GREEN Organic Garden Podcast: Recent Episodes
Jackie Marie Beyer
The GREEN Organic Garden Podcast will inspire, teach, and promote earth friendly techniques by interviewing organic gardeners who share their journeys, tips, and tricks to simplify the process of growing your own delicious healthy food. Whether you want to have a small bed in your backyard or a full grown farming operation, our guests will help you reach your gardening goals and offer you resources and solutions to everyday gardening challenges, and inspiration to dig down in the dirt and get growing!
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Are you dreaming of harvesting your own juicy, homegrown tomatoes next summer? Tired of paying outrageous prices at the grocery store? Good news: fall is the best time to prepare your garden for success.
If I’ve learned one thing about organic gardening, it’s this: healthy soil = healthy plants. And there’s no better season than autumn to build a strong foundation for next year’s harvest.
Start Composting in the Fall
Fall leaves are gardening gold!
Instead of sending them to the landfill, add them to your compost pile. Mix dry leaves with kitchen scraps—like eggshells, coffee grounds, and banana peels—and you’ll have rich compost by spring.
Healthy compost improves soil structure, boosts nutrients, and helps your garden retain moisture during summer heat. If you don’t already have a compost bin, fall is the perfect time to start one.
Build New Garden Beds Before Spring
Looking to expand your garden? Fall is the ideal season to create new growing spaces. You’ll avoid the spring rush and be ready to plant as soon as the soil warms.
Whether you’re dreaming of a kitchen garden, raspberry patch, pollinator border, or raised beds for leafy greens, gather your materials now. Supplies sell out quickly in spring—and often cost more.
Tip: Raised beds need a lot of soil. Start sourcing or making it now so you’re not scrambling in April.
Do a Fall Seed Inventory
Seeds are often sold out by spring, so use fall to get organized. Go through your stash, toss old or expired packets, and make a list of what you’ll need for next year.
Ordering early ensures you get the varieties you want—and avoids that dreaded “out of stock” label when planting season arrives.
How to Save Tomato Seeds
One of the easiest fall gardening tasks is seed saving. Just one ripe tomato can provide enough seeds to grow a whole bed next year.
Here’s how to do it:
- Scoop out seeds from a ripe tomato.
- Rinse and ferment them for a few days (to remove the gel coating).
- Dry thoroughly and store in a labeled envelope.
Plant Cool-Weather Crops in Fall
Want an early spring harvest? Try sowing spinach or lettuce in fall. These hardy greens can overwinter and sprout as soon as the snow melts—giving you fresh greens weeks before summer crops take off.
Most experts recommend planting by mid-August, but don’t be afraid to experiment. Weather patterns are shifting—this year we had 100° days in September with no frost by the end of the month! I’ll be sprinkling spinach seeds anyway to see what happens. Gardening rewards curiosity.
You can also save seeds from lettuce—just let a few plants bolt and go to seed. You’ll collect plenty for next year while feeding birds and beneficial insects in the fall. Here’s a great blog post from Megan Cain at the Creative Vegetable Gardener I think you’ll love!
Revisit Your Garden Goals
Fall isn’t just about cleanup—it’s a season for dreaming and planning. Take time to reflect on your garden goals and put one into action before winter sets in. Compost, build beds, save seeds, or plant fall crops—whatever you choose, your future self will thank you.
Question for you: What garden goal are you starting this fall? Share it in the comments!
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The shortest episode ever probably but a couple of good tips about tomatoes.
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Nutmeg helps us lay out all the parts and pieces
I got this Vivosun Compost bin off of Amazon for a bit of a cost of $150.00 but it's so worth it to see my mom have an easy place to throw her scraps and leaves and make that good rich soil for her new kitchen garden vegetable bed.
I'm also going to include the link to my favorite pitchfork from AM Leonard.
Please remember when you put food waste in the landfill it doesn't decompose the way it does in a compost pile. In a landfill, it is compacted in a closed environment and releases methane gas into the atmosphere, in a compost pile food waste decomposes in an aerobic environment decreasing the release of harmful green house gases. So even if you aren't a gardener it's important to keep your food waste out of the landfill. Can you recycle your neighbors scraps or find someone to donate your scraps to? In San Francisco make it mandetory residents and businesses collect the scraps for a municipal compost pile.
I filled up two giant garbage bags of leaves after I filled my mom's beds with about 8 birdseed bags full of leaves and grass clippings that had been in her bin.
The hugleculture method was the exactly what I needed to fill my mom's bed with soil.
I actually dug all of this dirt out, rebuilt the sides, put the broken limbs in, smothered them with leaves, and then dug out my mom's dirt beneath the compost bin in order to fill this bed. But boy oh boy did it grow.
Stain recommended by Nicole Burke from Gardenary.
The Stain I bought from amazon.
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People often ask me, “What is a kitchen garden?” What it is not is a garden in your kitchen. It’s not a tower full of lettuce growing in water next to your microwave or a pot of herbs on your windowsill. The answer is actually quite simple: a kitchen garden is essentially a bed of fruits, vegetables, and herbs you like to use for cooking, located near your kitchen. Convenience is one of the biggest keys to successful gardening.
One ~ A kitchen garden is easier to care for if it’s located just outside your kitchen door, where you do your cooking. This might not always be possible, depending on your garden's position in the sun, but the closer you can get to accessing your main cooking area, the better.
Two ~ A kitchen garden is easier to harvest from, making it more likely you will eat those vegetables you took so much time to grow. And they’ll thrive the more time you spend in your beds harvesting and caring for your little seedlings.
Three ~ A kitchen garden that uses deep beds will also make your veggies grow stronger. This is because the roots can go deeper, water can circulate around them more fluently, and they can soak up all the nutrients they need. Additionally, the best soil possible is included.
Four ~ A kitchen garden is easier to water. A kitchen usually has a water supply, so even if you don’t have a hose that will reach, filling a watering can from the sink will keep those baby seedlings moist when they are first germinating, one of the struggles of growing plants from seed.
Five ~ A kitchen garden can contain a compost pipe, also known as a worm tube (just a piece of perforated 6” or bigger PVC pipe), making recycling your kitchen scraps easier than you’ve ever believed, while providing fresh nutrients to your garden all season long. To keep animals out, just cover with a plate or an upside-down clay pot bottom. Drop leftover food scraps, coffee grounds, egg shells, and even weeds down the tube. Worms will then turn these bits of waste into nutritious food for your soil and plants. You want your pipe to be about 21/2 feet long with the lower 18 inches buried into the soil.
Last spring, my husband finally made my kitchen garden dreams come true, and this year I built one for my mom in her garden. We planted companion plants like basil and tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers, and sunflowers along the back of the bed near the garage to attract beneficial insects. We added nasturtiums, which not only add a peppery flavor and pretty color to summer salads but also serve as a natural deterrent to pests with their strong odor. An old trellis I found made an excellent climbing post for pole beans, something I can’t plant in our frosty Montana beds — and some lettuce, arugula, and radishes to pick first in the early spring.
Despite my mom's repeated assurances that she could never get eggplants to grow, a couple of Black Beauties, did a great job producing a few delicious purple aubergines, one of her favorite vegetables to cook. Each corner grew a big squash, and I could only dream about my mom’s famous flower fritters that were a delicacy when we were kids.
As we head into fall, it's a great time to design and build a kitchen garden for next spring and get started collecting those compost scraps, creating lots of healthy soil to fill those beds with.
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The Hempstead Home Depot Garden Center Team
Lesson #1: Measure First. My original plans for my mom’s bed was to build it 8’x4’ using four two-by-sixes cut in half and eight full-size. Before the associate at Home Depot made the first cut, I wondered how I'd fit an 8-foot board in my mom’s car. So, we ended up taking a couple of 2’x 6’x 12’ boards and cutting them into two 6-foot chunks and four 3-foot chunks each.But even this was too big in the end for the space I had picked out. A 5’x 2’ bed would have been best for her particular spot. If it were my house, I’d move the flowers and bushes to make room for the bigger bed, not the other way around. However, my mom hadn’t tasted the homegrown veggies we were going to grow yet. She was still not entirely sold on the value of a deep bed or growing your own, as she thought the farmers' market was convenient enough.[caption id="attachment_140350" align="aligncenter" width="768"] In this photo you can see how my brother drilled a couple of boards for extra support to sit on top of.[/caption]#2: Level ~ level ~ level I ended up pulling this bed apart and putting it back together, not one, not two, not three, but four times before I could plant it, because I didn’t take the time to level the bed properly in the first place. #3: Obtaining soil I can’t tell you how many people I have talked to about the first step to building a garden starts way before you are ready to plant, but with saving scraps and building a compost bin to create your own healthy soil. Deciding where to locate your soil and planning for extra soil when needed is essential. Someone had told me I could get soil at the local dump, but when I headed over with my garbage can, shovel, and some pots, the dump said they hadn’t done that in years. There were also concerns about the soil's origin and whether it would come from lawns treated with weed and feed chemicals—nothing I want in my mom's vegetable beds.I ended up using the hugelkulture method of filling the bed with branches that had blown down in a storm, some old rotting firewood, a couple of bags of leaves and grass clippings my mom had saved, and topped it off with a little bit of compost and fresh soil from around her beds but it could use more.#4: Watering your bedsThe closer to a spigot you can be, the better. One of the benefits of a kitchen garden are that you can fill a watering can from your sink. I was surprised how easy I could get a couple of watering cans delivered right to the door on sale from Home Depot when I ordered my screws to put the beds together.#5: Getting seeds and starts I’m shocked by how expensive seeds have become, even a packet of them. Seeds are the way to go, but that takes a lot of early-season preparation, room, and care, which isn’t always feasible for everyone. So if you have to resort to starts for things like broccoli, tomatoes, cucumbers, and peppers, etc., choose wisely. Try to get organic if possible. Things that you want to start from seeds would be quick-growing vegetables like lettuce, peas, and radishes. And there’s nothing like fresh sugar snap peas on the Fourth of July.Overall, I'm thrilled with the first official garden bed I built all by myself, and I'm confident that if I can do it, you can too!
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Five Reasons You Should Build A Kitchen GardenPeople often ask me, “What is a kitchen garden?” What it is not is a garden in your kitchen. It’s not a tower full of lettuce growing in water next to your microwave or a pot of herbs on your windowsill. The answer is actually quite simple: a kitchen garden is essentially a bed of fruits, vegetables, and herbs you like to use for cooking, located near your kitchen. Convenience is one of the biggest keys to successful gardening.
One ~ A kitchen garden is easier to care for if it’s located just outside your kitchen door, where you do your cooking. This might not always be possible, depending on your garden's position in the sun, but the closer you can get to accessing your main cooking area, the better.
Two ~ A kitchen garden is easier to harvest from, making it more likely you will eat those vegetables you took so much time to grow. And they’ll thrive the more time you spend in your beds harvesting and caring for your little seedlings.
Three ~ A kitchen garden that uses deep beds will also make your veggies grow stronger. This is because the roots can go deeper, water can circulate around them more fluently, and they can soak up all the nutrients they need. Additionally, the best soil possible is included.
Four ~ A kitchen garden is easier to water. A kitchen usually has a water supply, so even if you don’t have a hose that will reach, filling a watering can from the sink will keep those baby seedlings moist when they are first germinating, one of the struggles of growing plants from seed.
Five ~ A kitchen garden can contain a compost pipe, also known as a worm tube (just a piece of perforated 6” or bigger PVC pipe), making recycling your kitchen scraps easier than you’ve ever believed, while providing fresh nutrients to your garden all season long. To keep animals out, just cover with a plate or an upside-down clay pot bottom. Drop leftover food scraps, coffee grounds, egg shells, and even weeds down the tube. Worms will then turn these bits of waste into nutritious food for your soil and plants. You want your pipe to be about 21/2 feet long with the lower 18 inches buried into the soil.
Cover on pvc compost tubeLast spring, my husband finally made my kitchen garden dreams come true, and this year I built one for my mom in her garden. We planted companion plants like basil and tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers, and sunflowers along the back of the bed near the garage to attract beneficial insects.
We added nasturtiums, which not only add a peppery flavor and pretty color to summer salads but also serve as a natural deterrent to pests with their strong odor. An old trellis I found made an excellent climbing post for pole beans, something I can’t plant in our frosty Montana beds — and some lettuce, arugula, and radishes to pick first in the early spring.
Despite my mom's repeated assurances that she could never get eggplants to grow, a couple of Black Beauties, did a great job producing a few delicious purple aubergines, one of her favorite vegetables to cook. Each corner grew a big squash, and I could only dream about my mom’s famous flower fritters that were a delicacy when we were kids.
Black beauties in my mom’s garden September 2025As we head into fall, it's a great time to design and build a kitchen garden for next spring and get started collecting those compost scraps, creating lots of healthy soil to fill those beds with.
Nicole Burke wrote a great book called the Kitchen Garden Revival with great ideas and step-by-step directions on how to create the perfect kitchen garden for you.
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https://www.trueleafmarket.com/ (True Leaf Market) is offering a discount code for listeners to get 15% off cover crop seeds: https://www.trueleafmarket.com/ (GOG15). (See disclosures below)
https://www.cultivatingconnectionsmt.org/about-us-1 (https://www.cultivatingconnectionsmt.org/about-us-1) Where the food is the by-product and the product is the relationship and learning that students get from working on the farm and growing lettuce and you get to eat the lettuce that is grown. So cultivating connections is basically the farm classroom and people can be on the farm and interact with animals through a seasonal way. Salads for Seniors High schoolers who are hired as interns to learn how to be engaged in the kitchen by growing the lettuce, harvesting it, bringing it into the kitchen to clean it, make the salads that are delivered to meals on wheels. Funding? Tricky for non-profits. If Laura had her way there would be non-profits, for profits and community profits. Now they raise money through grants, weekly CSA shares, and other fundraising projects. CSA shares support upcoming farmers. $500 goes to help create a future for everyone. Where do high schoolers come from? Local or are there places to stay? Youth farm internships are focused on local high schoolers. Also have adult interns who come from all over and stay on farm but wanted to focus more on local students. First garden experience. Grew up outside of Butte? Remembers a 2nd grade classmate brought a queen bee and was fascinated with rural life. Mom had a small garden full of tomatoes and raspberries. First thing remembered planting was pine trees around her house in town. Went to UMT and was in first year of https://www.umt.edu/environmental-studies/opportunities/peas/ (PEAS program). Next summer started managing one of the community gardens and that was her first foray into growing 10 zucchinis instead of 1 and first experience into working with youth. Took 10 plots to grow for Food Bank. How to engage young people in a way that is meaningful for everyone. Do you want to tell us about social presencing theater and what's social presencing soil? Ways to engage people. The https://www.u-school.org/u-school (presencing institute) was created by Arawana Hayashi. What grew well this year? Community - food and farming are the universal connector. At the farmer's market two people who would usually never talk to each other standing talking about spinach and how they prepared it last week. What literally grew well last year was the kale. Grows well in all kinds of weather. So good for you. Hope people can grow kale. Also a good community builder and people have their assumptions about kale and so they get people talking to each other. JackieMarie - 2 things, I got to go to the Missoula market, 2xs last year and it was so peaceful talking to the vendors, standing in line getting coffee, exactly talking talking to compost guy and the pepper guy and the vendors so smiling. 2nd - my kale was awful last year. I actually put row cover and forgot 2xs and it was worse than ever. Kale is a really good indicator species for us. We had tons of aphids last year and the year before. Kale is a really good indicator of stress in the environment. Row cover is a great way to protect it. A great way to stay ahead of kale is to have multiple crops. Maybe every 3 weeks planting kale in different places. For a family of 4 you could get buy with just 4 plants. If you can transplant a few plants in April and then late May, and June. Pull the bugs off the ones that are infested. Also if you can enjoy on off season. Plant in late summer. 5 leaf stage is going to overwinter. In spring it's a biennial and want to go to seed in second year. Kale flowers just before they open looks like broccolini and so delicious thing you've ever eaten and all the amazing colors that come into kale floras are stunning. And to get to eat something pink in spring...
Tuesday • March 15, 2022
Here from Missouri is an amazing beekeeper, gardener, and author, CHARLOTTE EKKER WIGGINS! https://amzn.to/3wWX6lR ()https://amzn.to/3wWX6lR (Bee Club Basics: How to Start a Bee Club)https://amzn.to/3CW0KjI ()https://amzn.to/3CW0KjI (A Beekeeper's Diary: Self Guide to Keeping Bees)Has lots of checklists to help you get started. Master Beekeeper class is using her next book Bees Need Flowers, Planting for Pollinators coming out soon. Tips include: reading a lot. Join a bee club because it's like learning a new language. Beekeeping is very local Need to know bee biology to work with bees not tell them what to do Spend a year learning about beekeeping by taking 1 or more classes, reading, meeting other beekeepers.
Bees are colony based, not self centered like humans. Bees sometimes leave because they don't want to spread disease to the hive. Jackie asks what if you can't find a club? Thanks to the pandemic lots of clubs are meeting on Zoom like https://beesbeyondborders.com/ (Bees Beyond Borders) in Florida have guest speakers from leading bee experts in the country. What works and what doesn't in a gardenThe critical part of providing bees is your SOIL HAS TO BE HEALTHY! Need to keep soil healthy which will keep plants healthy and then bees will be healthy and food we eat will be healthy. One out of every 3 bites of food we eat is from bee pollination.Composting is the easiest thing to do. Mulch with compost. Lots of bird houses for natural pest control
I'm the same way. There's so many garden chores I don't want to do but compost is so easy! I don't understand people who say it's too hard, messy or complicated. Charlotte adds we need to move away from perfection. In the old days, magazines used to really focus on green lawns. Common sense says it's expensive to put in, you need to put in high expensive fertilizers, the minute it grows you cut it down and it doesn't really add anything to the environment. A bug bite on a rose leaf is exciting it means there's a relationship between ladybugs and praying mantis etc who are eating the pests in the garden because they need food so a whole in a leaf is important for the rose to grow. What grew well? Catnip What's something new or different your excited to try? Some https://www.rareseeds.com/ (Baker Creek Co Seeds).https://www.rareseeds.com/ (https://www.rareseeds.com/) Some flowers and peppers that were ordered. I like the tried and true. Do you save your own seeds? I just tried spaghetti squash and loved it so I saved those. I also do companion planting. I plant onions around my roses to deter bugs and if I need an onion. I mix my vegetables and flowers, I don't have them in rows, I plant them in with my flowers because I can move them around each year so they're not planted in the same soil and using up all the nutrients and the pollinators are attracted by the flowers. How about something that didn't go the way you thought is was going to? My least favorite thing is to dig holes, I didn't get as much mulch as I would have liked in some new flower beds, and I planted some zinnias in a bed that wasn't quite ready for planting. They didn't do as well as they should have. Getting to the Root of Things What's your favorite activity in the garden? Play with my bees. How do you play with your bees? Follow them and observe where they're going. Are they on fruit trees or flowers? Are the mason bees out of their houses? Things I do to keep the veroa mites low. Want to monitor and keep hives small. What's big and small? A nucleus hive is about 5-8000 bees. A full colony is 60-80,000 bees. Pollen for the queen and nectar is flight fuel. Mutual relationship between bees and flowers. If you have good forage through growing season April through October. 2,000,000 flowers to make a pound of honey. Best advice? Soil section of the master gardener classes. I will take a...
I thought you might like to hear my recent article in the TV News: August 2022 It’s hot, is it not?! But that’s summer, and at least our nights drop down to cool things off. Besides you can always go jump in a lake, we certainly have lots of them around the Tobacco Valley. For me, getting to run through the sprinkler while I water the lawn is still pretty exciting as we didn’t have running water for a long time. And watering the garden is the word of the day! WATER, WATER, WATER. I don’t feel like we can keep our garden/lawn hydrated. We are finally starting to harvest more and more each day even though it seems late in the season. We had a delicious dinner the other night of fresh potatoes, string beans and cherry tomatoes! Our beets are getting bigger and the beet greens we thin between rows are delicious to sauté with some mini beets mixed in. I also like to blanch the greens to freeze for winter when I’m jonesing for some deep leafy vegetables and I can’t bring myself to buy them in the produce aisle. One of the most common questions I get about the garden is what to do about pests? This year it seems like there is an overwhelming amount of earwigs AKA pincher bugs everywhere, which used to really creep me out but I have since learned are some of the best insects to have in your garden as they eat a lot of the bad bugs that destroy your plants. Contrary to popular folk tales they do not crawl in your ears and lay eggs in your brain. They do like cool moist places to hang out and are generally only active at night. They are attracted to bright lights so even though they are nocturnal they are often found underneath pots on porches that are lit up in the evenings. Earwigs tend to hang by themselves, not belonging to a colony so infestations are usually not a problem. If you find them indoors, they’ll appreciate being moved back outside where they can act like a sanitation engineer clearing your garden of pests and disease. Earwigs are not a threat to humans and won’t bite or sting you. Their pincers are for eating prey and repelling predators. Although they have small wings, they don’t really fly as much as glide from a high spot. Another benefit is they attract birds, lizards and frogs to your garden who enjoy eating these power predators. Besides gobbling the pests in your garden earwigs also enjoy feasting on dead and decaying leaves helping your plants look and feel healthier. Another important garden tip I have learned over the years is to spend a lot of time observing your plots. When you see something like bug bites on your leaves turn them over in the early morning and see if there’s a caterpillar there that needs removing. If you do get an aphid infestation, see if you don’t get a beneficial insect that will eat the aphids and then move on. Many people post photos of tiny black wasps eating the tasty white bugs and want to kill them instead of letting them do their job. Often if you just wait a few days the whole problem will take care of itself. You might find ladybugs or lacewings lured in by the aphids who also disappear when their food supply is gone. Beware, ladybug babies look like weird black bugs you might be afraid are eating your plants but they actually are really good for your garden. Here’s to the beneficial bugs of summer! https://www.trueleafmarket.com/ (True Leaf Market) is wanting to sponsor the GREEN Organic Garden Podcast and is giving a discount code for listeners to get 15% off cover crop seeds: https://www.trueleafmarket.com/ (GOG15). These codes all have the following characteristics: 15% off cover crop products. i.e. orders for other items besides our cover crops won’t receive a discount. Expires end of December • 2022 Limit one use per customer.
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https://amzn.to/3Nyy02V () https://amzn.to/3Nyy02V (Garden Variety: A Novel )Win a copy of Garden Variety by tagging a friend and also Christy https://www.instagram.com/gardenerd1/ (@gardenerd) and Jackie https://www.instagram.com/organicgardenerpodcast/ (@GREENorgaincGardenPodcast) with https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/gardenvarietybook/ (#gardenvarietybook ) and you will be entered to win a copy of Garden Variety on the Fall equinox Thursday • September 22, 2022! https://gardenerd.com/ () https://gardenerd.com/ (March 11, 2022) Back to tell us about her new book https://amzn.to/3Nyy02V (Garden Variety). Things I love that there's not just one main character, there is but there's great characters and Christy does such a great job of building community and the language and sentences are fantastic the way she describes garden events. You will I garden here in Zone 10b, we used to be zone 9b but with climate change. I belonged to this community garden for 22 years and I was on the board for 20 of those years. I knew from my first season I needed to write a story about a community garden, there's so many things that go on, so I began tucking little stories away over the years. 3 books and a NOVELOriginally I didn't want to write a garden book, and as you know I have 3 garden books, but https://amzn.to/3Nyy02V (Garden Variety) is the way I wanted to write which is telling garden lessons through story. Took a long time, because it was my first novel, it started out in a different way. I love that you say it's my first because I can't wait to read the sequel and find out what happens to the other characters. Lost Angelos has more than 120 community gardens and needs more of them. 60% or maybe more live in an apartment and community gardens are the solace that provides the space for those people. I am an advocate for more gardens in any empty space. Jackie asks where did you come up with the size because the beds are a really nice size in the story. They must be a composite of people you've met over the years. The main character is Lizzy. She's a section rep. She brings people in, writes citations, At first I was like citations? But then I realized how important they are. Usually rules come about because of something that has caused a lot of damage. Lizzy brings in this new guy named Jared, who's sort of a surfer, handyman, a really nice guy but doesn't really know how to commit to anything, and is used to just sliding from one thing to the next wherever the wind sends him. Mary who is the president. Bernice who is her foe, who is also on the board who wants to be president. Ned who is the garden master. And some ancillary characters. An eclectic group of people. My goal was to make the characters as diverse as I could, it's called https://amzn.to/3Nyy02V (Garden Variety) because gardens usually are. I could see me being just like Jared in the beginning, and not even realizing there were rules or things I should or shouldn't do. I love how in the back you have all the garden tips, because in the beginning I was like I should be taking notes and writing all this down. 10 take away garden lessons, small space garden tips for home and community gardens, a reading group guide. It's great for book clubs, extra bonuses a little dose of non-fiction in a fiction setting. I do plan for this to be a trilogy, but I've had to set it down because of all the other stuff I have going on. Win a copy of Garden Variety by tagging a friend and also Christy https://www.instagram.com/gardenerd1/ (@gardenerd) and Jackie https://www.instagram.com/organicgardenerpodcast/ (@GREENorgaincGardenPodcast) with https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/gardenvarietybook/ (#gardenvarietybook ) and you will be entered to win a copy of Garden Variety on the Fall equinox Thursday • September 22, 2022! Full show notes coming soon! https://www.trueleafmarket.com/ (True Leaf...
JackieMarie and Aileen share what's growing well, what's their biggest challenge this summer and what they're cooking from their garden in 2022. Aileen is in NJ And JackieMarie is in NW Montana. Aileen has started Artichoke sprouts after doing a stratification process where she froze the seeds.
Both have peppers taking off. Jackie mentions that the weather is dropping, they had a fire in the wood stove it was so cool this morning. Aileen is still in the 80s and 90s. Jackie mentions this https://amzn.to/3QSaPlY (Wild Mediterranean Detox Diet) she has been doing for 6 days and they talk about artichokes are some of the best pre-biotics for reseting your gut you can eat and there was a good recipe for artichoke chips kind of like potato chips. https://amzn.to/3QSaPlY (Wild Mediterranean: The Age-old, Science-new Plan For a Healthy Gut, With Food You Can Trust)They discussed strawberries and ever-bearing during regular berries that only produce in June. Aileen referred to Jackie's interview with https://organicgardenerpodcast.com/podcast-2/423-vertical-veg-mark-ridsdill-smith/ (Mark Risdall Smith) who wrote the
https://amzn.to/3P4gzrq (The Vertical Veg Guide to Container Gardening: How to Grow an Abundance of Herbs, Vegetables and Fruit in Small Spaces)Aileen talked about Jackie's advice to deadhead her zinnias, and Jackie was saying her's haven't hardly bloomed at all. Her calendula and echinacea are blooming like crazy but she's only had one zinnia bloom and they could get a frost any day.
They also talked about what they are eating. Jackie is eating golden beets and Swiss chard, cherry tomatoes. Aileen talks about her success letting cilantro go to seed and then making a wreath from the stalks and seeds and putting in a pot and watering it that is coming up. Jackie mention's her interview with https://organicgardenerpodcast.com/podcast-2/422-design-wild/ (Shanti Nagel she did from Design Wild) who's best advice was don't be afraid to move something 3 times to find a place where it is happy and thriving. Aileen talked about adding Dr. Earth's fertilizer and Jackie mentioned that Mike puts alfalfa meal under the tomatoes. Aileen is also eating Swiss chard with fresh herbs and her husband Robbie made them into a vegetable herb stew. Jackie mentioned https://www.trueleafmarket.com/ (True Leaf Market) is wanting to sponsor the GREEN Organic Garden Podcast and they gave her a discount code for her listeners to get 15% off cover crop seeds: https://www.trueleafmarket.com/ (GOG15). Aileen talked about the seedlings she has growing in her greenhouse for the winter. Jackie mentioned Aileen's Instagram https://www.instagram.com/where_the_seedlings_are/ (@where_the_seedlings_are). Aileen talked about how she gets mental health relief from being in the greenhouse and playing in the dirt. https://www.trueleafmarket.com/ (True Leaf Market) is wanting to sponsor the GREEN Organic Garden Podcast and is giving a discount code for listeners to get 15% off cover crop seeds: https://www.trueleafmarket.com/ (GOG15). These codes all have the following characteristics: 15% off cover crop products. i.e. orders for other items besides our cover crops won’t receive a discount. Expires end of December • 2022 Limit one use per customer.
Let’s take a minute to thank our sponsors and affiliate linksWanna donate to the show! You can https://www.buymeacoffee.com/vlnjczo ("buy me a cup of coffee") where your https://www.buymeacoffee.com/vlnjczo (donation) goes directly to support the https://www.buymeacoffee.com/vlnjczo (GREEN Organic Garden Podcast) to help pay for things like hosting the mp3 files or maintaining the website Now Let’s Get to the Root of Things! http://organicgardenerpodcast.us11.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=e3e16d6ddb7c0acd9e17348ed&id=b6a8f6bd31&e=e16e7400c4 () We’d love if you’d...
https://www.trueleafmarket.com/ (True Leaf Market) is offering a discount code for listeners to get 15% off cover crop seeds: https://www.trueleafmarket.com/ (GOG15). Parker Garlitz shares valuable information about growing cover crops in the backyard garden. Jackie asked if the cover crops that Parker sent her can be planted now as they will be getting a frost any day. Parker said they are usually pretty hearty and it's probably not too late to put them in the ground. Parker is a cofounder of True Leaf Market who sell seeds wholesale to seed companies around the world as well as direct to people around the globe. Garden seeds including vegetable herb and flowers, specialty seeds like Asian greens, cotton and tobacco seeds as well as the indoor market like vertical farms and micro green and sprout growers. A cover crop is basically an off season crop you grow after your primary agricultural crop or garden crop to provide a whole bunch of potential benefits not the least of which is soil rehabilitation and adding nutrients and organic matter to the soil and really making for healthy soil. It will help increase your yields and production over the years. What healthy soil is: ground rock and sand, decaying organic matter that supports bacteria and earth worms and other living things and soil and the crops that grow in it. Soil has important nutrients. Everyone knows NPK the big three, nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus, but really true nutrient soil that provides nutrients to human health are the micro nutrients that get leached out of soil and are never replenished especially with big agro-business. Things like selenium, sulfur, or copper or zinc or the other trace minerals that soil takes up. So adding those micro nutrients is important for soil health. Soil also has a texture, that is not too sandy or like clay. Cover crops help by adding many or most of those things back into the soil. Most people think of them for large farming but they are great for backyard gardeners and dollar for dollar the biggest bang for your buck as they are super affordable. Cover crops are almost sort of like self composting adding to your soil. Especially finding enough compost for your garden is a challenge and can be expensive. Jackie talks about her failure with covering quack grass with cardboard and compost that has overgrown and how her husband and her argue over who gets the compost and how this is a great solution for creating healthy soil. Jackie also talks about how cover cropping can be intimidating and how this will make it easier for people.
Anna Hess’ http://amzn.to/2zpCAL2 (Homegrown Humus) is a great primer for learning about cover crops. Parker explains the two methods for terminating cover crops and the pros and cons of both. No till and tilling it into the beds. https://www.trueleafmarket.com/collections/cover-crop-seed-mixes/products/garden-cover-crop-mix () Parker explains how they provide an easy to plant https://www.trueleafmarket.com/collections/cover-crop-seed-mixes/products/garden-cover-crop-mix (Garden Cover Crop Mix) for home gardeners. It's already pre-inoculated which will help your soil absorb nitrogen from the root nodules that grow on the cover crop roots. Jackie talks about how this is a great solution for her listeners because they have made a mix so we don't have to worry about all the different options etc as many guests have talked about the importance of feeding your soil and this will help make it simple. Some other benefits include more than soil rehabilitation. Mustards typically have pest control, making nematodes in the soil difficult. They can trap moisture, they provide competition for weeds. Great off season options for pollinators attracting local pollinator population. Jackie mentions maximizing photosynthesis by helping keep soil covered within 24 hours instead of letting it sit bare after harvest. Parker also talks about growing...
https://amzn.to/3O8uLiV ()https://amzn.to/3O8uLiV (What Bees Want: Beekeeping as Nature Intended)Listen to my original interview with Jacqueline here Full show notes coming soon. Let’s take a minute to thank our sponsors and affiliate linksWanna donate to the show! You can https://www.buymeacoffee.com/vlnjczo ("buy me a cup of coffee") where your https://www.buymeacoffee.com/vlnjczo (donation) goes directly to support the https://www.buymeacoffee.com/vlnjczo (GREEN Organic Garden Podcast) to help pay for things like hosting the mp3 files or maintaining the website Now Let’s Get to the Root of Things! http://organicgardenerpodcast.us11.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=e3e16d6ddb7c0acd9e17348ed&id=b6a8f6bd31&e=e16e7400c4 () We’d love if you’d join http://organicgardenerpodcast.us11.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=e3e16d6ddb7c0acd9e17348ed&id=b6a8f6bd31&e=e16e7400c4 (Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!)https://amzn.to/2PEYW6c () https://amzn.to/2PEYW6c (Get Your Copy of the The Organic Oasis Guidebook!)Twelve Lessons designed to help you create an earth friendly landscape, some deep garden beds full of nutrient rich healthy food or perhaps even develop a natural market farm. https://amzn.to/2PEYW6c (Get a copy on today printed in the USA from Amazon) https://amzn.to/2PEYW6c () The Organic Gardener Podcast is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/organic-gardener-podcast/id962887645 (link here). and don’t forget if you need help getting started check out our new https://mailchi.mp/5611bc3d7dfd/free-garden-course (Free Garden Course.com)https://mailchi.mp/5611bc3d7dfd/free-garden-course () https://mailchi.mp/5611bc3d7dfd/free-garden-course ( Free Organic Garden Course )
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JackieMarie and Aileen share what's growing well, what's their biggest challenge this summer and what they're cooking from their garden in 2022. Aileen is in NJ And JackieMarie is in NW Montana. https://www.botanicalinterests.com/product/Parris-Island-Cos-Romaine-Lettuce-Seeds (Paris Island Romaine) is growing well for Aileen. She is growing in containers this year at her new home. Nasturtiums and basil grew really well for Aileen this year as well which are both edible and fantastic companion plants that the beneficial insects enjoy and the bugs tend to stay away from. They are eating lots of pesto! Mike and JackieMarie are having success with tomatoes, Swiss chard, raspberry bushes, peppers and sunflowers. Last year we got raspberries from https://www.groworganic.com/collections/raspberries (Peaceful) https://www.groworganic.com/collections/raspberries (Valley) in California. Everything needs water, is Jackie's biggest challenge for sure. Jackie said she is eating the last tomato sauce she made last summer. Some beet greens. Aileen referred to Jackie's interview with https://organicgardenerpodcast.com/podcast-2/423-vertical-veg-mark-ridsdill-smith/ (Mark Risdall Smith) who wrote the
https://amzn.to/3P4gzrq (The Vertical Veg Guide to Container Gardening: How to Grow an Abundance of Herbs, Vegetables and Fruit in Small Spaces)Let’s take a minute to thank our sponsors and affiliate linksWanna donate to the show! You can https://www.buymeacoffee.com/vlnjczo ("buy me a cup of coffee") where your https://www.buymeacoffee.com/vlnjczo (donation) goes directly to support the https://www.buymeacoffee.com/vlnjczo (GREEN Organic Garden Podcast) to help pay for things like hosting the mp3 files or maintaining the website Now Let’s Get to the Root of Things! http://organicgardenerpodcast.us11.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=e3e16d6ddb7c0acd9e17348ed&id=b6a8f6bd31&e=e16e7400c4 () We’d love if you’d join http://organicgardenerpodcast.us11.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=e3e16d6ddb7c0acd9e17348ed&id=b6a8f6bd31&e=e16e7400c4 (Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!)https://amzn.to/2PEYW6c () https://amzn.to/2PEYW6c (Get Your Copy of the The Organic Oasis Guidebook!)Twelve Lessons designed to help you create an earth friendly landscape, some deep garden beds full of nutrient rich healthy food or perhaps even develop a natural market farm. https://amzn.to/2PEYW6c (Get a copy on today printed in the USA from Amazon) https://amzn.to/2PEYW6c () The Organic Gardener Podcast is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/organic-gardener-podcast/id962887645 (link here). and don’t forget if you need help getting started check out our new https://mailchi.mp/5611bc3d7dfd/free-garden-course (Free Garden Course.com)https://mailchi.mp/5611bc3d7dfd/free-garden-course () https://mailchi.mp/5611bc3d7dfd/free-garden-course ( Free Organic Garden Course )
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https://www.verticalveg.org.uk/ (Vertical Veg Website) https://amzn.to/3P4gzrq (The Vertical Veg Guide to Container Gardening: How to Grow an Abundance of Herbs, Vegetables and Fruit in Small Spaces)Full show notes to come The Organic Gardener Podcast is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com
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http://www.designwildny.com (Design Wild)on https://www.instagram.com/designwildny/ (Instagram @designwildny) http://www.designwildny.com/ (www.designwildny.com) One of my favorite parts of this conversation is Shanti's best piece of advice to move a plant 3 times before it finds it's permanent home. If a plant isn't happy in the spot you first plant it don't be afraid to move it, we're just gaining information and it's a way to help it thrive. When you hit the right place and the plant is happy you can tell and you say oh! Look how happy it is. Spring and fall are the best times to move plants and let them find their happy spot. Floral spade Let’s take a minute to thank our sponsors and affiliate linksWanna donate to the show! You can https://www.buymeacoffee.com/vlnjczo ("buy me a cup of coffee") where your https://www.buymeacoffee.com/vlnjczo (donation) goes directly to support the https://www.buymeacoffee.com/vlnjczo (GREEN Organic Garden Podcast) to help pay for things like hosting the mp3 files or maintaining the website. [gallery ids="137595,137597,137596" type="rectangular"] https://growers.co/ (Growers & Co)https://mailchi.mp/7d7096fe8752/grow-live-with-patti-and-jackie-ask-question-here () Ask Your https://mailchi.mp/7d7096fe8752/grow-live-with-patti-and-jackie-ask-question-here (questions here)https://youtu.be/2S9tbLIIhy4
https://goodseedco.net/ (The Good Seed Company)Now Let’s Get to the Root of Things!https://amzn.to/2PEYW6c () https://amzn.to/2PEYW6c (Get Your Copy of the The Organic Oasis Guidebook!)Twelve Lessons designed to help you create an earth friendly landscape, some deep garden beds full of nutrient rich healthy food or perhaps even develop a natural market farm. https://amzn.to/2PEYW6c (Get a copy on today printed in the USA from Amazon) https://amzn.to/2PEYW6c () The Organic Gardener Podcast is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/organic-gardener-podcast/id962887645 (link here). and don’t forget if you need help getting started check out our new https://mailchi.mp/5611bc3d7dfd/free-garden-course (Free Garden Course.com)https://mailchi.mp/5611bc3d7dfd/free-garden-course () https://mailchi.mp/5611bc3d7dfd/free-garden-course ( Free Organic Garden Course ) If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/organic-gardener-podcast/id962887645 (link here).
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Website/blog: http://susansinthegarden.com/ (SusansintheGarden.com) Facebook: http://facebook.com/SusansintheGarden (facebook.com/SusansintheGarden) Instagram: @SusansintheGarden YouTube: http://youtube.com/SusansintheGarden (youtube.com/SusansintheGarden) Here's the link to Susan's gutter peas video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCf51pinA0Q (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCf51pinA0Q) Salsa recipe https://www.susansinthegarden.com/2020/09/homemade-salsa/ (https://www.susansinthegarden.com/2020/09/homemade-salsa/) https://www.growingagreenerworld.com/episode-809-in-susans-garden/
My book review: https://smile.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R18INBM5RS0XVA?ref=pf_ov_at_pdctrvw_srp (https://smile.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R18INBM5RS0XVA?ref=pf_ov_at_pdctrvw_srp) Let’s take a minute to thank our sponsors and affiliate linksWanna donate to the show! You can https://www.buymeacoffee.com/vlnjczo ("buy me a cup of coffee") where your https://www.buymeacoffee.com/vlnjczo (donation) goes directly to support the https://www.buymeacoffee.com/vlnjczo (GREEN Organic Garden Podcast) to help pay for things like hosting the mp3 files or maintaining the website. [gallery ids="137595,137597,137596" type="rectangular"] https://growers.co/ (Growers & Co)https://mailchi.mp/7d7096fe8752/grow-live-with-patti-and-jackie-ask-question-here () Ask Your https://mailchi.mp/7d7096fe8752/grow-live-with-patti-and-jackie-ask-question-here (questions here)https://youtu.be/2S9tbLIIhy4
https://goodseedco.net/ (The Good Seed Company)Now Let’s Get to the Root of Things! http://organicgardenerpodcast.us11.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=e3e16d6ddb7c0acd9e17348ed&id=b6a8f6bd31&e=e16e7400c4 () We’d love if you’d join http://organicgardenerpodcast.us11.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=e3e16d6ddb7c0acd9e17348ed&id=b6a8f6bd31&e=e16e7400c4 (Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!)https://amzn.to/2PEYW6c () https://amzn.to/2PEYW6c (Get Your Copy of the The Organic Oasis Guidebook!)Twelve Lessons designed to help you create an earth friendly landscape, some deep garden beds full of nutrient rich healthy food or perhaps even develop a natural market farm. https://amzn.to/2PEYW6c (Get a copy on today printed in the USA from Amazon) https://amzn.to/2PEYW6c () The Organic Gardener Podcast is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/organic-gardener-podcast/id962887645 (link here). and don’t forget if you need help getting started check out our new https://mailchi.mp/5611bc3d7dfd/free-garden-course (Free Garden Course.com)https://mailchi.mp/5611bc3d7dfd/free-garden-course () https://mailchi.mp/5611bc3d7dfd/free-garden-course ( Free Organic Garden Course )http://organicgardenerpodcast.us11.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=e3e16d6ddb7c0acd9e17348ed&id=b6a8f6bd31&e=e16e7400c4 () We’d love if you’d join http://organicgardenerpodcast.us11.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=e3e16d6ddb7c0acd9e17348ed&id=b6a8f6bd31&e=e16e7400c4 (Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!)If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/organic-gardener-podcast/id962887645 (link here).
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https://amzn.to/3H6zDT5 ()https://amzn.to/3H6zDT5 (The Fresh Eggs Daily Cookbook: Over 100 Fabulous Recipes to Use Eggs in Unexpected Ways)To see my review https://smile.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R198TR1E45684Y?ref=dp_vse_rvc__sml (click here). Let’s take a minute to thank our sponsors and affiliate linksWanna donate to the show! You can https://www.buymeacoffee.com/vlnjczo ("buy me a cup of coffee") where your https://www.buymeacoffee.com/vlnjczo (donation) goes directly to support the https://www.buymeacoffee.com/vlnjczo (GREEN Organic Garden Podcast) to help pay for things like hosting the mp3 files or maintaining the website. [gallery ids="137595,137597,137596" type="rectangular"] https://growers.co/ (Growers & Co)https://mailchi.mp/7d7096fe8752/grow-live-with-patti-and-jackie-ask-question-here () Ask Your https://mailchi.mp/7d7096fe8752/grow-live-with-patti-and-jackie-ask-question-here (questions here)https://youtu.be/2S9tbLIIhy4
https://goodseedco.net/ (The Good Seed Company)Now Let’s Get to the Root of Things! http://organicgardenerpodcast.us11.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=e3e16d6ddb7c0acd9e17348ed&id=b6a8f6bd31&e=e16e7400c4 () We’d love if you’d join http://organicgardenerpodcast.us11.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=e3e16d6ddb7c0acd9e17348ed&id=b6a8f6bd31&e=e16e7400c4 (Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!)https://amzn.to/2PEYW6c () https://amzn.to/2PEYW6c (Get Your Copy of the The Organic Oasis Guidebook!)Twelve Lessons designed to help you create an earth friendly landscape, some deep garden beds full of nutrient rich healthy food or perhaps even develop a natural market farm. https://amzn.to/2PEYW6c (Get a copy on today printed in the USA from Amazon) https://amzn.to/2PEYW6c () The Organic Gardener Podcast is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/organic-gardener-podcast/id962887645 (link here). and don’t forget if you need help getting started check out our new https://mailchi.mp/5611bc3d7dfd/free-garden-course (Free Garden Course.com)https://mailchi.mp/5611bc3d7dfd/free-garden-course () https://mailchi.mp/5611bc3d7dfd/free-garden-course ( Free Organic Garden Course )http://organicgardenerpodcast.us11.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=e3e16d6ddb7c0acd9e17348ed&id=b6a8f6bd31&e=e16e7400c4 () We’d love if you’d join http://organicgardenerpodcast.us11.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=e3e16d6ddb7c0acd9e17348ed&id=b6a8f6bd31&e=e16e7400c4 (Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!)If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/organic-gardener-podcast/id962887645 (link here).
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https://tertill.com/products/tertill ()From the Inventor of Roomba®Helen is the CEO of Tertill. https://tertill.com/products/tertill (Tertill) makes gardening easier. Tertill sells a weeding robot designed for vegetable gardens! Today along with describing the robot, Helen will announce a custom garden fertilizer program that delivers the right fertilizer, at the right time, right to your door! Talk about easy gardening. As background info, Helen founded iRobot the company that makes the Roomba Vacuuming Robot. Tertill Weeding Robot doesn't pull weeds, it prevents them using specially-designed wheels. If any weeds do sprout, the robot chops them down with its string trimmer. Tertill Weeding Robot uses height to tell plants from weeds. If a plant can touch its sensors, the robot leaves it alone. If the plant can pass under the robot, it cuts it. Included metal guards protect young plants and seeds until they are taller. Let’s take a minute to thank our sponsors and affiliate linksWanna donate to the show! You can https://www.buymeacoffee.com/vlnjczo ("buy me a cup of coffee") where your https://www.buymeacoffee.com/vlnjczo (donation) goes directly to support the https://www.buymeacoffee.com/vlnjczo (GREEN Organic Garden Podcast) to help pay for things like hosting the mp3 files or maintaining the website. [gallery ids="137595,137597,137596" type="rectangular"] https://growers.co/ (Growers & Co)https://mailchi.mp/7d7096fe8752/grow-live-with-patti-and-jackie-ask-question-here () Ask Your https://mailchi.mp/7d7096fe8752/grow-live-with-patti-and-jackie-ask-question-here (questions here)https://youtu.be/2S9tbLIIhy4
https://goodseedco.net/ (The Good Seed Company)Now Let’s Get to the Root of Things! http://organicgardenerpodcast.us11.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=e3e16d6ddb7c0acd9e17348ed&id=b6a8f6bd31&e=e16e7400c4 () We’d love if you’d join http://organicgardenerpodcast.us11.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=e3e16d6ddb7c0acd9e17348ed&id=b6a8f6bd31&e=e16e7400c4 (Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!)https://amzn.to/2PEYW6c () https://amzn.to/2PEYW6c (Get Your Copy of the The Organic Oasis Guidebook!)Twelve Lessons designed to help you create an earth friendly landscape, some deep garden beds full of nutrient rich healthy food or perhaps even develop a natural market farm. https://amzn.to/2PEYW6c (Get a copy on today printed in the USA from Amazon) https://amzn.to/2PEYW6c () The Organic Gardener Podcast is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/organic-gardener-podcast/id962887645 (link here). and don’t forget if you need help getting started check out our new https://mailchi.mp/5611bc3d7dfd/free-garden-course (Free Garden Course.com)https://mailchi.mp/5611bc3d7dfd/free-garden-course () https://mailchi.mp/5611bc3d7dfd/free-garden-course ( Free Organic Garden Course )http://organicgardenerpodcast.us11.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=e3e16d6ddb7c0acd9e17348ed&id=b6a8f6bd31&e=e16e7400c4 () We’d love if you’d join http://organicgardenerpodcast.us11.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=e3e16d6ddb7c0acd9e17348ed&id=b6a8f6bd31&e=e16e7400c4 (Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!)If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/organic-gardener-podcast/id962887645 (link here).
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Get a hold of Hallie at her websites: https://hallieshealthyliving.com/ https://halliesteinberg.towergarden.ca/
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https://www.gentlebarn.org/ https://www.instagram.com/p/CeEHHx3ghUy/
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My apologies for not getting more episodes out. Coming soon!
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Zucchini Marmalade yields 5 half pint jars 4 Cups zucchini, peels left on, seeds removed and coarsely ground 2 oranges, ground with peel 5 Cups sugar Mix all ingredients well. Cover and let stand 8 hours. Bring mixture to a boil in a non-reactive pot and let stand another 8 hours (or longer if needed). Add juice of one lemon (2 Tbsp). Boil to jelly stage. Pour into sterilized jelly jars leaving 1/4 inch head space. Process 10 minutes, adjusting accordingly for altitude. Cooks Note: I prefer to use a food grinder to prep the squash and orange but have also used a food processor. With the processor you have to watch out for larger chunks of fruit.
Little Jars, Big Flavors, published by Southern Living/Oxmoor House in 2013 https://amzn.to/3MYfLU0 () https://amzn.to/3MYfLU0 (Southern Living Little Jars, Big Flavors: Small-batch jams, jellies, pickles, and preserves from the South's most trusted kitchen)https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12530128/ () https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12530128/ (As We See It )https://amzn.to/37wX6Qe () https://amzn.to/37wX6Qe (The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L17Bi7zBJHI https://amzn.to/3N1kgx3 () https://amzn.to/3N1kgx3 (The Vegetable Garden Pest Handbook: Identify and Solve Common Pest Problems on Edible Plants - All Natural Solutions!)https://www.susansinthegarden.com/ (Susan's in the Garden)https://www.youtube.com/c/susansinthegardenhttps://www.youtube.com/c/LivingTraditionsHomestead https://www.youtube.com/c/MelissaKNorris https://amzn.to/3LZlRDH () https://amzn.to/3LZlRDH (Kitchen Garden Revival: A modern guide to creating a stylish, small-scale, low-maintenance, edible garden)https://www.gardenary.com/ (https://www.gardenary.com) Let’s take a minute to thank our sponsors and affiliate linksWanna donate to the show! You can https://www.buymeacoffee.com/vlnjczo ("buy me a cup of coffee") where your https://www.buymeacoffee.com/vlnjczo (donation) goes directly to support the https://www.buymeacoffee.com/vlnjczo (GREEN Organic Garden Podcast) to help pay for things like hosting the mp3 files or maintaining the website. [gallery ids="137595,137597,137596" type="rectangular"] https://growers.co/ (Growers & Co)https://mailchi.mp/7d7096fe8752/grow-live-with-patti-and-jackie-ask-question-here () Ask Your https://mailchi.mp/7d7096fe8752/grow-live-with-patti-and-jackie-ask-question-here (questions here)https://youtu.be/2S9tbLIIhy4
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Liana Blomquist
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ASK YOUR QUESTIONS HERE https://youtu.be/2S9tbLIIhy4 NOW LET’S GET TO THE ROOT OF THINGS!
GET YOUR COPY OF THE THE ORGANIC OASIS GUIDEBOOK! Twelve Lessons designed to help you create an earth friendly landscape, some deep garden beds full of nutrient rich healthy food or perhaps even develop a natural market farm.
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Free Garden Course.com
Free Organic Garden Course
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Hope Eden Tower Kickstarter through April 20, 2022
Ryan and Tessa Agrey from Alberta Hope InnovationsLet’s take a minute to thank our sponsors and affiliate linksWanna donate to the show! You can "buy me a cup of coffee" where your donation goes directly to support the GREEN Organic Garden Podcast to help pay for things like hosting the mp3 files or maintaining the website.
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Growers & CoAsk Your questions herehttps://youtu.be/2S9tbLIIhy4
The Good Seed CompanyNow Let’s Get to the Root of Things!We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!Get Your Copy of the The Organic Oasis Guidebook!Twelve Lessons designed to help you create an earth friendly landscape, some deep garden beds full of nutrient rich healthy food or perhaps even develop a natural market farm.
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Steeped Coffee
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Growers & CoAsk Your questions herehttps://youtu.be/2S9tbLIIhy4
The Good Seed CompanyNow Let’s Get to the Root of Things!We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!Get Your Copy of the The Organic Oasis Guidebook!Twelve Lessons designed to help you create an earth friendly landscape, some deep garden beds full of nutrient rich healthy food or perhaps even develop a natural market farm.
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LUKE RUFFNER ROBINSON from Montana Fruit Trees
An aspiring architect, Luke interned on a farm in Portugal to design a bathroom and became fascinated by the farm’s ability to mimic nutrient and energy cycling in forests. Luke withdrew his architecture plans and began research in Systems Ecology. Luke holds an MS in Systems Ecology from the University of Montana and a BA in drawing and drafting.
Golden Seeds from Luke:
"Actually that was what got me really interested in, I call it the systems based approach to growing food, you know, which I think, or get organic can fall into that permaculture, regenerative, agriculture. I mean, there's all these words, but I think, I think anytime you're using a systems based approach, I think that's really, when you start to see benefit in productivity, in all of these different properties that can emerge from the system beneficially, I think."
"I want to just tell what any of your listeners that might be, that might, that they're listening to what I was saying about specifically watering towards the end of the year. You do want to give them one, all the trees you'll cut them off. You'll cut the water off. I mean, in our climate in August, but then towards maybe after leaf drop, give them a final drink to get them through the winter"
Resources Luke referenceHoward T. Odum Emergy SocietyWWOOF Worldwide Opportunities on Organic FarmsOikos Tree Crops
GardenFit on PBSRogue Hoe Tools
https://www.montanafruittrees.com/
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Growers & CoAsk Your questions herehttps://youtu.be/2S9tbLIIhy4
The Good Seed CompanyNow Let’s Get to the Root of Things!We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!Get Your Copy of the The Organic Oasis Guidebook!Twelve Lessons designed to help you create an earth friendly landscape, some deep garden beds full of nutrient rich healthy food or perhaps even develop a natural market farm.
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https://www.montanafruittrees.com/
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Growers & CoAsk Your questions herehttps://youtu.be/2S9tbLIIhy4
The Good Seed CompanyNow Let’s Get to the Root of Things!We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!Get Your Copy of the The Organic Oasis Guidebook!Twelve Lessons designed to help you create an earth friendly landscape, some deep garden beds full of nutrient rich healthy food or perhaps even develop a natural market farm.
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If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
and don’t forget if you need help getting started check out our new
Free Garden Course.com Free Organic Garden Course We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
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A new television show airing spring 2022 offers millions of people the opportunity to take care of their bodies, while taking care of their gardens.
GardenFit is the first television show to help gardeners lead a healthier lifestyle though mindful movements they can use in the garden—and beyond. The show follows expert gardener Madeline Hooper and professional fitness trainer Jeff Hughes as they travel the U.S. visiting gardens and farms, sharing practical tips to help gardeners get ‘GardenFit.’
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Growers & CoAsk Your questions herehttps://youtu.be/2S9tbLIIhy4
The Good Seed CompanyNow Let’s Get to the Root of Things!We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!Get Your Copy of the The Organic Oasis Guidebook!Twelve Lessons designed to help you create an earth friendly landscape, some deep garden beds full of nutrient rich healthy food or perhaps even develop a natural market farm.
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Awesome Acres Website
Recommended Resources
The Organic Medicinal Herb Farmer: The Ultimate Guide to Producing High-Quality Herbs on a Market ScaleBen Hewitt
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Mel's ScienceNow Let’s Get to the Root of Things!We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!Get Your Copy of the The Organic Oasis Guidebook!Twelve Lessons designed to help you create an earth friendly landscape, some deep garden beds full of nutrient rich healthy food or perhaps even develop a natural market farm.
Get a copy on today printed in the USA from Amazon
The Organic Gardener Podcast is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com
If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
and don’t forget if you need help getting started check out our new
Free Garden Course.com Free Organic Garden Course We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
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Rockstar Millennials Dale and Carrie Spoonemore have created the amazing Seed To Spoon App
https://www.seedtospoon.net/
This Free App Makes it Simple for You to Grow Your Own Fruits, Vegetables and Herbs in Your Backyard or Patio Container Vegetable or Food Garden!
- Personalized Planting Dates
- Companion Planting Guide
- Filter Plants by Health Benefit
- Recipes
- Organic Pest Treatments
- Beneficial Insects
- Log Plants In Your Garden with Garden+
Let’s take a minute to thank our sponsors and affiliate linksWanna donate to the show! You can "buy me a cup of coffee" where your donation goes directly to support the GREEN Organic Garden Podcast to help pay for things like hosting the mp3 files or maintaining the website.
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Growers & CoAsk Your questions herehttps://youtu.be/2S9tbLIIhy4
The Good Seed CompanyNow Let’s Get to the Root of Things!We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!Get Your Copy of the The Organic Oasis Guidebook!Twelve Lessons designed to help you create an earth friendly landscape, some deep garden beds full of nutrient rich healthy food or perhaps even develop a natural market farm.
Get a copy on today printed in the USA from Amazon
The Organic Gardener Podcast is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com
If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
and don’t forget if you need help getting started check out our new
Free Garden Course.com Free Organic Garden Course We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
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Garden ThoughtfullyFollow Heather on Instagram
"When my bees do well my garden does well" Grandpa AndrewsRecommended book/resource:Toni Gattone on gardening gracefully as we age
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Growers & CoAsk Your questions herehttps://youtu.be/2S9tbLIIhy4
The Good Seed CompanyNow Let’s Get to the Root of Things!We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!Get Your Copy of the The Organic Oasis Guidebook!Twelve Lessons designed to help you create an earth friendly landscape, some deep garden beds full of nutrient rich healthy food or perhaps even develop a natural market farm.
Get a copy on today printed in the USA from Amazon
The Organic Gardener Podcast is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com
If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
and don’t forget if you need help getting started check out our new
Free Garden Course.com Free Organic Garden Course We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
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Zoë's website
The Garden We ShareGreta and the Giants: inspired by Greta Thunberg's stand to save the worldhttps://www.instagram.com/p/CaZ-eDJh7XK/
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Growers & CoAsk Your questions herehttps://youtu.be/2S9tbLIIhy4
The Good Seed CompanyNow Let’s Get to the Root of Things!We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!Get Your Copy of the The Organic Oasis Guidebook!Twelve Lessons designed to help you create an earth friendly landscape, some deep garden beds full of nutrient rich healthy food or perhaps even develop a natural market farm.
Get a copy on today printed in the USA from Amazon
The Organic Gardener Podcast is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com
If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
and don’t forget if you need help getting started check out our new
Free Garden Course.com Free Organic Garden Course We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
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Emily Murphy is a garden designer, writer, enthusiastic botanist, runner, cyclist, consultant, educator, and native of Northern California
Grow Now: How We Can Save Our Health, Communities, and Planet―One Garden at a Timeand
Grow What You Love: 12 Food Plant Families To Change Your Life
Follow her on instagram @passthepistil
https://www.instagram.com/p/CZSL_ZvBrXW/
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Growers & CoAsk Your questions herehttps://youtu.be/2S9tbLIIhy4
The Good Seed CompanyNow Let’s Get to the Root of Things!We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!Get Your Copy of the The Organic Oasis Guidebook!Twelve Lessons designed to help you create an earth friendly landscape, some deep garden beds full of nutrient rich healthy food or perhaps even develop a natural market farm.
Get a copy on today printed in the USA from Amazon
The Organic Gardener Podcast is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com
If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
and don’t forget if you need help getting started check out our new
Free Garden Course.com Free Organic Garden Course We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
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Jenks Farmer's website
Crinum: Unearthing the History and Cultivation of the The World’s Biggest BulbCheck out my review of
Deep-Rooted Wisdom: Skills and Stories from Generations of GardenersLet’s take a minute to thank our sponsors and affiliate linksWanna donate to the show! You can "buy me a cup of coffee" where your donation goes directly to support the GREEN Organic Garden Podcast to help pay for things like hosting the mp3 files or maintaining the website.
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Growers & CoAsk Your questions herehttps://youtu.be/2S9tbLIIhy4
The Good Seed CompanyNow Let’s Get to the Root of Things!We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!Get Your Copy of the The Organic Oasis Guidebook!Twelve Lessons designed to help you create an earth friendly landscape, some deep garden beds full of nutrient rich healthy food or perhaps even develop a natural market farm.
Get a copy on today printed in the USA from Amazon
The Organic Gardener Podcast is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com
If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
and don’t forget if you need help getting started check out our new
Free Garden Course.com Free Organic Garden Course We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
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Jen's blog the Haute Mommy Handbook Motherhood Misadventures + Creative LivingNorah Doesn't Eat THAT!Let’s take a minute to thank our sponsors and affiliate linksWanna donate to the show! You can "buy me a cup of coffee" where your donation goes directly to support the GREEN Organic Garden Podcast to help pay for things like hosting the mp3 files or maintaining the website.
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Growers & CoAsk Your questions herehttps://youtu.be/2S9tbLIIhy4
The Good Seed CompanyNow Let’s Get to the Root of Things!We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!Get Your Copy of the The Organic Oasis Guidebook!Twelve Lessons designed to help you create an earth friendly landscape, some deep garden beds full of nutrient rich healthy food or perhaps even develop a natural market farm.
Get a copy on today printed in the USA from Amazon
The Organic Gardener Podcast is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com
If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
and don’t forget if you need help getting started check out our new
Free Garden Course.com Free Organic Garden Course We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
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Growing Figs in Cold Climates: A Complete GuideLee's website
Listen to my first interview with Lee about building a Farmden and Weedless gardening here: https://organicgardenerpodcast.com/podcast-2/242-lee-reich/
Let’s take a minute to thank our sponsors and affiliate linksWanna donate to the show! You can "buy me a cup of coffee" where your donation goes directly to support the GREEN Organic Garden Podcast to help pay for things like hosting the mp3 files or maintaining the website.
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Growers & CoAsk Your questions herehttps://youtu.be/2S9tbLIIhy4
The Good Seed CompanyNow Let’s Get to the Root of Things!We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!Get Your Copy of the The Organic Oasis Guidebook!Twelve Lessons designed to help you create an earth friendly landscape, some deep garden beds full of nutrient rich healthy food or perhaps even develop a natural market farm.
Get a copy on today printed in the USA from Amazon
The Organic Gardener Podcast is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com
If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
and don’t forget if you need help getting started check out our new
Free Garden Course.com Free Organic Garden Course We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
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Stephanie Rose from Garden Therapy returns to talk with us today about her new book.On instagram @garden_therapy
THE REGENERATIVE GARDEN80 PRACTICAL PROJECTS FOR CREATING A SELF-SUSTAINING GARDEN ECOSYSTEMLet’s take a minute to thank our sponsors and affiliate linksWanna donate to the show! You can "buy me a cup of coffee" where your donation goes directly to support the GREEN Organic Garden Podcast to help pay for things like hosting the mp3 files or maintaining the website.
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Growers & CoAsk Your questions hereThe Good Seed CompanyNow Let’s Get to the Root of Things!We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!Get Your Copy of the The Organic Oasis Guidebook!Twelve Lessons designed to help you create an earth friendly landscape, some deep garden beds full of nutrient rich healthy food or perhaps even develop a natural market farm.
Get a copy on today printed in the USA from Amazon
The Organic Gardener Podcast is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com
If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
and don’t forget if you need help getting started check out our new
Free Garden Course.com Free Organic Garden Course We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
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Linda Fritz from Sugar Sun Farms is here to tell us about her book Garden Buddies and her amazing Cresbi Collapsible Crates.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CX4Cr1th6Nk/
https://www.instagram.com/p/CX4CfYlBPvs/
Some of the links Linda mentions:HPS Seedsfor sourcing Sun Sugar tomatoes seeds.
Moosewood Cookbook by Mollie Katzen
NY Times article on farmworkers getting overtime.
Kiss the Ground: How the Food You Eat Can Reverse Climate Change, Heal Your Body & Ultimately Save Our WorldFavorite tip from our conversation: "And I have to say that the bigger you can let your tomatoes get the butter before you put them in the ground and then bury them halfway bury the plants halfway because then the bottom part of the plant will become roots. And the other thing that is that I've learned that's really good too, is to disturb the soil as least as less as possible is yeah, don't disturb the soil as much as you can."
Farmer's Almanac for planting by the moon
Let’s take a minute to thank our sponsors and affiliate linksWanna donate to the show! You can "buy me a cup of coffee" where your donation goes directly to support the GREEN Organic Garden Podcast to help pay for things like hosting the mp3 files or maintaining the website.
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Growers & CoAsk Your questions hereThe Good Seed CompanyNow Let’s Get to the Root of Things!We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!Get Your Copy of the The Organic Oasis Guidebook!Twelve Lessons designed to help you create an earth friendly landscape, some deep garden beds full of nutrient rich healthy food or perhaps even develop a natural market farm.
Get a copy on today printed in the USA from Amazon
The Organic Gardener Podcast is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com
If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
and don’t forget if you need help getting started check out our new
Free Garden Course.com Free Organic Garden Course We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
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Bonnie Rose Weaver is back live on the mic sharing her new virtual seminar and knowledge of medicinal herbalism.
https://www.bonnieroseweaver.com/product-page/grow-your-own-medicine-intensive
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Enter to win a black GREEN Organic Garden Podcast Farmer's Market Tote bag hand-painted by me or a copy of Jesse Frost's by filling out this survey.
The Living Soil Handbook: The No-Till Grower’s Guide to Ecological Market Gardening https://forms.gle/4BR7ADngGjQX31VPA
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Another Rockstar Millennial here to tell help educate people about caring for our environment! From 1849 Medicine Garden Bonnie Rose Weaver is here to share her story! She’s written a book calledDeeply Rooted: Medicinal Plant Cultivation in Techtropoliswhich I know many green future growers will be interested in!Deeply Rooted: Medicinal Plant Cultivation in Techtropolis
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
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Past Guest Herbalist Bonnie Rose Weaver shared this post in an email and I just thought it was so eloquently written and full of amazing knowledge that I had to share it with you all.
My Time With The Thief
Stay Safe Everyone!
