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These sisters became co-owners of the family farm at 22 and 24, joining the ranks of women as key decision-makers on farms

Rebekah Alstede Modery, left, and Sarah Alstede, sisters and co-owners of Alstede Farms in Chester, New Jersey.

Courtesy: Alstede Farms

Sisters Rebekah Alstede Modery and Sarah Alstede were raised on a New Jersey farm. This year, they decided to spend their careers there, too.

Rebekah graduated in 2023 with a double major in agricultural business and sustainable agricultural production from Delaware Valley University. When it was time to decide on her next steps, it was easy to commit to staying on at the family farm, she said.

“I grew up here, and I loved doing it, and particularly loved the business and marketing side,” Rebekah, 24, told CNBC in the living room of her childhood home, nestled on Alstede Farms’ 600-acre property in Chester, New Jersey.

Sarah, 22, had a similar bond with the farm: “I knew really my entire life growing up that I would want to be here forever.”

She recently graduated from Centenary University with an associate degree in animal science with a focus in equine studies.

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In February, the sisters joined their father, Kurt Alstede, and their stepmother, Mary Thompson-Alstede, as co-owners of Alstede Farms.

With the younger generation of Alstede women owners, the farm is now majority women-owned. While farming is often thought of as a male-dominated field, there’s data indicating women are often key decision-makers for farms.

What decisions women farmers make

There were about 1.22 million female producers, or women farmers, in 2022, according to the National Agricultural Statistics Service, or NASS, at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. It’s still a male-dominated field: Those women represent about 36% of all producers.

Until recently, government data didn’t fully capture the role of women in farming, said Dominique Sims, an agricultural statistician at NASS.

NASS conducts the Census of Agriculture once every five years. It updated its practices in 2017 to collect more detailed demographic data, and ask more questions about who makes key decisions for farms and ranches. For its 2022 survey, it added another decision-making category: marketing.

“Women have always been a part of agriculture and always been a part of the decision-making, but the Census of Agriculture hasn’t always had the questions to ask,” said Shoshana Inwood, an associate professor of community, food and economic development at The Ohio State University.

Of the women who were in farming in 2022, many were key decision-makers, according to the 2022 Census of Agriculture.

The category women are most involved in is making day-to-day decisions, with 78%, the data shows.

Record-keeping and financial management is the only area where women are more likely to be involved than men, at 71% versus 70%.

“If you look at the female producers specifically, those are the categories where they reported the highest rate of involvement,” said Lance Honig, chair of NASS’ agricultural statistics board.

Both genders are equally as likely to be involved in estate and succession planning, at 53%.

High interest rates, climate change challenge farms

As younger women such as Rebekah and Sarah take on roles making key farm decisions, they’ll need to be prepared to navigate a host of growing financial challenges.

While the total number of producers in the U.S. has hardly changed in recent years, farms continue to consolidate.

There were 1.9 million farms in the U.S. in 2022, a 7% decline from 2017, according to USDA figures. Over that same period, the average farm size increased 5%, to 463 acres per farm, according to the agency.

About 23% of farms in the U.S. carried debt in 2022, a decline from 28% in 2018, according to the Agricultural Resource Management Survey by the USDA Economic Research Service.

However, that’s not indicating a healthier farm economy, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation. High interest rates have made it more expensive for farms to carry debt and created liquidity challenges.

“Operating loans and other forms of financing cost farmers a whopping 43% more in 2023 than in 2022 and are forecast to remain elevated for much of 2024,” wrote AFBF economist Bernt Nelson.

Climate change and weather extremes that come with it have also become increasingly challenging for farmers. Two of the biggest stressors are changing temperatures and rainfall or precipitation, said Rachel Schattman, assistant professor of sustainable agriculture at the University of Maine.

“Farmers are very good at thinking on their feet and they’re great problem solvers,” said Schattman. “The variability makes that problem-solving process a lot more intense and it’s a lot more financially demanding.”

Changing weather contributes to issues such as frost and freezes after long, warm periods in the spring, flooding or ponding events, drought, hastened crop developments and changing dynamics with pest and weed pressure, she said.

Some farmers have the cash flow to pay outright for the labor costs and equipment needed to mitigate such problems, while others might have to take lines of credit at the beginning of the season, said Schattman.

“For large-scale investments like wind machines to deal with frost in perennial fruit orchards, those are much more capital intensive and are often financed through things like traditional loans,” she said.

