Efficient Systems in the Market Garden 

Hands-on Workshop

Learn profitable and proven market gardening techniques by getting hands on instruction from a real grower. This workshop will take you beyond watching videos online to doing the garden tasks alongside real pros. Learn alongside a small group of others with Farmer Stephen on his 2/3 acre market garden.

We want to help you put the techniques of market gardening together with work flow systems, marketing plans, and farm infrastructure and design. You will be well on your way to starting out or making huge strides in your new market garden business after this one day intensive workshop.

Efficient Systems in the Market Garden

One Day Hands-On Workshop

Saturday May 31st

9am - 5pm

On farm in Xenia, Ohio 45385

Lunch is provided from a local catering service - please let us know in your registration if you have any specific dietary needs or feel welcome to bring your own lunch items.

Sliding Scale Pricing:

Full price tickets ($160), half price tickets ($80) and low cost tickets ($25) are available. Please utilize these options when you sign up and pick the one that fits your financial situation. We strongly desire attendees who are eager to learn and who are ready to start their market gardens.

What you’ll get out of the Workshop

  • ✺ Farm Layout & Infrastructure

    Discover how to design an efficient farm layout that reduces labor, improves productivity, and maximizes space for long-term success.

  • ✺ High-Yield Growing Techniques

    Master intensive, small-scale growing methods to increase production, improve soil health, and extend your growing season.

  • ✺ Seed Starting & Nursery Propagation

    Learn how to efficiently start seeds, manage a nursery, and produce vigorous transplants that establish quickly in the field, leading to higher yields and better crop success.

  • ✺ Season Extension Techniques

    Learn how to use hoop houses, low tunnels, and succession planting to grow earlier in the spring and later into the fall for a longer, more profitable season.

  • ✺ Choosing the right Outlets

    Talk over your farm’s marketing plan with us and get our insights about how to maximize each marketing path

  • ✺ Hands-On Skills & Confidence

    Leave the workshop with real-world, hands-on experience and the confidence to apply everything you’ve learned to your own farm.

Other Highlights of the Workshop

In addition to all of the content we will be teaching and displaying in action on our farm here are some more highlights of the workshop experience.

  • Community of other attendees who are also growers similar to you

  • Tour of our whole 2/3 acre farm - revenues of over 160K in year four.

  • Hands on “Step by Step Bed Prep for Success” with Stephen

  • Library of farmings books and resources for you to peruse

  • Hands on with key tools like the paperpot transplanter, tilther, Jang Seeder, broadfork, Cool-Bot, germination chamber, high tunnels, caterpillar tunnels, and more

  • Nursery and Propagation House hands on seeding trays with Stephen

  • Primer on high tunnel design, features, and automation options.

  • Microgreen grow room and techniques

  • Resource takeaways like a transplant and seed starting calendar, seed order history, SOPs to use with your workers, soil science and amendment recommendations, basic farm revenue and expense breakdowns, online marketing checklists and more.

Who is this Workshop for?

  • You are ready to start your market garden business and you are planning it out now - this workshop will give you highly actionable takeaways and you will be itching to get going after you leave

  • You are a few years into your market garden business and things could be better. You want to see systems and techniques that allow us to bring in well over $100K per acre.

  • You are experienced in the ag or local food space and you are seriously considering a jump to market gardening.

  • Your homesteading journey has been fun but now you are ready to make an income from a market garden

  • If you can’t afford the expensive online courses out there we want you here getting your hands on - we have a sliding scale price system and want you to take full advantage of it

  • You have been an employee on farms and you want to get your own operation going soon but you want to see some really streamlined systems with an approachable level of initial investment.

  • The farm is certified Organic through OEFFA - so we will be teaching with that certification in context. While organic certification won’t be a major focus of this workshop we will discuss it both in terms of your marketing plan for your farm and how it impacts production techniques.

Who is this workshop NOT for?

  • Someone who is interested in raising livestock or animals on their farm business - we focus on small scale veggies only at our farm so not all of the content we teach will be applicable to your operation.

  • People who are 100% brand new to the idea of market gardening - if you have never poured over YouTube farm videos, read a market gardening book, attended a small farming conference, or gone to an extension or master gardener presentation - maybe those are a better place to start for you than this hands on intensive workshop - in fact reach out and we can give you a reading list if you would like.

  • Someone wanting to start a home garden this year for the first time.

  • Someone wanting to know how to grow food for their family. While this is great - we will be discussing production techniques and infrastructure investments that really only make sense if you are doing this as a market garden business.

✺ Frequently asked questions ✺

  • Yes! We know it is important for your people and partners in your farm business to be in on the plan. So if it is important to you - your business partner, spouse, support person can come with you to the workshop on your ticket - just let us know that plan when you register.

  • It is okay to register if you are a novice - but we would suggest watching some market gardening resources online or reading a book or two before you come as we will be teaching how to run a market garden as a business and we will assume you know your way around a garden at least a fair amount.

  • Good Question - Stephen is a first generation farmer and is entering year 14 of market garden farming as a farm manager/owner. His new farm (where the workshop is held) is starting its fourth season and sells all direct to consumer through a CSA program, farmer’s markets, and an online store.

  • Yes, lunch is included with your registration. We are having a simple lunch meal catered and eating out at the farm.

  • A good idea would be a notebook, your questions and some background info on your farm project, a camera if you want to snap pictures of videos of parts of the hands on learning, a water bottle and snacks, and cloths for the outdoors as the whole event is outside.

  • Yes! We’ll provide workshop handouts, key takeaways, and resource recommendations so you can continue learning.