Adjust the water pressure just enough so that the individual streams of water from each hole hold together nicely. Too much pressure is unnecessary and can wash seeds and smaller plants; too little pressure can result in large, blobby streams of water with much the same results. I really like to have a quarter-turn ball valve on each watering wand to allow the user to adjust the water as she goes, to account for changes in water pressure over the course of the job.

Start by spot watering, bringing every plug in the greenhouse up to a similar water level.

Then, holding the fan-shaped nozzle so that it is pointed straight at the crop, walk the full length of the bench holding the wand at a consistent height above the crop. Go just past the end of the bench, then turn around and take another pass on the next set of cells that didn’t receive water on the first pass.

Multiple light passes can help to achieve more consistent results. Also, you might want to offset any behavioral differences that occur between the beginning and end of your watering sessions by starting at a different end of the bench each time; or work from the edges in one day, and from the centers out the next.

When a company buys your product to sell it to somebody else, they charge more to their customers than they pay you - that's how they cover their own expenses, and how they make money in return for their management expertise, risk, and investment.

The additional amount they charge can be expressed in two different ways: as a markup, or as a margin. A markup describes the additional percentage a reseller makes on the product, whereas a margin describes the percentage of the selling price that a reseller makes over and above the price they paid for it.

Understanding margins can help you estimate the price a store or wholesale distributor is paying for their product. Margins are also part of the language of the trade, so understanding margins puts you on a more professional footing when you talk with buyers.

Margins are useful because they describe the "gross profit margin" that a reseller actually gets. The margin has to cover all of the reseller’s expenses related to selling produce. For example, natural food stores in my area use a 42% margin as their basis for calculating retail produce prices. That 42% of their selling cost has to cover all of the store's direct expenses related to selling produce: the labor, bags, and display items, as well as the overhead costs of running the store: electricity, rent, bookkeeping, cash registers, and everything else.

In other words, if the store is charging $1.00 for a bunch of parsley, they’ve got $0.42 to cover all of the costs of selling that parsley, because they spent $0.58 to purchase it for sale in their store.

And, even though they use a 42% margin to calculate their prices, they expect to realize only a 35% margin on their produce sales overall, since they lose a certain amount to "shrink," due to spoilage, trimming, blemishes, customer handling, and so forth.

Different outlets have different cost structures, so they use different margins.

A wholesale distributor I've worked with uses a standard margin of 23%. They have lower expenses per unit sold than a retail store does, so they don't need to charge as high of a margin.

In fact, different product lines in a grocery store also have different cost structures, so the margin on canned goods is going to be different than it is on fresh produce, since canned goods don't have the same risk of spoilage and don't have the same labor requirements as fresh produce.

And that's where margins matter to market farmers. When you have higher selling costs, you need a higher margin. When you sell produce at farmers market, your costs - labor, stall fees, shrink - are higher than your cost to sell to a retail store. If you sell at a retail store and at a farmers market, your prices in each of those markets should reflect your costs in each of those markets. It costs the same amount of money to grow a bunch of kale for your farmers market stand as it does to grow a bunch of kale for a retail store, but it costs a lot more to sell that bunch of kale at a farmers market.

We'll continue this topic next week when we get into margin math, so stay tuned!

Jordan Marr at The Ruminant was kind enough to have me on his podcast recently for two episodes talking about successful culinary herb production in a farm operation.  In the first episode, I make the case for focusing on herbs, and discusses the proper sourcing, and subsequent propagation, of herb cuttings.  In the second episode, I talk about how to harvest herbs in a way that strikes a balance between high production and low labor costs.

Episode 34 - Part 1
Episode 35 - Part 2

In any cropping operation, you're going to put a lot of energy into weeds - it's your choice if you want to put that energy into preventing them, controlling them, or dealing with them.

Prevention takes two forms: an ongoing reduction of the numbers of weed seeds in the soil over a number of years, and the use of crop rotations to set following crops up for success.
If one year's seeding is seven years' weeding, then keeping weeds from going to seed is perhaps the most fundamental principle of weed prevention.

