Farm Small Farm Smart
Insights for vegetable farmers and market gardeners who earn, or want to earn, a living growing vegetables profitably. In each episode, I talk with a beginning or experienced farmer, diving deep into their story to find out what makes their market farm successful. I focus on in-the-field farming. Soil preparation, weed management, post-harvest processing, appropriate technology, farm tools and equipment, and growing crops. Hosted and produced by Diego Footer's Modern Grower Podcast Network.
Episodes
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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...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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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In this episode, Dr. Gabe Kenne of the University of South Carolina talks about conventional farmers' concerns on no-till growing.
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Drawing from Harvard, MIT, and McKinsey research, Diego breaks down why farmers with superior produce lose to competitors with worse products.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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In this episode, Dr. Johannes Lehmann of Cornell University talks about how our knowledge of soil and humus evolved through decades of research.
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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.
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In this episode, Dr. Bruno Basso of CIBO Technologies how keeping the soil covered can help keep nitrogen in place.
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In this episode, Diego talks about uncomfortable financial questions any aspiring farmer MUST answer before starting their farm business.
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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 with groundhog damage, he pu...
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.
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