BEGINNING FARMER SUCCESS May/June Events—click events for more information

5/17—Composting for Re-sults Class

5/17—Container Gardening Seminar

5/19—Choose Your Tour at Wheatland—Urban Ag Tours

5/24—Introduction to Far-riery Seminar

5/31—Never Too Late for Herbs - growing herbs class

5/31—Free gardening demonstrations

6/5—Fundamentals of Nu-trient Management Work-shop

6/5—Heirloom Garden Workshop

6/6—19th Annual Procras-tinator’s Pest Management Conference

6/7—Garret/Allegany Bee-keeping field day

More events can be found on our site under “events”

he cold winter, followed by the wet and cooler spring of 2014 presented a challenge to many beginning farmers across Maryland. Dealing with weather is just one of the

many risks farmers confront every day. Vegetable production is a pop-ular enterprise for many beginning farmers due to the wide range of cultivated vegetable crops, market availability for unique produce and

growing local foods movement.

Beginning vegetable farmers are finding success by participating in Community Sup-ported Agriculture (CSA), farm stands, farmers markets, wholesale to brokers and auction markets and selling directly to res-taurants aiming to feature locally sourced foods.

There are many questions to consider when beginning to shape the idea of starting a vegetable production farm business. It takes more than land and a market to get started and to be successful.

The Maryland Beginning Farmer Success website outlines common questions to consider when starting a vegetable pro-duction business. The questions are complemented by a list of Keys to Suc-cess, developed by Maryland Extension Educators. Questions and Keys to Success can be found under First Steps to Farming.

General information on vegetable production such as needed equip-ment, irrigation, and integrated pest management can be found under the crops section on the Start Here page.

May 2014 Volume 1, Issue 7 Photo courtesy of: Edwin Remsburg

Vegetable Production

Extension.umd.edu/newfarmer

I Have . . .

Access to Land

Determined Enterprise

Found a Mentor

Use Maryland FarmLINK to find

a mentor today!

Introduction to Plasticulture and Drip Irrigation with Ben Beale, St. Mary’s County Agriculture Extension Educator

Click below to view the video.

Click to view more videos

Maryland Farmers Markets

armers markets are a popular vending option for local area producers. The

Maryland Department of Agriculture has compiled a list of farmers markets

by county which can be directly downloaded from our site or the link to the right.

The University of Maryland also hosts a market, called the Farmers Market at Mar-

yland, on the College Park campus in front of Cole Fieldhouse, every Wednesday

from 11:00am to 3:00pm. The Farmers Market at Maryland is currently accepting

vendor applications for the 2014 market year.

Andrea Rice

amrice@umd.edu

301.868.9410

“This project was supported by the Beginning Farmer and Ranch-er Development Program of the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, USDA, Grant #2012-49400-19552. To find more resources and programs for beginning farmers and ranchers please visit www.Start2Farm.gov, a component of the Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program.”

The University of Maryland Extension programs are open to any person and will not discriminate against anyone because of race, age, sex, color, sexual

orientation, physical or mental disability, religion, ancestry, national origin, marital status, genetic information, political affiliation, and gender identity

or expression.

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To submit information for the monthly newsletter please contact the Beginning Farmer

Success Project Coordinator, Andrea Rice at amrice@umd.edu

Please submit information and photos by the first of the month.

Mentor Match Program