments and TMI Tuesdays. (It's also really fun to watch my beta read chapters live.) I'm glad you like what's going on in Golden Rings.

There really is no such thing as a quick question when you're asking my opinion on things. But I'll try.

Favorite Flower: This feels like the most basic-ass answer in the world, but I really like roses. They're classic, they can be romantic or non-romantic, they come in a bunch of different colors. My favorites are actually rose bushes growing kind of wild in front of dilapidated houses. Those ones are always a deep burgundy red. Also, roses are the flower associated with June, my birth month, so that's a connection there.

Favorite Fruit: My default answer is raspberries, but since we're talking about a farmer's market, the answer is whatever is in season. I'm not usually a strawberry person, but when strawberries are so ripe they're ruby red all the way through--there's nothing better. Same with apples, peaches, cherries, grapes, plums, blueberries. They're all good normally, but they're all better when they were still on the vine five hours ago. The only exception is melons, especially cantaloupe and honeydew. Not that I think they'd be bad from a farmer's market, but I hate them so much normally I've never tried.

Favorite Vegetable: Oh boy. So, when I go to the farmer's market, the easiest way to hook me in is to show me something I can't find at a grocery store. I'm a sucker for purple vegetables--green beans, kohlrabi, potatoes. Have you ever seen a purple bell pepper? Amazing. I'm also a fan of heirloom varieties of bell peppers and tomatoes. There are some that are this gorgeous chocolate brown or burgundy, and the taste is always great too. Like strawberries, I can take of leave tomatoes most of the time, but when they're in season, there is nothing better. I'm an unashamed lover of beets and I like to cook beet greens with pasta and sausage. Big fan of spring onions and new potatoes. What I love about farmer's markets is the endless newness of the vegetables. I love finding something different, and taking a chance on a food I've never seen before.

Happy writing!

[livingcorner]

How to start a market garden | Hello Homestead

Zachary Zeigler, owner of Zeigler’s market garden. | Photo by Sarah Visnick

Whether you are an aspiring full-time farmer or a homesteader looking to earn extra money, starting a market garden is a great way to begin selling your own produce for profit. Luckily, the steps involved in how to start a market garden are fairly simple and easy to follow for small scale growers.

No matter where you are starting from, here are the basic steps to starting your own market garden.

You're reading: How to start a market garden | Hello Homestead

Step 1: Do your research

The New Organic Grower, Third Edition, by Eliot Coleman. | Photo courtesy of Chelsea Green Publishing

If you think a market garden might be right for you, experienced market gardeners suggest you consult the patron saints of market gardening and their respective Bibles: Jean-Martin Fortier, author of “The Market Gardener,” and Eliot Coleman, author of “The New Organic Grower” and owner of Four Season Farm in Harborside, Maine. 

Since Coleman started his market garden in Maine in the late 1960s, he said market gardening — and the resources available — have grown.

“It’s amazingly popular,” Coleman chuckled. “There are a number of new young hotshots who have online programs you can purchase and subscribe to that will sort of lead you by the hand through a lot of the information you need to know.”

If you do not have professional farming experience, Zachary Zeigler, owner of Zeigler’s Market Garden in Norfolk, Massachusetts. also suggested working on another farm before you decide if you want your own.

“Before you jump into it, work on other farms,” he said. “A lot of people thought they wanted to farm and when you get down to it it’s actually not that fun. Before you decide to buy that broadfork, you got to test it out.”

Zeigler’s Market Garden in Norfolk, Massachusetts. | Photo by Zachary Zeigler

Step 2: Start small (and don’t quit your day job)

No matter what your goals are for your market garden, experienced market farmers all agree that newcomers should start small. Maintain a prudent and frugal attitude throughout all the early steps of starting a market garden.

“I am a big advocate of slow and steady,” Zeigler said. “The best way is to manage funds well at the beginning. Start small” 

In the same vein, make sure you have an additional source of income at the start of your market gardening journey. 

“The first thing I tell people is don’t quit your day job,” Coleman laughed.

You can transition to more full-time farming as you gain experience and expand your customer base, but experienced market gardeners agree that having a part-time or full-time work in addition to your fledgling market garden is helpful in the early days.

Read more: Definition of GARDEN

Step 3: Buy or lease land

To start a market garden, the first thing you need is land, or access to land.

