Simpson's Market Garden

Simpson's Market Garden Your neighborhood farmer feeding Charles County. I grow fresh, flavorful produce without synthetic pesticides or fertilizers. I work with nature, not against it!

Come taste the difference! Find me at SimpsonsMarketGarden.com

I'll be back at the La Plata Farmers Market this Saturday with Spring Mix, Arugula, Microgreens and more. Come out and s...
08/28/2026

I'll be back at the La Plata Farmers Market this Saturday with Spring Mix, Arugula, Microgreens and more.

Come out and shop local!

MICROGREENS ARE BACK THIS WEEKEND! I’ll have all your favorites at the market this Saturday & a small selection on Sunda...
08/26/2026

MICROGREENS ARE BACK THIS WEEKEND!

I’ll have all your favorites at the market this Saturday & a small selection on Sunday. They are fresh and packed with flavor!

And YES… SUNFLOWER SHOOTS AND PEA SHOOTS are back too!

If you’ve been missing your microgreens, this is your sign to come grab some. They’re great on sandwiches, salads, wraps, eggs, or honestly just about anything that needs a little extra crunch, spice, or flavor.

Meet the newest addition to the farm - my “new to me” 2005 Honda OdysseyI got this thing for a killer price. It was such...
08/25/2026

Meet the newest addition to the farm - my “new to me” 2005 Honda Odyssey

I got this thing for a killer price. It was such a good deal that I couldn’t pass it up.

At this point, it’s probably pretty easy to identify my truck around the county and on Route 6/Port To***co Rd
But you’ll be seeing this Honda Odyssey around now too.

This thing is HUGE inside. With the seats folded down, it actually has almost as much usable space as the bed of my pickup truck. Once I pull the second row of seats completely out, it'll be the perfect produce hauling vehicle.

This minivan is about to get put to work.
The next step is getting it wrapped in my logo so there’s absolutely no mistaking who's making deliveries 😆

One last bit of information about the Farm Card!The Farm Card is pretty simple- you put money onto your card ($200), and...
08/25/2026

One last bit of information about the Farm Card!

The Farm Card is pretty simple- you put money onto your card ($200), and that becomes credit you can use toward whatever produce you want throughout the winter.

But it is seasonal, it isn't a gift card you can hold onto forever! The credit is for the Farm Card season, running from the first week of November through the second week of March.

I haven't officially secured the pickup spot yet- negotiating a spot is always much slower than I anticipate! It will be in White Plains or Port To***co for sure though! So for now, I'm only taking a $25 deposit to reserve your spot. The eventual Farm Card buy-in will be $200, so if you put down the $25 deposit, the remaining $175 will be due in mid-September.

Winter Farm Card pickups will be in either White Plains or Port To***co.

I'm only taking these deposits in person at the market. If you've been interested, come find me at the Saturday or Sunday market and mention the Farm Card. I'll give you a special card that allows you to put down your deposit on the spot or at your leisure (by scanning a QR code included) and reserve your spot before the waitlist opens.

If you've been thinking about doing it and wanted to secure a spot, come find me this weekend!

GOOD NEWS: I HAVE SALAD GREENS! I won't be at the Saturday farmers market...But this Sunday I'll have Arugula, Spring Mi...
08/21/2026

GOOD NEWS: I HAVE SALAD GREENS!
I won't be at the Saturday farmers market...
But this Sunday I'll have Arugula, Spring Mix, Pattypan Squash and much more available alongside The Farm at Thorne Gut and her unpasteurized milk, eggs and natural skincare products.

You can find us this weekend on Sunday from 10am-3pm out front of Capt. Moe's/Jimmies Paddock in White Plains.
It's quick and convenient and is the best way to support our small farms!

Have you tried pattypan squash before?It's one of the oldest domesticated varieties of squash, and was pretty important ...
08/20/2026

Have you tried pattypan squash before?

It's one of the oldest domesticated varieties of squash, and was pretty important to indigenous societies.

Honestly, pattypan might be my favorite squash. Not just because it’s so cool looking, but because it’s incredibly versatile, and was one of the first vegetables I ever grew.

You can cook it just like any other summer squash. Saute it, roast it, grill it, or bake it. But the larger squash can also be hollowed out and stuffed, almost like a vegetable bread bowl.

Fill it with cheese, sausage, bacon, or whatever combination sounds good, put it back in the squash, and bake it until everything is hot and delicious.

What goes into growing garlic?Garlic is a unique cropYou plant it in the fall, usually around October or November, and d...
08/19/2026

What goes into growing garlic?

Garlic is a unique crop

You plant it in the fall, usually around October or November, and don't harvest it until June or July the following year.

So we're talking roughly 8 months in the ground for a crop that ultimately gets sold as one little head of garlic.

A ton happens in those 8 months.

Each head of garlic gets hand separated, into cloves. One bulb at a time. Then each clove gets planted separately, pointy side up.

People will soak their garlic in all sorts of things, from compost slurrys to nutrient water. I soak mine in LAB- "lactic acid bacteria" like whats in kimchi or saurkraut, to (potentially) help prevent it from rotting if conditions get real wet.

It begins to root in the fall, goes dormant through winter, and then starts growing again in the spring.

The plant has to build enough leaf growth before it starts putting energy into the bulb. Bigger roots means bigger leaves means bigger bulbs.

