Table Of ContentSto r ey ’S G u i d e t o
growing
Organic
Vegetables
& herbs
For Market
Site & Crop Selection
Planting, Care & Harvesting
Business Basics
Keith Stewart
ß
Storey Publishing
Advance Reader Copy
Text and art are not final
and may not be shared, copied,
licensed, or distributed without permission.
Storey Publishing
www.storey.com
Acknowledgments
Farming is among the most basic and essential of human activities. It has
been with us in various forms for a long time. This book is essentially a
compilation of the accumulated knowledge and experience of others. I
am therefore greatly indebted to all those farmers and agriculturalists,
past and present, who have lighted the way to a more healthful and sus-
tainable food system.
Beyond this broad indebtedness, I want to thank two individuals who
read the entire first draft of the book, chapter by chapter, and gener-
ously offered their professional input and advice, which was a great help:
Maire Ullrich, Agricultural Program Leader and Vegetable Crops Educa-
tor for Cornell Cooperative Extension, and Brian Caldwell, fellow farmer
and Farm Education Coordinator for the Northeast Organic Farming
Association of New York. I would also like to thank Abby Seaman, Veg-
etable IPM Coordinator at Cornell University, and Bob Schindelbeck,
Extension Associate in the Department of Crops and Soil Science at Cor-
nell University, both of whom provided valuable input.
A farm is no better or more productive than the sum of its workers. I
owe a very large thank you to all those who have lived on my farm and
labored beside me in the fields over many years. I hope these individuals,
many of them good friends to this day, gained something from working
with me. I know I gained much from working with them.
My thanks also to Deb Burns at Storey Publishing for getting me roll-
ing and encouraging me along the way, and to Sarah Guare for her edit-
ing expertise. Both were a real pleasure to work with. Finally, thanks to
my wife, Flavia Bacarella, who willingly endured the demands that book
writing places on a spouse and was always my first reader.
Contents
Foreword
Part I. In the Beginning
Chapter 1 Thinking about Becoming a Farmer? 00
Twenty Points to Ponder • Concrete Steps to Take
Chapter 2 Looking for a Place of Your Own 00
Considerations when Looking for Good Land
Chapter 3 The Farm Plan 00
Maps of Farm and Fields • Deciding How Much to Grow •
The Weekly Planting Schedule • Crop Rotation Maps • Pick
List and Harvest and Sales Record • To-Do Lists • Planting
Records Book • More Important Tools
Part II. Tools of the Trade
Chapter 4 Tractors and Tractor Implements 00
Start with a Tractor • Tractor Implements • Animal
Traction
Chapter 5 Small Equipment and Tools 00
The Tool Shed • The Workshop
Chapter 6 The Greenhouse 00
Seven Reasons You Need a Greenhouse • What Type of
Greenhouse? • Other Factors to Consider • Inside the
Greenhouse • Greenhouse Hygiene
Chapter 7 Growing under Cover 00
Nine Points in Favor of High Tunnels • Other Types of
Tunnels
Chapter 8 Irrigation 00
Determining Moisture Level • Irrigation Options •
Watering Specifics
Part III. Looking after the Land
Chapter 9 Managing Your Soil 00
Soil Basics • Plant Nutrients • pH • Soil Nutrient
Deficiencies and Remedies • Soil Testing • Soil Organisms
Chapter 10 Cover Crops and Green Manures 00
Eight Reasons to Plant Cover Crops and Green Manures •
Eight Cover and Green Manure Crops • Watching the
Weather • Cover Crop Seeding Methods
Chapter 11 Crop Rotation 00
Six Reasons to Rotate Crops • How to Create a Rotation
Plan
Chapter 12 Building Fertility 00
Compost • Other Soil Amendments
Part IV. The Crops We Grow
Chapter 13 Our Most Profitable Crops 00
Our Principal Crops
Chapter 14 Garlic — Our Signature Crop 00
Our Garlic Story • A Step-by-Step Guide to Growing
Hardneck Garlic
Chapter 15 Let’s Not Forget Herbs 00
Seven Reasons to Grow Herbs • Tips on Growing and Selling
Our Favorite Herbs
Part V. Harvesting and Marketing
Chapter 16 Harvesting and Storage 00
Harvesting • Storage
Chapter 17 Marketing What You Grow 00
The Marketplace • Business and Institutional Customers
Chapter 18 More on Farmers’ Markets
What You Need to Get Started • Designing the Stand •
Pricing • To Bunch or Not to Bunch • More Advice
Chapter 19 Marketing through the Seasons
Our Five Marketing Periods
Part VI. Competing Forces
Chapter 20 Regarding Weeds
Get to Know Your Weeds • Twelve Weed Control
Strategies • The Up Side of Weeds
Chapter 21 The Four-Legged Competition
Deer • Woodchucks (aka Groundhogs) • Other Sometimes
Pesky Critters
Chapter 22 Insects and Diseases
Common Insects • Common Diseases • How to Minimize
Damage
Part VII. Taking Care of Business
Chapter 23 Running a Business
A Bookkeeping System • Ways to Structure a Farm
Business • A Workforce
Chapter 24 Looking after Number One
Physical Health and Safe Practices • Mental and
Emotional Health
Afterword
Resources
Index
Preface
I never expected this book to get as big as it did. Like a field of vegetables,
blessed with good soil and sufficient sun and rain, it just kept on growing.