And of course Happy Birthday To the amazing Betty White. Click here to learn about the Betty White Challenge
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
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photos by Devon Roe Photography
growmyownfood.com,GIY (Grow it yourself)
Edible Forest Gardens (2 volume set)Rust Designs (Rice Knife)
Trad Cotter's Mycopesticide talk Part 1 of 4
Let’s take a minute to thank our sponsors and affiliate linksWanna donate to the show! You can "buy me a cup of coffee" where your donation goes directly to support the GREEN Organic Garden Podcast to help pay for things like hosting the mp3 files or maintaining the website.
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Growers & CoAsk Your questions herehttps://youtu.be/2S9tbLIIhy4
The Good Seed CompanyNow Let’s Get to the Root of Things!We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!Get Your Copy of the The Organic Oasis Guidebook!Twelve Lessons designed to help you create an earth friendly landscape, some deep garden beds full of nutrient rich healthy food or perhaps even develop a natural market farm.
Get a copy on today printed in the USA from Amazon
The Organic Gardener Podcast is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com
If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
and don’t forget if you need help getting started check out our new
Free Garden Course.com Free Organic Garden Course We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
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Use code: OrganicGardener15 for 15% discount at Good Earth Organics
Listen to other interviews with Lee on these other great podcasts here.
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
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Links Mentioned in this episode
Brandon Youst
Daniel Mays
Rebel Homemaker by Drew Barrymore and Chef Pillar
https://www.instagram.com/p/CX869loBU-3/
Lee Reich interview 242Gardenary Podcast with Nicole Burke
The Living Soil Handbook: The No-Till Grower's Guide to Ecological Market Gardening
Niki JabbourChristy Wilhelmi GardenerdSharon LovejoyTrowel and Error: Over 700 Organic Remedies, Shortcuts, and Tips for the GardenerFungarium: Welcome to the MuseumPRNhttps://www.instagram.com/p/CYWuS2XlV1Z/
Magnolia Network Growing Floret with Erin BenzakeinMagnolia Journal
Let’s take a minute to thank our sponsors and affiliate linksWanna donate to the show! You can "buy me a cup of coffee" where your donation goes directly to support the GREEN Organic Garden Podcast to help pay for things like hosting the mp3 files or maintaining the website.
[gallery ids="137595,137597,137596" type="rectangular"]
Growers & CoAsk Your questions herehttps://youtu.be/2S9tbLIIhy4
The Good Seed CompanyNow Let’s Get to the Root of Things!We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!Get Your Copy of the The Organic Oasis Guidebook!Twelve Lessons designed to help you create an earth friendly landscape, some deep garden beds full of nutrient rich healthy food or perhaps even develop a natural market farm.
Get a copy on today printed in the USA from Amazon
The Organic Gardener Podcast is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com
If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
and don’t forget if you need help getting started check out our new
Free Garden Course.com Free Organic Garden Course We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy
Prep To Your DoorWe’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!Get Your Copy of the The Organic Oasis Guidebook!Twelve Lessons designed to help you create an earth friendly landscape, some deep garden beds full of nutrient rich healthy food or perhaps even develop a natural market farm.
Get a copy on today printed in the USA from Amazon
The Organic Gardener Podcast is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com
If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
and don’t forget if you need help getting started check out our new
Free Garden Course.com Free Organic Garden Course We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy
photos by Devon Roe Photography
growmyownfood.com,GIY (Grow it yourself)Edible Forest Gardens (2 volume set)Rust Designs (Rice Knife)
Trad Cotter's Mycopesticide talk Part 1 of 4
Let’s take a minute to thank our sponsors and affiliate linksWanna donate to the show! You can "buy me a cup of coffee" where your donation goes directly to support the GREEN Organic Garden Podcast to help pay for things like hosting the mp3 files or maintaining the website.
[gallery ids="137595,137597,137596" type="rectangular"]
Growers & CoAsk Your questions herehttps://youtu.be/2S9tbLIIhy4
The Good Seed CompanyNow Let’s Get to the Root of Things!We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!Get Your Copy of the The Organic Oasis Guidebook!Twelve Lessons designed to help you create an earth friendly landscape, some deep garden beds full of nutrient rich healthy food or perhaps even develop a natural market farm.
Get a copy on today printed in the USA from Amazon
The Organic Gardener Podcast is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com
If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
and don’t forget if you need help getting started check out our new
Free Garden Course.com Free Organic Garden Course We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy
Josh's website
Slow Hand Farm
Dewit Tools Swans Neck Hoe
https://www.instagram.com/p/CTzu8TxpXNb/
Let’s take a minute to thank our sponsors and affiliate linksWanna donate to the show! You can "buy me a cup of coffee" where your donation goes directly to support the GREEN Organic Garden Podcast to help pay for things like hosting the mp3 files or maintaining the website.
[gallery ids="137595,137597,137596" type="rectangular"]
Growers & CoAsk Your questions herehttps://youtu.be/2S9tbLIIhy4
The Good Seed CompanyNow Let’s Get to the Root of Things!We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!Get Your Copy of the The Organic Oasis Guidebook!Twelve Lessons designed to help you create an earth friendly landscape, some deep garden beds full of nutrient rich healthy food or perhaps even develop a natural market farm.
Get a copy on today printed in the USA from Amazon
The Organic Gardener Podcast is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com
If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
and don’t forget if you need help getting started check out our new
Free Garden Course.com Free Organic Garden Course We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy
Just in time for New Years!
Alive and Well TV
Let’s take a minute to thank our sponsors and affiliate linksWanna donate to the show! You can "buy me a cup of coffee" where your donation goes directly to support the GREEN Organic Garden Podcast to help pay for things like hosting the mp3 files or maintaining the website.
[gallery ids="137595,137597,137596" type="rectangular"]
Growers & CoAsk Your questions herehttps://youtu.be/2S9tbLIIhy4
The Good Seed CompanyNow Let’s Get to the Root of Things!We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!Get Your Copy of the The Organic Oasis Guidebook!Twelve Lessons designed to help you create an earth friendly landscape, some deep garden beds full of nutrient rich healthy food or perhaps even develop a natural market farm.
Get a copy on today printed in the USA from Amazon
The Organic Gardener Podcast is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com
If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
and don’t forget if you need help getting started check out our new
Free Garden Course.com Free Organic Garden Course We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy
Sam's website: Sunset Lake CBD
Links Mentioned:
Arbico Organics
University of Vermont
Cornell UniversityLet’s take a minute to thank our sponsors and affiliate links
Wanna donate to the show! You can "buy me a cup of coffee" where your donation goes directly to support the GREEN Organic Garden Podcast to help pay for things like hosting the mp3 files or maintaining the website.
[gallery ids="137595,137597,137596" type="rectangular"]
Growers & CoAsk Your questions herehttps://youtu.be/2S9tbLIIhy4
The Good Seed CompanyNow Let’s Get to the Root of Things!We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!Get Your Copy of the The Organic Oasis Guidebook!Twelve Lessons designed to help you create an earth friendly landscape, some deep garden beds full of nutrient rich healthy food or perhaps even develop a natural market farm.
Get a copy on today printed in the USA from Amazon
The Organic Gardener Podcast is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com
If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
and don’t forget if you need help getting started check out our new
Free Garden Course.com Free Organic Garden Course We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy
Connect with Allison on Instagram @Long Cut Garden
Links mentioned
Patti Armbrister Composting course
Jesse Frost No-Till Growers Podcast
Nothing Much HappensPodcast for falling asleep
Favorite BooksThe No-Till Organic Vegetable Farm: How to Start and Run a Profitable Market Garden That Builds Health in Soil, Crops, and Communities
Daniel Mays
Lean Farm: How to Minimize Waste, Increase Efficiency, and Maximize Value and Profits with Less Work
Ben Hartman
The Living Soil Handbook: The No-Till Grower's Guide to Ecological Market Gardening
Jesse Frost
Jackie mentions Nicole Master's
For the Love of Soil: Strategies to Regenerate Our Food Production Systems
INTRO
Hey, Green Future Growers. Welcome to Season 3 I'm your host, JackieMarie Beyer. If you're new to the show, I hope you'll subscribe on iTunes for free or follow on your favorite podcast app and let's get growing. Hey everyone this is JackieMarie Beyer, your host here to help inspire you on your journey to create, grow, and enjoy a green, organic oasis. So let's get growing!
Not really. I, I have been enjoying listening to episodes of your podcast and just kind of getting familiar with, you know, what you do and how you conduct your interviews. And it just sounds, you know, pretty much like I expected it. So I don't know.
2m 27s
JackieMarie Beyer
So tell me, is there like a guest that, well, who's the first guest that stands out in your head?
2m 34s
Alison McClendon
Daniel Mays. I was like, holy Kerry. You know, May's on there
2m 38s
JackieMarie Beyer
Is it. He is amazing.
2m 40s
Alison McClendon
He is amazing. And you know, I I'm just a green horn and all of this, but I am super curious and super inspired by the people that I follow. Who do, who put all this stuff into action in a, in a way that seems to be really just smart. So when I, when I got, sorry, I'm, I'm just having a little brain fart here. I got
3m 19s
JackieMarie Beyer
Keep going. I'm going to mute my mic.
3m 22s
Alison McClendon
I got a lot of different books by people who I admired their work and Daniel Mays. I really love the way his book is laid out to just provide concrete information. You know, it breaks down the money part. It really just tells you start to finish. I mean, so many of the books do, but his, I guess just resonated with me just right.
3m 55s
JackieMarie Beyer
I can not agree with you wholeheartedly. And the thing I love, the way he breaks down the money, he gives you the schedule. I mean, I literally read that book twice, like once and then right in a row, right after that, I have red lines under any of it under all sorts of paragraphs, because it just, it does, it lays it up. You plant this at this time, you plant this at this time, you put these things together, you, you know, these props fit next to each other and he's, and he's got the whole note tilt system down, which is show nice. And the market gardener. And then at the back, you know, he gives you ideas. I'm like what you can charge for things. And at first I was thrown off and I was like, oh my gosh, who is going to pay $7 for eggs? Let me tell you those eggs are $7 in the grocery store.
4m 38s
JackieMarie Beyer
I'm at my mom's in New York right now. And I could not believe the price. And these aren't even like special eggs, special, you know, they say they're organic or they're cage free or whatever, but it's like, they're not like from the farm they're in the grocery store. I was like, oh my goodness. I cannot believe. I mean, you know, we are in, you know, still the throws of the pandemic, whatever, you know? So it's like, what, November 19th, 2021, if listeners are listening to this later. But yeah, but that, but all the, I mean, it's just the mate. Yeah. I loved his book. I got show much information out of his book, so cool.
5m 20s
JackieMarie Beyer
Well, I'm so glad to hear that. And then he was like one of the beginning episodes. So you, do you remember back from, because I haven't really like I'm having like this computer problem or I, I like can't even, I, I almost, it's like a magnet, you know, like when two opposing magnets with my computer, I just got so much, I'm going to it last year. So I haven't put an episode out in a while. I kind of took some time off, but I'm right about to get back into it yesterday. I got to see my GFF, my garden friend forever. I leaned control. We went into New York city to, we went to the drew Barrymore show or on Wednesday was so fun. And we walked around the city and just we're we're so like-minded like, everything was perfect. She's like, let's go find a bookstore.
6m 1s
JackieMarie Beyer
And I was like, all right. And what is she reading? Kissed the ground. She's reading that book. She had like a two and a half hour train ride to get into the city and back. And I was like, and then she brought the real button. I'm like, oh, you're reading it. I've had no, I have the real book. And just, we had so much fun.
6m 16s
Alison McClendon
Oh, that does sound fun. I haven't done anything like that in a long time. I'm from Illinois originally and lived in Chicago for quite a while. And while I really do resonate most with being outdoors, there's a part of me that really misses the, the feeling of being in a city. And it's a, it's a, excuse me. Okay. I should learn how to mute.
6m 48s
JackieMarie Beyer
No worries at all. No, let me do the meeting cause I'll do, actually what I do is I do it afterwards, super easy to edit. I have this program garage band it's piece of cake and it's fun. And you get like audio waves. You can almost see where the sneezes, I can't even like, not only that, like a lot of times I edit while I'm driving. And like, all you have to do is like command T to, to split the file and then hit the space bar to get it going again. And then I can go back when I'm not driving or like I'll pull over on the side of the road really quick and hit the command T space bar and then, and then go, you know, and then do it later when I'm at home that night, you know, just where are all the splits?
7m 33s
JackieMarie Beyer
Wow. Was really super easy. Having the, I spent way too much time on my computer since the pandemic started. And my podcast, the other thing is this guy started transcribing my show notes and I, I almost feel like I've lost like connection with my show. So I think I'm going to go back to doing my own show notes and typing them and stuff because I feel like I used to remember things better and more and whatnot. Yeah. White background noise. I'm at my mom's. And like, I can hear like there's landscapers across the street. I think the garbage men are like coming down the block. I don't know.
8m 15s
JackieMarie Beyer
Anyway, Alison, what might listeners want to hear about you show? I'm going to introduce you and we'll go from there. I might put a little bit of the pre-shot in here and there, but I'm ready to roll. I'm
8m 28s
Alison McClendon
Ready.
8m 28s
JackieMarie Beyer
And do I say your name and McLendon
8m 32s
Alison McClendon
McLendon?
8m 32s
JackieMarie Beyer
Yes. Okay. Here we go. Welcome to the green organic garden. It is Friday, November 19th, 2021. And I have an awesome guest on the line who joined your organic corner podcast, Facebook group. And I said, will you please come on because listeners, I'm looking for backyard gardeners, just like you. If you're out there, reach out to me. I would love to hear your experiences. And I'm sorry if you emailed me and I missed it because on the plane, I'm in New York visiting my mom and I on the plane. I went through my emails and I didn't find an email from a listener that I still haven't replied to, that she wrote me in like September.
9m 11s
JackieMarie Beyer
But anyway, today, Alison is here to tell us about her gardening journey. She is also from Montana or originally I think, well, we'll find out I'm going to let her talk show welcome to the show. Alison McLendon.
9m 25s
Alison McClendon
Thank you for having me. I'm really glad to be here.
9m 29s
JackieMarie Beyer
Well, we're excited because you have an awesome Instagram channel and you're the kind of people that we really learned from like in the preset. We were talking about Daniel Mays and, and I do appreciate the, but to me, it's the backyard gardeners, just like you, that bring my show to life and, and share their experiences that we can then take and turn and put it into place in our gardens. So, I mean, unless you're striving to be a market farmer, but a lot of my listeners are just like you and me. So we're going to show told us a little bit about yourself.
10m 1s
Alison McClendon
Well, so I am actually originally from Illinois, but my family and I live in Birmingham, Alabama, and we, my husband and I have a house with a third of an acre, which is really, it feels pretty big. And it looks big when I, when I see my pictures, but it's actually not. It's, it's a manageable size. We moved here about five years ago. We, we started our gardening at our old house, which had a little tiny raised bed that we built. And we were, we were inspired by permaculture and we were trying to utilize our space well by, by planting densely.
10m 47s
Alison McClendon
And we were kind of using a modified square foot gardening model in that small space. And it was a really interesting way to start. And, you know, really all we wanted to do was dip our toes in the water. So we, what we discovered is that once you put a garden in all of the insects immediately find out, so it was a good way to start kind of trying to understand what grows well here, what doesn't, what our insight pressure is. So anyway, we, we did seek out a place that had more land our backyard.
11m 31s
Alison McClendon
We are on a pie shaped piece of property where it's wide in the back. And so our lived was originally, it had a lot of volunteer pine and sweet gum trees. And so we had, and this sounds awful to say, but we had 38 trees taken out. What we have done though is add, we have a high density, apple orchard, it's on a trellis. We have heirloom cider apples that grow well in our region. And then we also have a large no-till market garden style garden, but it is really just, it's just a no-till garden with the 30 inch raised beds, wood chipped paths.
12m 17s
Alison McClendon
We also put in a, well, we originally kept these. My husband has since become allergic to them. So we had to rehome the bees, but we also put in a really big, it's a, well, it's a wildflower bed, but we're kind of letting the native stuff just come up as, as the seeds emerge from the seed bank. So now we have, you know, golden rod and bone set and a lot of stuff like that, that, that grows there. It's, it's sort of an insect. I forget how you say it, but insectary some people refer to it as a, a hedge row it's against our back fence. So there's the blueberries and blackberries.
12m 58s
Alison McClendon
And then this long bed, it's 17 inches wide by about 200 feet, no 17 feet wide by about 200 feet long. It's just all pollinator garden. And so we're, we're trying to encourage as much balance in our garden as possible. So, you know, while it felt heartless to remove a lot of those pine trees, what we've done is add diversity and life. So that's kind of what we're doing here.
13m 34s
JackieMarie Beyer
That is awesome. I know it's hard to cut down the trees, but sometimes you have to, I mean, you gotta have that sun and the apple orchard trees to produce apple cider is going to be beneficial to you and your community. And the bees are going to get more out of that anyway. So, you know, it's all, what can you do? So I do always start the show out. Alison asking about your very first gardening experience. Like, did you grow up in Chicago proper? Did your parents like ever have a garden? Like how old were you when you were a kid? Were you an adult? Who were you with and what, what's the first thing you remember growing?
14m 12s
Alison McClendon
Well, I did not grow up in Chicago proper. I grew up downstate in the middle of the state in a place called Bloomington. It is absolutely surrounded by what was not so much industrial ag at that point, but now is just all corn and beans and it's, it's kind of dismal actually. I mean, it's a beautiful environment, but the, the, the agriculture that takes place there is, is to me just sad. My mother took up gardening as I was growing up, but I think really what got me started that we, we would go camping.
14m 54s
Alison McClendon
We would go hiking. There were some wild places that we would go to in our area and I have always just loved nature. So it was really, it was really just my love of nature that kind of brought me to gardening. I lived in Atlanta for a while and had a house that had a huge yard and some people that who lived there prior to when I got the place, they were landscape designers. And so they had put a lot of really neat things in, and then they had become unable to care for the property.
15m 36s
Alison McClendon
And so it was really, my mom came and helped me with that yard. And it was, I don't know, just trying to find out what what's actually here and how do I take care of it that got me fired up. And she got me a lot of nice tools to work with a wheelbarrow, you know, good shovels, that kind of thing. So anyway, that was, that was kind of my beginning.
16m 3s
JackieMarie Beyer
Wow. So you probably, I think I'm sorry. I don't know why I thought you were in Montana. And I think I have seen you posted Joe Gardner. She probably follow Jolyon bull cause he was, he was out of it like he's out of Atlanta, I think. Right. Know,
16m 18s
Alison McClendon
I actually don't know that, that side. No, I don't believe I'm on there.
16m 23s
JackieMarie Beyer
He, oh, huh. Well that tells you where I'm at. I could've sworn, I had seen you posted in his Facebook group, but he, he does the growing a greener world show on, on the TV anyway. So then how did you learn how to garden organically was from your love of nature from your mom or where, where did document?
16m 45s
Alison McClendon
Well, both my mother was, you know, she was a, an early adopter of a lot of this stuff. And I think really my love of nature was from her directly. She had a wonder about her that I have definitely got. And so I think really the time in nature has given me an appreciation for all the living, things that are out there. I, I really can't bring myself to use the heavy chemicals that will throw off the balance. I don't want to kill anything. I want to create balance so that the, the system will work on its own as much as possible.
17m 32s
Alison McClendon
So I also, I growing up in Illinois and seeing all of the crop dusting, the, the, the model of growing there, the soil is some of the richest soil in the United States and it's just being ruined and frankly, and, and it just kills me. It makes me so sad and upset to see that happening. I also, my family has celiac disease. And so when I am thinking about raising food, I am thinking about the food is nourishment and how it will affect my body is something I'm really aware of.
18m 14s
Alison McClendon
My son also has celiac disease. And so when my husband and I first began gardening, it was really never a question. We had some of the Rodale's material. We were trying to learn about, you know, disease and insect pressure and how we could mitigate that. And, you know, for us gardening for our family and gardening with a baby and small child, we didn't want to use any of the chemical stuff that was out there. So that was really a lot of our motivation there.
18m 54s
JackieMarie Beyer
I love all of that. And that's, that's exactly why I started my podcast, because since you haven't been following me for very long, you might not know, but technically my husband's the gardener and I've always called myself the organic eater a little bit. This year, I did myself and I grew, I grew so much, like I was like at the point where I was like, I don't want to go to the garden anymore, but I'm kinda over that already. Like, I just love the healthy food. And then just, even like, when you're talking to the pre-chat, we just got back from the grocery store and some of the food that was in there, some of the vegetables, and I was just like, seriously, like, oh, this just looks so, you know, you could just tell it had been neither sitting on a store shelf for a really long time, or just didn't have anything to make you feel like you were going to get any nutrients out of eating this piece of fruit or this, I can't remember what it was, but there was something that I was like, really they're selling this as like a vegetable there's like, God can't be any nutritional value left in this like super pale celery or something that was just like, so maybe it was the, lettuce, I don't know.
20m 3s
JackieMarie Beyer
Anyway, where was I back to tell? So tell us about something that you've done, such an amazing job describing your place. Like a lot of times I feel like I have to ask guests to really like go in a little more depth to explain, like, I can't really visualize, but you did such a good job helping us visualize what your garden looks like. So what's something that did grow well for you this year?
20m 27s
Alison McClendon
Well, I have to say because, I mean, I've been around gardening for a long time and you know, my husband and I did start our garden at our old house in the, in the...
Connect with Ann on Instagram
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Sorry this has taken me so long to post! The amazing Weed Mom, changing our world, one family at a time. Hope you enjoy everyone. To read the unedited computer generated transcript please go here.
Hey listeners I want to make a correction at 12:15 in, I say we've had recreational use in Montana since 2005 but it's medicinal we've had. Also, Heather Cabot's book is the New Chardonnay.
Follow Danielle on Instagram at @daniellesimonebrand
Find her on her website DanielleSimoneBrand.com
Make sure you get a copy of her awesome book for friends and family.
Weed Mom: The Canna-Curious Woman's Guide to Healthier Relaxation, Happier Parenting, and Chilling TF OutThe New Chardonnay: The Unlikely Story of How Marijuana Went Mainstreamby Heather Cabot.
On Marijuana under the Obama presidency.
Let’s take a minute to thank our sponsors and affiliate linksWanna donate to the show! You can "buy me a cup of coffee" where your donation goes directly to support the GREEN Organic Garden Podcast to help pay for things like hosting the mp3 files or maintaining the website.
[gallery ids="137595,137597,137596" type="rectangular"]
Growers & CoAsk Your questions herehttps://youtu.be/2S9tbLIIhy4
The Good Seed CompanyNow Let’s Get to the Root of Things!We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!Get Your Copy of the The Organic Oasis Guidebook!Twelve Lessons designed to help you create an earth friendly landscape, some deep garden beds full of nutrient rich healthy food or perhaps even develop a natural market farm.
Get a copy on today printed in the USA from Amazon
The Organic Gardener Podcast is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com
If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
and don’t forget if you need help getting started check out our new
Free Garden Course.com Free Organic Garden Course We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
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Sorry this has taken me so long to post! I am actually in NY and got to be with my GFF (Garden Friend Forever) Aileen the other day. We had a great time. Sorry if this is outdated, but hope you enjoy.
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Hey everyone. This is JackieMarie Beyer. Your hosts here to help inspire you on your journey to create, grow, and enjoy a green, organic oasis. So let's get growing.
3m 58s
JackieMarie
Welcome to the GREEN Organic Garden. It is Saturday, September 18th, 2021. And I am back on the line with my cohost Aileen Catrone our golden listener of 2020, who inspires all of us and just is so amazing. And welcome to the show Aileen!
4m 22s
Aileen
Jackie, thank you.
4m 24s
JackieMarie
You're going to come up with like a special intro for just for our Soil Sistas Saturday. How's it going in New Jersey today? We're going to get rain. What are you guys getting?
4m 34s
Aileen
Oh, listen, this rain has to go away. It's been nothing but rain here. Very Misty, very humid. It's it's been terrible. It's terrible for the garden because I'm totally, my challenge, this couple of weeks has been powdery, mildew and blight all over the place. So I've been trying to keep up with it, take the leaves off, destroyed them. But Yes, it's on the squash. It's on the cucumber that I have this mosaic. I mean, things that I've read about and seen, I think I have every kind of fungus and I'm just hoping it's not bacteria.
5m 21s
Aileen
A lot of things. I mean, I think blight might be a bedtime, not a hundred percent, but it's really taken a toll on this garden because it has been so wet, so humid and so windy at times. So it just spreads like wildfire through the garden. So I'm going to have to turn over some things cause they can put the fall vegetables and all the things I've been growing in this mess, you know? So I'm going to have to do some overhauling, so we'll have to get, that's definitely going to be my challenge in the next couple of weeks.
5m 57s
JackieMarie
And how about you over there? We have had just the most beautiful weather and then it's going to rain today. But rain for us usually means it's cleaning everything. Plus we had our first frost yesterday, almost 32 the other day. And then it got down to 30. So what does it say Saturday? So Friday, Thursday night, Friday morning, it got down to 30, but we had gone and put row cover down. So that saved pretty much everything. And we are just in harvest central. I mean, Mike has canned 30 something quarts of pickles.
6m 40s
JackieMarie
Plus we still have two comers coming at our kazoo. We gave him money to my Mike stepson and his wife to can like a whole five gallon bucket full I just like five gallon bucket full of our own. Now I think he did say pretty much the cucumbers are done. Like he's gotten everything that's down there, but I don't know. Every time I go down, like I think there's no more because I planted a couple of cucumbers for that lady that I was doing that landscaping kind of garden job for in they're planted in my house. Cause she's still not into her property. And I thought I had gotten all the slicing cucumbers off. The one point I go down there the other day and they're six inches long, beautiful, perfect slicing cucumbers that I never saw grow.
7m 26s
JackieMarie
Never saw them start. And all of a sudden I'm harvesting them such as her. Those yesterday took her a bunch of celery, which has been fun to grow like fresh homegirl and celery is a completely different thing from the store. Now my stocks aren't getting as big as they could be, but that's probably more me not tending and not picking them enough. I think if I was harvesting more along the lines, they would be doing good, but I brought her a bunch of celery, my kale, you know, how he covered the kale with the row cover finally. So I wouldn't get the bugs in there growing. And somehow some bugs got in there. Like I think I lifted it off one night and then I covered it and the bugs were in there.
8m 9s
JackieMarie
And so Mike Hill is like the worst it's ever been. Like I could barely pick her 12 pieces of kale yesterday that did not have bug bites in it. And especially she wants the curly kale, which I don't need at all. And I could only find like two leaves that weren't just covered. And I didn't want to bring her that. Cause even though I'll eat them with the bow, I don't care. But I think she, I didn't want to bring her those, but I brought her like, we have so many pepper I'm going to make salsa today. I started cutting up the tomatoes. I made three, I mean two giant batches of tomato sauce this week, which came out to two court size, canning jars and two smaller ones that made a court because I was at a court charge.
8m 50s
JackieMarie
And then they ended up making that into the zucchini, lasagna and used it all, any frozen, but I still have tons of tomatoes and a majority of my harvest has not turned red yet. And I'm so worried. Cause I have these, I have like these monster Roma tomatoes, like you've never the, the Roman tomatoes I grew last year, but like the size of my, like a fat pinky, these ones are like the size of my fist. They are just huge. And there's so many of them and they're just starting to turn red and I'm like, oh, please don't let it frost and kill them. But
9m 25s
Aileen
Yeah. Did you cut the tops off that Susan Susan's in the garden if you've ever heard of her, Susan's in the garden. She's out in Washington state. I think she said like, if you wanted your tomatoes to ripe in quicker, like cut off all of the growth above the tomatoes so that the plant will put all the energy into the tomato to ripen it.
9m 55s
JackieMarie
Oh, I'm going to go through that today.
9m 57s
Aileen
Yeah. Susan, Susan, a garden or something that she's she's has a book out too on pest control, like natural. Yeah. So maybe that could help you. Cause if they're nice and green and big, oh they just need to write then on that bond.
10m 13s
JackieMarie
I mean, some of them are, I go down and pick like five every day, but there's probably 150 tomatoes down there. I mean, they are just not like these plants produce. They're like, you know, knocking the cages over, they're falling over. And then Mike also planted those Oregon spring, slicing tomatoes and we've been picking them like crazy and they are huge. I mean, they're just huge. They're tasty. They're like, they're almost like overripe or you can't slice them because there's so much you, but I'm putting those in the shots. I mean, we eat a tomato sandwich every day, both of us and just, we are just like tomato production, the pepper production. So I'm going to make my salon. I finally went into town and bought cilantro last.
10m 54s
JackieMarie
And when I went and got my car, I went and got cilantro. I cannot, I don't know, probably Should have put more. I should have tried more seeds, you know, like I probably planted seeds at one point. And then like, I think it grew when I harvested it and then I didn't grow more and I'm not like, yeah, I'm not on top of like the other groups. Like, was I telling you this? Or was I telling me mom? So that woman that I'm doing the landscaping project for, I finally brought her, oh, I was telling you I brought her to the food, but I also finally brought her, her herbs in her pots to put on her porch at her rental. And just like in the car yesterday, it smelled so good the time.
11m 36s
JackieMarie
And the men, those herbs are like incredible. They are threat my, or all my other herbs except for the Santo or thriving, whether I put them for her or for me, my Rosemary and my Sage. I mean, we see just, just growing incredibly from these little itty-bitty plants that I bought there. See, I love shooting Mint. You know, when some pods for, you know, Bazell I did find it. It was funny when I dug the plants out, there was a mirror gold or some fennel or something in a pot. And when I pushed it back, there was this little beasel point in there and I'm surprised it didn't freeze.
12m 16s
JackieMarie
The only thing I think that kept it from freezing. It did look like it might add some spots, but I keep my bees on the house. I was going to bring her one of my B-cells on my window sill. And I was like carrying it around the house and they put it on shelf and then I walked out of the house without it. But yeah, so, so that's where I'm at. I am just in the middle of like Sosa and to meet us, us, like getting these tomatoes process. And then I also like have picked all the plums. I got to do something with my poems. I have a huge basket of plums.
12m 48s
Aileen
Oh, how nice plunge, what is it? Plum jam or maybe plum ice cream.
12m 52s
JackieMarie
It's incredible plum salsa recipe last year on dealer.com. And I'm going to make that
12m 60s
Aileen
You can grill plums too and put them on a salad. Like you do watermelon.
13m 5s
JackieMarie
Really? That sounds good. What was I going to? There's this restaurant in town, a coal-fired slice pizza that puts they, they, what do they, what is it when you put, they put fish in balsamic vinegar, what's it called? Marinading or the summary, but anyway, and they are so good. And I was wondering, could I do that with the plunge?
13m 27s
Aileen
Yes. Why not?
13m 29s
JackieMarie
In balsamic vinegar, but let me tell you, they are so good. And on pizza beside you would think is weird, but there they meet this.
13m 38s
Aileen
Well, what have you been cooking? So you've been canning and you haven't been making anything.
13m 43s
JackieMarie
Oh, I leave the tomato sauce. So I'm putting that on everything. And I meet another, a couple of zucchini. Lasagna is to freeze, but then I just keep ending up eating them. Like when I make the tomato sauce, there's always like this extra, like the liquid, the broth. And then even when I make the lasagna, if there's like extra liquid broth, I like pour that in a jar. And then like, I'll make like what I'm making sheep or something bottom of the pan. And it's just so full of flavor and just put the spices in there. So that's what I'm looking. What have you been cooking?
14m 19s
Aileen
What Rob has been cooking because we have a fig tree and we've been picking figs and he saw you saw some of the pictures I posted on Facebook on
14m 30s
JackieMarie
Tree's doing great. She said, she's harvesting like 10 figs a day.
14m 34s
Aileen
Yes. And Robbie makes, he slices them. He puts them with presumed on a flour tortilla with olive oil and you could throw some goat cheese on it. And you know, if you like onions, I like onion. So he throws red onions or whatever onions. And he puts it in the oven. All my goodness. Is it so delicious? It is out of this world, a little bit of salt and pepper and you're good to go. You don't even need the salt because the pre-suit has on salt, but it's delicious. And we eat that as soon as those big start, that's it. We start slicing, we eat them like we eat potato chips. So it's really
15m 13s
JackieMarie
Easier for
15m 13s
Aileen
You. I'll definitely, definitely. It's delicious. Just delicious. And what has he's made, you know, he'll make a kale, like, you know, if we have some leftover kale, Swiss chard, which is, you know, there's a little spots in the garden and obviously the Bazell, he puts it all together and he'll make a pesto and throw walnuts in there and make a nice pesto. So that's what we've been eating, like, you know, fake pizzas and pesto really good, really helped, you know, yummy, yummy, really healthy. Other than that, that's it?
15m 53s
Aileen
That powdery mildew. And what
15m 55s
JackieMarie
Do you put in on postdoc
15m 58s
Aileen
By the Knicks? Yeah. With macaroni. Yeah. Yes. That said, he'll just put it in macaroni. You know, he could stop tomatoes, but you know, you get stuffed peppers or tomato and I speak to Medo if you hollow it out a little bit and stuff, but with some pesto also put it in the oven. You go, you can put a piece of cheese on top and melt it. Delicious, delicious.
16m 22s
JackieMarie
So what do you do? So like your fall step that you planted is in your greenhouse.
16m 27s
Aileen
Yeah. It's in the sunroom. So I haven't planted any of them yet.
16m 32s
JackieMarie
Are they grown? Are they
16m 33s
Aileen
Like, oh my God, I'm going to post pictures after this. I'm going to post some pictures on the Facebook page. They are growing really nicely. So I'm very happy. I have a lot of sunflowers. I mean, not an abundance, not like I did, like last year, they know, I mean, in the first season now citizens in the spring and summer season, now it's going to be the fall and winter season. I did less. So just for the fall season, cabbage cauliflower, bok choy, tatsoi beets, Swiss, chard onions. I did a little bit more Bazell to keep in the house. Kale led this lettuces.
17m 14s
Aileen
There's something called Celtis, which is a lettuce and a celery. So I'm excited to try that, you know, it's growing. So I'm hopefully survives, you know, when I put it out in the garden, but like I have to really vamp revamped the garden because of this powdery mildew and this
17m 33s
JackieMarie
Not what's your plan for revamping the garden? Is it in the bales or it's in those buckets with the dirt or the things you mean?
17m 43s
Aileen
Yeah, since it's, it's blowing on top like that powdery mildew, because it's been so humid, we're going to get a couple of cool days coming. I think fall's going to start probably by the end of the month, just get some cooler days here. I mean, there could always be a chance of that Indian summer that they say, but I'm going to turn over all those straw bales. I still have some, a plant growing, you know, I'll put some posts, some pictures
18m 9s
JackieMarie
And eggplant the other day. And I haven't sitting in the kitchen and it's like, it's like thriving in the kitchen. It was double the egg points. They were like little mini there's, three, eight points on it. And they were like anybody mini and they're like six inches long already.
18m 23s
Aileen
Oh my God, I love da clan too. Cleanse growing. I mean, I keep, I have like bleed Beatles, anything that you, that they earn those books about, or people talk about parody about blight, plead builders, mosaic just it's in my garden because we grow organically. Like we don't use any, like, I mean, I'm using like baking soda and peroxide and wa you know what I mean? Really a little dish. So peppermint oil, I mean, we're not using anything harsh that will harm, you know, harm our bodies. So it's really hard to manage, but you know, I'm managing it. How's that I'm managing it.
19m 4s
Aileen
All
19m 4s
JackieMarie
Right. Flip the straw bales
19m 6s
Aileen
Over. Yes. I'm going to, I'm going to, that's what, that's the plan. So hopefully they don't pull apart. And if they do that, I'm just going to probably make some new beds and throw some new composted dirt and like mix it in there, you know, and then put the fall vegetables in there and make sure I have a nice sturdy like cage on top or a roll covers to hold up nicely because when it does get frosty, so I'm hoping, so let's see what, how it works out. I'll I'll definitely post pictures of it. I Def I have pumpkins. I have two pumpkin's growing, which is really nice. I have one or two. Yeah, this is really cool.
19m 46s
Aileen
And I have one, one baby sugar, sugar, baby watermelon, one, all the watermelon seeds that I planted. But at least it's one, you know,
19m 60s
JackieMarie
But it's getting big.
20m 1s
Aileen
Well, no, it's, it's very tiny. It's like the size of my hand or something. So yeah. So we'll each get one little bite of it. What else was I shoot the one-on-one's the pumpkin's that's you know, just, oh, I have a cantaloupe. No, the one with the, with the, the outside of the fruit is like, looks like straw a little bit. Is that cantaloupe? It's got like Maney it feels like rough. Okay. I have one cantaloupe
20m 42s
JackieMarie
Appointed a cantaloupe and watermelon and the plants like just didn't do anything wildly flowered, but then I don't, I don't think there's anything down. I'm pretty sure there's nothing down there. I guess I haven't really looked closely lately, man.
20m 56s
Aileen
I got one cat, a little bit of all the cantaloupe seeds. So at least I got one though. And know what it looks like, how it grows, how it finishes growing, because now it just literally fell off the vine. So, which is cool because it's, you know, got brown and you know what I mean? It looks, and it's in both my hands. It's as big as both my hands together. So, which is nice. But at least That is too funny. It is funny. And I got some cucumbers. I'm not crazy about cucumbers, but we have some for salad, which is nice. That's fine. I mean, I, at least I got some I, whatever.
21m 37s
yes I know it's late. Want to join me in a Green Peace Action Party? email me at orgpodcast@gmail.com
Hope to hear from you!
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Read the somewhat edited podcast here.
Can you hear me? Right?
JackieMarie 00:00:07
I can hear you good. And you can hear me, which is good because my microphone doesn't work anymore and so I'm just using my Macbook, which is like a podcasting sin, according to most podcasters. But what can you do? There's plenty of episodes I've like put out there where I'm just talking to my phone while I'm driving, which is like, worse, almost as bad as this. But anyway, I'll get a new microphone one of these soon days, I feel like it's the cable. And like my old microphone cable's probably somewhere, but I can't find it. But you know what I did find, I found your door prize for coming to the Grow Live finally.
JackieMarie 00:00:48
Remember, I was like, I have a door prize for Aileen. I couldn't find anywhere and I finally found it going through my teaching stuff last night or yesterday morning looking for some good job stickers for this kid. So I'll get that shipped off to you with like, I think I have like a little package for you I've been putting together.
Aileen 00:01:08
Oh, that's sweet Jackie.
JackieMarie 00:01:11
But I was glad to find that. Cause I was like, gosh, what did I do? Did I finally give it away? Whatever happened to that? Like I just was baffled where it was.
Aileen 00:01:19
How was your job last week?
JackieMarie 00:01:22
Oooo my job. I just feel like it's like lessons, you know, I'm learning a lot about prepping food, which like, I kind of want to start like either a food truck or farm to table, or like there's that salad bar. What is it? A salad jar lunch club, is what I really think would be my best bet if I can find. And I might've even found like a commercial kitchen, there's a new bakery in town and I almost went in there yesterday morning, but I had to get
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Basil I planted June 21, 2021
With my soil blocker
Such an awesome couple
OMGOSH! These blossoms were the best! Follow them on instagram https://www.instagram.com/themilkmaidbakery/
Sorry about the sound listeners. lFind the partially edited Computer Generated Transcript below.
Hey everyone. This is JackieMarie Beyer. Your host here to help inspire you on your journey to create, grow, and enjoy a green, organic oasis. So let's get growing. Welcome to the GREEN Organic Garden. It is Saturday, August 7th, 2021, and we're doing Soil Sista Saturday again. So Aileen Catrone our Golden Listener from 2020 in New Jersey is here to share with us, how are you?
Aileen
00:00:42
Great, wonderful, excited. The garden is still going. Everything's surviving. How are you?
JackieMarie
00:00:53
What's your weather? Like we have clouds today. We might actually get rain and it's been cooler the last two days.
Aileen
00:01:00
No, it's been really nice and sunny all week. It has not rained, which it's kind of good because we had so much rain. You know, you get a lot of that, that blight coming and stuff like that. So I'm trying to head that off a little bit, you know, taking all the, you know, the underneath the stems and stuff that are touching the soils and stuff, cleaning out the tomato plants a little bit underneath to still keep them going, which is nice. I have some squash coming up. I have pumpkin's coming up. I'm so thankful. Zucchini coming up. Eggplants still going too, which is wonderful.
Aileen
00:01:42
I have some green beans, so I'm excited. It's working out. It really is. I'm thankful.
JackieMarie
00:01:50
You do have green beans coming already?
Aileen
00:01:54
Yes. Yeah. These little and they're purple. And then they turn green when you cook them kind of thing. So they're pretty good. Yeah. Yeah. It's not a lot.
JackieMarie
00:02:04
Mike has green beans coming on. I think I saw down, I think I ate one the other day, even.
Aileen
00:02:10
Mike has some green beans?
JackieMarie
00:02:15
Yeah! He has lots of green beans and we have those dragon-tongue striped purple ones that the kids always dragon tongue ones. That Patti Armbrister turned me on to. He just walked in with some cucumbers. He's gonna make pickled beets and hopefully pickle pickles this week.
Aileen
00:02:37
Good. That's one thing I did. I picked one cucumber. I only have one. The rest are growing, but one I picked, so pick them and you know, what's funny about the cucumbers? They have this like prickly, like I guess it's a defense mechanism for, if something comes to eat them. I never, huh?
JackieMarie
00:03:00
They do.
Aileen
00:03:02
Yeah! It's like, it feels that like, the eggplant has it also on the stem area. It's like these thorns. I never knew that because when you go to the store, they're actually taken off.
JackieMarie
00:03:18
Yeah! And also the ones that the store are more of a slicing cucumber, I think different than a pickling cucumber. I don't know if the slicing cucumbers have, and they always feel like they have that wax on them, the ones you buy at the store, you know?
Aileen
00:03:33
Oh yeah. Oh, completely different. Oh, everything is completely different. And everything tastes different. Definitely tastes better from your garden. There is no doubt in my mind.
JackieMarie
00:03:43
Yeah! Last year I tried to find pickling cucumbers because Mike, for some reason we didn't have any and I could not find them anywhere at the stores. You know, you could only find the slicing cucumbers. The farmer's market, I have a hard time getting to the farmer's markets around here. Well, the one in Eureka, there's one guy who's been selling stuff this year, but generally our farmer's market is more like an arts and crafts market. Like there's just not a lot of farmers up here.
Aileen
00:04:12
Isn't that amazing Jackie? Cause I went to the farmer's market last week in Bricktown. It's the next town over from me. And the last time I was there was probably four years ago and it was great. They had a lot of produce. Everybody was into it. Plant starts. Everything. I went last weekend and it was more like a craft, like craft beers, craft wines, craft foods, like there was a Perogies stand. There's someone that was look like they were selling mushrooms and someone's selling homemade hot sauces, but not a lot of fresh produce.
Aileen
00:05:01
Now might have been because I went late. I mean, it's, it's only between nine and two and I got there about 12:45.
JackieMarie
00:05:09
So you think the produce people were sold out?
Aileen
00:05:14
Correct. That's what I was thinking. But there were only three stands of produce that I saw that were still there and they had corn, eggplant, tomatoes. So I don't know. And you know,
JackieMarie
00:05:27
What's corn like a New Jersey? Corn in Montana this year has been awful at the regular store and super expensive.
Aileen
00:05:36
And the reason why I know for sure we are having a great corn season because I've been through two, three different places to buy the corn. And it's called the white corn. Silver Queen is the name. It is the most delicious corn you ever can imagine. I love corn. So you don't even need butter or salt.
JackieMarie
00:06:00
What's it cost in New Jersey? Here it's like a buck an ear but I saw it for 68 cents the other day.
Aileen
00:06:07
For organic, a dollar a year for organic at these farm stands.
JackieMarie
00:06:12
Nice.
Aileen
00:06:12
At these farm stands and farmer markets which is really nice because that's important. You want it to be, and you want to get rid of your product. You know what I mean? You don't want to sit on corn, so sell at a price because people are buying it by 12, 13 pieces at a time, you know? So yeah.
JackieMarie
00:06:29
Even at a buck an ear?
Aileen
00:06:30
Yeah! A buck an ear.
JackieMarie
00:06:31
Nice.
Aileen
00:06:31
Yes. It's nice. And it's worth it. It's so worth it.
JackieMarie
00:06:36
I mean, there's nothing like corn on the cob.
Aileen
00:06:38
No and you don't need butter or salt. It's sweet. Delicious. Just out of this world. It's called silver queen. A lot of places in this area grow that, which is really nice. What else did I see? There were no plans starts. That's what I was disappointed at. You know how right now the fall seasons coming up and you should be getting ready. Like even if you had a plant start, you could pick up a tray like of plants that you could buy. And like, if there's a really true gardener that wants to learn about something that you could actually start these now that would be the place to buy it from. But there were nothing, nothing like that. There was no no selling of plants.
Aileen
00:07:19
There was some, someone selling some shrubs, but nothing that I would want in my garden, you know, more ornamental stuff.
JackieMarie
00:07:26
There's a side business for you there because you're so good at growing starts.
Aileen
00:07:32
See, that's what I was thinking. That's interesting because that's all that was going through my head. I was like, I was expecting, and then I asked this one, I bought a couple of eggplants from this one stand out of the three that were there. And I asked him what variety of it was. And he had no idea. So I was like, okay. So they probably send out people to just like manage the stand for that day. You know what I mean? Or you know, just somebody there as a body to collect the money.
JackieMarie
00:08:02
Or maybe he doesn't remember, I'll be honest with you. People have been asking me questions like that. And I'm like, I don't know. I don't remember what I bought. I'm lucky if I can tell you what seed company it came from.
Aileen
00:08:15
Yeah. But I don't know,
JackieMarie
00:08:16
But I guess I'm not at a farm selling it either.
Aileen
00:08:20
Yeah, exactly. Like I think if, I think if you're actually selling it and like, but we went to another stand for the corn and that woman was very knowledgeable of what her products were. So that's what I mean, like, you know, so it was a hit or miss kind of thing with that, you know, I was a little disappointed in that. The actual plant, you know, the produce of only having three stands and someone not knowing what they're growing or what they're offering you. So, but you know what? It was all good. The eggplant tasted good. The big plants were going for $2 a piece.
JackieMarie
00:08:56
Did you buy eggplant? You've been growing so much eggplant.
Aileen
00:09:00
Yeah. I did buy some eggplant. I love it! I don't, I don't grow enough of it. I had it. How did I know I was going to love it so much? I mean, I actually love it in general and my husband loves to cook it. So, you know, I didn't know.
JackieMarie
00:09:13
My mom grew an eggplant this year and she was so excited about it. She was like, it's so pretty I don't want to cut it. And it's so funny cause she paints vegetables. Like when she does painting, she loves to paint in the summer. She paints the flowers in her garden and she paints vegetables. And she, I made these little note cards of hers, of her eggplants.
Aileen
00:09:31
You sent me one, it was gorgeous. That's how you sent me one of those. And it said, Marie Ramos on the back. And it was a picture. I mean, or on the front it was a picture of a eggplant, like a couple of vegetables. Yes. It was gorgeous. I loved it. I still have it.
JackieMarie
00:09:44
She's so cute. But this year she was so excited cause she actually grew an eggplant.
Aileen
00:09:50
They're so beautiful. That purple, that purple flower that comes out.
JackieMarie
00:09:54
I love them, aren't they?
Aileen
00:09:56
It's just gorgeous. And then the green stem and the dark purple, black purple body, the skin. Oh my God. It's just gorgeous.
JackieMarie
00:10:07
Those ones you grew were just the perfect size too. I thought those ones that you posted that picture of them on your hat.
Aileen
00:10:15
Yeah! They're called Moonlight midnight. And they only, they only get to three to six inches and that's when you should, you know, between three to six inches, you need to harvest them.
JackieMarie
00:10:30
Yeah. Cause I think bigger than that, they get kind of mushy in the middle and they're harder to cook.
Aileen
00:10:37
Or the seeds are a little too big, you know what I mean? They're not as tender. Yeah. Yeah. I agree.
JackieMarie
00:10:43
I did make some fried Parmesan, zucchini. They're called to zucchini boats. But then, but it was mostly just like I cut the zucchini in half I sprinkled, they were so easy. Just put them in a roaster with olive oil, salt and pepper and Parmesan cheese. And they tasted almost like eggplant Parmesan. I reheated some cause I have more than I could eat one meal and I split cherry tomatoes on top and a little more of the Parmesan. Oh it was so good! I added some breadcrumb.
Aileen
00:11:21
To me, oh, that's nice for the texture for the crunch. Oh yeah.
JackieMarie
00:11:25
It tasted just like eggplant Parmesan. And I was like, wow, this is so different. And so easy to make. I like that.
Aileen
00:11:33
And then did you, were you able to eat the skin and to right? Like everything just nice
JackieMarie
00:11:38
Things with skin on them? Like I that's where most of the nutrients are?
Aileen
00:11:42
In college this friend of mine turned me on to this restaurant that sold mashed potatoes with the skins in them. And just like I eat everything with the skins on them. They were like notorious for like, she would just go there just for their mashed potatoes with the skins on them. Yeah. Your vegetables with skin on it. That fruits and vegetables that is the most nutritious is right underneath the skin. It's the most nutritious Robbie made. So with all these tomatoes I had, he made a sauce, a nice red, you know, they call them gravy, they call it gravy, Italian, you know, sometimes called a gravy. It's a red sauce. And this time he added some ground cloves, can I tell you it was outstanding?
Aileen
00:12:25
Cloves and tomato sauce. I've never heard of it. Never, ever, ever, ever. And it was delicious. And my mom had some on Wednesday when she came by, she said, I've never had this ever in my life. The flavor is unbelievable. It's ground cloves in tomato sauce.
JackieMarie
00:12:45
Cloves like you would put like in an apple pie? Those cookies, I thought you meant garlic cloves. You're talking about the little brown cloves.
Aileen
00:12:54
That you, yes. The little brown cloves that you decorate an orange with in the fall time or yeah, you decorate a ham with. Ground cloves. It was delicious.
JackieMarie
00:13:06
I wonder where he got that idea?
Aileen
00:13:08
I don't know, but then I was talking to my aunt today. I went to visit her and I brought a whole bunch of tomatoes and I told her about the sauce. She goes, my mother used to make the sauce like that. And I was like, really? And she's in her eighties. So I don't, you know, it was a thing. And she said, it's a taste and a smell that you, I love it. Now I even have clove oil that I dust, you know, the furniture in my house with, because I love the smell so much. So to eat it, yes, it was just try it!
JackieMarie
00:13:42
That sounds bettter than Pledg.e or something. Like I always buy Pudge cause I like the lemon scent, but that sounds better
Aileen
00:13:49
No, no I, and I don't, I don't use Pledge or any of that. I just use like on an old sock, I put a little water and I put a little bit of oil. It's actually oils, you know, like essential oils and I dab and then I just start wiping down the furniture. I have lemon, peppermints. Oh, that's how I clean. That's how I dust the furniture, you know, as, as natural as possible.
JackieMarie
00:14:16
Oh, that's so easy and such a great idea.
Aileen
00:14:21
Oh yeah. Oh, it's much better than all these chemicals. You know, you have a dog, you have pets, you have, you know, kids around who wants them to be, you know, they gnaw on the furniture, putting their mouth on things. What do you want to put a chemical on your furniture for? You know, I'm just thinking that way. I don't know. That's how I always thought.
JackieMarie
00:14:39
I don't know. Like I am not usually, that's funny because I posted a thing about brands like that's why. Like I have like two brands that I like Dawn dishwashing soap and Pledge. Like I don't, I don't like all the other stuff, I pretty much buy generic, but those are like two of the only brands that I actually buy. But I'm going to throw the Pledge out and, and try that clove oil. That sounds so good.
Aileen
00:15:05
Clove oil. I have peppermint, I have Lemon. So, and they're expensive. So you open, you only need a little bit, a little bit goes a long way, you know? Cause really the rag is picking up. The duster is picking up most of the stuff, you know what I mean? This is just kind of nourishing the wood so it doesn't dry out, you know?
JackieMarie
00:15:25
Well, that's what I use it for too. My art desk is that is made of wood. And I like to, I like to do it on
Aileen
00:15:33
That. Yeah. That's really a good idea. So anyway, that's the two things. So you had a nice recipe with zucchini. My husband making that sauce with the clovs is just unbelievable. Unbelievable.
JackieMarie
00:15:49
I was just looking, Mike was giving me what he needed. I need, I want to say, what did he say? Whole all spice. He's cause when I go to town, I'm going to go to the store. He needs cinnamon sticks for the pickled beets, whole all spice. I'm not sure what that is.
Aileen
00:16:05
Yeah. So that allspice but that might be kind of the same thing. It's got all the spices in it. I'm assuming, I don't know. We don't usually buy, you know, a lot of things. So, you know, Robbie has all the staples in there.
JackieMarie
00:16:19
Is it different than like ground allspice like that you buy when you put in an apple pie?
Aileen
00:16:25
Yeah, I would think so. It might, it might be. I imagine maybe he wants to grind it up or leave it whole because it's just going to dissolve better in the pickling juice. You...
Go BIG And Go GREEN!
Tell your senators today! EASY Phone call.
https://www.senate.gov/senators/senators-contact.htm
The Sunrise Movement and Elizabeth Warren among others make the case for including child care, college and crucial research in the infrastructure bill. We can move our country forward. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE call your senators and tell them GO BIG and GO GREEN and pass the trillion dollar infrastructure bill.
Check out the Sunrise Career Quiz today. We can grow the USA GDP by putting people back to work and helping moms around the country with child care. We have to include social justice infrastructure in this bill too. We can do this but not without YOUR HELP!!! Please republican, democrat, tell your senators PASS THE INFRASTRUCTURE BILL!
Mother EARTH will thank you!
Take the Sunrise Movement Careers Quiz here: https://greennewcareers.org/
Go BIG And Go GREEN!
Tell your senators today! EASY Phone call.
https://www.senate.gov/senators/senators-contact.htm
https://videopress.com/v/E4zWhD7r?preloadContent=metadata
The Sunrise Movement and Elizabeth Warren among others make the case for including child care, college and crucial research in the infrastructure bill. We can move our country forward. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE call your senators and tell them GO BIG and GO GREEN and pass the trillion dollar infrastructure bill.
Check out the Sunrise Career Quiz today. We can grow the USA GDP by putting people back to work and helping moms around the country with child care. We have to include social justice infrastructure in this bill too. We can do this but not without YOUR HELP!!! Please republican, democrat, tell your senators PASS THE INFRASTRUCTURE BILL!
Mother EARTH will thank you!
Take the Sunrise Movement Careers Quiz here: https://greennewcareers.org/
Go BIG And Go GREEN!
Tell your senators today! EASY Phone call.
https://www.senate.gov/senators/senators-contact.htm
https://videopress.com/v/E4zWhD7r?preloadContent=metadata
The Sunrise Movement and Elizabeth Warren among others make the case for including child care, college and crucial research in the infrastructure bill. We can move our country forward. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE call your senators and tell them GO BIG and GO GREEN and pass the trillion dollar infrastructure bill.
Check out the Sunrise Career Quiz today. We can grow the USA GDP by putting people back to work and helping moms around the country with child care. We have to include social justice infrastructure in this bill too. We can do this but not without YOUR HELP!!! Please republican, democrat, tell your senators PASS THE INFRASTRUCTURE BILL!
Mother EARTH will thank you!
Take the Sunrise Movement Careers Quiz here: https://greennewcareers.org/
This is JackieMarie Beyer your host here to help inspire you on your journey to create, grow and enjoy a GREEN organic oasis.
18s
JackieMarie Beyer
So hey listeners, I just really, really, really want to encourage you to call your senators no matter what state you're in and say, Go Big, Go GREEN and pass the infrastructure bill. They need to hear from you. If you're a Democrat, they need to hear from you. If you're a Republican, they really need to hear from you. Just, it's so easy. Just pick up your phone, say Siri dial or whoever's phone. Your thing is just like, I promise you, they are not going to be mean. They're not going to be upset. It takes like 10 seconds. Call Congress, get them to pass this infrastructure bill. I've done so much reading this year.
59s
JackieMarie Beyer
https://amzn.to/3jvRZlm
You know, Elizabeth Warren makes a great case for why childcare needs to be included in the infrastructure bill, because we can't, you know, so many women need childcare to help them get a decent job, to help them go to work. Especially as we're headed back into another school year with parents worried about, are my kids going to be home? Is, you know, school gonna get canceled? Am I going to have to worry about leaving my kids home alone? Who's going to watch my kids. Our growth as a nation will grow. There is evidence that proves when women enter the workforce, our overall GDP grows and just our planet is crying out.
1m 47s
JackieMarie Beyer
I cannot help, but feel that Mother Earth is sending this pandemic to give us all a slow down. And you know, so many people are gardening this year because of it. And I think that's helping and just, I really feel like she's saying, Hey, you know, look at the fires, look at the intense weather, if you're in a place where you're having bigger storms and you're having more rain, like it's so much like we're having challenges in our garden, we've never had before. Like people are struggling.
https://amzn.to/2VDHNiu
Mike's almost ready to give up growing food because he's had so many challenges this year. It's just crazy. But the critters that are in the garden, I think a lot of it is because the woods are so dry. And I hope that, you know, I think we can be leaders. I think we can change this, but a small infrastructure bill is just not gonna cut it. And so I just got what's her name? Varshini Prakash's book. She's like the leader of the Sunrise Movement winning the GREEN New Deal. Why we must and how we can. I just got her book.
2m 55s
JackieMarie Beyer
https://amzn.to/2VAlZEb
I've been reading Naomi Klein's On Fire: The Case for the Green New Deal, I should have Jane Fonda's book here too because it is about what you can do. But the biggest thing you can do is right now, while we have a chance in Congress is call your Senators, get the Senate to pass the trillion dollar infrastructure bill, not this $550 billion dollars thing. That's not going to get us anywhere. We need the trillion dollar infrastructure bill. We will get the money back. When people go to work, when they create these GREEN jobs, one of the biggest things they talk about in the GREEN New Deal book is that if Congress, if they would pass regulations that say, you have to have solar panels on your house, the solar panel companies could put more money into hiring people instead of having to advertise.
3m 40s
JackieMarie Beyer
And that would be huge. And it's just, you know, if we can insulate houses better, if we can, you know, have GREEN, the LEED, you know, L E E D, which is like, you know, the GREEN building regulations. If we can get more places built with GREEN technology, it's coming, but we don't have time to wait. Let's use our government money. I mean, they spend huge dollars on building bombers and weapons and all these other crazy things that, you know, we can find the money. The money's there. Elizabeth Warren's got a great plan for just taxing the wealthy 2%.
4m 23s
JackieMarie Beyer
Two little percent, you know, would pay for childcare and college for. It's just amazing. If you read her book Persist, what her plan will do. You know, Kamala Harris is in there, we have the chance to do it right now. We can be leaders. We can, you know, I know you're listening to my podcast because you support GREEN New Deal. Otherwise you wouldn't be listening. Although it's funny that I do get some responses from people who are totally on the other end of the spectrum, but I really encourage you, whether you're a Republican, a Democrat, whoever you are, if you're listening, call your senators, it's so essential we get this infrastructure bill to pass.
5m 6s
https://amzn.to/2VDHNiu
JackieMarie Beyer
That we make changes, positive changes! That we get rid of the subsidies for fossil fuels is another thing they talk about in the winning the GREEN New Deal book. So if you haven't read it yet, I just got my copy. Realized they had written a book, love the sunrise movement so much. And I'm so frustrated with Congress that we can't move forward. And they just, you know, who was a Belgian I was listening to on those the human resources podcast, the other day that I do the transcriptions for, they were talking about how they made in their country, you have to have an electric car by 2025. And the reason they were talking about it is because I guess most people in Belgium that have white collar jobs have company cars.
5m 50s
JackieMarie Beyer
And so the companies are going to have to buy these electric cars. And that's how regulation can help push businesses towards making these changes. We need these changes now! We need to get away from fossil fuels. We need to have regulation that says we're going with GREEN infrastructure. There was a great meme the other day. You know what happens when we have a solar panel spilt? What happens to when we have a wind power spill and what happens when we have an oil pipeline spill? I mean, I'm so disgusted with Joe Biden's administration. Yes. He stopped the Keystone. But what about line 3? Did you see Tara Houska that she got shot with rubber bullets trying to protect their sacred land so we can have this nasty tar sands oil go down to the Gulf of Mexico.
6m 42s
JackieMarie Beyer
So it can be exported to some other country. (https://www.democracynow.org/2021/8/4/tara_houska_line_3_pipeline_resistance) We don't need the tar sands in the United States. We should be. They more cops, just these poor women, water protectors are out there trying to protect. They just shouldn't have to waste their time doing this. They, this their land. We should not be letting Canada, you know, go through there.
7m 2s
JackieMarie Beyer
And yes, I understand that there are people that want those big paying oil infrastructure jobs, because those jobs are some of the few and far between jobs in our country right now, but we can have other better jobs. Just see it. I mean, the building that's going on in Whitefish and Kalispell, we can have GREEN building.
7m 21s
JackieMarie Beyer
I saw amazing solar panels when I went to the farmer's market in Missoula on the roofs. Like, I don't understand that why doesn't every parking lot, have a solar panel roofs. It would keep people's cars, you know, cooler in the summer. It would reduce our, why not? They have these giant instead of having these giant black parking lots. I mean, sometimes I think even if they painted them white, it would help. Why are parking lots black? It's just bringing in heat that we don't need. You know, why not cover those car places was solar panels or something. Like I just feel like, and, oh, that's another thing they talk about in the GREEN new deal book research.
8m 5s
JackieMarie Beyer
And we do not have all the answers because we're not investing in research. That was a huge thing that Franklin Delano Roosevelt did during the New Deal back after World War I or when they put in the, the new deal. You know, when they came up with Social Security, it was because they invested in research. We need to get these scientists. We need to invest in our colleges. You know, let's not have our colleges like going broke. Let's invest in our children's future. You know, the jobs of the future. Trust me as someone who's looked at job sites and career sites, like almost any website I go to the first place, I go to are careers.
8m 50s
JackieMarie Beyer
And the majority of jobs out there are for software engineers. We need kids to have, you know, strong math skills, strong science skills, lets give our teachers a raise. That's another part of the GREEN new deal. What's the other thing? Medicare for all, you know, Medicare for all is not free. You still have to pay in. It's just being into one government provider and all of us sharing instead of like all these different for-profit. I mean obviously if someone's a for profit insurance company, then they're worried about their bottom line instead of providing the best healthcare. I mean I've worked for health insurance companies. It's all about how can we not pay this claim? How can we make sure that we're only paying, you know, there is, I've talked about this before, there's a customary usual and what does it U and P - Usual Procedure.
9m 38s
JackieMarie Beyer
They have diagnosed, they have all this information like Medicare is super efficient as processing claims and if we could all break into it. So then another thing, like I saw this guy talk in New York and he was saying how he is stuck in his job because he has a heart condition and it's a pre-existing condition. I mean, it's just ridiculous. Like why is healthcare related to your job anyway? Like let's expand Obamacare or the Affordable Care Act. So everybody can have a health insurance and they can get jobs where their best, most talented they're using their expertise, instead of just being stuck in a job because that's where your health insurance is.
10m 19s
JackieMarie Beyer
What's the other one? So childcare, Medicare-for-all which yeah, we would all pay for it. It's not free Medicare. It's just like college. The three, did you know, back before the seventies, college at most public state schools was free and by, I mean we're a better society. If we have more educated people, whether it's a trade school, if you want to go learn how to be, you know, a plumber or woodworking or whatever skills, you know, solar installation, windmill installation, like what was I reading about windmills? There's like 800 something parts and most of the parts have to be made close to the windmill. Like we can create jobs.
11m 1s
JackieMarie Beyer
We can build our gross domestic product. Is that what GDP stands for? GDP. And then we'll get taxes from those people that are working. We'll get into home taxes, but they'll be getting paid better. Like it's better for our country than just some business building their bottom line and getting stock by backs on the stock market. The stock market is risky. If we don't pass the GREEN new bill, you know, we're just risking our future even more so I know you're listening. I know it's supposed to be a gardening show, but just, I just was watching on the news. And they're saying that the congresses in there just to me, I just, I know listeners, it will take you way less time than it took you to listen to me rant about this, but I've done the research and I'm telling you, childcare is essential.
11m 47s
JackieMarie Beyer
We need to, the more people we have working, the more our country grows. And don't give me this, that people want to be home on unemployment. Nobody wants to be on unemployment. Nobody wants to not have a job. If they don't like their job, they'd rather have a decent paying job where they feel like they're a productive member of society. I worked with so many parents. I've had so many jobs. I've worked with so many people that yeah, maybe they hate their job that they have right then, but they could have a job where they're, you know, participating as a member of their community. This is possible. Believe in a greater feature.
12m 27s
JackieMarie Beyer
Believe in a world of abundance. Don't believe in a world of scarcity. Don't let people make you think, oh my gosh, I'm not going to have a job. Oh my gosh. If we spend all this money, there's not going to be money. We need to protect our planet. We need to move forward. We need to come up with, you know, we need to stay on scale with the other countries that are investing in their futures. You know, we need innovation in our country. So let's invest in research and development. Let's invest in childcare for our parents. Let's pay childcare providers more or let's pay teachers more! Let's care about each other.
13m 11s
JackieMarie Beyer
Let's pay our nurses more and we can do this. If we work together, we can build a better future. We're a great country. And we have lots of money that we can put into helping each other. And the more money people make at their jobs, the more people work, the greater our country will grow. And I'm telling you, this infrastructure bill will help, but we need to go big! GO BiG, Go GREEN, call your Senator today. Call your Congressman. I think is most important. We get it passed the Senate, right? Go big, go green, pass it all. Get that money out there.
13m 51s
JackieMarie Beyer
Thanks listeners. You know, if you subscribe to the sunrise email list, they have this awesome quiz on their website. I meant to tell you guys about this. I don't know did I post it somewhere? About careers, they have show many cool careers. A lot of them would be supporting farmers. You know, we're such a huge agriculture. We need to, it's all part of like, where's that kiss the ground book too. I've been reading. Maybe that's where a lot of this information has come from the Kiss the Ground book that talks about, you know, our soil, saving our soil, changing our soil. Did you know, the dust bowl was because we tilled too much soil. You know, we need to support small scale farmers.
