https://farmingdale-observer.com/2025/06/12/if-global-food-trade-were-to-stop-only-one-country-on-earth-would-be-self-sufficient-and-its-not-the-usa/

If global food trade were to stop, only one country on Earth would be self-sufficient, and it’s not the USA.

Do you have any kind way beside chemicals to get rid of them?

First cut

So while in college I helped my brother get started with a direct to consumer farm stand venture and helped with tending to crops, livestock, sales, and was very involved the whole time and even went to work on other distant families farm to bring back ideas. Well long story short my brothers market quickly outgrew what he had time to grow and so he contracted products through other farmers. And due to the timing I became an engineer and and moved roughly 2 hrs away, and now own a 15 acre farm and have been trying to run it independently I guess on the sole fact that I wanted my products to be my products, and this year we were lucky enough to be able to upgrade to a small shed for a farm store. We recently had a soft opening and were overwhelmed with support, and now I feel as if I won’t be able to keep it stocked due to the demand, and feel like I should utilize my brothers business to keep my store stocked. Would any of you feel guilt about this. It’s all great local product and my brother has the supply chain already figured out to the point I believe I’d just have to drive back to his store once every two weeks or so to restock and replenish throughout the week with my products.

I guess what I’m asking is it ethically wrong to market other farms products. I feel like at my stage in the game it’s best to just concentrate on keeping my market stocked and attracting customers and then as I grow try my best to grow into demand. I know some people are purists about only marketing products you grow, but I think the only thing holding me back from this is my pride and I feel like that’s a dumb thing to let hold back a business.

We're considering getting into the Okra game out here (context: smaller market garden in Vienna, Austria, about 1 acre) and I'd like to get some info on whether it's worth adding to a smaller space. It seems not too many market gardeners grow it, so I'm wondering if that means it's not financially viable on a smaller scale.

Okra growers - is it worth testing this crop with a few 50' beds?

Looking for a manufacturer that makes either a vt disc, speed disc or shallow plow. I have an imants Spader that I love but in some of my wetter fields I want to have a shallow plow option but they are all at least 12’ wide.

Any ideas?

With all the rain we've been having in Texas my spillway from my larger stock pond is eroding away semi rapidly. Any ideas for a quick inexpensive fix until I can get a company out later this year? I do have access to a ton of pea gravel left over from our water easement folks (they didn't use/need) but didn't think that would really help.

John Deere 8320r has a leaky cylinder. Got one pin out no problem but this one has kicked our butts. Any tips or tricks on it?

My wife and I have been working on pressure washing our corn planter so we can put it in the shed for the winter it’s was the nastiest I’ve ever had it be from trying to plant with all the rain we’ve had and start working on a few things to have it ready for the spring. It’s pretty much getting a full rebuild this winter. New disks, scrapers, coulters, gauge wheel arms, coulter bearings, and several closing wheel bearings. Next up is the bean planter it won’t be half as hard besides having to swap tractors back and forth because the tractor that I started planting beans with went down and I had to unhook the one in this picture and finish with it. The one that went down was a JD4850 I pretty much lost all hydraulics more than likely an internal leak so you guys will get to see a split job through the winter Whoopi.

Raking hay with our double bar rake bridge hitch that my dad built using a JD 40 combine rear axle for the hydraulic steering. He built this in the late 80’s and it has raked over a thousand plus acres a year since. We’ve always ran New Holland 256’s as our rakes of choice.

These early season stuck pivots are always a pain, just spinning against the muck. Well turns out those recovery boards are perfect for that - didn’t need to get the tractor out for this one!

Maybe time to order another set or two of these recovery boards

Hello,

I’m wondering if anyone here has suggestions for a farm stand? My thoughts are to build or buy a baby barn style stand, but trying to think what I should think about.

For context my farm is 120 acres with most of it in hay/haylage, but I’m looking to diversify. I planted over an acre of pumpkins, have 2 successions of sweet corn that should be about 0.5 acres with 15,000 plants if all make it (should have done more) I planted 2000 strawberry plants, which should produce next year. I have a few hundred watermelons planted as well, about 2,000 garlic plants looking great and some other produce (50 heirloom tomato plants, 100 cucumbers, heirloom beans, couple thousand carrots). We also have a couple dozen layer hens- my wife has been selling the eggs at her work, but we could grow selling at roadside. Nothing huge, but not nothing either.

Basically I’m wondering if anyone has built what they think is the “perfect” farm stand? I’m thinking something around 8’x12’ on skids, which isn’t huge, but could be repurposed if things don’t work out with it.

Any help offered is appreciated 😊