Crop Planning for Sustainable Vegetable Production

Closing the planning circle: produce crops when you want them and in the right quantities; sell them where

and when you need to and support yourself with a rewarding livelihood while replenishing the soil.

©Pam Dawling, author of Sustainable Market Farming

SustainableMarketFarming.comfacebook.com/SustainableMarketFarming

What’s in This Presentation• Why make detailed plans?• How to plan? Helpful tools • Step by step planning. 12 steps

1. How much money2. Which markets to sell at3. Which crops to grow4. Harvest schedule5. How much to plant6. Field Planting schedule7. Seedling/Transplant schedule8. Maps9. Packing more in10. Adjust and tweak11. Plan B12. Next Year’s Better Plan

• Lots of Resources

Why Plan? On-farm Rewards҉�Plan in the winter, farm in the growing season! ҉�Make the most productive use of your land. ҉�Pace yourself through the growing season҉�Reduce stress and confusion, know what’s

where and when!҉�Planning gets easier each year - tweak last year’s

plan. ҉�Become a better farmer - keep good records,

fine-tune your plans every year.

Market Rewards for Planning

҉�Earn a living!҉�Great reputation as a grower selling what customers want.҉�Information at your fingertips - when broccoli will start, or

cucumbers end.҉�Full CSA bags, groaning market tables every week҉�Balance each week: some leafy crop, something brightly colored,

something bulky and filling, something new, something highly flavored.

҉�Use your full market season, all your opportunities.

How to Plan? Helpful tools• Be clear about your goals (before choosing tools).• Design a system you like, so you’ll use it. • Do you prefer clipboards, computers, or photos?• There are Web-based Tools, Spreadsheets,

Worksheets and Notebooks• Build in the ability to adapt the plan if conditions

change.

Web-based Planning

AgSquared online planning software: www.agsquared.com includes a free 30 day trial. • If you already have your plans on spreadsheets, you

can import them into AgSquared – you don’t have to start over.

• “Smart scheduling” Once you’ve got your information in there, you can adjust a date or row length and the changes will automatically be made to the other relevant spreadsheets.

• Space for record-keeping is vast - you can include comments on the weather, pests, soil observations etc which might be helpful later.

COG-Pro is a record keeping software made for Certified Organic Farms.

The planning tools include prompts for information needed for certification.

It uses a simple tabbed notebook visual and generates reports for the certification process.

Spreadsheets• Make your own, or copy others – see Resources at end• During the year we follow printed sheets - don’t often need the

computer.• The program does the calculations.

– Enter the number of cabbages wanted, the in-row spacing and the row length - out pops the number of rows.

– Quickly round up to a whole number of rows. – Enter the harvest date and the days to maturity - out pops

• the transplant date, • the sowing date, • the number of starts • the number of flats to sow.

• Quickly sort out selected parts of the information and rearrange it – Get a list of the 46 lettuce sowings in date order, – or the crops planted in the East Garden, – or seed orders sorted by supplier.

Spreadsheets from Johnny’s Johnny’s Selected Seeds has spreadsheet based tools available at

http://www.johnnyseeds.com/t-InteractiveTools.aspx

Worksheets

• Cindy Conner explains worksheets in her book Grow a Sustainable Diet.

• She also sells a DVD/CD set Develop a Sustainable Vegetable Garden Plan. Aimed primarily at homesteaders, the steps help you figure how many seeds and plants you need, when to plant and where, and when to expect a harvest.

• Mark Cain www.drippingspringsgarden.com and Daniel Brisebois and Frédéric Thériault Crop Planning for Organic Vegetable Growers, are other good sources for ideas on worksheets.

Big Changes or Small Changes?• If you are changing your farm

significantly, you will need to pay close attention to the sequence of planning steps.

• If you only need to make small changes, the exact order of planning steps matters less, as a small adjustment can be made without seriously upsetting previous calculations.

Twin Oaks Community Gardens. Credit Google

Planning is Circular, Just Like Farming1. How much money do you need to

earn?