Growers & Co
https://growers.co/
14m 34s
JackieMarie Beyer
You all know, I love JM Fortier's t-shirt Small Scale Farming is Changing Our World. That's part of the infrastructure bill too also like educating farmers about no till practices and organic practices and helping them move away, move towards a GREENer feature. So if you want to, there was a great soul fire farm did a great Instagram live Instagram yesterday, talking about how, how to find land, how to speak to your elders so you can learn how to farm, how to it was Leah Penniman who wrote FarmingWhileBlack and Karen Washington who wrote the...
Roasted Eggplant Lasagna
Homegrown Cabbage Cole Slaw
Isn't this cabbage as lovely as a rose!
This is Jackie Marie Beyer, your host here to help inspire you on your journey to create, grow and enjoy a green organic oasis. So let's get growing! Welcome to the GREEN Organic Garden. It is Saturday, July 31st, 2021. And I am here for episode two of Soil Sista Saturday, with the golden listener of 2020 Aileen Catrone and welcome back. So what's growing in New Jersey this week. How's it going?
47sAileen Catrone Well, I started fall planting, so squash, zucchini, and I'm going to start my broccoli indoors. How do you think that goes? We think of a work I have to work.
1m 6sJackieMarie I think you're starting squash new?
1m 10sAileen Catrone Yes. Yes. Starting it, like just putting the seeds in the ground. They've already come up. It's amazing. Cause I think you have so many days, like 70 days or something before your first frost and you can harvest them. So let's see how it works out.
1m 28sJackieMarie Oh, well, when did your first car? We had somebody posts the other day in the Western modern Taylor gardening group that she lost all her zinnias cause it was down at 28, less than 50 miles for me. And we have had a killer frost on August 8th before hopefully, or, but yes, we we're lucky if we can go to September. Yeah.
1m 51sAileen Catrone Since October 30th, like Halloween, October 15th, October 30th and the way the weather's working, it might, it might just go into November who knows? I mean it's hot out there. It's unusually warm. Yeah. So the broccoli I'm going to start inside for a fall. Like, you know, you know how I was doing it in the spring, but those cabbage Watts decimated everything out there that was broccoli oriented, any kind of broccoli, Rob Kali fly, anything. It was just gone.
2m 32sAileen Catrone So I w again, Gary Pilarchik that you had on, he had said something about trying to start a fall garden indoors, you know, get some things ready for the fall and plant them out in your garden for the fall. So that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to do transplants of cauliflower and broccoli. And I think I would try brussel sprouts too. So there's no, there's no threat of that dreaded cabbage moth. And I haven't seen any for the past week or two. So that's interesting. Might be just a spring thing. And then I don't know what your insight is on that?
3m 9sJackieMarie I don't know. I'm so curious. And I had somebody else who was in New Jersey asked me what to plan for the fall. So this is awesome. So in Montana, so these are the challenges I have last year. I tried to do the fall broccoli thing. And the problem I had was it was so hot outside that it just, it just never took off and they never got bigger than six inches. And then I can remember they froze or whatever. They didn't make it.
I planted lettuce yesterday. So that's what I'm trying to plant for the fall. Last year, I planted my letter September 1st and it just didn't take off enough before when, like, I was able to pick like a couple of leaves at Thanksgiving, but like, there just wasn't enough.
Arugula outside my kitchen getting ready to bolt already August 1, 2021
3m 54sJackieMarie So this year I'm hoping August 1st, you know, July 30th, August 1st, right in there, I me be better. And I planted a fall bed of arugala like a month ago, but it's already getting ready to bolt. It's just not gonna make it through August. I don't think so. I'm going to have to plant a root up again, but I've been eating like crazy. It's doing good now. So broccoli and cabbage, I'm curious to see what happens. So we'll see, that's what they say and I'm indoors and then put them out. They definitely liked the cold weather. My broccoli on my broccoli starts that I started at like 25 broccoli starts and they were doing so good. And the plants are so huge. And I go down there one day and the squirrel or chipmunk or whatever the heck it is, eat all of my broccoli!
4m 40sJackieMarie So I am like almost same problem as you, like something got it the past. And then I did the dumbest thing I been like covering my kale. So the bugs don't. So the moths don't, you know, lay their bugs, in my kale. And I've been doing really good about it and covering it every night, almost, I've missed like three nights, but I haven't gotten bugs in there, but you know what happened the other day, I went down in the morning and uncovered it in the morning. One day I just happened to go down, was working down there early and I left it uncovered all day and the darn chipmunk went and ate most of my kale! How dumb Can you be like, I'm like, oh my goodness. I went down the water and was like, ahhhh!
5m 23sAileen Catrone Try to do the broccoli and the cabbage now for the fall or no?
5m 28sJackieMarie No, he just, oh, he's having the toughest time. But I did pick, so that's my cooking this week. I made cole slaw yesterday. I did, he did pick me up and I just think cabbages look like roses. There's show beautiful. Like these gigantic huge roses. They're so pretty the chipmunks or gophers or whatever the heck he's got down there that are destroying his garden, completely ate all the purple ones and made purple ones in my beds too, over by the house. But they did not eat the green ones. So I got two green cabbages this weekend and I made homemade cole slaw.
6m 8sJackieMarie And if anybody wants my cole slaw recipe is on the organicgardenerpodcast.com. That's where I go to cook eight. You just type coleslaw in the search bar and it comes up and I make a closeout. Like one of my secrets is I mix mayonnaise and yogurt and it cuts the calories. And it just gives it this different flavor that I don't know where he found that recipe. I want to say it was from my friend Dacia's mom. But yeah, so
6m 37sAileen Catrone I love yogurt it's got a tangy flavor, which is nice.
6m 41sJackieMarie Yeah. It, like it said in the recipe to use vanilla yogurt first, like, I don't know the recipe I post in 2017, so I can't remember why, but I used half vanilla and half plain yogurt yesterday and a little bit of mayonaise oh, so good. And I put Craisins and walnuts in it. It's delicious. So that's, what's cooking in my garden. Those are my challenges. That's what I'm growing. What are you cooking?
7m 10sAileen Catrone Okay. I forgot to mention the last time we spoke, we talked about what, what did we talk about for the, I can't remember. Anyway,
7m 18sJackieMarie You were cooking tomatoes and eggplants. I forgot what you called. It's funny. Cause I was just looking at the show notes and the transcription,
7m 30sAileen Catrone A Eggplant Tomato Parmesan.
7m 33sJackieMarie Well, that's what you posted on, on wine, but Instagram or somewhere, but on the show you talked about a sauce, or what did you call it? You had some name for it. That's why
7m 49sAileen Catrone Totally. When he made, oh, Robbie made Ratatouille. Yes. He made a Ratatouille so good. Yes. That's what he made. Yes. With some tomatoes and the eggplants that I grew also, I forgot to mention about the zucchini - stuffed zucchini flowers. We made
8m 14sJackieMarie My mom made stuffed like a fried, zucchini flower. And I was telling her about your stuffed zucchini flowers. She was like, oh, what did they stuff them with?
8m 25sAileen Catrone Mozzerella and capers.
Just stuff the, you know, the male flowers, the zucchini flowers or squash flowers stepped in with the male capers and then just dredged them in a like egg batter and then deep fry them. Oh my God, they were so delicious. It's that simple. The recipe. It's so simple. Very simple. You can do a little bit to that regarding there. If you want, you know, with the mozzarella and the capers, it's up to you, you could do pre-shoot. Some people do project and what's it all. It's all up to you. How you want to step you're flour and deep fry
8m 59sJackieMarie Flour. Do you fry it like oil or anything? Or you just eat it graduate 9m 3sAileen Catrone In the, in the batter, the whole flower, that stuff you're dragging. And you have to leave a bit of the stem on because that's how you're going to be able to pick it up. And the stems are delicious, deep fried also. So it's the whole thing you eat. What's
9m 18sJackieMarie What's the batter you make. Is it like, then we'll add
9m 22sAileen Catrone Egg batter. Egg and water. Very simple. 9m 27sJackieMarie Lauer and milk are so I don't even know what she mean. Yeah. It was very
9m 34sAileen Catrone Simple. Very simple. So, I mean, you know what? I can post it on your channel or, you know, on the organic garden, the Facebook
9m 46sJackieMarie. Okay.
9m 49sAileen Catrone There. That recipe
9m 51sJackieMarie You called it a Pomodoro sauce. Oh,
9m 54sAileen Catrone He makes a Pomodoro sauce. Yeah. That's just your tomatoes, onions, garlic, and a light Pomodoros. That's very good. And it's an olive oil, salt, pepper. It that just like it just coats, the macaroni, you know, or coats or rice. It's very nice. That's a Pomodoro. I, yes, that's really good too. 10m 14sJackieMarie Maybe I should just, what was this week? This week?
10m 19sAileen Catrone We didn't do it. And that was, I just wanted to tell you about the stuffed papers, but the eggplant Parmesan, we did this week. Eggplants, roasted tomatoes with mushrooms and summer cuts. So he layered the Eggplant. He grilled the grill, the eggplant, grilled, the tomatoes, let them cool down. Then he did the nuggets and mushrooms and layered it like lasagna and put it in the red sauce.
10m 49sJackieMarie That was the one that I showed the pictures from. Yes,
10m 52sAileen Catrone That's what he made this week. Put the tomatoes and the eight plant. Yes.
10m 56sJackieMarie I'm just starting to harvest like a ton. Like I like where I'm getting to the point where you were like a couple of weeks ago where like every day I go down and get like today, I couldn't even hold them all on my hands. I had to like pull out my shirt and like Mike brought a basket and that's even after Mike went down and picked a basket last night, we have three different kinds of tomatoes. I have cherry tomatoes, Roma, tomatoes, and Oregon, spring tomatoes, and three that's a bad day. I'm going to have my 30 plants are going to probably have almost as many as your 90. Well, maybe not, but I believe it. I had a tomato harvest.
11m 31sAileen Catrone I believe that they're going crazy out there! Crazy! And I just gave some away to a friend, so that's good. And you know, they're, I'm very picky too on their produce, So I'm, you know, I'm going to call him later and see if he liked the way they tasted. So, you know, we'll see what happens. Oh. And then while he was doing the bricks, the
11m 53sJackieMarie Brix, Mike was like, what's Aileen doing this morning. I was like, yeah, one of those, but Felicia has, I haven't got back. She has it. She's going to give it to me. I just haven't seen her since I asked her. Yeah, you
12m 6sAileen Catrone You did a show with Patty Armbruster and it was this refractor meter. So bricks is, I guess, the sugars, you know, how healthy your plant is that you're, you know, growing you, you can, you can.
And how nutritious your food is.
For the Love of Soil: Strategies to Regenerate Our Food Production Systems
12m 22sJackieMarie Would your eating, I think it has something to do with like the carbohydrates and the sugars in it, but it shows you, I actually talked to thisguy from Colorado. Oh my gosh, I'm blanking on his name. He told me about it. But Nicole Masters who wrote For the Love of Soilhas like a whole diagram in there that really explains it. And then, yeah. And then Patti went through it last week in the YouTube video.
https://youtu.be/Y9me3DEsB94
12m 46sAileen Catrone Okay. So that's and I got a tomato at seven. I'd let you know the average it's said as a six, you know, it's okay. It's average, blah, blah, blah. But I got it at a seven I'm happy, 77. I'm good. I'd like to get a 12 but no go.
13m 5sJackieMarie And you grew that tomato! Thing that Patti was saying that I didn't realize is that like the time of day that you pick it can make a difference, the time of day that you test can make a difference. So..
13m 15sAileen Catrone Yeah. All these factors, if it's going to be a cloudy day, a hot humid day, you know, so this is just the day that I picked them. I left them in the kitchen for a little bit and I decided to pick one up and test it. So that was good.
13m 32sJackieMarie And then also Patti was saying, you should test the leaf itself too.,
13m 36sAileen Catrone That's what I want to try next. I'll try that next.
13m 39sJackieMarie And you mix it up in the garlic press. I remember the first time we were doing a carrot when we first got it in the mail and we're like, how the heck do we squish the carrot? Like we were able to do the tomato, but we were having a really hard time with the carrot. And that was, I didn't know, you put it like in the garlic press, but also I think it's the leaves more than the actual vegetable or fruit itself.
Aileen Catrone For the harder ones.
I got to do some research on that. Yeah.
14m 7sAileen Catrone We'll email Patti text her it would be so much easier to get that answered. Yeah.
14m 18sJackieMarie Awesome. Well, thank you so much for sharing all your amazing stuff and just like, I love seeing your posts on Facebook and in the Facebook group and just everything that you're growing this year and sharing the audience this week. And I think you're going to inspire people.
Trowel and Error: Over 700 Organic Remedies, Shortcuts, and Tips for the Gardener
And 14m 35sAileen Catrone So Jackie, I love the, your, your show recently that you've heard, I Sharon LoveJoy, all that was awesome. I learned a lot in, I ordered her book, Trowel and Error. I just can't wait to get it.
Trowel and Error: Over 700 Organic Remedies, Shortcuts, and Tips for the Gardener14m 48sJackieMarie She's so amazing. Her, her and her husband were such a sweet couple and she's been doing this for a long time.
14m 56sAileen Catrone Yeah. And the one tip that she said was something about having like a fruit tree or something in the middle of your garden bed and then plant out ~ like underneath it, that was pretty smart, you know, to kind of get like a food forest going, you know? So I was really, really intently listening. So I'm thrilled throughout all. So going to try that thing in the future
15m 22sJackieMarie Definitely, the more fruit tree, like I've been feeling like one of my big lessons I learned in the summer is like the more shade trees you have, the nicer, your lawn will stay greener under those trees, whether they're fruit trees or pine trees or leaf trees or flower trees, just more trees. Like I've been really noticing a big difference in people's lawns.
15m 45sAileen Catrone Oh, that's good. That's good. And to keep listening, keep having those amazing. Yes. Thank you. No problem till we meet again.
15m 58sJackieMarie Okay. Thank you. Bye bye. Do you know someone who would benefit from the organic Gardner podcast? If you like, what you hear? We'd love it. If you chaired the organic gardener podcast with a friend. 16m 10s0 Thanks again for listening. Nope.
This podcast uses the following third-party...
Kat and I talk about the two not touch puzzles in the NY Times my mom loves. Here's the website if you want to try them.
https://krazydad.com/twonottouch/
and here's one of the videos I made on how to solve them with some tips and tricks to make it easier.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21r0_B2J9cA&t=7s
Kat's Recommended book
All New Square Foot Gardening II: The Revolutionary Way to Grow More in Less Space
Free Garden Course.com Free Organic Garden Course If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
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Golden Listener of 2020 Aileen Catrone co-hosts with me as we share what's growing, our biggest challenge of the week and what we're cooking on this new bonus episode.
My new co-host and GFF (garden friend forever) Aileen Catrone and I started a new bonus post for the summer called Soil Sista Saturday (to be posted on Friendship Fridays). Anyway. I talked about this recipe I made from the Drew Barrymore Show.
I love this arugula bed outside my kitchen door. And you can't even hardly tell what I harvested.
I also talked about this delicious salad I made from a blog post I saw. I'm not usually a fan of cooking shows but this one caught my eye. This recipe for salad dressing and yummy salad was too good to stop watching. I would never think of putting basil and spinach in my dressing like that. Also where do I get a knife like that? I love this chef too what a great way she explains how to do everything!
https://www.wellandgood.com/corn-salad-recipe/
And it was a great way to use some of my fresh basil growing in my windowsill! I ended up with a pint of salad dressing that I've been enjoying all week! So good.
Aileen shared her challenges with growing tomatoes and a delicious recipe her husband has been making with tomatoes and eggplants.
Want to be a Garden Friend Forever?Join us in the Facebook Group and show us what's growing in your garden.
We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!And remember I'm always looking for guests. You can email me at orgpodcast@gmail.com and I'll send you info or just sign up here: https://organicgardenerpodcast.com/podcast-2/be-my-guest/
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https://organicgardenerpodcast.com/podcast-2/370-the-living-soil-handbook/
The Living Soil Handbook: The No-Till Grower’s Guide to Ecological Market GardeningOrder Jesse’s book from his website here.
No-Till Podcast websiteSupport Jesse's show because like JM Fortier he is changing the world helping farmers and gardeners grow while saving our planet!
Make sure you order Jesse's Book this week!
The Living Soil Handbook: The No-Till Grower’s Guide to Ecological Market GardeningOrder Jesse’s book from his website here.
Get ready for Soul Sista Saturdays/Friendship Fridays with Golden Listener of 2020 Aileen Catrone!Check out Erin Benzakien on the Magnolia App and the Floret JourneyRead Kiss the Ground and listen to my interview with Finian Makepeace on how to combat Climate Change in your own backyard.
We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!Ask Your questions hereThe Organic Gardener Podcast is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com
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Dalas Dodd, Head of Interior DesignDalas Dodd is an interior design expert and content producer. She specializes in redesigning and restoring dated and damaged houses, with an emphasis on preserving the original character and charm of each home. Dalas is a producer and on-camera host, and is actively developing a slate of Sundae-branded content franchises.
Dalas Dodd the Interior Design Team Lead
Follow Sundae on Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/p/CIqvSmahlbb/
Hey, Green Future Growers. Welcome to Season 3. I'm your host Jackie Murray buyJackieMarie Beye. If you're new to the show, I hope you'll subscribe on iTunes for free or follow on your favorite podcast app and let's get growing. Hey, this is JackieMarie Beyer your host here to help inspire you on your journey to create, grow, and enjoy a green, organic oasis. So let's get growing. Welcome to the green organic garden podcast. It is Friday, April 9th. It is a beautiful sunny day here in Montana although it was pretty chilly this morning.
51s
JackieMarie
I have a guest on the line who I think is down in warm sunny, San Diego. So we're going to talk about some things you can do for your home from a real estate perspective, because that is a hot topic, I know all across our country today. So here from Sundae is Dalas Dod. So welcome to the show, Dalas, how exciting.
1m 20s
Dalas
Yeah. Thank you so much for having me on. I'm really excited to be here. Am I right about that? Are you in San Diego? We're kind of all over the place. We have properties down in San Diego, but I, myself am actually based in LA.
1m 35s
JackieMarie
Okay, well go ahead and tell us a little bit about Sundae and the advantages of selling a home off market and how Sundae ensures customers get the highest price for their home now off market. That's not what we're seeing in Montana right now, right? Like this market is, is that a buyer's market? Because here we are the sellers market. I mean, most houses are not listed for like two days and you have cash in hand unless you are like pricing your place out of, you know, I mean, just the prices are insane from our perspective, my husband and I, he was showing me this place.
2m 22s
JackieMarie
He's like that can't possibly be right. Can it, but probably people are leaving California and coming here.
2m 30s
Dalas
Hmm, no, the, the market right now is absolutely insane. And what Sundae is able to offer is we're a marketplace that connects homeowners of distressed homes with hundreds of local investors, so that homeowners can really get the best price possible. So Sundae will come in, take care of everything. And if you're a homeowner that's looking to sell as is, we'll meet with you on your schedule, put together a complete package to present to our investors, and then they bid and compete to give you the best offer for your home. You don't have to deal with showings.
3m 10s
Dalas
People tramping through your home. There are absolutely no fees to sell through Sundae, and we can even give homeowners a $10,000 cash advance upfront to help with any immediate needs, such as moving, relocating. As you said, a lot of people are moving out of state to Montana. So that's something that we can offer. And on average, our homeowners, when they sell on our marketplace, they get 10 to 12 offers, which is incredible. And they're really getting, getting the best price for their home without having to sell the traditional route.
3m 46s
JackieMarie
Well, I'm just going to back up a tiny bit. So one of the things that actually got me to say yes to this interview was I went on your Instagram and one thing like I've been getting tons of like, can we be a guest? And can we be guests like emails this spring? And one of the reasons I said yes was because I loved your Instagram feed and the people who work for you seemed so authentic. And just, it seemed like a real company. Like if I go to a website and somebody asked to be on my show, and there's not a picture of a human anywhere, that's like an automatic no right there. And so I really was able to relate to some of the things that I saw, some of the flips that I saw, some of the groundwork that, you know, the yard work that was being done.
4m 36s
JackieMarie
I love that fact that you don't have to have people coming in and out of your home and like being set up to sell all the time that you guys took care of all that, that you mentioned. So I just wanted listeners to kind of know a little bit about how, how we got here. I think this is an important topic for people right now. One thing people are always surprised about where I live in Montana. And a question I get a lot is about the high speed internet, which we do have super reliable, super fast high-speed internet here, where I live. I know other parts of Montana are not so great.
5m 17s
JackieMarie
I know also like if people are interested in cell service, my side of the highway just happens to have, I tell people, call me on my home phone because it can cut out a lot and cell phone service, but like just on the other side of the highway, there's no cell phone service at all. So there's all sorts of things to look at when you're selling your home. But let's talk more about the advantages of Sundae, what your role at Sundae is maybe some of the advantages of making a home greener and more sustainable.
5m 52s
Dalas
Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to actually like back up and introduce myself a little bit more. Yeah. So like we said before, my name's Dalas Dodd and currently I'm the Interior Design Team Lead at Sundae. And I have over six years of experiencing experience designing and remodeling distressed homes where we've always placed a focus, not only on the design, but the sustainability as well. I mentioned the marketplace earlier, but we also at Sundae have a property investment arm where sometimes we buy the houses in the marketplace so that we can renovate and restore the house ourselves.
6m 38s
Dalas
When we do this, we always really place a focus on the highest level of quality for these flips and then adding value towards the community, by restoring these homes and honoring their local architecture, as well as making sure that the remodel is sustainable for future homeowners. And I mean, there are so many ways that you can make your home more sustainable. And trust me, there's many ways that aren't that complex or expensive, but of course the biggest advantage to making your house more sustainable is the environment, the environmental impact. And then the second of course, is the impact on your wallet or your monthly bills.
7m 20s
Dalas
Should we talk about some ways that we can, that you can make your home in?
7m 23s
JackieMarie
I would love that because as a side note, we switched from direct dish network to Direct TV and I finally have access to HGTV and I am like hooked on Farmer Fixer Upper. And like, I couldn't believe it. I'm like where's Fixer Upper? Like I, one of the reasons I wanted it was Chip and Joanna and I don't get them, but there are all these other shows that I'm like, wow, I've just like, I love watching those shows. So yeah, let's hear some awesome sustainable tips.
7m 54s
Dalas
Oh my gosh, we hope to have a show someday. That's definitely vision down the road for us, but one of the most common ways to make your home more sustainable actually has to do with your plumbing. So installing low flow plumbing fixtures is one of the best things that you can do. We do this all the time for our sustainable remodels, even in markets that aren't as heavily regulated as we are here in California. So I'm not sure what the regulations are in Montana, but installing low flow fixtures, they're specifically designed to limit water waste, which is what we're all striving to do.
8m 36s
Dalas
The average low-flow fixture actually releases around half the gallons per minute than a standard fixture. So over time that's a massive impact, not only on the planet, but on our water bills.
8m 48s
JackieMarie
And water is so important. I just watched this documentary yesterday called Tomorrow that just talked about water. And who else was it was talking about, you know, reusing gray water. Like, do we really need to flush our toilet with like, why can't we reuse the shower water or something to like, there were like all these options for like saving water, but low flow would be like, what did you just want? Like quickly, like explain what is a low flow plumbing. What's an example of that. Is that using a toilet that uses less water or something, or like a shower that like has a smaller amount of water coming out when you brush your teeth?
9m 34s
JackieMarie
Or I don't even know what a low water fixture is actually.
9m 39s
Dalas
No. Yeah. So a low-flow fixture just essentially has like slightly less water pressure, but still is acting as effectively as a typical faucet or fixture would. And then for a toilet, a lot of times you'll see, like the flush just goes on end, whereas a love flow toilet uses less gallons per flush and in order to achieve the same goal. So you're definitely not compromising on the effectiveness of the fixtures, but you are conserving water at the same time.
10m 23s
JackieMarie
And it's true. It's so important how much water we save and we use because clean water is going to be the next, like, you know, that's where we're struggling on our planet. You know, we're polluting our waters and it gets into the ocean and then it gets picked up into the rain and the clouds, and then just cycles back if you know the water cycle. And so anywhere we can save clean water. And I liked the way that you talked about like, thinking about your home in the future and not just the now that it's an investment in your home value. Okay. What's the next one?
11m 4s
Dalas
Yeah. Yeah. The other one is installing energy star appliances, as well as smart thermostats. By installing the energy star appliances those use a lot less energy, which allows homeowners to actually get yearly rebates for these more efficient appliances. And then using smart thermostats, you can hook them up to your cell phone and allow you to control the temp or turn off those systems from wherever you might be. So if you forget to turn off the AC, when you leave the house, you can really quickly just pull up your cell phone and turn it off. And that really helps with the energy savings.
11m 48s
JackieMarie
And on the flip side, it can probably turn it on. So when you get home, your house is cool for you.
11m 54s
Dalas
Yeah. Exactly it goes both ways.
11m 58s
JackieMarie
And then same with heating. If you're where I am, maybe I don't know. Yeah.
12m 6s
Dalas
Yeah. And investing in these things now will only increase your property value when you decide to go sell, if you do.
12m 15s
JackieMarie
And it's also like that commercial where the husband, the doctor's going to the night shift and he like makes sure that the lights are on for his wife when she comes home. So she's entering a safe home and like, it's not just air conditioning. It's like any kind of electrical appliance, right? Yeah. And just like
12m 36s
Dalas
Any, yeah. There's so many smart electrical appliances nowadays. Yeah. Not just, not just thermostats that we can tap into our, homes.
12m 51s
JackieMarie
And I think it's important what you said at the beginning about getting 10 to 12 offers on people's homes so that they have a shot too. Because if you are moving to Montana, you are going to want to get the best price for your home because, and I know what did I listen to the other day that they were saying actually the most people are moving to like Michigan, Vermont. And there were some other state, like the most people are not actually moving to Montana, which is surprising, but not, there's not a lot of jobs here. If you don't have a job, this is not the place. Like, I'm always like surprised. There's show many women. I meet here who here who hate it. And they're like, oh, I came because of my husband, yada, yada, yada.
13m 32s
JackieMarie
And then they're like, if they ended up, you know, getting a divorce, or their kids are grown up and they're still here or whatever. I'm like, why are you here in this place? You hate the cold. This is the hardest place to make a living of like anywhere I've ever been. Like, there's so many, if you don't love camping and being outdoors. And like, I feel like our quality of life, like the picture view, you get to see like doubles your income at any job that you get here. Because even if you do find a job, it's probably going to, you know, the wages are gonna be super low. Like even I taught it on a reservation where we had the second highest wages for a teacher in the state, and we still had the going joke.
14m 21s
JackieMarie
"We have to shop at Walmart because we can't afford to shop at Target." Like just still like low wages. Like this is a very hard state to, it's definitely changing. And, you know, you can see already competition for the summer as the state opens. Anyway, we're here to talk about Sundae. So, and I do want to just tell everybody it's S U N D A E kind of like an ice cream sundae and okay. What was the next thing? I love that you're the interior design lead. What other things should we talk about to reduce our footprint and make our home more valuable from a sustainable point of view?
15m 5s
Dalas
Yeah, of course. The last thing that I'll add just says since given the times where, and we're spending so much time at home, I think it's especially critical for us to turn off any electrical products that aren't currently in use. I mean, we, like, we no longer have the excuse. Oh, I was running out the door on my way to work and forgot to unplug the toaster. And since so many of us are working from home and inevitably using more energy, it's really important to turn off anything that we aren't using to offset those costs.
15m 40s
JackieMarie
Surprise. What did I see? Was it in that thing, like how much your phone uses, like being plugged in, which I am super guilty about because I, my big thing is I want my phone to have a hundred percent charge. I don't know if it's like my battery's dying or like during the winter, the charger died, I want, I like when I'm home, it's pretty much sitting on the charger because if I go for a walk, I wanted to have a hundred percent charged, so it doesn't die on me on my walk. I want to make sure my podcast is going to play that my, you know, Runkeeper app still going to work.
16m 22s
JackieMarie
So like, my mom's always complaining. She's like, I can't believe I have to charge my phone every night. And I'm like, man, my phone just sits on the charger, but I was really surprised to see how much juice. It said appliances use when you're not using them.
16m 39s
Dalas
Yeah. I mean, the phone, the phone is, the phone is essential. I'll give you that one, but you can definitely unplug your coffee maker when you're not using it or, or just other small appliances like that, that are just sucking energy without being of any use in the moment
17m 1s
JackieMarie
They, you know, and part of it probably is cause we're home because of the two that we have is like, we find we're constantly turning our coffee makers back on because they have that automatic two hour shut off and our coffee pots keep getting cold cause we're home. And then the other one I used to always like charge my phone in my car. Like I never hardly ever had to put it on the thing at home, but because I'm not driving anywhere anymore cause I've been home this whole year. That is the one shift for me that I'm seeing. But interesting to know, turn off, turn off those other electrical appliances. I don't know what to do with the coffee on the flip side, I couldn't even drink a whole pot of coffee anymore.
17m 44s
JackieMarie
Like I used to drink a pot of coffee before I went to work. And for some reason I keep finding half of my pot of coffee sitting in there. I finally just got to that peak of coffee or if it's my age or what's going on. But my husband drinks coffee from six in the morning till eight at night. So his coffee makers not getting shut off. We're always cruising that two hour thing because, but you know, we save in other ways, like we are definitely the water conservers at my house and we have other things that we save on, but my listeners don't want to hear from me. They want to hear from you. So what else do you have for us Dalas? We've talked about what can do, how about some curb appeal?
18m 26s
JackieMarie
If people want to sell cause to me, landscaping shoes and like I actually always wanted to start this podcast called Awesome Montana Investment Properties. I was a Realtor for several years when I first got my teaching license and saw how hard it was to get a teaching job. I got my real estate license and like my husband and I being home owners and we had an investment. This is where I'm going with this. We bought an invest. One of my teaching jobs was on the other side of the mountains. And so I had to have a place to live over there and what we were able to make, we bought the house for $22,000 and sold it for 32,000 a year later. And a lot of that was like my husband painting it really nice, putting nice shutters on, but also like he put a, you know, a white fence and he planted some trees and we put a free tree and he put a sidewalk up to the front lawn - arock walkway, like a lot of the curb appeal I think is what gave us that great ROI.
19m 29s
JackieMarie
So how about some current pieces?
19m 33s
Dalas
Yeah. Curb appeal is one of my favorite topics because when you go to sell your house, curb appeal is arguably one of the most important things to address because it's the first impression buyers are going to get. When they pull up to your home, you can do so much, so much with curb appeal. So I'm going to just focus on three things for today. The first is buyers want the house that they buy to feel new. It might not necessarily be new, but you want to address any dead giveaways that make your home seem older, such as dilapidated side gates, or like you were saying a fence that's kind of falling down or dry rot, anything that would cause concern.
20m 17s
Dalas
Like it's not super expensive to replace the side gate or fix up your fence. So that's definitely the first thing, the first and most important thing that I would address. My second tip would be to give your home a fresh coat of paint. You want to consider the current color and whether or not you want to switch it up. I definitely advise keeping it neutral if you do paint that way, you appeal to the most buyers.
20m 47s
Dalas
And then a tip on sustainability is that if you're in a warm climate, you want to head towards light colors that will provide the cooling effect for your home. Versus if you're in a colder climate, you might want to opt for something and like a...
Getting Baked: Everything You Need to Know about Hemp, CBD, and Medicinal GardeningGetting Laid: Everything You Need to Know About Raising Chickens, Gardening and Preserving — with Over 100 Recipes!
Barb's website ruralmom.comMy website isruralmom.com. It's RURALmom.com. And on there you'll find me talking about a number of different things. I work in many arenas, but for the most part it's it's about gardening things we can do to be more sustainable, you know, gift ideas. A lot of things, my goal with that website was to enhance people's lives in terms of finding quality things and quality activities that could help people who are living out in the country and suburban areas.
Feel free to contact Barb on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, wherever you hang out. My email address is on there. Feel free to email me.
Read the computer generated transcript here. Find below some of the resources Barb recommends:
BARB: But I happen to love that. I do love going down the rabbit hole of research. I love exploring and finding out as much as I can about a particular topic. That just happens to be a really hardcore website if you're looking for scientific information. So it is one of my favorites to head towards when I'm looking for something.
JackieMarie: So there's the US National Library of Medicine, the national Institute of health, which is www.mlmdnih.gov? And then, then there's also the NCBI.NLM.NIH.gov So it must be like part of their website, the national center for biotechnology information is part of the National Library of Medicine, national Institute.
BARB: Yes, I believe so. I guess, but the US National Library of Medicine.
JackieMarie: Do you have a book to recommend?
BARB: One of the books that I think early on, I used what's the, I'm trying to look up the exact name. It's a huge book. And it's like the homestead encyclopedia or something, or is it the The Encyclopedia of Country Living
I might be it, is it the encyclopedia of country living? I think everybody should own this book, especially if you're just starting out.
JackieMarie: It's cool. I don't have that one. And I don't know that one.
BARB: Then its 50th year. I believe it is an amazing resource. It was for me early on. I would say I don't go to it now very much, but in the beginning, like if you think my book is chock-full of stuff, that is something that should be on everybody's shelf, especially if you're just starting out or maybe even if you're mad, if you're an expert already, I don't know if they'll gain as much from it, but it's called The Encyclopedia of Country Living and I believe it's yeah, I've just pulled up the 50th anniversary edition, the original manuals for living off the land and doing it yourself by Carla Emery.
The Encyclopedia of Country Living, 50th Anniversary Edition: The Original Manual for Living off the Land & Doing It YourselfAnd it is gold. If you are looking to do anything from raising chickens, pigs, beekeeping, baking, gardening, preserving, like everything is in there, everything that was done in not only. So it's not only like what was done is it's really realistically, like if you lived in the pioneer days, absolutely everything you would need to know to live off the land is in the spot.
So there's things you wouldn't even think of or necessarily do, but we can do. So it's really cool. Like you make your own cheese and spinning wool and all kinds of crazy stuff. That's really cool. And, and we're moving back to now, you know, how do you, if you want to be completely 100% sustainable, this buck, I'll tell you how to do it and get you a little acre of land and go start a town. But if you just even, you know, just as a reference for gardening, there's so much in there that I learned from initially.
Ways to Support The ShowWanna donate to the show! You can "buy me a cup of coffee" where your donation goes directly to support the GREEN Organic Garden Podcast to help pay for things like hosting the mp3 files or maintaining the website.
[gallery ids="137595,137597,137596" type="rectangular"]
Growers & CoAsk Your questions herehttps://youtu.be/2S9tbLIIhy4
The Good Seed CompanyNow Let’s Get to the Root of Things!We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!Get Your Copy of the The Organic Oasis Guidebook!Twelve Lessons designed to help you create an earth friendly landscape, some deep garden beds full of nutrient rich healthy food or perhaps even develop a natural market farm.
Get a copy on today printed in the USA from Amazon
The Organic Gardener Podcast is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com
If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
and don’t forget if you need help getting started check out our new
Free Garden Course.com Free Organic Garden Course We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy
Part 2 of our conversation
GETTING BAKED: EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT HEMP, CBD, AND MEDICINAL GARDENINGGetting Laid: Everything You Need to Know About Raising Chickens, Gardening and Preserving — with Over 100 Recipes!
BARB'S WEBSITE RURALMOM.COMMy website isruralmom.com. It's RURALmom.com. And on there you'll find me talking about a number of different things. I work in many arenas, but for the most part it's it's about gardening things we can do to be more sustainable, you know, gift ideas. A lot of things, my goal with that website was to enhance people's lives in terms of finding quality things and quality activities that could help people who are living out in the country and suburban areas.
Feel free to contact Barb on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, wherever you hang out. My email address is on there. Feel free to email me.
Read the computer generated transcript here. Find below some of the resources Barb recommends:
BARB: But I happen to love that. I do love going down the rabbit hole of research. I love exploring and finding out as much as I can about a particular topic. That just happens to be a really hardcore website if you're looking for scientific information. So it is one of my favorites to head towards when I'm looking for something.
JackieMarie: So there's the US National Library of Medicine, the national Institute of health, which is www.mlmdnih.gov? And then, then there's also the NCBI.NLM.NIH.gov So it must be like part of their website, the national center for biotechnology information is part of the National Library of Medicine, national Institute.
BARB: Yes, I believe so. I guess, but the US National Library of Medicine.
JackieMarie: Do you have a book to recommend?
BARB: One of the books that I think early on, I used what's the, I'm trying to look up the exact name. It's a huge book. And it's like the homestead encyclopedia or something, or is it the The Encyclopedia of Country Living
I might be it, is it the encyclopedia of country living? I think everybody should own this book, especially if you're just starting out.
JackieMarie: It's cool. I don't have that one. And I don't know that one.
BARB: Then its 50th year. I believe it is an amazing resource. It was for me early on. I would say I don't go to it now very much, but in the beginning, like if you think my book is chock-full of stuff, that is something that should be on everybody's shelf, especially if you're just starting out or maybe even if you're mad, if you're an expert already, I don't know if they'll gain as much from it, but it's called The Encyclopedia of Country Living and I believe it's yeah, I've just pulled up the 50th anniversary edition, the original manuals for living off the land and doing it yourself by Carla Emery.
The Encyclopedia of Country Living, 50th Anniversary Edition: The Original Manual for Living off the Land & Doing It YourselfAnd it is gold. If you are looking to do anything from raising chickens, pigs, beekeeping, baking, gardening, preserving, like everything is in there, everything that was done in not only. So it's not only like what was done is it's really realistically, like if you lived in the pioneer days, absolutely everything you would need to know to live off the land is in the spot.
So there's things you wouldn't even think of or necessarily do, but we can do. So it's really cool. Like you make your own cheese and spinning wool and all kinds of crazy stuff. That's really cool. And, and we're moving back to now, you know, how do you, if you want to be completely 100% sustainable, this buck, I'll tell you how to do it and get you a little acre of land and go start a town. But if you just even, you know, just as a reference for gardening, there's so much in there that I learned from initially.
WAYS TO SUPPORT THE SHOWWanna donate to the show! You can "buy me a cup of coffee" where your donation goes directly to support the GREEN Organic Garden Podcast to help pay for things like hosting the mp3 files or maintaining the website.
[gallery ids="137595,137597,137596" type="rectangular"]
GROWERS & COASK YOUR QUESTIONS HEREhttps://youtu.be/2S9tbLIIhy4
The Good Seed CompanyNOW LET’S GET TO THE ROOT OF THINGS!We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!GET YOUR COPY OF THE THE ORGANIC OASIS GUIDEBOOK!Twelve Lessons designed to help you create an earth friendly landscape, some deep garden beds full of nutrient rich healthy food or perhaps even develop a natural market farm.
Get a copy on today printed in the USA from Amazon
The Organic Gardener Podcast is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com
If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
and don’t forget if you need help getting started check out our new
Free Garden Course.com Free Organic Garden Course We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy
Alan's WebsiteForager Chef
The Forager Chef's Book of Flora: Recipes and Techniques for Edible Plants from Garden, Field, and ForestListen to the unedited computer generated AI transcript here.
Want to Support the Show!Wanna donate to the show! You can "buy me a cup of coffee" where your donation goes directly to support the GREEN Organic Garden Podcast to help pay for things like hosting the mp3 files or maintaining the website.
[gallery ids="137595,137597,137596" type="rectangular"]
Growers & CoAsk Your questions herehttps://youtu.be/2S9tbLIIhy4
The Good Seed CompanyNow Let’s Get to the Root of Things!We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!Get Your Copy of the The Organic Oasis Guidebook!Twelve Lessons designed to help you create an earth friendly landscape, some deep garden beds full of nutrient rich healthy food or perhaps even develop a natural market farm.
Get a copy on today printed in the USA from Amazon
The Organic Gardener Podcast is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com
If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
and don’t forget if you need help getting started check out our new
Free Garden Course.com Free Organic Garden Course We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
Alan's WebsiteForager Chef
The Forager Chef's Book of Flora: Recipes and Techniques for Edible Plants from Garden, Field, and ForestWant to Support the Show!Wanna donate to the show! You can "buy me a cup of coffee" where your donation goes directly to support the GREEN Organic Garden Podcast to help pay for things like hosting the mp3 files or maintaining the website.
[gallery ids="137595,137597,137596" type="rectangular"]
Growers & CoAsk Your questions herehttps://youtu.be/2S9tbLIIhy4
The Good Seed CompanyNow Let’s Get to the Root of Things!We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!Get Your Copy of the The Organic Oasis Guidebook!Twelve Lessons designed to help you create an earth friendly landscape, some deep garden beds full of nutrient rich healthy food or perhaps even develop a natural market farm.
Get a copy on today printed in the USA from Amazon
The Organic Gardener Podcast is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com
If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
and don’t forget if you need help getting started check out our new
Free Garden Course.com Free Organic Garden Course We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy
The audio version of this post starts out raving about three great reads from Chelsea Green Publishing including my favorite read of 2021 so far Leah Penniman’s amazing memoir about Soul Fire Farm which combines African American history - the real story with farm techniques every gardener and market farmer should know as well as some religion/spiritual stories, songs to sing, advice on education and working with students and sooo much more! Just love this book so much!
https://videopress.com/v/g98ma2L8?preloadContent=metadata
Then there’s Jesse Frosts book coming out July 20th and Alan Bergo’s boom out now! Lots of amazing reads from my favorite publisher (now that Rodale’s is gone they moved from 2nd to number 1)
Then I talk about what’s needed in the garden this summer and all the lessons I’ve learned with this landscaping job I took on. The amazing thing with this job is how confident I am with exactly what this person should be doing but I have lived in Montana for a long time now and I definitely know the new homeowner learning curve!
Especially from a gardeners perspective! Start small! This year I’ve probably killed almost as many plants as I’ve grown!
I’m still eating on this arugula from spring
Mike picked these yummy radishes yesterday
The mini farm growing strong
My zinnias snapdragons and marigolds container garden 🪴
See my arugula growing strong it liked the greenhouse finally had to move it cause it’s just too hot in there
Listen here to the audio version read the computer generated unedited transcript below:
Speaker 1 (0s): Hey, green future growers. Welcome to season three. I'm your host Jackie Murray buyer. If you're new to the show, I hope you'll subscribe on iTunes for free or follow on your favorite podcast app and let's get, Hey everyone. This is a January buyer, your host here to help inspire you on your journey to create, grow, and enjoy a green, organic Oasis. So let's get growing.
Hey listeners. It is me live on the mic. Jackie Murray buyer. It's technically Tuesday, June 29th, 2021. I just got off the mic with Alan Burgo, who wrote foragers chefs, book of flora, recipes and techniques for edible plants from garden field and forest. He was so eloquent and just, I hope I did him justice.
So I have three Chelsea green publishing books to talk about today. So there's Alan's book. That's just amazing. Jessie frost books coming out July 20th. So you probably will hear some replace a interviews. And then I've also been reading Leah Penniman farming while black, which is gotta be one of my favorite books that I have read in 2021.
She just like cheeks, the whole, she's got black history in there that it's like a must read for every student teacher, just like so many things the way she puts it all together. She's got inspiration for when you're in your garden. She talks about her education center. She talks about like, everything you need to know on how to grow a tomato from start plant a curate, like what your soils should look like, like how far they should be spaced out what tools you're going to need, how to deal with interns.
Like anything you possibly want to know about gardening farming. If you're a market farmer, you've got to get her book, just support her. I'm. So in love with, I wish I would've got farming while black, when I first interviewed her, I had no idea somebody recently recommended it and I bought it and I was just, it just is amazing. Especially like I did this whole, I spent a lot of the pandemic reading books about, you know, like black lives matter and black history and just different people of color authors.
You know, one of my favorites was when they, you a terrorist by Patrice colors, I think is her name one of the founders of the Buckeyes movement. I guess there's also the movement for black lives, which is a little bit different. But if you're interested in social justice, I can't wait to release my interview. I did with Kat who's down in Arizona, I think, or New Mexico who talks about being a Wolfer.
And, but she's working on like a social justice program for helping three, you know, systematic prison to pipeline moving. Especially I'm having a personal thing with one of my students from years ago, right now who just recently was sent to prison. I'm just heartbroken over it and spoke with his mom. And of course it's mental health issues. And there's that whole piece, like we just need more compassion.
We need way more mental health in our country. And one of the great ways to do that is, you know, helping and Leah pediment talks about that. They have a program where they were able to get prisoners to come do 50 hours on their farm and take some classes and learn. So not only are they gaining a skill because they're learning how to be gardeners, but they're also able to, you know, get out of that.
And that's another thing like even when I just read Kamala Harris's book, which I wish I would have read before the election she talks about. And I think I've mentioned this few times being a compassionate prosecutor and also in the, when they call you a terrorist book by Patrice people who get out of prison and the how hard it is to then get a job and how hard it is to make a living after you've been released to prison, not to mention how many people have been picked up and put in prison for, you know, our crazy cannabis laws that were, you know, created by the what's his name that owned the forest and wanted to sell the newspapers and wanting to cut down the trees and didn't want him to grow for paper.
I mean, it's just crazy our history in the United States. And so when you're celebrating your 4th of July, like I didn't, I wanted to see something on June 10th with the new June 19th holiday. And so I'm just kind of trying to tie it all together today with these three, but, and then Jesse frosh and another, the great market farm, but the no tell movement, his book is coming out July 20th.
So anyway, for the 4th of July, I hope that you will be, you know, just appreciating our freedoms that we have and your time in the garden and what you can do to, you know, cure for our planet. Like, that's what I love. I've been writing birthday cards to a lot of my guests this year. I always wanted to send them a thank you note. And I just thought, there's no way I can afford that.
It would be so expensive to buy the stamp and print the cards and everything. But this year by, by doing the birthday card thing, it's just been like, you know, a few cards each month. And, and just getting to like, think about my guest and send them a little personal message has been, I don't know, just a, just an interesting way to end this pandemic year and kind of, I always used to be really big on birthdays and then I, I kind of got away from it.
And so it's really nice to get back into that. I don't know where I'm going and sending them a piece of our garden. Usually like I'm sending everybody a painting from Michael Mike's garden. That was the other thing I wanted to talk to you about how much time I've spent in the garden this year. Like, because of the pit. I don't know when I was in New York, visiting my mom and hanging out with, I mean, from you leave strong the golden mustard of the year. Cause even after we went to visit her, we were like texting and calling each other. And just, it seems like our friendship has really blossomed since I got to see her garden.
And I learned so much from her even like on Facebook, I'm constantly learning from her. And then my own piece, I got this landscaping job when I came back. And so I've been like helping this woman who built this new house, she wants to plant a greenhouse and she's got like her whole landscape, like the house, like it's just totally torn up. And it's so weird because like, I have never felt so confident that I know exactly what she should do, but of course, you know, I've lived in Montana for 27 years.
I know how hard it is to build a house and start from scratch. You know, we were six years without running water. And then even when we put our first well in it, wasn't, you know, we certainly couldn't garden and we can barely keep like one bed growing. Now, even with the second while biking are still like, it's just constant under monitoring. Are you watering? Like we're yelling from one part to the other. Mike takes care of the mini farm and his hoophouses. And then I'm kind of trying to handle like the orchard and the beds around the garden, but I've grown more this year.
So my goal this year, if you remember, was to grow more marigolds, India snapdragons and some flowers, which I kind of bombed on the sunflowers, but Mike picked that up, but I did get more than he is and snapdragons. And so if you are listening and it's July 1st and you haven't planted anything or you're struggling to still get that garden going, I really to encourage you to check out two books, these other two books, Melissa Norris is, you know, the Philly garden plan where she talks about pick one thing.
What's one thing that you can grow tomatoes or, you know, lettuce or just curates or like what's one. Oh, and that was the other thing this year on YouTube live, there was this woman and she just the smile on her face when she's like my carriage sprouted, my carriage, probably like the only thing she grew this year was curious and that they sprouted and they're coming up to see her excitement was so, so Joel overwhelm yourself.
If you're just starting out, don't think you're going to grow an entire homestead this year. Just pick one thing. It's not too late to plant a seed. Another thing I've heard from listeners is their struggle with herbs. They tried to go in urban. They couldn't, well, I've killed more plants as many plants this year as I've grown. I'm just still like, but I also like my rugala that I planted the beginning of March in these just two pots that have been down in my little greenhouse. I just brought them into the house house the other day.
They're not outside all the ones I transplanted outside bolted. They're just gone to see the bees growing the flowers. I'm going to keep the seed. So I don't have to spend so much on a regular seed next year, but I just took a tub literally last week and put a new set of a rugal as seeds in it because they keep thinking these two pots are can't possibly keep going, but I'm surprised. Like I just pick a very small bouquet of root. Rugelach like every two to three days out of these pots, they're still growing.
And when I say pod, so they were probably 10 inches in diameter, maybe 10 inches tall that Mike planted for me back in March, one of them, I took half of it and planted out in the garden. And like I said, it bolted, but the rest of it is just filled in. And these two pots have kept me going with plenty of a Ruger left from my salads for my sandwiches. And so the other day, Mike and I went down and picked the spinach.
The spinach was just about to bolt. Then he is the spinach in the mini farm where I generally do not like to go because I don't want to pick anything that's down in the ground. I want raised beds. I want something I can sit on the edge of. I can't stand like the dirt in my shoes, walking in between his rows. Like even though he's got lots of mulch down, I just feel like my feet gets super dirty in there. You know, some of his things haven't grown enough.
So there's still dirt while he's waiting to mulch. I'm like the cucumbers are just barely like, you know, there's just too loose popping out of the ground. So just think, I can't believe how much has mini farm has grown. Now that being said, like the peas, I feel like, like, I'll go out the driveway. And by the time I come back in the driveway, after going to town, they're like three inches taller. Like things are growing like crazy in Montana. We've had three days of a hundred degree sheet or we're in the middle of like a week of a hundred degree heat.
It's just, it is all about staying cool watering super early. He's been out there like just at the break of Dawn five o'clock in the morning watering for hours. And then this week, oh, today he finally brought in the radishes the purple way and red radishes that are so good. And Megan came taught me a couple of years ago that you can actually slice radishes and saute them, which I never knew you could do. I always thought radishes, you just ate raw.
So eating sauteed radishes, the spinach has just been amazing. The other day I made, what did I do? I fried two eggs. Oh, this is my other secret. Or that coconut, or like, I've never been a big fan of coconut oil or is that what it is? Coconut oil, whatever, that white thing that you buy the jar of. But I keep mine in my fridge. I know Dacey keeps hers on her counter. Maybe you can keep it on the counter, but like you only need that.
Tiny is barely a little bit like cook. It seems way more expensive than olive oil, but actually, because you only need like the tiniest little bit of coconut oil to cook eggs. And unlike if you want something fried really crispy, I feel like crisp things up better. Just like I am. So in love with coconut oil, like a grilled cheese made with coconut oil, instead of, you know, butter Jemele burns it like olive oil kind of gives it a funky taste, avocado oil, super expensive.
Coconut oil is so much in many ways it's more affordable because you only need the tiniest little bed. I just can't believe. I wish I would've known that secret. So I've been cooking things in more coconut oil. The spinach has just been incredible. When I was talking to Alan, I was telling him if I have to pick the spinach, I'm not leaving this or act that just comes up all over the wild spinach. And he works. The leaves are like three times as big.
They are judged just as sweet. They almost have like a sweet, peppery flavor mixes right in with my spinach. So good. Lamb's quarters. Another one that grows wild around here that you can make sure I do them with your spinach. So I blanched some of it, but the rest of it, I've just been like eating like crazy, like, so we've had a huge, much bigger spinach harvest than we ever have, which I'm surprised. Mike's like you bought these spinach seeds. I'm like, I don't remember buying spinach because usually I just grow beet greens and then switched to Swiss chard when it comes up, let's see my kale beds.
So I finally followed Lisa Ziegler's cover the kill with the Agra bond, which I'm kind of frustrated with because you gotta take the Agra bond off to water. But Mike did help me get, get a kind of set up in a way that it's not as hard to move as it has been. In other years, I put brand new, fresh Agra bond that he scored. These people like were like, come get these boards.
And they gave him like some free Agra bond, never been opened, some weed barrier. She just scored like a whole bunch of really cool stuff. Some planters from these people that were moving and they were just like, you can have all this other stuff. So I got fresh Agra bought. So my tip for Agra bond is by a garbage can because like we never really had anywhere to store before. And the other, the old stuff that I bought years ago, it did last longer than I thought it would.
It held up better. But in some places it's re more because like when we weren't using it, it, it just didn't get put away. So I got the fresh Agra bond out this year. So I've covered the kale. I've covered my broccoli. I have some broccoli. So we're going to have some comparisons. I have a lot of experiments going this year, places where like I put chicken fertilizer versus straw or not chicken fertilizer, chicken compost versus our own compost.
Like we bought some chicken compost from some police out of Missoula that these people hauled up to your BRCA. It was $85 a yard, but because we bought three yards of it, Mike put it all over a lot of the mini farm he was able to do. And then I was able to do like the irises that I've never had anything in years. It's going all around our fruit trees down in the orchard. If I ever get time to get down there, all of our bet, a lot of our beds, anywhere that we didn't have a place to put our own personal compost.
Cause we never have enough compost wipe a tomato bed that has our compost and it, to me, the bed that has the chicken poop show, we're going to compare those. And I was able to get the Oregon spring tomatoes from territorial seed that micro Lee lakes. Cause he said they have a shorter harvest or hoping they're to go red. I have 15 Roma tomato plants that I grew from tomato seeds this year that are growing so nicely. I think I'm going to get a lot of Roma tomatoes, making sure they're getting lots of water.
So hopefully I'm not going to have that tomato and rot this year. They've lots of miracles because I put in a ton of miracles. Mike planted the pollinator border around the mini farm this year. So it goes, snapdragons in IAM Marigold. And then there's like a little stretch of basil Snapdragon marigolds in the stretcher. Bazell the Bazell hasn't really germinated. So I don't know what's up with that. I'm going to replant that. Or if it's just slow going or it needs this heat, it's gonna come up.
If I should have grown it in doors, instead of just sprinkling the seed outdoors. But I'm pretty excited about that. But the miracles have the blooming. They're just huge. I can't believe how big our marigolds are, but the snapdragons and the zinnias are just about to start blooming. So I'm about to have a ton of color. Let's see the purple rockets were the first things to bloom the chives. We've had lots of purples here.
Bells are just blooming this week. So these three things are all purples. And then about how some reds and yellows cause of my zinnias, my snapdragons the marigolds are yellow coming on. So the bees are happy. We went and bought bees from where was that guy from? I don't know. I went down to Polson to get 'em and Erica went to Polson and got bees this year. So it's interesting. We both went to Polson and got bees.
Our hive is totally full of honey. Mike said is like overflowing of bees and honey, he just put this against super on. If you follow me on Instagram, I think I posted the picture of him down there the other day, putting the second super on. I don't know. Cause they take all these pictures to post on Instagram and then post to the website and just, I don't know what happens. Like I get in the house and then I'm overwhelmed with like trying to pick which pictures and upload them. And plus like I'm tired and I don't know.
It just seems like I take the pictures, but do they get posted? But I think they did. And then Instagram shares them to Facebook. I still have to go in and show them from the Facebook page to the podcast, the Facebook podcast group, which I haven't been so good about. I've not been on Facebook at all. Barely been on Instagram. So I'm sorry if you're following me on social media, I haven't been in...
Susan's website
Susan Belsinger is an herbalist, specializing in culinary herbs. She teaches, lectures, and writes about gardening and cooking, and is a food writer, editor and photographer who has authored and edited over 25 books and hundreds of articles. Recently referred to as a “flavor artist”, Susan delights in kitchen alchemy—the blending of harmonious foods, herbs, and spices—to create real, delicious food, as well as libations, that nourish our bodies and spirits and titillate our senses.
Grow Your Own Herbs: The 40 Best Culinary Varieties for Home Gardens read the unedited computer generated transcript here.
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The Good Seed CompanyNow Let’s Get to the Root of Things!We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!Get Your Copy of the The Organic Oasis Guidebook!Twelve Lessons designed to help you create an earth friendly landscape, some deep garden beds full of nutrient rich healthy food or perhaps even develop a natural market farm.
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Follow Gary on YouTube at the Rusted Garden here.
The RustedGarden.com Seed Shop
v
The Modern Homestead Garden: Growing Self-sufficiency in Any Size BackyardWant to support our show?!Wanna donate to the show! You can "buy me a cup of coffee" where your donation goes directly to support the GREEN Organic Garden Podcast to help pay for things like hosting the mp3 files or maintaining the website.
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Growers & CoAsk Your questions herehttps://youtu.be/2S9tbLIIhy4
The Good Seed CompanyNow Let’s Get to the Root of Things!We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!Get Your Copy of the The Organic Oasis Guidebook!Twelve Lessons designed to help you create an earth friendly landscape, some deep garden beds full of nutrient rich healthy food or perhaps even develop a natural market farm.
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Follow Gary on YouTube at the Rusted Garden here.
The RustedGarden.com Seed Shop
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The Modern Homestead Garden: Growing Self-sufficiency in Any Size BackyardWant to support our show?!Wanna donate to the show! You can "buy me a cup of coffee" where your donation goes directly to support the GREEN Organic Garden Podcast to help pay for things like hosting the mp3 files or maintaining the website.
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Growers & CoAsk Your questions herehttps://youtu.be/2S9tbLIIhy4
The Good Seed CompanyNow Let’s Get to the Root of Things!We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!Get Your Copy of the The Organic Oasis Guidebook!Twelve Lessons designed to help you create an earth friendly landscape, some deep garden beds full of nutrient rich healthy food or perhaps even develop a natural market farm.
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If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
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CONNECT WITH NATHAN AT HTTPS://GARDEN.CULTIVATETEX.COM/You can read the unedited computer generated AI text at podscribe.
Connect with Nathan at https://garden.cultivatetex.com/Let’s take a minute to thank our sponsors and affiliate linksWanna donate to the show! You can "buy me a cup of coffee" where your donation goes directly to support the GREEN Organic Garden Podcast to help pay for things like hosting the mp3 files or maintaining the website.
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Growers & CoAsk Your questions herehttps://youtu.be/2S9tbLIIhy4
The Good Seed CompanyNow Let’s Get to the Root of Things!We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!Get Your Copy of the The Organic Oasis Guidebook!Twelve Lessons designed to help you create an earth friendly landscape, some deep garden beds full of nutrient rich healthy food or perhaps even develop a natural market farm.
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If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
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You can read the unedited computer generated AI text at podscribe.
Connect with Nathan at https://garden.cultivatetex.com/Let’s take a minute to thank our sponsors and affiliate linksWanna donate to the show! You can "buy me a cup of coffee" where your donation goes directly to support the GREEN Organic Garden Podcast to help pay for things like hosting the mp3 files or maintaining the website.
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Growers & CoAsk Your questions herehttps://youtu.be/2S9tbLIIhy4
The Good Seed CompanyNow Let’s Get to the Root of Things!We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!Get Your Copy of the The Organic Oasis Guidebook!Twelve Lessons designed to help you create an earth friendly landscape, some deep garden beds full of nutrient rich healthy food or perhaps even develop a natural market farm.
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So I was checking out the recording of this interview to post to PRN and realized there's about a 2 minute blank spot at the beginning of the interview so I'm reloading it here. Sorry!!!!
Brandon was Season 3’s teaser released on New Year’s Day and what a game changer this was for me this winter. If you’ve ever thought of starting a value added product business or any kind of garden business Brandon’s got courses to help you succeed. I’m still trying to perfect my salad in a jar lunch club and I feel this is a great time to be re-releasing this because one of the most impactful things you can do for climate change in Joan Gregerson’s book is create a food waste lunch club.
Thanks always for listening everyone. For more info check out the show notes here: https://organicgardenerpodcast.com/podcast-2/362-bootstrap-farmer-podcast-brandon-youst/
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With Golden Listener of the Year 2020 Aileen Catrone in her amazing garden!
What Can I Do?: My Path from Climate Despair to Action
Regenerative agriculture thought leader and CEO/co-founder of Nutrition for Longevity JENNIFER MAYNARD
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Growers & CoAsk Your questions herehttps://youtu.be/2S9tbLIIhy4
The Good Seed CompanyNow Let’s Get to the Root of Things!We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!Get Your Copy of the The Organic Oasis Guidebook!Twelve Lessons designed to help you create an earth friendly landscape, some deep garden beds full of nutrient rich healthy food or perhaps even develop a natural market farm.
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If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
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Grow Your Own Food Anywhere
Raised Bed Gardening for Beginners: Everything You Need to Know to Start and Sustain a Thriving GardenAdvancedGreenhouses.com
[caption id="attachment_139031" align="aligncenter" width="382"] OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA[/caption]
Let’s take a minute to thank our sponsors and affiliate linksWanna donate to the show! You can "buy me a cup of coffee" where your donation goes directly to support the GREEN Organic Garden Podcast to help pay for things like hosting the mp3 files or maintaining the website.
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Growers & CoAsk Your questions herehttps://youtu.be/2S9tbLIIhy4
The Good Seed CompanyNow Let’s Get to the Root of Things!We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!Get Your Copy of the The Organic Oasis Guidebook!Twelve Lessons designed to help you create an earth friendly landscape, some deep garden beds full of nutrient rich healthy food or perhaps even develop a natural market farm.
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Joann's best advice: The right plant in the right spot.
A recipe for frustration, I hear people say, i have a brown thumb, I can't keep anything alive, no it's the wrong plant in those conditions or that spot.
https://www.down2earth.ca/
https://www.down2earth.ca/category/podcasts/
https://plantaforest.ca/Let’s take a minute to thank our sponsors and affiliate linksWanna donate to the show! You can "buy me a cup of coffee" where your donation goes directly to support the GREEN Organic Garden Podcast to help pay for things like hosting the mp3 files or maintaining the website.
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Growers & CoAsk Your questions herehttps://youtu.be/2S9tbLIIhy4
The Good Seed CompanyNow Let’s Get to the Root of Things!We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!Get Your Copy of the The Organic Oasis Guidebook!Twelve Lessons designed to help you create an earth friendly landscape, some deep garden beds full of nutrient rich healthy food or perhaps even develop a natural market farm.
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https://greenhomecoach.com/category/podcast/
https://wellnesswithinyourwalls.com/podcast/
Living Green Effortlessly
Loving Your Everyday Green Home Facebook Group
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Growers & CoAsk Your questions herehttps://youtu.be/2S9tbLIIhy4
The Good Seed CompanyNow Let’s Get to the Root of Things!We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!Get Your Copy of the The Organic Oasis Guidebook!Twelve Lessons designed to help you create an earth friendly landscape, some deep garden beds full of nutrient rich healthy food or perhaps even develop a natural market farm.
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The Contented Vegan: Recipes and Philosophy from a Family Kitchen Peggy BrusseauLet’s take a minute to thank our sponsors and affiliate linksWanna donate to the show! You can "buy me a cup of coffee" where your donation goes directly to support the GREEN Organic Garden Podcast to help pay for things like hosting the mp3 files or maintaining the website.
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Growers & CoAsk Your questions herehttps://youtu.be/2S9tbLIIhy4
The Good Seed CompanyNow Let’s Get to the Root of Things!We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!Get Your Copy of the The Organic Oasis Guidebook!Twelve Lessons designed to help you create an earth friendly landscape, some deep garden beds full of nutrient rich healthy food or perhaps even develop a natural market farm.
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The Contented Vegan: Recipes and Philosophy from a Family Kitchen Peggy BrusseauLet’s take a minute to thank our sponsors and affiliate linksWanna donate to the show! You can "buy me a cup of coffee" where your donation goes directly to support the GREEN Organic Garden Podcast to help pay for things like hosting the mp3 files or maintaining the website.
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Growers & CoAsk Your questions herehttps://youtu.be/2S9tbLIIhy4
The Good Seed CompanyNow Let’s Get to the Root of Things!We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!Get Your Copy of the The Organic Oasis Guidebook!Twelve Lessons designed to help you create an earth friendly landscape, some deep garden beds full of nutrient rich healthy food or perhaps even develop a natural market farm.
Get a copy on today printed in the USA from Amazon
The Organic Gardener Podcast is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com
If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
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Better late than never right?
Here are my two earth day plays. If you want a play to read with your kids tonight or just to be like hey did you know about the first earth day? Well here you go!
The First Earth Day Play
and the Turtle Mishap Play
the-turtle-mishap-playDownload
AND my lettuce and radishes are coming up so hooray! I might try to go plant some sunflower seeds! It seems awful cold but it's cloudy so it might not actually freeze tonight!
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- The GREEN Organic Garden Podcast helps organic eaters grow their own healthy nutritious delicious organic food to share with family and friends.
- The GREEN Organic Garden Podcast helps you create an earth friendly environment where you can enjoy the most delicious, nutritious, healthy organic meal with family and friends.
- The GREEN Organic Garden Podcast helps you create an earth friendly landscape where you can enjoy the most delicious, nutritious, healthy homegrown meal with family and friends.
Which do you like most intro 1, 2 or 3
Vote here
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lpRq9ZdBik
ask your questions here
https://mailchi.mp/7d7096fe8752/grow-live-with-patti-and-jackie-ask-question-here
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HaPpY 4/20 day everyone!
Gotta go!
Uptown Funk moves: LOVE THESE KIDS:
https://youtu.be/WrEolQIvk78
https://youtu.be/WrEolQIvk78
The official Bruno Mars Version:
And here's Michelle Obama but I could have sworn there was a video of her and Barack together. But I challenge you to learn the moves, I call it the GREEN NEW DANCE!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmY5s91KrE0
This video: Sorry Dianne Feinstein these kids were excited to share this with you. This is why we say corporate dems get out of the way: https://youtu.be/Z8yK4jMMueM
W. Kamau Bell & Hari Kondabolu to Establishment Dems: "Get Out of the Way" | Amanpour and Company
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AOLIEV0HwE
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
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National Cannabis Industry
[caption id="attachment_139024" align="alignnone" width="353"] Photo By CannabisCamera.com[/caption]
https://thecannabisindustry.org/
Let’s take a minute to thank our sponsors and affiliate linksWanna donate to the show! You can "buy me a cup of coffee" where your donation goes directly to support the GREEN Organic Garden Podcast to help pay for things like hosting the mp3 files or maintaining the website.