The creative and judicious use of crop rotations can also work to prevent weeds. At Pennsylvania’s Beech Grove Farm, Anne and Eric Nordell combine shallow tillage with the following crop rotation in a technique they call Weed the Soil, Not the Crop.  Complete details of their process can be found in their book.

Year 1: Late-planted cash crop
Year 2: Fallow and cover crops to winterkill
Year 3: Early-planted cash crop
Year 4: Fallow and cover crops to overwinter

At Illinois’ Angelic Organics, Farmer John Peterson emphasizes weed prevention using the following four-year rotation:

Year 1 and Year 2: Perennial cover crop
Year 3: Early-season vegetables followed by winterkilled cover crop
Year 4: Hard-to-weed vegetables

On both farms, fertility is applied to the cover crops, and work is done to prepare the soil for the following year, reducing demands on spring tillage work and labor.

Control depends on the right operation of the right tools.

It's easy to invest in weed control tools- it just takes money. It's a lot harder to invest in the will and the systems to use those tools effectively. Invest in basic, versatile tools for weed control - sweeps and knives for the tractor, stirrups for the wheel hoe - then work to get the weed control systems working right before you invest in fancier tools.

Weed control tools must be applied early, often, and well.

Early: The right time to kill weeds is before you can even see them. It takes serious monitoring and awareness to target weeds before they break through the surface, but hoeing or cultivating weeds in the white thread stage hits them at the weakest link in their lifecycle. Every day after they break through the soil surface makes them a little bit stronger.

Often: There is not a magical number of cultivations that constitutes sufficient weed control. You're done controlling weeds when you're done controlling weeds, not after three wheel-hoeings or two hillings. And count on hand-weeding - even with great weed control, a few hardy specimens are likely to slip through.

Well: Time spent adjusting cultivators is an investment, not an expense. Time spent setting things up right ensures that you maximize returns on time you spend driving through the fields. If you farm anywhere other than the desert, you never know when you'll get another chance to kill weeds, so kill every single one you possibly can each time you hit the field with a cultivator, flamer, or hoe.

Dealing with weeds is just depressing.

Weeds compete with plants for sunshine, water, and nutrients, reducing your yields. They reduce the airflow around the plants, increasing drying time and allowing fungi to propagate and bacteria to multiply.

Plus, harvesting in weeds takes more time than harvesting in clean fields - and can keep mechanized harvesters from working at all. More time harvesting means more expense, lost opportunities, and lower quality as it takes longer to move crops to the cooler.

I've picked my share of beans in pollinating ragweed, and pulled my share of weeds out of salad greens. And I must say, preventing and controlling weeds is easier on the spirit, not to mention easier on the bottom line.

I spent a lot of years working with lenders, and I’ve spent a lot of time since then working with farmers who are working with lenders. Last fall, I attended a two-day session for farm educators about investments and credit, and the lenders there shared seven of the biggest mistakes they see farmers - and especially beginning farmers - make when working their lenders.

1. Under-the-Table Transactions
If you don't report cash transactions to the IRS, you can't expect your lender to use them to evaluate your loan application. Lenders can only use what's reported when they decide whether and how much to lend. Repeated under-reporting of income starves farmers for credit in the future, because you haven't demonstrated your earnings stream.

2. Missing Expenses
When you provide financial projections to your lender, make sure you include all of your expenses. Missing expenses are a red flag for lenders, especially if they are familiar with your type of operation. If you're starting on a new enterprise, think through your expenses for land and infrastructure, labor (including worker's compensation and payroll taxes), machinery and equipment, production expenses, advertising and marketing, and overhead.

3. Mixing Capital Expenses into Income and Expense Projections
Capital expenses - purchases of fixed assets with a long-term use - don't belong on your income and expense statement. Capital expenses are incurred infrequently, so they don't reflect on the profit performance of the business in any one given year. It is important to track them separately. (For a more complete explanation see my blog post on revenue expenses vs. capital expenses.)