‘A huge undertaking’ as a family

Co-owners of Alstede Farms from left to right: Mary Thompson-Alstede, Rebekah Alstede Modery, Kurt Alstede and Sarah Alstede.

Courtesy: Alstede Farms

In mid-March, Alstede Farms experienced a frost-freeze period, which threatens the life of new blooms, said Rebekah, who now works as the farm’s assistant production manager out in the fields. Warmer temperatures earlier in the spring had spurred the apples, peaches, plums and apricots to further develop, putting them and early crops including strawberries at risk.

“We were out with different tools trying to keep everything warm. We double-covered our strawberries and we had fans blowing, just mixing the air to keep it warmer for the apples,” said Rebekah.

Such efforts are “a huge undertaking,” said Mary Thompson-Alstede. “We have people up all night long making sure everything is working and operational and driving tractors around with heaters to move it to all different places on the farm.”

In addition to labor costs, the double layer of row covers for the 22 acres of strawberries was $25,000, said Kurt Alstede. “We successfully protected them, but now there’s another $25,000 investment because of climate change.”

Rebekah Alstede Modery, left, and Sarah Alstede, sisters and co-owners of Alstede Farms in Chester, New Jersey.

Courtesy: Alstede Farms

Sometimes the risk management tools are not enough. Apple-picking is one of Alstede Farm’s crown jewels, along with pumpkins, and both share a peak season that spans from early September to late October, said Sarah.

Last year, the farm lost eight of its busiest weekends in the fall due to rain. Alstede Farms resorted to selling hundreds of tons of apples to juice at 5% of the price, or 10 cents a pound instead of $1.99.

Sarah believes that she and her sister have the grit to withstand such challenges, after seeing their family deal with hardships.

“It’s definitely equipped us to what the future will bring once we really take over,” she said.

Source: cnbc.com

Gardening mistake is making moss thrive in your lawn – it ‘loves’ one ingredient

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If your garden has become ridden with slimy moss – you may be making things worse.

With the UK’s first heatwave this year set to hit the nation later this month, more and more Brits are getting their gardens summer-ready. Now is a good time to pressure wash your patio slabs, trim the lawn, and sit back with a beer (or cuppa) whilst your flowers start to bloom. As the sun has already started to make the occasional occurrence, many of us are also watering our lawns to stop them drying out.

However, an expert has warned that a common garden mistake could be encouraging moss to take over your lawn.

Chris Mcllroy of The Grass People explains that moss ‘loves to grow in moist and shaded areas’. In fact, in can often be a sign of poor drainage – which is understandable given the onslaught of rain we endured throughout winter.

“Moss loves moisture, so water your lawn with care and avoid flooding the lawn,” the expert urged. “Avoid watering your lawn at night as it is cooler, and the moisture may sit on the soil. If your lawn is naturally moist, you should regularly aerate it.”

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If you’ve been making sure not to overwater your lawn, but still have a garden brimming with unsightly moss – don’t worry. Gardening enthusiasts are raving about a ‘brilliant’ hack’ that will remove the pesky stuff without having to rake it away.

Taking to the popular Gardening UK Facebook page, one member was desperate for a solution to tackle her moss-ridden lawn and one particular product proved to be the winner. “Richard Jacksons do one that is brilliant,” one person wrote. “Quickly after I used it the moss disappeared from my lawn.” Another added: “I used Richard Jacksons moss killer. It’s great and does the job with no need to rake.”

You can pick up a bag of Richard Jackson Flower Power Moss Remover & Lawn Feeder for £29.99 on Amazon. It might sound expensive but a 5kg bag can treat up to 100 square metres of grass.

The highly-reviewed product works by ‘over feeding’ moss which will die and turn black in 20 days. But unlike many moss killers, this product contains a bacteria that will then ‘eat’ the dead moss as your grass grows, saving you the hassle of raking it away.

Do you have a story to share? Email us at yourmirror@mirror.co.uk

Source: mirror.co.uk

I celebrate World Naked Gardening Day every day – here’s my reason why

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By Jowena Riley

Published: 03:27 EDT, 4 May 2024 | Updated: 03:43 EDT, 4 May 2024

As World Naked Gardening Day approaches this Saturday, one gutsy gardener from the U.S. is shedding more than just clothes as she tends to her plants.