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Growers & CoAsk Your questions herehttps://youtu.be/2S9tbLIIhy4
The Good Seed CompanyNow Let’s Get to the Root of Things!We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!Get Your Copy of the The Organic Oasis Guidebook!Twelve Lessons designed to help you create an earth friendly landscape, some deep garden beds full of nutrient rich healthy food or perhaps even develop a natural market farm.
Get a copy on today printed in the USA from Amazon
The Organic Gardener Podcast is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com
If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
and don’t forget if you need help getting started check out our new
Free Garden Course.com Free Organic Garden Course We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
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SavvyGardening.com
Growing Under Cover: Techniques for a More Productive, Weather-Resistant, Pest-Free Vegetable GardenNiki Jabbour's Veggie Garden Remix: 224 New Plants to Shake Up Your Garden and Add Variety, Flavor, and Fun
The Year-Round Vegetable Gardener: How to Grow Your Own Food 365 Days a Year, No Matter Where You LiveDinner in French: My Recipes by Way of France: A CookbookAttracting Beneficial Bugs to Your Garden: A Natural Approach to Pest ControlLet’s take a minute to thank our sponsors and affiliate linksWanna donate to the show! You can "buy me a cup of coffee" where your donation goes directly to support the GREEN Organic Garden Podcast to help pay for things like hosting the mp3 files or maintaining the website.
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Growers & CoAsk Your questions herehttps://youtu.be/2S9tbLIIhy4
The Good Seed CompanyNow Let’s Get to the Root of Things!We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!Get Your Copy of the The Organic Oasis Guidebook!Twelve Lessons designed to help you create an earth friendly landscape, some deep garden beds full of nutrient rich healthy food or perhaps even develop a natural market farm.
Get a copy on today printed in the USA from Amazon
The Organic Gardener Podcast is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com
If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
and don’t forget if you need help getting started check out our new
Free Garden Course.com Free Organic Garden Course We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
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“GROW LIVE”with Patti and JackieYour questions answered by theWise Grower Guru and Resilient Ag ExpertPATTI ARMBRISTER!“Growing a Healthy Future”Ask about gardening and growing healthy foodLIVE on Youtube!Saturday Mornings at 11:00 EST, 9:00 MST, 8am PST in 2021submit your questions here:
PATREON LINK HEREWant to support us become a PATRON today. Bling/schwag coming soon!
what questions do you have?
https://youtu.be/pBO8d7QYhFo
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
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This interview with Mary sticks in my heart and soul whether I am in the garden or in the woods, her passion for saving our planet is near and dear to my heart. I hope it is for you too and as we near earth day, I feel it's important to make sure these voices are heard. I feel like repeating the episode makes it easy for you to remember her passion and mission just in time for earth day. And technically this is when it is originally scheduled to air, so my chronological OCD feels better! Hope you agree and enjoy!
Have a great April!
Jackie :-)
https://organicgardenerpodcast.com/podcast-2/bonus-episode-366-we-are-the-ark-mary-reynolds/
Weaving a patchwork of safe havens for Nature globally, in our gardens, schools, public spaces and beyond.
Check out her amazing website at wearetheark.org
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3-V1j-zMZw
Finian Makepeace is the co-founder of Kiss the Ground and a renowned presenter, media creator, and thought leader in the field of regenerative agriculture and soil health.
His dedication to Kiss the Ground’s mission of “inspiring participation in global regeneration, starting with soil”, has motivated him to develop training programs, workshops, and talks designed to empower people around the world to become confident advocates for this growing movement.
Kiss The Ground Website
Get Your Copy of the The Organic Oasis Guidebook!
and don’t forget if you need help getting started check out our new
Free Garden Course.com
Free Organic Garden Course
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
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Stay Grounded: Soil Building for Sustainable Gardens (Easy-Growing Gardening Book 9)Let’s take a minute to thank our sponsors and affiliate linksWanna donate to the show! You can "buy me a cup of coffee" where your donation goes directly to support the GREEN Organic Garden Podcast to help pay for things like hosting the mp3 files or maintaining the website.
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Growers & CoAsk Your questions herehttps://youtu.be/2S9tbLIIhy4
The Good Seed CompanyNow Let’s Get to the Root of Things!We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!Get Your Copy of the The Organic Oasis Guidebook!Twelve Lessons designed to help you create an earth friendly landscape, some deep garden beds full of nutrient rich healthy food or perhaps even develop a natural market farm.
Get a copy on today printed in the USA from Amazon
The Organic Gardener Podcast is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com
If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
and don’t forget if you need help getting started check out our new
Free Garden Course.com Free Organic Garden Course We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
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Brandon was Season 3's teaser released on New Year's Day and what a game changer this was for me this winter. If you've ever thought of starting a value added product business or any kind of garden business Brandon's got courses to help you succeed. I'm still trying to perfect my salad in a jar lunch club and I feel this is a great time to be re-releasing this because one of the most impactful things you can do for climate change in Joan Gregerson's book is create a food waste lunch club.
Thanks always for listening everyone. For more info check out the show notes here: https://organicgardenerpodcast.com/podcast-2/362-bootstrap-farmer-podcast-brandon-youst/
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
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Just in case you
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
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Connect with Greg at the Urban Farm.org Urban Farm Podcast
Listen to Greg's first interview from September 2017
My Ishmael
Let’s take a minute to thank our sponsors and affiliate linksWanna donate to the show! You can "buy me a cup of coffee" where your donation goes directly to support the GREEN Organic Garden Podcast to help pay for things like hosting the mp3 files or maintaining the website.
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Growers & CoAsk Your questions herehttps://youtu.be/2S9tbLIIhy4
The Good Seed CompanyNow Let’s Get to the Root of Things!We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!Get Your Copy of the The Organic Oasis Guidebook!Twelve Lessons designed to help you create an earth friendly landscape, some deep garden beds full of nutrient rich healthy food or perhaps even develop a natural market farm.
Get a copy on today printed in the USA from Amazon
The Organic Gardener Podcast is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com
If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
and don’t forget if you need help getting started check out our new
Free Garden Course.com Free Organic Garden Course We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
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Eden Green Vertical Technology
You can read the unedited computer generated transcript here.
Let’s take a minute to thank our sponsors and affiliate linksWanna donate to the show! You can "buy me a cup of coffee" where your donation goes directly to support the GREEN Organic Garden Podcast to help pay for things like hosting the mp3 files or maintaining the website.
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Growers & CoAsk Your questions herehttps://youtu.be/2S9tbLIIhy4
The Good Seed CompanyNow Let’s Get to the Root of Things!We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!Get Your Copy of the The Organic Oasis Guidebook!Twelve Lessons designed to help you create an earth friendly landscape, some deep garden beds full of nutrient rich healthy food or perhaps even develop a natural market farm.
Get a copy on today printed in the USA from Amazon
The Organic Gardener Podcast is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com
If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
and don’t forget if you need help getting started check out our new
Free Garden Course.com Free Organic Garden Course We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy
https://www.instagram.com/p/CL191F3pr_D/
Let’s take a minute to thank our sponsors and affiliate linksWanna donate to the show! You can "buy me a cup of coffee" where your donation goes directly to support the GREEN Organic Garden Podcast to help pay for things like hosting the mp3 files or maintaining the website.
[gallery ids="137595,137597,137596" type="rectangular"]
Growers & CoAsk Your questions herehttps://youtu.be/2S9tbLIIhy4
The Good Seed CompanyNow Let’s Get to the Root of Things!We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!Get Your Copy of the The Organic Oasis Guidebook!Twelve Lessons designed to help you create an earth friendly landscape, some deep garden beds full of nutrient rich healthy food or perhaps even develop a natural market farm.
Get a copy on today printed in the USA from Amazon
The Organic Gardener Podcast is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com
If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
and don’t forget if you need help getting started check out our new
Free Garden Course.com Free Organic Garden Course We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
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Well, IDK what happened to part 1 but here's part 2.
https://www.johnnyappleseed.com/
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
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Virtual Summit Affiliate LinkOnly $9.00
Join us for the HomeSchool Live Virtual Homesteading Summit* Johnny Appleseed Organic™ and Johnny Appleseed Authentic™ are their consumer facing brands, with trees sold under the JAA name. * The Johnny Appleseed Organic Village is the physical location of their 700+ acre farm at the foot of one of the U.S.'s largest national wildlife refuges. * This is where they put Climate Farming™ principles into practice, test and learn. * This is where they create their educational content to arm and empower gardeners, farmers and climate change activists with knowledge and call to action to reverse the harmful effects of agriculture, farming and home gardening on the environment and earth. * This is the epicenter of their square foot climate farming movement. * There is also a long-range vision for the village to become a sustainable living community, where they model a sustainable living model that can be emulated throughout the world. They hope to positively impact their neighbors at the National Wildlife Refuge and honor the people of the rural south and their agricultural heritage by organically growing an agri and eco-tourism epicenter.
Let’s take a minute to thank our sponsors and affiliate linksWanna donate to the show! You can "buy me a cup of coffee" where your donation goes directly to support the GREEN Organic Garden Podcast to help pay for things like hosting the mp3 files or maintaining the website.
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Growers & CoAsk Your questions herehttps://youtu.be/2S9tbLIIhy4
The Good Seed CompanyNow Let’s Get to the Root of Things!We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!Get Your Copy of the The Organic Oasis Guidebook!Twelve Lessons designed to help you create an earth friendly landscape, some deep garden beds full of nutrient rich healthy food or perhaps even develop a natural market farm.
Get a copy on today printed in the USA from Amazon
The Organic Gardener Podcast is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com
If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
and don’t forget if you need help getting started check out our new
Free Garden Course.com Free Organic Garden Course We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy
Planting Sprouts Indoors & Buying Fruit TreesWatch here:
https://youtu.be/Y5p-S1tBLZA
Want to support us on patreon, just click here!
Steve Szudera returns from South Dakota to chat about No Till and Regenerative Ag Practices Steve's Website TableTop Farmer
www.tabletopfarmer.com
Let’s take a minute to thank our sponsors and affiliate linksWanna donate to the show! You can "buy me a cup of coffee" where your donation goes directly to support the GREEN Organic Garden Podcast to help pay for things like hosting the mp3 files or maintaining the website.
[gallery ids="137595,137597,137596" type="rectangular"]
Growers & CoAsk Your questions herehttps://youtu.be/2S9tbLIIhy4
The Good Seed CompanyNow Let’s Get to the Root of Things!We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!Get Your Copy of the The Organic Oasis Guidebook!Twelve Lessons designed to help you create an earth friendly landscape, some deep garden beds full of nutrient rich healthy food or perhaps even develop a natural market farm.
Get a copy on today printed in the USA from Amazon
The Organic Gardener Podcast is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com
If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
and don’t forget if you need help getting started check out our new
Free Garden Course.com Free Organic Garden Course We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
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Virtual Summit Affiliate Link
Only $9.00
Join us for the HomeSchool Live Virtual Homesteading Summit
March 14th-16thLive Q&A 17thHome Steading Simplified 20+ Experts Help You Find The Confidence You Need To Make Homesteading Work.You've had some land or you just got your first property. You go outside and it just seems like there are so many things to do, but where to start?
Plant seeds, compost pile, get chickens, pull weeds, plant fruit trees, build a barn, sheep, cows...the list goes on...right?
How about a list of what to do, when to do it, and how to do it?
We have gathered experts in the world of homesteading together from all over the world to give you their best tips.
Take a tour of their homesteads, learn from them, and take the confidence to your abundant homestead.
Virtual Summit Affiliate Link
https://www.theschoolhouselife.com/a/44907/8evEoGoj
Only $9
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
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Kelly's Website
Let’s take a minute to thank our sponsors and affiliate linksWanna donate to the show! You can "buy me a cup of coffee" where your donation goes directly to support the GREEN Organic Garden Podcast to help pay for things like hosting the mp3 files or maintaining the website.
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Growers & CoAsk Your questions herehttps://youtu.be/2S9tbLIIhy4
The Good Seed CompanyNow Let’s Get to the Root of Things!We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!Get Your Copy of the The Organic Oasis Guidebook!Twelve Lessons designed to help you create an earth friendly landscape, some deep garden beds full of nutrient rich healthy food or perhaps even develop a natural market farm.
Get a copy on today printed in the USA from Amazon
The Organic Gardener Podcast is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com
If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
and don’t forget if you need help getting started check out our new
Free Garden Course.com Free Organic Garden Course We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
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SchoolHouse Life Affiliate Link
I'll be speaking on the following topics:
- Fire-wooding?
- Finding a homestead, picking a spot?
- Building an organic oasis?
- Living without running water?
- Cooking on the woodstove?
SchoolHouse Life Affiliate Link
https://www.theschoolhouselife.com/a/44907/8evEoGoj
Check out Drew and Lacey's podcast and website here: https://www.theschoolhouselife.com/Let’s take a minute to thank our sponsors and affiliate linksWanna donate to the show! You can "buy me a cup of coffee" where your donation goes directly to support the GREEN Organic Garden Podcast to help pay for things like hosting the mp3 files or maintaining the website.
Growers & CoThe Good Seed CompanyNow Let’s Get to the Root of Things!We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!The Organic Gardener Podcast is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com
If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
and don’t forget if you need help getting started check out our new
Free Garden Course.com Free Organic Garden Course We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
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Wanna donate to the show! You can "buy me a cup of coffee" where your donation goes directly to support the GREEN Organic Garden Podcast to help pay for things like hosting the mp3 files or maintaining the website.
https://organicgardenerpodcast.com/podcast-2/bonus-episode-mint-mocktails-anyone-join-me-march-4-for-a-green-new-jobs-15hour-video-event/
Bernie Letter:
Jackie -
At a time of massive income and wealth inequality, with the very rich getting much richer while working families face increased desperation, Walmart and its owners, the Walton family, have become the poster children for corporate greed.
And it is time that we stood up to that greed and the unfettered capitalism which sustains it.
Here is the reality. The Walton family is the wealthiest family in the country and is worth more than $200 billion, which is more than the bottom 40 percent of Americans combined. Yet somehow, they continue to oppose the idea of paying their workers a living wage of $15 an hour. They think the taxpayers in this country should have to subsidize the needs of their low wage workers who are forced to go on food stamps, Medicaid and other forms of public assistance.
This is a family that has made more than $50 billion during the pandemic – yet many of their workers reported going into work without the protective gear they needed during that same pandemic, and few have any paid leave they can use.
This is a family whose eldest son has spent more than $225 million on an antique car collection, including Ferraris, Porches, Maseratis, and a 1936 Bugatti Type 57SC Atlantic that won top prize at the The Peninsula Classics Best of the Best Award in Paris — yet 55 percent of Walmart’s hourly workers have reported struggling with hunger.
This is a family with another heir to the Walmart fortune, Alice, who has amassed a private art collection worth an estimated $500 million, a $25 million two-floor condo on New York’s Park Avenue with 52 windows overlooking Central Park, and a $22 million 4,400-acre ranch in Texas — yet tens of thousands of Walmart workers are forced to rely on food stamps and public housing in order to survive.
Now, I have never understood how one family could have so much money and feel the desperate need for even more. I would think that with all those cars and homes and cash, they might just be able to raise the wages of their employees to a living wage and still afford to get by.
Because the greed above just scratches the surface of the Walmart family’s pathology.
In 2005, Walmart was forced to settle a child labor law case. That same year, they paid a settlement for denying workers meal breaks.
In 2016, they were found to have used sweatshop labor.
In 2017, they were sued by female employees for discrimination based on gender.
And here is something else you may not know:
The Walmart family — despite all of their wealth — is the largest welfare recipient in the country.
While they make these huge profits, buy their cars, their art, their homes, and more, they pay their workers wages that are so low that Walmart workers need distressing levels of public assistance just to get by.
A 2020 study by the Government Accountability Office found that in Arkansas, where Walmart was founded and has its headquarters, 1,318 workers receive SNAP benefits, which is 3.1 percent of the state’s total SNAP recipients. And another report showed that in 2013, Walmart cost taxpayers more than $6 billion in taxpayer-funded public assistance — and just four years later, for good measure, Walmart gave more than $8 billion in stock buybacks.
This is all possible because of the low wages they pay their workers, and compliments of U.S. taxpayers.
So to the Walton family, I say to you, maybe you cannot understand what it is like to make $11 or $12 an hour in this country, but your workers need a raise. No one can live in dignity working a full-time job at those wages.
Amazon raised its minimum wage to $15 an hour.
Costco has raised its minimum wage to $16 an hour.
And it’s time for Walmart to do the right thing as well.
Sign my petition: tell the Walton family that their greed has got to come to end — pay your workers a living wage of at least $15 an hour.
As Americans, we must ask ourselves one fundamental question, and that is whether or not this is the kind of country and economic culture we are comfortable with.
I am not. And I don’t believe you are either.
Thank you for making your voice heard.
In solidarity,
Bernie Sanders
Let’s take a minute to thank our sponsors and affiliate linksWanna donate to the show! You can "buy me a cup of coffee" where your donation goes directly to support the GREEN Organic Garden Podcast to help pay for things like hosting the mp3 files or maintaining the website.
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Growers & Cohttps://www.patreon.com/OrganicGardenerPodcast
The Good Seed CompanyNow Let’s Get to the Root of Things!We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!The Organic Gardener Podcast is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com
If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
and don’t forget if you need help getting started check out our new
Free Garden Course.com Free Organic Garden Course We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
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Champlain Orchards started out 20 years ago with Bill delivering apples out of the trunk of his car. You will be truly inspired by his amazing journey to full time farmer and entrepreneur who provides green jobs and hope for his family. Are you ready for drones picking your apples?
Read the full unedited computer generated transcript here.
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
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So, I just finished watching Jane Fonda Firedrill Friday and then Sunrise Movement sent me a host a "Good Jobs for All" Campaign Kickoff Party! And so I said, OK, I'll do it.
Besides everyone says how fun it is to have a zoom meet so I thought how fun would it be just to get to visit with a few listeners. Even if there's just two of us.
I'll bring a door prize or two. We can make a fun mocktail/cocktail? Got any favorites? My step-kids make some delicious mint mojitos.
It's Thursday next week, March 4th at 6pm MST. I'd love to have you join me and let's get this Green New Deal off the ground together.
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
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Check out Emma's Website and all the awesome things she has going on.
Buy her book
Gardening with Emma: Grow and Have Fun: A Kid-to-Kid GuideFollow her on Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/p/CLpDDH5AOic/
Get her book here: Gardening With Emma while supporting the GREEN Organic Garden Podcast!
thanks for listening!
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GROWERS & COJoin us Saturday mornings on GROW LIVE with Patti and Jackie
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Gardening with Emma: Grow and Have Fun: A Kid-to-Kid Guide
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Happy Valentines Everyone!
Just me rambling a bit about what's growing, what's new and a possible 2021 challenge.
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Grow Your Own Mini Fruit Garden: Planting and Tending Small Fruit Trees and Berries in Gardens and Containers
Well, i edited these show notes up all pretty and nice 3 times, and 3 times wordpress deleted them so you can read the unedited computer generated transcript below:
Gardenerd
Gardening for Geeks: All the Science You Need for Successful Organic Gardening (CompanionHouse Books) Step-by-Step Processes with Diagrams, Expert Tips, & Nerdy Details on Soil Biology, Botany, & More
Grow Your Own Mini Fruit Garden: Planting and Tending Small Fruit Trees and Berries in Gardens and Containers
400+ Tips for Organic Gardening Success: A Decade of Tricks, Tools, Recipes, and Resources from Gardenerd.comChristy's Recommended book
Welcome to the Green Organic Garden Podcast. It is Friday, December 4th, 2020. Although it's probably 2021 when you're hearing this. Cause we are in season three. I have an amazing guest on the line. I've been trying to book her on the show since I very first started. She's the gardenerd from California. Here's Christy Wilhelmi. So welcome to the show Christy.
8m 45s
Christy Wilhelmi
Thank you. I'm happy to be here.
8m 47s
JackieMarie Beyer
Well, go ahead and tell us a little bit about yourself.
8m 51s
Christy Wilhelmi
Well, I am a Southern California native and I, I garden here year round in my backyard in Los Angeles. And I have a community garden plot as well. That's a small space. So naturally that's where I started. And I, I, I have this small space that made me learn how to grow biointensive intensively. So that's what I specialize in small space. Bio-intensive organic vegetable gardening and I have three books. Well, I have four, but one's not coming out for another year, but I'll tell you about the three that I have. So gardening for geeks is my primary gardening book. It's the, you know, soup to nuts, learn how to garden from scratch in a test way.
9m 38s
Christy Wilhelmi
And then I have a ebook that is a compilation of the first 10 years of my garden nerd tip of the week podcast. And now the newest book I have that's coming out in March, which you can pre-order now is called grow your own mini fruit garden. And it is the fruit companion to small space growing to the, to the vegetable gardening book that I have. So that's kind of sums it up for me. And then I just got a book deal with William Morrow slash Harper Collins for a novel that I have written that is coming out in March, well, spring 20, 22. And that is very much, I'm very excited about it because it is set in a community garden.
10m 22s
Christy Wilhelmi
And so it's for gardeners, but
10m 24s
JackieMarie Beyer
It's fiction and
10m 26s
Christy Wilhelmi
Yeah, so that's, that's, you know, I teach people how to grow their own food through classes, consulting food, garden design, I've got my own podcasts. I've got a YouTube channel, Twitter, Instagram on all that jazz. And I've been gardening for over about 30 years now and I love it. And it's now my life.
10m 49s
JackieMarie Beyer
So is that, is the interview still, is the podcast still called garden nerd or is that separate? Like, do you still do the tip of the week
10m 56s
Christy Wilhelmi
That it is the gardener tip of the week podcast? And each week I ask my guests to share one awesome tip at the end of the interview. So it's still the tip of the week podcast and it's, it's still streaming, you know, wherever you stream podcasts, you can get it.
11m 14s
JackieMarie Beyer
Cool. I can't wait to read your novel. I am actually writing a novel that I just started about my husband and I were looking at this farm in Maine that we wanted to buy. And so I'm writing the novel about like, if we have bought it and all the things that like would have happened.
11m 37s
Christy Wilhelmi
Oh cool. Yeah, that's a good, that's a good story in the making.
11m 40s
JackieMarie Beyer
It's so fun. Like I, and I can't believe like I'm up to 30,000 words and I've only like I wrote it out by handled like these pages and I'm on like page four of my handwritten thing. And it's a, and like 85 pages typed. It's like, I just, I keep hearing all the voices and voices of my guests that I've interviewed. Like there's all these different characters. It's just so fun. So I'm glad to hear that, that you're writing a novel like that, that takes place in a community garden. Isn't that interesting. 20, 22, you already have a book deal for,
12m 14s
Christy Wilhelmi
Yeah. This year was pretty busy for me, I think with, because I was working on how to grow or I'm sorry, because I was working on grow your own mini fruit garden at the same time as doing another draft of my novel. I was at my desk typing most of the time, which Whoa, everyone else was like cleaning out their closets and doing all the restorative, you know, COVID stuff. That was really, I was like, Oh, that sounds nice. I still am surrounded by junk everywhere. So I haven't gotten to that yet.
12m 49s
JackieMarie Beyer
No worries. I got to say, I was able to master I I'm an elementary teacher by trade and when school got out in June, I was able to master the Marie Kondo sparking joy thing. And so I did manage to get my house cleaned out, but then I I've been, we've been married 27 years, so there's still a lot of stuff, but I want to hear about grow your own mini fruit. Tell us about that.
13m 17s
Christy Wilhelmi
Sure. This is called the grow your own mini fruit garden. And it's coming out in March, 2021 from cool Springs press. And my focus, as I mentioned earlier is about small space bio-intensive gardening. And so it really is for people who only have a patio or a balcony or a very small backyard. And it talks about growing fruit trees and berries and all in a way that is conducive to either growing in containers or maintaining it at orchard height or below so that you can actually manage it without having to take up your whole yard with one giant tree. You know, most of the instruction that we get about fruit trees and orchard care is based on farmers.
14m 6s
Christy Wilhelmi
You know, they're, they're talking about or commercial fruit production. And so the home gardener is taking advice from professionals who are growing acres and acres of the same thing and have space between their trees at like, you know, 15, 20 feet between trees. We don't have room for that kind of stuff. Most people who live in urban environments. And so this book focuses on the small spaces and how to manage fruit trees for small spaces, and also how to plant things in succession in a way to strategize for having fruit year round or at least the bulk of the season. So that you're not getting all your oranges and hundreds of them at once.
14m 48s
Christy Wilhelmi
You can strategize with different things. So I, I was when cool Springs press came to me with the idea for the book I glommed onto it. I thought, Ooh, this is great. So I'm really looking forward to seeing it out there in the world. And we just sent it off to the printer today as of this taping. Wow.
15m 9s
JackieMarie Beyer
Wow. That is so exciting. So my listeners are always asking me questions, like how can they be more productive or what can they do to grow better for? So like what's something they can do. That's why, why maybe we should back up because I kind of pretty much know what the bio-intensive model is. I think now that I've done my podcasts, like I could almost picture myself asking my friend Cavita I think it was what is bio-intensive or maybe it was just pierced down at the, she worked at the Jacob Jevon that Jacob Devin,
15m 41s
Christy Wilhelmi
John Jeavons. Yeah. John Jeavons, he he's one of the, one of the big proponents of grow grow biointensive is his whole method. And it's one of those, one of the practices that I incorporate into my own gardens.
15m 53s
JackieMarie Beyer
So why don't you tell us first a little bit about what that means?
15m 57s
Christy Wilhelmi
Sure. So the word bio-intensive is simply an umbrella term for growing a lot of stuff in a small space. And for me, I use a combination between square foot gardening and John Jeavons, how to grow more vegetables than you ever thought possible on less land than you can imagine his book and, and the philosophies that are behind that. It is about really, it all comes down to making sure your soil is as vibrant biologically, alive and fertile as it can possibly be to support growing things closer together than you normally would. And so in vegetables, what that looks like is instead of growing in rows with lots of footprints, you know, foot traffic between your clustering, them into either, you know, mounted, raised beds or raised beds with frames or something that you can group everything together.
16m 54s
Christy Wilhelmi
And in like Jevons method, they plant on centers. So everything is on six inch centers and a hexagonal planting, spacing, or offset rows, where as they grow in, they form a living mulch and there's no sunlight passing through to the soil. So there's hardly any weeds you're losing less water to evaporation. And you're, it's just easier to maintain. Everything's closer together, but you can't just plant closer together in any old soil, you've got to steward your soil. And so my big evangelism, if you will, is all about the soil, food web and taking care of your soil and making sure there's food for the microbes that live in the soil, not doing things that kill the microbes, like tilling it and, and making sure you put down mulch because that's a fungal food stuff like that.
17m 43s
Christy Wilhelmi
So a lot of that carries over into the fruit arena, especially most, especially when it comes to soil prep before you plant a tree. So it really is about planning ahead. Most of the time people dig a hole and put the tree in the ground and hope for the best. But that is when you come into problems where there are, you know, fungal or bacterial or eaten in most cases, viral diseases that are completely uncurable, viral diseases. It's basically the end of your tree and you have to pull it. And those things show up because of mostly poor drainage. And so it always comes back to making sure your soil is well amended in the entire area where the roots are going to occupy, not just the planting hole.
18m 31s
Christy Wilhelmi
So I go into depth on how to prep for planting a tree ahead of time, as well as other strategies for placements. So you're not causing shade where you don't want it and making sure you've got enough room between trees. So they're not crowded and sad.
18m 46s
JackieMarie Beyer
So I know my I'm in Northwest Montana, so we could probably have more opposite climates, but like really struggling with blueberries, got any suggestions for me with my blueberries. Now they are in like, probably like, I think the pH is an 8.3. There's very alkaline 4.5 or something. And maybe that's where my whole problem is, but yeah.
19m 13s
Christy Wilhelmi
Yeah. Blueberry has
19m 15s
JackieMarie Beyer
A way to get it down to the 4.5.
19m 19s
Christy Wilhelmi
Right? That's a very good question. So blueberries really like acidic soil. And I thought I had a set of soil where somewhere around 7.1 7.2, but you, I didn't realize you guys up there are more alkaline than we are. The, the trick for blueberries. Oftentimes we will just plant them in containers with straight acid planting mix or lots and lots and lots of peak mosque because Piedmont's tends to have a lower pH than a regular garden soil mix. The other trick, and I share this in the book is most of the time our municipal water sources have water, our water that's delivered to our homes that we're watering our gardens with is very alkaline itself.
20m 6s
Christy Wilhelmi
And so you want to acidify that. Now I learned from the folks up at the Caspus farm in Santa Cruz, UC Santa Cruz, they actually ferment their apples that fall from the trees into vinegar. And then they pumped some vinegar through their irrigation system for their 400 plus blueberry trial garden that they have there. And so on the home scale, that means something like adding, I think it's four tablespoons of vinegar, like a regular or an Apple cider vinegar to two gallons of water and using one of those watering cans each for each blueberry plant and doing that every couple of months to a couple of weeks, depending on how alkaline your soil is.
20m 55s
Christy Wilhelmi
And that helps drive down the pH and makes the blueberries a little bit happier to co-exist with your existing soil.
20m 60s
2
Yeah.
21m 3s
JackieMarie Beyer
Cool. So then adding milk would be like the worst thing I could do. Yeah. I don't, I don't know.
21m 10s
Christy Wilhelmi
No, I, in fact, I haven't even heard of using milk as a way to benefit. I mean, I know people will use milk and water as a spray to keep powdery mildew away, but I don't see that that would help. Yeah. Sorry. Haven't heard about that.
21m 26s
JackieMarie Beyer
I don't know where I got that from my husband is like, what are you doing? I want to say I'm mixed, like milk and molasses with a gallon of water, like a cup of milk and a tablespoon of molasses and a gallon of water. And I don't know where I got it from, but it did not work, but I have Apple cider vinegar in the, in the fridge right now. And then I'm, I'm curious. Cause I'm thinking like we had lots of apples that, you know, had dents and bruises and different things and should I have kept them and put them by the blueberries?
21m 59s
Christy Wilhelmi
Well, it would make, you would need to ferment them first. So it's about, it's about that fermentation that, you know, the vinegar is, is a very acidic property, whereas apples themselves are not very acidic. So I think, you know, when you're talking about adding milk and molasses, you're making me think, Oh, that's upping the sugar content of whatever's going on. So that's food for bacteria, but that's not gonna help. Acidify your soil. I'm going down a rabbit hole here. So stop me if you want. But so bacterially dominant soils tend to be more alkaline and fungal dominant soils tend to be more acidic. So it's actually the plants who help determine their own soil pH by putting out either sugars for bacteria or humic acids for fungi.
22m 50s
Christy Wilhelmi
And they will start to breed more. And that helps re you know, alter the soil pH depending on the fungi and the bacteria that are in the soil. So, so you're feeding bacteria and that's going to make your soil more Ackland. Is there anything?
23m 8s
JackieMarie Beyer
And I need to go the other way. Like, I it's like so hard for me. I'm like the number goes up and that means it's more acidic and I want the number to go down to be alcohol or the number goes up and that's more alkaline and I want the number to go down to be. Okay.
23m 29s
Christy Wilhelmi
Correct. So yes. So the, the lower, the pH, the more acidic it is. So, you know, battery acid is down at the, you know, in tomatoes, like acidic soil, blueberries, like acidic soil. That's going to be down in the, you know, 5.5 range somewhere there. And then when you get up to eight and nine, that's where we're talking a really, really alkaline.
23m 57s
JackieMarie Beyer
Hmm. All right. Cool. And you are just full of golden scenes. Well, gosh, I haven't even asked about your very first gardening experience. Like, were you a kid? How old were you? Who were you with? What'd you grow? Sure.
24m 12s
Christy Wilhelmi
I was a picky eater as a kid and my parents had trouble feeding me and they put in a garden in the backyard. And I remember the only vegetables I would eat were the peas off the vine raw and the carrots raw out of the garden. I didn't like anything that was cooked if it was a vegetable. And so that was my first experience gardening, but it didn't carry through. I went through most of my life, not gardening. I won't say most of my life I've spent more than half of my life gardening, but I spent most of my childhood not gardening. And it wasn't until I became a vegetarian in 1993 that I decided I needed to know more about my own food source.
24m 58s
Christy Wilhelmi
And that's when I started gardening. But my first garden was at my parents' house in pretty clay soil. And we grew peas and carrots. That's what I remember
25m 10s
JackieMarie Beyer
Was...
This Rockstar Millennial is sure to inspire you to start a Green Business or at least put a plant in the ground this spring that you bought from your local nursery because you will want to support your local "Erika."
Find Erika on Facebook here.
https://www.facebook.com/joysgreenhouse
A true steward of our planet, an awesome mom and wife and most of all gardener who's passion for flowers and healthy food rings true. Learn from her failures and successes over these past 3 years running her own business after working for a local landscape company.
Read the unedited computer generated transcript here.
JOIN PATTI AND I TOMORROW ON HER LIVE WEBINARWe’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!The Organic Gardener Podcast is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com
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Free Garden Course.com Free Organic Garden Course We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
Join Patti and I on her Live Webinar to keep your garden pests and disease free.
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Listen to Patti's Grow Live from last Saturday and make sure you join us to get your questions answered and if you want to know what to do to keep your GARDEN PEST and DISEASE FREE register here for only $37.00 you don't want to miss this awesome webinar tomorrow Saturday February 6, 2021
Join the webinar here
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Baylor Lansden, Livestock and Field Technician, from the Rodale Institute, shares his journey. Read the unedited computer generated transcript here.
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Patti and I got so many questions last week on the Friending Beneficials and Unfriending the Pests Grow Live with Patti and Jackie Q&A she agreed to do a full on Webinar next weekend Saturday • February 6, 2021 you won't want to miss.
https://mailchi.mp/d97ca6d368bd/pattiwebinar2
Get your ticket to the Zoom Live Webinar and Q&A where she will present a full 45 minute value packed webinar that walks you through the answers to how to solve all your pest and disease challenges using organic no-till methods so you don't have to rsort to spraying nasty pesticides and sprays when the bugs attack this summer and the diseases show up on your leaves.
Learn how to grow robust tasty nutritious healthy vegetables that look great, taste great and most of all you are proud to share with friends and family because they have no blemishes, or bug bites, etc.
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Garden Organic Book of CompostSend Pauline Chilean Squash Recipe
JackieMarie Beyer
Welcome to the Green Organic Garden Podcast. It is Friday, December 4th, 2020. We are doing season three. So it's probably January, 2021. When you hear this, I have an amazing guest on the line. She's over in the UK, right? Smack in the middle. So as far from the ocean, as you can be over there. So welcome to the show. Pauline pears.
4m 32s
Pauline Pears
Hello. Thank you for inviting me.
4m 35s
JackieMarie Beyer
We're so excited to hear your story. So why don't you go ahead and tell listeners a little bit about yourself?
4m 43s
Pauline Pears
Well, I live in, as you said, I leave, I live in Leamington Spa, which is right in the heart of England though. I'm just a bit, I come from Scotland. I'm sort of semi-retired now. But I spent most of my working life working for an organic gardening organization in the UK promoting organic gardening. And now I'm still, I do some writing. I do some editing. We have four allotments, my husband and I, where we grow most of our own vegetables and digress, some fruits. And I love making composts and we have three chickens and that's about us really,
5m 22s
JackieMarie Beyer
You know, Pauline all these years, I've always let my husband take care of the chickens because I had like this mental block that they needed to be free and they needed to be out and I couldn't stand them being in the cage. And then last year I kind of, well, I ended up getting this one little check, that one likes to live on my shoulder and watch me when I'm working. And he's like the cutest little UL, but I have fallen. So in love with caring for those kitchen, those chickens this year, it's just amazing. So I can see why you like three little chickens.
5m 59s
Pauline Pears
You used to let them run around the garden, but we get lots of where we live in the center of the time. But there are a lot of boxes on one Fox, two chickens on Christmas day. And we thought that was enough. So we know they've got a great big run, but sadly, they don't get science into the garden. I put in the greenhouse over the winter to pick up all the slugs and the bugs.
6m 19s
JackieMarie Beyer
That's what my husband always told me. He's like, it's to keep them safe. It's to keep them safe. And we've had more than our share of predators. Like the last time we had a grizzly bear that destroyed the chicken house and actually part of me caring for them now is like they commit at night and sleep in the bathtub cages. And like that's part of what I love is going down and changing those little cages out and putting fresh straw in there for him. And that's just chill the bears hibernate. That's what they're doing this order until we either put electric fence up or figure out my husband's soul. Isn't I mean, he, the bears come three times, but the last time he just ripped the whole back wall off of the chicken coop.
7m 2s
JackieMarie Beyer
And so we have to come up with some money for some supplies and stuff. It's crazy foxes. I had a student last year. I just loved boxes.
7m 11s
Pauline Pears
Oh, people do. But they, they just cause they, they don't just take one chicken. They they'll kill them all. And I have to say, compared to bears, they're quite easy, quite easy to manage.
7m 22s
JackieMarie Beyer
It's crazy. We've lived here 27 years. We were married this year and for the first 25, we never had a problem, but we've had chickens almost the whole time. And in the last two years, it's just boom, boom, over and over and over. And I think it's just, we're getting overpopulated and the bears got a taste for chicken and they're running out of, I don't know. It's crazy. So yeah, they never got in before. Anyway, I kind of always start my show Pauline asking you about your very first gardening experience. Like, were you a kid, were you an adult? Who were you with and what did you grow?
8m 0s
Pauline Pears
I was thinking about it because I thought, well, I started gardening in my thirties, but actually my first gardening experience when I must've been about five, we lived in that in burns Scotland, but we had a caravan with a bit of land, but East of Edinburgh and my dad had a small cut flower business. And I had a little garden where I remember growing flowers. I used to go marigolds and Clark here was one of the annuals I used to grow and I had a minute to rosebush and I was very excited because my dad supplied flowers to Holly Ridge palace, which is where the queen stays when she comes to Edinburgh. And one time he did that, he cut one of my miniature roses and he puts it in with his gladiola and he sent it to
8m 44s
Pauline Pears
And I was so proud. I thought queen was going to see my little Rose. So it wasn't a very big garden, but it got me, it got me started. But also because my dad was always gone. And then although he didn't garden with the kids, you know, you'd rather do it on his own. It was always there. So when you happened and we could sort of, I think you just absorb it. And so I, so I actually had my own first garden when I was about 30. And I've been going ever since
9m 14s
JackieMarie Beyer
Whoop tell us about something that grew well this year.
9m 18s
Pauline Pears
Oh, I dunno about it where you were, but it was a very odd year. And w I think actually every year has been in neurology for the last few years, but well, we, it was very dry and then we had late frosts and then we had really, really hot, I mean, beyond anything I've ever known hot weather, and I thought everything was going to fail, but lost in about July. The rain came and everything grew. So most things did really well, but I was really pleased with my onions because I, I grow on an a lot. I don't. Do you know what to London allotment is? Do you have allotments in Canada,
9m 56s
JackieMarie Beyer
America? Well, is it like, kind of like a community garden? Well, there
10m 4s
Pauline Pears
By the time the local government, but there are plots of the, usually about sort of 50, 70 plots on a site and you rent a plot. It costs us 30 pounds a year to rent a plot, and it's called an allotment and we have four of them, but they've been gardened on for so long that they often have real disease problems. So I have trouble growing onions because there's a disease of onions called white rot, which lasts in the solid for 20 years without an onion. And it builds up on allotment sites cause people don't take care, but so I normally have problems with onions, but this year it was so hot. I think the disease couldn't germinate and I have eight strings of the most beautiful onions I have ever seen.
10m 47s
Pauline Pears
And I've hung them up in my conservatory. And I look at them every time I see it. I think that's a success. I feel so proud. So they, but most things actually did, did pretty well.
11m 0s
JackieMarie Beyer
So how about something you're excited to try different or new next year? Is there something you haven't done before? You're excited to try. Yeah.
11m 11s
Pauline Pears
Try new things. I tried grafting tomatoes this year for a change, but now there was, I was telling you about Kathy Hayek, who from Western Canada has done this online gardening summit. And one of her speakers was Joel Karsten who grows, grows on straw bales. And I know maybe decades ago I heard about straw bale gardening and I tried it and it was a bit of a disaster, but he's kind of, he's perfected the technique where you actually, you start a straw bale rotting with fertilizers, and then you grow things actually directly in the bale. And as I have a greenhouse, which where I need a bit more rotation, cause I don't have lots of, I need to grow, not in the soil for a year.
11m 55s
Pauline Pears
So I thought, Oh, I'm going to try his straw bale garden because not only does it give you growing space, that's not in the soil, but it heats up as well. And certainly we need a bit of warmth in the spring here. So you can get things growing earlier and it keeps the plants off the ground as well. So it sounds like a good thing to try.
12m 16s
JackieMarie Beyer
I just did an interview with him, I think last spring and read his book because my husband really wants to, well, he will, he only wants to grow, build a straw bale house. We tried the straw bale thing and I can't remember, I want to say he put tomatoes in them and the deer got in and then it didn't work because the deer guy,
12m 37s
Pauline Pears
Scott deer, I must've.
12m 40s
JackieMarie Beyer
Yeah. Well we, yeah, we definitely, I don't know what happened. He like left and I kept saying it was kind of a good thing that happened when it did, because at least it happened in the early spring and all they got were the tomatoes. Cause it could have been a disaster if they had got in, in August and just destroyed the whole garden. So yeah, somehow the gate got open or something. I'm sorry.
13m 4s
Pauline Pears
Yeah, it sounds like a good, I mean I'd much rather grow in the soil. I think that's the best place to do it. But if you've got to use, if you haven't got space to rotate your crops, it's good to have, you know, you can grow in pots or something else, but the straw bale just sounded like fun and that's what, you know, it's gardening should be fun.
13m 22s
JackieMarie Beyer
It should. Well, I think there's a huge difference between the garden that's around our house and my husband's mini farm. Oh no, he loves it. I don't know to me that's way too much work, but it depends how,
13m 36s
Pauline Pears
I mean, we've got four so far, a lot more plots, which is quite a lot of land, but we've got a boat in France. So most years we go from France to France for a couple of months and we've just kind of developed a gardening system that we plant it. We watch it once and then we just leave it and we come back and harvest it. So it fits in with our lifestyle. And I think that's the best way to garden. There's there's no point in making yourself do things. That actually is just a struggle because it doesn't suit you. It doesn't fit you. So everybody develops their own system.
14m 9s
JackieMarie Beyer
Well, tell us more about that system. Like, do you have like an automated, you don't have to water or weed or anything or does somebody water it for you or
14m 18s
Pauline Pears
Weight waterings? A bit overrated. We grow crops that look after themselves. So we grow potatoes. You plant them, you mess them up or not. Whether you've got time and if it's a bit weedy, they'll grow. Anyway, we grow pumpkins that once you've got them started, we only water them once. And then they just take over and they sit there until we come home and the autumn, what else do we grow? We grow drying beans. So, you know, they climb up the pole pole beans, but we just leave them to dry to eat over the winter. So you don't have to worry about picking when they're green. So things like that, that directly they're quite self-sufficient. I mean, we grow a few other things as well, but those give us a basic things to eat all year round, which is what we're aiming for.
15m 5s
2
Okay.
15m 12s
JackieMarie Beyer
I found you because you had a book called the garden, organic book of compost on Amazon
15m 22s
Pauline Pears
On, but lots of books on Amazon. That's
15m 24s
JackieMarie Beyer
What I was just going to say. I was trying to pull up your page. So do you want to tell, cause I'm sh I know listeners are going to want to learn a lot more about being able to leave their place and go to France, which, Oh my goodness. How lucky are you? I always tell my husband. I think if he died, I would move to France.
15m 48s
Pauline Pears
Yeah. We decided to stay. But I mean this year, because we haven't been able to go anywhere. We've, we've grown things like lots of tomatoes and stuff. Cause I mean, it has been quite nice this year because we haven't been away and I've been able to grow things that I need, you know, you need to be able to look after. So that's been really satisfying, but again, there are other, I just, it's nice to be able to do both, but sadly, most of my books are out of print now, apart from the compost one, but there's, I'm sure you can get secondhand copies and, well, I think most of my gardening and my writing is about trying to encourage people just to find something that suits them. Don't do it because somebody else does it.
16m 29s
Pauline Pears
And you think you must, you know, it's a very personal thing. And, and if you don't have the time or you have the energy, then you won't do it,
16m 41s
JackieMarie Beyer
That's for sure. But there's also things that can help you be more successful and little tips and tricks to make it. So that cause like one of the things I talk about is usually I have a full-time job and that's kind of why there'll be days like in the summer where I won't even see the garden for five days, but you're going for a long time. So I don't want to hear more about that. So tell us about the garden, organic book of compost then, or tell us a little bit about composting.
17m 14s
Pauline Pears
Well, I mean, I worked in organic gardening. Most of my gardening life and kind of compost is the sort of the powerhouse of the organic garden. But as kids, we always had compost heaps. So I knew it was there, but I just think it's it's magic. I mean, I I've been making compost all these years and I still think it's magic because it, it's a really effective way of dealing with all your garden, waste, your kitchen waste and everything, and you just bang it in the bin. And then six, nine months, 12 months later, you go back and there's this lovely, silent prover, which is free. So why wouldn't you make compost?
17m 54s
JackieMarie Beyer
No, but people told me my husband and I came up with this book. Well, we came up with free garden course and people were telling me left. Right. I hate compost. Why would you start chapter one with compost? And I'm just baffled. I mean, it's so easy.
18m 9s
Pauline Pears
It's so good for the soil, but you see, I give quite lots of talks. I'm composting. And one of the things I do is ask people what you can't put in the compost heap. And they all know they've got hundreds of things that you shouldn't put in the compost heap, like orange peel when, why not. And then when we get down to what you can compost, everyone's a bit different. But if you can put almost anything on compost, heap, not fish bones, I'm told, but you know, so there's people have this idea that it's complicated, it's difficult. And if you get it wrong, it's the end of the world, but it's a completely natural system. And that's how nature cleans up the earth. We went for the Muslim composting in the, in the world. We don't be knee deep in potato peelings or something.
18m 51s
Pauline Pears
So I think people will just relax and go with it.
18m 56s
JackieMarie Beyer
Yeah. And I thought fish bones were really good for your compost. I always thought the problem with them is just if you have an animal problem, like you kind of want to bury him because like in isn't that part of like the three sisters, you put it like a fish head underneath the squash and the corn and all that kind of thing.
19m 12s
Pauline Pears
Well, you see, I come from a country where we don't tend to have a lot of fish heads. I was talking to Kathy in, in Western Vancouver and she mentioned the fish and she said, yeah, well we, we go fishing locally. So we've got loads of fish bones. Well, it's, it doesn't really happen here. So we don't have to worry about it. So you, you have to adapt the system to where you're living and what you eat and that sort of thing.
19m 34s
2
19m 39s
JackieMarie Beyer
So Pauline tell us about something that didn't work so well as she's in, was there something that didn't turn out the way you thought it was going to?
19m 46s
Pauline Pears
Well, that was something that was a real surprise. We grow awesome. Fruiting, raspberries. I love raspberries. And for the first time in my life, we had a late frost and the straw, the raspberry plants got frosted. And I, I mean, Ross has come from Scotland. That's frosty all the time. I'd never seen that before, but the right they'd started growing really fast. And then we had a sharp late frost, which killed the potatoes and the raspberry. It just, it just got the leaves. I mean, it didn't kill the plants, but they were damaged. But then come mid summer, we'll see even more bizarre. I went up to pick some raspberries and they were all in a strange sort of pale color.
20m 28s
Pauline Pears
And I realized it had been so hot that they'd cooked on the plant because they are the raspberries or something that likes a bit of shade, but it was all the raspberries on the top of the, of the rows were cooks, which again is something I've I've never seen before. So I think the climate is going to sh
20m 48s
3
Going to throw something odd at us all the time. Now we've got to be very adaptable, just, and try and go with what it's these odd things that it throws at us.
20m 59s
JackieMarie Beyer
I'm nodding my head. You're right. Well, this is actually already the part of the show we call getting to the root of things. So do you have like a least favorite activity to do on the garden, Pauline like something, get up, force yourself to get out there and do I don't.
21m 20s
3
So I really know, I do have a bit of a bad back, so there's things I don't do, which I'm quite like to do, like shoveling manure and that sort of thing. But I love weeding. I love my favorite activity, I think is raising plants. I love sewing seeds and seeing the little seedlings come up and you know, that sort of thing, but no, it sounds a bit naff, doesn't it? But I don't think there's anything I don't like doing. There's just things I don't do.
21m 50s
JackieMarie Beyer
No. I've had several people come on. I think that's encouraging. And then you already answered the fevered activity you said was sewing seeds. So what's the best gardening advice you've ever received.
22m 4s
3
Looking at the same seeds things this year, the spring came and Britain locked down. We couldn't do anything, but you could still put a seat in a Potter in the ground and it would still come up and a little seedling would still grow and somehow it just life went on. And I think that was a really important thing to be aware of this year, because so much of life didn't go on. But anyway, sorry, what was the question?
22m 31s
JackieMarie Beyer
Well, I was going to say in the pre-chat we were talking about how you were saying your hairdressers are just finally opening. Yeah.
22m 39s
3
They were, they were closed for a few months and then they opened again and then they were closed again. And yeah, it's been an odd and I'd been an odd year, but the encouraging thing was that there was a huge rush to buy seeds for gardens. I mean, the...
Patti Drops golden seeds galore in this episode you won't want to miss!
Next week we are talking about making a seed planting plan! Ask your questions here: http://organicgardenerpodcast.com/patti/
Support Us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/GrowLivewithPatti_Jackie
Watch and subscribe to Patti's YouTube Channel and see the episode #1 on seed shopping here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNX_0MJ_L6c
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If you didn't hear Amanda Gorman rock the mic at Joe Biden's ceremony it's a must listen: https://www.democracynow.org/2021/1/21/amanda_gorman_poem_biden_inauguration
If you are interested in doing something for the planet for Earth Day 2021 today is the day to start building your team, and reading Joan's book is a short but great way to start. It took me about 2 hours to read the whole thing on my kindle, although I still have to go through the workbook.
If you haven't heard the episode with Mary Reynolds about building an ARK it's here.
And I hope you are all healthy happy and safe. Here's to 2021 moving forward. As AOC says, it's grassroots movements that are going to change the world, this is not the time to get complacent. Take a deep breath and let's take action together today.
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you can watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMfVcrQK51M
Submit your questions for our next "Grow Live" here:
[caption id="attachment_7794" align="aligncenter" width="200"] photo credit Claire Leadbitter @Irishforestgarden[/caption]
Happy Inauguration Day Everyone! This is an episode you won't want to miss. Tired of Politics this is the interview for you. Taking our land back into our own hands Mary Reynolds shares golden seeds you are going to love.
Check out her amazing website at wearetheark.org
ARK - Acts of Restored Kindness
thisisanark and #letsbuildanark
Mary Reynolds is a reformed Irish landscape designer, bestselling author of ‘The Garden Awakening’and nature activist. Director Vivienne De Courcy made a movie – ‘Dare to be Wild’ – about Mary’s Chelsea Gold Medal winning adventures. Mary is a proud patron of Wildlife Rehabilitation Ireland (WRI) and strives to do as much as she can to re-educate people how to live in harmony with nature in their own patch of land – To become Guardians rather than Gardeners. w The Garden Awakening: Designs to Nurture Our Land and Ourselves Steps to building an ark "If you can collect seeds from a local native woodland “nursery” within a 10 mile radius from your land, this is the best practice. Otherwise have a look at the local hedgerows as these can be hundreds of years old and bare-root cuttings, taken from these in winter, may be the better bet." Step 6. Let the scrubby messy thorny thickets be! Leave those brambles and other thorny natives emerge and thrive. They protect young trees and create wonderful sanctuary for many wild mammals. They are vital for the re-establishment of a native ecosystem. They provide shelter from the wind, protection from grazers such as deer to allow saplings to establish, they are powerful deep rooters that re-mineralise and restructure the soil and they are also great habitats and food sources for wildlife. The signage will be the key to educating people how beneficial these spaces are to families of all shapes and sizes.
Read the unedited computer generated transcript here:
My Garden Journal
Get your copy of the Organic Oasis Guidebook and get started building your own earth friendly garden today!
Let’s take a minute to thank our sponsors and affiliate links Please support us on Patreon so we can keep the show up on the internet. It cost close to $100 a month just to keep it up on the internet for the website etc so if you could help by supporting it with an $8/month contribution or $10/month to join the Green Future Growers Book Club where we can delve deep into some of the best gardening books that have been recommended on the show! GoDaddy even is bugging me for dollars just to have the domain name…
https://www.patreon.com/OrganicGardenerPodcast
The Good Seed Company Now Let’s Get to the Root of Things!
We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community! The Organic Gardener Podcast is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here. and don’t forget if you need help getting started check out our new Free Garden Course.com
Free Organic Garden Course Remember you can get the 2018 Garden Journal and Data Keeper to record your garden goals in our You can download the first 30 days here while you’re waiting for it to come in the mail.
We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community! If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
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Join Richard's Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/936573179728717
I'm having tech problems so this is all the shownotes you get today! Enjoy listening!
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Stephanie Rose FromGarden Therapy shares her garden journey. Author of 10 garden books, she has a wealth of golden seeds to drop including the benefits of having plants that lure aphids and the bugs that eat them to your garden so your plants can thrive. I know you're gonna love this interview.
To read the unedited, computer generated AI transcript click here.
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Green Team Academy PodcastClimate Action Challenge: A Proven Plan for Launching Your Eco-Initiative in 90 DaysRead the unedited computer AI Generated podcast transcript here:
Welcome to the Green Organic Garden Podcast. It is Tuesday, December 1st, 2020, but when you're hearing this, it's probably in January, so happy new year and I have a great guest on the line you heard from her once before, but she's back to tell us about all the great things her book came out. And so here today to share with us as Joan Gregerson, welcome to the show, Joan.
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Seed shopping Q&A with Jackie and Patti
Watch HERE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enrxKQbw4BE
Want your questions answered? Submit here:https://organicgardenerpodcast.com/patti/
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Hey, just wanted to let you know we are going to be airing our first episode of GROW LIVE with Patti and Jackie on Saturday mornings at 9:00am MST/11 am EST/10 Central/8:00am Pacific.
Sorry for the confusion!
Here's the link to submit your questions. And it might be a zoom call and not a youtube LIVE because we are having tech challenges there. Your questions answered by theWise Grower Guru and Resilient Ag ExpertPATTI ARMBRISTER!Coming to you Saturdays starting January 9, 2021"GROW LIVE" with Patti and Jackie Your questions answered by theWise Grower Guru and Resilient Ag ExpertPATTI ARMBRISTER!"Growing a Healthy Future"Ask about gardening and growing healthy foodLIVE on Youtube!Saturday Mornings at 11:00 EST, 9:00 MST, 8am PST in 2021submit your questions here:
Our first week we will focus onSelecting Seedswhat questions do you have?
Join us here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaCJj2j7ROA
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Sharon Lovejoy
Sharon@SharonLovejoy.com
Web:
http://www.SharonLovejoy.com
Personal Blog:
http://SharonLovejoy.blogspot.com
Sharon Lovejoy's Lodging
http://www.ComfortFound.com
Comfort Found Literary Lodging
Damariscotta, Maine
Comfort Found by the Sea
Christmas Cove, South Bristol, Maine
Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/sharonlovejoyauthor/
Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/sharonlovejoy
http://www.facebook.com/cultivatingwonder
http://www.facebook.com/ComfortFoundLiteraryLodging
Make sure you include videos of reviews of Sharon's books.
Trowel and Error: Over 700 Organic Remedies, Shortcuts, and Tips for the GardenerCheck out my video review here
Our possibility pile!
So Easy To PreserveMy Garden Journal
Get your copy of the Organic Oasis Guidebook and get started building your own earth friendly garden today!
Let’s take a minute to thank our sponsors and affiliate linksPlease support us on Patreon so we can keep the show up on the internet. It cost close to $100 a month just to keep it up on the internet for the website etc so if you could help by supporting it with an $8/month contribution or $10/month to join the Green Future Growers Book Club where we can delve deep into some of the best gardening books that have been recommended on the show! GoDaddy even is bugging me for dollars just to have the domain name…
https://www.patreon.com/OrganicGardenerPodcast
The Good Seed Company
Now Let’s Get to the Root of Things!We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!The Organic Gardener Podcast is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com
If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
and don’t forget if you need help getting started check out our new
Free Garden Course.com Free Organic Garden Course Remember you can get the 2018 Garden Journal and Data Keeper to record your garden goals in our
You can download the first 30 days here while you’re waiting for it to come in the mail.
We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
You can access the unedited computer AI generated transcript at podscribe here.
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Read the unedited computer generated AI Transcription here.
Order Daniel's book and write him a 5star review while supporting the OGP here:
Here's my interview with Daniel Mays on January 1st from Frith Farm. Frith,I want to say is the English word for friend? Oh my goodness. This man drops golden seeds. He just wrote The No-Till Organic Vegetable Farm: How to Start and Run a Profitable Market Garden That Builds Health in Soil, Crops, and CommunitiesMy Garden Journal
Get your copy of the Organic Oasis Guidebook and get started building your own earth friendly garden today!
Let’s take a minute to thank our sponsors and affiliate linksPlease support us on Patreon so we can keep the show up on the internet. It cost close to $100 a month just to keep it up on the internet for the website etc so if you could help by supporting it with an $8/month contribution or $10/month to join the Green Future Growers Book Club where we can delve deep into some of the best gardening books that have been recommended on the show! GoDaddy even is bugging me for dollars just to have the domain name…
https://www.patreon.com/OrganicGardenerPodcast
The Good Seed Company
Now Let’s Get to the Root of Things!We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!The Organic Gardener Podcast is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com
If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
and don’t forget if you need help getting started check out our new
Free Garden Course.com Free Organic Garden Course Remember you can get the 2018 Garden Journal and Data Keeper to record your garden goals in our
You can download the first 30 days here while you’re waiting for it to come in the mail.
We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
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Brandon Youst, who I just got off the phone with two seconds ago about his, he started Veg-To-Bowl like veg-to-bowl, a food truck, but then he ended up launching how to get your farm business started. If you don’t want to do farm, like all sorts of alternative things out there, or if you do want to do farming, just he has the Urban Farm, Bootstrap Farmer ’cause Mike and I were going through, what are we going to spend our check on?
And we pretty much have to I’m 90% sure. Either invested in our business or it’s just going to go to income tax anyway. So we’ll each probably get a $600 stimulus check. So we decided we need a grow light. He needs, he wants that heavy duty plastic because twice as plastic grip through last year, and he’s just tired, it’s ripped through right now. He wants some of this heavy duty a four year or six year guarantee. And that’s what Brandon sells. That’s how he’s making his life. Now his money comes in from Bootstrap Farmer and he’s he talks about victory lunch club and they have so many videos on his urban farmer, free courses.
I’m going to take, what was it called? The smart, the mini ag product, M AP minimum agricultural product. How to run a smart club, a salad club.
Read the unedited AI computer generated transcript here:
https://app.podscribe.ai/episode/59773602
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
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My Garden Journal
Get your copy of the Organic Oasis Guidebook and get started building your own earth friendly garden today!
Jackie Marie Beyer here welcome season three! If you're new to the show, I hope you'll subscribe on iTunes or your favorite podcast app and let's get growing!
Oh my gosh. Green future growers Happy 2021! It's really Tuesday, December 29th when I'm recording this, but 2021 is right around the corner and I have so many exciting things for you. You are going to love season three. I was a little apprehensive about going off the mic for two months, but I think it has paid off. I have 10, 11, 12, great episodes in the bank. I just got off the phone with Patti Armbrister who called me? Because she is going to start a new show on Fridays that I think we're going to air.
Well, it's going to be a new, it's going to be YouTube LIVE question and answer called, Ask Patti "how to grow healthy food"
And she is going to talk about everything from where to order your seeds from, to how to process meat, how to grow food. She's going to do your questions. Questions. Robin Kelson has got questions. She's got, she's going to answer things like you wouldn't believe. So make sure you get your questions sent to me, sent to her. Let me see, what is her email? I just had her email. I don't know, send it to me and I'll forward them to her.
My email is orgpodcast@gmail.com or you can always get me at mikesgreengarden@gmail.com, ORGpodcast@gmail.com. Either of those are work.
There's a contact form on our website.
You can submit through anyway, Ask Patti how to grow healthy food coming to you. Live Friday afternoons 4:00 PM. Eastern 2:00 PM, Montana time, 1:00 PM. Pacific time. It's going to be every Friday. She's going to do it through the summer. Answer your questions LIVE on YouTube!
Submit your questions right here.So can't wait for that to start. You know, Patti Armbrister has shown much information out there. She'll get those questions coming in.
So that's so exciting. The regenerative farmer Ask Patti how to grow healthy food, because she said that Robin was telling her these regenerative farmers have these regenerative farming questions.
I just finished reading Nicole Master's book For the Love of Soil. And then I told Joe Lamp'l, I'm gonna mail it to him because I think he's going to love it. If you haven't read that, it's just, she intertwined. She's visited all these farms.
You can go back and listen to my interview with Nicole. She talks about her five M's. I think it's microbes, minerals, management, organic matter and mindset.
I have some great interviews. I can't really wait to release Daniel Mays on January 1st from Frith Farm. Frith,I want to say is the English word for friend? Oh my goodness. This man drops golden seeds. He just wrote the, I want to say it'sThe No-Till Organic Vegetable Farm: How to Start and Run a Profitable Market Garden That Builds Health in Soil, Crops, and Communitieswhere he talks you through. If you want to get into farming, just fantastic. Can't wait to share that with you. He was just an amazing guest. I edited it yesterday. The episode 351 is with Sharon Love. Joy, who is, I just wrote her.
I was like, is your name love joy? Is that really? Or is it just because it's such a joy to talk to you? And I just loved talking to her and learning her journey. She talks about she lives in California and then in Maine, in the summers growing fruit trees and just tons of food in California and then also her for any old garden beds in mean just so many great interviews coming at you. Christina
Nikki Jaboursigned up. I'm going to talk to her soon. And then JM Fortier. I just interviewed him, released his thing about Growers & Co. I'm spending my $600 check. Half of it's getting split between him and who'd I just get a phone with Brandon Youst, Youst, Brandon Yousttoo. I just got off the phone with two seconds ago about his, he started Veg-To-Bowl like veg-to-bowl, a food truck, but then he ended up launching how to get your farm business started. If you don't want to do farm, like all sorts of alternative things out there, or if you do want to do farming, just he has the Urban Farm, Bootstrap Farmer 'cause Mike and I were going through, what are we going to spend our check on?
And we pretty much have to I'm 90% sure. Either invested in our business or it's just going to go to income tax anyway. So we'll each probably get a $600 stimulus check. So we decided we need a grow light. He needs, he wants that heavy duty plastic because twice as plastic grip through last year, and he's just tired, it's ripped through right now. He wants some of this heavy duty a four year or six year guarantee. And that's what Brandon sells. That's how he's making his life. Now his money comes in from Bootstrap Farmer and he's he talks about victory lunch club and they have so many videos on his urban farmer, free courses.
I'm going to take, what was it called? The smart, the mini ag product, M AP minimum agricultural product. How to run a smart club, a salad club. Cause my step-daughterand I had been talking about getting a food truck and he talks about how challenging it is to make it on a food truck. He, he likes the subscription model better. And I was saying, I always thought, you know, if somebody came to the school with the teachers were one day a week, I'd be much more likely to support a CSA if they delivered it right to me where I worked or I was laughing at him. Cause I was like, I really always dreamed about somebody coming in, cleaning my car while I was in the classroom because our cars are all just sitting in the parking lot.
Like how easy would that be? You go to the parking lot. You vacuum everybody's car, you clean it. You know, I used to take my car to the oil change people just so they would clean my car. But anyway, you know, salads from bountiful baskets gardens, like he's got all these great things. So I think you're going to be excited to hear season three. I'm so excited to share with you!
The rockstar millennial book that I took off September and October to work on is finally coming into place. It's kind of crazy. Cause I, I started this third book project, which is like this novel about this co couple, like remember how Mike and I were looking at buying this farm in Maine.
And so when I was stuck on Rockstar Millennial, I started writing this novel that just like, I could just hear the words, just like when I looked at the pictures of it, I could hear the conversations with the people. Like I'm up to 75,000 words of this novel. Like, so it's like as if we had bought the farm and all the challenges we're facing. And so it's, it's kind of funny cause JM Fortier,he's like, Oh yeah, we call that farm "Farm Start" and all the challenges that you face and, and whatnot. So anyway, but somehow writing the novel about the story though, the rockstar millennial thing finally clicked into place.
And so I, I, I'm pretty sure the proposal's done and ready to go back to the publisher that I talked about, the outline's done and now the sample chapters are, you know, kind of figured out it should be like, this is what I originally thought it would be like, you know, here's two biographies of these people born in 1992 in 1993, 1994, you know, two people from each year.
But then doing the outline, I realized it should be like moms and dads, backer, gardeners, scientists, nutritionists, like kind of going that way and picking. And then also like in the ghostwriter school, he has all these questions where you're answering like obstacles. Like he breaks it into three parts. What's their obstacle here was there, you know, what was like, what what's in their mind, that's holding him back. What's their actual physical obstacle holding you back. Whatever. I took all the questions people have asked me either in the Facebook group or they've emailed me or like my guests, you know, I ask everybody what's a question. So I have all these questions. What do people want to know? I plugged him into his outline.
