Sprague’s includes 10,000 square feet of retail and growing space under glass along with 15 40-by-80-foot hoop houses. Customers can select from a wide variety of annuals, perennials, shrubs and trees. Photo courtesy of Sprague’s Nursery and Garden Center
by Sally Colby
Sprague’s Nursery and Garden Center has seen plenty of changes since it was established in the 1940s. (more…)
Monitor plants for signs of insect damage, uneven watering and physical damage throughout the growing stages. Photo by Sally Colby
by Sally Colby
Growers who devote growing space to poinsettias have a considerable investment in personnel and labor until the crop is finished. (more…)
by Sally Colby
Malabar spinach, red okra, bottle gourd, bitter melon and stevia may not be standard farmers market fare, but Allison Akbay has developed a strong customer following for specialty vegetables. At the Mid-Atlantic Fruit and Vegetable Convention, held virtually this year, Akbay shared what she has learned about marketing specialty produce. (more…)
by Courtney Llewellyn
Corn mazes and pumpkin patches are hallmarks of autumn agritourism front, but there are those who want to go a step further and offer a spooky experience – a haunted attraction. The question is how do you host a haunt without falling into tired tropes and corny clichés? (more…)
by Sally Colby
Scouting for greenhouse pests is one of the most critical tasks for greenhouse operators. It can mean the difference between catching a problem in time or total crop loss.
Dr. Luis Canas, associate professor of entomology at Ohio State University, said it’s useful for growers to review the greenhouse layout and create a series of stops where scouters make routine checks. (more…)
Dr. Alexander Chan
by Sonja Heyck-Merlin
Dr. Alex Chan, a mental and behavioral health specialist with University of Maryland Extension, recently gave a presentation titled “Tips for Successful Family Meetings” for the Mid-Atlantic Women in Agriculture Program. (more…)
According to Moulton Farm General Manager Jeff Mills, Moulton’s customers are looking forward to being able to visit the farm without their masks. Photo courtesy of Moulton Farm
by Enrico Villamaino
The world is finally emerging from the exasperating asterisk that was 2020. Reflecting on what they had to do to get by, agricultural producers (more…)
Japanese beetle damage may not appear until later in the summer, but they begin laying their eggs in July. Now is the time to prevent them. Photo courtesy of David Cappaert, Bugwood.org
by Courtney Llewellyn
If you’ve seen the movie “The Mummy,” you know scarab beetles can cause a lot of damage. (more…)
At a grower meeting, Dr. George Wilson at NC State University addressed the subject of harvesting and post-harvest handling of vegetables. He said once you harvest a vegetable it’s at its highest point in quality; what you do after that can only slow its continued deterioration. (more…)
When I first started out, a CSA customer would ask for a different color combination each week. Sometimes it was a challenge, but it also forced me to look at the interactions between flowers and helped hone my design skills. (more…)
It’s the time of the year when growers focus on thinning fruit trees. While apple growers have prediction models and Decision Support Systems (DSS), such as the carbohydrate or apple pollen tube growth models to guide their best decision-making skills (more…)
Marketing strategies constructed to reach key consumer segments have been utilized for decades. Today’s technology drives the concept deeper with advertising hyper personalization. These are the ads we see attached to our online shopping, internet searches and action-oriented print and other marketing tools. (more…)