Known only as The Naked Gardener on YouTube, the woman from Arizona is baring it all and sharing her unique perspective on the age-old practice of gardening in the nude.

First established in 2014, World Naked Gardening Day has since taken place each year on the first Saturday of May.

According to the Naturist Education Foundation, World National Gardening Day encourages people across the globe to ‘tend to their portion of the world’s garden unclothed as nature intended’.

However, for The Naked Gardener, every day serves as a opportunity to plant seeds and prune bushes in the nude – and the gardening enthusiast has detailed why it’s ‘vital’ to strip off and realign with Mother Earth.

Known as @thenakedgardener_official on Youtube, the woman, who has always concealed her identity, uploaded a video in May 2023, captioned as: ‘Why I Garden This Way Every Day.’

The American woman first experimented with gardening in the nude after moving from the desert in Arizona to a secluded part of land in the Midwest, which allowed her to live more sustainably and grow her own produce.

After a relationship with her partner came to an end, she sought some form of solace by taking walks and hikes while topless through sprawling woodlands, forests and mountains near her home in America’s Heartland.

For The Naked Gardener, it wasn’t long before gardening naked became more than just a hobby; it became a way of life, and she describes how she believes our connection to nature is ‘vital for our health, and for the health of the planet’.

She said: ‘We need to remember that we are not separate from nature, but a part of it – our minds and bodies need it just like the plants. We need the sun to touch our skin, we need the air to move across our bodies, we need clean water and healthy soil.’

Explaining how she believes that our well-being is intricately linked to our connection with nature, by baring it all in the garden, the gardener feels a profound sense of harmony with the natural world.

She added: ‘When we allow our bodies to feel the sun, air and water, when we touch the soil and feel the ground beneath our feet, we can thrive and be healthier as a species – this is why I garden the naked way, to have a deeper connection again.’

Insisting that she only gardens the ‘naked’ way, the gardener added that she does not use any herbicides, pesticides, or chemicals, and that carries through in every other aspect of her life – from the products she uses on her skin to the food she eats.

Through her videos, she hopes to inspire others to embrace their own connection to nature, whether that means gardening in the nude or simply spending more time outdoors.

As green-thumbed enthusiasts across the globe prepare to peel off their clothes this Saturday, The Naked Gardener encourages everyone to begin stripping away the barriers between themselves and the natural world – one bare step at a time.

In 2023, the best cities in America for nude gardening were uncovered – with Miami, Florida, unveiled as the best city for naked gardening

Meanwhile, Austin, Texas, was placed second and Atlanta, Georgia in third place, according to LawnStarter.

Out of the ranking of the 200 biggest cities in the US, West Valley City in Utah came in last as the worst place in the country to strip off and trim the hedges.

Source: dailymail.co.uk

15 pro tips for starting vegetables in the May garden

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May is the busiest month in my garden. Spring blooms give way to early summer blooms. Perennial bloom takes over for bulbs. The vegetable garden gets planted, fruit trees get attention and, if I’m lucky, the earliest stone fruits are ready to pick by month’s end. May is a glorious time to garden!

Vegetable gardens

Are you new to vegetable gardening? Or have you had trouble starting summer vegetable, herb and flower seeds in the past? Enroll in my Easy Seed Starting Online Course to learn the best, easiest and most successful way to start seeds. Sign up at bit.ly/seedstarting2024.

As soon as night temperatures stay reliably above 50 degrees, it’s safe to plant out summer vegetable seedlings.

What to plant now:
– From seed: cucumber, squash (winter and summer), pumpkins, melon, carrots, radishes, beans, cilantro.

– From seedling or start seeds in containers to plant out in six weeks: tomato, okra, basil, marigolds, eggplant, tomatillo, peppers.

If you shop for seedlings, buy the smallest seedlings you can find. Skip large seedlings and don’t ever buy large plants, especially those with fruits or flowers. Those plants are too old already. Younger plants will establish better, grow into larger, healthier, more vigorous plants that produce far more.

Since our native soils have very little organic matter, plan to grow vegetables in raised beds — either free standing or on the ground. If you don’t have room for raised beds, use half whiskey barrels, EarthBox or similar planters with a large volume of growing medium.

Fill on-the-ground raised beds with a topsoil mix — not with potting soil, not with planting mix, nor with any of the bagged raised-bed mixes. Use a topsoil that is at least 40 percent organic matter (compost). Add in a generous dose of worm castings and organic granular vegetable fertilizer. Mix in to the top few inches using a hand trowel; do not rototill.