So I'm like, Oh, well Ameilia Schimetz answers this question. And AJ Olson answers this question. And you know, Danny Schwan answers this question. And so kind of matching them up. I realized it fit better with these 12 categories or chapter heads. And then so anyway, that's where Rockstar Millennials coming from. And remember they're rockstar millennials because they were raised by you, amazing Baby Boomers. And then there's the special class for the Xiennials and us gen X-ers out there. And just, I don't know. Anyway, I hope you're excited to go into 2021, 2020 has been such a hard year.
I can't believe I called it the year I smiled last January. I'm not sure if I smiled more or smiled. Yes. If you're not coming to laughter yoga with Cathy from Cathy's Crawley Composters, I'm showing up every Tuesday. It seems to be working for me. I would love to share you there. If you think you can't laugh for a half hour, there's a secret. All you do is say, ha ha ha ho, ho. He, you just say those, you know ha,ha,ha Ho,ho,hoHe,he,hethree times in a row and it helps you laugh. It helps you smile. It's a fun little group there's been between, usually about 16 people that show up and it's kind of fun to see the different screens.
I'm getting to know those people I've been showing up. So it seems to be working for me. She goes through it like it's interesting. There's a little bit of that tapping. I used to do tapping in school. If you don't want to tapping is there's different parts on your body. You're you're putting out toxins. When you touch things, it helps calm your mind. We do. She has all these great little things. Like we wash our brains where you do like mental floss. Like there's a little games today. We did this salad bowl or fruit bowl thing. Like you might think there's no way I'm going to laugh. Maybe you have enough laughter in your life. You know, we've been pretty secluded here. I'm you know, I didn't take a classroom job this year. I've been working virtually for some podcasters.
I've been getting a little bit of unemployment and just, you know, we're right on the edge. I don't know what's going to happen. Come February when my unemployment runs out. But that's part of why I'm like keep asking my stepdaughter. I'm like one, she's one of the top five bosses I've ever had when she ran the pizza truck. She still in, you know, I've had 53 jobs I think. And she stole my top five bosses. She's scraped boss. Just like her dad. She's got the background knowledge. She did it for two years. It paint really well. I mean, you know, to me, anyway, it was short. It was short shifts, like six hours. It was close to my house. I didn't have to drive anywhere.
I got to eat healthy food. I got to make a pizza at a place that I would pay $25 for it. And I got to take one home for free every night. I mean, to me there were lots of perks and I was also talking to the guy who just got off the phone with part of the reason I bugging her is because before we worked, before she worked at the pizza place, we worked at the golf club for this lady who has a food truck in town and they shut down for the winter. And part of me thinks, well, they probably shut down for the winter because she didn't like the cold either and they don't want to be out there in the cold. Now it could be, they weren't making enough to make it worth it. I don't know. But I just was like, why don't you see if we could rent that truck for the winter? And then she's like, well, I want to do this other thing.
We both wanted you out like wraps. And I think wraps are a good one because it uses a lot of rice and beans, which aren't expensive. And maybe if we could grow farro, which we want to grow, which they're growing over in East side, both as a cover crop, I think. But also because it grows with dry farming. You know, I read about farro in Liz Carlisle's Lentil Underground is where I first heard of it. And I bought it from timeless seeds. And if you, buy farro, like my mom was complaining to me, Oh, I wanted to buy that farro. But it's so expensive. And it's F AR R O. It's a, it's a rice. So it's a green, it's a nutritious race. It's got a little more bite than regular white rice or brown rice.
https://urbanfarmacademy.com/online-courses/
It's got like a nuttier flavor. So it's really wholesome. I love it. So I thought, you know, what, if we could make rice bowls and then I've also been kind of going with this, like, you know, Ed Evanston with the cottage food. I've never forgot his interview, which has been downloaded a ton of times, you know, cottage food bill inMontana was to get value added products.
And so since Mike and I have struggled, you know, I've never felt like we have enough to go to the farmer's market and set up a regular farm booth. But what if we could bring food?
So now Brandon, that I just got off the phone with, he was talking about the subscription model where he would like get the subscriptions by like he would take orders on Thursday and then go to the shore Friday by the food that he didn't grow, that he needed whatever he was going to cook on Saturday. And then on Monday he delivered these class jars full of like a salad bowl, veggie bowl. So he'd make these little salad bowls and glass jars, and it was a subscription service.
So you traded your other glass jar and you got a new one. He delivered like seven jars of salads. You had your pre-made food for a week or something. I don't know how it worked, but you know, you could order three of them. You could order seven of them, whatever you wanted. Just, I don't know. I have to go check out his website. Like I found him like three days ago, got a podcast. And anyway, who knows what will happen, but just excited to bring you tons of golden seeds, trying to help you live a greener life.
I'm working on a children's book about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez that I had been painting the watercolors. Oh, I think I've mentioned this on my podcast, but right after the election, I ordered immediately ordered a t-shirt for the Georgia Senate race. So if you haven't heard about this, there's the Reverend Warnock and then Jon Ossoff, O S S O F F arerunning for this there's a runoff in the Senate. And if they wouldn't have sent it, we will have a democratic control of the Senate, which means that Mitch McConnell won't be able to wield his unyielding power.
And Joe Biden will actually be able to get some things accomplished, Alexandria OccasioCortez, and the people who have signed onto the green deal might be able to actually get that legislation put into action. And if you think a green new deal is a pipe dream, you know, China built a train and environmentally friendly, super fast high speed train that would run. If it was in the United States would run from New York to LA in a year and a half. So to see it, the is a Patriot, I mean, who was, I was just reading about Eisenhower meter road system in 1970. Like we don't always have an interstate highway 90, I guess, across like this has said that like in the sixties and seventies got every road paved from California to New York.
Like we need to have these big dreams. We can put them into action. The green new deal will create, you know, good quality union jobs that...
I got to see Sarah when I went to my first AERO workshop back in 2016!
Sarah Calhoun, founder of Red Ants Pants a company designed to make workwear for women out of necessity, Sarah needed pants that fit and would hold up doing outdoor work!
Sarah, grew up on a farm in Cornwall, Connecticut where her grandparents had a dairy and parents raised Llama's in the '70's and '80's some of the oldest breeders in New England. Her mom grew some veggies but mostly had beautiful gardens that required Sarah to do a lot of weeding and picking of beetles to put in containers of soapy water.
https://redantspants.com/
She was working on trail crews around Big Sky Country here in Montana, when she decided to start a women's wear company. In search of a business plan, she found her self reading Small Business For Dummies in a Bozeman coffee shop and just happened to meet a mentor who did production and design for 20 years at Patagonia, who would eventually join her board of advisors. After a year, she decided she wanted to be in a smaller town, and having just read on of Ivan Doig's memoir, she decided to open up shop in his hometown of White Sulfur Springs back in 2006.
For profit vs non-profitI asked Sarah about her board of advisors, and she explained that a company has a board of advisors that are like mentors who she goes rafting with and talks to about business, where as the Red Ants Pants Foundation which is a proper 501-C3 non-profit, has an official Board of Directors. The Red Ants Pants Foundation promotes women's leadership.
Red Ants Pants Music FestivalAfter 5 years in business they decided to take things to the next level, and got the community on board and planned a concert to raise money for the Foundation, back in 2011 and to their surprise 6000 people showed up. They've had up to 18,000 people come over the years to see amazing guests including Charley Pride, Brandi Carlile, Merle Haggard, Emmylou Harris, Taj Mahal, Dwight Yoakam, Wynonna Judd, Lyle Lovett, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Corb Lund, and Ben Bullington.
Keb Mo'
Heading into their 10th year, they've learned a lot, like the need to have specific staff on the operations team, running logistics, and managing over 220 volunteers. Sarah herself's biggest take away is self care, asking for help, not trying to do everything herself, which is still a challenge.
Proceeds from the Music Festival support community grants for folks in Montana, projects ranging from:* community gardens * welding women's helmets * community libraries * buying a mule for the only women's owned outfitter in the Bob Marshall -
Broad diverse group of applicants.
Educational ClassesThey also teach timber skills, hosting chainsaw and carpentry for women workshops.
New Girls Leadership ProgramRecently launched a girl's leadership program for 8 girls selected from rural Montana in their junior year of H.S. where they can attend retreats, webinars, meet local women leaders, and connect with young professional mentors and complete a project back in their community.
Developing hope for youth, pride in rural communities, strength and courage in our leadership.The Red Ants Pants company makes 2 lines of work pants that are sewn here in the US by a mother/daughter workshop in Seattle. Burley, heavy duty.
New pair of GSD "Get sh*t done" pants that have a touch of stretch
- Shorts
- aprons
- hoodies
- t-shirts
- hats
- belts
Looking for wool supplier for vests.
Final question- if there was one change you would like to see to create a greener world what would it be? For example is there a charity or organization you're passionate about or a project you would like to see put into action. What do you feel is the most crucial issue facing our planet in regards to the environment either in your local area or on a national or global scale?
Civility - there's a Copper Mine coming in and she believes that the propaganda on both sides, people need to talk and listen to each other from both sides honestly find a fundamental understanding of others.
Invites everyone to come to music festival in White Sulfur Springs in July 22-25, 2021 and shop at the Red Ants Pants website, still time for Christmas!
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy
JM Fortier ~ Grower's & Co.Welcome to the Green Organic Garden. It is Wednesday, December 16, 2020, and I have the most amazing guest on the line, the world renowned gardener, he's going to rock us with his new venture Growers & Co.here today to talk to us isJM Fortier, welcome to the show JM!
1m 21s
JM Fortier
Well, it's so exciting. I feel like there's fireworks coming out. Hi. I'm so happy to be there. Oh my goodness. Well, I am so happy to have you here and to talk about everything you have going on your new venture withGrowers & Co. your, I love the t-shirt that says small-scale farmers are changing the world. And I hope we're going to talk about that a little bit today and just, but I do have a ton of new listeners since the last time you were here. So just in case they were like, who is this? I don't know how they could, but if they are, do you, what, tell them a little bit about yourself.
2m 1s
JM Fortier
Sure. So, so people call me JM, so I go by JM and I started a small organic farm we're in 2004. So that was a while back. And then that farm, the fame to claim of that farm was that we were farming an acre and a half, which we still do today. And we use no tractor. We use hand tools and then we go to farmer's market and then we have CSA and we deliver it to the local food co-op and we've been able to make a living farming, this small piece of land for, you know, almost two decades now.
The Market Gardener: A Successful Grower's Handbook for Small-Scale Organic FarmingAnd eventually I wrote a book called the market gardener, which described the strategies that we use to make the farm, you know, productive and also financially viable.
2m 48s
JM Fortier
And the market gardener is now translated in 10 languages and it's sold over 2000 and 200,000 copies. And a lot of people know me for this, you know, they've read the book and I think it has helped them just figure out proper ways to start a small farm or just like learn new gardening, gardening practices, or learn about tools, new tools that they perhaps didn't know existed and how to use them. And so that was, that was kind of when people started to know a little bit of who I am, because I was promoting the book and people are reading my work.
3m 26s
JackieMarie Beyer
And so many of my guests who are market gardeners are following your steps. Exactly. And they're talking about their success. I mean, I heard about you from Joyce Pinson back, I think in episode 45. And she was just raving about you back then. And I immediately bought the bucket. My husband has poured through it and just we've put some of the things like he's desperately trying to build a pond and just, we just have a little mini farm. But 200,000 copies! I went to ghostwriter school this summer to learn how to write. I'm trying to write this book called Rockstar Millennial. And he said that like a self-published book usually sells 300 and a traditionally published book sells 2000. You are 100 times at 200,000 and that's because you are changing the world and teaching people, how small farmers should he want to touch on that? How are small farmers changing the world? Small scale farmers.
4m 20s
JM Fortier
Yeah. Well, you know, that's wow. I've met, you know, I've been very fortunate because, because of the book, you know, I didn't, first of all, at first I was kind of touring. I was invited to talk about my work and talk about the books. So every time that happens, I go and visit farms and visit farmers. And that was in Canada. Then it was in the US, then it was in Europe. Then it was in Australia and New Zealand and then, you know, Central America. And it's just like all over the place. And then every time I would see farms and farmers, you know, the local food system, it's happening, people in that community are getting together at the farmer's market. They're talking about the local foods.
4m 60s
JM Fortier
It's bringing people together.And the people that are on these farms, they work super hard. It's never easy. Some of them get this discouraged, but they keep that it. And it's just, it's so full of hope. And it's so full of it's. So counter-culture with regards to, you know, you know, big ag and big super stores and Amazon and everything is disconnected from everything.
But then when you go back to a local food farm, you're like, okay, I'm buying salad from you and you're growing them and we meet each other and it's all positive.It's all ecological. And the money's kept inside the community so positive. And so, you know, I knew that, but everywhere I go, it's the same.5m 44s
JM Fortier
It's so positive. And then the more of these small farms are out there. The better the community is connecting with these farms. And then it just creates a strong local food scene. And everywhere I've been that I've seen a strong local food scene, it's a happening place on many levels!
And so for me, when I look at environmental disasters and climate change and, and, and corporations, and just the takeover of so many of our common goods for me, the bright hope, you know, the Jedis of this struggle are the farmers that are doing the work!
6m 28s
JackieMarie Beyer
And, and absolutely, I mean, I, I think I sent you an email about this article I read in Rodale's, we're getting gardening magazine back in 2000 where they talks about the problem is not that we don't have enough food today. It's distributing that food. And that's how small scales farmers can really, I think, make that change because it's the distribution. And with small scale farmers, we don't have to have this giant distribution. We don't have to ship our tomatoes 20,000 miles and pick them before they're ripe and before they have the proper nutritional value, we can, you know, get them from our local farmer.
7m 8s
JackieMarie Beyer
And it's building that community and talking about hope like Mandy Gerth talked about hope, you know, she was like, it's us crazy farmers, but it's also the crazy customers who come and support us and building those communities. And she follows your practices. You know, she has the BCS tractor and they have the same bros and the same length. And like, those are some of the, you are talking about that, like some of the cause that's one of the things that I think I've heard a lot of the people talk about. Like, you have like a, a standard link row, right. And like a size of a bed and specific walking polices, you walk in places you, you plant and don't plant, am I right?
7m 50s
JM Fortier
Yeah. So when, when we, when we started our farm, we didn't want to use a tractor. Not because we didn't like tractors, although we don't really, we're not tractor people, but because we had, you know, under two acres to farm. And so what we tried to do was maximize, you know, square footage so that everything would be planted. And when you're a mechanized farmer, a lot of the space is for, you know, turning at the end of the row and just attractors. They, they end up eating a lot of space in this spacings between each row is really wide because you're cultivating tools are, you know, adapted for larger scale production.
8m 33s
JM Fortier
And when I started farming, a lot of the small-scale farmers were kind of using tractor scale techniques on small acreage. And it just, it wasn't a good fit.
So what we did was maximize we started to, first of all, we adopted a permanent bed strategy. So like most home gardeners, you know, we have permanent beds and then we don't plow chisel and remake them every year. We just we've made them once we've hilled them. And then we're just cultivating on those beds, but the beds are 30 inch wide. And the pathways where we walk. So we don't trample the beds. They're 18 inch wide, which is a 48 inch center to center bed, four feet center to center bed.
9m 19s
JM Fortier
And that has become a standard that we use and a standard that all thousands of market gardeners are using now. And within the 30 inches, which is really the bed where we plant, we really use close spacings. So we'll, we'll go from 12 two to one 12 to down to one row for the different crops. You know, radishes is going to be 12 rows on 30 inch. Beans is going to be one row, but, and then you have cauliflowers, all the different crops have a different grid pattern, but it's all on 30 inches. So that creates somewhat of a, how can I say, like a parameter to, from which to work with.
10m 4s
JM Fortier
And that's really the difference.We've created like a constraint, which is the bed with, and then we've worked inside that constraint. And we quickly figured out how to optimize production in that 30 inch bed.
the proper toolsAnd, and then the tools, the proper tools, the broad fork, the wheel hose, the cultivated POWs, the wire weeders, the seeders... All, all tools that are really, you know, hand push or handmade or made for humans. And in that bed that has become kind of our whole ecosystem to operate from which, and then listening to me talking like this, it sounds very esoteric, but it's not. It's just like, instead of doing whatever we have, you know, we have guidelines of, okay, so this is the bandwidth, this is the spacing for this crop.
This is the seeder for exactly the perfect density for that. This is the, we used to cultivate this crop and we've standardized a lot of things.
And, and when I published my book, you know, a lot of people adopted these standards. So now most, most market gardeners are working in:
- four feet center to center bed
- they have black tarps,
- they use BCS walk behind tractors,
- they use wheel hoes,
- they use push seeders
You know, we haven't invented anything. And there were people doing the same thing before us, for sure. But I think my, my book and my work has popularized it, if I can say that.
11m 36s
JackieMarie Beyer
But did you invent the wire weeder thing or like, didn't you say there were two new tools that you designed that were coming out?
11m 46s
JM Fortier
Yeah. Like when you talked, when we started the podcast together, you talked aboutGrowers & Co. andGrowers & Co. is where now I, you know, we do, you know, I am the editor of a bi-yearly magazine where we talk about small-scale farming change in world, people that are doing it, why it's important and just like gardeners and chefs, and just so many people involved. And we tell their stories, and it's such a beautiful work! I'm inviting all your listeners to, to check it out. It's, you know, the Growers Magazine, it's at Growers & Co.and it's, it's amazing. It's amazing. It's amazing. But it's also a farm where, and tool company, where all the designs that I wanted to do are now available, because you were talking about the wire weeders, we're talking about other tools.
12m 34s
JM Fortier
These are all tools that have been around. I've seen them in Europe, Eliot Coleman, who was really my mentor and somebody that I really like, you know, he gave me prototypes for those wire weeders that he messed with and that he found in Switzerland, like 30 years ago. And, and so I, I just, at one point with Growers, I now have a business that can, you know, make the tools and, and, you know, ideally make it profitable enough so that we can make more tools and just make new designs and better serve mostly home gardeners. Also with these tools that are professionally made, but that are, you know, you can't find in hardware stores or they're not available.
13m 15s
JM Fortier
These are, you know, these are specifically tailored to our needs as market gardeners. And, and, you know, the broad fork is probably the most popular one that people know home gardeners know about the broadfork, but, you know, the one that we make is the one, and I've been using the brought forks for 20 years. And for me, there's a difference between one and the other. They're not all the same. They're not all created equal. And so I'm kind of a geek that way. And so all the tools with Growers now are really the tools that, that I've designed and that I love.
13m 50s
JackieMarie Beyer
And it's so true. Like I just happened to stumble upon a broad fork on Amazon once for $99. And I can't even believe I hesitated and I have not, and I love our broad form, but it has fallen apart twice. We've had to like put it back together. And then I love that yours has wooden handles. And you were saying that makes it light. It makes a beautiful construct. Like, there's definitely, I can't wait til we get one because I want one down in our mini farm. And then I want one close to the house in our home gardens. Like we can definitely use too. And my husband turned she's entire, the last two years in a row. He has turned the entire mini farm, which is like, I don't know, a 10th of an acre and not quite equipped with the broad fork.
14m 33s
JackieMarie Beyer
Like we bought a rototiller and a tractor and he hasn't used either one of them. He just uses that broad fork. And I just, I just think it's invaluable. And I think the one you have built is, again, like you said, I love that as wouldn't handles, it's beautiful. And, but also like the space between the, the metal and everything about it. It's hard to imagine someone can be so passionate about a broadfork, but it's so true. Like it's so handy. It does such a great job.
15m 2s
JM Fortier
Well, you know what, it's the name of my farm is broad fork farm. It's in French, Les Grelinette, which is the original inventor of the broad fork in France. But, you know, it's the broad fork for me symbolizes a lot of things. You know, it, it, it's definitely about taking care of the soil because unlike a rotor tiller, which you'd be kind of, you know, plowing and kind of like messing all the, you know, all, all the ecosystem that's in the soil and it's all layered and there's there fun guy, and there's all these different microbiome that we don't know about. We can't see, but they're there, it's an ecosystem. And then when you, when you go with a rotor tiller, you, you're kind of just like destroying the whole soil structure.
15m 43s
JM Fortier
You're just kind of messing it up all the, all the life that's in the soil, it gets kind of like, it's like an earthquake. It's like an earthquake, a tornado and a fire at the same time. It's like complete destruction of the universe. And so that's what, that's what, you know, really that's what a rotor tiller does. It looks great. You know, you have the soil that's really nice and really brown, and we're accustomed to kind of feeling that that's the soil that we want, but it's, it's really when you, when you look at it and when you study soil systems and, and you study the effect of, of different tools on soils, we know it's, it's, it's, it's confirmed a hundred percent that no till systems are, are better for the soil and in the long-term more productive because it goes, when you wrote her till it's like, it's like blowing on a fire, you get a hard flame.
16m 33s
JM Fortier
You know, a lot of, a lot of the mineralization happens. It's the soil becomes active, but you're depleting the, the humans that's in the soil, you're kind of depleting the organic matter, slow. You're kind of burning it up. So all of this, to say that the broad fork, it allows you to make sure that your soil is loose and deep without destroying it without inverting the layers. And so that's why this tool for me, it's not just any other tool. It's a very, it's very symbolic of how we want to be cultivating the soils and how we want to be producing food and, you know, grown with care and by people who care doing the extra effort to make it really, you know, really profound.
17m 18s
JM Fortier
And so the broad fork for me is that, and so to have, but then, you know, we're also commercial, you know, we need to get things done on the farm. We have an eight to five and we have, you know, 300 people that we're feeding and we have kids and it's just like, you know, we want things to, to happen. So a broad fork for me, needs to be, you know, the right way, not too heavy, not too light. It needs to be, it needs to not break. So I can use it for many, many years and this kind of same ethos that I have for the fork I have for, you know, the oscillating hose, that way I use the cultivating, the wiggle wire hose I have for the wire weeder I have for all the hose that...
So I frequently refer to myself as the Organic Eater, but I don't often talk about the cooking I do. This fall I made plum salsa, tomato salsa, tomato sauce, a delicious squash soup and a fantastic apple pie filling.
Plum SalsaI can't believe I don't have a picture of the plum salsa, but I do have a picture of the tree from July 21, 2020. I got the recipe from the Delish site from a post of 12 best plum recipes.
Soy Ginger Plum Salsa Yum!I didn't have any fresh ginger, but I did have a container of crystalized ginger I had been adding bits of to my granola. And when it marinated in the salsa, it became all soft and added the perfect sweetness to the salsa.
The fun part was I actually had jalapeno peppers which I usually don't have but they were leftover from the tomato salsa I made in September. I had one lime, and the first batch I made I didn't have cilantro but I got some the next day because that is key.
I also used Bragg's aminos for soy sauce in the first batch I made and that was a big mistake. I don't have soy sauce in the house so the second batch I just left it out. I also didn't have sesame oil, but I think that would make it much more yummy.
My plums were tiny so I used about 20 in each batch at least. But Let me tell you the longer it sat in the fridge the better it got, that being said it was so yummy it was hard to not eat right away!
I baked the squash in a roasting pan on my woodstove first. I love this type of squash and I saved the seeds for next year.
The squash soup I got from In Jennie's Kitchen, but of course I did a few things different.
Since I had already roasted my squash in a pan, I started by sautéing a clove of garlic a tiny bit before I added the rest of the ingredients, stirring the whole time.
I didn't have fresh ginger so I just used powdered ginger that I added along with the bay leaf, tumeric, and I used curry instead of coriander and cumin. I didn't have lime or red pepper flakes either.
I like to top it with a dollop of fresh yogurt. Vanilla gives it a kind of sweet creamy flavor. And if I have some fresh cilantro I like to put that on top too.
When I reheated the last batch I added some milk to make it creamer.
Delish! I have to confess I didn't grow these squash but they were given to me by a dear friend who did indeed grow them herself.
Homemade French/Steak FriesI usually love potato fans, but the other day, I tried making oven baked fries and they were so good!
Apple Pie + Filling/Crisp?!The other day I processed a 5 gallon bucket of apples from our orchard and made 2 pies, a batch of filling and an apple crisp all from the same recipe I got from the Chunky Chef.
I usually make my own crusts, especially for pumpkin pie, using my favorite quiche crust recipe from the Moosewood Restaurant.
But I tried using two frozen pie crusts as a top and bottom for apple and for me, it worked fantastic. Best of all it was so much easier, I made more pies and used up more of the apples, which is important to me!
At the end of baking the pies, I take a 1/4 cup of milk and just drip it over the crust and sprinkle with turbinado sugar. I put it back in for the last 5 minutes.
Some tricks I liked that I just made up on my own:
Squeeze the lemon juice in the bowl before you start to peel the apples.Grate the butter.It has to be cold, and it can be difficult to mix in so it's like grate, mix in, grate some more, mix in, and do it as fast as you can before it melts, which it does surprisingly fast. (And right after I came up with this ingenious idea one day just in a problem solving fix because I was supposed to soften butter and I hadn't for a completely different recipe and I was like I'm just gonna grate it and it worked great, but sure enough I saw it on the web right after that. So IDK where that idea really came from.)
So I baked the crisp in a cast iron pan in the oven with the two pies. It makes such a great topping for ice cream!
And then I also made a pan of filling in a cast iron pan on the wood stove which I did add about 2 cups of water to that I froze for a future date. So I can thaw it this winter maybe at Christmas and throw a pie in the oven without the mess!
My mom and I argue all the time, why don't people cook anymore because I say it's they just don't want to clean up after. I enjoy cooking, it's the mess at the end I don't always appreciate and during the regular school year, I often am only interested in cooking on the weekends if then. My mom made teaching and cooking a lot easier when I was a kid. But we did always call her the Energizer Bunny for a reason I suppose.
And that's a wrap! Many of you are probably wondering why I gave Aileen the award so early in the year, but it's because I am taking a break from the Podcast hamster wheel. I feel I will be able to better serve you if I take some time to focus on parts of the show separately.
So November and December I am going to be recording a lot of interviews (speaking of which I am always looking for guests if any of you amazing future growers out there wants to share your story.) I always say new gardeners have great lessons to share because the mistakes are so fresh.
I myself have learned so much this summer - most of all I'm hooked on tomatoes and I'm gonna make sure I baby at least 4 tomato plants next year, PLUS a cherry!
I have been working on a separate post about all the things I plan to do differently next year that will be there for the start of Season III coming out January 2021.
So, unless some special surprises come up between now and January 2021 there are over 350 episodes to binge back on. Thank you SOOOOOO much for listening!
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Read the computer generated UNEDITED transcript here.
Jon Moore returns to update us on all his new adventures. He kindly sent the links here to his academy, website and more!
The ChangeUnderground Academy: https://worldorganicnews.com/changeunderground/
Website: https://worldorganicnews.com
Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/changeunderground/id1112838129
One Straw Revolution: http://library.uniteddiversity.coop/Food/The-One-Straw-Revolution.pdf
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Aileen Catrone gets the listener of the year award for putting so much of what she has learned into place. I know you are going to love all the golden seeds she drops in the interview.
You can read the unedited computer generated transcript here: https://app.podscribe.ai/episode/54552766
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Inspired by the Forager Project to Cultivate Democracy and Get out the VOTE I thought I would replay last years awesome interview with Jeff Lowenfels for Election day.
Remember Forager Project produces delicious organic cashew based foods in sunny California.
https://organicgardenerpodcast.com/podcast-2/168-judy-frankel-search-next-p-o-t-u-s/
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Pascale Deffieux Pearce from Brinsea Products shares her knowledge of raising chickens.Get 10% off using coupon code GREEN
https://www.brinsea.com/read the unedited computer generated transcript here.
This episode is sponsored by the Forager Projectreminding you to Cultivate Democracy and VOTE!
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Changing the world one laugh at a time!
Cathy's laugh is contagious and she's an actual Laughter Yoga Ambassador. Join us on Tuesday mornings live from Toronto!
https://www.cathyscomposters.com/
today's episode is brought to you by the Forager Project
Cultivate Democracy! VOTE!
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In honor of my homemade salsa success I thought I should replay my interview #300 with Melissa K. Norris brought to you by the Forager Project!
We also got some tomatoes from Baker Creek Heirlooms we really liked a lot.
Here's the salsa recipe I used:
https://southerndiscourse.com/fresh-salsa-with-cilantro-lime/
and then here's where I found the canning instructions about peeling tomatoes etc.
https://www.melskitchencafe.com/best-homemade-salsa/
You can read the unedited computer generated transcript here.Forager Project asks you to Cultivate Democracy and vote Nov 3rd (or sooner) !
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to read the unedited computer generated transcript click here
Before she became a teacher, she was a Forester and worked for many national forests and wildlife refugees, refugees, refugees, wildlife refuges, and she lives in Shreveport with her husband and two daughters and loves all things gardening.
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As part of our focus on food justice and the #blacklivesmatter movement I am replaying this interview with Leah Penniman from Soul Fire Farm in Upstate NY.
https://organicgardenerpodcast.com/podcast-2/soul-fire-farm/
you can read the unedited computer generated transcript here: https://app.podscribe.ai/episode/54551679
Cultivate Democrcay! VOTE!
this episode sponsored by the Forager Project
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Originally published in June of 2019 this is a good episode about food justice https://organicgardenerpodcast.com/podcast-2/271-farm-school-nyc/
you can read the unedited computer generated transcript here.
https://app.podscribe.ai/episode/54551597
sponsored by Forager Project
Cultivate Democracy! VOTE!
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replay of my interview with Tori Williams Douglas from the White Homework Podcast as part of our Cultivating Democracy get out the vote promo from Forager Project.
Remember the World Food Program won the Nobel Peace Prize this year for their work feeding the world. Every American Vote counts when it comes to placing sanctions against other countries so their children can't eat. Even in the United States children are hungry and your vote can change that.
Forager Project delicious food from organic cashews
VOTE Nov 3rd!
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Run for Ruth I dissent Virtual Runhttps://www.democracynow.org/2020/10/9/nobel_peace_prize_world_food_programme
Black Lives Matter books:
When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir I'm Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for WhitenessWhen Affirmative Action Was White: An Untold History of Racial Inequality in Twentieth-Century AmericaDying of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment Is Killing America's HeartlandWinner of the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize the World Food Program
https://www.democracynow.org/2020/10/9/nobel_peace_prize_world_food_programme
Bear who keep knocking down our fence and getting into our orchard and chicken house. Birds are safe.
Homemade Salsa
Love EARLY Voting!Easy peasy Vote by mail!
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Wisconsin Vegetable Gardener Podcast with Joey and Holly BairdThey were my guests back in interview #16 March 1, 2015!They're back to drop golden seeds in both gardening and business!
Read the unedited computer generated transcript here.
My Garden Journal
Get your copy of the Organic Oasis Guidebook and get started building your own earth friendly garden today!
Let’s take a minute to thank our sponsors and affiliate linksPlease support us on Patreon so we can keep the show up on the internet. It cost close to $100 a month just to keep it up on the internet for the website etc so if you could help by supporting it with an $8/month contribution or $10/month to join the Green Future Growers Book Club where we can delve deep into some of the best gardening books that have been recommended on the show! GoDaddy even is bugging me for dollars just to have the domain name…
https://www.patreon.com/OrganicGardenerPodcast
The Good Seed Company
Now Let’s Get to the Root of Things!We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!The Organic Gardener Podcast is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com
If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
and don’t forget if you need help getting started check out our new
Free Garden Course.com Free Organic Garden Course Remember you can get the 2018 Garden Journal and Data Keeper to record your garden goals in our
You can download the first 30 days here while you’re waiting for it to come in the mail.
We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
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Cultivate Democracy! Vote! Support Forager yummy cashew yogurt, cream cheese and more!
https://www.instagram.com/p/CFNjN1jDvHr/
Tomato Update blossom end rot!
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Cultivate Democracy! Vote! Support Forager yummy cashew yogurt, cream cheese and more!
https://www.instagram.com/foragerproject/
Tomato Update.
Follow Erika on Instagram at @Instar.gardens
https://www.instagram.com/p/BZlsGK7lVNB/
check out her favorite products here.
https://www.instagram.com/p/B9-eDdig_uf/
Read the unedited computer generated transcript to my interview with Erika here: https://app.podscribe.ai/episode/52551291
And make sure you check out ForagerProject and don't forget to Cultivate Democracy and Vote!
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Just a little update for PRN but I thought I should share it here too! I made calls this weekend I hope you will too!
Grow Your Self with Nicole Burke from Gardenary.com who teaches people how to grow a garden business and
Jesse Frost’s
No Till Market Gardener Podcast
Want to make phone calls with me? Join the Whitefish Phone bank! It's easy, fun and makes the most impact!
https://www.mobilize.us/mtdems/
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Alexa Schirm from Simple Roots Wellness is here to share her amazing knowledge! With over 240 episodes out Simple Roots Radio is hosted by Alexa Schirm. A nutritionist by trade, Alexa has rebelled against common misconceptions about nutrition, and has, instead, created a realistic health-style that will allow you to live a healthy, satisfied and more simplistic life.
Forget dieting for good as Alexa interviews health experts, lifestyle influencers and every day people on what strategies have worked for them and help you implement a plan that can be achieved for life. It’s raw, its funny, its real and unfiltered. It is Simple Roots Radio.
To read the unedited AI (computer generated) transcript just click here.
My Garden Journal
Get your copy of the Organic Oasis Guidebook and get started building your own earth friendly garden today!
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Plant Trainers Podcast with Adam and Shoshana Chaim
To read the unedited AI transcript click here.
My Garden Journal
Get your copy of the Organic Oasis Guidebook and get started building your own earth friendly garden today!
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I hope you are going to love Jenn's podcast Salad with a Side of Fries as much as I do. I learn so much every time I listen.
To read the unedited AI transcript (aka computer generated) click here
My Garden Journal
Get your copy of the Organic Oasis Guidebook and get started building your own earth friendly garden today!
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https://youtu.be/t-4pI7KAp_0
My Garden Journal
Welcome to the Green Organic Garden Podcast.
Today. It is Friday, July 24th, 2020.
And I have a guest, I know you are going to love her. You are going to learn things that I have never had any idea. She's written the most beautiful books. If you get it, make sure you go to Amazon and leave it a five star review or a review, you know, anyway, because it is just, it is show informative and it's so powerful and it's about flowers and I love it.
Katie Hess
- Follow
The FlowerLounge Podcast
Flowerevolution: Blooming into Your Full Potential with the Magic of FlowersAnd she has a podcast. You're gonna love that. So from the flower lounge podcast and author of flower revolution here today is Katie has to dazzle us and just share. She's gonna drop tons of golden seeds. So welcome to the show, Katie, thank you so much. It's such a joy to be here, Jackie. Oh, well, I am just, I'm just touch. I could not believe it. When I opened the package that you sent me in this amazing full color hardcover book, all about flowers and all sorts of things.
I had no idea about flowers and just like listening to your podcast and learning about all the places you've studied and all the things that you've done. It's just amazing. So go ahead and tell us a little bit about yourself.
In love with peopleYeah, so I it's funny. It was when I was a kid, I, you know, enjoy nature and played in my mom's gardens, but I had never thought that I would actually work later in life in some sort of profession, some capacity around flowers. So I feel really lucky. I started out, let's see, I studied sociology. So I was just like in love with people.
And when I graduated college, I was searching for how would I help people reach their full potential? And I started studying natural remedies and I learned that while I ran into a teacher or an expert in flower essences from Madrid, Spain, and I just sort of fell in love because I mean, I love all things, plant medicine, like herbs and tinctures and teas and essential oils, but this was like a whole new concept for me.
Flower Essences Expert TeacherAnd he was teaching about how every flower on the planet has a really specific, you know, thing that it does like action that it does for our emotional mental States. And that, you know, the thing Jackie, that he said that really got me was he said, if, if 3% of the world's population were actively taking these flower essences, it would create so much positivity through the ripple effect that it would change the outcome of the future.
And you could, you could probably argue the same with gardening.
If we had a higher percentage of people in the world doing gardening, that we would have a happier planet and the same is true with flower remedies. So I just, I got super intrigued.
And then when I came back to the U.S. I realized that nobody really knew what they were, this is 20 years ago. So meditation wasn't cool yet. And, and so, you know, it's been a long road. I've been in business for 20 years, working with flowers.
The first decade I spent working with people one on one, and we'd look at like what was happening in their life, where they wanted to be, what wasn't working. And then I would work with them, you know, give them customized flower remedies.
The second 10 years, I taught myself how to be an entrepreneur and how to take this sort of wild and weird concept of the life force of flowers and how they make you feel, how to bottle it, market it, you know, be able to tell the story and connect the dots for people. So that's been the last 10 years building a team expanding around the world.
Well, I know we are going to learn a ton today. So I always kind of start my show asking about people's first, like, experience in the garden, but do you want to talk to us about like your first experience with nature and forging and collecting flowers? Like, were you a kid, were you an adult? Like where did that come from?
Thankful for people gardening with kidsSo, yeah, I mean, when I was, I actually, I owe it all to my mom. If, if any of your listeners have kids and you're gardening or kids or grandkids, I would commend you. You're doing a tremendous service to the world because that's really where I learned to really appreciate nature was in my mom's garden.
So when I was really little, we lived in Minneapolis and she had just like, Oh my God, you know, fuchsia and water hyacinths and water gardens and peonies and Lily of the Valley.
And we had a big pine tree and I'd climb up the pine tree and get all sticky and sappy. And she had gardens all throughout, you know, me growing up. And that really taught me to appreciate growing things and the beauty of flowers.
And she was also a Forester.So she would take me on walks and she would start, you know, at a very young age showing me how to identify things. Like I remember her showing me a winter green leaf and we break one off and open it up and you'd be like, Oh, it's just like in this cloud of wintergreen smell, you know, as a kid, it's just like, wow, this leaf looks like a little, nothing, and then it's so amazing.
So she really also taught me the beauty of, you know, being in the wild and looking at lady slippers and collecting Morel mushrooms and wild blueberries. And I think it, it, you know, as an only child, the trees and the flowers and the forest were really like my best friends and that's really where it all started.
I love all of that. And just like, I know the memories of being with your parents and going on those nature walks and going with your family and being, seeing all those flowers, like I still remember climbing my favorite shoe.
I was even looking at our AppleTree yesterday and thinking about claiming we had a Dogwood tree that I would just do flip after flip, after flip between these two branches of, and the only thing I was going to say that, like what you were saying about gardeners, what you're doing is, you know, a really honorable thing with your kids and grandkids is that I haven't said this in a while, but I used to say it a lot at the beginning of the show.
Embrace the ResistanceLike if your kids, for sure, they're teenagers are showing some kind of like resistance, just like the best thing you can do is just keep sharing your passion. Don't push anything on them. And you will be surprised at how much time they end up spending in the garden as an adult, because of that, like, I've talked to so many people that are like, I hate a garden when I was a kid.
I'm totally like my mom's like, how do you have a gardening show? And in the meantime, this summer, I planted my very first broccoli seedlings and they're growing. They're like popping out of the dirt.
And one of them's like almost a half inch tall. Cause I just planted them on like, I think the 17th and just, it's just so cool. Like I never thought I would ever plant a broccoli now, we'll see. Do I really get broccoli out of them? Come, you know, they'll probably be ready October.
My husband's like, I don't understand why you're planting broccoli seeds. Now. He's like, you should have done that two months ago, but we're harvesting all the broccoli that we planted. Like it's, it's pretty much done. There's no broccoli growing after, like I need to get down there. And Mike's like, you got to pick that broccoli and get it in the freezer. Anyway,
A good point, Jackie, that, that a lot of it comes through food because I remember, you know, picking fresh beans off of mines and picking fresh raspberries out of my mom's garden. And there's something about, there's like a real connect, I think for kids around food, you know, there's the, of course there's the beauty of flowers, but like how cool is that, that you can go out there, pick your broccoli, saute it at night, eat it. And you didn't have to go to the store.
Like there's a real sense of empowerment around.Wow. Like you grew that you cook that, you know, I think that, that that's a real connect for kids on a level that they might not be able to understand when they're younger, but they know where food comes from. Right. You know, like you heard about kids in the inner city who just like, see the fruits and stuff on the shelf and don't really know where it came from.
So yeah, gardening is, is a really powerful teaching tool just by showing by example.And two quick things I'm want to say about that. One of the amazing things is how much the bees are loving the flowers on the couple of broccoli's that have gone to flower. Like they are just totally out there. And then the other thing I was going to say is we're going to learn a ton about flowers.
So if you don't want to grow vegetables, because that is a whole other learning curve, I bet by the end of the show, you are going to be inspired to have some beautiful flowers growing in your garden or your oasis or your landscape.
FBI Agent StoryBecause I had no idea. Like one of the stories I love is the one about the FBI agent who studied polygraphs. And then he goes in and then what he like attaches the plant. So the polygraph and like the plant shows, like even when somebody goes on vacation, like they can tell what's going on. Like they're showing them this polygraph thing. Like that was just amazing to me.
Isn't that wild. Yeah. It's a study that showed, I mean, through his work that he's a CIA agent, he was like, so good at polygraph that he was teaching people how to use. And you just got curious one night, you know, I could just imagine the guy sitting in his office looking at his philodendron plants, like, Hmm, what's going to happen if I connect this to the plant?
Symbiotic relationshipAnd then like you said, yeah, he found that we're so in tune or rather the plants are so in tune with us, their caretakers. And I don't know who takes care of who better. It's a symbiotic relationship, but they're aware of our stress levels.
So, you know, people go on vacation and the polygraph would register when that human being had stress, even though there were hundreds of miles apart, they also showed that plants could identify essentially the murder in the room, you know, that they had this experiment where someone came through and harmed a plant.
And then, you know, they had several people walk through the room and all the plants were able to register on the machine when the, you know, the perpetrator came through the room.
So I think there's, you know, studies like that are fun and funny and show us that there's a whole level of intelligence that we can tap into that might not be apparent, you know, because they're just operating at a different pace than we are.
You know, when you mentioned bees, one thing that came to mind with bees is that of the latest research coming out of the UK, there's a study, particularly coming out of the University of Bristol, where they show that these actually aren't attracted to flowers based on color or scent, like we had thought. And that there actually is this very subtle electrical vibration that's being emitted from the flowers.
And so the bees and the flowers are so communicating, the little hairs on the bees legs are picking up these electrical impulses and actually having this dynamic communication together about pollination, you know, I've been pollinated or I'm ready or whatever other things they communicate about.
And just because we don't feel those electrical impulses on the hairs, on our legs, you know, it doesn't mean that they're, they're not happening.
And so, how crazy is it to think when you look at your garden, if you could see what the bees or feel what the bees feel, it's almost like the movie avatar, you know, it's like, I call it floral life
That's what I was thinking about when you were saying that?
like every flower is admitting this really gentle, soft essentially song, right? Every flower has got a different song. And so when you're, when you're gardening, you're spending time in nature, you're essentially bathing yourself in the music of nature, even though we can't hear it.
Forest BathingAnd they've done those studies in medical schools in Tokyo showing tremendous benefits of forest bathing, which you can apply to gardening. So if anybody ever gives you trouble for spending too much time gardening, you just think back to the studies in Japan, they show that a forest bathing.
So essentially, you know, you could translate that to being in your garden, reduces cortisol levels, adrenaline, you know, so your stress is dramatically reduced and increases white blood cells, meaning that it boosts your immune system.
But the coolest thing is that there's an exponential power to it.So they found that if you spend one day in the forest AK one day in your garden, those elevated wellness effects lasts in your body for a week. And if you do it for a weekend, it lasts in your body for a month. So we're talking about, you know, real health benefits, your garden is your insurance policy, essentially.
And I think also we're going to talk a little bit about forging today too, but that's so true. My friend Dacia has this blog called Simply Josephine. And she does a lot of, you know, she makes like natural medicines and selves and tinctures and different things and she's always collecting and she's like the healthiest person. I know. I mean, she's just like the epitome of the organic life just.
But anyway, well, do you want to tell us about your spirit with gardening?
Yeah. I mean, gardening, let's see. I, I usually tell people that I, didn't not somehow didn't inherit my mom's green thumbs and fingers, and that might be true, or it may be that I just haven't had enough practice, but I have a much more fiery personality.
She is much more earthy and I watch her with plants and she can, you know, pinch them and prod them and pluck and, and they just like go crazy in her presence. You know, they just bloom and expand and grow. And she has that thing.
My quality is more fiery.I had a teacher tell me once that, you know, don't touch my plants, you're burning them. So typically fiery people are better at making medicines. And so that's more sort of my realm of expertise. I have grown some flowers that we made essences out of really cool stuff like running Iris. I grew an avocado tree once.
My gardening is kind of like by mistake, but you know, right now I live in Phoenix, Arizona and the ground is like concrete.It's so hard. So I spend more time going out into the wild to look for unique and different flowers and make remedies from them so that people can bring nature into their daily lives. And maybe later in my life, when I'm in a more lush place, I'll actually develop some gardening skills.
Well, I'll tell you, since I started my podcast, I've gone from brown thumb to green thumb. So, but there's no hurry. And you're, I love hearing your like little adventures of going into the woods and doing this and doing that and picking that on your podcast.
So why don't you share some of that with listeners? Like where do you collect your flowers? Like how do know where to go, and especially, you know, living in a place like that, where the soil is really hard to grow growing, maybe listeners will be interested to know that they can go collect flowers or things like that.
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. It started, you know, I started first collecting with whatever flowers I saw around here in this region and then California, and then it expanded to the rest of the United States. And then I started traveling around the world, because I thought, you know, every environment has something unique to teach and the more I travel and the more I experienced different environments and sort of like floral or botanical landscapes, every place has something different to teach.
And this isn't to say that you have to travel. I don't believe that. I believe that some of the most powerful and needed remedies are just right there in your backyard. And oftentimes you'll even see, you know, by the power of miracle, you know, seeds, just landing in your yard, a wild flowers, just pop up in your backyard. And I always see that as a gift. And typically whatever pops up that you didn't expect is exactly what you need. And it's like mother nature put it there for a purpose to support you.
Traveling Southeast AsiaBut in traveling, I've seen that, you know, for example, places like Southeast Asia, the, the botanical landscape really lends itself to remedies that support us in abundance mentality. I mean, you know, you plants, there will just like, if left on tame, they just like swallow buildings, right? And so it's, it's this sort of making things happen and action and abundance.
Traveling in IcelandWhereas places like Iceland where, you know, they say, if you get lost in Iceland, just stand up. Cause there aren't any trees, but there are,I didn't know that. That's like a, one of the places I want to go in my lifetime. I want to go cross country skiing, Iceland.
Oh, that'd be amazing. Yeah. It's, it's an exquisite place and the flowers and the orchids there seem to all be about curiosity and wonder and waking up this kind of childlike perspective of the world. So, you know, different regions can teach you different things about yourself or reflect different aspects of you back to yourself.
In ArizonaLately, you know, I've been kind of stuck. I was supposed to go to Asia this summer, but because of everything going on, I've been staying in Arizona and that's actually given me an opportunity to take a look around Arizona and see some of the interesting things growing here.
About a month ago, we went up to outside of Flagstaff and drove way up into the aspens and the Pines above about...
My broccoli about 6 inches tall. We'll see if get a head?
Hey here's a little update on our garden Sept 12, 2020 after our first frost! 28º yes it was!
And a shout out to two awesome podcasts I think you will enjoy!
Grow Your Self with Nicole Burke from Gardenary.com who teaches people how to grow a garden business and
Jesse Frost's
No Till Market Gardener Podcast
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Everything Elderberry: How to Forage, Cultivate, and Cook with this Amazing Natural Remedy by Susannah Shmurak
Listeners I have not had time to go through these shownotes and attach links that Susannah shared I will try to get it done ASAP, this is just the transcript direct from the computer:
Hey Green future growers. Thanks for joining us today. If you're new to the show, I hope you'll subscribe on iTunes or your favorite Android app and let's get growing. Hey, green future growers. Join me on the listen app. Invite code green, G R E E N. I would love if you left me a message, you can reach out to other green future growers and other green, organic gardener podcast listeners. There, we can have a conversation about what's growing in your garden. What are you eating?
Does it not feel good? Walk by the produce aisle? It does for me. And if you're not there yet, we'd be happy to help you get there over on the listen app, invite code green, G R E E N.
Hey everyone. So I just want to remind you, this is the most important time to be taking good notes on what's working well. What's not working well. What don't you want to forget? Come next, February and March, when it's time to order supplies or do your design, you know, what are your favorite seeds or what do you want to play more of?
Do you want more broccoli? Like you might think I'm never going to forget this, but you probably are going to forget it. And a great way to support the green organic gardener podcast would be to get our garden journal. That's got a beautiful butterfly that I took a picture of on our lilac. So it's like a little part of our home in your home has got blank pages and line pages, and it would really support us a lot. So, but most of all, we want you to have good records, just hold on. Okay.
1 (1m 45s):
Listeners, you know, this, that what I'm going to say. And see, I started to say this when I was on the free guy page is if you read Susannah's awesome book on, elderberries make sure that you go to Amazon and give her a five star review and a, and write the review night. Don't just leave the rating, but write their actual review because you know that she's out there trying to help shave your neighborhood. And that's what you want, not just for you learning, but show that your neighbors can learn this stuff.
And so we want to share her knowledge. So make sure you read the book and if you love it, I know you will give her a five star review.
Everything Elderberry: How to Forage, Cultivate, and Cook with this Amazing Natural Remedy Welcome to the Green Organic Garden.It is Saturday, August eight, 2020. And I have an awesome guest on the wine who has a blog called Healthy Green Savvy.She's passionate about helping people find practical shortcuts to healthier green living. So we know we're going to hear tons of golden seeds. She boils this all down from years of research on eco-friendly choices, growing food in small spaces, with as little effort as possible and easy ways to support health.
1 (4m 23s):
Naturally, she even has a book. Everything Elderberry that covers what the latest research tells us about elderberries effect, unhealthy growing advice from elderberry farmers across the country, plus 62 delicious recipes for using elderberries and elder flowers. So I know we're just going to learn lots. So I'm going to be quiet. And if you're today is Susanna Schmurak. Oh, I totally, you sent me the thing.
1 (4m 53s):
How do you say that? Mark?
2 (5m 12s):
Thank you so much for that. Terrific. In-product introduction. I'm delighted to be here.
1 (5m 16s):
Well, we're just tickled pink. So tell us a little bit about yourself. I'm so glad you reached out to me and are here to share this today. So go ahead and tell listeners about this.
2 (5m 26s):
Thanks. So I have a peculiar backstory. I was an academic for many years. I taught literature and writing at the college level. I spent lots and lots of years thinking about not too much besides the literature during the day, and thinking about gardening and eco-conscious living all the rest of the time and my classes tended to go that way as well. And in 2015, I just to switch gears completely and I left academe and decided to start writing and researching full time.
2 (6m 7s):
And I launched a blog and started writing for a bunch of websites and magazines and have made that kind of my full focus now. And it's been absolutely fantastic. I've volunteered locally at the city's environmental quality commission and spent a lot of time researching permaculture and home scale, renewable energy and all sorts of topics related to health and environment.
2 (6m 39s):
So the focus of my blog, as you said, is really to try to help people make that connection between the personal and the environmental, with a focus on really, really practical and doable things anyone can do so that they can shift their lives towards sustainability and better health. And it's been amazing. My day job is to research things like allergy remedies and how to get better sleep, to write about energy audits and experiment with nontoxic pest control and put new things in my dehydrator and write about it.
2 (7m 12s):
And it's been really, really enjoyable. So I get to just be a full time energy nerd, garden geek. And I just keep learning about fascinating plants that either appear in my yard, or I read about online that turns out we can eat them, or they have medicinal value. I'd never even realized. So that's kind of my backstory. I have a larger backstory about where I started to garden. I don't know if you want me to go into that.
2 (7m 44s):
It's kind of long and complex.
1 (7m 48s):
So I always start my show out asking about like your very first gardening experience. Like, were you a kid or an adult? Is that where you're headed? Or I just have to like back up just super quickly. Where, where are you located again?
2 (8m 2s):
I am in Minnesota and it's zone four.
1 (8m 7s):
Okay, cool. All right. Yeah. Well, you're doing a fantastic job and so I'm just keep going, but yeah, we kind of want to hear a little bit about like, were you a kid, were you an adult? Who were you with? What'd you?
2 (8m 19s):
Okay. Well, so my first gardening experience was just helping my mother in our backyard garden. And so I have memories of pulling weeds and kicking things off the vine. They're not too carefully formed, but they probably laid a groundwork as it were. But I would say my gardening story really starts with our move to Minnesota. In 2002, it was the height of the housing bubble and we were graduate students and my husband had just taken his first job at a college in our town.
2 (8m 52s):
And there was literally nothing we could to buy to live in, in town. And there's no rental market either. So after looking at the only thing in our price range, which our real estate agent said should be condemned and refuse to take us into. He just, I don't, I really said, you know, there's this old house out on the highway. They're about to knock down. Maybe we should look at that.
2 (9m 23s):
And we went out and there was this beautiful 1910 craftsman style house. And it turns out that, that if you're, if they're about to knock a house down, you can take it away for free if you're willing to pay to move it. So we acquired this free house and then had to find a place to move it to which turned out not to be terribly easy, but we found this half lot, just a block away from where he was going to start working a few months later and spend the rest of the summer setting up this house move then.
2 (9m 55s):
So we had a basement dug the whole lot had to be cleared. So all plant life got completely erased and they brought this house in which we then started renovating. And that was kind of, our focus was renovating this house and making it, it was actually in great condition and it was just in the wrong place, but I learned a ton.
1 (10m 17s):
That's what I was wondering, like how easy was it to move a house built in 1910? I mean, that's a hundred years old.
2 (10m 24s):
You'd be shocked. It's actually really, really easy for the people who do it for a living every day. They just pop it off its foundation, stick it off, stick it on a truck and away they go. It's kind of amazing. We had no idea you could move a house before our real estate agent just kind of said that as maybe a joke. I dunno. So we just suddenly got embroiled in what was involved in bringing a house up to code. And I started doing it. This is early days of the green remodeling products.
2 (10m 57s):
So trying to figure out what was safe to bring into our house became a sort of longterm project and the yard and was this bare dirt. So we got permission to move in as fall set in. You have to have a kitchen sink and a functioning toilet. So we had, we had a reuse sink on a two by fours and got permission to move into this house that had been to some degree, completely gutted and started remodeling it.
2 (11m 28s):
And then there's just dirt outside and nothing else. So we threw down some grass seed to just kind of try to stabilize everything. And then winter here, I don't know what it's like out in Montana, but it's at about six months along that you can have snow on the ground, which in that particular case was something of a relief.
1 (11m 46s):
Well, I have to tell you, I had a lot of friends in college that came to Minnesota because they thought Montana was milder winters. But yeah, I don't know. We had, we have a good amount of snow. I didn't drive here from November to may my first, like 10 years, but probably very similar.
2 (12m 5s):
Yeah. It's intense living in a climate like that. Anyhow. So then, you know, I was spending all this time, remodeling the house and the yard was just kind of sitting there and we started dealing with weeds in this grass and started rethinking how we could do things the way the house sits on the lot. It means my backyard is probably about 10 feet wide and totally in shade. The side yard is eight feet wide and totally in shade. So I have this corner lot with a 10th of an acre garden where I can grow a limited amount in sun.
2 (12m 42s):
So I, at that point started reading Fritz Hague's edible estates and the eat, the lawn movement had kind of launched. So I started trying to smother the grass with cardboard and attempted to grow one of these beautiful front yard, vegetable gardens. And it turns out Minnesota is not a great place to do that. The soil doesn't warm up enough to plant a lot of things.
2 (13m 12s):
You would stick in one of these gardens until, you know, early may. So it's just a lot of bare soil and it wasn't
working. I tried sweet potatoes, which should have made this lovely, you know, ground cover had to give that up. Cause our growing season just isn't long enough. So I learned a lot just experimenting and failing over and over and over again. As I read more about permaculture, I realized that fruit trees could really be an answer to this problem. And I got seven fruit trees or fruit trees squeezed into that little space and planted as many Berry bushes as I could possibly fit in and then kind of let nature take over.
2 (13m 51s):
So one of the, one of the biggest things that I've gotten to do as this yard's developed is kind of learn how changing patterns over time force you to adapt and how to eat the things that will grow there. So my whole front yard now is mostly violence, which we use quite a lot. We make salads in the early spring with the flowers and the leaves I use the leaves and T all season long. So learning how to work with what you get has been part of this process.
2 (14m 26s):
I still desperately would love a big backyard garden, but that's not what I've got. And so the yard is this sort of edible landscape that isn't entirely keeping with the aesthetics of the neighborhood, but people kind of like it in spring when everything's in flower. And they kind of think it's wild and Bailey interesting, but also pretty weird a lot of the rest of the year. Cause we're in a sort of traditional neighborhood with grass and foundation plantings, which is where we had started as well.
1 (14m 59s):
And the reason you can't have a big backyard garden is because there's too much shade. Is that right?
2 (15m 4s):
There's also no backyard. It's a, half-life it's 10 feet wide and it's full shade. There is no backyard.
1 (15m 13s):
Talk about this. I'm like, this is, I just love this whole story. And then the other question, like, I, I kinda like watch track or maybe a like show your grad student. This is before you got your job at the, like, how old are you when this is, this is in 2005,
2 (15m 30s):
Two. We moved here. Yeah. I was not quite 30. So it's been awhile. Yeah. So I was, I was a graduate student who was supposed to be finishing her dissertation at that point and kept doing things like fixing plaster and refinishing floors and reading about permaculture. So my dissertation eventually got done, but it took awhile. So I was, I was teaching full time for a couple of years, for a few years there, there were kids in there.
2 (16m 1s):
There's a lot of other things I've done besides this, but the, the writing and the blog has kind of become my
full focus in the last few years.
1 (16m 11s):
Okay. And tell us more about the healthy green savvy blog.
2 (16m 16s):
So it started in part because I, as long as I can remember, I've been absolutely fascinated by kind of nutritional hacks. I was reading health magazines when I was in my teen years. Just there's something about, I don't know, kind of tricking your body into doing things. I just found utterly fascinating, whether it was, you know, certain kinds of nutritional deficiencies, that if you fix them, you have more energy or you sleep better.
2 (16m 48s):
And I talked about these things a lot to other people, as I would read about them, and somebody said, you should really start a blog. And I said, what's a blog, kind of went from there. So healthy green savvy is it's kind of a dumping ground for all the cool stuff that I've been reading about and researching and the new cool stuff that I keep finding out. But it's focusing lately a lot on things like foraging.
2 (17m 20s):
I'm utterly mesmerized by all the edible weeds that people don't realize they can eat. So it seems like I find anyone in each season when something
1 (17m 30s):
Tell us about some of them, because Matthew Zoeller asked me to bring somebody on to talk about edible weeds and I've never really found anybody besides him. He ended up knowing more than most people. And just, can you,
2 (17m 43s):
Can you tell us a few edible weeds? Oh, of course. So they're huge websites devoted to this and wonderful books on foraging, but pretty much every yard has something you can eat. So most people know about dandelions, right? That's an easy one to identify and it's wonderfully prolific, and also incredibly nutritious. The I'm a big fan of a Regal. So I use the leaves of dandelions in a very similar way, but you can eat the flowers. The roots are medicinal.
2 (18m 13s):
They're just great plants. And since I smothered my grass, they're actually in short supplies. I'm really happy when I find some of them in my yard, wood sorrel, Rose abundantly here personally is one of my absolute favorites. It's available pretty much everywhere. It's incredibly tough. It's considered one of the best sources of Omega threes out there in the plant world anyway. And I use it in smoothies and salads, people around
the world use it as a vegetable.
2 (18m 48s):
It's, it's a S a standard in stir fries. Let's see, I've already mentioned Violet's we use those quite a lot. I'm really, really trying to make friends with creeping. Charlie. I don't know if you've ever tasted it. It really would take some getting used to, I haven't figured out something that would make it valuable, but it's
1 (19m 9s):
Oh, I don't know what that is.
2 (19m 11s):
You don't have creeping Charlie out there. That's fascinating.
1 (19m 14s):
I don't know. Maybe we do. And I just don't know what it is.
2 (19m 17s):
It's also called ground diabe and it goes by some other names as well. Anyway, it's apparently very good for you. If you can, if you can stomach the flavor, it's in a, it's in the mint family and people with lawns everywhere, pretty much universally despise it, but it's this fantastic ground cover. And I would love, I would love to try to find a way to use it besides, you know, begrudgingly adding a little bit to my tea. Sometimes this year I've got slammed with Virginia water leaf.
2 (19m 53s):
It just went crazy in my yard. And of course, I looked it up and discovered, lucky can eat that too. And again, I really tried. It's it's edible, but that's about the best you can say for it. It's not wonderfully tasty, but in small amounts, it worked in things like frittatas. If it's cooked and you can sort of get away with it as an early spinach. It's nice. Cause it's so early when everything else is frozen here, it's something that's out there that you can put in a smoothie. If you wanted to that sort of thing.
2 (20m 26s):
What other edible weeds have we,
1 (20m 28s):
How about a soup? I'm not the biggest smoothie person. Like, especially at that time of year, like I'm so craving live fresh green food. I'm much more likely to put it in a soup or a salad. Like I have tried to put spinach in a blender and just practically cry, try and do it. I'm like part rabbit. I love that shovel.
2 (20m 50s):
I do too. Actually. That's that's a big reason I wanted to grow food so badly. Yeah, it could. I don't know if, if your listeners have this plant, it's not a well known plant, but it is very invasive once it gets started in a yard, but it's around here, it's a native. So it's invasive, but not a bad guy in some ways. Anyhow. Yeah, it could, it could work in a soup. It has a little feds to it. The early leaves you could probably get away with. I'm a huge fan of Minnesota chef who has a blog called foragers chef.
2 (21m 20s):
And he works with Virginia water leaf, a decent amount. So that's
1 (21m 26s):
Awesome. Well, these are all great. Just tons of edible things that grow nearby, that listeners...
A podcast dedicated to educating and promoting the b
Links we talk about
Lisa's Website
Full list of Online Courses
Jonathan & Megan Leiss: The No-Till Micro-Scale Flower Farm - available anytime
Lisa Ziegler: Flower Farming School Online: The Basics, Annual Crops, Marketing, and More!- Registration Opens October 2020
Steve & Gretel Adams: Growing Cut-Flower Crops in Hoop and Greenhouses - Registration: November 16-20, 2020
Jennie Love: The Wedding Process - Registration is only open October 1-5, 2020
Ellen Frost: Florist School Online: Growing Your Business with Local Flower
Vegetables Love Flowers: Companion Planting for Beauty and Bounty
Welcome to the Green Organic Garden. It is Friday, August 21st, 2020.I have the most amazing guest on the line, she was guest number 2, she came back after that and today she is here to dazzle you after her 3rd book called Vegetables Love Flowers to here is Lisa Ziegler.
Thank you so much, Jackie. It is so my pleasure to be here and really, I do remember now that I was number two, that was a long time ago. Wasn't it?
Welcome back, tell. I do have a lot of new listeners since December. And so tell them a little bit about you because maybe they haven't heard much about you.
Urban Flower FarmerSure. Thanks. So I, if you can't tell from my accent, I am kind of in the South, I'm on the coast of Virginia. I'm in Southeastern Virginia and I am an urban flower farmer.
My little three acre farm is right in the middle of the city. Literally I'm surrounded by 200,000 residents and my place. Although when I first, my first half of my career, I only had an acre and a quarter totally, including where my home was.That's now up to almost three acres and I have no hoophouses.
The Flower Farmer: An Organic Grower's Guide to Raising and Selling Cut FlowersEverything I do is grown outdoors in a garden or a field. And, you know, I started farming in 1998, like so many other people after reading Lynn Byczynski's book, the Flower Farmer and just hit the ground running because I'm such a follower, meaning I really followed her instructions. I think it helped me to be successful right out of the gate.
And when you're successful out of the gate, it helps you just to keep on going after it, you know, not everybody is like us, Jackie, where you were talking about how you kept trying and trying with your podcast.
Some people just throw in the towel and I understand that, but then there's people like me and you that just keep bulldoze and after it, and but for me in the flower farming, my first customer ever that I had just really took me under his wing and ushered me right into this business.
And then I just ran with it. And my business has really changed over the years.I started teaching and doing lots of programs and speaking to groups and that led to a book deal. And then I started writing books and speaking even more and traveling.
And during that time I launched an online garden store called the Gardener's workshop.com where I just sell the same tools and seeds and supplies that I actually use in my gardens and the same seed varieties.
We do not save seed. We just buy extra from the seed houses and package them with our instructions and offer those to our folks that are looking for great cut flower garden seeds.
And then about three years ago, I launched online courses. I built my own first course and it's such an undertaking and needs such an admin support that I knew that I wanted to have higher level courses, you know, for people to be able to build their business.
And so I began publishing online courses for other flower farmers in the industry, people that I've connected with and known for years and know they're awesome teachers and instructors, and wanted to publish kind of like being a book publisher. I just do it for online courses.
Flower Farmer and Florist Online coursesAnd that is just really mushroomed. And our business is now being built on, we are offering online courses that better to start businesses based on flowers, whether you're want to be a flower farmer and build that business, a farmer florist.
Florist School OnlineAnd now we've even offered have coming out this fall florist school online, which is all about a floor D design studio, Ellen Frost. And she only uses locally sourced flowers. So she's like, it's just amazing. So that's been kind of how we've evolved through the years and it's just pretty awesome.
I just absolutely love what I'm doing.I love everything that you're doing too. Like I laugh because you could see that we persevere, but like I have not persevered with my Lynn Byczynski dreams of becoming a flower farmer. I am totally struggling and I didn't even know Any sunflowers this year. I've like less than a dozen sunflowers. And I just want to be a better, like, I just, I don't know. Anyway, tell us about the courses.
0 (5m 42s):
Sure. So, so when it started out it's to 2018 is when I launched the first course, which was flower farm in school. And that was my course. And it was all about, I understand the importance of people learn and how to start a business because what people don't understand is every business is unique and it's hard.
It's hard because there's a lot to do and learn. And flower farming is no exception to that. It's not just about growing the flowers. You've got to get your business foundation set up. So I knew that was going to be a good part of my course.