2. Which markets

to sell at

3. Which crops to grow

4. How much of what to harvest when: Harvest

Schedule

5. How much to grow to achieve your harvest goals

6. Calculate sowing dates to meet harvest dates: Field

Planting Schedule7. When to sow for transplants: Seedlings

Schedule

8. Where to plant each sowing of

each crop: Maps

9. Packing more in: succession plantings, intercropping, relay

planting, double cropping

10. Adjust to make your best

possible plan

11. What to do if something goes wrong:

Plan B

12. Record results for next year’s Better Plan

Step 1. How much money do you need to earn?

• What are your living expenses?• What are your farm expenses?• What do you want to save for old age, rainy

days, raising children, college funds. . . • The Federal Minimum Wage is $7.25/hour

(Jan 2014), going up to $10.10. Just saying. . .

• Do you have other sources of income?

Setting pricesThe Iowa State University publication Determining Prices for CSA Share Boxes compares pricing based on • what customers will pay, • what other growers are selling the crop for• what it costs to produce. It includes a chart of share value of 24 crops based on grocery prices and the quantity included.

Step 1

Enterprise BudgetsVern Grubinger in Sustainable Vegetable Production from Start-up to Market explains how to make an enterprise budget for each crop. These calculations compare one crop with another, while not delving into overhead costs. In your Crop Journal, record the amount of work done on each crop

each day:o Bed prep, cultivatingo Planting, mulching, staking.

Record at each harvesto weight or count of each crop, o time spent harvesting and cleaning it; o money raised from each crop each week.

At the end of the season, add up the total time for each cropo Divide the income for that crop by the time spent on it, ando divide the income for that crop by the area, or number of beds.

Aim for $400/100’ bed per season. The range could be $109-1065.

Step 1

Which Crops are Most Profitable?Some crops offer more money per area, some are more profitable in terms of time put in. Clifton Slade at Virginia State University in his 43560 Project aims to show how to earn $43,560 from one acre ($1 per square foot), four times the return of a typical large-scale commercial vegetable production. He recommends choosing crops which produce one vegetable head or stalk, or 1 pound of produce, per square foot, using 5’ x 300’ raised beds. Leafy crops feature prominently. Morris Heading Collards, Photo Kathryn Simmons

Step 1

Which Crops are Most Profitable?

Richard Wiswall Organic Farmer’s Business Handbook Outdoor kale can produce $2463 from 1/10 acre, and of the crops he compared, only parsley and basil earned more. Field tomatoes came in at $1872, and several vegetables (bush beans, sweet corn, peas) made a loss.Vates kale. Photo Kathryn Simmons

Step 1

Which Crops Take Most Attention?Steve Solomon in Gardening When it Counts provides tables of vegetable crops by the level of care they require. His Difficult list includesBulb onions, leeks, Chinese cabbage, asparagus, celery and celeriac, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, early cabbage and cantaloupe. Onion bed. Photo Kathryn Simmons

Step 1

Consider Flowers as Well as Vegetables

Mark Cain of Dripping Spring Gardens, Arkansas: 50% of their growing

area in cut flowers and 50% in vegetables.

The cut flowers bring in 75% of the income.

Photo Tom Freeman, Twin Oaks Flowers

Step 1

Reasons to Grow Crops That Don’t Make the Highest Income

provide a good crop rotation for your farm, provide diversity (customers will only buy so much

parsley and basil). provide for the "back end" of the year when fewer

growers are providing produce. provide fall crops to harvest before serious cold, provide crops for all-winter harvests, provide for early spring

markets with overwintering crops. Kohlrabi. Photo McCune Porter

Step 1

Step 2 Which markets will you sell at? For most farmers, start with the money you intend to earn and then

work from there to achieve that with the land, climate and markets you have.

New growers are often advised to start with a farmers’ market rather than a CSA the first year, as you can sell a more erratic supply of crops at market.

