Farm Small Farm Smart

Sometimes, you can cheap out and MacGyver your way to get your farm business going...but not always.   Subscribe for more content on sustainable farming, market farming tips, and business insights!    Get market farming tools, seeds, and supplies at Modern Grower. Follow Modern Grower:   Instagram   Instagram Listen to other podcasts on the Modern Grower Podcast Network:   Carrot Cashflow   Farm S...

In this episode, compost specialist and owner of Living Roots Compost Tea Troy Hinke explains the importance of allowing compost to take its time maturing before application.   Subscribe for more content on sustainable farming, market farming tips, and business insights!    Get market farming tools, seeds, and supplies at Modern Grower. Follow Modern Grower:   Instagram   Instagram Listen to other...

In this episode, Diego talks about the small differences that make up the difference between farms that make it...and farms that don't.   Subscribe for more content on sustainable farming, market farming tips, and business insights!    Get market farming tools, seeds, and supplies at Modern Grower. Follow Modern Grower:   Instagram   Instagram Listen to other podcasts on the Modern Grower Podcast...

5 purchases, one filter. Every year farmers spend thousands on equipment they're told they need. Almost nobody asks one question before swiping the card: Will this generate or save me $10,000 in the next 12 months? Click here to watch the full episode on our YouTube Channel!  Subscribe for more content on sustainable farming, market farming tips, and business insights!    Get market farming tools,...

In this episode, microbiologist and co-creator of the Johnson-Su bioreactor, Dr. David Johnson, schools us on how to tell if a soil is healthy and of good quality.   Subscribe for more content on sustainable farming, market farming tips, and business insights!    Get market farming tools, seeds, and supplies at Modern Grower. Follow Modern Grower:   Instagram   Instagram Listen to other podcasts o...

Diego has identified what breaks farm business owners. It's not the physical work: it's everything else.  And the difference between farmers who barely survive and those who thrive? Systems.  Subscribe for more content on sustainable farming, market farming tips, and business insights!    Get market farming tools, seeds, and supplies at Modern Grower. Follow Modern Grower:   Instagram   Instagram...

Search "most profitable crops" on YouTube and you'll get saffron, ginseng, cannabis. After interviewing 200+ small-scale farmers over a decade and running a farm supply company, I can tell you almost nobody is making real money on anything from those lists. Click here to watch the full episode on our YouTube Channel!  Subscribe for more content on sustainable farming, market farming tips, and busi...

In this episode, soil specialist and consultant Dr. Jim Hoorman of Hoorman Soil discusses how increasing above-soil biomass plays a role in nutrient cycling.   Subscribe for more content on sustainable farming, market farming tips, and business insights!    Get market farming tools, seeds, and supplies at Modern Grower. Follow Modern Grower:   Instagram   Instagram Listen to other podcasts on the...

When Taylor Mendell moved from California to Vermont, she made every mistake possible: spent their entire budget on irrigation during the wettest year on record. By year three, everything felt out of control. Then they built something remarkable: a year-round CSA grossing over $200,000 on just 1.5 acres of growing space.   Subscribe for more content on sustainable farming, market farming tips, and...

How many beds of lettuce do you actually need to hit $250, $500, or $1,000 a week? Using production data from Ray Tyler's Rose Creek Farms in Tennessee — a farm that's done over $400,000 in sales on ¾ acre — here's the exact math. Click here to watch the full episode on our YouTube Channel.  Subscribe for more content on sustainable farming, market farming tips, and business insights!    Get marke...

In this episode, soil microbiologist and founder of The Soil Food Web Dr. Elaine Ingham talks about how farmers can go about replenishing soil nutrients for future growing.   Subscribe for more content on sustainable farming, market farming tips, and business insights!    Get market farming tools, seeds, and supplies at Modern Grower. Follow Modern Grower:   Instagram   Instagram Listen to other p...

Taylor Mendell was drowning. Nothing was working on Footprint Farm until she discovered something unexpected: brain science and habit formation could fix her farming chaos. What started as a desperate loan application turned into an annual planning system that transformed their operation.  Subscribe for more content on sustainable farming, market farming tips, and business insights!    Get market...

Most people hear "farming" and picture tractors and hundreds of acres. Market gardening is different: under five acres (often under two), vegetables grown intensively, sold directly to customers at retail prices. A well-run market garden can return over $100,000 per acre. Click here to watch the full episode on our YouTube Channel.  Subscribe for more content on sustainable farming, market farming...