Lisa Ziegler: Flower Farming School Online: The Basics, Annual Crops, Marketing, and More!- Registration Opens October 2020And so my course, which is now referred to as flower farm in school, the basics annual crops marketing, and more really helps people to get all the nitty gritty of the business stuff out of the way. It's so simple when you know what to do, you know, it's like, yes, you need a business license. Yes, you have to charge sales tax. If your state requires it, and this is how you do it, and this is what you have, you have to have insurance.
Growing Annuals the Biggest Bang For Your BuckAnd so it's kinda like getting those things that people tend to put blinders on and don't even want to look at, we get that out of the way. And then we go to town showing people how they can get into flower farming, growing annuals, which is the biggest bang for your buck and the easiest and the lowest investment to get in on and to make the most money.
Teach you how to sell and find customersAnd so we kinda, I kind of immerse people in here. Let's get you started, let's get you growing flowers. Let's teach you how to sell. Let's find some customers learn how to harvest, learn how to run a farm and how you, the conditioning of the flowers, all those steps, you need to get your business rolling.
And then, okay, then let's start adding some of these high value crops. And that's when I asked Dave Dowling, if he would be interested in doing a course, cause he's like a walking encyclopedia. If anybody doesn't know Dave Dowling, he was, I'm a farmer for over 20 years.
President of the cut flower association for many years and other jobs. And he's just a wealth of information and experience.
So he does a course called flower farmer school: bulbs, perennials, woodies, and more.
So he builds on what people have learned once they get their business started this fall, we're adding yet another builder on that. And Steve and Gretel Adams of sunny meadow flower farms and from Ohio are actually doing a core of flower farming school course on growing cut flower crops in hoop and greenhouses.
Steve & Gretel Adams: Growing Cut-Flower Crops in Hoop and Greenhouses - Registration: November 16-20, 2020
And that's going to be amazing. They're full time farmers. It's, they're the sweetest cutest young couple ever, and they're doing it! You know, they have 17 houses and they're growing out in the field as well. And they have quite a business going.
So we kinda offer you every level. Some people don't even ever want to go past the basic. They just want to grow some flowers, sell a few bouquets, add some money to the family coffers and go on. Other people are looking to ramp their business up and we're trying to provide it all.
Then I started getting questions from our students saying, Hey, we want to do weddings. So I knew exactly the who I would ask if she was interested. And that was Jenny Love of Love'n Fresh Flowers, because she was like the industry leader in the farmer florist world. I mean, she was she's in Philadelphia, she's doing tons of big and small weddings, very experienced.
And her business savviness is amazing.I mean, I've listened to her course several times, myself. She just has such, you just learned so much about organizing your business, whatever it is. So I knew that she would be a great addition to our lineup for people to be able to make the most money that you want to make from growing your own flowers, obviously doing events and doing the flowers for events, sorry, is the most dollar per stem that you can get.
Events is the most dollar per stem you can get.And so I knew that was going to be a really great one. And, and then we added Ellen. I mentioned already the Florist School Online Ellen Frost for anybody that is not familiar with her, she's in Baltimore. And she ends a design studio. It's not a classic flower shop where you walk in to order flowers. She is got a design studio, which is really not open to the public where they do a lot of events, both weddings and those types of events.
But she also don't know how quite, how to explain it.
But I say to folks, Ellen's business model is what I think most people that want to get into the flower shop business think a flower shop is about, you know, she does events with her customers. They have flower book clubs, they have flower arranging war contests.
I mean, they just, she has built this amazing business, but she only uses flowers that are grown within a hundred miles of her shop year round.
And so her business model is just absolutely amazing! And she is actually cultivated farmers and helped them because she needed them. And we're really excited.
All of those classes, all the registrations typically are open once a year and all except Dave's bald class, which they're actually in school right now. All the registrations are open October 1st through 5th is my course. And Jenny Love's farmer florist. And then mid-November, the registration is open for Farm in school, growing cut, flower crops and houses and florists school online. Both of those are mid November.
But anybody that has questions, they can go to the Gardener's workshop.com and go to the online course page. All the courses are listed there and there's even a little calendar you can click on at the top to kind of show you all the dates of when school runs and when registration opens.
Cause I know it's very confusing, but that's in a nutshell, that's kind of all the different courses that we offer and they're kind of rolled out because, you know, I found that, I don't know, Jackie, have you ever taken an online course?
I love online school.
Yeah. I mean, so a lot of people, cause I didn't know about online. I mean, I literally, this is so funny. I learned how to build online courses by taking an online course. And I was so nervous,
Did you take Amy Porterfield's?
I did not, I took Teresa Loes? And I don't, I'm not sure that she even does it anymore. Cause she's now a big coach for CEOs, digital CEO. She is my business coach as well. And anyway, so I took her course and I didn't, I didn't know what to expect.
I couldn't, I was so afraid when it started that I actually, cause I have, I mean I have a crew of folks that helped me in my business. I made a couple of them hanging out later that day to make sure I could figure out how to get on when the class started.
I mean, it was like, that's how intimidated. I mean, people think I'm so competent, right? Don't do me in technology. I mean, I've learned a lot, but anyway, so because there's so many of us that haven't done it. So I like to always explain of how it kinda works.
So first off the first thing people need to know about online courses when they buy them from us anyway, is that when you buy a course from us, you have access for your lifetime. It's not like a onetime, just watch it and you're done and you have to buy it again.
It's just like buying a book. But instead of picking the book up, you log into your online course library and all of your classes, like if you bought, we have people that have bought multiple of our courses and when they go to their online library, all of those courses are right there for them.
And you can watch them as many times and as often as you would, like as well as there's PDF downloads and there's tons of resources. And so our schools, we sell two type types of courses.
The first is on demand coursesThose are the courses when you go to our page, it's like, I think the first three or four, you can buy them anytime they're shorter courses and you can buy them and watch them as much as you want the same as with our schools, then our school courses, registration and enrollment is only open once a year, typically for only five days. And then school starts about within a few weeks of registration. Then school, lasts six weeks.
And that means, let's just say if school started today. So that meant this morning, when you got up, if you wanted to see school, you would log into your library. And lo and behold, there's a bunch of videos loaded in there for you to watch as well as any resources.
And then you have all week to watch them. And then at the end of the week we offer, which I think is probably one of the, the most significant things that our students just really love is we offer live Q and A sessions where the students hookup with their instructor and ask questions after watching their videos.
And that happens every week with each new class for six weeks. And at the end of six weeks, your library is slammed full of a bunch of videos. We also record those live Q and A's and those are actually put into your library.
So you can go back and watch them and something that is happening for my course currently, because we're now getting ready. I'm in October, that'll be my third class, the third year that I've done it. So the students this year will be able to watch both of the course, the course Q and A's from the previous years.
So the content gets richer. You know what I mean? It's like, because people ask great questions. And so I just really find that the content gets bigger and bigger as well as the instructors actually add additional content to their courses from year to year.
And even the past students get access to that. So if you bought it two years ago, last year, when I added stuff, the people from the year before get access, you know what I mean?
It's all going into the same pot for everybody to look at. So we're excited this year, we're adding some really awesome new stuff to my course, one of them being, I think it's such a great opportunity, especially for starting out farmers, we're offering a photo library.
That means that we're going to give you photos of different zinnias of different sunflowers so that if you're building your first website, you know, you're just starting your business and you don't have, I mean, that's a complaint that we hear from people.
It's like, Oh my gosh, when I first started my show, I was like, maybe I could put like a stock library cause I have so many thousands of pictures and that could be like my free thing for people, like way back I always thought that then that's really a thing. I never did it. I should have done it.
Flower Photo LibraryNo, but it's so much more, I mean, as everything is, you have to have a platform to put them on that people can get it from, I mean it's yeah. So anyway, so we are adding a flower library for our students to use, to help them get started, to promote themselves and to show their customers, you know what their growing, and we're doing some marketing sessions and building emails.
And you know, with the COVID pandemic, Jenny Love just added an amazing four video bonus series to her course, which were actually people can request it and she all has been offering it and she will for the next couple of weeks offering it free to anybody that wants to watch it.
And it's about how, you know, she's, I mean, she does like big high dollar weddings. And when the, the virus broke out her business, I mean they all, they all canceled literally, I mean like a week she just watched her business evaporate as every other event florist had...
Hey everyone, I just a quick in between interviews post today, an email from Rodale's, a giveaway opportunity from Earth Kind Podcast and a SHORT update on our garden.
GIVEAWAY LINK: https://www.awesomeearthkind.com/contests
Stay safe and let's get growing!
Jackie :-)
As the world reopens, a threat to our health still looms.
What we eat, and how we grow it, is critical to maintaining our health as we seek to recover from a global pandemic.
By Jeff Moyer, Rodale Institute CEO
The world is slowly reopening—but the COVID-19 crisis isn’t over, and everyone still has concerns. While in many areas, the number of cases is decreasing, our health will remain in danger until we make a major change and paradigm shift.
That change is closer than you might think. It’s in your kitchen, your backyard garden, and at the farmers market you visit every weekend.
The solution is our soil and in our food. What we eat is critical to protecting our health, and our broken food system needs an overhaul.
...
The coronavirus pandemic has focused the spotlight on the importance of health, immunity, and disease prevention. We watched as our medical systems became inundated with patients, while feeling helpless to support our own health in the face of an invisible threat.
As we return to a new normal, it is imperative that we stay vigilant about maintaining our health. Sales of organic food rose 22 percent in March, 18 percent in April, and 16 percent in May as consumers looked for ways to boost their immune systems. We cannot return to our industrial, chemical food system as the crisis recedes—a food system that is harming both people and the planet—and expect positive impacts on our personal health. We need resilient agriculture for the future.
What we eat is directly related to how we feel and how we protect our health. So why have we allowed an agricultural system that sprays our food with chemicals, disproportionately harms vulnerable communities, and poisons our environment be the main source of food for our families? Why is our medical system so out of touch with the role that food plays in our physical health, prescribing pharmaceuticals for lifestyle diseases that create even more side effects and problems?
...
For too long, farmers and doctors have been siloed while pursuing the same goal: keeping people healthy. Remember the grade school adage “an apple a day keeps the doctor away?” It’s far past time that we bring these individuals, and professions, back together.
The path towards change can be found in Regenerative Healthcare. Regenerative organic food is free of the threat of chemicals like glyphosate, a probable carcinogen. At Rodale Institute, our research has shown not only that organic can feed the world, but that it can feed the world’s families more nutrient dense food, full of natural antioxidants and phytonutrients that can prevent, suspend, and even reverse the most wide-spread of lifestyle diseases.
And yet, the Standard American Diet comprises only 11 percent of its calories from whole plant foods, and more than 50 percent from highly processed products. Today, over 70 percent of global deaths are due to lifestyle-related diseases like cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and chronic immune disorders.
When facing a threat as strong as COVID-19, we need to avail ourselves of every support system we have. Our diet is one of the simplest ways to improve our health and take control over our lives. And yet, nutrition is roundly downplayed in the medical community. In fact, many medical students receive less than 25 hours of training in nutrition during their entire education.
We need to deploy a health care system in which farmers and physicians work together to inform a prevention-based approach to human and environmental health. Regenerative Healthcare is the only path forward.
We must combine what we know about the power of food with our knowledge of nutrition and our bodies, working to prevent disease through an organic, whole-foods, plant-forward diet that begins on farms that work in harmony with nature.
...
For over 70 years, Rodale Institute has been researching the benefits of regenerative organic agriculture. From the beginning, our mission has been to support healthy soil that grows healthy food, feeding healthy people.
Results from Rodale Institute’s Farming Systems Trial, a 40-year side-by-side comparison of organic and conventional grain cropping systems, has shown conclusively that organic systems are not only comparable to conventional systems in terms of yields, but can yield up to 40 percent higher in years of inclement weather like drought. Organic systems also use 45 percent less energy, reducing carbon emissions.
We started this research in 1981, long before a world-wide pandemic upended our society. The wholesale benefits of a regenerative organic food system were true then and are even truer now. Consumers clearly understand that organic food is healthier, as organic grocery sales and CSA memberships have skyrocketed since the pandemic took hold.
...
Adapting the holistic, regenerative model to our nation’s healthcare systems is a crucial step in improving human health. A shift in our medical system away from pharmaceutical-based disease management towards an integrative system founded on lifestyle medicine—supported by organic, nutrient-dense whole foods—could dramatically alter the trajectory of chronic disease and create a healthier future.
Let us agree—we cannot forget the critical role our food plays in protecting our health. Though the everyday threat of COVID-19 will eventually be a memory, the decisions we make about our food will always affect us. Take the first steps to protect your health now. You won’t regret it.
Interested in more solutions? Rodale Institute, with our partners at The Plantrician Project, have released a new scientifically documented white paper that brings together, for the first time, doctors, scientists, and farmers to analyze the ways our food system has failed us, and, more importantly, solutions for a new path. “The Power of the Plate: The Case for Regenerative Organic Agriculture in Improving Human Health” is available for download at RodaleInstitute.org/poweroftheplate.
Jeff Moyer is the Chief Executive Officer of Rodale Institute in Kutztown, Pennsylvania. He has worked in regenerative organic farming for over 40 years and is the author of Organic No-Till Farming: Advancing No-Till Agriculture.
https://RodaleInstitute.org
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy
Listen to the Awesome Earth Kind Podcast on iTunes or your favorite podcast app.
https://www.awesomeearthkind.com/
My Garden Journal
Welcome to the GREEN Organic Garden Podcast. It is Saturday, July 18, 2020. And I have an awesome guest here.
He's not a gardener, but I think you're going to love his message and he has a new podcast. And if you heard my rant yesterday, you know, I'm like doubling down on podcasting and I'm just showing the connecting with other podcasters.
And I feel like if you're a listener, you're probably interested in connecting with other podcasters and learning about other great new shows. So here to talk to us today is Ron Kamen from the Awesome EarthKind Podcast. Welcome to the show, Ron.
It's great to be here, Jackie. Thanks so much.
All right. Well tell us about you and your new show and whatever you want to tell us.
Well, thank you so much. It's a little different from your normal shows. I've, I've had the pleasure of listening to a couple of them and you know, your folks are really involved in the interconnectedness of life and in particular in growing and the abundance that naturally surrounds us when we are in tune with nature. And it's great and it's wonderful and it's, it's so fantastic!
As a civilization, you know, we've kind of gotten away from a lot of different things. And one of the things that my career and my, my, my whole life work has been focused on is energy. And the reason for that is because we need energy to survive as a civilization, it powers everything we do.
Energy powers everything we do.It's powering this podcast.It's powering the devices that people are listening to. It's our computers, it's our cars, it's our heating systems. It's our air conditioning systems. It's basically everything that's involved with. Civilization is really centered on energy. And most of that energy today comes from fossil fuels.
And those fossil fuels, as we know, are now saturating our environment to the point where we're getting to the point where extreme weather events are happening because we've disrupted so many natural systems.
And the question is, okay, so we all know where we are, the 7 billion of us.
Do we want civilization to collapse and just go back to the land, which you know, is a possibility?But I don't think that's a really good option for the vast majority of 7 billion people. There are a few that might survive, but who really wants to go through that and see 99% of people just, you know, not survive and we can't survive as a civilization unless we make the transition to clean energy.
And I've been involved in energy and the environment for boy over three decades, I've been lucky enough to have the opportunity to work with all sorts of people in all different forms, everything from communities to governments and businesses and nonprofits, and working with people on taking the next step to have clean energy and to make this transition that we have to make.
If we want to survive as a society, you know, we're all in the midst and still getting through this worldwide COVID phenomenon that was a wake up call! Right?
And then it was, it's a wake up call to all of us about how short and fragile our lives are, how interconnected our lives are. And everyone in the world for the past three, four months now has been recognizing that, "Oh my gosh, you know, life is short and how are we going to survive as a society?"
And all different people are handling it in different ways.
My hope is that we will recognize how interconnected we are with each other, how interconnected we are and where we're reaching the limits of the planet and that we take the next step.
And the good news about that next step is as we look at these extreme weather events and we see the incredible power of nature in the air with hurricanes or tornadoes and storms in the water with floods and droughts and all different aspects of things in the earth with both a whole host of range of all the things that you guys know what's happening with the earth, and then all the extreme things that are happening, can happen with the earth, with earthquakes and volcanoes and all that power.
Sun = SolarAnd then that, that little ball in the sky that provides all the energy that keeps us alive here on this planet. When you take a look at that air, water, earth and sun, that awesome power of nature that's around us.
And you look at on the one side, the destructive piece and how we've disrupted the balance of nature and all the things that are happening there. But then when you look and you realize that in that same power in those four forces of nature lies the answer and the key to our survival as a, as a civilization, as humanity, as everybody on earth.
And what we call is EarthKind .And the great thing about earth kine, you and me and everybody on earth is that we humans have an incredible ability to adapt and evolve and innovate and conquer anything, any challenge that comes our way. So my real hope with all the things that are going on in society right now is that we recognize that, okay, we have to change. We can change. There is a way through this.
Let's find it myself as an individual, use another individual, our families, our friends, our communities, and as a planet, let's come together and make that transition. Because without that transition there, you know, we're looking at some very catastrophic consequences, but we can make the transition.
And the fascinating thing is, the good news is that the tech is that nature provides a thousand times more energy clean energy than we use!A thousand times more energy than we use a thousand times more energy than we need. The better news is that our human capabilities, our technology has evolved to the point where we can capture that energy and channel it into purposes and use it to power our:
- electricity system
- heating systems
- cooling systems
- transportation systems
that power and that energy is there. And we can tap into it. That technology is there.
And the best news is that the prices have come down.So when you take a look at any aspect of this at the electricity, at the heating and cooling on the building side, and you look at the transportation side in almost every instance, you can find a way to save money while you're doing it too.
And if you wind up taking it collectively, and we look at all three electricity, heating, cooling, and transportation, you could save a lot of money. And if we all do it, we can save tons of money.
So we can have a positive impact: We can create a better future. * We can reduce environmental destruction, * we can deal with the climate issue and * we can have a better, more prosperous just economy * at the same time and save money as individuals.*
So that's what Awesome EarthKind is about. It's a podcast. I've worked
with people for three decades in various different forms. I focus primarily over my career with again, colleges, schools, nonprofits, government entities, municipalities businesses of all different sizes and shapes.
And this COVID piece just made me realize that, you know, I have a message. I think I have something hope in life that I want to share with normal everyday folks. And as podcasts came along with, with our mutual friends at EO fire entrepreneurs on fire, and it just ignited me.
So that's why I'm here.
And we'll be launching on August 6th. And the reason for August six, by the way, for those that it kind of rings a bell in the back of your mind is August 6th, 75 years ago was when humanity really entered the atomic age and we wiped out a hundred thousand people in Hiroshima, Hiroshima.
It was when humanity really became a force of nature.
And that's the whole thing is that all of us collectively, we really are forces of nature. We are awesome. We have incredible power, both individually and collectively.
We are humanity is the fifth element and that's what earth kind strives to project. Awesome EarthKind lets us say, "Hey, let's take the power of the air, the water, the earth, the sun, those four forces of nature and when you combine that with you and me, we aren't awesome.
And that fifth element EarthKind , that earth combined energy. We can do anything and we can make this transition and we can ex enter the next stage of our evolution. And we have to, for our kids' sake and all future generations.
So I was like, why aren't we doing that? Is that where you're like talking to people that have these solutions, like these tech people that have the energy, or like, how are like, what can listeners do to help change that?
Yeah. Great. And that's exactly what the podcast is about.
So what we're doing is we're setting in place first interviews that we'll be releasing every Monday and Thursday interviews with people that are doing amazing things. And I'll tell you about that in a second.
And then the second piece that we're doing is also setting up a community.
So once a week on Saturdays, we'll be answering people's questions, the we'll be dealing with their situations. And everybody has a little different situation for their personal life, right? You know, you live in Montana. I live in New York. People live in all different places around the country, all different scenarios around the world.
Some of us, all of us have taken some steps, right? Some of us have bought energy, efficient, light bulbs, great thing, right? Because instead of wasting 90% of the energy to create light with an incandescent light bulb.
90% of that energy is actually wasted as heat. So when you're touching an incandescent light bulb, you burn your hand. We've now made that transition to hopefully fluorescent or compact fluorescents are really the next stage, now today, our led light bulbs that lasts longer and that take most of the energy and use it to produce light as opposed to heat, which is why there's so much more efficient and they save money.
So we've taken all of us have taken different steps. When they drive a hybrid car, we may have done some things to get a more efficient oil burner. We may have a heat pump, and actually we'll talk about heat pumps in a bit, but there's a lot of different things that people can do that they don't quite know about.
So they don't understand what the opportunities are. They think a lot of times that it's too expensive for them to do it.
And what we're doing on those Saturday show is, are answering people's questions and just dealing with where they are and what they need and setting in place communities of support so that folks, wherever they are in this continuum from basic basic knowledge through, Hey, we've done everything except for a couple of things to be net zero in terms of energy consumption.
And for wholly powered by renewables. So there's this whole spectrum, and there's no judgment about where any individual is or where anybody is on the spectrum. We're all in different places.
We've all had our life experiences. We've all done what we could, but the idea behind Awesome EarthKind is to help everybody figure out, okay, this is where I am.
This is where I want to be. I want to be a hundred percent sustainable. I want to be a hundred percent renewable, but how do I do it? How do I do it? Where on it I am because where I am is a little bit different from where the person somewhere else is. So the goal is to set in place a community that can answer questions and help people take their next steps.
So to give you some examples, right?
So you mentioned at one point Earth Day, right? I think on one of your shows and one of the interviews is with Dennis Hayes. Dennis Hayes was the original coordinator of Earth Day. And then he went on to found the Earth Day Network and Earth Day is, you know, most people have heard of Earth Day now.
And Earth Day is the largest secular celebration in the world. It's celebrated on a hundred and in 180 different countries, it has a worldwide mass movement of people who are concerned and want to do something about sustaining life on the planet.
And we have an interview with Dennis Hayes, where he talks about some of the things that he's learned and some of the lessons that he's gotten.
And on the extreme end of the spectrum, Dennis built for his nonprofit foundation in Seattle, a 52,000 square foot office building Dan is a hundred percent renewable.
It is a hundred percent sustainable.
It generates actually more energy than the building users because they designed it well, they have natural daylighting. They have geothermal heating systems and they have solar. And the fascinating one other fascinating thing it's in Seattle, which has the least amount of sun of any of the 48 contiguous States. Right?
So it's the, it's a place with the least amount of sun. They told Dennis, he couldn't do it. It was impossible. Maybe a two story building, not the six story building, maybe a couple thousand square feet, not 50,000 square feet.
And yet it got done.
And it's those kinds of examples, every living from a residential. So we're talking to some folks, there's another individual. We'll be, we'll have those, an interviewee who has a little place in a little quarter acre in Virginia, right in Arlington Virginia.
So in a little littles, tiny space in Arlington Virginia, and yet there a hundred percent clean energy too. And not only are they sustainable with solar and heat pumps and electric vehicles, but they pay $34 a month for their heating, air conditioning, electricity and transportation bills, not bad.
So what can people do everything from a little step? It depends on where they're starting from to the largest steps of going solar and looking at the heating and cooling systems and looking at electric vehicles.
And we're going to be talking about all those technologies and all those opportunities, and then helping people customize solutions to their particular needs.
Does that help?
Yeah, because like, I'm just picturing myself standing. Like, I, it is so hard for me to buy a light bulb anymore. I stand in the aisles. I look in the I'm like, which one is it? They're all so ridiculously expensive, it seems. Although they probably last longer. And just, if I have that question about a light bulb, I can't even imagine it.
And like my brother got solar panels. Gosh, was it last summer? I can't remember when they finally got them, but like for years he was like, no, no, no. And then I don't know somebody came and knocked on their door and probably offered him a tax credit that he had to get there before the end of the year. And so I think that probably ended up having something to do with it,
but yeah, it just makes no sense to me why our country is still like not leading the war. I was like my biggest disappointment with Obama. I just that and what was the other one that he let the protestors in South Dakota get just, you know, he didn't stand up for the protesters in South Dakota, the water protectors.
But also I just was like, didn't they give you a Nobel prize. Cause you were going to go lead the world. And like, he should have been leading our country in green energy. And I know Congress didn't necessarily support him, but like, I dunno, like, I guess we need more podcasts like yours out there offering people simple solutions that they could do.
I'm sure my listeners are dreaming about the day. They could have a zero neutral house. Like we would love to have a zero neutral house. And especially with like all these extreme storms, knocking out the power for, you know, our power was knocked out for a whole day, practically the spring, like over eight hours, we didn't have power and just, you know, think of the food that's going bad and things like that.
Yeah, no, you're exactly right Jackie, and you know, a few different things that you touched on. So one, there's a, there's a quote. I was a community organizer who was where I started my career, was working with people in communities and helping to empower them. And it wound up being on energy.
And that's where I came to realize that energy and clean energy was my thing, energy and the environment.But one of the quotes that I thought was really powerful is
when the people lead, the leaders will follow.So if we expect our national international local, whatever leaders to do something, it's when the people stand up and say, this is what we want:
- This is where we need to be.
- This is how we want to get there.
That will then start creating the solution.So I think it's really powerful and awesome and incredible that folks like you and everybody wants to do this and starts to do it in whatever little way, shape or fashion we can. And the goal of awesome earth kind is to help people become empowered, become enlightened, to know what they can do and to then take that next step for themselves.
So let's talk about solar for a second, right? So it used to be that people thought solar and they still think that solar is really expensive.It's too expensive for me that I can't afford it.
That it's, you know, I don't have the cash. I don't have the capital, et cetera, et cetera. And you know, in some ways that could be true.
The fascinating thing though, is that solar prices have come down so dramatically in the last 10 years in particular as the world has reached these technological innovations.
And when you take a look at the technology, I'll just talk about one of the, one of our...
My Garden Journal
Welcome to the GREEN Organic Garden podcast. It is Saturday, July 18, 2020, and I have an amazing guest on the line. You have to check out their website is so beautiful and just full of lots of great stuff.
And here to share with us today from B L H Farm is Matt Arthur. You can find BLH Farm on Facebook here.So welcome to the show, Matt.
Hi, Jackie.
And we'll talk, I mean, I want to ask you about yourself, but I really want to know what B L H stands for.
1 (1m 41s):
Yeah, so it stands for Boone's Lake Heritage Farm. I grew up in central, Missouri on a family farm. It still had the wagon ruts from Daniel Boone's trail West from Missouri through to the Southwest. So I grew up playing on a Creek and in the field with those wagon trails so visable.
So we started our flower farm now on some of our land that wasn't being used for row crops. I wanted to let everybody know that this is just a real part of our, our history here is seeing these, this trail and thinking about people who came before us.
So how, so this is your family farm. So, you know, I guess if you said you listened to my podcast, that my first question is always about, like, what was your first gardening experience? Like, what'd you grow? Who were you with? I guess you were probably with your mom and dad?
1 (2m 32s):
Yeah, yeah. With my mom, mainly we always had an orchard and a garden and always had tomatoes and beans and apples and other stuff going. So I just have always grown flowers and vegetables at the house. And my mom grew a lot of things that her mom grew. And so I just always looked back and think about growing, you know, the flowers that she got from her mom or apples that she was trying out and I've always done it.
And is that how you learned how to grow organically? Were they organic too?Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. My parents for our vegetable garden and an orchard, I've always been a hundred percent chemical free, a hundred percent organic, always heavy mulchers never, never spray for anything and, and always grew up just knowing that that was how, how one should farm and garden.
Well, awesome. So do you have any tips? Like I was just going through all the questions I've been asked in the Facebook group and somebody was asking about what do I do about apple scab, and just like any tips for growing an orchard?
Our orchard. The other problem we're having is the grass is full of this weird bind weed, which is totally irrelevant.
Bind weeds tough. Yeah. Bind weeds tough. I mean, I've two quick pieces of advice.The first is that the, in the rows between your apple trees, you need to have a mix of species that you choose. A, you should have a grass, you should have a legume and then a forb to take the place of, of those weeds.
Weeds really are telling you that there's something missing in your species mix. They're filling a niche that should be filled by something that you consider beneficial.
So trying to keep a pure grass row in your orchard is going to be really hard, but if you can toss down just a three or four species mixing you comfrey or Clover and grass, and maybe oats in the spring, tailored for your area, get a few things in there to keep the space busy. So that things like bind weed can't get a foothold.
We also, I would say for scab, you know, apples.Apples have a lot of blemishes on them and they still taste great. So comparing apples, you grow at your house in appearance, to what you could get in a grocery store is a wrong way of thinking about it.
Focus on the
- taste and the
- texture and
- how fresh they are,
and just, you know, try to scrub off some of the scab and that the mold that gets on them.
Wow. All right. Now, what did you say? Oh, I knew I should have wrote down a grass, a lagoon and a, what?
A forb: F O R BForbs are other pasture plants that aren't either grasses or legumes.and yeah, I think of, of kind of traditional wild grassland. There's not just a couple of things there, there's a few things there. Forbs are a category that basically are everything. That's not a grass or a legume, that's not a weed. So just try to find a couple of few things that you can put into those paths that you can, obviously you can mow down and also are perennial. So you are not putting in every year and that'll hopefully keep the, the nasties out of the way.
2 (5m 56s):
Awesome. Well, show Patti Armbrister came and visited and she told me to get some comfrey and I got some comfrey, so it's going to be slow taking off, but hopefully by next year. and then we have a lot of Clover we're trying to get Clover to grow in, but, and we'll have to look for that other stuff.
So we'll tell us about something that did grow well this year what's growing. I'm also excited to hear about your flowers!
1 (6m 22s):
Yeah. Some of that grew well, well, we've been just loving some of the ornamental alliums. We try to do as many perennials as we can on the flower farm.
We really like having these little perennial ecosystems where we have maybe a tall, early perennial, and then we'll put some annuals into that row and then have maybe a third, low growing late perennial or perennial herbs that we use as filler.
So very excited about some of the alliums the ornamentals with maybe three or four inch purple heads, really like those, and been very excited about seeing Sage really established itself and use as a filler ornamental, aromatic filler, that's a perennial plant that grows really well here in Missouri.
So those two things are highlights for us.
0 (7m 8s):
I love growing stage!
My sage is blooming right now and it's so pretty. I love all this toes. Like how did you get started in the flowers? Oh, well, I guess you did kind of house your mom always grew flowers. Like, I dunno, I guess I just want to hear a little more about your flower business, because somebody asked me way back in the meeting.
They're like, I want to hear more stories about flower farmers.Yeah. So my wife and I met outside Missouri. I'd left Missouri to go to school and we lived away from Missouri for a long time and I really wanted to get back and I wanted to farm and we're looking at ways to get back into agriculture and row crop agriculture is really, really neat, but it's also a huge capital investment to start. And my family doesn't have the thousands of acres that you need to be profitable in this particular commodity market.
And it's also, you know, maybe not the type of agriculture is really excited about, and we were, you know, just drawing up different farm plans for, in a winter and going over again and again.
And they always included some flowers because we both always loved growing flowers and our parents have always grown a flower garden.
And the more we ran through the species selection and the marketing mix and thought about what we would be excited about growing that that might actually be profitable.Flowers took an ever larger piece of that. And now we're doing almost all flowers with some vegetables that are really just for us.
We really enjoy having a mixture of species and all of our beds and
vegetables and flowers do super well together. Both do much better together than they would individually.
And so we now have settled on, on flowers and we have about a half acre of, and then an apiary. And along with that, we have a composting business where we provide composting supplies and we do make a lot of composts that we use on the farm for our soil, fertility.
What kind of composting supplies?
So we, we sell Bokashi kits and we sell worms and worm towers. Bokashi, I'm not sure how familiar you are with it. It's a method of indoor composting that came out of East Asia came from Japan and Korea.
It's a traditional method of composting, agricultural surplus. Anaerobically so no, no air. And unlike, unlike hot piles where you, you know, you're taking a green nitrogen, heavy food waste, and you're taking a Brown carbon heavy addition, adding water, and then mixing hand turning or turning with, with the machine for, you know, weeks or months until it forms that black crumbly beautiful humus.
Bokashi is anaerobic so there's no air at all.
It's done in a closed container and you inoculate the food waste with these effective microbes. Some soil microbes that are really good at tearing through food in a, in an airless environment.
And we just really love it. We used to make about a thousand pounds of aerobic compost a week, or probably a little bit more with the wood chips added. And we now make about a thousand pounds of Bokashi a week in sealed containers. And it's just, it's just super,
So, but do you like out of like your food scraps or what are you putting in there that you're giving a thousand pounds a week? Are you getting stuff from other places like the grocery?
We are? Yeah.
So we started really thought about how to get our soil healthy enough to grow beautiful flowers and herbs. We realized that we would need a pretty good source of, of compost. And so we started a small business that collects residential food waste from houses in the St. Louis area. And then we take the residential food waste and we make compost from that. Or if you did to our worms.
We've been doing that for maybe two and a half years now, and this spring we started making and selling like home Bokashi kits because the more Bokashi we, we made, the more we thought this is really a super method of making organic matter available to the soil microbes, but we would just talk to people about it and people were obviously unfamiliar and, and it's yeah so we do that now.
Well, you know, I love that. So how about, is there something you guys are excited to do different either next year that you're trying this summer? I mean, we're like right smack in the middle of July.
Yeah.
The big, big push on our farm is that to get more things in the ground in September.Our first frost date here is mid to late October so I don't know where that is for you. It's probably coming up pretty quick, but we still have some time before frost heads. And our goal is to get as many even Hardy annuals in the ground in the fall, and then put them under a permeable cover, like an Agra bond row cover so they can overwinter in the soil. And then when spring comes, there'll be established and ready to go.
We're trying to put a lot more Hardy animals in, in the fall than we did last year.So that means like right now you're planting seeds in containers that you're going to put in the ground. This is so exciting. What kind of what's hardy annuals? Like lavender?So like, snapdragons, Larkspur lavender perennial. We'll put some of that into, but we use soil blocks. So we don't use plastic seed trays. We make everything in three quarter inch or two inch soil blocks.
So we'll start, you know, thousands and thousands of these little soil blocks under lights, they're out, you know, outside under a shade cloth until they're three or four inches tall and then transplant them, hopefully starting in five or six weeks so they can get established and rooted as the weather starts to cool.
And then all of those snapdragons in larkspur and perennials like echinacea and lavender and arnica and on and on we'll, we'll have a chance to, to be like the dominant plant in that bed in the fall. So it, when spring comes, there'll be already taller and more robust than the weeds that might be in the soil.
So that come April when it's really thawing and warm, they have a huge jump on competitors. And we don't have to worry about, you know, either hand weeding a lot of stuff or, you know, trying to prepare that soil surface when it's cold and rainy and snowing, maybe that there'll be already growing quite well.
And then when the last frost date hits, we just take off the row cover for the last time.
And then they are already hopefully fairly tall and robust and we get a few weeks or a month early for cuttings.How did you come up with this plan? Did you guys just make it up yourselves? Are you following like, is this what it Erin does?
Well, no. Yeah. Lisa Zieglar out of Virginia who wrote the book,
Cool Flowers: How to Grow and Enjoy Long-Blooming Hardy Annual Flowers Using Cool Weather Techniques and
Vegetables Love Flowers: Companion Planting for Beauty and Bounty She's a huge proponent of this.
And the first person that I've heard really talk in detail about how effective it could be.
She's a big flower girl obviously. And I see her at the flower conferences and I thought, this is absolutely the way to go, right? I mean, it's everything we love. It's, it's it's reduction of, of weed pressure. It's, you know, kind of early blooms and it just really worked well.
She makes soil blocks too. So it really works well for our system. And we did last year and we're gonna do a lot more of this year. Cause it's, it's great!0 (15m 5s):
Awesome. I finally got soil blocks at the, they had this Free the seeds workshop and there was like this tool swap. I couldn't believe they were there.
And I saw, I traded a book for them. I was so excited, but we didn't actually try them this year because I don't know, Mike didn't do a lot of starts. And I think the ones that he did here, he had in the ground before I brought those home are not in the ground, but like in the plastic next year..
But we're definitely going to try that next year. I love Lisa Ziegler. She was my episode number two, and then she came back and then we're supposed to speak after her third book, the one Flowers Love Vegetables.
And we've never connected since then, but yeah. Awesome. Well, good for you for putting all of this into practice because like I still go out, like she told me, she's like, well,
Go out in the spring and take pictures of, of what is coming up naturally in the spring. And then that's what you want to plant in the fall. And I still take those pictures, but I haven't like taken it to heart like you have, this is so amazing. So tell us about something that didn't work so well, what didn't go the way you thought it was gonna?
1 (16m 8s):
Well, we, we, we had planned to do a lot of direct seeded sunflowers, so a real deviation from our soil block routine.
And so I had a nice, a nice set of beds and direct seeded, Oh, you know, a pretty good batch of sunflowers. And I mean, between birds and, you know, field by, we probably had like a 3% survival on those. It was just, it was just so eyeopening. I mean, because we transplant almost everything when they're really past, past the time that birds want them, I just was not clued in to how much pressure birds can provide on these, on the seeds and seedlings.
And it was, it was just astonishing failure! I mean, you, you have a, a row, you know, 150 foot row that has like four sunflowers. It was really terrible.
Aww, do you think that will happen like every year or was that just this year? Because like all the animals are like in the stages of doing all sorts of weird things with like no airplanes in the air and stuff?
Well, part of it is that we have done a really good job of attracting birds to the garden for insect control. So there are just a lot of birds around all the time. And so we've, we've done that to ourselves, but also I went back in a week later, tried again and this time I did what I should have done, which was take up again, Agrabond row cover and, and lay it directly on the seeds on the soil surface and then wet it.
And then when the seeds emerged, you know, a couple of days...
Benjamin Page from the Pastos Verdes Farm in ArgentinaPlaying in the Dirt: The key to sustainable health!My Garden Journal
Jackie Marie Beyer (8m 17s):
Welcome to the Green Organic Gardener Podcast. Today is Friday, July 10, 2020.
And I have an awesome guest on the mic who's written a fantastic book called Playing in the dirt. He's a chiropractor. He's got an awesome Instagram channeland just, I know we're going to learn a ton today. So here to share all sorts of golden seeds with us is Benjamin Page. So welcome to the show. Ben Ben, right?
Ben Page (8m 46s):
Yeah. It's been yep. Most people call me Ben, Benjamin is my real name, but Ben is what most people call me. I think there's three people in the world that call me Benny and two of passed away. So it's down just one, but yeah, most people call me then. Yeah. So it's great to be on the show. It's great to be with you.
Jackie Marie Beyer (9m 1s):
Well, thanks. Well, I'm so excited. Oh yeah. And you also have a podcast, the wellness farmer podcast. So listeners like I've been like jonesing for some good podcasts. Listen to this winner like at that kind of has changed lately.
Cause I think I've been to over a thousand podcasts websites in the last month working for this new podcast or I'm just doing research, trying to find podcasts where she would be a good fit as a guest.
And it's just been fascinating, but even still out of like the thousand websites, I've only found, I think four that I've actually added to my phone and less than a dozen that I've checked out and been like, Oh, this might be good.
Jackie Marie Beyer (9m 39s):
So I am excited. I am been thinking, I wish more people would share more podcasts. Like people that I listen to would share more. So the Wellness Farmer, I know listeners are going to love that.
Ben Page (9m 53s):
Yeah, that's what I tried. I mean, it's more of a wellness farmer at the moment. But at the, when I started the podcast, I was a farmer. I actually raised a meat on pasture. So chicken, sorry, chicken on pasture. And that's why that's where the podcast kind of got its name.
Jackie Marie Beyer (10m 10s):
Well, do you want to tell us about that or I want to kind of hear a little bit about that was that down. So you're in Argentina. Was that down in Argentina or like where was that?
Ben Page (10m 21s):
And that was before we came to Argentina, we opened, so I was working with a chiropractor for about five years and then I've left and opened my own clinic. And at the same time I started a farming enterprise. And what I did is I raised chickens on pasture in a place in Southern Utah. And that's where I was raising the chicken on pasture and at the very end imagining.
Folks, This Ain't Normal: A Farmer's Advice for Happier Hens, Healthier People, and a Better World And, but some of the books that helped me were, I mean, some of the books I recommend are that books by Joel Salatin and who has a great enterprise and he's done great work, but I basically did what Joel Salitan does.
Ben Page (10m 52s):
I made my own version of coops with as domes. I didn't use his version. I made a don't coop and I would just, I would let the, let the chickens run, run on pasture while every day I moved the move to the coop to fresh green grass and tell you the truth. That was probably my favorite time of the day. I worked in the, in the farm on the morning. And then I worked in my clinic in the afternoon and waking up and going, moving those, those coops and watching those chickens run forward and eating all that fresh green grass and the bugs that were present was just beautiful.
Ben Page (11m 24s):
I loved, it was such a great time that I'll never forget those times. And I'd like to actually get back into it because it was so much, it was so neat to be able to do that and work as a chiropractor at the same time. We did that for about a year though, because the sales weren't that good. So that's kind of why I stopped doing it, but I would like to get back into it for sure. When it was, it was a great time.
Jackie Marie Beyer (11m 48s):So you were selling the chickens for meat or the eggs?Ben Page (11m 52s):
The chicken. Yeah. So we, yeah, so I did all the processing on form two. That was, those were busy days. Processing is we're very busy, but yeah, we, we raised chicken for meat.
Jackie Marie Beyer (12m 6s):
Well, that's good because the, you know, the big Purdue ones are so bad for our planet and just, you know, these giant chicken farms, you just, and I feel so bad for those chickens. So we lost our chickens. There's like a grizzly bear problem in our area for slate. They kill off all the grizzly bears and then they like relocate them. And so many people are moving in. I don't know what's going on in the mic. And I have lived here for 27 years now. We've been married and out of those, like 25 of them, we've had chickens.
Jackie Marie Beyer (12m 36s):
We've never had a problem until the last two years. And one chicken survived last spring, we finally had baby chicks and one of the baby checks, minister escaped like showed up 30 days after the grizzly bear had been through. And we thought the whole thing, everybody was gone. All of a sudden here comes this chicken and she made it all the way until this spring. And we got a rooster and two days after the rooster, boom, they both here came the grizzly bear again. But like everybody in our neighborhood has been posting pictures of this bear. And it's just been like, I don't know. Anyway.
Jackie Marie Beyer (13m 6s):
So kind of like I, so miss having chickens and fresh eggs, it's driving me crazy. I want to get some new ones, but we have to fix fence. I mean, he just is amazing how big this bear was. I'm always picturing what he must have look like. And I've seen pictures now because other people have posted on Facebook that did get a picture of them. But just like them image of him, like tearing down this chicken house that we had, he didn't tear it down, but he like took the roost and like shoved one of the poles from the roost, right through the particle board wall.
Jackie Marie Beyer (13m 39s):
And I'm like, Mike cannot get it out. Like this bear had to be huge. And just that, if he got, it was so sad that after all these years, we finally had BB chickens that hatched and we're growing and we're doing good. And then only one of them survived. And then she made it through a year, all by her lonely self. And then as soon as we got the rooster, two days later, they both,
Ben Page (13m 58s):
Oh, that is terrible. Ate by a bear. I'm like, good. That's even worse.
Jackie Marie Beyer (14m 4s):
Oh yeah. I know. I just, and I didn't even get to see the bear. That's the worst part. Like, I mean, anyway, but we're not here to talk about us. The other thing I wanted to say is, and this is totally off topic, but I just like keep a story I saw on the news the other day, it keeps going through my head about these poor people that they're worried about. They're going to get COVID like, I don't know, in Africa or somewhere that these people are so poor that they have to keep the chickens under their beds because they're worried that people will steal them and they're sleeping with these chickens and it's not that they're going to get COVID they get some other bird disease.
Jackie Marie Beyer (14m 39s):
And like, it's just so sad to me that there are people living in conditions that they are show worried they have to keep the chickens under their beds.
Ben Page (14m 47s):
I know that's terrible. I mean, yeah. The amount of that can understand that because what the chickens leave behind is probably a lot worse than a contact in COVID 19. And that's probably for sure. That's one of the things I talk about in my new book is that dirt is beautiful, but you want to kind of stay away from dirt that's got poop in it. That's that's the dirt you don't want to be close to.
Jackie Marie Beyer (15m 12s):
Well, I didn't realize, like, since I started my podcast, like I had no idea you can't put like chicken manure or any kind of like manure, like if you're a market farmer, there's like 120 days you're supposed to wait between when you like apply them a manure. And when you can plant your vegetable seeds or whatever, or before the produce, I don't know. I know there's like that 120 day rule, so,
Ben Page (15m 35s):
Oh yeah. I always, I always compost on manure first. I was throwing in my compost bin before I actually throw it on my, my garden beds.
Jackie Marie Beyer (15m 43s):
Yeah. So anyway, I'm going to stop talking and let you tell us, but I do always start the show. Ben asking you about like your very first gardening experience. Like, were you a kid, were you an adult? What'd you grow and who were you with?
Ben Page (15m 57s):
I'm going to talk about my first experience I had as an adult, because there's another, there's another question that talks about where I'm going. Actually I'll talk about as a kid, but my first gardening experience as adult being a married adult was that was when I was in Palmer College of Chiropractic. I was in my last
year and I was studying about what's called modern survivalism and the garden kept on coming up and I've gardened my, basically my whole life as you as I'll talk about later. But I had stopped since I had moved in it hasn't had been many years since I'd done it.
Ben Page (16m 32s):
And I wanted to get back into it more than anything, grow food for my family. And I was at college. We were very poor and we hadn't no way to buy any materials. So what I did is I won't go on walks with my wife. Every time we fight, find planks thrown out in the trash, we'd ask the owner for, take them. And we got enough plugs where I could build a planter box. And we also found two, no three flower pots that were thrown out. And I asked if I could take them. And they said, yes. So my very first garden as adult was a planter box, that was two feet by four feet by a foot deep and three flowerpots.
Ben Page (17m 11s):
And they were full of tomatoes and peppers. And that's it.
That was my very first garden as adult man.It was, it was those 15 minutes a day that I took just to, just to be with those plants. I mean, it was such a calming experience. It helped me so much and, and leave the busy life of school, which was insane at that time. And just be in the present moment and do something good by taking care of some plants and then eventually enjoying the tomatoes and peppers that, that came from those plants.
Ben Page (17m 44s):
So that was, that was my very first garden as an adult, one little teeny planter box and three flower pots full of peppers and tomatoes. And that was in Davenport, Iowa.
Jackie Marie Beyer (17m 58s):
Well, it's amazing how starting small like that, especially when you're super busy, like, I think that's like super encouraging and some golden seeds you're dropping for my audience because they know I'm always super busy like this summer, even though I'm working online and I'm home a lot, like I'm just exhausted. Like you tried to spend six hours on a computer and see, like, I don't want to go for a walk. I don't want to do anything.
And I am so lucky cause I go sit in the garden and read a book and water and just like, I'll set the water thing out for like six minutes or nine minutes on my thing and just sit there and just unlax after staring at a computer and still ideas are floating through my head and things that, but yeah, it's amazing how coming and then college, right?
Jackie Marie Beyer (18m 42s):
Like I remember when I was in college to get my elementary degree, like I can tell you how long everything took, whether it by the second, like I was like, this is a 62nd task and this is a two, you know, two minute task. And this is like a 92nd tasks. Like I just like, you're so busy when you're in college. It's crazy. I don't know how you do it with a family.
Ben Page (19m 1s):Oh, it was, it was, those were very long days. I mean, I, my first year at Palmer, it was, I would go to bed. This was an average, I'd go to bed at eight o'clock at night, wake up at 12 or one in the morning studying until six or seven, then go to school. And we were school for all day. I mean, we had about like the average is about 32 credit hours a week for basically at a full time job. All, we also had to study for tests and take the test and then I'd come home at six or seven in the afternoon on hanging out with my family for a little while.
Ben Page (19m 34s):
Then I'd go back to bed at eight o'clock and I'd get back up at one o'clock in the morning. I mean, it was, it was, but that was before I started the game. Once I was in the third year, it was a little bit more relaxed on a little bit more time, but yeah, it was, it was not easy. I'll tell you that for sure. It wasn't easy, but those moments, like I said,
Playing in the Dirt: The key to sustainable health!and I write about it in my book because the book, my book playing in the dirt, which it's called playing in the dirt, I talked about how the, not just the soiling gardens, but how nature is so important to our health as human beings. And we're in it's we're involved.
Ben Page (20m 4s):
I mean, we need to be involved with her to, to truly reach our health potential. And it's one of the things that, that garden data's that helped me be in the present. It was, it was kind of a type of, there's a meditation there's meditation at its best. It just brought me back to the present. I forgot about them like tests. I forgot all of the anxieties of the future. All the, all the times I missed a bone test on in, in the past. I mean, it just brought me back and it just felt great. I remember it was just that little teeny, teeny gardens. So starting small is, is a great way to go.
Jackie Marie Beyer (20m 35s):
I agree. Whole heartedly. So how did you learn how to garden organically? Did you please do that? Did your family do that or,
Ben Page (20m 46s):
Yeah, that's, that's what I was gonna talk about.
My parentsMy parents they've always, I mean, it was before he was in college, they did it before it was called organic garden. They just gardens and they didn't use pesticides or anything like that. And we did, I mean, in the, during the winter, we'd go get the manure, put the manure on top of the, on top of the garden, all the cut down, all the, all the, all the partners that we don't eat and let it decompose. And then we take the rotor tiller and roto-till it all in. And then we plan our garden every year. And that's what I did with my parents until I was until I was 10 years old.
Ben Page (21m 18s):
I mean, these gardens were huge to me, it felt like the rows of corns were never ending. Cause that's the, those are the roles I had to weed, but of course I was a little kid at that time. I don't know how long they really work, but was a kid. I was like, does this ever end, am I ever going to get done with this?
And that's, and that's how we lived for the first 10 years of my life, organic garden, but without the organic in front of it, it was just gardening. And that's how it was when I was a kid. And I looked, some of my fondest memories were of those times to tell you the truth. I mean, when I was an adolescent, I do have other nice memories, but those memories of, of the garden and being outside or some of my fondest memories that I love.
Ben Page (21m 57s):And that's how I got into organic gardening before it even was called organic.Jackie Marie Beyer (22m 3s):
Well, I'm going to tell you, Ben, I'm hoping there's a podcast by Angela Watson who runs a podcast called truth for teachers that I love. And she's like one of the only people I hear out there talking about, imagine what our schools can become.
Imagine like, and I always picture, like when I went to Paris through are so, many more gardens and parks and places than there are, I find like in cities in the States. And I really feel like we kids, like you say, they love being in the garden.
And as we're finding, if teachers are going to go back to school in the fall and they're going to be responsible for kids and trying to social distance, like let's get these kids outside in the gardens so they can have great memories like you have.
Ben Page (22m 46s):
Totally agree. Oh my goodness. I wish schools had, I wish schools had gardens. All schools should have a garden. I mean, it's just, we should all learn about these things. It's it's it's, to me, it's kind of sad that most people don't even know how to plant a seed. Most people don't know how to plant a seed.
Most people don't know how to take care of a plant. And most people don't even know where their food even comes from anymore. So, I mean, I think that would be great for the kids and that's that's knowledge that's that that should be widespread. You know, everyone should be, I mean, you don't have to, but at least knowledge that you should have.
Jackie Marie Beyer (23m 22s):
Yeah. I mean, and there's so many lessons you can do in the garden. There's science and there's math and there's writing.
- And one kid maybe wants to keep a journal and draw the insects.
- And one kid's going to measure, you know, how long is the length of the row or how long is this bed?
- And another, kid's going to compare how big are these Peapod's and
- just, there's so many lessons that the kids can do and they can, you know, I
just think you have to be more...
DeerBusters Jennifer Smith is here to tell us how code "fences" can save us 10% when we solve one of the biggest garden challenges there is especially in 2020!
Intro (2s):
Welcome to the Green Organic Garden Podcast. It is Friday, July 10, 2020. It's my mom and dad's anniversary. If my dad was still alive, I think he'd be married for probably 55 years, something like that. And I am excited because I have a guest who's back in the line to talk to us about something that when I went to Free the Seeds of this year, do you number one out of 40 people? I talked to you. I think 36 of them said the biggest challenge they have for growing their garden is deer and keeping the critters out.
My Garden Journal
Join us on the Listen App using invite code: GREEN
Jackie Marie Beyer (39s):
And that's certainly like something that people talk about a lot. So we have somebody here with a solution. I think she even has a 10% discount for GREEN organic garden podcast listeners. So I'm here from deer busters is Jennifer Smith. So welcome back, Jennifer.
Jennifer Smith (57s):
Thank you. It's glad to be back.
Jackie Marie Beyer (60s):
Hey, did you know that I found this podcast? So I'm working for this podcaster and one of my jobs is to like find shows that he be really good guest on, and there's actually a show that's called. I think it's Patient Zero. That's all about Lyme disease.
Jennifer Smith (1m 16s): I have not heard of that.
Jackie Marie Beyer (1m 18s):
It was listed as Apple, one of Apple's top podcasts in 2019. So I'm really curious to check it out because it has to be more than just basic science and stuff. Like I don't know what it's about, but anyway, we're here to talk about what we can do to protect our gardens, that we work so hard to grow from the deer that are beautiful and lovely.
And I love to see deer in my yard. I just don't want to see them eating my flowers and vegetables.[caption id="attachment_137102" align="alignnone" width="768"] Mike built these little tents that worked for years back in the beginning. Look at that lawn, boy we've come a long way. But really in the beginning these two bed provided a lot of food.[/caption]
Jennifer Smith (1m 42s):
There are graceful animals. We love them. It's a love, hate relationship rally, and there are beautiful from afar, but the minute they start eating our plants, AKA our hard work. Then we don't like them so much and we need to humanely get rid of Bambi and his friends and I have the solution to make it happen. So what I recommend is growers need to look into installing an deer offense.
Jennifer Smith (2m 16s):It is the most reliable means for deer management[gallery ids="137099,137100,137101" type="rectangular"]
But then they got serious. We have over 260' of fence around the house and another 260' around the minifarm. It's essential!But there are a number of factors to consider such as other animals that are destroying the garden. As well as height requirements. We, we have experienced a lot of changes this year, being the dreadful 2020 that we know of with COVID-19. COVID-19 has also made
changes in deer movement. And so we need to discuss that for, for the spring.
Jennifer Smith (2m 48s):
We know that stay at home orders. It was great that gardening allowed us as home growers to be able to do what we love outside and enjoy the, the warmer air that we, that we were wishing for in the winter time. But now we have to worry about the deer that were traveling onto our landscapes. They were destroying our plants because they were fearless of human encounters. So the deer in the spring, they were,
Jackie
Hey, lost you...
Because of COVID-19 deer became fearless, traveling on to lawns and gardens in search of food.
Jennifer Smith (4m 3s):
They knew that they weren't going to see any humans at all. So they would do this and they would continue to do this moving into the summertime as we know. And so we have a problem. We have a problem that deer patterns have changed. They have not only traveled on to rural settings, but they've now traveled on to urban settings, which they typically tend to avoid. So what gardeners need to do now in the summertime moving into fall, they need to consider installing a deer fence.
Jennifer Smith (4m 39s):Here are a few requirements for deer fencing.* Deer fencing is going to be seven and a half to eight feet tall for best results. * Deer have core vertical vision after seven feet. So seven and a half to eight foot tall is the sweet spot for deer fencing.
Furthermore, there are a couple of different types of deer fences. There are* plastic deer fences and * metal deer fences.
Plastic deer fences should be used for light to moderate deer pressure.
Jennifer Smith (5m 10s):
If the deer are more curious than anything, a plastic fence is going to be a great fit for deer control.
If the deer are more aggressive, they made sure dig, or maybe you have rabbits on your property or groundhogs or coyotes that shoe as well, and may be a detriment to the garden.
Consider a metal fence, either way plastic or metal deer fences will last about 20 to 30 years outside. And these are what you need for deer management in the summertime moving into fall.
Jennifer Smith (5m 46s):It is critical for keeping out deer throughout the year.And this is something that we need to consider following the COVID 19 orders.
Jackie Marie Beyer (6m 0s):
And I mean, especially where I live in Montana, it's so essential.I mean, it's just so heartbreaking because you think you're getting away with it. And then here comes August and dry summer. And then the next thing you know, the deer are just eating everything in sight that they haven't touched in July and just I've had my heart broken several times.
Not that they wouldn't sneak into the garden right now, if they could, but I'm telling you, once things really started to dry out in the grass and the woods starts to get, you're going to find deer coming that you didn't expect.
Jackie Marie Beyer (6m 32s):
And then yeah, moving into urban areas where they've never been before, right? It's just the essential, I mean,
Jennifer Smith (6m 41s):
It is, unfortunately, and once you learn, you've had enough with the deer damage and getting on your fence is essential.
And it's a way it's a way to keep the peace with wildlife.
We're saying that we know you have to eat, but it doesn't have to be from our gardens, go somewhere else to find food.
Deer have plenty of food to eat in, in forest areas and other landscapes. It doesn't have to be your garden.
I would consider looking into deer fencing this season.Jackie Marie Beyer (7m 15s):
So do you want to talk a little bit about Lyme disease and why it's not just protecting your garden vegetables, but it's also kind of protecting you. Did we talk about that once before a little bit?
Jennifer Smith (7m 26s):
Lyme disease and White Tail DeerIf you're aware of Lyme disease affects over 300,000 Americans each year, it is a debilitating disease that is caused from a tick bite ticks are usually on white tail deer and other wildlife, but notorious white tail deer. And when we allow white tail deer onto our properties, they tend to drop deer ticks onto the yard, which is a concern for homeowners, especially those with pets and even small children.
Jennifer Smith (8m 7s):
It can affect pets, dogs and cats, both. And it can also affect children of all ages and adults.
It is something that can be controlled, but it can only be controlled with the use of a deer fence.Jackie Marie Beyer (8m 26s):
Yeah. I mean like you not want to get one to tease is not, is it, it's a really bad thing. You're going to be in the hospital and just, I had a friend in college that got it. So definitely not just little kids.
Jennifer:
Yes you're right.
Jackie:
So what else did you want to talk about? Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt. You throw your train of thought off.
Jennifer Smith (8m 51s):
No, that's fine. We could talk about deer moving into the fall. Just tips to look into. Okay.
Deer Velvet and Deer RuttingSo as we wind down summer, what's going to happen in the fall with deer damage is this: Deer by the end of August, we'll develop this thick dried velvet on their antlers. It is uncomfortable and it is unsightly.
Jennifer Smith (9m 22s):
It is very unattractive. So the box are going to try to remove this dried velvet from their antlers, by rubbing against trees. This is known as deer rutting and they do this in preparation for mating season in early September. So once the deer do rub up against the trees, they remove the cambium layer of the tree, which is where the nutrients flow throughout the whole foliage.
Jennifer Smith (9m 53s):
And this essentially ruins the tree, not just the look of it, but the tree's growth. And so if we want to protect trees on our properties. We also need to get tree guards and a look into deer fencing as well. This is a year round problem, and a deer are desperate to eat moving into the fall season.
So they are going to turn to home gardens as well as trees for food and a relief from the dried velvet.Jennifer Smith (10m 26s):
So these are things to consider moving into the fall season.
Jackie Marie Beyer (10m 31s):
We saw a giant buck one night who would like the velvet was just like coming off of his horns in the Moonlight. And it was just like one of the most amazing things I ever saw just dripping there. But part of the reason they're doing it right then also is because they're sharpening their antlers, right? Because they're going to start fighting when they go into meetings season, like isn't that some of it?
Mating SeasonJennifer Smith (10m 52s):
Deer become very aggressive and territorial. And so they are in fight mode. And so that is a, that is a good point. Especially hikers and campers. We may, we may be tempted to walk up to a deer and maybe snap a few pictures for, for, you know, Instagram, but we need to keep our distance. They are very territorial and they're also when they rub up against trees, they're also marking their territory.
Jennifer Smith (11m 22s):
And it's a way of saying, this is where I am, do not go near me, do not go near my, my doe and my family essentially. So these are, these are all important and notes to consider in the fall season. For sure.
Jackie Marie Beyer (11m 37s):
So do you want to explain to listeners what a tree guard is and like that's for like fruit trees or any kind of trees that you have in your lawn?
Tree GuardsJennifer Smith (11m 45s):
A tree guard for those that don't know is essentially a plastic wrap that you wrap around the base of young trees, typically young fruit trees. And this is to protect the base of the tree from any deer rubbing that will occur in the early fall season. It is a plastic polypropylene material that will last about 30 years outside.
Jennifer Smith (12m 19s):
Yeah. And just, you don't want to have your little Bebe Apple trees or anything, or just any kind of trees. I mean, you want to be protecting them. So anything else that we haven't mentioned today? No, I don't think so. Cool. Well, this could just be a short little bonus episode for the listeners. Well, tell everybody how to find your website and how to get ahold of you because am I remembering right? Are you in Pennsylvania, but you ship everywhere.
Jennifer Smith (12m 50s):
Right? We do, yes were good like that. You can find a deer fence supplies on deer busters.com or locate in Waynesboro, Pennsylvania. We ship nationwide for free. And if you want 10% off type in the word fences at checkout ondeerbusters.comand save yourself some money while you're getting deer fence.
Jackie Marie Beyer (13m 18s):
That was perfect. I can use that little clip for a promo right there. Woo Jennifer, thanks so much for coming back and sharing with my listeners about this super important topic and offering my listeners a discount because especially now that we're pretty much all ordering, almost everything online. I can't believe the things I've ended up having to order online. I was doing so good. Like March, April, may. I didn't order anything. June and July. It's just been one thing after you had another, I go to the store to buy something.
Jackie Marie Beyer (13m 48s):
They don't have it. They didn't have a pitch fork. They didn't have chairs for my kitchen. I had to order those online and I got the nicest chairs. I got to say, I love him, but I never thought I'd be in,
Jennifer Smith (13m 58s):
Who would have thought that this would have come to this? Especially months later!
Jackie Marie Beyer (14m 2s):
I even went to target, but cheers brought them home and was just like, Oh my gosh, I can't believe how much I just paid for these chairs that I don't even like and took them back the next day and was just like, Oh my gosh, I can't believe I went all the way to a store and took all that and drove targets like 60 miles from my house. And like, I just, when I got home, I was like, Whoa, I wonder what they have online. And I couldn't believe I was like, Oh my gosh, these are so much nicer. And like half the price and blah, blah, blah. And I don't know. And then again, the Pitchfork thing, I went to three hardware stores in the fire ahead.
Jackie Marie Beyer (14m 32s):
End up here. No, no. They only had like one handled pitchforks and I wanted a short handled Pitchfork for the compost pile that I can just, I don't know. That's what we've always had. And just, yeah. It's, it's amazing. I don't know. Anyway, thank you so much for sharing with us today and stay safe and have a great weekend.
Jennifer Smith (14m 56s):
Thank you. I appreciate it. Bye bye. Okay.
DeerBusters use code "Fences" for 10% off at checkout!
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Books Tori Recommends:
When Affirmative Action Was White: An Untold History of Racial Inequality in Twentieth-Century America by Ira Katznelson
Dying of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment Is Killing America's Heartlandby Jonathan Metzl
Links we mention:
https://acestoohigh.com/got-your-ace-score/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95ovIJ3dsNk
I'm Tori Williams, Douglas and I am a writer and anti racism educator. I actually grew up in, was born and raised in Portland, Oregon. That's where I live now. I've lived in the Pacific Northwest, my entire life, mainly in Portland and Seattle. And yeah, I didn't really, I kind of came to this work. I sort of fell into it.
A lot of, a lot of different things sort of brought me to this place. But I mean initially like, gosh, there's so many, there's so many places I could go.
Did you go to Portland State University to their conflict resolution program. Like, do you know that they have a program there? I applied to go there and then I could never come up with the funding. And it's really hard to find a job in Portland.
Yeah. Oh my gosh. It is so hard to find a job here. I hear that for sure.
You can't even be a substitute teacher without a master's degree or at least that's what they told me. I don't know
That, that, that sounds right. No, I did not. I have not attended that program. I've heard about it. And I think that like, conceptually, it seems really good. I have a lot of friends, obviously you've gotten to Portland State, so yeah.
How did you get into this work?
I might end up there. I've been talking to the Dean of the School of Public Health about like going into that program.
So yeah, it was, it was journey. So I think that the thing that really kind of kicked it off for me was when I got pregnant with my oldest child, I started doing all this research around birth outcomes for black mothers and they were abysmal. So essentially finding out black mothers are three to four times as likely to die from pregnancy related complications than white moms.
And black infants are like twice as likely as white infants today. And like the first 30 days of life. And that really kind caught my attention, made me really nervous for obvious reasons. And then when I was pregnant with my second, that is when the Ferguson uprising happened as a response to Michael Brown being murdered.
And that was kind of when I was like, okay, this seems important. Like I need to start speaking out about this issue and then fast forward another two years or so two, three years. I'm trying to remember, I guess it was probably two years. I ended up getting a job at a, in a neuroscience lab at OHSU here in Portland and it's a super diverse lab and the PI is black and a lot of the post-docs were, were people of color.
And a lot of the work that was being done there was around racism and implicit bias. And it was just a really incredible learning experience even though I was working and not like in the, in the actual med school program. But that gave me a lot of, a lot more information and sort of, kind of, it started to like back up what I had been learning sort of on my own. And yeah, so I just sort of, I just sort of like fell into this.
I had been very vocal on Twitter and like after Michael Brown was murdered. and I ended up losing like probably 60% or so of my Twitter followers. Cause people did not like what I had to say. So, but yeah, eventually over time people started paying attention to like what I was putting out into the world and yeah, I've actually been able to transition and do this full time now.
White Homework Podcast So I do, like, as you said, I did the White Homework Podcast which is a lot of fun and that was kind of the point, right. Was to be able to make anti racism, education, not something other than this kind of like a dull, boring shame or guilt inducing conversation.
