How to Find Specific Farming Guides and Articles on Modern Farmer

Modern Farmer publishes practical farming and growing guides alongside reported features, and the homepage is organized so you can scan by topic and by date. If you want a specific how-to — starting a permaculture farm, sowing succession crops, starting tomato seeds — look for articles with a "How to" title, a named author, and a recent date, then use the topic labels (Farm, Grow, Home, Food) to narrow further. The site is a general-interest agriculture publication rather than a searchable how-to database, so browsing the section labels and headlines is the main way in.

How the site is organized

Modern Farmer groups its content under broad subject labels that appear with each story. From the homepage evidence, the visible categories include:

• Farm — production-scale growing, livestock, soil, and farm business topics
• Grow — planting, seed starting, and crop selection
• Home — permaculture and gardening at household or small-farm scale
• Food — consumption and food-system stories

Each entry pairs a category label with a headline, a short standfirst, an author byline, and a date. That four-part pattern is what you scan to decide whether an article matches what you need.

Telling a guide apart from a news or feature piece

The clearest signal is the headline wording. Instructional pieces tend to start with "How to" or name a specific task:

• "How to Start a Permaculture Farm"
• "How to Start Tomato Seeds: 5 Expert Growing Tips"
• "How to Kill Winter Crops Without Losing Soil Gains"
• "The Small Farmer's Guide to Succession Sowing"

List-style service pieces are also guides in practice — for example "11 Best Heirloom Tomatoes to Grow on the Farm" or "April Seed Starting: What to Direct Sow vs. Plant Indoors." These give you a decision framework rather than a single method.

Reported features and profiles read differently. "On a Maine Farm, Regeneration Starts With the Sheep" and "Permaculture: A Conversation with Brandy Hall" are narrative or interview pieces. They can still contain useful practice detail, but they won't be structured as step-by-step instructions.

A quick rule: if the title promises a method, a comparison, or a ranked list, treat it as a guide; if it names a place, a person, or a trend, treat it as a feature.

Browsing by topic

Use the category label next to the headline as your first filter, then read the standfirst for the specific angle.

Browsing by date and season

Dates are printed with every article, and much of the growing content is seasonal. The homepage evidence shows a run of spring and early-summer pieces — March through May for tomato and seed-starting guides, May for succession sowing and monthly planting lists, July for the permaculture farm guide.

If you're planning a task, sort mentally by the month that matches your own climate window rather than assuming the newest article is the right one. A May planting list is useful in May; a March tomato-seed guide is useful before your last frost. Note that the site's dates run into 2026, so treat the date as the publication point and check whether the advice is tied to a season or to a one-time event.

Using authors as a shortcut

Byline is a reliable way to find more of the same kind of content. Several writers appear repeatedly on practical topics — Briana Yablonski on permaculture, Sarah Jay across succession sowing, seed starting, and crop selection. If one guide worked for your situation, following that author's other pieces is faster than re-scanning the homepage.

What the site does not provide

There is no evidence on the homepage of a keyword search box, a tag index, a difficulty rating, or a regional climate filter. So you cannot query "zone 6 tomato" and get a filtered result. Plan to browse category labels, headlines, and dates, and to read the standfirst to judge fit. If you need location-specific timing, take the method from the guide and adjust the calendar to your own frost dates.

A practical sequence

1. Pick your category from the label next to the headline — Farm, Grow, Home, or Food.
2. Scan for "How to," "Guide," or a numbered list in the title.
3. Read the standfirst to confirm the article addresses your scale and task.
4. Check the date against your season.
5. Note the author and look for their other pieces on the same topic.