“You need to have some land, although there are some people that successfully borrow land in order to do it,” Coleman said.

Land can be a limiting factor in the long term, but at the outset, experts agree it is best to start small. Lease an acre of land or start producing on the land you have available before expanding production.

Zeigler’s Market Garden in Norfolk, Massachusetts. | Photo by Zachary Zeigler

Step 4: Gather your tools

Even if you are excited about your new venture, Zeigler said to start market gardening conservatively to avoid financial pitfalls.

“You see a lot of times folks will go all-in — buy newest walk-behind tractor, newest feeder, newest everything — and they spend all their capital,” Zeigler said. “You could have one rough weather year and the market could be canceled for two weeks and you’re out of money.”

Most market gardens can be managed with simple, inexpensive tools. 

Eliot Coleman, the co-owner of Four Season Farm, talks about winter farming on Tuesday at the farm in Brooksville. | Photo by Gabor Degre

“I first started in 1965 in New Hampshire and basically we were in the 19th century,” Coleman laughed. “There were no new tools. Nobody ever thought that that size and scale of vegetable production would continue once the big boys in California made everyone think that was the only way to do it.”

Coleman said that he still uses his old rototiller, but there are new methods available that require even less labor.

“A lot is being achieved either by spreading a sheet of clear plastic over large areas of soil to solarize the soil and kill weeds, or spreading a tarp over the soil [in a process called occultation],” Coleman said. “I often ponder if I knew about either of those techniques, I might not have even bothered getting the rototiller.”

In terms of tools, Coleman said the main challenge the Maine market gardeners face is winter.

“When we started in the late-60s and early-70s it was a little disappointing,” Coleman admitted. “Every September, we would turn this business we worked so hard to develop back over to the Californians for the next six to seven months because winter happened.” 

“We kept experimenting around to see how much further in the fall we could go and how much earlier in the spring we could start,” Coleman said.

Now that there are tried and true practices for season extension, Coleman recommended that Mainers and other market gardeners in cold climates take advantage of them and continue experimenting on their own to find out what works best for them.

“Expanding our season from just our traditional New England warm months and doing it by pioneering ideas of growing in unheated greenhouses, by sticking to the crops like spinach and scallions that are very cold hardy, that’s one of the best steps we’ve made,” Coleman said. “I recommend that.”

Wolff said you can save money on gardening supplies by building your own infrastructure, like greenhouses and other season extenders.

“You don’t really have to sink that much money into a market garden,” said Adrienne Wolff, co-owner of Buckwheat’s Market Garden in Central Lake, Michigan. “You can home-make tools We’ve found that YouTube is one of our best friends as far as that.”

Heirloom tomatoes at a market garden stand. | Photo by Zachary Zeigler

Step 5: Find a market

Finding a market to sell your crops is also an essential step to starting a market garden.

“Check around to see what your market is going to be,” Coleman said. “If you’re on a road and there are four other farm stands on your road, a farm stand is probably not going to be your best choice for marketing. You want to check and see what stores you might want to sell to.”

Read more: The Secret to Growing the Most Flavorful Eggplants

Coleman said there are a few surprising sources for markets, including local supermarkets. 

“Not many of the local growers think of even selling there because they think, ‘Oh, supermarket — this is something that’s far too big,’” Coleman explained. “A lot of them are very committed to buying local food if they can find it.”

The market — and the most profitable crops to grow — will also depend on your location.

“Know where you’re living,” Coleman said. “Try to plan your cropping program to fit in with the reality of where you can sell it and who you can sell it to. If you’re way up in Northern Maine say you don’t want to specialize in arugula and mesclun because nobody up there is familiar with them. You want to specialize in Swiss chard, scallions and carrots.”

Step 6: Determine what you want to grow and sell

In the first few seasons, find out what you really enjoy growing.

“I think that when people start, they want to plant a million different things because they’re so excited,” Wolff said. “If you want to make something for profit, it’s good to first experiment and see what you enjoy growing.”

Those first few seasons of experimenting will help you determine what crops are best for you to grow to make money. 