I wanted it to be a little bit more fun, a little bit more accessible because I think it's easier to learn that way. It's easier to learn when you think that the person who is teaching you actually likes you. Right? And go ahead and
I liked the way that like action steps. You actually have homework for people to do where they can learn and grow. Like I've learned so much trying to finish. I have listened to about mass incarceration and I have.
You know, a little bit of background in that. And I took a trauma informed class and some of the websites I went to, I was like, I've been here before, but then a ton of other stuff, I'm like, wow, I had no idea. And I love that. You're all about restorative justice, which made me want to talk about and explain what it is.
Like, I just love the way you have all these ideas. Like you have solutions, whereas so many of you were like, Oh, can we do? And this is what we've always done. And like, you know, the way that you talk about punishment, doesn't work! like that
We have solutions for our prison systems that we can, or maybe we don't have the solutions right now, but that there's a way to change it. And that, I don't know. There's just so much.
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that was definitely and aspects that I wanted to bring to the conversation was like, again, I know it wasn't supposed to be hopeful necessarily, but it was supposed to,
I wanted intentionally to create an environment where people felt like the work could be done. Where people weren't going, Oh my God, this is way too big for anyone to ever solve.And they just throw it on the towel and walk away.
I wanted it to be. And like I said, people tend to, when it comes to racism, I think white people tend to go either like the shame guilt side, like ditch, or they go to the like kind of reactionary dismissive. That's not real ditch.
And so I wanted to be able to keep people on the road, right by talking about restorative justice and how restorative justice is good for everyone. Right? It's, it's necessary for restoration to occur for people of color. And that work primarily falls on, on white Americans or any white people who live in it like a colonized country.But restorative justice is also good for white people. Like it's good for your humanity. It's good for your empathy. It's good for your body, right? Because it like lowers stress.
You know, there's a lot of talk around like police reform and abolition and, and it's like, you know, something that I keep trying to bring up is just like policing. Isn't good for police officers either. Like we have a system that really wears people down, it causes massive amounts of emotional and mental trauma.
There is a huge crisis of, of suicide among police officers. And like, it doesn't have to be this way as my friend, Andre Henry always says, so it was like trying to give people space to imagine what the world could be like, if we are just brave enough to leave what we've always known behind. So yeah.
War Is ObsoleteExactly. Like imagine can be different. We can do this. Like I have this big poster on our driveway on our pump house that says war is obsolete because I believe we can get to a peaceful world. And like, I teach my kids over and over when I'm a teacher at school, like there's this book by Todd Parr called the Peace Book.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRovkkt52tk
And it talks about peace is not just an absence of war. Peace is everybody having shoes, everybody having a home, like the kids always love when it's like everybody having pizza, but I'm always like, do you know how many kids in the world would give anything to have a pizza once a week?
Like they can't even fathom what a pizza looks like. Like when all our kids get to go to school, like everywhere, like I'm always, my mom's always like, well, that's their country's, you know, job to figure out.
I just don't feel that way. I'm like we're humans. There should not be kids on our planet that are hungry. That don't have access to clean water for cooking or surely for drinking, but also for cooking for cleaning themselves for, but this is 2020. And that's why I love millennials so much because I think you guys, you're not going to accept it.
And you're not like I see the actions you kids are taking every day. I call you kids because my husband is 14 years older than I am. So his daughters are both millennials, my stepkids. So I always call them kids, even though I'm just in my fifties.
But to me, I just think like, you're, you're gonna make this change. I feel like my generation I'm generation X and we, we might have, you know, protested and digital, a little bit of stuff, but you know, we've obviously become complacent.
Yeah. I mean, I think that you're absolutely right. I think that a lot of people, a lot of millennials and the younger generation that TBD zoomers or whatever, we're calling them right now. I'm not really sure. Yeah. They're, they're pretty impressive too. I think coming from them. Yes. And I think that it's, it's really, we have been told that the system works.
If you know how to work it, if you can pull yourself up by your bootstraps, if you can, if you have grit and determination and don't let anything sidetrack you. Right. And we're like, okay, but we have the data now. It doesn't work. It works. It works for a few people really, really well. And it doesn't work for most people at all.
And yeah. Being able to say, okay, it's really, it's not okay to live in a country specifically where there are billionaires and there are kids who don't have enough money to have a lunch at school.
Like those two things cannot coexist in a moral country. And so really kind of being willing to wrestle with these ideas of like, what does justice look like for the most marginalized people in society? What does it look like for everyone to have access to fresh, healthy food?
Right? And trying to imagine, and creatively come up with solutions for, to help people survive in a system as it is, and to create a new system that works for everyone, instead of just working for the people that was designed to work for, which is not everyone.
And, you know, I'm really, I'm really grateful for, you know, a lot of the people, you know, my age, who were, who were doing the work, I mean, I'm great, but I'm grateful for anyone who is willing to learn, right?
Who's willing to listen and learn and examine their own lives, motivations, behaviors, thought patterns, assumptions about the world and, and really kind of sit down with that and like apply a critical lens as opposed to going well, again, this is just, this is just how we've always done it. And it kind of works for me or, you know, aspiration.
Like I don't want to tax billionaires because maybe one day I'll be a billionaire. It's like, no, you won't come on.
Like, let's make this work for more people. You know, something that I keep telling people on social media mainly is like, okay, there's, there's five, there's 550 billionaires in the US and 550,000 people will go to sleep outside tonight. So you are basically a thousand times more likely to become homeless than to become a billionaire.
That's a great way to frame it. And now they're saying there were 615 billionaires when Corona started and now there's 630. So there's 15 new billionaires in the world since the coronavirus started.
But how many people have lost their jobs and their means? And I just don't feel like people are looking into the future and seeing the impact that like, if we don't get this country together, we don't have time to waste. Businesses are not going to be able to go backwards and survive through next year.
And I don't know, there's so much about the pandemic. I, I can't, and I'm married to a news junkie, so it's on over and over and over in different formats. And, and I understand the point of watching different formats and seeing it.
So you know what this person is saying and what this person's learning and that, but for me, it gets a little intense. I just am baffled by like I'm in rural Montana. So people don't believe it here. They're out. Like I'm almost scared to go out in public, certainly in the late afternoons, I would not go out with a mask on because I'm looked at as a radical liberal where I live. Like, I'm just, it's just kind of, I don't even know what to think.
Anyway, let's talk about solutions. I feel like you are, you know, that's like one of your greatest things is you have solutions for people, but I also feel like, like, so when George Floyd first happened, I am a lot of the podcasters that I was listening to were like, we'll read White fragility, White fragility, but I didn't feel like a lot of it came through to me until I started listening to your White Homework Podcast .
Like I realized how white of a lens I was looking through that violence, that what I consider violence is what white people consider violence. And it's, what's acceptable based on the society that we have right now, but that there are other, like other people might be like that.
And like, even I argue with my English teacher about reading the hunger games, I'm like the hunger games is so violent. Don't you feel that violent? And she just kind of looks at me and he's like, really? I mean, I guess like, she doesn't think it's any more violent than anything else, but to me, I am so appalled by all the violence in that book.
And just, I guess we all have different frames of mind. I don't, I'm getting off topic. Go ahead.
Yeah. I mean, there, there are, we do have lots of research. We have lots of data. We know how to, we know how to improve the system. And I, I mean, I think that's the thing that kind of ends up being the most frustrating, probably up until up until the end of May was it felt like we have all this information.
We, we know all of these things in terms of, you know, improving outcomes for people and, you know, crime reduction or whatever, whatever the thing is that you were concerned about.
It's like we have all of this data. We can improve, even if we don't, even if we don't destroy the whole system, right. Even if that's not what happens...
We can still improve outcomes for people by huge amounts. And we have all this information, we know how to do it, but it's like, how are we going to get people's implement this? And I, you know, recently in the last, you know, since, since George Floyd was murdered, so you know about seven, has it been seven weeks now, six, seven weeks, somewhere in there.
I feel like people are taking these not new ideas because a lot of these ideas have been around forever. It's just, now we have the data to prove that they work.
So taking these ideas, these like abolitionist ideas and saying, "Hey, how can we implement this in our city?"
It's it's at this point, I don't think that there's been a lot of movement on like the state level for most places. I mean, especially when we talk about something like policing, you know, we can, we can pass all the laws. We can make all of the reforms, but there's no way to enforce them, which again is intentional.
That that option doesn't really work. I mean, last night, Seattle cut the, the Seattle city council cut the budget for Seattle PD by 50% voted to cut the budget for Seattle police department by 50% and
put those funds into mental health care and housing and social work. Because again, we know that these programs work.But we spend, you know, most cities, most big cities spend 40% of their budget on a police department yesterday. I was listening to a podcast yesterday or sometime in the last week or so. And the host said like, it's, our cities are set up in terms of like, in terms of their budget, it's like a small army with a city around it. Right? Like we build, we build up the police department and that's like the thing that the city funds.
And again, it's like, we don't get good outcomes from the system. No one does.
I mean, when you talk about assault, like especially sexual assault, like how many rape kits are just sitting. We know like hundreds of thousands of rape kits are just sitting on shelves in police departments right now, because the system doesn't care about us, right?
The system doesn't care if we were assaulted, this system has no motivation to go and track down the people who are committing violence, you know, so frequently, you know.
Well, that's a really good point is that police officers, every time they go out there, they're putting their lives in danger. And so if we address these social issues, like if they're going to take that budget and put more money into mental health and, you know, housing!
We're having such a housing crisis, like you were talking about homelessness before there's 66,000 people in Los Angeles that either are living on a couch or on the streets or in a shelter or in their car.
And I was talking to somebody they're like, well, why don't they just get a job? And I'm like, you know what, if you're living in your car, you probably have a job. You have a car, you can get the car. You know, there's not 60,000, 66,000 probably unemployed people in Los Angeles, but you're counted as homeless.
If you don't have your own home, if you have to stay on your auntie's couch or, you know, here or there, people should be able to work. We have people working in this country working full time, husbands and wives working full time that still can't afford a home.
Older people are constantly like in our area, they keep talking about senior housing that we desperately need, you know? And just so if they're taking some of that money away, and that was another thing that you talked about, if somebody is raped, that the last thing they want is to police.
And you talked about, was it 27% of police are domestic abusers of themselves? I think. And then the last thing you want, if you've just been raped or sexually assaulted or something, or even just assaulted is for somebody like that to come
My BiRtHdAy wish this year is that anyone who has listened to my podcast and thinks I’m not the worst host in the world will leave me a review because apparently even though I have 90 five star ratings-I guess 4 out of the last 6 reviews I got said I love the content but I wish I cld mute the host I knw I’m not the best host but ouch that was a bit of a shock the other day when I went to find what my listeners say for a pdf so if u think I do an ok job and I know my guests always rock the mic I hope u can take two minutes to give me a review on iTunes!
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/organic-gardener-podcast/id962887645?mt=2
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My BiRtHdAy wish this year is that anyone who has listened to my podcast and thinks I’m not the worst host in the world will leave me a review because apparently even though I have 90 five star ratings-I guess 4 out of the last 6 reviews I got said I love the content but I wish I cld mute the host I knw I’m not the best host but ouch that was a bit of a shock the other day when I went to find what my listeners say for a pdf so if u think I do an ok job and I know my guests always rock the mic I hope u can take two minutes to give me a review on iTunes!
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/organic-gardener-podcast/id962887645?mt=2
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy
Nicole Masters fromIntegrity Soils is here today!
Intro (0s):
Hey There! Green future growers. Thanks for joining us today. If you're new to the show, I hope you'll subscribe on iTunes or your favorite Android app and let's get growing!
Get your copy of ourblank garden journalfrom amazon today!
Jackie Marie Beyer (19s):
Welcome to the Green Organic Garden Podcast! It is Friday, July 3rd, 2020. And I have one of the most awesome guests ever to come on the show. She was recommended by Robin Kelson and Patti Armbrister. Robin actually went all the way to New Zealand to work with her!
For the Love of Soil: Strategies to Regenerate Our Food Production SystemsJackie Marie Beyer (1m 11s):
She is a soil expert and she is here to talk to us. She wrote a book for the love of Soil Strategies to Regenerate Our Food Production Systems. You might've even read it already. And now you're going to hear from the master herself, Nicole Masters. So welcome to the show Nicole!
Nicole Masters (1m 28s):
Thanks for having me, Jackie, that's like the best introduction lead in of all time. Yeah. I really appreciate being here. Thank you.
Jackie Marie Beyer:We are so excited to have you, and I know you are going to drop golden seeds.That's what I call like golden nuggets of value bombs. You're where people say on other podcasters. I just know, like I told you in the email Soil health is without a doubt, the key to my show and show. And then Patti Armbrister has her own little fan club, like one of my, like I'm the president. And like, they just love her.
And she was like, how come you haven't had Nicole Masters on your show yet? I'm like, what did happen with that? And I guess I never sent you the email show. I meant you last year when I first heard about you and I dropped the ball.
Jackie Marie Beyer (2m 13s):
So thank you so much. And go ahead and tell listeners about yourself. Like what time is it where you are? You're in New Zealand, right?
Nicole Masters (2m 20s):
No way when COVID hit, I got on a plane and I got to Montana. So right now I'm in Idaho.
Jackie Marie Beyer (-): You did?
Nicole Masters (2m 27s):
Yeah. I have a trailer in a horse here in Montana. And so yeah, I just, yeah, just kind of really looked at what I was doing and you know, is it the site of a book tour? And you know, my schedule was pretty much the most I was staying anywhere was like three days traveling through Australia and New Zealand and Canada and, and yeah, I guess COVID hit and I was so grateful cause I was like, I need to stop. I need to reconsolidate. I need to, yeah. Just not be rushing around the planet Which I think a lot of people have that same experience. So yeah. I feel like I'm a lot more settled now.
Jackie Marie Beyer (3m 9s):
Isn't that interesting. You did not want to be in New Zealand and wanting to be in the United States for the pandemic. I mean, I guess I said repeatedly, if you have to be in it, Montana is like the best place to be. But New Zealand seem to be on top of things, like aren't, they one of the best countries,
Nicole Masters (3m 28s):
Well, they are in terms of like total lockdown and quarantine, but I don't have a house or a base in New Zealand. So I was like, where would I quarantine? Where had I totally locked life down? And if I was going to lock down, I want to be with my horse. I want to be able to be out in the mountains and, and working cows. And, and I just didn't have that set up in New Zealand.
So it seemed much more, I mean, all my friends do think I'm insane. Like, and you know, the media certainly overseas, isn't putting very good light on America, but I knew that, you know, ranching life would pretty much continue as usual, which is what's happening anyway.
Nicole Masters (4m 7s): Yeah.
Jackie Marie Beyer (4m 7s):
Fascinating. Well, I always kind of start my show asking about your very first garden experience, like on a ranch, like where, like, who are you with? What'd you grow? Where did you?
Nicole Masters (4m 21s):
I grew up, I grew up on air force bases. So my father was a pilot. I was an air force brat, but my very first earliest memories out all of gardening. So my, my father and my grandmother, you know, we always had home gardens, but my mom always tells me stories of when I first learned to crawl, she couldn't find me. And she found me in the garden with my little pinky finger inside a snail shell, eating snails, which she's teasing me about.
Nicole Masters (4m 53s):
But yeah, I mean, I just, I, you know, I used to follow my father around like a puppy dog and you know, so planting radishes and planting my own radishes probably, I don't know, it must've been three or four, you know, really, really little and eating a lot of soil.
I'm a big advocate of eating soil.So yeah. So I think my father was really enjoyed camping and really enjoyed, you know, being in the New Zealand Bush. And so I think, and I think in New Zealand, we don't have that big rural, urban divide that seems to exist in, and maybe we do now, but certainly growing up, you know, there were horse paddocks, cattle paddocks all around.
And I had relatives that were deer farmers and dairy farmers, and just always felt very connected to agriculture. And it wasn't till I was 24 that my father brought a farm and I went with him and we basically started from scratch planted 700 avocado trees.
Re-established a wetland put in, you know, different types of orchard species.Nicole Masters (6m 0s):
And yeah, it was both of us had knew nothing. I had been managing community gardens when I was 24. It was what I did when I left university was I'm very lucky to kind of strike that job. And at the same time, you know, I've been gardening for a few years and was just very lucky to have a position like that because you know, you really do get thrown in the deep end
And you need to be researching and experimenting and figuring out what works.And what was interesting with those community guidance was they were given to us, they were set up in the middle of a low socioeconomic community that didn't want them.
Nicole Masters (6m 38s):
And hadn't asked for them and didn't appreciate people basically coming into the community. So we had a lot of vandalism. We had a lot of, you know, people coming in and smashing everything up and tipping out all the seedling trays. And it was sort of some of my early thinking around you don't force change on people. You need to engage with communities. You need to invite and bring people along with you, not go, Hey, we know this is the best thing for you and we're going to have it happen. So it was an extraordinary time of learning.
Jackie Marie Beyer (7m 10s):
I was in New Zealand where you, yeah. And then, so when did you go to,
Did you go to college for agriculture?Nicole Masters (7m 21s):
I went to university for, I did an ecology degree actually wanting to be a great white Shaq researcher. But when you, you know, if you want to get into zoology or anything like that, you need to do basic cell biology.
We did botany like did conservation science did all sorts of like, I love ecology degrees in terms of so varied. And through that, I really got excited about plants. And then I really got excited about soil and it was like, I ended up majoring in soil thinking that I wanted to be a great white shark researcher, which is fascinating still because soil is just, it's the new frontier!
Nicole Masters (8m 3s):
You know, it's the more that we learn about it, the more that we learn about our own human microbiome and the connections with like how we evolved as human beings and how much of that microbiology actually comes from soil. And how much of it has to say in terms of health and wellbeing that they've developed a vaccine for PTSD, for instance, it comes from a soil bacterium. So it's like, yeah, it just never, never gets dull
Jackie Marie Beyer (8m 34s):
That's just fascinating to me.
And how anybody like goes into soil in collegeTo be honest with you. I took a lot of botany classes in college for somebody who was like a liberal arts major. Cause I liked plants and flowers. I wanted to get a job for the forest service here, going around in the forest. And like you did like these surveys of, you know, like how many wild flowers, how many trees, how many of us are that?
Jackie Marie Beyer (9m 7s):
Which I lasted all of two days after all this work to get the job. And I got lost in the woods and I was like, I'm done, There were some factors in there. I did not like fire school either. I was like, why fighting forest fires? That is so not me. Anyway. Well tell us more, tell us about your book.
Integrity Soils
Nicole Masters (9m 32s):
Yeah. So my book came about really from people. So I with our programs, soIntegrity Soils is my company being basically self employed for over 20 years. We manage, we work alongside land managers that cover over 1.2 million acres. And working with these people,
I have quite a specific triage or process that I go through in my mind that actually, I didn't realize how specific it was until people started going. Well, explain how,
- How did you get to that diagnosis?
- How is it that you figured out that my cows have as like a phosphate deficiency, because there's not enough active fungi like in the soil?
- How did, how did you come to that?
And so the book really goes through the triage process or the coaching process in terms of how do we identify what enabling factors are in soil and what's putting a limit to full health and production and how do we really build soil and build organic matter as quickly as possible on large landscapes as well as in home gardens.
Nicole Masters (10m 40s):
So, you know,
I work with some of the largest market gardens, vegetable production, horticulture, bison, beef, sheep, you know.We work in hugely diverse environments and it it's like, well, what works well in these types of ecosystems and what works well?
You know, if you think about going from the New Zealand environment to Montana, they're almost the polar opposite. So it's, how do you diagnose in those environments and what are we looking at? So I came up with a process that I call the five M's, which is looking at what is, what is, you know, what's potentially involved in, in what we call the enabling factors.
The Five M'sNicole Masters (11m 20s):
So is that your, is there
- an issue with microbiology?
- Is it a mineral imbalance?
- Is it low, organic matter?
- Is it your management
- is it your mindset?
So the five M's. ,And through going through that process, we go through a diagnostic of how well is that plant photosynthesizing that's number one, you know, like if your
plants are not capturing adequate sunlight energy and converting that into everything that happens in the plant and then feeding microbiology, then the system's not going to work very well.
The next step is what's happening with water and water infiltration.Nicole Masters (11m 52s):
No, that's not. The next step is before that. So before water, comes air and most people think of water because we're so connected to, if it doesn't rain or we don't have water going, you know, then you know, your garden's going to fail, but actually before that, it's actually an movement.
So the same in the human body, if you don't, you're not breathing, you're not going to last very long. If you're not able to get water, you know, maybe you'll live for three days. And if you don't have food, maybe it's three weeks.
So it goes through this process of diagnostics so that you can figure out what is it.
What is happening on your own property and how do we really take that to the next level?Nicole Masters (12m 30s):
And, yeah, so it was a pretty awesome process to go through writing the book. I use a lot of case studies and people's stories to convey sometimes what can seem very technical, but trying to keep it in a way that makes it really readable.
I didn't want people just going, Oh, this is a good reference book, or this is good technical book, or this is something we're just going to read once and then shelf, or maybe just read half of it and shelf. And I've had so many messages from people going, I've read your book four times have highlighted all of this.
Nicole Masters (13m 1s):
And they've sent me photos. And I'm like, who reads a book four times? You know, like, and just being so blown away that, that my intent, which is to kind of try and keep it very engaging, I feel like was pretty successful in the end.
Jackie Marie Beyer (13m 17s):
Yeah. I think Patty and Robin were both telling me they've also listened to the audio version several times. Yeah.
Nicole Masters (13m 23s):
So they can be fluent in New Zealand.
Jackie Marie Beyer (13m 27s):
I am a elementary educator by trade, like taught K through fourth grade for many years and, you know, rereading, rereading, rereading is something.
Nicole Masters (13m 39s):
We teach them all the time. So I don't know. I kind of get it. Yeah. Yeah. But I think people's lives are so busythese days, you know, we're lucky to kind of push anything into our heads at all. And I think that's why audio books is so powerful is, and I hadn't even realized.
I started talking to people and they're like, yeah, I listen to an audio book while I'm vacuuming or while I'm going for a run or I'm in the car. And I'm like, I didn't even realize there was this whole world of, and maybe it's you know, we're totally spinning our wheels because we haven't got any downtime to just contemplate.
Nicole Masters (14m 12s):Cause you're listening to audio books all the time. But yeah. So I've been excited about the audio book.Jackie Marie Beyer (14m 20s):
Well, I, you know, there's times, right? I like peace and quiet, but when I'm driving or when I'm walking, like nothing's better for me than an inspiring. I like to listen to podcasts myself being a podcaster. It's kind of how I got into it. And then I just got a job this summer working for another podcast. And I've been to like over 600 podcasts websites in the last two weeks.
Nicole Masters (14m 42s): So wow.
Jackie Marie Beyer (14m 43s):
Kind of neat. I feel like I'm connecting and making new friends again and listening to new shows. And, but also, yeah, I've been trying to get a little more quite time when I'm in the garden. Yeah. So
Nicole Masters (14m 58s):Yeah, I think that's how we balance it, you know, we can balance it out. Yeah.Jackie Marie Beyer (15m 5s):So what would you tell listeners? Cause my listeners are probably more backyard gardeners, although they do have surprisingly large gardens for backyard gardeners. You know, they're the kind of people that are, you know, growing a fair amount of their own produce. Like maybe like what's the thing they be most surprised about.
I know like Patti keeps talking about how organic gardeners sometimes have some of the worst soil anymore because they're just, they keep tilling it and they keep doing things.You know, she's talked a lot about ways that you can not have to deal with weeds by just not tilling your soil and just different things like that.Jackie Marie Beyer (15m 43s):Like what would you say backyard gardeners maybe would be something you see them surprised?Nicole Masters (15m 53s):I think asking those questions, * you know, why is it that maybe you have weeds * why do you have pests or diseases?
and how to really work with that underground livestock in microbiology because they are the ones that's providing nutrition and health and disease resistance and insect resistance. So yeah, I think it's one of those lights that light bulb moments that goes on for people is really starting to look at what is your garden trying to tell you, what is it communicating?Nicole Masters (16m 24s):What are those weed species that are growing? What are they trying to say?
And it becomes this whole world that opens up. If you start looking at your backyard or your lawn in that way of, Oh, that's really curious, you know, I actually, I'm producing the soil conditions that are perfect for these types of weeds instead of I'm producing, you know, my management is creating the perfect conditions for a lettuce or, or whatever.
So yeah, in my, you know, the last time I had a real garden, which was probably six years ago now,
you know, we create a soil environment that what grows is what I'm planting and seeing very few invasive weed species coming in at all.
Nicole Masters (17m 10s):
And if there was anything coming in, they were very soft, you know, like clovers and things. And I'm like, well, that's a pretty good understory or intercropping to be had.
I think we expect to have these very straight lines and sort of mono-cultural patches still in gardens. And I think the more we can break it up, we'll go through what I think of as the ugly hair stage, where you like just allow, you know, more chaos in the garden to try and replicate nature more.
Nicole Masters (17m 40s):
You know, that you've got a diversity of different species and maybe some
Friday June 19, 2020
Get a FREE Sample by simply paying shipping from Cultured Biologix HereWe, you know, we were part of a conglomerate with about four other organic companies and, you know, each one kind of has the organic piece of the puzzle, you could say. So they do a lot of like, they take like the organic amendments you would put in your soil and they digest them ahead of time.
So when they put them in a bottle also, when you use them, you're using liquid digested, organic goodness. So every time you feed your plants, you're feeding them what would naturally be released in the soil? So it's like a really more innovative, what's a new, innovative way to do organic gardening, I guess, in a more context of who they are to us, their, our, our partner company, where they provide the, the liquid organic nutrients.
And we provide the, the easy to use complex to use to keep the soil broken down and healthy. And then in cycling all the nutrients and making them available for the plants...
This is perfect. Did you get the email? Yes. Okay. So I'll just introduce you and we'll go from there before you drop any more golden seeds that listeners are going to want to hear. Okay, cool. Welcome to the green organic gardener podcast.
Today. It is Friday, June 19th, 2020. And I have someone on the line who I think we're going to really enjoy learning about. They have a, kind of a new green business that they're going to tell us a little about, and also like how you can have better results in your gardens.
So it's Cultured Biologix, Is that right, Tim? Yes. Yes, it is. Okay. And I'm not even sure. I know your last name, so welcome to the green organic gardener podcast. Well, I'm glad you're here. So go ahead and tell us there's a little bit about yourself.
Yeah, sure. So I'm the president of a company called Cultured Biologix. We make really good organic microbial, fertilizers, natural pesticides, you know, taking essential oils that are harmless to you, me, your dogs, you know, everything good in nature, but you know, detrimental to a lot of the pests that we experienced in our garden. So we started about three years ago.
We've been growing pretty steadily here in Colorado. So, you know, originally we kind of started off in the cannabis hemp seed, and now we're kind of moving into home, home and garden kind of teaching people about, you know, the new ways to, to garden organically.
Okay. Well, I kind of always start out my show asking you about your very first garden experience, like where you were a kid, were you an adult? Was it recently, or like, what'd you grow? Who were you with?
But I've been very fortunate to have a mother that's been a horticulturalist for 35 years. So take your child to work day was to take, take Tim to the, to the greenhouse and have them water plants and pick off bugs. And that leaves up off the plants. So I've been, I've been doing it for most of my life. 29 year olds, 29 years old now. So I've been gardening good 20 years of my life. First gardening experience was probably my backyard with my, with my mom, helping her do annual prenup flowers.
That's been her real big thing. So just kind of grew up with it and just kind of involved with, with just probably every, every day of my life. So probably is that how you learned how to grow organically from your mom? Yeah. Yeah. One of our organically, she definitely taught me the conventional ways, you know, in a lot of conventional greenhouses and whatnot, they, they use their super triple phosphate. They do their 20, 20, 20 jacks. You know, they did a pretty conventional stuff and he's not assaults and synthetics.
And it wasn't actually, until I, I got into chemistry is my that's my background I'm I have a bachelor's in science and chemistry. And so I got into kind of what the organic, what is to be organic garden.
And so the first grad at college, I got brought into an innovative fertilizer company and got into evolve with the really core organizations like United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, and really starting to understand that, you know, there's other ways that we can grow conventionally working with the United nations.
We we've, we figured out that, you know, it takes about a thousand years for one centimeter of soil, top soil to build. We, our whole, all of existence of nature is really dependent on the first six inches of top soil.
So it really got me into, it was understanding that conventional fertilizer on our conventional foreign land can degrade once in a year of soil in 10 years.
So we can destroy about a hundred times quicker than we could the earth naturally rebuild it!Going into organic gardening, you start to really realize that, you know, it's more about how we take care of the soil than just growing a plant.
So just kinda going into, I don't know, a lot of the different verticals in agriculture, you can see how a lot of the conventional gardening, you know, it requires a lot more fertilizer than the organic gardening requires a lot less fertilizer!
Maybe more, more tending to the soil, maybe more tending to, you know, the aspects of, of a good ecosystem or really what.
What steered me into organic gardening was, was just working. We're working within the fertilizer industry and realizing what conventional fertilizers were and, and what, or what the difference between organic was.
Well, you know, this is music to our ears. So, so then what happened?
We started working with a lot of these different countries that are part of the United Nations, and they started really looking back at what,
what is it to be healthy?Where we're at with all these large costs in our healthcare system? What do we really, how do we reduce this cost? How do we improve the system? Do we, do we have more endeavors and pharmaceuticals? Do we have more endeavors and biotechnology? Do we, do we focus more on healthcare professionals?
And at the end of the day, what they found is that it doesn't really come down to how much money you put into your medical system and your healthcare system, because you're always going to be kind of fighting uphill battle.
What they found was is that the true mutual, the true health to a human and to our, to our bodies is the food we eat. And so that's really what propelled me into making innovative and new technologies is for organic gardening is realizing that the, the nutrition that we eat is actually in our produce.
It's, it's how we develop nutrient dense produce.
And we do that through growing organically and having a good micro ecosystem!
Having a good, good soil health. And if we really want to truly have good medicine to take care of you, me, or kids or family, then we all need to eat organic food. And we all need to be focused on nutrient dense produce.
Okay, Tim. So my listeners have repeatedly told me that what they want to know is how can they be more productive? And I have a feeling you have an answer for us. How can we grow more of that nutrient dense produce?
What's some of this tech and other solutions that you've come up to help make organic gardeners more successful.
Hey, wait, can I just remind listeners? I'm sure you all cut this in the beginning question, but 29, another rockstar, millennial working for the UN ~ biochemistry degree!
I love it. Tim. I'm writing a book called rockstar millennials about them. Amazing rock star millennials on my show, because I think you guys are great!
Thank you. We're excited. If you can't tell?!.
Yeah. The, you know, it really comes down to, you know, the Native Americans have this theory. I'm a quarter Native American. And so I've really grown up with that in my, my, my, my childhood. And, you know, they have a saying that you are what you eat and while the plant is what it eats too.
So the, the, the biggest thing I've found and, you know, maybe not a lot of people, I don't know if you guys have talked a lot about this or not, but the bricks level inside the plant it's, it's, it's something not really taught a lot about in conventional agriculture, except for like grapes.
You know, when you're making wine, you want the highest grade content. Do you have the artists highest amount of sugar content and not let you make good wine.
But really to have a hi. Hi. Hi. Hi, hi bricks con plant. And we do that through reducing the water soluble nutrients inside the plant and increasing more proteins, increasing organic cellular production at the plant. So, you know, nitrates are a good example of that. We can grow more nutrient and produce by utilizing alternative forms of nitrogen.
Nitrates are one of the, one of the four forms of nitrogen and conventionally. You have nitrates ammonium, and you have a urea is the three forms of nitrogen. And that's where we find a lot of, you know, inside like jacks or miracle grow, or, you know, a lot of assault based fertilizers.
What that does is that the nitrates can only exist inside the plant when there's a large amount of water. So what that does is when a plant takes up the nitrates and use that as a main version of nitrogen, that's good source, the plant has to have a large amount of water as well.
And what the large amount of water does is it dilutes the amount of nutrition in your produce. It dilutes the sugar, the SAP content inside your produce. So it's not as packed with vitamins and minerals. So just by simply finding a different version of, of nitrogen, whether the vet, your top dressing with feather meal and putting down accomplished tea on top of that, whether you have some alfalfa or different organic versions of nutrition, we want to, we want to focus on the fourth type of, of nitrogen called protein nitrogen.
And you can get that through organic soybean extracts. You can get that through hydro ice fish, just using these more naturally natural versions of, of just nitrogen alone can increase the brix level inside the plant, which means your plants are going to have more, more nutrition in it.
Are you saying brinks like the brinks truck?
No, you're fine. Brix B-R- I X, brix is a measurement of the carbohydrate content inside the plant.
And we find is there's less brix and plants to have a high amount of water in them. And when you use a lot of nitrates are a lot of phosphate salts, the water content goes up really high inside the plant, which immediately reduces the amount of nutrients over trying to get, you know, dense new nutrient produce inside the plant, we want the nutrients to be as packed full per square inch as possible inside the plant.
So you, I guess in a simple sentence, it's just a it's it's, you know, knowing what you're feeding the plant!
you know, we should try to, we try to sway away from, from salt based fertilizers and go more towards like protein nitrogen, or more towards a bone meal or rock phosphorus source for the phosphorus.
And we do that. You can, you can kind of adjust the amount of water in the plant and how much nutrients the plant actually absorbing. And we find that you have higher Brix levels, which means more sugar content type of plant and more sugar content contains also more nutrients and more vitamins and minerals inside of the plant.
So how do you know what, like what the sugar level of that plant is? Or like, how do you even, is that like a soil test you're doing to find that brix thing?
Yeah, you can, there's a refractive index and that's like the measurement scale of it. And we can use a refractometer and they're pretty cheap online. And you just go through and you can do a chop a part of the branch off of a plant, and you can squeeze the juice out onto the lens and you just hold that up towards light and you can see where the sugar content is on refractometer.
So it's a little more the, an experience type of gardening approach, but, you know, if you're really trying to dial things in it's, it's really helpful to see like how healthy the plant is, because what we also found is, you know, higher the brix, the higher, the healthier the plant.
And if we have a healthier plant, you can use less pesticides and you have less bugs trying to get to the plant!
And that's really overall what it is. You're trying to make yourself, help yourself healthy. And you're trying to make the plant healthy. And when the plant is healthy, you can use less chemicals and less chemicals immediately means healthier plants!
Golden seeds, Tim golden seeds! This is the kind of stuff that my listeners want to hear. So, and a lot of this stuff is like, so I just had this, she has her own little fan club on my show. Her name is Patti Armbruster, and she's like a regenerative agriculture expert. And she actually was just at my place yesterday, giving me all sorts of tips and things that we could do.
And a lot of the things that I think you're saying is what she's talking about to like helping the plants be healthy, you know? Totally she's just such a soil, like show passionate about, you know, feeding the soil organisms and the ecosystem. So it's a healthy soil. So it feed your plant, like you're saying.
And then my husband's been adding like alfalfa meal, and I think, I want to say it was blood meal in that bone meal to kind of like give his plants a little boost this spring, but I dunno.
Do you have more to say, or do you want to answer the questions or where do you want to go from here?
Yeah, no, I mean, I, you know, I, I'm, I'm really a proponent on making sure that the, you know, we're all picky about the food we eat. I'm a big proponent about being picky about what you feed your plants too. Right? So a lot of it is, it goes into, if your plants are healthy, they're going to have less, less bugs and less bugs means you're going to have more or less pests. I'm sorry, which means you're going to have more predators and you're going to have a plant that releases less infrared.
And so really my whole soapbox schpeel I've been getting on lately is, is just adjusting the form of nitrogen, which also was just causing your plant to be healthier. If they plant, when plants take in a bunch of nitrates, they've released infrared radiation, the book, see infrared radiation and see that as like their prime food source and they come attack plant. So we can, we can make plants healthier and actually ward away the pests themselves by just feeding them non nitrate based food.
I guess I, the full circle to kind of let them what I've been preaching.
Speaker 1 (16m 5s): And so was that what, where my page go, the biologix, the culture biologix is like food that you give the plants to help them be healthier?
Yeah. Yeah. Well, we give the, you know, we like to tackle it from a couple of different animals or a couple of different angles. One of the one which is, you know, adjusting the input of the food source.
So it makes sure, yeah, we definitely feed them better, you know, create a better organism.
The other is, is part of the biologix is using biological organisms to, you know, condition the soilyou know, we had in Colorado, we have a heavy clay based soil, not much sand here, a lot of rock. So what we'd like to do is put down like beneficial microorganisms that, that naturally break down clay and produce some more porise substrates to grow in.
So it's not as compact and not as, not at that, doesn't say as waterlogged for as long. So part of it is the inputs lot. And the other part of it is making sure we use the proper organisms at the proper timing to condition our soil.
So, like I said, you know, prior to, to working with United Nations, we did this soil degradation test.
And one way we found to increase the rate at which the soil regenerates the top soil is to use organisms that put carbon back into the soil.
And then, and by doing this, we find that we can, we can grow the soil at a faster rate than we can, can, we can decompose it through conventional agriculture because of the organisms we put in there.
Well, where do you get the organisms from?
We work with the micro-biotic lab out of Santa Rosa, California, good friends of ours. We like to work closely with, with good people. And so they make, we, we had them go to the international gene bank in Switzerland to find a couple, a couple of specific organisms that we want to use and put in, make a microbial blend for us.
So they make all of our, all of our custom blends of microorganisms. And we use them in and make them into an easy to use product, like instant compost teas and like, like an actual rooting product that uses rooting bacteria instead of rooting and hormones.
And there's sure a lot of that going on these days isn't there?
Oh yeah, yeah, there are. And you know, our, our whole thing is just a lot of, a lot of educating. Cause a lot of people don't know what goes into the soil. A lot of people don't know what, what they're using because they buy a bottle that says, Hey, grows plants grow well.
Well, that doesn't necessarily mean it's good for you, or it's very good for the soil. So, you know, a lot of where, how we go about it is, is making sure that we one provide an easy to use product.
Also, you know, give the microorganisms that people need. You know, her, for example, a lot of people don't know, am I crazy? Is, am I crazy and habits, 95% of all root systems on the faces earth? You know, that's a very integral part of our products and knowing when, what that good bacteria used and what we know, what bacteria that you're a phone guy, you need to break down what nutrients.
So we kinda custom tailor all of these complex micro mycology essentially and put them into a product that you
The amazing Patti Armbrister is going to teach a composting class for Organic Garden Podcast listeners completely online Saturday July 18, 2020 at 10:00 am MST/12:00pm EST for only $37.00
Get your seat here
We will be learning how to make not only more compost, but Great Compost and Easy Compost too!
What's new in our garden, my inability to deal with Facebook anymore and my desire to double down on podcasting, and a bit about the world. Just a typical JMB rant in the middle of summer in the middle of a pandemic in the middle of NW Montana. Stay safe and thanks for listening!
[gallery ids="137017,137018" type="rectangular"]
https://youtu.be/6w1_mtbgY-4
[caption id="attachment_137019" align="aligncenter" width="449"] Broccoli Harvest 2020[/caption][caption id="attachment_137020" align="aligncenter" width="464"] Buckwheat growing in compost and grass clippings on top of cardboard[/caption]
https://www.democracynow.org/2020/7/17/coronavirus_spread_yemen_us_backed_saudi
So join the amazing Patti Armbrister and I tomorrow for a composting class for Organic Garden Podcast listeners completely online Saturday July 18, 2020 at 10:00 am MST/12:00pm EST for only $37.00
Get your seat here
We will be learning how to make not only more compost, but Great Compost and Easy Compost too!
Join us on the Listen app using code: GREEN
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Natalie Forstbauer is a TEDx speaker, award-winning entrepreneur, author, organic/biodynamic farmer and traumatic brain injury (TBI) survivor. She is passionate about human potential and seeing people live their best lives.
Raised on an organic farm, trained in Polarity Therapy, alternative medicine, Neurofeedback and Transformational Leadership she brings a wealth of knowledge and life experience to her audiences and clients.
In 2003 Natalie acquired a life changing brain injury.
Gardening and farming with a brain injury showed her healing is not always about "fixing what we perceive to be broken". Compassion and grace can to turn brain injuries and adversity into brain upgrades and new opportunities.
Getting dirty in the fields, taking equipment apart and leaning into the powerful wisdoms of nature, Natalie learned what it is to nurture and harvest one's gifts and to compost adversity into something meaningful and valuable.
Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Heart & Soil Magazine she brings together quality information and advice on regenerative agriculture and global health.
Free copy of my book, Health in a Hurry, Simple Solutions for the Time Starvedwww.healthinahurry.com
www.heartandsoilmagazine.com
Social Media:
https://www.facebook.com/NatalieForstbauer
https://www.instagram.com/natalieforstbauer/
TEDx Brain Injury to Brain Upgrade
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AinF06mBUhs
Welcome to the GREEN Organic Gardener Podcast. Today. It is Friday, June 19, 2020, and what a day and the most exciting thing was you can't wait for this. The amazing Patti Armbrister actually came to our place and let me take video footage of her telling us what's going on in our garden, what we can do to improve it and just all the great things Mike's doing right. Also the Apple pruning trips and we're in touch with somebody else.
You can see that episode here:https://mikesgreengarden.com/2020/07/12/patti-armbrister-at-mikes-green-garden-with-the-green-organic-garden-podcast-fortine-mt/
So we all know Patti Armbrister is an amazing soil specialist. Today. We are going to talk to somebody else. Who's also going to talk about the importance of healthy soil.
So my guest today is a TEDx speaker and award-winning entrepreneur and author and organic biodynamic farmer and traumatic traumatic brain injury survivor, which is something super passionate to me because we had a first grader at my school, get hit by a car going 40 miles an hour, crossing the highway, getting off the bus. And she is recuperating down in Texas after being in a coma and had major.
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I was born and raised on an organic and biodynamic farm in BC, British Columbia, Canada in the phrase of Valley. So my parents were pioneers in the organic industry in, in Canada and really in North America, my mom was recognized throughout the organic industry and they helped put together the guiding principles for certification and verification of organic farming. And I kind of grew up, you know, the girl who went to school with odd ball lunches and a homemade everything. And I had Apple juice instead of Kool-Aid And I thought Kool-Aid was the best thing until I actually tried it and I was mortified and I was actually really grateful for the, the pressed Apple juice.
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And, and then I'm not sure I should really laugh about that because there are a lot of kids who grow up drinking Kool-Aid because it's affordable and they can't afford that super delicious Apple juice.
So that's right. And it's really though Jackie, because
00:08:56
1
We also didn't grow up. Like we never had juices in our house. We drank water and Apple juice was huge street. It was only at the end of the season when we press the apples that were kind of, that were, you know, that were seconds. Or, or if we had like an excess amount of apples, then we got to make Apple juice. And then it was really coveted. Like it was not something we got all the time, but it was like our treat. And so we didn't get it all the time, but we were really blessed to have gotten it. And, and that was, you know, that was one of the only treats we didn't have juice or anything like that.
00:09:28
1
And I always felt so ripped off until I actually tried that Koolaid. And I was like, what?
This is it, it looks really pretty, but it doesn't taste so good.
Like the difference between the, you know, it's like party in the mouth when you have something really fresh and, and like living in and full of nutrients. And it was this kind of flat and foreign the Koolaid.
So anyways, so that was very similar experience with like
Like my mom wouldn't buy that. It was just because she just wasn't going to, she did let us buy soda pop, but not a lot of it, you know, but yeah, I was surprised at Kool-Aid like when you would taste it like birthday parties and be like, I was like totally as such a downer.
00:10:14
1
So super disappointing. So anyways, I grew up on this organic farm and we ran around barefoot and we all worked in the fields. I'm the oldest of 12 kids as well. And so it was it. And we all, I was big family and, and, and super intentional. My parents intentionally, they both wanted to have a large family and they, and they really included us in the farming operations.
Blueberry GirlI was like looking after the blueberry fields that you pick and the end looking after the pickers at the age of 11 and, and, you know, taking people's money when they came and picked vegetables and berries and giving them change and all that kind of stuff. So really empowering.
And then in 1989, we moved from Chilliwack BC to no, pardon me from Masley BC to Chilliwack BC. And it was really profound because I had grown up on an organic farm. So I only knew organic soil. I only knew weeds everywhere and, you know, having to like, well, my hands are in the dirt all the time weeding.
So when we moved out to Chilliwack, we bought a, my parents purchased a farm that had been used for like dairy farming and conventional dairy farming. So it's been sprayed heavily with different chemicals and Roundup and that type of thing.
And I remember walking onto the ground onto the farm and noticing the dirt was just like dirt and I will call it dirt was really dry. And I was like, huh, interesting.
And then the first thing I did, I was about 18 at the time, was I wanted go and find worms because I wanted to take my little brothers and sisters fishing in the Creek. Well, it wasn't Creek. It was like a ditch kind of a waterway that ran along the property.
00:12:01
1
Fishing without worms?And in Matzke where we were moving from wheat, we, we grew up with a stream that we used for fishing, just for fun. We never really caught anything. And, and you know, on this new property, we scoured the entire 110 acres for a worm.
We turned over every piece of wood. There was, we dug along the barns, we dug along the house and there was nothing like not one worm on the whole property!
And that was super foreign to me because I was used to worms everywhere. And not only were there no worms, but I noticed there were no bugs. And I was like, this is weird.
00:12:32
1
I wonder if this is what it's like to like touch the surface of the moon, because it was that it was that vacant.
Where'd all the bugs go?Mike and I were talking about how, when you sit, drive in Montana, your windshield would be covered with bugs. You know, you couldn't drive from Eureka to Whitefish, which is like 45 minutes. And that just doesn't happen anymore!
Wow. That's amazing because my I'm going, my girlfriend was saying that her friend who's not into like organic, anything really was driving through just, I can't remember what part of it's a States through Seattle, just East of Seattle and through like Idaho or Eastern Washington or Spokane Eastern Washington and she's, and I'd go down there all the time, every year.
00:13:30
1
And she was saying the same thing. She said, it was so weird. She said, not one bug hit the windshield. And she said, usually it's covered. And she's like, every, but there's nothing like nothing. Like they didn't have to wash a windshield once on a six hour drive.
And so now we have to wash our windshield from like this like film that gets on there! But anyway, I didn't want to throw you off.
What you're saying is super powerful because that's what I experienced with the earth, right.00:14:00
1
With the soil. And then as we farmed it, I got to actually see it wake up and come back to life. And before that, I just was like, Oh yeah, organic farming. It's supposed to be better. I'm told it's better. And the food does taste better, even though at the time it might not have been the prettiest.
But then to experience the earth coming back to life was probably one of the most powerful and profound things to witness.Like Jackie, it was, it was, it was like an awakening for me on a cellular and ethers level, because I didn't not know.
00:14:45
1
I did not understand that the soil is a living organism that the soil can actually heal itself.And it's nothing that we
00:14:52
0
Did or didn't do in terms of, Ooh, we made it better. It was just nature taking care of itself and really like leading us to where it wanted to be when it's supported. So anyways, that changed my experience with soil and organic farming. And I got to really witness the power of nature.
Right. Well, that is just awesome. And like I said, it couldn't be more timely because yesterday Patti was here picking up our soil and like, I managed to like, turn my phone on video record and just kind of like, cause I could not take notes fast enough for what she was saying, but she really like went into the specifics about what's feeding your soil and how this is like, what's going on here.
00:15:37
0
What's going on underneath here and all the micro organisms and micro, what is it? Or is it nematodes? And just all, exactly all the living soil, things that are going on. And she just explained it so well, like I was like, I could listen to you say this like 25 times before this is going to actually register.And I can still remember like Elaine Dr. Ingham much of this when I interviewed her.
00:16:08
0
And, but it does take a lot to, for humans to grasp this. Like we just like look at soil and we think, Oh, it's Brown dirt. You know, we kind of know, I think most people know that you need worms, you know, the more worms, the healthier your soil, at least my listeners. I think a lot of them know that part. But yeah, so much of what you're saying is so powerful!
What, I guess I'm sure it's about your brain injury because not only did the student, but like Patty just told me about this guy, Brian. Nope. Jim Kwik, have you heard of him? He has this quick brain podcast and he also had some kind of traumatic brain injury
that's right. When he was quite young. Yeah. So, but you're going to tell us about how, how gardening and things help with that, right? Yes. Yeah. Do you have any questions that you want to start off with there Jackie or?
No. I mean like, I'm just curious, like what happened or,
okay, well, so in 2003, I was, I had just written my first book.
I was published in two other books and, and I just published my own first book is called Health in a Hurry, Simple Solutions for the Time-starved.
Get your free copy here: https://www.natalieforstbauer.com/healthinahurryebook
And I, I set up a special page so people can get a free copy of it. And I'll share that with you later. But anyway, so it was online. Yeah, I was, I had also met an organic farmer and we would just such a good fit for one another. And, and so I was in the process of moving out to Saskatchewan when to, to, to be a part of his farm and to a part of his,
00:17:50
1
His business. And we had already married our businesses and we had already planned to merit our life together. And we were on the way back from Saskatchewan to BC to pick up for my book lunch. And on the way there, Jackie, we picked up, I think like 1500 copies of my book from the printer and a few hours after that, early in the morning with a light snowfall, my ground, we just accidentally went off the side of the road and over the side of the mountain.
00:18:22
1
And if anyone's listening knows where the spiral tunnels are by field BC, that's where it happened. And, and so the tow truck driver said it took about 240 feet of cable to pull us back up and out. So that's where I landed with the brain injury. And before, before the brain injury, I was interest into organic farming.
I, I just, can't not interrupt. And just ask her, how was, how was your partner?
00:18:53
1
Yeah, thanks for asking. He, you know, he was, how was he? He, he got whiplash and like had, I think some type of compressed, like fresher in his lower back. And so he was okay. Like, it's amazing when you see the vehicle, the, when we went to go get some stuff out of the vehicle, the people, the week that at the yard, we thought that people didn't make it because of the back of the truck was appealed. The roof of the truck was peeled back.
00:19:23
1
The back cab was completely compressed. It was the, vehicle's a mess. And for us to survive, it was a miracle up like the hands of God and the angels literally had to catch us when we landed A bigger purpose. And you're here to share your message today and in the future and the message that you're sharing. Yeah. Yeah. So, so the brain injury was man, it was, it was probably one of the hardest things I've ever gone through my life because before the brain injury, I had a really easy, I CA I mean, there's lots of things that happened that were hard in life, but I just had that tapestry within which, where I always felt like I was looked after, and if I wanted something, I just go after it and I get it.
00:20:20
1
And so I can manifest really quickly and I could heal, like if I was injured, I could heal myself really quickly. And my training was in alternative medicine. So I'd experienced like spontaneous healing and stuff like that. And I just, I had, I had, I had an easy life, but I had like a pretty effortless, effortless existence up until then. And then the brain injury hit and I couldn't fix myself. Like I couldn't, it didn't matter how many visualizations I did or how much I changed my thinking or how hard I focused on remembering something.
00:20:59
1
I was still falling on my face. I was still not remembering people. I met, I was still leaving a trail behind me of unfinished things. I was still leaving the burner on and, and, you know, boiling pots dry, even though I would have reminders put around, I would still miss some phone appointments and appointments period, unless somebody called me right before it. And even if somebody called me before the appointment to remind me about the appointment, if it wasn't at the time of the appointment, and it was five minutes later, I'd still miss the appointment.
00:21:29
Milled Flax Packages1
It was just, it was almost crazy-making. And so there came a point and I was still working with our organic farm out in Saskatchewan and, and doing my best with that. And, you know, odd things were happening, Jackie, like we were, we had a, a line of, of milled flax that we sold into stores across Canada.
00:22:01
1
And so an example of how the brainer jury was showing up is we had labels, of course, the front and back and on the back is it says how many calories are on the package? And I don't remember what the number was. I think it was like 25 calories per tablespoon or per three tablespoons.
And all of a sudden the name, the number was changed to 125 calories per tablespoon. And I was like, and, and the only reason I found out is because one of our customers called us and said, why does your flax has so many calories in it? Because no other flex does.
00:22:32
1
And I, and so I looked, I could not believe that that was, had happened. And so I called the design company and I called the printing company. I totally took a piece out of them and was furious at their mistake. Like, how could they do that? Why would they do that?
And, and everything has to be signed off on. And, you know, finally we, and they said that I did it and I adamantly denied that. And then I was in a conversation with my sister about it and she just reflected back to me. She said, you know, Natalie, sometimes like sometimes your brain flips things and maybe, maybe have you ever considered that it was you who changed that number?
00:23:15
1
And I'm like, yeah, but why would I do that? She's like, well, yeah, it might be something to consider kind of thing.
So she told me without telling me, and then I went back and I, and I, at that point I had the capacity to be able to see more how I was showing up. And it totally was me. I randomly like change the number and signed off on it.
And not only like, was it just a mistake with a number, but it was also like financially cost us a lot of money. Cause now we have to print new labels and also it, it,
it costs me more, my confidence, I was starting to doubt who I was, how I showed up.00:23:56
1
And it was, it was traumatizing to think you're one way and think you're a person and then just be showing up totally differently. And to be seeing that and witnessing it over and over and over again
I worked for a printer for a long time. I can totally imagine that whole, the whole thing. Right. I...
https://youtu.be/SVHh5wS-cLE
Hey there, green future growers! Thanks for joining us today. If you're new to the show, I hope you'll subscribe on iTunes or your favorite Android app and let's get growing.
The amazing Patty Armbrister is going to offer the most incredible composting class you'll ever take completely online.
Saturday, July 18th, 2020, it's only $37 and you will get a seat. You will get a copy of the replay. You will get to pick her brain question in the answers. We're just gonna rock the composting, how to do composting the most efficient, effective, and best way to improve the results in your garden today. Yeah, there we go.
All right. Welcome to the GREEN Organic Garden Podcast. It is Friday, June 26, 2020, and Patti Armbrister talked me into doing a video live. So here we are doing video, but she's going to do some screen share and I'm going to turn it over to her so she can tell us all her amazing golden seeds. So welcome to the show. Patti, welcome back to the show Patti.
00:01:38
0
Well, yes, thank you, Jackie. I just see later that we are going to get to have a conversation to share and listeners posted about coming to visit.
I haven't posted the advice you gave me, but I talked about, well, maybe I recorded it.It was one we met with Robin in Whitefish. Actually I recorded it on the way home. So I haven't done an episode about you coming to visit. So I guess listeners you'll hear that soon, but in the meantime, what are we going to talk about today?
00:02:13
0
Yeah, they'll be good. Oh, we're going to talk about all kinds of stuff for one thing. It's here in Eastern Montana. It is like the most phenomenal growing season you've ever seen or I've ever seen. And I've been here since 1990 to give you an idea that then every single season has been different, right? But this year, this spring is just unbelievable. The plants can't ask for anything more than what they've received this year.
00:02:47
0
So they're just looking amazing and producing!
So, yeah, I'm pretty excited that I've been able to eat kale out of my garden for the month!Previous to that, I was eating out of the passive solar greenhouse as a school.
My goal is to eat kale year round, growing in Montana.So that's what I want to be doing. So I'm getting closer and closer to it. I would just keep trying to tweak it, figure it out. When do I need to plan it? Where does it need to be in the wintertime and how to get it done? But we're getting really close.
I had a plant at the school garden in the passive solar green house this year and that plant, I was harvesting it in March,
I was wondering if you were eating it? When did you plant it?
The little kids and I planted it in September, right in September.
00:03:48
1
And so we I planted a seedling and then they transplanted it into these containers, which we tried five different varieties when we did that. And we only had the one variety, make it all the way through and be where that I could harvest it. I do have another variety, which is the red Russian that is, I'm still producing right now, but I wasn't able to harvest it for the three or four months that I was harbored minus this curly kale, that type.
00:04:18
1
So there's more of a cold Hardy kale. So the ones with the real crinkly leaves not to dinosaur kale, but the real crinkly leaves are in, you know, and they're, they're kind of the curve celled plants. So they, they, they really it's done really well. Now it's produced them seed. So I'll be collecting seeds, hopefully sharing them down the road with the Good Seed Company.
I planted seeds with my students on like March 2nd. Cause it was like right before school, we had to go home and I did send her home with the kids that I took home that I planted a container didn't really grow any faster. That whole time to the ones that I ended up putting in the ground outside. And then those ones took off. They both, like, I just felt like maybe it was too soon or trying to plant them in the container. I don't know what I did wrong. They didn't do very well.
Well, sometimes it's just timing. And sometimes it's the depth of the container.Like these are in a pot that's probably 20 inches deep. These, these kale were, so it was kinda mimicing and we play another plants in with them.
So in the beginning it was a poly planting, which I promote, right. Diversity all the way around as much diversity as you can put in.
And so they had diversity through the fall, but then when it got really cold, those, those guys got fall out of the system. But yeah, it makes a big difference. I think that the plants really know how many daylight hours is going on out there. And so they, they are triggered by that.
They're doing all kinds of communication that we have just barely, barely starting to learn a little bit about. And so that's what I've been honing in on, especially when it comes to some of the pests in the garden.
Like for example,our favorite friends are slugs, which I've been really working on dramatically the last couple of years to try to figure out how, how do we live with them?
Because they are one of the key decomposers, right? So it doesn't like we want to anialate them. What I want to do is figure out how I can get imbalanced to live with them. And so anything that finishes out it, so life cycle and soil, which they do, I think can be controlled in the soil. So that's where I've been attacking them. Along with our flea beetles.
Our favorite friends are flea beetles, but attacking them with, with beneficial nematodes.And so my population of slugs this year is like hardly nothing compared to what it was a year ago with just time. And so I know I'm gaining, but I'm going at it in multiple, multiple ways, not just the nematodes, but the nematodes I think, are really helping to keep the population reduced.
So, and those plants, so, you know, we'll have one plant right side by side or another in one plant is viciously getting attacked and it looks fine.
1
It doesn't look any different than the one next to it. The one next to it is not getting attacked. And so that plant that's getting ate is sending out signals to come eat me.
We've got to figure out, okay, how do we get this plant to be happier or healthier? Which I think a lot of times it's healthier to not send those signals because if it sends those signals. It doesn't matter what I do. I'm not going to be able to stop the attack.
I've been trying to use like, I'll break the lower leaves off of, especially the cabbages they've they just love cabbage.
1
So break the lower leaves off the cabbages, especially the ones that are touching the ground. They're already getting hammered by either slugs or other pests. The seconds, those plants are not attached to the plant. They're sending signals to usually through chemical signals that they need eight and decompose.
And so decomposers come in, which is the slug is going to be the first responder. And so they're going to go get out of those leaves. So I just take a bucket with a little bit of water in it, take those leaves and dump them into the bucket.
1
And for some reason in nature, or God did not allow a slug to swim, right? Most, every creature on earth swims, but not a slug, they cannot do that. So it's a quick, easy way to get rid of them. They're dead. There was be a few tries to crawl out of the bucket. I just give them a good little swirl in there they're out of there.
And so that's been working really well versus, you know, handpicking them or whatever, but so yeah, I know.1
Awesome! So that's one of the questions I get over and over what do I do about pests and bugs and especially slugs!Yup. Yup. And so I think planning a lot of diversity really helps. Like I have kale planted kind of in pods right now where there's three and four, maybe five plants together for the cabbages, kale, beets, stuff like that. So that I've got other plants in there amongst them flowering plants. I've noticed that the, none of the slugs like anything to do with the garlic or onions and they seem to stay away from those beds better than the others.
00:10:03
1
And so I think figuring out some combinations of what to be planting is going to be helpful for gardeners instead of when we plant one straight row of something and, that plant sending a signal for the pest to come in, there's nothing a gardner's going to be able to do outside of using chemicals that act actually is just a bandaid. It didn't fix the problem. It might've stopped a problem for that right then, but it's not gonna solve the issue. You're just asking for it!
00:10:34
1
So we got to start thinking, okay, how do we do this different? Okay. If I plant, I plant a few kale here, a few cabbages and other locations, the slugs love the radishes. So does a flee beetles.
So I use the radish and the mustards as a trap crop, plant them far away from where you want to put your key cabbages and kale.
I haven't noticed them on a kholarabi, which is funny, cause it kind of same family, but, but anyhow, plant that trap crop way away from them, which you draw those pests to those other plants.
00:11:13
1
Especially if you water, if you're going to water overhead, you water your trap crop overhead, do not water the rest of the plants overhead.
That's going to really pull the slugs over in that direction. Cause they just love a damp, wet environment even when they can't swim. So that will pull them that way though, in a way from your, your target crop.
But I just really think a lot of gardeners need to get to the three year Mark with their no till and regenerative practices.
00:11:45
1
Because when you do, it's like the tipping point. When you get to that point, your plants are so healthy and so strong and sending out positive signals and they have a defenses of microbes all around them that you don't have any pests.
And so we got to get to that point.
And so a lot of people maybe like for instance, I had a gardener that was going on the no till they were going pretty good there in a year and a half of no till and something went wrong with their clover, their clover winter killed.
00:12:19
1
So they had Clover in their walkways. And so they decided to till it, instead of just receded and when they did, they just opened up the box to start over again, because now the flea beetles have come in and just literally wiped out their whole garden!
Even green beans and all because they had the serve, the predator that was going to eat the flea beetles, eggs in the soil!
So when we, till or disturbed that soil we're killing out beneficials, that would have helped us with most of these past that if they live out their life cycle in the soil.
00:12:58
1
So that would be our slugs or flea beetles, which are our two biggest enemies in Montana that I've discovered for gardeners is those. So if we can not disturb that soil and figure out ways that we can do it, like I've been buying these nematodes, right. I'm creating nematodes in my compost, but I buy these nematodes that are beneficial nematodes online that will eat flea beetle eggs.
00:13:30
1
Right? So that's, that's what I've been doing. And then I put them out twice a year becaue your flea beetles have 2 seasons, because a lot of people don't understand that either. So they did this year and then they go lay their eggs. They, they reproduced now you have massive numbers of flea beetles come from that first for the places like where he was going to plant the
00:14:08
1
And then, you know, green beans and we get that summer match really will come into the numbers down. Like right now I have goals in mind to just go a little garden, which you couldn't do anything you'd have to really growing in there from last winter. Usually be an idea here. I can show you a picture we end up having to dig up. So I thought that worked awesome this year.
1
I'll tell you I scored a billboard tarp, and they were taking it down and I said can you give that to me. and Mike did half the minifarm in tarps this year and it was just awesome!
And so you were doing it to suffocate out the plants so that you Solarize?
He did it for like places where he was gonna plant the green beans after frost. Things that can't go in till later, usually those places are full of weeds and just a huge ordeal, everything else growing from March till June, this year it seemed early, but to be able to just pull those tarps off and just maybe turn it with the broadfork a little but to not have anything growing there was so much labor intensive. Usually in the spring he would usually have to clean up.
Yeah. And that works really, really well for both market gardens and small gardens. If a small gardener knows, okay, I'm having grass invade in this garden or whatever, man, get it tarpped in. I'd like to tarp it when that plant, that grass is still growing, right?
So if you tarp it in the fall, but when the plant is still doing photosynthesis, it's still trying to grow up above andgather sunlight. And so you tarp at them, it's going to really knock things back really, really hard.
00:16:15
1
So, yeah, that's a good idea.
[gallery ids="136937,136938" type="rectangular"]
So IDK Can you see, this is, this is some of the kale, kholaRabi and broccoli. And then of course it's inner inner planted withPhacelia, which is called
https://youtu.be/GfTdwt5mVwQ
And then in a way background, there is a puny back there, but on the fence is a honey crisp Apple that I'm going to be training to go flat across that fence.
So it won't, won't be taking the sunlight up from these beds, but this bed is a four foot by 16 bed and it's got a whole row of celery on the backside of it.
And it's already produce a lot of food in it.
Doesn't have any Pests, no pests of any kind whatsoever going on in there because of it.Ît looks super healthy
Yeah, because of the diversity and, and you know, people think in, you know, all of my lifetime of up until the last 10 years! I was always thought in my grandparents, parents, myself, always thought, okay, the plants are competing thatI need to have just broccoli here or just kale here.
00:17:31
1
But that's just really false. That is so far from true!And I'm like, Oh my gosh, the plants are helping each other.
And the more diverse of plants you have, the more they help each other. They're not only helping each other with pests, but they're helping each other with nutrients and water!And so they're sharing through the roots and the fungi and organic matter that it's just, amazing!
I was just can't stress enough we need to plant morediversity.
00:18:10
So this is another sorry for the sunlight. I took these right before we got on the computer here, but I have some perennial plants in here. Oh, this is perennial grasses are two different kinds of grasses that are in front of the screen. One is our blue bunch wheat grass, which is our state grass, just awesome grass, but really getting to be hard to find out on the range because we overgrazed it in the next grass to it
1
The taller one is actually a native grass too. And it's on basin based on ryegrass. And so both grasses are benefiting the bees. The bees spend quite a bit of time in grass, which I don't know exactly why, but I think they do go after the pollen when, when the, when the flowers are blooming, we don't always yes.
00:19:15
Î was just out in the mini farm and it was like a wave of smoke, I walked by this tall grass!
1
Yup, yup. Yeah. Yup. The grasses are being very happy right now, but they also are a perennial plants.
So they're putting out root exudates which feed the soil microbes. And so the more photosynthesis this plant could do, the more food there is going into the soil to feed soil food web.And so it just makes an incredible positive circle, you know, and if I had been, if I'd seen this picture when I was young, no I would have thought, Oh, those grasses are taking a up all the energy and all the water, but that's not really, that's not...
I am totally loving Tori Williams Douglas' podcast White Homework! It is exactly what I was looking for. Forget reading #WhiteFragility if you want to know how racism exists around you this is the podcast to listen to. She's authentic, knowledgeable, insightful, and manages it to do it with humor and passion at the same time! Her laugh is almost as contagious as Jill Angie on the Not Your Average Runner Podcast.
Anyway in one episode I listened to Tori says imagine what life would look like if we were going to restore justice. Would we give North America back to the Native Americans? Would we quit leaving our homes to our children? Almost all white people plan to inherit their home from their parents. Where would we go? If we didn't give our home to our children. What would it look like?