Fill pots, freestanding raised beds and whiskey barrels with good-quality potting mix. Do not use planting mix or “dirt,” and don’t cheap out on the potting mix. Your plants only grow as well as the quality of the mix they are planted in.

Whatever your growing situation, fill the pot, bed or planter with the same material from top to bottom. Don’t be tempted to fill up space with logs, branches, leaves, plastic bottles, gravel or anything else. Layers like those create a “perch” layer that prevents soil from draining. Your plants can literally drown. It’s simply a matter of physics.

Revitalize last year’s raised beds and planting containers by topping them off with compost, worm castings and organic vegetable fertilizer. Mix in to the top few inches using a hand trowel; do not rototill.

Irrigate raised beds with Netafim Techline EZ inline dripline, with emitters spaced six inches apart. Before you plant, lay out the irrigation in a grid of straight lines, set six to eight inches apart.

GIVE PLANTS SPACE. Seedlings grow into much larger plants than you expect. Overcrowded plants never reach mature size. Instead, they form a giant, jumbled jungle — the perfect condition for killer molds, mildew and other problems, too. Here’s what to expect:
– Tomato: 3 to 6 feet wide and 6 feet tall.

– Pepper and eggplant: 2 to 3 feet wide and tall.

– Pumpkin and melon: vines up to 30 feet long in every direction.

– Zucchini: 3 feet across.

– Tomatillo: 3 to 4 feet tall and wide.

– Basil: 2 feet tall and wide.

Planting into containers?
– A 15-gallon nursery can or a half whiskey barrel accommodates one tomato plant, or two eggplants, or three basil plants, or four cucumber plants, or two pepper plants.

– A 5-gallon nursery can is big enough for two eggplants, two basil plants, or two pepper plants.

– A 5-gallon bucket with holes drilled in the bottom can support one tomato or two eggplants or three basil, or two pepper plants.

Rotate tomato, pepper, eggplant, tomatillo and potato plants to a different garden bed. These plants cousins are all vulnerable to the same “bad” soil viruses, fungi, bacteria, etc. Alternate them with annual herbs, root vegetables, flowers, okra, beans or other plants that are not in the tomato family. Swap locations each year.

To prune or not to prune tomato plants? Experts say there’s no reason to prune and many reasons not to. Contrary to legend, pruning does not increase production (why would it? Leaves power the plant, so when you remove leaves, you limit fruiting power). Overpruning leaves fruits exposed to sunscald. It is, however, smart to remove selective branches for good airflow and avoid mildew. Use your fingers to break off the branches, then wash your hands between plants so you don’t spread diseases from one to the next.

Fruit trees

Stone fruits, apples, pears, figs, pomegranates, pineapple guava, persimmon and many other summer and early fall fruits are developing now.

Thin out any marble-size apples, pears and stone fruits to just ONE fruit every five or six inches along the branch. Too many fruits make for tiny fruits and broken branches.

Water stone fruits, apples and pears deeply and regularly through the growing season. Remember to fertilize them with organic, granular, all-purpose fruit tree fertilizer. Follow label directions.

Water figs, pomegranate and pineapple guava only once every few weeks — deeply each time. Mulch them but don’t fertilize.

Peach leaf curl is disfiguring leaves on lots of stone fruits this year, even those sprayed well with fungicide and horticultural oil last winter. It is caused by a fungus that thrives in humidity (another reason to stop using overhead spray irrigation). There’s no treatment for it now and no reason to remove the disfigured leaves since they still photosynthesize to make energy and power fruit development. Plan to spray next winter.

Pick fruits as they ripen and before critters get them. Pick up fallen fruits and set traps for rats.

Continue watering and fertilizing citrus and avocado. Water under the entire canopy to wet surface roots, and water a long time to wet deep roots.

Disfigured citrus leaves are likely citrus leaf miner. Do NOT cut off the leaves. They are ugly, but don’t affect fruiting. Cutting off those leaves makes things worse. Why? Pruning stimulates new growth, and those new leaves are leaf miners’ favorite, so the problem will only get worse.

Bananas and other subtropical fruits are the thirstiest fruiting plants. Water once a week or more, deeply each time. Fertilize regularly and mulch thickly to keep moisture in the soil.

