Entries by Cathy Svejkovsky

Soil Social: Quorum Sensing, Part 2

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By Darron Gaus, NCAT Agriculture Specialist Returning to the vacuum silenced, golden morning hours on the farm, where you now listen intently for the soil social beneath your feet, your senses are becoming more aware of the microbiology community that you steward. Now your thoughts drift purposely between water, carbon, and nutrient cycles that the […]

Farmers Market Pricing Strategies for Vendors

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By Tammy Howard, NCAT Agriculture Specialist Farmers markets continue to be a low-risk marketing strategy for beginning farmers. However, vendors often struggle to figure out the right pricing strategy. Many beginning farmers start out with a pricing strategy that reflects what everyone else is charging. While this is a good place to begin, it is […]

Carbon Farm Planning

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By Elise Haschke, Climate and Agriculture Program Manager, and Darron Gaus, Sustainable Agriculture Specialist It’s early Fall on New Leaf Agriculture, a USDA-certified organic, diversified, specialty crop farm in Central Texas. New Leaf grows vegetables, fruits, fiber, and natural dye plants, along with raising pastured eggs. We’re walking the farm alongside its director, Matt Simon, […]

NCAT’s Martin Guerena Honored With “Golden Pliers” Award

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By Rich Myers, NCAT Outreach Specialist When the winner of the Golden Pliers Award was announced at this year’s EcoFarm Conference in Monterey, California, it caught NCAT’s Martin Guerena off guard. “I wasn’t really paying much attention,” Martin said, “but about two minutes into the introduction, I thought, ‘Hmmm, this sounds like my resume.’ And […]

Cover Crops, Green Manures, Pre- and Probiotics: Soil Amendments, Fertilizers, or Both?

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By Andrew Coggins, NCAT Agriculture Specialist The last 12 months have seen an almost unprecedented increase in synthetic fertilizer prices, due in part to war and problems with global supply chains. This has led to increased interest in more sustainable cropping and ranching systems that reduce input costs, decrease reliance on supply chains, and produce […]

Counting Plants Is Fun and Easy—And It Helps Track Your Regenerative Grazing Practices

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By Lee Rinehart In the summer of 2004, I was a cooperative Extension agent in southwest Montana. A county agent’s job description is as big as the Montana sky… almost infinite. Sometimes organizing educational events or visiting remote ranches to take forage samples. 4H club meetings and weighing steers at the county fair. Walking barley […]

Chelenzo Farms: A High Mountain Desert Oasis

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By Darron Gaus  Chelenzo Farms began from the unique relocation of a physician and a writer from New York during the height of the pandemic. Health concerns and a need for a cleaner lifestyle motivated Chelsea Hollander and Lorenzo Dominguez to seek a healthy relationship with the land in Cerrillos, New Mexico, 20 miles south […]

The Life and Death of Lucy the Sow

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By Nina Prater, NCAT Agriculture Specialist “Farms are businesses,” we at ATTRA often say at workshops or webinars. If you want to succeed, you have to treat it like a business: keep records, watch your cash flow, pay attention to things like depreciation, be financially savvy on several fronts. And of course this is true. […]

Beekeeping: Overwintering Bees in Warm Places

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By Justin Duncan, NCAT Sustainable Agriculture Specialist  I recently drove 250 miles to teach some new beekeepers how to ensure their hive survived a brutal cold snap. I hear too many tales of beekeepers losing hives to this or that. I myself lost one this past summer because I added sheep to the homestead, and […]