Intention is often used to describe what a person is thinking or feeling, but it more readily defines a person’s aim or plan. Customers visit your business with a plan – to visit, tour, check out the surroundings and, hopefully, purchase a product or service. You and your employees are responsible for determining a customer’s intention and helping to fulfill their expectations. (more…)

by Tamara Scully

If your late summer crops of beets, Swiss chard and spinach aren’t looking their best in the humid and overly wet weather much of the country has experienced recently, the culprit may be Cercospora beticola, a major pathogen of Chenopodium family crops. (more…)

In this month’s column I will be discussing some apple facts and will share the history of some popular apple varieties. (more…)

by Tamara Scully

It’s fall harvest time and your hands are literally full. Growers and orchard workers are climbing those ladders, wearing those buckets and carefully harvesting those apples. Other tree fruits and nuts, as well as grapes and berries, share many of the same harvesting concerns that apples do. (more…)

by Greg Hitchcock

Emily Holmes’ parents John and Elaine Olsen planted a 500-tree apple orchard in 1983; 35 years later their apple orchard has grown to 1,700 trees growing over 48 different varieties of apples. (more…)

by Courtney Llewellyn

The pop diva Whitney Houston sang “I believe the children are our future/Teach them well and let them lead the way.” This month, Country Folks Grower is introducing its readers to some of the youth that will be leading the way in the field of horticulture in the near future. (more…)

by Stephen Wagner

Penn State Trial Garden Advisory Board Chair Andy Brown told Country Folks Grower that “Still the number one item out there in terms of units is calibrachoa [also called million bells]. It has an extremely wide color line, an incredible variety of colors, anywhere from solids to bi-colors, and it doesn’t have the stickiness that the petunia has.” (more…)

by Sally Colby

Casey Vandervalk admitted that he didn’t know anything about growing Christmas trees when he and his wife Sue planted their first trees in 1984. (more…)

by Courtney Llewellyn

It’s time for a refresher from biology class: you remember that animals inhale oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide. (more…)

By Melissa Piper Nelson

In a growing season complicated by wild weather laced with torrential rain, hail and heavy winds, the watchword continues to be hyper-vigilance when scouting for horticultural disease symptoms, advised Dr. Carla Burkle, Penn State vegetable production specialist and horticulture team member. (more…)