In this episode, Dr. Gabe Kenne of the University of South Carolina talks about conventional farmers' concerns on no-till growing.   Subscribe for more content on sustainable farming, market farming tips, and business insights!    Get market farming tools, seeds, and supplies at Modern Grower. Follow Modern Grower:   Instagram   Instagram Listen to other podcasts on the Modern Grower Podcast Netwo...

Drawing from Harvard, MIT, and McKinsey research, Diego breaks down why farmers with superior produce lose to competitors with worse products.  Subscribe for more content on sustainable farming, market farming tips, and business insights!    Get market farming tools, seeds, and supplies at Modern Grower. Follow Modern Grower:   Instagram   Instagram Listen to other podcasts on the Modern Grower Po...

Revenue per acre in market gardening ranges from $20,000 to $400,000. Same crops, same square footage, 20x different results. After 10 years interviewing hundreds of farmers, the difference isn't luck — it's six factors working together. Click here to watch the full episode on our YouTube Channel.  Subscribe for more content on sustainable farming, market farming tips, and business insights!    Ge...

In this episode, Dr. Paul Zorner of Locus Ag Solutions sheds light on the role of weeds in maintaining soil health and in soil succession.   Subscribe for more content on sustainable farming, market farming tips, and business insights!    Get market farming tools, seeds, and supplies at Modern Grower. Follow Modern Grower:   Instagram   Instagram Listen to other podcasts on the Modern Grower Podca...

After years of failed crops and poor germination, farmer Ray Tyler cracked the code on consistent lettuce production. Now growing 400 pounds weekly at 75% profit margins, he shares the complete system that generates $160,000 annually from lettuce alone—on less than half an acre.  Subscribe for more content on sustainable farming, market farming tips, and business insights!    Get market farming to...

In this episode, Dr. Johannes Lehmann of Cornell University talks about how our knowledge of soil and humus evolved through decades of research.   Subscribe for more content on sustainable farming, market farming tips, and business insights!    Get market farming tools, seeds, and supplies at Modern Grower. Follow Modern Grower:   Instagram   Instagram Listen to other podcasts on the Modern Grower...

Ray Tyler rejected the race-to-the-bottom pricing that destroys most small farms. Instead, he discovered customers willing to pay $10/pound for premium lettuce—5x what big farms charge. With 75% profit margins and weekly harvests creating constant cash flow, Ray built a farm that supports his family plus 4 employees on just one acre.  Subscribe for more content on sustainable farming, market farmi...

In this episode, Dr. Bruno Basso of CIBO Technologies how keeping the soil covered can help keep nitrogen in place.   Subscribe for more content on sustainable farming, market farming tips, and business insights!    Get market farming tools, seeds, and supplies at Modern Grower. Follow Modern Grower:   Instagram   Instagram Listen to other podcasts on the Modern Grower Podcast Network:   Carrot Ca...

In this episode, Diego talks about uncomfortable financial questions any aspiring farmer MUST answer before starting their farm business.  Subscribe for more content on sustainable farming, market farming tips, and business insights!    Get market farming tools, seeds, and supplies at Modern Grower. Follow Modern Grower:   Instagram   Instagram Listen to other podcasts on the Modern Grower Podcast...

Michael Russo spent 20 years as a chef — 80-hour weeks, sometimes 100. Seven weddings in a single day. Then he looked at the executive chefs above him: seventies, still working 100-hour weeks, miserable. He walked away at 40 with no farming experience, no degree, and no business background. First real growing season: $2,100 in his best week ($600 restaurant, $1,500 farmer's market). Even off weeks...

In this episode,  Research Associate Professor Dr. Buz Kloot of Soil Health Labs talks about the difference between practices and principles and how one principle can have many different practices for execution.  Subscribe for more content on sustainable farming, market farming tips, and business insights!    Get market farming tools, seeds, and supplies at Modern Grower. Follow Modern Grower:   I...

Stop buying hope. Start making informed decisions.   Subscribe for more content on sustainable farming, market farming tips, and business insights!    Get market farming tools, seeds, and supplies at Modern Grower. Follow Modern Grower:   Instagram   Instagram Listen to other podcasts on the Modern Grower Podcast Network:   Carrot Cashflow   Farm Small Farm Smart   Farm Small Farm Smart Daily   Th...