Likewise, principal payments for loans also don't belong on your income and expense statement, for many of the same reasons.

4. Past Financial Reports Don't Line up with Projections
The categories in previous financial statements should correlate with the categories in your projections. You may know that what you used to call fertilizer you now call soil amendments, but your banker may not.

Your financial statements tell a story. You can't change the names of the characters halfway through.

If you've changed the structure of your accounts in your accounting software, you may need to take the time to make some changes in a spreadsheet version of your report. If you use QuickBooks, it's a relatively simple matter to export reports to Excel (in other words, to turn an Income and Expense statement into a spreadsheet), where you can change the names of categories, or combine and reorganize as necessary.

5. Not Seeing the Project as a Business
Bankers are essentially investors. If you are asking a banker to "invest" in your operation, you need to treat it like a business. When you talk to your lender, focus on the business value, not on getting a feel for the soil (that doesn't mean you can't talk about the triple bottom line - just make sure you talk about the money first, then come around to the environment and the people). If something goes wrong with your loan, your lifestyle choices aren't going to provide much cover when your lender has to explain things to their boss.

6. Costs and Income are Way out of Line with Reality
Past performance is, in fact, a pretty good indicator of future results. If your projections show large deviations from your past performance, a lender is pretty likely to call that into question - and rightfully so! Big change rarely happens overnight, unless there are significant outside influences (like the price of feed or oil) - and those are likely to be beyond your control.

7. Not Accepting Feedback
Your lender should add value beyond just money. If you are working with a farm or business lender, they've probably got more experience than you do in looking at and evaluating a diversity of operations. Listen to what your lender has to say, and think hard about its value, whether it's about changes in your business or just formatting your reports differently.

Rotational grazers call the resulting growth pattern a "grazing wedge"; at Rock Spring Farm, we called it "the harvest wave" (I've always had a fascination with surfing, and waves sound much more fun than wedges). Sometimes the wave got ahead of us - the chard leaves would grow over-mature and develop spots, or the oregano would show signs of flowering - and we would cut back the over-mature portion of the bed to manage crop quality and productivity.

Surfing the harvest wave allowed us to minimize harvest labor by reducing the number of steps taken because it encouraged even regrowth and discouraged workers from hunting-and-pecking their way through the field. It also maximized yields by helping us identify when a section of the bed needed maintenance to stay green, healthy, and growing.

Order begets order. And, sadly, order takes energy to maintain, because without energy, things tend towards chaos.

And chaos, wherever it exists - in the field, in the shop, in the office - can be overwhelming. You can't get on top of everything all at once, so you don't get on top of anything. And because the chaos surrounds any small bit of order you do carve out... well, chaos is always nipping at order's edges, and small bits of order have more edges than large bits of order, and things tend to fall apart.

Unfortunately, chaos doesn't just exist without energy. It sucks energy out of the everything that has to interact with it. Weedy fields take more energy to harvest, more water to irrigate, and more inputs to fertilize. Chaotic shops make it hard to find tools when you need them, to maintain equipment so that it doesn't break down, and to fix stuff quickly when it breaks. Disorganized papers and messy desks make it hard to access needed information and track important commitments (like bills).

And they all create resistance. Clean, orderly spaces and systems invite us in and invite others to participate; messy spaces do just the opposite.

My recipe for dealing with chaos? Carve out some order. Get one space, however small, that feels good - that invites you to participate - and ignore the rest for the moment. Weedy fields? Get one bed cleaned up, really well, and commit to keeping it clean. Chaotic shop? Clear off one workbench. Throw the tools and hardware spread across it into a bucket - it's no worse then having them spread across the workbench. Disorganized office? Clear out one file drawer (put it all in a box, if you have to), buy some file folders, and start using them. Get a little success. Let it feel good. And work your way out from there.

Over the years, I've spent some time dabbling in the world of FileMaker database design. (Maybe more than dabbling - I built several databases for my own use when I organized presentations for the MOSES Organic Farming Conference and for managing my farm, and helped design and implement a large project for event and customer management at MOSES.) Recently, I was reminded of a problem that I learned about through the database world - the PICNIC problem.