On the other hand, if you have experience from working on another farm, a commitment to careful planning, and you need that upfront beginning-of -season cash, you may decide to start a CSA right away.

If you have an off-farm job to tide you over, it may be practical to leave the financial questions for a year, and build on that experience.

Which Crops to Grow - Consider the Full Eating Season

o Direct sowing and transplanting pros and conso Starting early: transplantso Season extension o Crop protectiono Growing and storing cold-hardy winter vegetables

Step 3

Direct sowing and transplanting pros and cons Photo Kathryn Simmons

Choose high-yielding varieties suited to your climate, budget, certification and market

Buy seeds or starts? Is what you want available as plants? Do you need Organic? Is the price worthwhile? Money vs labor.

Do you have the equipment to grow transplants?

Step 3

Starting Early: TransplantsPros

– Can start seed in more ideal conditions in greenhouse, better germination, more fun!

– Can start earlier than outside, get earlier harvests– Easier to care for new seedlings in a greenhouse– Protected plants grow quicker – Can select sturdiest plants, compost the rest– More flexibility if weather turns bad. Plants still

grow!– Fit more crops into the season– Use time windows for quick cover crops– Save on seed costs

Cons– Need to plan and schedule– Extra time caring for the starts

Photo Kathryn Simmons

Step 3

Season Extension in Every SeasonAdvantages and disadvantages in time and money Growing earlier crops in spring:

o Choose fast-maturing hardy varietieso Warm microclimateso Transplantso Rowcovers, low tunnels, Quick Hoops, high tunnels (= hoophouses)

Extending the growth of cool-weather crops into summer:o Learn how to germinate seeds in hot weathero Shadeclotho ProtekNet to keep bugs offo Intercropping allows a new crop to establish in the shade of the old one

Extending the survival of frost-tender crops beyond the first fall frostso Rowcovero Minimizing frost damage

Growing cold-hardy winter vegetables

Step 3

Crop Protection

• Frost-tender crops can be kept alive and productive beyond the first frosts by using rowcover

• Three basic levels of protection: – Rowcovers– Hoophouses (High Tunnels)– Heated greenhouses

Photo Kathryn Simmons

Step 3

Winter succession crops in the hoophouse

To maintain continuous supplies of salad and cooking greens, as well as radishes and small turnips, we plan several winter successions of hoophouse crops.

Step 3

Growing and Storing Cold-hardy Winter Vegetables

• Four Situations:• Cool weather spring/fall crops to harvest

before very cold weather• Crops to keep alive as far into winter as

possible• Hardy winter-harvest crops• Overwinter early spring-harvest crops

Step 3

Step 4. Your Harvest Schedule

• Which crops you want to harvest when, how often and over what length of time, including quantities.

• For a CSA, make a Share Schedule, telling sharers what to expect when.

• Multiply that up, add a margin for culls and failures, and list how much of each crop to have ready for harvest each week.

How Much to Harvest The average person eats 160-200

pounds of fresh vegetables per year (USDA)

the average CSA share feeds 2 or 3 people,

an annual share will need to include about 500 pounds of 40-50 different vegetables, distributed, say, once a week for 8 months and once a month for 4 months.

Many CSAs have a shorter season than this – your call.

Photo Bridget Aleshire

Step 4

Resources for Quantity Calculations• The Center for Agroecology and

Sustainable Food Systems at UC Santa Cruz:– Crop Plan for a Hundred-Member CSA,

with planting requirements for 36 crops• Jean-Paul Courtens of Roxbury Farm,

Kinderhook, New York:– On his website, you’ll find the 100

Member CSA Plan, including a Weekly Share Plan, Greenhouse Schedule, and Field Planting and Seeding Schedule (with charts of possible crop yields).

Step 4

Step 5. How Much to Grow to Achieve Your Harvest Goals

Take likely yields and add a margin for culls and failures (10%?). The table I provide in Sustainable Market Farming lists 48 crops, with likely yield, quantity required for 100 CSA shares, and length of row needed to grow this amount.

