Lessons from 37 years of market farming with Chip and Susan Planck of Wheatland Farms in Virginia

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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