Cranberries were first farmed in eastern Massachusetts back in the early 1800s and they are still a popular commodity to this day. Located in Freetown, MA, is a woman-owned cranberry business called Freetown Farm. Dawn Gates-Allen, the fourth generation on the farm, is the owner. She works alongside...

Keeping deer out of Christmas tree plantations, especially from late autumn and through winter, is a perennial problem. Bucks mark territory by rubbing trees, and both bucks and does are attracted to trees as a food source. With ample food, deer quickly develop high populations, which leads to heavy...

As pumpkin harvest nears, it’s a good opportunity to review your cultural practices to understand what steps you can take in future years to mitigate disease and have a better pumpkin crop. At this year’s Virginia Association for Biological Farming (VAFB) conference, Steve Rideout, plant pathologist...

“With great power comes great power bills” – so jokes Joe Czajkowski, owner of Lakeside Organic of Hadley LLC and Joe Czajkowski Farm in Massachusetts. He’s not wrong, and the idea of generating your own electricity becomes more tempting as you use more of it. For some farmers, wind turbines make se...

Most states have destination marketing organizations (DMOs) focused on promoting regional tourism opportunities. For example, New York State has 20 DMOs: Discover Albany , Visit Ithaca , Meet Me in Lake Placid and Dutchess Tourism , among others. Some DMOs are membership-only organizations while oth...

“How much?” That’s the question Justin Leavitt encouraged growers to ask themselves when it comes to watering their plants. “But the real question is not ‘How much should I be watering?” It’s ‘How much oxygen is in water?” Leavitt, the North American Horticulture Business development manager for Mol...

With autumn just around the corner, there are plenty of opportunities to freshen up your product displays and attract new customers. Visual merchandising is a successful technique to draw attention to your products, increase sales and make customers’ experiences more enjoyable. Joe Baer, the cofound...

One of my favorite parts of attending the Cultivate conference every year is seeing the presentations from the AmericanHort HortScholars . Each year, six college students are chosen for this beyond-the-classroom experience, which gives them insight and awareness of the industry, its supply chain and...

The older I get the faster time seems to fly by. It seems like only yesterday when I started penning my “Cultivating Thoughts” column, and here we are already entering my fourth fall season. I have said before that autumn is my favorite season (although at my age, every season is good). That first f...