From Season-Long Care to Harvest
This course continues where BF 120 ends, and covers vegetable production from transplanting to harvest, including information on in-season fertility, integrated pest management, weed control options, harvesting strategies, and tips for marketing your products.
Participating in the weekly on-line discussions can help you with your plans for the coming growing season. (Note: You do NOT need to take BF 120 to enroll in this course)
Target Audience
Beginning to Intermediate: This course is for aspiring farmers and those with at least one growing season of vegetable farming experience. You should already have a basic understanding of how to select crops, manage bed preparation, seeding, and transplanting. This course targets farmers in the Northeastern US. Farmers outside the region are welcome to register, but should do so knowing that some of the information presented may not be appropriate for their region.
Learning Objectives
By the end of this course, you will be able to
- Make good decisions about fertility management for your specific crops
- Understand options available for weed, pest, and disease control
- Be able to identify problem weeds, pests and diseases on your farm
- Learn successful harvesting and marketing strategies
Webinars
The bulk of the course happens on your own time, with discussions, readings, and assignments in Teachable, our virtual classroom. To add to the experience, webinars will be woven into the online interface of the course to allow you to meet on a weekly basis to learn from outside presenters and ask questions to address your farm issues in real time. If you miss one, they are always recorded and posted for later viewing.
Webinar Schedule
Live instruction for the 2021-2022 season has ended, and the next live
session will be in January 2023.
While we encourage
live attendance so you have the opportunity to engage with the presenters and
ask questions, all webinars are recorded and posted in our online classroom for
students to watch anytime. Once you have enrolled in this course, you will
retain access to all materials indefinitely, and can return to participate in
the live webinars in future offerings of the course if you wish.
Your Instructor
Amy Ivy recently retired from her role as part of the Eastern NY Commercial Horticulture Program. She worked with gardeners and commercial vegetable and berry growers for Cornell Cooperative Extension for 31 years in northeastern NY, on the east side of the Adirondack Mountains and Champlain Valley. Her particular interests are season extension, protected culture including high tunnels, soil health and insects, both good and bad.