Don’t make the mistake of planting citrus trees (or any other tree) into lawn. Their water and fertilizer needs are very different and lead to crop failure. Instead, plant citrus and avocado into beds with a dedicated inline drip irrigation zone. Mulch.

Ornamental plants

Nurseries feature plants when they look prettiest, but that’s not the time to plant them. Take a walk through your neighborhood and make note of what’s blooming now. Add those plants to your garden in fall, and choose the small plants, not yet in bloom.

Plant annual flowers in or near your vegetable garden: marigolds, calendula, zinnias, sunflowers and more. They support pollinators and beneficial insects.
– Tube-shaped flowers support hummingbirds, butterflies and moths: sages, Grevillea, native currants (Ribes)

– Large clusters of small flowers support butterflies and moths: Aster, mints, milkweed

– Flat, wide flowers support bees: poppies, native Clarkia, Zinnia, Aster, daisies

– Bowl-shaped flowers and flat flowers support beetles: California poppies, magnolia, sunflowers, yarrow

Did you know: Beetles pollinate 88 percent of all flower plants around the world!

Inland, stop planting drought tolerant shrubs and trees, including natives, now. The heat will set in before those plants are through transplant shock. Continue planting in coastal gardens.

Deadhead roses and spring perennials to encourage more blooms. Always cut at a branching point. Never leave a stub.

Have you discovered Mangave? These Agave/Manfreda crosses grow as beautiful succulent rosettes with a great variety of spots and stripes in shades of blue, brown, yellow, red, green and silver. They are easy to grow and add a punch to the garden. Look for varieties like ‘Snow Lion’, ‘Mission to Mars’, ‘Black Magic’, ‘Dreadlocks’, ‘Chocolate Chip’ and others.

This is the time to replace your lawn with a “meadow” of natives like clustered field sedge (Carex praegracilis), native bent grass (Agrostis pallens), and blue grama grass (Bouteloua gracilis). Check your local water district for turf rebate programs before you remove the lawn.

Pests

Plants grow many leaves — a few holes in plant leaves aren’t a problem. Just ignore them.

Spray whiteflies and aphids off with a sharp stream of water using a Bug Blaster hose end nozzle. The critters’ soft bodies can’t withstand the impact of the spray. Repeat every few days for several weeks to interrupt their reproductive cycle.

Eliminate ants to control aphids, mealy bugs and scale. Ants “farm” these bugs by moving them around the garden and harvesting the sweet “honeydew” they excrete. It is the perfect ant food.

Got gophers? Protect new plants by planting into gopher baskets. Line the undersides of raised beds with hardware cloth. Catch tunneling gophers with GopherHawk traps.

Fungus gnats in houseplants are pesky but don’t damage plants. Give your plants an outdoor vacay now that it’s warm at night. Native predators will take care of the gnats for you.

Got slugs? Slugs and snails abound after the wet winter. Sprinkle Sluggo into garden beds to kill them. Check plants at night for tell-tale slime trails.

Manage water

Despite the abundance of winter rain, by summer it will be dry again. Stick to your water-conserving ways.

Startup your irrigation system now that rains have ended. Water only when the soil is dry, once every week or two or three.

Cover the soil with a 3- or 4-inch-thick layer of mulch, leaving a bare sunny spot for ground-dwelling native bees. These bees are important pollinators in gardens and for native plants; they rarely sting.

Use rock mulch for succulents, wood-based mulch for nonsucculent ornamental plants, straw (not hay) on vegetable gardens.

The goal of irrigating is to wet roots, so water long enough to get water down to the root zone — with drip irrigation that could take an hour or two. Stick your fingers down into the soil to be sure it is wet as deep as the roots go. Wait to water again until the soil dries out.

Run irrigation before 6 a.m., before peak weekday water demands. Drip can run at night, but not overhead spray. Wet leaves in the cool hours are susceptible to molds and mildew.

Learn more

“Cultivate Flavor — Grow Your Own Herbs and Spices” is the topic of my May 16 webinar at 7 p.m., part of my Third Thursday series. Learn about growing your own fresh herb and spices in pots or in garden beds. Once you taste fresh herbs, you’ll never go back to the dried stuff! Registration required at bit.ly/flavorUT.

Sterman is a garden designer, teacher, author and the host of “A Growing Passion” on public television. She runs Nan Sterman’s Garden School at waterwisegardener.com.

Source: sandiegouniontribune.com