More Resources on Yields• Some seed companies have

tables of likely yields in their catalogs.

• Elizabeth Henderson and Robyn Van En Sharing the Harvest.

• John Jeavons How to Grow More Vegetables has charts:– Pounds Consumed per Year by the

Average Person in the US – Average US Yield in Pounds per

100 Square Feet. – These are particularly useful to

small-scale growers, and can be multiplied up by others.

Spring brassicas at Twin Oaks.Photo McCune Porter

Step 5

Step 6. Harvest Dates Sowing Dates

When to sow to meet the harvest dates? Find the number of days to maturity (from the catalog). Is that number from seeding to harvest or transplant to

harvest? Work back from each target harvest date, subtracting days

to maturity, to give the planting date. Days to maturity in catalogs are generally for spring planting

once conditions have warmed to the usual range for that crop. ‒ If you are starting very early, add about 14 days - seedlings grow

slower when cold. ‒ In summer crops mature sooner than in spring. ‒ When growing late into the fall, add about 14 days for the

slowdown.

Days to Maturity• “Days to Maturity” usually means “Days to First Harvest” which may not be

the same as “Days to Full Harvest”. • With carrots it doesn’t matter exactly what size they are, but an unripe

eggplant is just no good. • With CSAs, you can distribute eggplant to some sharers one week, and

others the next, although keeping track involves more work. • If it’s important to have a plentiful harvest when you do start, add another 7-

14 days.Carrot photo Kathryn Simmons

Step 6

Field Planting ScheduleDraw up your list of outdoor planting dates, along with varieties, row feet, spacing, notes and space to write down what you actually do.

Step 6

Step 7. When to sow for transplants If the crop is to be transplanted and the catalog doesn’t include the time to

grow the transplant, add that. See Sustainable Market Farming. Use your own experience or the catalog information, or somewhere in between. In future years you will have your own records to customize your calculations.

Extract the dates to sow for transplants, and make your Seedlings Schedule.Seedlings in Twin Oaks Greenhouse

Photo Kathryn Simmons

Seedlings ScheduleStep 7

• Pepper transplants. Photo Kathryn Simmons

Step 8. Maps Where in the fields to

plant each sowing of each crop ?

Start filling your map with your major crops remembering crop

rotation and cover cropping

considerations.Note the spaces for

squeezing in other crops

Crop SpacingYield is related to plant density. Area per plant is the important bit, not particular

row spacing. There is a balance point at which the plant

density provides the maximum total yield. At that density some plants will be too small to use. That’s taken into account when calculating yield.

Crop size (do customers want big carrots or small carrots?)

Disease control (humidity and molds) Preferred layout (beds with equidistant plants, or

rows). Ease of cultivation (tractor equipment, hoes,

horses) and irrigation For large plants such as okra or eggplant, it makes

more sense to plant a single row in a bed and have the plants close together in that row, in a “hedge.”

Photo of Morris Heading Collards by Kathryn Simmons

Step 8

Step 9 Succession Planting: for warm weather crops, year round lettuce

and winter hoophouse crops• Beans, edamame, cucumbers, melons, squash,

sweet corn can be produced through the frost-free period.

• Beets, broccoli, cabbage, carrots, collards, kale, spinach can be grown in spring and again in the fall in the Southeast.

• Lettuce can be grown year-round• Lettuce, spinach, turnips, radishes, scallions,

tatsoi and some other Asian greens can be sown in succession in the winter hoophouse

Rough Plan: Every 2 weeks for beans and

corn,

Every 3 weeks for squash and cucumbers and edamame

Every 4 weeks for carrots

2 or 3 plantings of muskmelons (cantaloupes) at least a month apart.

CREDIT: Kathryn Simmons.

Step 9

Use sowing and harvest start dates to make graphs.

1. Plot a graph for each crop, with sowing date along the horizontal (x) axis and harvest start date along the vertical (y) axis. Mark in all your data.