If you grow hardneck garlic like I tend to, you have to come through and cut all the garlic scapes (flower heads) off so the bulbs produce better. You can sell these, but you have to harvest them allllll pretty much at one time and so its alot to move very quickly.

Eventually we get to harvest. Harvest too early and the bulbs haven't finished sizing. Wait too long and the outer wrappers can start breaking down, bulbs split, roots rot... You don't want too much rain...

Then freshly harvested garlic needs to be cured to keep longer.

That means hanging or otherwise drying the bulbs for a few weeks so the neck and outer layers dry down properly. Once it's cured, I cut the tops, trim the roots a bit, clean the dirty paper off the bulbs, and THEN they are ready for sale as the "garlic bulbs" you know and love.

This ignores all the hand w**ding, any pest control you have to do, etc etc.

So when you buy a head of garlic from me, you're not just buying the head of garlic. You are buying 8 months of work.

One little clove goes into the ground in the fall.

Eight months later, hopefully, it comes back out as a full, big, tasty bulb.

And then I get to start explaining to everyone why I cant do 2 for $1 😂

What is local garlic worth?If you read my last post, you know I'm questioning whether garlic even makes sense financiall...
08/19/2026

What is local garlic worth?

If you read my last post, you know I'm questioning whether garlic even makes sense financially for my farm.

A big reason is that we're used to grocery-store garlic being incredibly cheap. A few small heads for a couple dollars.

Most of that garlic in the USA eaten is imported, with China being the largest source. Glossing over that the supply chain involved use's lots of prison labor, imported garlic is often softneck garlic. Softneck garlic produces a bit quicker than hardneck garlic, stores a bit longer, but also has alot less flavor than hardneck.

Mine is grown here, harvested here, and sold fresh. I prefer hard neckgarlic varieties myself, though I wont say I will never grow a softneck variety in the future.

And I don't just buy grocery-store garlic and plant it. Beyond questions around disease and whether it has been treated to prevent sprouting (its often sprayed with maleic hydrazide or irradiated to not sprout and to store longer), that's simply not the way I run my farm.

The bigger issue, though, is volume.

Garlic is a volume crop. The finances only start to make sense when you can plant a lot of it and actually move a lot of it.

Or if it draws someone to buy other crops from me as well as my garlic.

So when people ask, “Why are you even questioning whether you'll grow garlic if the finances are so bad?"

It's not whether I can grow it, it's whether I can sell enough of it to make the finances make sense- because I love growing it.

Most people don't know how different fresh, locally grown garlic can be from the cheap garlic they're used to buying.

So if I grow a lot of it, I also have to teach people why it's different and why it's worth paying more for.

Do you think I can move the volume?

Should I grow garlic for next year?I’ve always told everyone that I’m going to be as honest and transparent as possible ...
08/18/2026

Should I grow garlic for next year?

I’ve always told everyone that I’m going to be as honest and transparent as possible about what it takes to run this farm.

So let’s talk about the financial realities of farming... garlic.

I’ve had customers asking if I’m going to grow garlic again next year.

Honestly, I’m not sure yet.

I like growing garlic. I like selling it. And I know people really want locally grown garlic. It tastes amazing, and many people understand its worth every penny I may charge for it..

But I’m trying to figure out if it actually makes financial sense for a small farm like mine.

The garlic I’m looking at planting costs $15/lb wholesale. Its just about the cheapest garlic I can get my hands on (thats legal to plant... we will talk about that part later) and that's my price for ordering well over $500 worth.

At roughly 32 cloves per pound, that works out to about $0.47 of "seed" for every head I plant.
My garlic seed costs *more* to plant than Aldi or Walmart is selling a full bulb for!

I plant about 400 cloves in a 50' bed.

That’s $187.50 worth of garlic seed in one bed.

Add another $10 for fertilizer and roughly $40 for compost, and I’m already at $237.50 per bed before I account for plastic mulch or landscape fabric, pest control, side dressing, foliar micronutrients, or a single minute of my labor. That's a full $0.60 per bulb in expenses *before I even plant it*.

And garlic is not exactly a crop you plant and forget about.

I have to prepare the bed, hand plant 400 cloves per bed on my knees, hand w**d it, probably w**d it again, potentially protect it during a rough winter, hand harvest it, cure it, cut it, clean it, sort it, and eventually get it to market.

And then there are the pests.

Allium leaf miner and onion maggot can cause some pretty serious losses, and are becoming bigger and bigger problems in Maryland for organic farms. I fought them HARD on my onions this Spring/Summer and I still lost at least 20% of my onion crop in some beds.

If I lose 10% of the crop, I’d have about 360 heads to sell. That will be my loss *on a good year*.

If I lose 30%, I’m down to 280.

If I lose 50%, I’m down to 200.

And here's the part that really has me thinking:

If I have a bad year, I can actually *lose* money growing garlic even if I sell every head for 3x what the grocery store charges, and that's assuming my own labor is free! That's if I am not even paying myself minimum wage!

So before I order a thousand dollars worth of seed garlic, I'm trying to answer a pretty simple question...

Is garlic actually worth growing on a small farm?

08/16/2026

Due to the heavy rain and thunderstorms expected all today, we’re canceling our Sunday roadside sales.

We appreciate your understanding and hope to see everyone again soon!

Stay dry ☔

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White Plains, MD

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