“We cut out some things that aren’t efficient for us, like peas and string beans,” Zeigler said. “The amount of labor it takes to harvest those doesn’t always balance out. We also don’t grow much corn. It takes up a lot of space in the garden and they can grow it a lot cheaper at bigger farms. We whittled down to what was selling most at the market, and threw fun things in, like tomatillos and husk cherries

Choosing what you enjoy growing will also help you brand your market garden’s specialties, which is essential to finding the most profitable markets where you are going to sell your produce. 

“Figure out what kind of market garden you want to be,” Wolff said. “If you do want to sell for profit, I would grow things that you are proud to sell and plant things that can be planted or seeded close together so you’re using your space to its fullest potential.”

Photo by Skitterphoto from Pexels

Step 7: Manage your expectations, but don’t get discouraged

No matter where you are, managing expectations is essential if you want to start a market garden. Zeigler said not compare yourself to others in the early days.

“The other thing we try to do is not compare ourselves to other farms or market gardens especially in the age of social media,” Zeigler said. “We find that if you just work hard and try not to overextend yourself you can actually make a pretty decent little profit off a market garden.”

Coleman said it may take a while to turn a profit on a market garden. Finding the work satisfying, he said, is the most important way to stay motivated in the early days.

“You don’t want to jump into it thinking it’s going to make you a fortune because it won’t,” Coleman said. “It’s hard work, but it’s satisfying work. I’ve never done anything I’ve found more satisfying than trying to grow the best possible most nutritious food for people.”

Source: https://livingcorner.com.au Category: Garden

source https://livingcorner.com.au/how-to-start-a-market-garden-hello-homestead/

[msuniquepearl]

Time for tomato seedlings

How to Grow a Tomato Garden

D still deliver.

If you don't have space in the ground, but you do have a hanging planter or a bushel basket and a sunny spot somewhere indoors or outside, prepare to grow your own tomatoes! container pointers sun. Container tomatoes, like those in the garden, need at least six to eight hours of sunshine a day to produce a worthwhile harvest. If you grow them indoors, put them where they'll get maximum sunshine, moving the container from window to window if you must.

The garden occupies more than 1/2 acre on the east side of salt lake city, at 600 e 800 s. It includes an artesian well that waters our garden plots, as well as a beautiful straw bale greenhouse and a hoop house. It is also the site of our annual tomato sandwich party! corn, tomatoes, pumpkins, pears, apples, peaches, strawberries, raspberries and a wide variety of herbs are regulars in this garden. With so much space, we are able to grow a wide variety of fruits and vegetables.

I’ve read somewhere that tomatoes are the most popular vegetable grown by home gardeners in america. I don’t know if that’s really true, but i do think of it as one of the most popular vegetables in east texas. I’ve been asked recently about some problems with our local garden tomatoes. Recent rains and our typical humidity are starting to cause problems on tomatoes for area gardeners.

Published on: april 21, 2019 by t. Eric nightingale, uc master gardener of napa county spring is finally here and that means that tomato season is around the corner. Don't get too excited, though. Even though seedlings will be showing up in nurseries, it's best to wait to plant them. Tomatoes need warm air and soil, as well as a lot of sunlight, to grow strong and healthy. Planting too early can leave them spindly and weak.

I love tomatoes. I know almost nothing about gardening. I want to know if it would be possible to grow a tomato plant that continuously grows tomatoes. For instance, if i had a climate controlled green room with a hydroponic set up, and a professional gardener overseeing it, would it even be possible?.

Tomato season is upon us and after choosing the right tomatoes to grow, they need to be planted! for this project, we chose a brandywine heirloom tomato to plant into a container, but the steps also work for planting tomatoes into a garden bed.

Tips for Growing Epic Tomatoes at Home

Growing tomatoes in pots levels the home garden playing field, bringing a crop of homegrown ‘maters within reach for almost anyone, regardless of real estate. That’s because you can grow tomatoes in pots just about anywhere you have a sunny spot, whether it’s on a deck, driveway, balcony, rooftop, fire escape, or somewhere else. Just follow these 10 tips.

9. Plant them in pots.

Blights are caused by fungus, and a number of them can plague tomatoes. This disease often presents with yellow or brown spots on the leaves of plants, or a dark spot on the fruit. One type, known as southern blight, often presents as white, moldy patches on tomatoes. Learn more about preventing southern blight here.