2. Mark the first possible sowing date and find the harvest start date for that.

3. Decide the last worthwhile harvest start date, mark that.

4. Then divide the harvest period into a whole number of segments, according to how often you want a new patch.

Step 9

Step 9

Intercropping, Relay Planting and Double Cropping

• Promptly clearing successions of beans or cucumbers helps with pest and disease control and opens up the space for double-cropping or for more cover crops to replenish the soil

• Fast growing crops like lettuce, radishes and greens can be planted between or alongside slower-growing crops to generate more income and diversity

• We grow peas with spinach, peanuts with lettuce, okra with cabbage

Photo Kathryn Simmons

Step 9

Step 10. Look at the Overview - Adjust to Make Your Best Possible Plan

• Can’t fit everything in? Do you need to drop crops or change your plant quantities?

• Always keep your highest priorities in mind – best markets, signature crops, personal needs.

• Use all available space for food crops or cover crops

• Check timings of seedlings – do you have enough germinating capacity?

• Is it physically possible to do all the transplanting you plan in the time allotted?

• Simplify planting dates, eg squash and cucumbers on the same days.

Tyee spinach in a relay with snap peas. Photo credit Kathryn Simmons

Step 11. What to do if something goes wrong: Plan B

Have a brainstorm list to help deal with disasters: Do immediate damage control to stop the

problem getting worse Ask for help from sharers, neighbors, kids, Plant some quick-growing crops to

substitute for crop failures Salvage anything you can and process it in

some way to sell later. Buy from other local growers to tide you

over Team up with other growers, share a market

booth, save on the rent Write down what went wrong and why, so

you don’t have the same problem next yearSenposai can be harvested 40 days from sowing. Photo Kathryn Simmons

Step 12. Record results for next year’s Better Plan:

• Make recording easy to do• Have a daily practice of writing down what was done that day• Allow time for that, without losing too much of your lunch break• Delegate to reliable people• During the main growing season, we don’t do a lot of paperwork.

We record planting dates and harvest start and finish dates on our Planting Schedule.

• At the beginning of the winter, have a Crop review meeting, discuss and write up what worked and what didn’t, to learn from the experience and do better next year.

• Adjust dates to halfway between last year’s plan and whatever actually happened - gradually zero in on the likely date without wild pendulum swings based on variable weather.

Resources - General ATTRA attra.ncat.org

Market Farming: A Start-up Guide, Scheduling Vegetable Plantings for a Continuous Harvest Season Extension Techniques for Market Farmers Intercropping Principles and Production Practices Plugs and Transplant Production for Organic Systems

SARE at sare.org -A searchable database of research findings SARE’s Season Extension Topic Room SARE Crop Rotations on Organic Farms, A Planning Manual, Charles Mohler

and Sue Ellen Johnson, editors. extension.org/organic_production The organic agriculture community with

eXtension. Publications, webinars, videos, trainings and support. An expanding, accessible source of reliable information.

Resources - Planning The Twin Oaks Harvest Calendar by Starting Date and by Crop are available

as pdfs on my website sustainablemarketfarming.com/2013/11/07/growing-for-market-articles-2/

AgSquared online planning software: agsquared.com COG-Pro record-keeping software for Certified Organic Farms: cog-pro.com Free open-source database crop planning software code.google.com/p/

cropplanning. Mother Earth News interactive Vegetable Garden Planner, free for 30 days:

motherearthnews.com/garden-planner. Target Harvest Date Calculator: (Excel spreadsheet) johnnyseeds.com/t-

InteractiveTools.aspx Growing Small Farms: growingsmallfarms.ces.ncsu.edu click Farmer

Resources, Farm Planning and Recordkeeping to download Joel Gruver’s spreadsheets. Debbie Roos keeps this site up to the minute.

Mark Cain www.drippingspringsgarden.com under the CSA tab, you can download their Harvest Schedule. Notebook-based system.