There was always more useful material to present, more advice to offer.
The challenge was knowing when to stop. Now that it’s done, I wouldn’t
want to leave the impression that any existing or aspiring farmer needs
to have all this information neatly stored in his or her cerebral filing cab-
inet. I certainly don’t. If you asked me to tell you the optimum spacing
for French tarragon, or the diameter of a clay particle, or the best tem-
perature for green-sprouting potatoes, I’d say, “Give me a minute, and
I’ll look it up.” I might even look it up in my own book. But that’s not to
say that I wouldn’t have other books on hand, because, in truth, there’s
far more to know than is contained in these pages.
My goal in writing the book has been threefold:
• To compile a broad swath of material of practical value to small-
and mid-scale organic growers, especially those in the early stages
of their farming careers
• To weave into the narrative some of my own story and experience
as a farmer
• To encourage the reader to look to the big picture — to view the
farm as a living entity, an ecological unit, rather than merely a unit
of production
The last of the three goals is seldom spelled out directly in the book’s
many pages. But if I have done my job well, it will be a theme that
emerges here and there between the lines. I hope so, because it is this
broader ecological perspective that is at the core of the practice and phi-
losophy of organic farming.
To think like a true farmer is to think about many things. It is to think
about what makes crops grow, what constitutes a healthy soil, what it
takes to develop a market for your produce, keep customers happy, and
run a successful business. It is to think about, then develop a farm plan,
as well as a plan to dodge nature’s weather-related curveballs and her
pests and diseases. And it is to never lose sight of what it takes to be a
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good steward of the land, not just for yourself but for future generations
as well.
For those who are persuaded of its value and willing to take hoe in
hand, the kind of farming described herein is a life’s work and then some.
It is not a job in the conventional sense, though it can and certainly
should be a viable way to make a living. To my mind, the well-managed,
diversified farm using organic methods and functioning within a com-
munity or region is an agent for positive change, an example of a differ-
ent way of relating to one another and the world in which we live. It is a
model for a more sustainable planet.
Operating a diversified, organic farm will bring challenges and heart-
breaks by the score — no question about it. But it can also bring great
satisfaction, and it can put you in touch with elemental forces that, if you
have eyes to see and a holistic turn of mind, will cast a richer and warmer
hue on this green planet of ours.
In the cycles of farming, which carry the elemental
energy again and again through the seasons and
the bodies of living things, we recognize the only
infinitude within reach of the imagination.
Wendell Berry, The Unsettling of America
Whether you will or not
You are a King, Tristram, for you are one
Of the time-tested few that leave the world,
When they are gone, not the same place it was.
Mark what you leave.
Edwin Arlington Robinson, “Tristram”
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I
P a r t
In the BegInnIng
Chapter 1. Thinking About
Becoming a Farmer? | 00
Chapter 2. Looking for a
Place of Your Own | 00
Chapter 3. The Farm Plan | 00
Chapter 1
Thinking about
Becoming a Farmer?
I
made the switch from city living and the corporate world to
becoming a farmer in my early forties. It was the best move I ever
made. Not a day has passed since then on which I doubted the right-
ness of my choice. Though I had virtually no experience, the idea of
farming had been brewing inside me for a few years. I was not happy
going into the office every day and playing the part of a company man.
I hankered for rolling fields, open space, and blue sky. I remembered
my parents’ vegetable garden in New Zealand and the fresh, wholesome
food that came from it, and I remembered my Uncle Roger’s sheep farm
where I passed many a youthful summer’s day. I wanted to hear the
sound of birds and feel the pulse of nature. And I wanted to reclaim
my body and follow my environmental inclinations. Thoughts of getting
back in shape, doing good physical work, being my own boss, and grow-
ing healthy food kept rattling around inside my head.
It was the mid-1980s. Small farms were disappearing at an alarming
rate, often being merged into larger ones. Industrial monoculture held
full sway. “Get big or get out” was the motto — and don’t spare the chem-
icals. In the age of Reagan, organic farming was a minor fringe move-
ment viewed by most as a holdover from the radical and rebellious ’60s
and seldom accorded much respect. At the time, even to me, becoming a
small farmer seemed like an impractical goal, if not a totally harebrained
scheme. But I was drawn to it with an unusual energy and passion, the
likes of which I had not known since my younger days. Quite simply, it
was what I wanted to do, regardless of my chance of success. I have since
learned that this kind of enthusiasm counts for a lot.
I read everything I could get my hands on by such authors as Wen-
dell Berry and Gene Logsdon and several others less well known. I pored
through numerous Rodale publications on sustainable farming and gar-
dening. On weekends I visited friends in upstate New York and relished
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