The 2026 edition of the annual Old Farmer’s Almanac — published continuously since 1792 — recently hit the shelves. Joining me to discuss the latest Almanac and its guiding philosophy is Carol Connare, the 14th editor of the Almanac in its 234-year history.
Carol lives in New Hampshire where she tends an edible forest. She is a lifelong gardener and grower, and during two decades working at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, a public land-grant research university, she taught food writing and brought students to visit, learn about and write stories on area farms and food producers. Carol previously wrote for Yankee Magazine, which, like the Old Farmer’s Almanac, is published by Yankee Publishing, based in Dublin, New Hampshire. She was named the editor of the Old Farmer’s Almanac in 2023.
Editor-in-Chief of The Old Farmer’s Almanac Carol Connare — the second woman to hold the title since the Almanac’s founding in 1792.
Photo Credit: Carol Connare
The Old Farmer’s Almanac is full of information on the best times to sow seeds and harvest fruits and vegetables, and includes recipes for enjoying all that produce, plus much, much more. The Almanac itself has a circulation of more than 2 million, inclusive of the U.S. edition, the Canadian edition, a large print edition, a bookstore edition, a trade edition and a hardcover edition. The staff also puts out a garden guide with a circulation of 300,000 and publishes popular calendars, as well as offering various valuable resources at Almanac.com.
Before proceeding with my conversation with Carol Connare, I want to take a moment to invite you to my Seed Saving Essentials Webinar on Wednesday, September 17, at noon Eastern. The program includes what you need to know to harvest, store and test seeds, and tickets include an accompanying eBook and 30-day recording access. I hope you’ll join me!
Working Ahead
With 2026 being right around the corner, Carol is already in the midst of working on the 2027 Almanac. Each annual Almanac is produced on a June to June schedule and published in late August.
“If you look at some of the elements, like the astronomy, those are things that astronomers know years in advance because of the science of astronomy,” Carol points out. “They are very clear on how the planets are going to move.”
Tide forecasts, also a fixture of the Old Farmer’s Almanac, are likewise known well in advance.
“So we start putting together what we call our tabular pages and our reference pages well in advance,” Carol says.
Many of the stories that will appear in the 2027 edition have already been assigned and some have been turned in to the editors already.
“We’re painstaking fact checkers, in terms of copy editing and fact checking, and so that takes months as well,” she says. “We triple check with every source on everything in that book — and there’s still a mistake or two that slips through, which concerns us.”
It’s impossible to be perfect all the time, but the editors aim to get as close to that unattainable goal as possible.
The team includes Managing Editor Sarah Perreault, who runs the kids’ publication. “She’s also kind of our food guru,” Carol says. And Heidi Stonehill, the executive editor, is the “calendar maven.” Both women have been with the Old Farmer’s Almanac for 20 years or more.
Tim Goodwin is senior editor, and among his specialties is weather forecasts.
Copy editor Cate Hewitt joined the team last year, making everyone’s writing better, according to Carol, and Colleen Quinnell is the creative director — the brand keeper and graphic designer with a hand in every single product.
Joe Bills, the new associate editor, joined The Old Farmer’s Almanac from Yankee Magazine. He fields reader questions, getting them to the appropriate editors to find answers.
The Old Farmer’s Almanac for Kids, Volume 11
Photo Credit: Almanac.com
Confronting the Emergence of AI
“We’re really coming out strong in terms of our thoughts on AI,” Carol says. “We have been around for 234 years because we do use new tools. We certainly use it for things it’s good at, like synthesizing information or organizing ideas, but what we are absolutely opposed to is using it to create content and words. … I can see where other places might use it, but we’re not going to because we’re human. We think that people believe the Almanac because we are authentic.”
She is also concerned that AI models are being fed information scraped from Almanacs and almanac.com — information that Almanac paid writers to create. Then generative AI shares that information without even crediting the source.
Carol adds that AI also creates image manipulation concerns. When using stock photography for a publication, it’s getting harder to tell what photos have been altered.
To provide readers with more services and to ensure the Almanac is offering things that AI can’t, various calculators have been added to Almanac.com.
“We’ve developed this whole new suite of tools,” Carol says.
They have a mulch calculator and a container gardener size calculator, for example.
Photo Credit: Almanac.com
Who The Old Farmer’s Almanac Appeals To
Carol says the Almanac reader demographic has typically been people in their 50s who want to grow their own food and be in touch with the earth. But now influencers and interviewers who come the way of the Almanac skew younger.
“And it’s not that we have to do anything to attract them,” Carol says. “They’re just attracted to this content. So we’ve had astrology, we have astronomy, we have growing tips, we have things for beginners. We have explaining articles. DIY is sort of kind of the original thing that we were doing because people needed to do their own things — do it themselves.”
People also like that the Almanac is a physical book (though it is available digitally too.) Carol sees a backlash among young people to too much digital.
“When I talk to younger folks in the media, they are just so thrilled to hold something in their hands,” she says.
The same goes for Almanac’s wall calendars and desktop calendars.
“We have this whole line of paper calendars, and they’re unstoppable,” Carol says.
She notes that when the calendar flips to June, there is a reorder form within — “and I can’t tell you how many people send us their forms in June because they love the paper calendars. So sure, there’s all these digital solutions, but sometimes we just wanna look at something beautiful and have it in a little box that we walk by during the day.”
Marking plans on a physical calendar or planner is also better for memory.
The Old Farmer’s Almanac 2026 Planner.
Photo Credit: Almanac.com
“The act of writing — of handwriting — has a powerful connection with our brains,” Carol says.
Old Farmer’s Almanac Calendars are beautiful and they have a lot of interesting information each month. These calendars make you want to walk by and look. They cause you to stop and catch your breath and learn a little something at the same time.