Choosing the Types of Tomatoes You Will Grow

There are literally hundreds of tomato varieties to choose from. However, good gardeners select varieties that perform well in the area where they live. The agcenter regularly con­ducts spring tomato trials. All varieties in the trials were rep­licated at least three times with 10 to 15 plants per replication. The varieties were also randomly planted in the field using drip irrigation and plastic mulch. Tomatoes come in two types: indeterminate tomatoes have apical meristems that terminate in a vegetative bud, allowing them to grow very tall. Determinate tomatoes are short, bushy types. Their apical meristems termi­nate in a flower bud.

When you’re deciding which type of (synthetic) fertilizer to buy, look for a few key nutrients. These include nitrogen, potassium and phosphorous (although you’ll want to stay away from a high-nitrogen fertilizer, as it can create tall, green plants with little-to-no fruit). Nitrogen encourages leaf growth. Potassium helps the plant grow rapidly; phosphorous is essential for the growth and development of roots as well as flowering. Growing tomato plants successfully entails knowing what types of nutrients tomatoes need from fertilizer.

We’re committed to helping you grow the best tomatoes ever! we start by choosing the best varieties, using only organic fertilizer, shipping at just the right time for your area, guaranteeing every tomato plant arrives alive and thriving, and provide experts to answer any question you may have throughout the growing season.

Where to Grow Tomatoes

Grow the best heirloom tomatoes for your region fried green tomatoes recipe canning tomatoes: putting up the harvest how to can spaghetti sauce homemade ketchup why you should grow paste.

Make sure this fits by entering your model number. There is a farmer in all of us - use our patented tomato rock kit to grow your own tomatoes with less hassle. Grow your own delicious and nutritious non gmo tomatoes to add to your favorite foods. This kit includes 2 tomato rocket disc.

While some people grow determinate tomatoes so that they don’t have to worry about a trellis, anyone who wants to grow an indeterminate variety is going to need one. Whether short or tall, big or small, i’ve got a list of different options which will help ensure your tomatoes have the support that they need to give you huge quantities of fresh produce!.

Heirloom tomatoes produce the juiciest, most flavorful fruits you'll grow, and our varieties are the best of the best. We grow our plants organically and guarantee you’ll be satisfied upon delivery.

David freed spent most of his adult life in the restaurant business, but when he sold the 8th street grill, his university park coffee shop, in 2007, he discovered there were plenty of other things to do with his time. Such as unlocking the secrets to growing tons of tasty tomatoes.

There are so many amazing fruits and vegetables to eat in the summer months that it’s hard to single out just one. Blenheim apricots — check. Suncrest peaches — check. Greengage plums — check. And then there are tomatoes. There’s almost nothing you can grow in your garden if you have some sun that will give you more bang for your buck than tomatoes. They are easy to grow from seed, but if you want to skip that step, head to the uc marin master gardeners’ tomato market and information exchange at 9 a. M. April 27 at pini hardware in novato and bon air shopping center in greenbrae.

It's finally gardening season again. Or at least it's time to start some seedlings indoors. Garden expert charlie nardozzi shows us how. Sharon meyer: charlie, we're back gardening again. Look there are green things. Charlie nardozzi: yay. Green things. Tomatoes. It is tomato seed starting time. It is because we have about six weeks or so before we can put them in the ground. So if you are just starting a couple of tomatoes, you can just do it really easily with some pots. You can get a plastic pot like this one, or one of those cow pots that are biodegradable so you can just pop them in the ground.

Even though the snow and ice has only recently melted away, it’s time to get serious about tomatoes. Growing prize-worthy tomatoes is a bit of a right of passage for most gardeners. In fact, tomatoes are typically the first the go-to-fruit for beginning gardeners. They’re easy, right? in some parts of the country, that may be the case. In dallas? not so much. North texas doesn’t exactly offer up the easiest of growing conditions.

Well, it’s tomato planting time here at the crossroads, and we thought we’d pass along a few of our tips about planting tomatoes. Leo and i are not experts by any means, but we have been gardening for a few years now and we have learned a few things along the way. Growing great tomatoes doesn’t just happen, and we’re glad to share what has worked for us.

