I am a small farm business advisor, biological farm consultant, QuickBooks ninja, teacher and labor coach. I help farmers around the country to understand their business, brainstorm ideas and make both business and production decisions.

I was raised in the VA suburbs of Washington DC. I discovered farming at an early age, and took that passion to Virginia Tech where I earned a BS in Horticulture. After 4 years in vegetable seed research in California and active member of the Committee for Sustainable Agriculture, I returned to Virginia to rejoin Potomac Vegetable Farms where I had trained during college. I became one of four owners of Potomac Vegetable Farms (PVF), where I farmed for 25 years. I managed the Loudoun County location where we cultivated 20 acres of land using organic practices: 10 acres of vegetables and herbs, 10 acres of soil building crops. PVF in total attends 6 farmers markets, features two roadside stands and services a 550 member CSA in the Washington DC metropolitan area.

 

 

In 2010, while still farming, I started my consulting business. I began working with local growers and land owners to develop fertility and production systems. I retired from farming in 2017 and have been full time coaching and advising ever since. My main coaching work involved business management through bookkeeping and financial management. I also still work as a thought partner on technical production issues, labor management, soil testing and fertilizer recommendations, and market channel analysis and decisions.

 

For many years I have presented workshops at conferences and meetings around the country on numerous agricultural topics including: profitability, labor management, record keeping, bookkeeping, soil fertility, and composting. I worked closely with Southern Sustainable Agriculture Working Group (SSAWG) to develop and present Growing Farm Profits, a 2 day intensive workshop to educate growers and service providers on how to keep records, how to use them to analyze farm profitability, and how to change management strategies to increase farm profits. I was a lecturer and adviser at the University of Maryland, College Park for two years, working with the Institute for Applied Agriculture.