The 2027 calendars — with options such as Moon, Gardening, Weather and Country — will be the 50th edition of the Old Farmer’s Almanac calendars. They print 355,000 copies and sell out every year.
The 2026 Gardening Calendar
Photo Credit: Almanac.com
Unifying Principles
“Our content is so varied,” Carol points out. “We do have the things we have every issue. We have the tides and the planting tables, and we have the weather and we have some astrology and we have astronomy, and then we have 15 or 16 features.”
While those feature stories have no unifying theme, they do have unifying principles: history, nature, curiosity.
What’s in the 2026 Old Farmer’s Almanac
The Almanac is apolitical, but because the 2026 issue coincides with the 250th anniversary of the United States, it takes an opportunity to look back on the past. The back page includes excerpts from old Almanacs in 50-year intervals: 200 years ago, 150 years ago, etc.
“It’s interesting to look at what were the words that were meaningful at that time, and maybe how much they’ve changed or haven’t changed. You know, what’s the meaning of being a citizen? So we’re not going to really go in depth, but we can take this snapshot of time, which I think anybody’s interested in.”
One really cool story, Carol says, is called “Journey to the Junkosphere.” It’s about the things in space that humans have put up there that no longer work — like busted satellites.
“Eat Your Skirret” is a feature story on a parsnip-carrot type of vegetable grown in 1776 that our forefathers grew because they were easy to grow and store, and an amazing vegetable for our bodies, she says.
“The Swingingest Summer of All Time” is about how the 1941 baseball season became a metaphor for triumph over the odds.
Most ideas are generated by the internal team, though Carol says the Almanac certainly has freelance writers who “get us” and pitch stories. For example, longtime writer Tovah Martin suggested, how about a story on how to invent a new tomato? That was an easy “yes!”
A new writer for 2027, a farmer, wanted to write for the Almanac and developed a story on what techniques a root vegetable farmer can teach home gardeners.
“The Fish Scales of Justice” is a fascinating story about a Supreme Court case on fishing and a minnow in Maine, and that’s followed by instruction on how to tie three basic fishing knots.
“So that’s kind of the Almanac in a nutshell — like a good read, something that’s going to surprise you, and then like, a very useful topic about fishing,” Carol says.
Carol herself worked on a story about pingos, which are frost heaves found in the Arctic. “They’re a geographic formation having to do with water and frost, and they’re kind of a harbinger of climate change,” she says.
The 2026 Every Day Boxed Calendar
Photo Credit: Almanac.com
I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Carol Connare on the 2026 Old Farmer’s Almanac. If you haven’t listened yet, you can do so now by scrolling to the top of the page and clicking the Play icon in the green bar under the page title.
What’s your favorite part of the Old Farmer’s Almanac? Let us know in the comments below.
Links & Resources
Some product links in this guide are affiliate links. See full disclosure below.
Episode 406: Get to Know the Old Farmer’s Almanac, with Carol Connare, Editor-in-Chief
joegardener Online Gardening Academy™: Popular courses on gardening fundamentals; managing pests, diseases & weeds; seed starting and more.
joegardener Online Gardening Academy Organic Vegetable Gardening: My new premium online course. The course is designed to be a comprehensive guide to starting, growing, nurturing and harvesting your favorite vegetables, no matter what you love to eat, no matter where you live, no matter your level of gardening experience.
joegardener Online Gardening Academy Master Seed Starting: Everything you need to know to start your own plants from seed — indoors and out.
joegardener Online Gardening Academy Beginning Gardener Fundamentals: Essential principles to know to create a thriving garden.
joegardener Online Gardening Academy Growing Epic Tomatoes: Learn how to grow epic tomatoes with Joe Lamp’l and Craig LeHoullier.
joegardener Online Gardening Academy Master Pests, Diseases & Weeds: Learn the proactive steps to take to manage pests, diseases and weeds for a more successful garden with a lot less frustration. Just $47 for lifetime access!
joegardener Online Gardening Academy Perfect Soil Recipe Master Class: Learn how to create the perfect soil environment for thriving plants.
The Old Farmer’s Almanac on Facebook
The Old Farmer’s Almanac on Instagram | @theoldfarmersalmanac
The Old Farmer’s Almanac on TikTok | @theoldfarmersalmanac
The Old Farmer’s Almanac on YouTube | @almanac
2026 Old Farmer’s Almanac, Trade Edition
2026 Old Farmer’s Almanac, Hardcover Edition
2026 Old Farmer’s Almanac, Paperback Edition
The Old Farmer’s Almanac for Kids
The 2026 Old Farmer’s Almanac Gardening Wall Calendar
“The Old Farmer’s Almanac Vegetable Gardener’s Handbook”
“The Celestial Garden: Growing Herbs, Vegetables, and Flowers in Sync with the Moon and Zodiac” by Jane Hawley Stevens
Milorganite® – Our podcast episode sponsor and Brand Partner of joegardener.com
Soil3 – Our podcast episode sponsor and Brand Partner of joegardener.com
Disclosure: Some product links in this guide are affiliate links, which means we get a commission if you make a purchase. However, none of the prices of these resources have been increased to compensate us, and compensation is not an influencing factor on their inclusion here. The selection of all items featured in this post and podcast was based solely on merit and in no way influenced by any affiliate or financial incentive, or contractual relationship. At the time of this writing, Joe Lamp’l has professional relationships with the following companies who may have products included in this post and podcast: Milorganite, Soil3, Territorial Seed Company, Proven Winners ColorChoice, and Dramm. These companies are either Brand Partners of joegardener.com and/or advertise on our website. However, we receive no additional compensation from the sales or promotion of their product through this guide. The inclusion of any products mentioned within this post is entirely independent and exclusive of any relationship.