To have the best chance at successfully planting and growing tomatoes , place tomato transplants in the garden after the last average frost date in your area. Although seeds can be directly sown in the garden and plants can be grown to maturity in warm areas, most successful tomato gardeners buy transplants or start seeds indoors six to eight weeks before their average last frost date. Plant small bush tomato varieties 24 inches apart and larger varieties, especially sprawling indeterminate plants, 36-48 inches apart in rows 36 inches apart.

To reduce chances of damaging the roots, add your tomato support at this stage before the plant grows too large. If you are growing determinate tomatoes, the metal conical cages that you find in most garden centers will suffice. But, i am generally not a fan of them for indeterminate tomatoes, as i find they’re too flimsy to support the long, sprawling vines.

[gallery0022]

Cleveland Locavore

Wednesday, December 9, 2020 - Update 

Cleveland Locavore Domain Name, free to a good home...

www.ClevelandLocavore.com

Monday, February 17, 2014

Urban Organics / SweetPeet

Hello All,

I found this lively thread that Maurice started in November, 2010.

I have fond memories of meaningful conversations with all of you about sustainability and local food from local farmers.

Since November, 2010 I made several changes in my life, as I am sure many of us have. Annette and I sold Morgan Farm Stay, my relationship with Urban Organics was paused.

Although both were tremendous success stories on many levels, the good fight is often made more challenging by a different form of sustainability, economic sustainability. It was Robert Kennedy Jr. who made it clear to me, at an annual EcoWatch event, environmental and economic sustainability MUST go hand in hand.

My whole life has been about selling a service, photography. Of course I have certainly had my challenges continuing to keep this profession "sustainable" due to the changes in the industry. If you don't believe me just ask Karl Skalak, or George Remmington.

The past three years I have focussed on getting my Photography house in order.

Just last week, Mark Bishop, the founder of Urban Organics, contacted me to see if I could help him again with his social networking and PR needs.

Well I have to say, I can't help myself, I am happy to be back, I never really left of course...

I am proud of what I have done for Urban Organics, writing and designing the web site...

http://www.urbanorganicsohio.com/

Urban Organics hopes to sell more of its flagship product, Sweet Peet, in bulk and bags. There are many newcomers to the organic mulch market, but nothing beats Sweet Peet! Sweet Peet is a great way to charge up any community garden, school garden, corporate garden, rooftop garden etc...

I am hoping to write a few stories based on testimonials from happy customers, which there are many. If anyone can help me with media contact information, at Cleveland Magazine, Edible Cleveland, or similar local media contacts, I would appreciate it.

Also please put me on your E-Blast lists, I want to know what you are up to!

All The Best,

Dan Morgan

rex@straightshooter.com

http://clevelandlocavore.com/

10:54 am est

Sunday, May 26, 2013

Cleveland Plain Dealer Article Published...

Dan Morgan on Vermicomposting

5:09 pm edt

Friday, May 10, 2013

Vermicomposting Story For The Plain Dealer

Hi Judy,   (Judy Stringer -PD's rental section of the Sunday paper)

Vermicomposting is a great way to create a soil amendment that is 10 times better for the garden than traditional back yard composting without red wiggler worms. A backyard compost pile that has to be turned regularly, while a vermicomposting bin, a "worm farm" does not. The worms do all the hard work.

Why best for renters?

Clean, compact, self contained and what is the best advantage for renters, LOW MAINTENANCE. The bin can be left undisturbed for weeks at a time, or can be "fed" every day. General maintenance can vary widely if you just follow a few simple rules, very important rules.

The right worms are the key! Red wigglers or the formal name Eisenia Fetida, are a very specific type of worm needed. The worms are expensive, and widely available for sale on the internet. The best way to start a worm farm, is look for a local sustainable gardening blog community,   https://www.facebook.com/localfoodcleveland   is a good one on Facebook.  Ask around, and you will find someone who wants to share their worms, and you will suddenly have someone to help you get started as well. Vermicomposters LOVE to share ideas and even recipes.

The simplest way to make your worm farm is to find 2 identical plastic bins. drill holes in the bottom of one of them, the one that will go inside the other. The holes are for drainage when the soil gets too moist. Proper drainage and soil moisture is CRITICAL for the whole process to work without becoming a horrible experience. The other most important factor to make a renter's worm farm a clean success, DO NOT PUT FRUIT SCRAPS in the bin. Most vermicomposting web sites will encourage all organic material including fruit and veggies but believe me, not a good idea!

