Pressing onward at Brace’s Orchard One generation ago, there were 80 fruit growers in Luzerne County, PA. Today there are just two, and Brace’s Orchard, in Dallas, PA, is one of them. As an eighth-generation fruit grower, Paul Brace has seen many changes in the industry, but he and his family remain...

Nearly 40% of 6,000 Central Virginia farmers are women, a trend USDA officials say compares with the rest of the country. One of them is Appomattox lavender farmer Bonnie Swanson, who presides over Evergreen Lavender Farm with husband, Ken. She shares her fragrant swath of land near the place the Ci...

COLUMBUS, OHIO – Many growers like to think in terms of size, be that length of rows, the square footage of hoop houses – or the eight acres of trade show at the annual gathering sponsored by AmericanHort in Ohio. This year’s iteration was Cultivate’19. Taking place from July 13 – 16 at the Greater ...

A farm founded on faith and hard work five generations ago by a family near the central Virginia community of Rustburg stays competitive in the agriculture market today by wedding tradition with contemporary marketing strategies and products for today’s consumers hungry for the back-to-the-land expe...

Competition. Even farm markets are feeling the pinch as more consumers want to know where their food comes from and communities across the country add their own markets. The USDA’s most recent National Count of Farmers Market Directory reports an increase of over 4,000 such markets nationwide in the...

If you sell anything, you may intuitively know the basics of marketing: branding your product, articulating why people should buy from you, having appropriate pricing, knowing your target customer and figuring out how they will find out about your farm. To make things more streamlined, there are als...

Surveys suggest that an increasing percentage of greenhouse growers are utilizing biocontrols to combat pest issues. An informal survey of New York state growers found that 40% were using insecticides alone to control fungus gnat. Sixty percent, however, were using some form of biocontrol, including...

Ever-changing tax codes challenge business owners, including growers. That’s why AmericanHort recently presented “Cracking the Code on Taxes that Affect Your Green Industry Business.” Brice Gibbs, CPA with advisory firm KCoe Isom LLP, works with agricultural business and those in the food and bevera...

Soon it will be time to start planting pumpkins. Generally for the eastern U.S., the planting month is July (or between June and July for western growers). Pumpkins are members of the Cucurbitaceae family, which also includes cucumber, muskmelons, watermelons and squash. Pumpkins can be seeded in a ...

Thanks to the excessively wet weather in many growing regions, tree fruit growers have been (and are continuing to) contend with all types of diseases which favor wet conditions. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA), regional precipitation ranks for May 2019 show that...

This month, the Southern Nursery Association (SNA) released the proceedings of their 63rd annual SNA Research Conference, and there is a lot of interesting research to sift through. Over the upcoming issues of Country Folks Grower, I’ll be recapping some of the relevant studies for our readers. Firs...

Talk about creative expression – we are living in the middle of a vast creative entrepreneurship where unique ideas drive business. When it comes to direct marketing, there seems to be no limit to where ideas can take you. Think of dinner in a box direct-shipped to the home, curbside grocery pick-up...

In some regions, recent excessive flooding has been devastating: preventing planting, washing away soils, causing concerns with water and soil pollution, decimating crops, displacing livestock and claiming lives. With much of the nation seeing overly wet weather during this spring, many growers are ...

The Millennial: what a debated figure in the current economic climate. They have been accused of killing everything from the diamond industry to blowing their meager disposable income on frivolities such as avocado toast. They do make money (often at more than one job), and they do spend it. But how...

Dr. Brian Jackson, associate professor of horticulture at North Carolina State University, would answer that question “Yes.” Jackson focuses his research on the development of traditional and new substrates for potting soils for horticultural crop production. Jackson wanted to understand, both as a ...