Resources – Detailed Planning Tables of likely crop yields johnnyseeds.com/assets/information/vegetablecharts.pdf. gardensofeden.org/04%20Crop%20Yield%20Verification.htm two charts, one of organic

crops from The Owner-Built Homestead by Ken & Barbara Kern, one from California. Determining Prices for CSA Share Boxes Iowa State U extension.iastate.edu/agdm/

wholefarm/pdf/c5-19.pdf New England Vegetable Management Guide Crop Budgets http://nevegetable.org

/cultural-practices/crop-budgets Clif Slade’s 43560 Project: Virginia Association for Biological Farming newsletter

vabf.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/clif-slade-43560-demo-project.pdf. USDA annual vegetable consumption www.usda.gov/factbook/chapter2.pdf John Jeavons How to Grow More Vegetables has charts: Pounds Consumed per Year by the

Average Person in the US and Average US Yield in Pounds per 100 Square Feet. The Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems at the UC Santa Cruz Crop Plan

for a Hundred-Member CSA, for a range of 36 crops in its Unit 4.5 CSA Crop Planning: casfs.ucsc.edu/education/instructional-resources/downloadable-pdf-files2 or directly at 63.249.122.224/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/4.5_CSA_crop_plan.pdf

Jean-Paul Courtens , Roxbury Farm www.roxburyfarm.com. Information for Farmers tab, 100 Member CSA Plan, including a Weekly Share Plan, Greenhouse Schedule, and Field Planting and Seeding Schedule (with charts of possible crop yields). Courtens is also willing to send you their 1,100-member schedule.

Resources - slideshows Many of my presentations are available at www.Slideshare.net . Search for Pam Dawling.

You’ll find Crop Rotations Cold-hardy Winter Vegetables Fall Vegetable Production Intensive Vegetable Production on a Small Scale Succession Planting for Continuous Vegetable Harvests Sustainable Farming Practices And soon, this one, Crop Planning for Sustainable Vegetable Production Mark Cain Planning for Your CSA: www.Slideshare.net (search for Crop Planning) Planning the Planting of Cover Crops and Cash Crops, Daniel Parson www.Slideshare.net Cover Crop Innovation by Joel B Gruver www.Slideshare.net Tom Peterson Farm Planning for a Full Market Season Appalachian Farmers Market

Association and Appalachian Sustainable Development http://vabf.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/tom-peterson-farm-planning-for-a-full-market-season.pdf

Resources - books The Complete Know and Grow Vegetables, J K A Bleasdale, P J Salter et al. Knott’s Handbook for Vegetable Growers, Maynard and Hochmuth The New Seed Starter’s Handbook, Nancy Bubel, Rodale Books The Organic Farmer’s Business Handbook, Richard Wiswall, Chelsea Green Sustainable Vegetable Production from Start-up to Market, Vern Grubinger, The New Organic Grower, Eliot Coleman, Chelsea Green Extending the Season: Six Strategies for Improving Cash Flow Year-Round on the

Market Farm a free e-book for online subscribers to Growing for Market magazine Sharing the Harvest, Elizabeth Henderson and Robyn Van En Organic Farmer’s Business Handbook, Richard Wiswall Gardening When it Counts, Steve Solomon Grow a Sustainable Diet: Planning and Growing to Feed Ourselves and the Earth,

Cindy Conner, New Society Publishers, (worksheet based). DVD/CD set Develop a Sustainable Vegetable Garden Plan

Crop Planning for Organic Vegetable Growers, Daniel Brisebois and Frédéric Thériault (Canadian Organic Growers www.cog.ca) Includes Excel spreadsheets or pdfs which can be downloaded blank.

Crop Planning for Sustainable Vegetable Production

Closing the planning circle: produce crops when you want them and in the right quantities; sell them where

and when you need to and support yourself with a rewarding livelihood while replenishing the soil.

©Pam Dawling, author of Sustainable Market Farming

SustainableMarketFarming.comfacebook.com/SustainableMarketFarming