In July, I had the pleasure of attending my cousin’s wedding in Oregon. It was a beautiful ceremony in the Willamette Valley. It was the first time I had been back to Portland since we moved in January. It was nice to visit friends and family and of course, Powells. For those of you who have never had the opportunity to visit the City of Books, Powells spans an entire city block and has four stories of new and used books. Their selection is quite impressive, including categories such as “sustainable farming”.

As usually happens at Powells, I happened upon two very useful books, “The Vegetable Grower’s Handbook” by Frank Tozer, and “The Organic Farmer’s Business Handbook” by Richard Wiswall. I also picked up an out of print copy of Wolf Storl’s work, “Culture and Horticulture: A Philosophy of Gardening”, a great read about the history and practices of biodynamic farming. Matt is thoroughly enjoying it.

Tozer’s book highlights “everything you need to know” for cultivating over 80 different vegetable crops. For each crop he details soil needs (pH, drainage, acidity), when to plant for each season, how to accomplish succession sowing, whether to transplant or direct seed, how to care for the crop (watering, mulching, fertilization, pest, pruning, and frost protection). He outlines harvest techniques, storage seed saving and recommended varieties. He even gives a few recipes for each crop. As a first year farmer, this is an excellent resource, allowing access to tons of useful information in one location. Most websites or books focus on a specific topic which means you are constantly searching for answers to additional questions for each crop you grow. It is great to have one text to consult for all your growing questions. Highly recommended for new farmers and backyard gardeners.

The Organic Farmer’s Business Handbook touts the subtitle, “A Complete Guide to Managing Finances, Crops and Staff - and Making a Profit”. It almost sounds to good to be true. I have perused a lot of similar works about business planning and data management for farming and running your own business. However, this book drew me in because it comes with a companion CD that includes all of the spreadsheet templates. What a time saver! Not only do you not have to recreate the date sheets, Wiswall’s data tracking systems are accurate, thorough, and useful for small farmers. I have already created a marketing chart to track our projected sales for the next year, a production plan of how much we have to grow to meet our marketing plan, and a map of where everything will go and how much seed is needed. Since Wiswall himself is a vegetable grower this information is relevant and necessary for grower’s looking to make a profit. I can’t imagine how I would have had time to create the custom spreadsheets in addition to tracking all of the data. I am especially looking forward to using the Crop Enterprise Budgets to figure out profit margins for specific crops and eliminate crops that are not financially productive for our farm.

I also picked up a few “Rite in the Rain” notebooks. Perfect for working in the field or greenhouse as they are impenetrable to the elements. I bought a large gridded one that has served us well for laying out our crop rotation plan for 2011 and a small one to fit in Matt’s back pocket for ideas and notes in the field.