Recap:

Two things that will ruin the experience,

1) Soil that is kept too moist,resulting in a stinky bin!  These anaerobic conditions can also kill the worms (by drowning)

2) Fruit will attract / breed fruit flies, something nobody wants in their apartment (especially a landlord)

The finished product, after separating the worms from it, can be added to indoor plants or outdoor gardens. The best thing to too with the final product is to make a "teabag" from an old t shirt and bunch the t-shirt around a garden hose to make compost tea, right into a watering can. This tea can be sprinkled right on top of gardens, acting as both a fertilizer and insecticide, NATURALLY. There is no reason to use synthetic fertilizers or insecticides in any garden, or lawn for that matter.

Got unsightly weeds in your garden? PULL THEM.

My wife Annette and I are apartment renters in Lakewood (the Carlyle) and we have an Adopt A Spot garden at the entrance to Lakewood Park, part of Keep Lakewood Beautiful's Adopt A Spot program, with over 40 volunteer maintained gardens on publicly owned property around Lakewood.

http://www.onelakewood.com/Boards_Commissions/KeepLakewoodBeautiful.aspx

Let me know anything else you need.

Dan

10:41 am edt

Saturday, August 11, 2012

Morgan Farm Stay Sale...???

Hello Friends, and Family,

Here is an update of our day to day efforts to sell our farm to some, while continuing to make it a "once in a lifetime" vacation experience for others.

Since early May we have had some great guests this season. Sophie Brun came to the United States from France a few years ago. She and her family settled into a posh northern suburb of Detroit, Royal Oak. Spotting our vacation rental property listing on HomeAway.com, she was reminded of the farm stays she visited in Europe.

Sophie and her family had a great Easter dinner at our farm, feasting on Buckeye Chicken eggs, Berkshire grass fed ham, and cookies baked in a wood burning stove across the street by Edna, our Amish neighbor.

In late May we had guests staying at the farm who made reservations over a year ago. They have a daughter who is graduated from Oberlin College and wanted a very special family get together at this important time.

The rest of the summer has been mostly filled in with various guests, as usual. July, which always fully books, had grandparents coming from Germany to meet a new grandchild at the farm.

On a regular basis we have had a varied crew of family, friends and neighbors working together to clean up the gardens and plant some new flowers, veggies and herbs. The grass, well it kept on growing, and growing, and growing.

We have several educational components in place form the past few years. The Blue Orchard Mason Bee Box has almost half it's holes housing eggs ready to burst out and begin the process joining an army of beneficial mason bees, pollinating nearby flower, veggie and herb gardens. Amy Roskilly, with the Cuyahoga Soil and Water Conservation District, hooked us up last year with a rain garden kit, containing several types of beautiful plants that thrive in a wet spot while filtering storm water runoff before reaching the stream nearby.

Our composting, both vermicomposting and traditional "back yard" composting operations are thriving and our rain barrels are very useful in areas our garden hose does not reach, particularly our companion garden, way out away from the main house. This year the companion garden will contain a few new plants. Comfrey is a great new addition, if I can manage to keep it from taking over the entire garden. Also this year I am cutting back on the heirloom tomatoes and adding some nice herbs.

In May we had a great deal of interest from a few interested buyers, one young man from California wants to take over the entire business, turnkey, keeping our furnishings, decor, web site and photos to promote. The only problem is, he is having some trouble getting financing. Sure the rates are great right now but banks are hesitant to lend. At the end of June we took our first nice vacation since moving back to Ohio in 2005. We of course worried about the Farm Stay rentals we had booked, but friends and family again came to our rescue.

On our second day in Europe, in Montpellier France, we got word from our realtor Teresa. She had an interested buyer making an offer. We spent a few hours on the iPad countering and the sale price was agreed on. After several anxious weeks awaiting financing approval for our buyers, it looks like the end of an era.

We have a closing date scheduled for this upcoming week. Our fingers are still crossed, because ya never know...

This has indeed been a great journey for Annette and I.

Au revoir for now, Thanks for all of your help and support over the past 7 years!

Dan and Annette Morgan

Dan Morgan

Straight Shooter

646-621-6434

www.AboutDanMorgan.com

10:22 pm edt

Thursday, May 10, 2012

Here is an update of our day to day efforts to sell our farm to some, while continuing to make it a "once in a lifetime" vacation experience for others.

