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In the June/July magazine, our cover story talked about how REKO rings are a new way to sell to your local community through a closed Facebook group. You can read that article here.

Though at the time of writing I could only find three REKO rings operating in North America, I knew there must be more. So at the end of the article we appealed for anyone doing a REKO in North America to get in touch with us, and I’m so glad Heather Anderson at Green Wagon Farm did. 

Heather and I talked on the phone about how they do their REKOs a little bit differently from the original model. The primary difference is that with most REKOs, farmers are advertising their wares by posting an offer of produce or flowers to the closed Facebook page for their ring, and customers order by commenting on the post. In Green Wagon Farm’s REKO Markets, producers link directly back to their website for online payment, so customers order and prepay through each producer’s website, instead of ordering through Facebook. Here is our interview.

Almost a year ago, in the August 2019 issue of Growing for Market, we published an article entitled “Social and racial justice on farms.” As the editor, I did not think it was particularly radical. In my eyes, it was mainly a guide for farmers who have been underserved and discriminated against by our farming system (more on that later) to find resources and start farms. I honestly did not expect it to cause controversy.

In the scramble for local producers to put their wares and transactions online, REKO rings allow growers to advertise and sell digitally, and drop off presold goods at a predetermined time and place. Never heard of a REKO ring? Neither had I until Rebekka Bond contacted me from Norway back in December.

She told me the model was catching on in Scandinavia, and it might be something the rest of our readers would be interested in too. And though they started before COVID, REKO rings may be a good way for local growers to move sales online and deliver goods with a minimum of congregating. But first, what the heck is a REKO ring?

There are a lot of things we can’t grow in our climate and soil here in zone 4a in Starbuck, Minnesota. But I’m especially envious of some of the woody perennials I see other farmers growing – even at farms just a few hours south of us. As a result, I’m always looking for new woodies to try that are hardy here.

We’ve been growing ninebark, thornless raspberry, and smoke bush for years, and they’re staples for us. But there are many other shrubs that could work well as cuts. I’m going to cover a few that are new to us in this article.

The impacts of climate chaos on Astarte Farm have forced us to look for solutions that provide increased long-term resilience in our soil systems, and biochar has shown good promise in moving us toward that goal. Biochar is a paradoxical substance. It is both an ancient agricultural practice developed thousands of years ago in the Amazonian Basin, and at the same time a relatively new approach to enhancing and stabilizing soil fertility.

While it is inert on its own, it becomes a haven for a complex of microbiology. It is not a fertilizer, but freely absorbs and releases plant nutrients as needed. While is has a dry, almost crystalline appearance when freshly made, it readily absorbs water and releases it when needed. It is important to start with a high-quality biochar, but to be truly effective it is equally important how you use it, and how you prepare it in advance for use.

In the April 2020 issue of Growing For Market, I focused on the selection side of tomato breeding. In this follow-up article, I will discuss how to make crosses and manage breeding projects.

The nuts and bolts of crossing tomatoes

Crossing two different tomato varieties can be done by physically moving pollen from the flower of one variety to the flower of another. This is accomplished in a series of steps. First, one variety is chosen to be the mother and another the father. I like to use smaller-fruited varieties as mothers. This seems counterintuitive, but from experience I have found that large beefsteaks produce fewer seeds per fruit and take longer to ripen.

Settle in, the changes aren't just for the short term

As human beings and as local food advocates, this is our time to step up as leaders and serve our communities. Every period of adversity in history gives us stories of people who saw urgent needs and rose up to meet them. The local, sustainable food movement has been building resilient systems for generations. Now is our time to shine!

Being a leader requires the ability to respond quickly. You have to survey the facts, take in the big picture, identify the critical needs that you have the power to meet, and create the solutions. As quickly as possible.

Local food has got this! We have an incredible opportunity to meet a felt, daily need of every person on this planet. We grow sustenance. We sustain human life. Adversity is the time for us to collectively reveal the strength of the local, small, place-based economies we have been working our whole lives to build.

Here is a breakdown of how we as farmers and producers can adapt and shine:

Practical advice on what’s working to replace lost business

I knew Love ‘n Fresh Flowers for their long-standing farmer/florist work, so I was excited to hear from owner Jennie Love about what has been working for her business through the current COVID disruptions. Since most of her business comes from weddings, it has taken several different strategies to sell the stream of flowers that were supposed to be for nuptials. She’s also the President of the Association of Specialty Cut Flower Growers (ASCFG).

“Love ‘n Fresh Flowers is an urban farm. We’re within the city limits of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. I started the farm twelve years ago, and we’re currently farming about five acres,” said Love.

“It is a Certified Naturally Grown flower farm. Up until this point, about 90% of my business has come through weddings and other special events and workshops. And then, a very small percentage of my business was coming through a long-standing CSA and small grocery store accounts.”

For the 50th anniversary of Earth Day on April 22, 2020, we ran Brett Grohsgal's article "Breeding crops for resilience to a changing climate" in our April magazine. On-farm breeding is one of the many strategies local farms can use to adapt as the world changes around them.

One of the nice things about being around for 29 years (as of 2020) is that we have a large archive of articles (over 1,600) to draw upon. In his article, Brett references three other articles from 2002 (!) where he gave a more in-depth picture of his breeding strategy. The links to all four articles are here.

It’s not too late for online/preorder seedling sales, farmers market custom bags, and We Give a Share

It just got harder to sell something that demand is spiking for: seedlings. One of the things we do on my farm every year is to sell a lot of seedlings. We’ve always sold vegetable and flower starts to get the cash flowing in the springtime, and this really took off when my wife Ann took over the nursery business from an established grower, which is now called Seedlings by Annie onedropfarm.com/seedlings-by-annie/.

Just like every other local grower I’ve talked to, demand is spiking for us. Luckily, we have had online preordered seedling sales since before the crisis, so we didn’t have to set it up under duress.