
Lessons from 37 years of market farming with Chip and Susan Planck of Wheatland Farms in Virginia
From Growing For Market Podcast by Andrew Mefferd, Katie Kulla, April Parms Jones
June 2, 2026 · 1h 19m · Episode 181
About this episode
Chip and Susan Planck share their experiences and insights from 37 years of market farming in Virginia.
Chip and Susan Planck ran Wheatland Farms growing vegetables in Virginia for 37 years, and in this interview, we talk with them about what worked, what didn’t and what changed in market farming over almost four decades. We talk about founding farmers markets, and then how they pulled off 10-15 farmers markets every week during the season. That involved employing hundreds of people over the years, and we talk about why it was important to hire people and not have them work as apprentices or interns.
People in this episode
Hosts: Andrew Mefferd, Katie Kulla, April Parms Jones
Guests: Chip Planck, Susan Planck
Topics covered
- market farming
- farmers markets
- employment in farming
- agriculture history
- business strategies
Keywords
- market farming
- farmers markets
- Wheatland Farms
- Virginia agriculture
- employment strategies
- farming history
- Chip Planck
- Susan Planck
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Wheatland Farms
Places: Virginia
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