We have had a great deal of interest from a few interested buyers, one young man from California wants to take over the entire business, turnkey, keeping our furnishings, decor, web site and photos to promote. The only problem is, he is having some trouble getting financing. Sure the rates are great right now but banks are hesitant to lend.

And so we keep on going, and going and going, while the grass keeps growing and growing and growing! This has indeed been a great journey for Annette and I. This summer we have made arrangements to visit the south France region and Spain, a nice little rest from all the political rhetoric and bickering here in the states.

Au revoir for now!

Dan and Annette Morgan

8:07 am edt

Thursday, April 26, 2012

2012 Season at Morgan Farm Stay

Check out our revamped web page with more about the farm, area attractions and recent stories "In The News"

Click Here, www.MorganFarmStay.com

3:11 pm edt

Sunday, February 27, 2011

 Thank You Chris Hodgson -Dim and Den Sum for your support  Now booking 2011spring summer fall season!

Our Farm Stay...

www.MorganFarmStay.com

Find Your Perfect Farm Vacation at www.FarmStayUS.com

11:05 pm est

Saturday, November 20, 2010

New Logo

Been a long time since I posted here. Now that the holidays and winter are coming I have decided to get back on my Cleveland Locavore horse. Check out the logo.

I am designing a great reusable bag that will help get this brand rolling. Cleveland local food advicates in many product and service areas are welcome to participate in this unique program. Come and have a seat at the table!

7:40 am est

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Local Farm Superstars

E4S held a great event Last Night

Click Here

Eight NEO Farmers told thier stories, pretty great. Common thread...Hard work that NEEDS to be supported by more and more of us at summer and winter farmers markets and CSAs

2010.03.01

Hello, I have found myself increasingly interested by how our food is produced since 2005. Annette, my wife, and I retuned to Ohio from NY and bought a farm in Ashland County. It did not take long to notice the backwards attitudes of most of today's farmers, urban planners, educators and politicians. During the Nixon administration, Earl Butz, Ray Crock and others had a seemingly harmless, goal in mind, produce and distribute the most amount of food for the least amount of money.

It has taken us a complete generation to figure out that this model just does not work, for so many reasons. The broken farming system effects everyone in profound ways, all connected. From healthcare to the economy, the way we produce and distribute food must change, and change dramaticly, NOW. Small scale farmers and farmers markets are the tip of the melting iceburg that will save the planet!

From Wikipedia...

The locavore movement is a movement in the United States and elsewhere that spawned as interest in sustainability and eco-consciousness become more prevalent.[1] Those who are interested in eating food that is locally produced, not moved long distances to market, are called "locavores." The word "locavore" was the word of the year for 2007 in the Oxford American Dictionary.[2] This word was the creation of Jessica Prentice of the San Francisco Bay Area at the time of World Environment Day, 2005.[3] It is rendered "localvore" by some, depending on regional differences, usually.[4][5] The food may be grown in home gardens or grown by local commercial groups interested in keeping the environment as clean as possible and selling food close to where it is grown. Some people consider food grown within a 100-mile radius of their location local, while others have other definitions. In general the local food is thought by those in the movement to taste better than food that is shipped long distances.[1]

Farmers' markets play a role in efforts to eat what is local.[6] Preserving food for those seasons when it is not available fresh from a local source is one approach some locavores include in their strategies. Living in a mild climate can make eating locally grown products very different from living where the winter is severe or where no rain falls during certain parts of the year.[7] Those in the movement generally seek to keep use of fossil fuels to a minimum, thereby releasing less carbon dioxide into the air and preventing greater global warming. Keeping energy use down and using food grown in heated greenhouses locally would be in conflict with each other, so there are decisions to be made by those seeking to follow this lifestyle. Many approaches can be developed, and they vary by locale.[8] Such foods as spices, chocolate, or coffee pose a challenge for some, so there are a variety of ways of adhering to the locavore ethic.[9]

Join me in promoting this just cause, starting right here in Northeast Ohio!, where we have already been recognized internationally for our efforts! Click here for Sustain Lane ranking

 Dan  Morgan, Cleveland Locavore Rex@StraightShooter.com