Sometimes, computer-techie types run into problems that they just can't solve through programming, file structuring, or procedure writing. Often, this is a PICNIC problem - Problem In Chair, Not In Computer.

In any case... I was working on some computer-y issues this past week and getting very frustrated - to the point where I actually picked up the phone to call customer service to try to get some help, whereupon I promptly discovered that the problem was staring me right in the face.

Problem in chair, not in computer.

I spent a lot of time on my farm assuming that the problem was external - that the workforce was lazy, that this one customer couldn't manage their inventory, that the tractor dealer didn't think I was important enough to make me a priority.

Over time - and through a lot of personal and professional pain - I learned that as the manager of the farm, the solutions had to lie with me. Employees not doing what I want them to do? I needed to give them better tools, better structures, and better motivations to get what I wanted out of them. Customer couldn't manage inventory? I needed to help them understand the dates in our lot code, inspect my product in their cooler, and share ways that other customers managed their inventory. Tractor dealer didn't think I was important enough? I needed to find a new tractor dealer.

Gradually, I learned that the problem was with me, not with the people and things that I was interacting with. And even if the problem really did belong to them, I had to take responsibility for making change.

(The funny thing about a PICNIC problem is that if the system design actually took into account human limitations, there wouldn't be a problem in the chair. Can you design your farm systems to take into account your own human limitations?)

Every winter, I look forward to farming conferences, where I get to see old friends, get new ideas, make new connections, and find inspiration for the coming year. I can’t imagine farming without that regular coming together of our smaller and extended communities.

And I’ve never been to a farming conference where I didn’t take away enough information to pay back the time and money I spent to get there. Even for the most expensive conferences, the investment pays back quickly, and the new knowledge becomes a permanent asset that provides returns year after year.

Unfortunately, it’s pretty easy to go a conference and let the knowledge slip right on by. Game-changing suggestions, enriching connections, and even bigger opportunities can easily  slip right by, especially when you have to return from an event and get right into the greenhouse or the field. By approaching a conference like an investment, you can make the most of the opportunities and information that come your way.

Just like anything having to do with farming, you dramatically increase your likelihood of great results by taking a little time to prepare.

Set Goals - Once you’ve decided to go to a conference, decide what questions you hope to get answered. I find that it’s easier to get concrete results if you identify specific questions, rather than just an area of interest: “How should I organize my packing shed to maximize workflow and ergonomics?” rather than, “I want to know more about packing shed organization.”

Plan Your Time - Take time to review the workshops, and plan your attendance. Often, organizers post the conference program, with expanded workshop descriptions and updated schedules, in the days or weeks before an event. Figure out where you are likely to get your questions answered, and what presenters you might want to connect with after their workshop is over.

The exhibit hall can provide a rich source of information, as well. Take time to review the exhibitor listings to decide who you want to visit, and what you hope to get out of each conversation.

Prepare Your Kit - Finally, pack your business cards, a pen, and some paper. When that one key idea or one life-changing contact comes along, you don’t want to be stuck without the tools you need to make the most of it.

The show isn’t all about work, but a few key actions can dramatically increase the value you get out of the event.

Engage the Material - You can increase your retention by actively engaging with each workshop you attend, rather than passively receiving information. Interpret key points for how they apply to your specific situation, rather than just writing them down - rather than just writing, “Point shovel points down to move more soil into the row,” add a note: “- would help with weedy broccoli!”

At the end of each talk, I like to take a moment to distill the entire talk down to one key point: “I can build organic matter on my farm by allowing cover crops to get through flowering,” or, “I really need to put together an income statement and balance sheet for my farm, effective January 1.”

Identify Actions -  I take prolific notes (it works for me, your mileage may vary), so it can be hard to identify the concrete actions that a speaker helped me realize I need to take. Even where I don’t write down a ton of information, I like to write a dash (-) to the left of each action item; when I scan my notes after the conference, I can quickly identify items to put on my task list, and show that I’ve done it by turning the - into a +.

Ask Questions - Please, ask questions! Speakers dread having a disengaged audience, and there are few things more unnerving than leaving the requested ten minutes for questions at the end of a talk and facing a silent audience. Remember the questions you wrote down in preparation? Now is the time to get them answered. Questions don’t have to be limited to the material just presented,

Make Connections - Be approachable when you aren’t in a session. Don’t immerse yourself in your phone or the conference materials. Likewise, approach people. Everybody’s there to make connections, and a room full of strangers can be a lonely place. Walk right up, introduce yourself, and ask about the other person.

Make the Most of Connections - Use your business cards liberally - handing out a card is a great invitation to get one from somebody else. Take a moment to write down a note on the back of the card so that you remember the context, or something that you would like to follow up with. The value of a conference connection isn’t always apparent, and I’ve benefitted from connections with connections over the years.

Process Connections in Real Time - at the end of each day, empty the business cards from your wallet, quickly sort them into three piles: the first for those that you absolutely plan to follow up with, the second for those that you want to put into your address book, and the third for, “who is this person?” Throw the third pile away, and keep the other two accessible for when you get home.

For the cards in the first group, write a note on the back about your intended action - “send info on L245 for sale,” or “ask for contact for greenhouse company.”

You’ll get the most from the conference if you follow up in real time, while the information and connections are still fresh. Reviewing your notes, information, and connections shortly after the event is a great way to increase retention and internalize important messages - and makes certain you don’t get caught up in the work that’s waiting when you get back before you have a chance to fully realize the value of being at the event. By changing the context and the format of the information, your brain uses different pathways to log the same information, improving your ability to remember and access it later.

Identify Actions - Shortly after you get home, pull out those notes. Review the actions you identified, decide if they are still meaningful, and put them into your task management system.

Follow Up with Connections - For the cards that you made notes on about following up, make that happen. Waiting until weeks after the conference allow you to slip from their minds, and any urgency they feel to respond to you can easily go by the wayside. Add everybody else to your address book, and consider reaching out to them on Facebook or through a quick email.

***

A good conference can be a great place to get inspired, chase some intellectual rabbit trails, and meet a ton of new people - but that’s not worth the price of admission all by itself. Those of us in the world of farming have chosen a life where knowledge and connections can turn into real actions to improve the planet, provide real food, and build community, as well as to provide a return to our businesses. A little bit of additional effort - before, during, and after the event - can provide a real boost to the outcomes a conference creates on your farm and in your life.

Unfortunately, most of the discussion around scaling up has to do with growing more acres, rather than doing better on the acres we’ve already got. Farming fewer acres leaves us room to grow our own fertility, and to increase our weed control through the judicious use of cover crops and careful tillage – and doing better at growing at your current scale is a prerequisite for increasing the number of acres under production.

Not to mention, increasing yields has amazing compounding effects, especially when it comes to harvest. Totes fill up faster when you have more spinach per square foot or more beans per plant. Plus, crops get back to the packing house and into the cooler more quickly – not only do you have more vegetables faster, you get a higher quality product, too.

Time and time again, I work with farmers who are failing to get top yields because they are missing two key elements of horticulture: weed control and irrigation.

Weed control pays dividends by doing more than just reducing competition. In fields with great weed control, crops like spinach and cilantro have fewer yellow cotyledons and dead leaves, resulting in faster harvests. And if you have plans to mechanize your harvest in any way, good weed control is an absolute must.

Likewise with water – fresh vegetables are made of H2O, and lots of it. The old rule of thumb of an inch of water a week is just that – a rule of thumb. Watering needs vary according to heat, humidity, and stage of growth. Optimum yields may require much more than an inch of water per week – some growers I know apply three or more inches of water during critical growth phases.

Before investing in anything else, take a moment to look into these two critical systems on your farm this fall. Too often, huge improvements can be made without resorting to huge investments – the real issue is the allocation of time and energy into these areas. Doing more with what you have will always be a surer avenue to success – financial, personal, and ecological – than scrambling to do more with more.