So after thinking about it for a short while, I thought most of all, we need to start by rethinking our incarceration system. We need to turn that upside down. IDK where I read it but someone said once we could put every prisoner through a Harvard education for the cost of keeping them in jail. IDK if that's true but it sure seems like if we took the money to incarcerate so many people and put that into our schools and communities we would see real change.
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2018/04/30/2018-09062/annual-determination-of-average-cost-of-incarceration
https://www.scholarships.com/news/prison-incarceration-costs-more-than-harvard-university-tuition
To me the biggest problem in our country is pure ignorance.I blame the media for much of it, but our schools are pretty bad too. When I tell colleagues that the average person on food stamps is on it for 6 months and gets $1.72 per person per meal, they say really, I didn't know that. I have worked side by side next to so many hardworking parents.
https://www.snaptohealth.org/snap/snap-frequently-asked-questions/
The other one, oh we can't change minimum wage and the only people who work for min wage are college kids or stupid people. Well when minimum wage is $7.75 or whatever it is, that means businesses can pay managers with college degrees $8.75.
When I worked at Head Start it drove me crazy that they had teachers who had no college education being a child's first experience with schools and dealing with parents who are already struggling.
I have said Head Start is segregation ever since I worked there. We need universal pre-school for every child everywhere, in our country, and everywhere in the world. We need to help every mother everywhere have access to healthy food, clean water and an education.
I am so sick of people telling me well why do they have so many children? Don't they know about birth control? Duh, of course they don't have access to birth control. We hardly have equal access to birth control in our country.
I hate people who say oh, people don't have health insurance because they are too lazy to get a real job or go to college. I'm so sick of Republicans that say I am not going to have my money that I work so hard for go to people to rip off the system and lay on their couch.
I have seen so many parents I have worked side by side with that work day shift and night shift so their kids have a parent home, barely see each other and still have no insurance option. Now some of that might have changed thanks to Obamacare.
Anyway my point today was about restorative justice. If you want a good primer on restorative justice and an easy read I love Ben Mickaelson's Touching Spirit Bear. Without a doubt incarceration isn't working in our country.
When I went to college back in 2003, I can still remember my reading teacher, Jan LaBonty drawing a circle on the board, and she said, 2% of the country that was the amount of people who really didn't understand right from wrong and belonged in jail. The other 20% just needed social help. That lesson has always stuck in my head. Most of what leads to people not being successful in life, turning to crime or whatever is a lack of HOPE. It really comes down to that.
I've said the same thing about parents who drink. It comes from a lack of confidence that the person themselves is able to provide the life their children need or deserve.
Anyway, enough of my rant, check out Tori's podcast, support her on Patreon and order the homework. Then do it. Yes it takes a long time. Oh, well. And THEN SHARE IT WITH YOUR FRIENDS.
Things I've learned so far. Most people in Montana jails are pre-trial and won't even be convicted of a crime. Montana has a lot of people in jail. And IDK if we have criminals from other states because we have a lot of Black people in jail?
In the US black people make up 13% of the population but 40% of our inmates?
May 28, 2014 - yes this table is 6 years old but the most recent I found.Race/Ethnicity
% of US population
% of U.S. incarcerated population
National incarceration rate (per 100,000)
Black
13%
40%
2,306 per 100,000
Hispanic
16%
19%
831 per 100,000
White (non-Hispanic)
64%
39%
450 per 100,000
Briefing by Leah Sakala
https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/rates.html
According to the ACLU:
Indigenous people comprise approximately 6.5 percent of the Montana state population and yet account for 20 percent of the men’s state prison population, 34 percent of the women’s state prison population, and 27 percent of the state’s arrests for failures to appear in court or for probation or parole violations.
https://www.aclu.org/blog/smart-justice/parole-and-release/why-are-so-many-indigenous-people-montana-incarcerated
According to PrisonPolicy.org
Only about a third of the 720,000 people in jails on a given day have been convicted
Since the 1980s, the U.S. jail population has more than tripled
a massive increase in the number of people held before trial (the “pre-trial” population)
two real drivers of jail growth:
an increasing number of jails that run a side-business of renting jail cells to other authorities
Jail growth has occurred predominately — and in the last 15 years, almost entirely — in the number of people being detained pre-trial.
This confinement creates problems for individuals on a short-term basis and also has long-term effects. Research in different jurisdictions has found people detained prior to trial, compared to similarly situated peers who are not detained, are:
More likely to plead guilty.
More likely to be convicted.
More likely to be sentenced to jail.
More likely to have longer sentences if incarcerated.
And these harms accrue quickly: being detained pre-trial for just 3 days can impact employment , finances , housing , and the well-being of dependent children. In fact, studies have found that just 3 days of detention can make the lowest-risk defendants less likely to appear in court and more likely to commit new crimes. There is no question that wholesale pre-trial detention does far more harm than good.
Each of these individual harms can accumulate into community-wide harms when large numbers of individuals in the same community have the same experience.
Jail growth fuels cycles of marginalization, poverty, and incarceration, especially in communities of color.
https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/jailsovertime.html
Here are some interesting articles. I haven't found the exact gloucester study he was talking about but here's a fact check by Reuters
"Taking respective population sizes into account, and based on the link to 2013 census data at the bottom of the graph in the posts, Nuzzo interpreted the data as follows: If you’re a white person in 2013, based on the FBI data, your chances of being killed by anyone are roughly 13 in a million; if you’re a black person in 2013, your chances of being killed by anyone were 62 in a million, which is almost five times what the odds are for a white person.
If you’re a white person in 2013, Nuzzo explained, your chances of being murdered by another white person are approximately 11 in a million, and your chances of being murdered by a black person are two in a million. Meanwhile, if you’re a black person in 2013, your chances of being murdered by another black person are 56 in a million, and your chances of being murdered by a white person are five in a million."
https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-fact-check-bar-graph-black-white-homi/fact-check-misleading-bar-graph-presents-distorted-interpretation-of-black-and-white-murder-rates-idUSKBN23M2SX
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy
Friday • June 12, 2020
Recently Robin Kelson from the Good Seed Company was on the Beauty of Conflict Podcast* What disruptive change is and why it can be a good thing. * How we can tap into the intelligence and resilience in our bodies. * What six behaviors we need to become more resilient. * How we can thrive in the aftermath of the coronavirus. * Why collaboration and cooperation are crucial to our existence. * Why engaging the prefrontal cortex will enable us to be more resilient. * Why we, as humans, are not as individual or unique as we might think!
I can't believe we didn't see each other at Free The Seeds. I was downstairs trying to promote the Organic Oasis Guidebook. I have been so busy. School got out and my goal was to clean for 3 days and be done at noon today for this podcast and then relax before I start my new job for Gregg Clunis of Tiny Leaps on Monday. I have been listening to my new favorite podcast the Clutterbug!
Get your copy of the Organic Oasis Guidebook and get started building your own earth friendly garden today!
Tell us a little about yourself.Sure! I have worn many hats among them as a biochemist and attorney with an expertise in intellectual property law so I come with that background, and I have always been really interested in what constitutes resiliency, although I didn't call it that back then.
I got interested in what was the core of what I saw about 30 years ago an epidemic of chronic disorders in our culture
physical bodies and impacts on our bodies. I didn't understand it, and I couldn't get any satisfaction from the
- western
- medical
- chemical
scientific approach
I looked into it, i’ve led lots of
- creating soil enhancements
- re-nourishing the soil
- now as the owner of the Good Seed Co that sells heirloom seeds adapted to our region in montana where we live and particularly in the
selecting and saving and sharing seeds for common usewithout eating we are not nourished and we don’t keep the species going
I’m also a co-executive director of AEROMTjust metal to the petal particularly in response to the covid epidemic and it's impact on the food system in Montana, all the work so many of our organizations have been doing on resiliency and sustainability
every single Montanan has ben impacted by it
opportunity to regrow our own food supply
1950 we grew about 70% of our own food and now it's down to about 7%
a little bit about me
in my journey as you mentioned
a curiosity about resiliency
examples that exist in nature. I have been studying that because it intrigues me for 30 years. I have been talking about it recently from my own perspective there's some really good systems for developing a resiliency. I call it
developing resiliency intelligence.
I didn't really hear the term resiliency till you and I went to the AERO workshop back in 2017? 2018?
i think it’s good to start by defining sustainability and lets look at one in nature
they are 2 different terms and both have a place
a sustainable system is one that can keep going over time! The more then the inputs to the system are locally accessible and renewable the more sustainable that system!So let's look at a farm and what they need in order to grow food they need seeds
- nourishment for the soil
- power source
- water underground to power the well
if they save their own seed that means their seeds are locally accessible and renewable. As long as they keep growing and saving them, that’s a sustainable activity.
If they make their own compost and use worm castings of that nature that's locally accessible and renewable as opposed to buying chemical fertilizer that comes from Canada by way of Texas that' s just not sustainable it's not local.
The third would be if your power for your waterfall is local accessible renewable
it's not dependent on getting access to gas or fuel
If you had an electric tractor or it was powered by biodiesel and plants that you grow
So that's the definition of sustainable
The definition of Resilientability to be responsive and move through disruptive change
Disruptive change is defined as unpredictable and having high risk associated itIn the natural world it refers to shifts of tech plates
- tsunamis
- meteor that hit the planet
- ice age
All of those are disruptive changes, not really predictable - maybe the ice age was predictable but you know what I am saying, you don’t have the opportunity to plan for it
We usually look at
- high impact
- high risk
as a negative
disruptive change can be positive
If you win the lottery you go from making $2500/month to
has high risk and high impact it's really impossible to plan.
I like to say when the first baby shows up at your house but there's absolutely no way to prepare for a new person in your life.
definition
resiliency
this intelligence
stems from an understanding that systems in nature, nature’s been around along time
species and systems that are still around today
they are by definition resilient,
they have survived and able to adapt to lots of examples of distributive change if we look at them we have some opportunities to say what is it they are doing that has supported their capacity to be resilient and how can we apply that to humans of all the species
we're kind of the youngest kids on the block by a long shot
that's the conversation and that’s the opportunity
I like the way you talk about the baby because that makes it sound more tangible.
the reasons I talk about this
6 principles of resilient behaviorif you will that have been extracted by really smart people
this work has come from lots of people
- biophysicists
- chemists
- biologists
- mathematicians
looking at the evolutionary record and the ecological record
A lot of this is taken from and synthesized from a book
Learning From the Octopus: How Secrets from Nature Can Help Us Fight Terrorist Attacks, Natural Disasters, and Disease an extraordinary human being no longer with us unfortunately, did a great job of applying it in the concept of national security
How to make our country more secure he did this right after 9/11
in our personal lives
our communities
obviously with relationship with the planet
fractal you can scope it up or scope it down everything I am telling you, where you can see it applied within a system in a body, or a country or a planet it's all the same.
And agriculture is a really big part of it!I want to start by saying this. We have a tendency to think ourselves that way as the youngest kids on the block, but the reality of it is, that almost every part of our system that makes us up as human beings is really ancient and well established system
- circulatory system
- immune system
- ocular system
- metabolic system
all of them they are taken from other species that came before us, so they have all that intelligence and resiliency built into them
pre-frontal cortex is our executive function, all of the thinking
planner
logically
serially
puts things into a stacked order
phenomenally successful at creating things, you see all the things we have created. I am not dissing our pre-frontal cortex, is the youngest part of us, the way we think doesn’t the rest of our body does
The opportunity is to teach to the part of us that does all the thinking, more holistically if you're are willing to accept this, more maturely.
I am going to walk you through the 6 principles to send
very quickly
not in any particular order
the order I talk about them
Resilient systems don’t try to plan for the unexpected or for disruptive changetoo many different ways it can happen and disruption by definition means you can’t plan so why spend any time doing that, it doesn't mean don't try to plan, planning is good it has its place. But instead,
what resilient systems do it means they have put time and energy to be observant to unexpected changes in the environment and to be responsive to it.An example I like, you think of a herd of deer white tailed deer, they aggregate as a herd, if one of them hears a noise that is unexpected, ears are fine tuned, they can feel vibrations intensely, if they hear something unusual white tail goes up and they see it and everybody scatters.
That is a way to respond to unexpected change.
So an example in our bodies is an example with the immune system:
Imagine I’m putting my hand, can’t see the gate
- I get a splinter or something
- I cut my finger
- immediately have this immune system set up
- the antibodies in the immune system are just waiting to see if something happens and then a series of events goes into motion
unexpected event
the next thing is that resilient systems respond to disruptive change
ability to be decentralized
autonomy to take care of that systems to take care of the unexpected event
nothing has to run up a flagpole
with my cut finger in a fraction of a second the nerve endings, I immediately get signal, pain happens, series of chemical send platelets to the cut to patch up the hole, and antibodies to see if antigen needs to get eaten or some adrenaline if I need to move quickly, but all sorts of things that don’t engage brain, until the point I look at until i put water on this, before I think, if I had to coordinate the nerve endings, I'd probably bleed out
decentralized
the ability to
decentralized you are giving autonomy to all the different systems
- common goal
- common agreement
- common purpose
all my systems are in agreement that the goal is to keep me alive so I can procreate and produce progeny to keep the species going, that's the common goal
so in nature, there’s lots of examples, there’s a really cool one if you ever saw finding Dori, that was the sequel in finding memo, there was this octopus who can camouflage himself in the drop of the hat.
octopi can camouflage themselves to become part of the environment around them, it happens by chromophore on each of their arms that couldn’t be organized by a central thought process
- less planning
- decentralization is key
- redundancies
Redundancy. Resilient systems have redundancy built innumber of
2 copies of DNA
plants have 3-4 copies
if something happens to one gene you only need one copy of the gene in the body to move forward
key to why we are able to be who we are today in our immune system, we don't have one anti-body, we have 5 classes of antibodies
cell type
we don't have one kind of immune system we have 2. One in the blood stream that comes out of our blood cells and another in the thymus
lots of redundancy built into our systems
in the natural world of centipedes who have 100 feet can probably lose up to 15% of them and be ok, IDK if they actually need all 100 and still be able to move across great and allow some of them to be lost over the course of their lifetimes.
That's the first 3
that’s the
networks
the fastest way to communicate information and change which is a pathway of interconnected links how we communicate everything
- electronically
- chemically
- neurologically
- how all biological systems work
When you're thinking about business or your life think networks most effective way to effect change
symbiosisif you want to experience transformational change or impact, you must participate and engage other
- people
- components
- you can't do it all by yourself
- no species on the planet
most anyone or thing can maximize it's impact by him or herself is additive it's only when you engage and participating with others that you can get exponential change which is essential for resiliency
impact
- around the world
- in multiple niches
- in multiple environments
That's key
These are things we are not doing right?
What’s interesting, it is what we do in a crisis if you think about what we did
- after Katrina
- or after covid here
So many examples of neighbors stepping up and helping out and using networks
when we go into fear
- structural level
- higher political levels
We contract and constrict trying to plan out how to prevent and
non resilient behaviors
governmental level we might have had a higher positive impact in response to covid if we had been more of an invitation for
- participation between states
- more organized way of learning from what other countries who were experiencing covid before us
- participating with them etc
it’s very common at the structural level that we can constrict and go into fear
Not just in the US it's a very common response to disruptive change
we
said and wrote his book was the way we responded to 9/11 which actually just didn’t have the impact it intended to have I can go down that road but that's not why we are here
last thing I will say last before we get into ag key to resilient systems is that they are recursive is it learns along the wayleans into what works, thinking about just impacting what didn’t work
disruptive change and how to respond to it you have to realize it's a learning along the way
make change in response to what works
You can actaually graph this out how nature has done this over time and every example of a spiral is leaning into the yes if you will
Fibonacci spiral is a graphical expression of learning into the yes
being adaptive is being willing to learn along the way that's key. None of this is black and white, I'm not saying only one is being good.
I feel like one thing you are going to tell us is part of being key to being healthy to begin with and having a strong immune system.sure making food choices that speak to your well being
All of that is part of it, keeping all your systems working well
the other thing I will say is that the way our mind works particularly when we are in fear ~ good bad way of thinking ~ that’s not the way resiliency works
Let's take an example from the food growing worldWe have now moved into an approach to ag that is driven by monocultures one of the things we learn when you start growing monocultures is you have disrupted a whole system of organisms that knew how to work together and we're in a relationship to the soil and we are learning.
a new relationship with the soilwe're learning so much
- elegant
- intelligent
- far more complex than anyone thought
start mono-cropping you start to get impacts to the quality you grow* call those weeds * pests or bugs
our mindset os we'll just get
- rid of it,
- just kill it
- while we just developments
Spend gobs of money getting rid of that what we don't want,
billions of dollars later
mindset has been promoted at a corporate and government level
It worked for 4-5 years or 5-10 years it worked over time
Let's just look at glyphosate
Glyphosate is just one of many, many chemcials
within the first 5 years it was a godsend for farmers they didn’t have to deal with weeds, how fabulous!
Didn't have to
in our binary world, they’ve come back
they’ve
- make it stronger
- cocktail
We're still in a binary mindset
So if you go down under the soil and look at it from the plant’s point of view, this chemical that is being applied to the plant root or soil, if you look at it from the prospect of the pant or the soil organism
that’s just a disruptive event, nothing more or less, then what will they do?
They will say, I have to work with this, it's a new change to my environment, so they will think, I will work with this so the species will survive
made up of lots of systems within it
that’s what shows up 3-4 years later, we have glyphosate weeds, they have adapteddoes not matter
- what you do
- what we as humans to “kill” these organisms
- they will just adapt
- too many systems built into them
Instead what would be appropriate would be to work with them* permaculture * regenerative agriculture * all that intelligence of system agriculture comes from
illusion and non-functional approach to think we have the skill set to get rid of any other system that has been around millions of years longer then us
do you have any questons?
I was thinking well what do we do, but is that what we do is practice permaculture and regenerative ag systems?
What we do is shift our thinking to one of, to think I as a human know more
We used to think soil was just something brown, maybe tilth or something, but we did not have...
May 24, 2020
Blog and Newsletter Writer, Instructor for Nutrition, Gardening, and Wildcrafting
Tell us a little about yourself.
Wild Abundance is more then a website it's a school, I live here and the school is here in the Southern Appalachian mountains just outside of Asheville, North Carolina
- corn
- winter squash
- sweet potatoes
- micro dairy, one Jersey cow and mostly Alpine dairy goats
- flock of ducks
- beekeeper
medicinal and edible mushroom cultivation
medicinal plants
the school that i work for is located just down the road
campus is run by my dear friend, Natalie dog walker
together
this year
we are walking on an online gardening school
teaching people all over the world
pretty much because
we love it an are passionate
afraid of breakdown of supply chains
surge and your listeners have noticed
interested in gardening
when you first start out gardening it can be
- overwhelming
- discouraging
steering them in the right direction
folks who have that inspiration can have that success and keep going
I always think it's interesting, I always dreamed of going to Montana, I knew a girl who always wanted to go to Maryland. She's like doesn't that just sound beautiful?
can really
20 acres
we have 23 acres
bigger farms in this state
piedmont
east
up in the mountains
Appalachian mountain chain in the southern part of that mountain chain. It's one of the oldest mountain formations in the world
Lots of endemic species that live here
It's a beautiful verdant jungle in the spring and summer
- temperate rainforest
- lots of rain
- gets chilly changing with climate change
A big chunk of that is wooded hillside
farm per se flatland 3-4 acres
where we have the animals
harvest timber obviously for wood heat cooking and mushroom cultivation My partner is just dedicated at working away at developing a silvapasture and nut orchard up on the slope.
I'm sure your listeners know 23 acres can mean a lot of different things if you have top soil and if it's hilly landso we are somewhere in between
- flat for the mountains
- do grow our vegetables
- steep land marshy boggy land
That's similar where we are surrounded by doug fir forest and you can see before and after pics on our website. where he has cut the forest to build the minifarm.
Tell me about your first gardening experience?well, I didn’t grow up gardeningI grew up in the suburbs in the bay area in Northern, CA
small rural western part of the county
alternative school that happened to be a public school, was really a blessing for me and my family getting to go to a private school that was public and free
alternative
project based
interdisciplinary
open classroom
in marin
more rural part
- best friend mom had dairy goats
- made her own beer
- apple sauce
My other friends mom
- grew beautiful roses
- berries and fruits
I did have early exposure
we had a garden at my school
early childhood exposure I was drawn to plants and animals
I didn't tend my own garden till I was in college
I knew I wanted to study
- agri-cology
- environmental studies
- sustainable food systems
avid cook
vegetarain
love vegetables and cook lots
Anyone who cooks a lot has a visceral understanding of the difference of quality of veg
grown in sustainable
industrial food system
was a driving force for me
- flavor
- pleasure
- nourishment
- enjoyment
cooking
nourishment
sustainable
- macro systems
- food justice systems
way that the world works
How farmers are treated around the world
how they can make a living
farmers and gardens
current practices and practices that would be more optimal for farmers and land and the disconnect
there wanting to sunder
college and studying
renting houses
college students do
my first garden I spearheaded
in front yard
next to the highway
double-dug the beds gat I had been observing
grew some tomatoes
most successful
all Th.
I had worked on other peoples gardens and
volunteered on harvest days
translated into doing it myself that was my first experience, it grew from there.
Then moving out here to NC
One of my big motivations was to grow all of my food, not that I have to do that forever but just to know what that actually looks like
have that experiential knowledge
go to the store
- land
- water
- work
- have that hands on experience of my impact on the earth basically
That's what I have been exploring
The listeners know I am going to ask the next question? I'm gonna ask. Are you a rockstar millennial? I think they are all like you! You are like my total avatar. My question is what in the heck made you say I'm gonna go to school to school and study sustainable ag systems and food justice. I feel like we are failing our kids of the opportunities out there still saying you can be a doctor, a lawyer, an architect. I think kids have no what the option are!
1983
Tell us about your courses? Or what you want to talk about next.
I'll answer your question of how I got there because I think it’s an important question to ask!
I grew up in the Bay area of Northern CA,
I great up in a very privileged and mostly white community of progressives
These ideas were available to me
The idea of pursuing something passion not the bottom line of needing to support my family were present because of my cultural background. I just want to aknowlegde that
fact that I was able to pursue those things, yes was because of my social conscience and my inspiration and my life path but also because of the amount of privilege I lived with
what kids are exposed to there's kind of this spectrum
some young people have huge amount of privilege like
white privilege
Don't ever get asked questions about what is important to them? Or brought into these discussions of how we can wield that power and privilige to the
ecological world
and human world
I feel lucky to be at intersection of those things and have the spaciousness to make choices based on my passion not just the need so support myself and my family
progressive thinking and social consciousness
I want to give credit to my parents who encouraged me to do what I'm passionate about and to learn and ask questions.
For folks listening and have childrenI have a young child
overwhelming and look at raising right now
How can they find their place? this is so crazy right now
encouraging children and young people questions that might not have answers but to pursue those questions. thorough the asking and through their engagement in the world that answers might arrive that might not exist yet
I know my listeners are probably interested in the food forest and mushrooms and there are classes they can take.
Wild Abundance is a school that used to be until a few years ago where you had to go in personyou had to come here to the campus
connective community building
annual
permaculture design certification course* in depth * hands on
8 month program but
much more with that digging into
earth skillsancestors have used to relate to the natural world to supply themselves with sustenance
a lot of amazing classes
- building
- re-wilding
- medicine making
But with many in person classes and with brick and mortar businesses we have had to cancel our classes and pivot into online learning
fortunately we produced an all natural
brain-tanning class
sueded leather that is 100% natural
producing that course
result to this huge surge interested in food gardening as a result from the pandemic and also to survive as a business
We have created this online gardening schoolprogram to support new and intermediate in being successful
relating to gardening as a living system
mentorship calls ansering nitty gritty questions and also our approach for gardeing where
gardening is more for people to get food
connect with the natural world
that’s what we teach
food forests
chatted about them with the garden school members but it is not covered in the garden school program
We are looking to develop more online classes
It's amazing how we can serve more people
not easy for everyone to come here where were located in a hot bed of
permaculture
back to the land
aren’t mentors and teachers
online program
Greece
new Zealand
lots of places in the US
may or may not have teachers available
encourage people to get on our newsletter and mailing list
developing more classes
- mushroom cultivating
- orcharding
- food forests
- which all fits under the realm of permaculture
I think after this is all over your going to find that 3 day course is going to be just packed! I think people are going to love each other and be into workshops!
I just want to clarify, the permaculture design courses are longersubject to specific
woman’s carpentry classes and female identified folks
confident with tools
building things for them
3 day
- re-wilding course
- survival course
- permaculture courses are a little longer
8 month
3 days each month awesome way to go deeper but a great longer commitment
I think a lot of women would like that, because a lot of woman write me and say but I don't have a Mike at home to build our beds and mike might say why don't you go because I don't have any of those skills, I kind of gave up after trying to build a few things.
That's a really good point, I invite you to come, we have had wonderful feedback about these classes
I have cooked for them, we provide lunch
people come who have never picked up a tool, but others who have a some skills.
I don’t want to generalize too much as a gender, but my experience as a woman or female identified
not just by messing around doing it, in an environment where people have this kind of have this expectation
- come together
- support each other
- feeling really comfortable in commuity
- “stupid questions”
Oh yeah now I feel confident
gone through this process
vulnerable receiing help from experienced people
feeling good experimenting
on my own what questions
most popular classes are the woman's carpentry class
one or twice a year we offer a more advanced class
building structures
basics
work on an individual project like a book shelf in the advanced class we work on something that stands up like a shed
The thing I want to learn, I can't wait to learn is how to build gates.
I went to Free the Seeds, I gave a way a book, and the number one thing out of 40 people, I want to see 35 of them said was keeping deer out. My husband is really good at is building a fence. People might think, I just want to grow tomatoes. But trust me, pests, critters,are the biggest struggle and the answers are barriers is the biggest way to keep them out. Of course were still struggling with squirrels.
This relationship between gardening and really connecting to the larger world
A lot of people come to gardening because they want something to eat
which is understandable we want to grow food to eat the food.
Main reason I garden, super rewarding and people don't even know when they start out that there are so many varieties of vegetables
then we can buy in the store
even to some degree
bread for ripening time, so they all ripen at the same time for harvesting ease
shelf life
home scale variety
production
bread for flavored and beauty
varied ripening time so if you just have a couple of plants you have
summer squash each day for a month or more
come back and pick them again
small scaled
containers on a balcony
human beings about zoom and snap chat
and all of the ways we've gotten so online
connected
not connected
connecting through these unnatural means seperating us from other humans and our connection with the natural worldsuffering because
- depression
- anxiety
food related illnesses
- obesity
- type 2 diabetes
- blood pressure
list goes on
see it as this really appealing way to address all of those challengesnot only getting food to eat this daily reminder of the reciprocal relationship with the natural world
not just an intellectual way
earth gives us life
understanding of in their particular spiritual
or philosophical background
this is not philosophical
When you grow a garden
grow
harvest
eat
taste
sweet
goes into that
as you are digging your garden bed you notice a clutch of baby robins that just hatched
wouldn’t have gone out and been digging doing this repetitive meditative task, if you didn’t go out in the garden
feel hopeful
even in an urban setting
start to garden
open that door to have an experiential relationship with the natural world
that some of these big challenges we are experienceing culturaly right now may have a big of a crack in them
opening
solutions overwhelming and complex as they sometimes seem but they are actually small and simple
each of us can participate in them in a way that is fun and joyful
sense of satisfaction in our lives!
TOTALLY! The question I want to know, you said in the beginning, what are some of those decisions you made like having one cow?
this is our 7th year of growing here on our homestead before that we were growing a sizable field on our friends place, that was kind of a beginning, so this is 8th year of attempting
don’t grow and raise 100% of my own food
occassionally we will get a pizza or go out to dinner
not super hardcore
more of a balance between that experiment and participating in modern lifesize of the place we have to work with and number of people to work the land are huge considerations along with budget in terms of the number of things
One cow, she’s a jersey cow, produces way more milk then we need!
late lactation, she hasn't had a calf this year, she had a calf last spring, we have since slaughtered him
meat is in our freezer
gallon and half of milk
first freshens, term you use for a dairy animal after having a baby, they will have a baby, they call it the first freshen. she will make over 4 gallons of milk
Wait can I just ask the maybe silliest question but the baby doesn't need to drink the 4 gallons of milk?
plenty of butter
She makes more then 4 gallons of milk, basically
when we are drinking the milk from the other species but dairy breeds have been bred to produce more milk their babies need, if they didn’t they wouldn’t be able to power a whole industry
baby in commercial dairies
babies are taken away before the mother sees or licks them
if you let them bond they become distressed, either way they become distessed
most commercial
raise the calf
on milk from the baby or from the mother
replacer
less then 4 gallons
bunch of different things
baby gets some, still get to spend time together
works better with goats
wanting a break from milking
calf didn’t need to keep milking but he was
slaughtered the calf
started milking
so thats where the gallon and a half come from lots of different ways to do it
I knew cows were taking away at the dairy but not all of that i guess.
so continuing to answer your questions bout size and scale
how much of each to grow
field corn or dried corn
grow that to make tortillas
sometimes we make cornbread or
tamales
grow enough corn in a year to last us a year or two so we alternate
sweet potatoes we often grow more then we need
sometimes sell them
playing the
storage is a issue, it's not just a question of how many you’ll eat
what kind of set up you have for storing them and how long
I was goona ask about the corn, but I suppose you could
dry as whole kernels so we can store at room temperature
So you just take the kernels off the cob? Still easier, less space, then saving ears of corn taking up less space?
Then what about the goats?
yeah do you have specific questions? How many?
Do you have goats for milk?
we milk
about 1/2 gallon of milk
depends on the breed
Mostly we make
- kefir
- shev
- feta cheese
with the cow milk we sell a lot of cow milk and yogurt so that's a nice way to pay for the cow itself.
I love feta cheese and it's so expensive! So I hardly ever buy it. I have a friend who makes her own mozzarella cheese is so amazing! I even bought rennet to try to make it the woman near us who had a cow.
You can make mozzarrella with store bought milk.
Is there something you guys are excited to try this year that you haven't tried before?
let me think, yes! we have
my partner really spearhead this, but we have sown different kinds of heirloom wheat
We have this dairy cow so we have a lot of homemade butter
don’t eat a lot of wheat or gluten containing
sourdough bread or things like that
see how that its looking really good in the field obviously it's gonna be a ordeal to process to harvest and clean and turn
My husband is interested in growing wheat too, he is a big baker, Mike is getting closer to being able to grow as much of our produce, but we also have the storage issue. I never thought about growing corn to make a corn meal. corn is one of those crops it's hard to find good quality corn. Mike has a hard time cause our growing season is short. In Eureka, we are 6 miles south of town, it's much easier to get corn there because they have 3 weeks on each of our ends of the season.
northern adapted...
Join Patti Armbrister for the Composting Not Just GOOD But GREAT Workshop with the Wise Grower Guru!IDK why it seems to me it's easiest for me to talk when I am either walking or driving, when I have my computer out it seems like my mind is blank! So today I am driving, I am so excited I just got back from having lunch with Patti Armbrister and Robin Kelson and it was so good to see them.
AERO - Alternative Energy Resource OrganizationRobin has been so busy! She became one of the co-directors of AERO the Alternative Energy Resource Organization and they are working really hard to help change four food systems to sustainable food systems.
One question people ask me a lot about my Jeannette Rankin book is why do women make better representatives? And it's not necessarily that they are better but they do make up 50% of the population so they deserve 50% of the people and they tend to work more cooperatively finding solutions to problems.
What can we do to help solve food systems?So we were saying what are the things we can do to help and I think I also talked about this with Bob Quinn, that Americans just don't spend enough of a percentage of their income on food. And that when Americans spent more of their paycheck on groceries they grew more of their own food. That up until the 1950s Montanans grew 70% of the food consumed here and that we need to get back to growing and eating locally.
Also food subsidies, and you might not think that food is that cheap right now but it is compared to what other people pay in other countries and what we have paid in the past. So that makes it really hard for organic farmers to compete. For local famers. We had a big conversation about wheat in Montana, we have huge ranches and none of the wheat grown in Montana is shipped out of Montana, probably none of it is eaten here. So that's part of the problem.
This article from 2015 shows that we export 80% of Montana wheat to Asia mostly Japan.
So she's working on
reducing food miles
trying to get rid of the subsidies to the big cheap corporations for food and helping some of these local farmers
a big piece is the government getting involved and forcing
she was talking about these farm unions that it is not ok for the giant corporations to own all these gigantic farms but no one is really enforcing it
This all leads to the poor health in the US. We could solve a lot of health issues in the US by and this is where Patti Armbrister was jumping in about how a lot of organic farms are struggling with their soil after just tilling and tilling and tilling and their not taking good enough care of the food soil web to keep growing food after 10 + years.
Anyway that's what this is supposed to be about Patti teaches this composting webinar training, that she does and she has done it in Whitefish at the Spirit farm in Whitefish I think she said it was an hour long workshop and then there is 45 minutes of questions people ask. She said at the workshop they go outside and do some things but a lot of it is online and if you are composting properly and creating these worm castings is just the biggest way to be successful
Also getting the most bang for your buck because if you are going to do the composting you might as well be getting the most nutrients you can from it!
And when I just talked to Chrisitina Mcinnis from Soil Kit. Patti said I need to put some gypsum because everyone in Montana has too much calcium in their soil.
So Patti is going to offer the Composting Course on July 18, 2020 from 9-11:00 in the morning for only $37.00! There will be a replay, but if you want the live Q&A. What I want to focus on is Patti is going to do a composting class. If you do it online you can watch the recording, because I think a lot of times you need to go back and re-watch so now that I've seen the ending I know what was important in the beginning.
The brainstorming and talking about positive solutions. I was telling them about the Kaiser Permanente commercial with Allison Janney where she says keep count of all the hugs, dinners, celebrations we are missing because when this is all over we have a lot of catching up to do but right now STAY SAFE!!!
I know you are not going to want to miss this. She has been studying John Kemp from EcoAg, if you want to pick her brain, if you don't have time to listen to his podcast or you want to know how she synthesizes it with everything she knows after studying Elaine Ingham from the Food Soil Web, she's friends with Gabe Brown, she consults on big farms, she has a teaching certificate on teaching agriculture. I guarantee this is the right way to compost and get the most out of your garden!
Robin an I just talked about last week about how she can be gone for 10 days and not worry. You can do it and if you want some secrets to be more successful from the efforts from all the hard work you are putting in. We need food growing!
Sign up here for Patti's Live Online Composting Workshop July 18, 2020 at 9:00 am MST (11:00 EST)!!
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy
Hey listeners. It's me, Jackie on June 8, 2020 and I've been listening to a lot of podcasts and people out there. I've been wanting to make a message, but IDK what to say. I don't understand what's changed. Social distancing is what worked, I don't understand what's changed. In Montana it's pretty much non-existent, people are hugging everywhere.
I'm worried I may never see my mom again. IDK where you are, my cousin has posted this isn't coming out anything like I wanted it to come out. I love Jill Angie and Angela Watson both recommend reading White Fragility.
White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About RacismMy big bout with white privilege came out in 2013, and we were taking a vocabulary class. I felt like they were trying to instigate something between the blackfeet native americans and the white teachers on the staff. I asked someone and said do you look at me like a white person? and they were like heck yeah! There were other teachers native americans who thought they were trying to create trouble. But I was so wrong and ignorant.
I certainly have experienced white privilege growing up in a very white suburb on long island and then in Montana that is very white.
I'm not even sure what to say, thats why I haven't said anything yet. I am praying for you and everyone. I am sooooo thankful for you my listeners. I feel like you probably feel as much about social justice as caring for mother earth. I try to explain that to friends on Facebook.
We're putting it up because when I see a colleague or a parent clicks like, I feel closer to them when I see them in the hallway or classroom it makes me feel better to see they feel like I do.
I started this because I walked past Mike's minifarm. I was tossing and turning last night worrying why didn't I put my broccolis in. Mike's minifarm the potatoes are growing like crazy. I'm gonna release the woman from soil kit today from Alabama by the
we did the minifarm
yesterday I spent a lot of time looking, googling our soil ph was a 7.8, what does that mean? I think it's all the eggshells we have so much calcium. Lots of things grow good in a 7.8ph like asparagus.
"Vegetable garden plants such as asparagus, beets, cabbage, cauliflower, celery, carrots, lettuce, parsley and spinach grow well in soils whose pH is between 7 and 8."
https://landscape-water-conservation.extension.org/solutions-to-soil-problems-high-ph/
Best thing to add is organic matter, which mike is gonna mulch, if you have not listened to Andrew Mefferd's interview, I would just read the book. You would not beliee how much it helped tim, time and labor, be able to lift that tarp adn turn things over with the broadfork, his soil is so rich. We got very high, or very hgih, there was no average in any of mike's soil. I feel like we should do a test in the regular garden.
I guess the ideal conditions for a soil test is between 6-7ph she talks about Espoma, we actually have Espoma blood meal we bought when he was doing the straw bales, if you listen to the interview with Joel Karsten, but we hd the probelm of the fence got left open and the deer ate the tomatoes.
I have definitely been super depressed. IDK if it's my personality, a very strong leo in the middle of the summer of love outside of NYC back in 1967. It's interesting I declared 2020 to be the year I smiled back in January, I don't feel like I didn't see my kids, because we did see each other every day, but we just didn't get that much work done.
I hope you're well and our planet comes out on a better side of us. I think it's a very scary time, but probably an important time, if something good comes out from it. I made my kids a page of screenshots of us together teaching online and I feel like that's a piece of important history.
I'm standing outside the minifarm. It's so beautiful outside in Montana. We don't have a lot of lettuce, it didn't germinate. My kale did horrible, I hope Mike has better luck in the minifarm. I have realized I'm definitely a transplanter I like instant garden I don't have the patience all of you gardeners who plant seedlings are.
Hey listeners. It's me, Jackie on June 8, 2020 and I've been listening to a lot of podcasts and people out there. I've been wanting to make a message, but IDK what to say. I don't understand what's changed. Social distancing is what worked, I don't understand what's changed. In Montana it's pretty much non-existent, people are hugging everywhere.
I'm worried I may never see my mom again. IDK where you are, my cousin has posted this isn't coming out anything like I wanted it to come out. I love Jill Angie and Angela Watson both recommend reading White Fragility.
My big bout with white privilege came out in 2013, and we were taking a vocabulary class. I felt like they were trying to instigate something between the blackfeet native americans and the white teachers on the staff. I asked someone and said do you look at me like a white person? and they were like heck yeah! There were other teachers native americans who thought they were trying to create trouble. But I was so wrong and ignorant.
I certainly have experienced white privilege growing up in a very white suburb on long island and then in Montana that is very white.
I'm not even sure what to say, thats why I haven't said anything yet. I am praying for you and everyone. I am sooooo thankful for you my listeners. I feel like you probably feel as much about social justice as caring for mother earth. I try to explain that to friends on Facebook.
We're putting it up because when I see a colleague or a parent clicks like, I feel closer to them when I see them in the hallway or classroom it makes me feel better to see they feel like I do.
I started this because I walked past Mike's minifarm. I was tossing and turning last night worrying why didn't I put my broccolis in. Mike's minifarm the potatoes are growing like crazy. I'm gonna release the woman from soil kit today from Alabama by the
we did the minifarm
https://youtu.be/0GNaMdyThcQ
yesterday I spent a lot of time looking, googling our soil ph was a 7.8, what does that mean? I think it's all the eggshells we have so much calcium. Lots of things grow good in a 7.8ph like asparagus.
https://youtu.be/5RYO_eady0I
Step 3
https://youtu.be/5MouIwwkxnM
Best thing to add is organic matter, which mike is gonna mulch, if you have not listened to Andrew Mefferd's interview, I would just read the book. You would not believe how much it helped tim, time and labor, be able to lift that tarp and turn things over with the broadfork, his soil is so rich. We got very high, or very high, there was no average in any of mike's soil. I feel like we should do a test in the regular garden.
The Organic No-Till Farming Revolution: High-Production Methods for Small-Scale FarmersI guess the ideal conditions for a soil test is between 6-7ph she talks about Espoma, we actually have Espoma blood meal we bought when he was doing the straw bales, if you listen to the interview withJoel Karsten,but we hd the problem of the fence got left open and the deer ate the tomatoes.
I have definitely been super depressed. IDK if it's my personality, a very strong leo in the middle of the summer of love outside of NYC back in 1967. It's interesting I declared 2020 to be the year I smiled back in January, I don't feel like I didn't see my kids, because we did see each other every day, but we just didn't get that much work done.
I hope you're well and our planet comes out on a better side of us. I think it's a very scary time, but probably an important time, if something good comes out from it. I made my kids a page of screenshots of us together teaching online and I feel like that's a piece of important history.
https://youtu.be/FZsQQxqrIpE
I'm standing outside the minifarm. It's so beautiful outside in Montana. We don't have a lot of lettuce, it didn't germinate. My kale did horrible, I hope Mike has better luck in the minifarm. I have realized I'm definitely a transplanter I like instant garden I don't have the patience all of you gardeners who plant seedlings are.
Some ph resources:
https://s3.wp.wsu.edu/uploads/sites/2076/2017/07/C091-Soil-pH-15a.pdf
https://web.extension.illinois.edu/soil/sq_info/ph.pdf
Vegetable garden plants such as asparagus, beets, cabbage, cauliflower, celery, carrots, lettuce, parsley and spinach grow well in soils whose pH is between 7 and 8.
https://landscape-water-conservation.extension.org/solutions-to-soil-problems-high-ph/
If you aren't interested you might just want to skip over the 6 min prechat at the end and head right to the soilkit interview!
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy
Welcome to the GREEN Organic Garden Podcast it’s Friday, May 22, 2020 and I have the most awesome guest online. I feel bad we were chatting about school. She is from SoilKit.com They sent Mike and I a sample I got the results back already, I made videos of me using it. Here today a rockstar Millennial is Christina, I don’t know your last name!
That was a great intro! Thank you Quick thing just about myself, my name is Christina Woerner Mcinnis. I am a Mom of 4 born in the 80s. My family has been farming for over 100 years. I am a 5th generation farmer. I just got my bicentennial membership for the state of Alabama.
I am very proud to be a farmer! I love raising kids to be farmers.My passion if I were to tell you my hobby!
1 would be politics
2 would be international ag
I am fascinated about traveling around the world and learning about it!
As a tid bit, the most fascinating country I have been to with organic farming is:
CUBA organic practice I have ever seen!hands down, most fascinating organic practices!
That’s my hobby those are my passions.
now to tell you about SoilKit.com
my dad is the Woerner family from
Woerner.com he has farms all over from
- Hawaii
- Colorado
- SouthEast
grows everything from
- avocados
- cacao
- turf grass
I kept having homeowners come in and saying somethings wrong with
- citrus trees
- my lawn
- garden
What should I be doing?It’s just like going to the doctor, you can come in for a well checkup and he wants to take a look at your blood results.
They come in and there’s a diagnostic? I say what is the soil sample what did it look at.Homeowners here have a soil sample but the process was difficult for a homeowner to understand.
I asked dad, I wanted to do this project. I want to make this a digital process, it's too difficult for the homeowners to understand. let’s take this the pain point out of the market place, it’s the most important test you can do.
I aligned with a very talented person, Michaal Raines who did tech for the medical industry if you can dot his for them you can do it for dirt so come on let's get this project off the ground
- paired the agronomy of
- farming
- chemistry
- and the tech side
- with his engineering and digital side
So now we have rolled out SoilKit, turned out to be a more extensive
- lawn
- gardens
So you get soil kit what you do, it comes in the mail.
You can get it with or without a trowel
Your listeners probably everybody has a trowel
https://youtu.be/0GNaMdyThcQ#1 thing to do is register kiteverything will be populated to you, you will get a google satelite image
- gardening in the soil land you can go drop the pins
- calculate with google satellite imagery
- click confirm and a little tutorial will be there.
go take your four samples from a 10,000 foot area
When you are gardening I need it at least
- grass will reside
- 2-4 inches deep
- 4 inches with the root level
- take the soil at that level
- raise the red flag
All you have to do is put in your information is put in your information, then the lab knows the second it gets there they know this is Jackie
- it’s a garden
- we’re gonna go the basic test
- b3 test
Then the lab will cut it open and they bake that soil overnight. The next day it comes out run it through all these impressive equipment that they have there, top of the line.
Nationwide, third party lab, same lab our farms use.Then they populate, digitize, they throw all the info up to the cloud. The cloud talks to ours and we put it into a beautiful customer dashboard so you can view your results.
We can do organic, Jackie we didn’t have you set up as organic. But we do organic, pretty much it’s just a quick easy way to do a soil sample. We really know the importance of it and we really wanted to make it simple and painless as possible.
It could NOT have been more painless. People send me things, and they sit on my shelf, and I got that thing and had it sent off within the hour. It was so easy!
And that trowel is not just a trowel, It is a really nice trowel! It’s heavy duty. Didn’t it say it helps to keep it from contaminate it I suppose you could just wash it off.
Galvanized trowels have heavy metals and other things so the stainless steel is a clean trowel so there are no heavy metal contaminates in it.
That’s always been my big hang up, it was IDK why I thought I had to put it in a glass jar and it was the mailing of the glass jar thing that has held me back from doing it all these years, it’s been recommended on my show so many times how important a soil test is! It can make such a big difference! Anyone who is a market farmer has said that's so important.
The ease of it, the funny thing was the tech for me, IDK why but getting into the dashboard to see my results somehow it just popped in the morning! Let’s go back to you.
What's the next step? What do the results tell us!
Say for instance you are an organic farmer.
We have the Espoma products.So, let’s say there’s a garden center, ABC garden center and they purchase solikit and they carry it in the store so what will happen then:
That customer’s dashboard with populate with
- ABC logo at the top
- the website
- the address
- phone number
When the customer gets back, it’s not just here’s your problem, but it connects the problem to the solutions.
The fancy part of the whole backside is we take the chemistry analysis and recommendations from the lab and we align them to the guaranteed analysis that’s on the back of the nutrition product.
I marry those two results together so when the homeowner goes back to ABC garden center they will know exactly let’s say this is for their lawn. They will know what they need:
Espoma lawn food
They will know
- how many pounds to use
- how many bags
- even the store personnel can say, oh you need two bags of the Espoma lawn feed and they can grab it.
We try to make it even broken down by the pounds.
Let’s say there is lime issue with the garden. You’ll know exactly. One point I need to point out, I want to talk about
Sometimes people can’t go till the lime into the soil, we get some low phs, we get as low as 4.3
I’ve seen some come back saying you need 500 lbs of lime for that area.
Sometimes you can’t go till it in, we help the homeowner understand, I want you to put X amount and then do this every 6 months so you start spoon-feeding of the lime to bring the ph.
Sometimes you can’t just go dump things out because it will go wash off into watershed, it’s important that we be mindful of if it is not optimal plant uptake we take in the consideration of the environmental effects, because if it is not utilized by the plant we don’t want it washing into the watershed!
I love all of this, that is so important and it can happen a lot.
Yes, It's concerning because IDK if you follow but there are 13 states that feed into the Mississippi River that feed into the Gulf of Mexico. I am in Alabama at the very southern tip, of the Gulf of Mexico.
We’ve had largest dead zone we’ve ever had, just drastically affect the seafood industry and others.
It goes back to if
- homeowners
- gardeners farmers
- would just start with a soil sample
Let’s not just do what’s best for your plant but let’s remember there’s an environment out there too we should be protecting!
That’s why we changed our name from to the GREEN Organic Gardener Podcast because we’re not just about growing the biggest vegetables, there are plenty of places you can learn that. We’re about growing a whole organic oasis and teaching our neighbors and growing things to care for our environment creating a sustainable planet for Mother Earth. This is just right up our alley.
I wanted to look at my results. What is a soil ph of 7.8? And it tells you what is VH and H.It’s got phosphorus it says rating V, VH...
We have high categories, and very high categories there’s things you should be mindful. When you get into very high.
Let’s talk about phosphorus. Too much phosphorus can be a bad thing, and it is one of the most regulated items in a fertilizer.
So yours is very high, do you know how many people just go out and get a 13-13-13? Let’s say that phosphorous is there. We can compound the issue maybe the ph is
- too low
- too high
- locked up
then you go put down 13-13-13, you're very high,
- then your compounding the problem
- spending money on the problem
- making the problem worse
important that you take into consideration
you’re buying the right product for the right reason at the right rate and even more so at the right time!
So we had a little thing with mine. They said they recommend lawn food?
I sent you one of my generic sample kits.
Is this gonna be different for a garden then a lawn?
We can actually customize, you Jackie, a GREEN ORGANIC KIT. And everyone who purchases this kit can purchase the Jackie Kit. They will all be written to an organic food.
When they look at the front side of it. I can call it Jackie Gold Fertilizer. But on the backside is nothing more N-P-K and the microbe guaranteed analysis.
So you are married to the analysis on the back.
But the analysis is the same aren’t gonna change for a garden or a lawn, it’s just what we do right? I mean even if we look at it, everything is still so high, what do we do about it, nothing is adequate? What do we do about this? It said we should add nitrogen, is that it still? Or is that only if it’s a lawn?
No, you married to nitrogen. The garden season is gonna want to eat, it’s a growing season, the garden is going to want to eat nitrogen while it’s growing.
And then so let’s use the example, let’s say the soil kit is aligned to…
Plants don’t see the brand on the bag, what they see is N-P-K and all of the microbes. So a lot of the time, people will label:
- palm food
- rose food
- lawn food
- garden food
but inside, when the plant receives those nutrients they can’t tell if that was a lawn food on the bag, but the plant doesn't see if that is a garden food, what they see is like a
900
or
0060
so they use that form that chemistry analysis.
What kind of organic fertilizer is organic?
You know do like that Espoma, mostly because that is at our store. If I buy something that is generally what I buy, partly what I buy because it’s at our store. Mostly we use compost or chicken manure, we rarely buy fertilizer.
You derinitly want to make sure your soil kit has the right ph to align with your compost or manure.
You're aligning to EspomaYou call me up and say hey Christina this are my Jackie soil kits I want you to customize them. I want it to say Jackie's favorite.
On the backside of our system, take that guaranteed analysis and put in the microbes all of those 0900s, 0060s comes back to us and populates how much of thatEspomaproduct to put back to them.
This is just gold!
How often do you do a soil sample?his is what I said, IDK why I thought sending in a glass jar, I love the USPS, I sent my book to Florida for a Thank You, went media mail in like 3 days, I always wondered where exactly do I send it?
I have talked to extension agents, who said they would walk me through it once I got the reults back, and I still have no idea what these numbers mean? I mean our calcium it says is 7000+ but what is it supposed to be? So we have never done it before!
Isn’t it amazing! It’s like getting a blood test back from the doctor!
You should see the anomalies I get throughout the US. I’m surrounded by farming families.
I’m gonna tell you a quick story about my parents family!
One farming family, of course there’s like 4. They did NOT do soil samples, and they had a formula for what they did. I’m gonna do 2 tons of lime per acre, and this is how you do it and this is how it’s always been done and this is how I’m gonna do it!
My dad has been doing soil sampling from the farm since the 70s and he’s done it ever since! We do 100os a year.
He says we get 30% higher production using less product all because we start with one simple test!
Anyone who has been a gardener for a long time or a market farmer who has been on my show says you have to do a soil test.
It drastically changes everything! It really is like going to a doctor and doing a checkup, let’s go look at your blood to see if you are iron deficient. It is the exact same thing.
My listener’s have told me and he is in my head on every episode, especially Alan Denko, Jackie remember, what your listener’s want to know more then anything is how to be more productive! And a 30% higher production is what they want to know.
But it’s not just about being productive, it's also about
identify a problem and provide the solution.Don’t just tell me I have a problem.
The hole dashboard is
we can because of the engineering and technical part of it, we can even link it back to the store to make the problem connect to the solution.
fascinating about it
dashboard is customized according to wear it is purchased from.
Let's say someone buys it from ABC garden center and the other one buys it from XYZ garden center
So ultimately it saves everybody this, I'm having a problem. I can tell you, when it comes to ph especially when it is really low, we don’t want it to be vague. We live in a society with a lot of fake news, we want scientific data
we want things to back our
23 of me of your DNA data, it's the 23 and me for you lawn.
So not only that, questions I get:
- how to be more productive?
- what do I do about pests and disease?
- what do I do put on my organic lawn?
No matter how many times I say, you don't need to put anything, just use water and mow it, maybe increase the health of your soil, add manure or clover, and it's always:
No. What do I go to the store and buy? And Yes, but what do I go to the store and buy? And you've got that solution and that. You have nailed it!
I keep thinking of Jason Batemen in Up in the Air saying it's only a problem if you have a solution.
I get a lot of compost customers
they will actually test their compost soil
I can say this, sometimes too much of a good thing can be a bad thing. I've had to call people and say that compost has a 8.9 ph
we are going to need to address this, you have a lot of good thing but they are trapped
execution is a little off, and just a little tweak, a turn of the knob, makes all the difference.
I wonder if we have too much calcium because last summer I worked at a cafe and I took a 5 gallon bucket of egg shells every day till Mike finally said, stop. I'm curious if that would have happen, I'm curious what would it have been the year before.
that’s why the USDA recommends everyone does an annual soil samplethat gives you the intitial
its not a oe and done and everythings gone away
every six months lets do that
another year form do another montior test
at that point that soil really begins to turn for you
monitor what they
garden recommendation
Let's say you naturally struggle with the ph level in your area
natural preexisting issue you find in the soil.
your 7.8
you're starting to get on the edge of uncomfortable
knee jerk reaction
hydrangeas and blueberries like to bring down really low
Espoma has a acidifier productand we put that now in the spring after stuff has been planted
I'd have to see what stage your crops are in and I would also ask my agronomy team.
That's what we need is more acid?
I'm technical, I'm very scientific
See this one lowers the ph, it's an organic soil acidifier
turn the hydrangeas could turn them a different color! It makes all the difference on a blueberry
our CEO was struggling and went out and did a test
he struggled for 2 crops
not getting the deep flavor taste and he went and made a little tweek and he made a very specific one our agronomists like with blueberries, he treated it with an acidic.
My listeners are like that's what Jackie wants blueberries! We didn't do the beds by the house where the blueberries are we tested the mini-farm.
if the blueberries were sitting where you took the soil sample, they would not be happy at all. Your ph is a 7.8 they would not be happy.
I would be surprised if it wasn't similar.
so here’s a great example Jackie:
- you had great...
If you are going to join Organic Oasis Master Class 2.0 you will want to listen to this episode with Jes Pearce from Jon Jeavon's Center in Southern California as it's included in one of the assignments.
134. Gardening A Complete Diet | Grow Bio-intensive.org | Bountiful Gardens Seeds | Jes PearceJes Pearce explains the Bio-intensive Method.
Jes is another one of those amazing rockstar millennials who do exciting things while being advocates for the planet and great stewards of our land here today to inspire you with her story!
Are you ready for your best garden ever?Want Mike, Patti and I to help you build an organic oasis you will love for years to come? Are your weeds growing like crazy in all this rain? Want some solutions to help with the overwhelm? Wondering the best ways to deal with pests and disease organically? We've got the answers!
Join the 2020 Organic Oasis Master Class
Let's help our communities thrive while we keep Mother Earth safe and happy!
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy
After my interview with Samantha from WWOOF, I wanted to replay the interview with JM Fortier. Plus if you are going to join Organic Oasis Master Class 2.0 you will want to listen to this episode as it's included in one of the assignments.
Are you ready for your best garden ever? Want Mike, Patti and I to help you build an organic oasis you will love for years to come? Are your weeds growing like crazy in all this rain? Want some solutions to help with the overwhelm? Wondering the best ways to deal with pests and disease organically? We've got the answers!
Join the 2020 Organic Oasis Master Class
Let's help our communities thrive while we keep Mother Earth safe and happy!
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy
I'm editing an interview with Samantha Blatteis, the Special Programs Manager for WWOOF-USA® and during our conversation I mention one of my favorite interviews with Neke and Jeremy that I think you will love to hear again and maybe change your dreams for when the pandemic is over!
Whether you want to open your farm for amazing wondering souls like Jeremy and Neke or you want to do what they do this is a great listen! And get ready to hear an awesome interview with Samantha coming soon!
www.wwoofusa.org
Neke and Jeremy Wyble are searching for the perfect homestead and permaculture site. They are exploring different places around the globe they are “WOOFing it” to learn about the World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms and honing their skills as gardeners living a sustainable lifestyle. Check out their blog at the Wayfaring Wybles where you can follow their adventures!
Join the Organic Oasis Master Class 2.0 starting June 1, 2020
Get in with the podcast special of $75 and start growing your own organic oasis today!
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy
Samantha Blatteis
Special Programs Manager
WWOOF-USA®
www.wwoofusa.org
I'm not even sure we're gonna find someone this summer... because it would have to be someone camping in Montana? My listeners are bigger gardeners. I do have a lot of new listeners after being on the Melissa Norris Pioneering Show. I would think people might have a lot of questions. I'm the kind of person who goes through the Terms and conditions more then most.
I think people will be excited to hear that there is an actual person who calls.
We interview all the new hosts. As the host you are the one accepting people into your homes and lives
we want to make sure our minimum hosting criteria.
Go through your listing point of areas and use a bit of more explanation
Confirm that you know what our hosting criteria are and have a plan to meet them.
this is a great opportunity to
to gives some pointers and tips and best practices that we've learned from hosts after several years of hosting
pass it on to the new hosts from the get go
There are some easy things to do to make the WWOOFing experience great for both host and wwoofer so that's
the goal of the goal of this callMake sure you aware of what our standards are to make sure you are a good fit for the program.
So do you start by asking me questions.
"My first question for you is how did you first hear about WWOOF and what made you sign up to be a host?"
Well, I probably heard about it before, since I started the podcast, this would be episode 319, so I have talked to 318 people, and a lot of the people I have talked to who are farm managers, who worked at someone's farm or own their farm now. One of the greatest interviews I did, with Jeremy and Neke and they would do 2 days here and 2 weeks there and 2 days there, and traveled all of South America plus learned from a variety of different people. The experience level was exponential by being at all these different farms.
For example I interviewed Ellen Polishuck who had her own farm and now teaches people about working with interns. Our goal is to plant as much as we can this year because there could be giant food shortages this fall and people needing food and we have a lot more space then Mike can care for himself. So if we can grow more this year with some help that would be great.
That's what so great about the WWOOF programPeople who want to be gardeners or farmers themselves someday can go get that experience and if they want to try out a bunch of different farms and set ups. One of the great tools
WWOOF offers is you can go check out from different set upsstarting out and get experience as that well hosting side your not always leave and travel
farmer or gardener
tend to your animals or crops
You can invite people to come and learn and participate with you
own experience and tips and tricks
both ways
host other farms
and
your in Montana so you probably have some cold winters. We have lots of hosts that are in colder climates who go
WWOOF themselves during their cold season, whether that’s out of the country or somewhere warmer.host during their own growing season
I have talked to several that went to Hawaii, I talked to people who went to Hawaii and stayed in a tent and those who went to more formal living spaces and I was like what stayed in a tent? The interesting part was they were like 3 hours from the beach, they had to hitchhike to the beach or something but they could see the beach...
Past Hawaii WWOOF Interviews Sarah Manuel From the STREATERY * Jenny Jack Sun Farm * And Anna Peach* who is in Hawaii, although I'm not sure she WWOOFed it but she did volunteer at the Brooklyn Grange.
so that is what this call is about
tips for setting the expectations for people visiting your profile and the
wwoofers get to read about and experience from visiting you from your profile
some type of application or interview process in place so that you are directly communicating what will happen with the dates that they are interested in
so like you were saying if someone thinks they are going to be Wwoofing in Hawaii and think they will get to the beach every day for a half day after working their morning, so it's important to be asking those questions
definitely feel free ions
ask questions of their
what there is to do for your time off
So when wwoofers find your listing in our directory they will be able to decide before contacting your site they might think this is the best fit for what I am looking for or maybe they want to do something different and move on to another profile.
So you need a few more required fields on your profile
Wwoofer hosting criteriaas a host you are expected to provide
I read on your profile that wwoofer woofers will be bringing a camper or camping in a tent and sharing your bathroom.
It is definitely cold in Montana at nights. They would want to be able to have a stove or some heat at night. Ideally they would have a camper to hook up. But yes they would have to share our bathroom and kitchen.
extra bedroom
all of that is ok,
clearly explained
lots of communication and about what they can expect when staying on your farm.
For food did you have a plan for how you would share meals or provide for wwoofers.
It's funny how you said that about an application or questionaire, I was thinking about creating something like that because in our situation it would have to be a very specific person that would get along, but then I also think it would only have to be one person or a small family, I think my husband would want someone who would be here for a season, not opening our place up to a lot of different people.
I mean we have 20 acres, there is a cabin on the other end of our property. I mean there are lots of gorgeous camping sites between their place and ours. There are places they could camp close to a spigot or they could have their own. It would take a specific person. I wrote down that Mike eats meat and I'm a pescatarian but I could cook vegan but then I also thought I would have to point out, Mike eats meat but we don't eat meat every day or maybe he would eat meat once a week.
I just feel like if we found the right person it would all work out. They could use part of the fridge. Or if they want to eat, we seem to have excess of food all the time.
share those expectations ahead of time.
so they know what would be there ahead of time
share meals with our family
space and ingredients to cook their own.
That would be discussed with individual ahead of time by:
- setting expectations
- talk with an individual person
Do you like cooking? And rather eat your own meals
I can share that a lot of hosts do a combination
- share one large meal a day
- other meal
- other meals are on a wwoofers own
that’s when they have their own cooking space
encourage to think that through and include in your profile
so you are going to attract the right
Perfect what's next?
providing lodging and meals is one of our requirements but the next one is using and sharing and organic methodsI saw that you said your husband is the gardener ask what a WWOOFer could expect to learn in the effect of sustainable growing methods if they visit your farm.
We're not certified organic, and we even were debating the other day if he got manure that was from cows that were not specifically fed organic hay that had not sat for 3 years yet, was that organic our food grown with it? I can say were gonna do our best to use the most sustainable methods, he's been doing more no till experiments this year, putting tarps down and not using the roto-tiller. Mike always rotates crops.
We grow cover crops and use compost we have here. I always say our chickens are for the manure, we did have a grizzly bear come in last fall so we only have one chicken now. Mike's been gardening for over 40 years, when we started out we didn't even have running water, we have 14 fruit trees so they would learn how to take care of fruit trees, grow vegetables, last year we wrote the Organic Oasis Guidebook.
I'm the organic eater so I can share a lot about growing herbs and cooking with them. Mike has always been a great boss as far as I have seen, we live on Christmas tree land and always people would work with him to get firewood or cut trees were super happy. It was hard work but I always knew him to be fair and a great boss. He has so much information to share, you would learn a ton about Earth friendly techniques, we try to be organic.
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We don't actually go to market, we just don't have that much extra produce, I was hoping this year maybe we will have enough, and if he had a helper, maybe we could, but I can never figure out how we would even have enough water to grow that much. Our school this morning they said they were all gone by 9:00 and he was surprised that it was seniors who came to get food. I don't think it's gonna get better? IDK. We just want to grow as much as we can here this year, Mike can't do it all by himself.
certified isn’t a requirement, a lot are not market farmers, some are just homeowners doing this as a lifestyle
wwoofers are learning those natural techniquesthat’s great
along the teaching side sounds like he has a wealth of experience
often use that to get a first exposure to this lifestyle
organic farming
have not ever spent any time, and make sure that you are prepared to
- teach and instruct
- supervise the way you want them done
The Little Gardener: Inspire Children to Connect with the Natural World I just got off the phone who wrote a book called the Little Gardener about working in the garden with kids and her last piece of wisdom was have a little grace. Like if you are out with your 5 year old and you run back to the house to grab your scissors and come back and the seeds are sprinkled everywhere just try to celebrate what does grow.
Mike is going to make sure things are done HIS WAY. I did do an interview withJean Martin Fortier where he talked a bit about working with interns making sure your contacts are right. And this woman here in Whitefish who has always had interns. I think if we can find the right person it could be a good fit. I always feel like the perfect interview happens just the right person in the audience. I think we all need to make sure we give all a little grace.
yes but also what you were saying about getting as much of the getting to know ahead of time, is something I do want to stress
what will happen when your profile goes live. I will point out there are just a few missing components that still need to be completed
once it goes live
you will be able to receive messages with wwoofers
have an application in place
scheduling a phone call similar to this
looking to get out of the experience
looking for from them
and making sure that’s a good fit
Not only will you get along personality wise
confirming your expectations are of each other
good fit
We have found from years of experience that the few times someone decides after two weeks and realize it is not a good fit, I think a lot of those could have been avoided is if you have those conversations
them not feel comfortable
weren’t expecting
leave early
best for you
or for them
most of those situations can be avoided with conversations
Either you or the wwoofers can end it is always your right but that usually isn’t necessary extra steps to get to know one another ahead of time
host forums that you will have access to once your form is approved where the other hosts have shared their methods for getting to know ahead of time it's a good place to get advice from hosts who have been doing a long time
sample questionnaires I am happy to send along, I can put in an email when I send you a follow
Can I share that in the show notes or is that something you have to register to learn? And there are local options there are called day worker?
for wwoofers that come for one day
stay long term
The general expectation is the wwoofers contributes a half a day for each day they are rather. We have put the expectation the wwoofers work 4-6 hours per day of stay.
over the course
if they are staying longer
1/2 a day for 5-6 days a week
25-35 hour range a week.
anything more then that should not be expected
wwoofers want to keep helping
see their host
as long as it is not expected
contributing
host that say doesn’t have a lodging set up to invite people who are in their area who can commute who want to work for half a day they can stay for lunch or take some produce home with them
provide with some hospitality
setting up a recurring visit for someone in the area is a great way to build a connection
great for the wwoofers who don’t have time to go on a long commitment to learn that way
option for a host
host long term
wwoofers who dont have the way to provide lodging
host people in local area?
Do you get people who live in cities who are just like backyard gardeners?
we don’t have that many
some
we also have hosts that are urban farms, where they have a larger area
lodging could be with different volunteers in the city. We have hosts in every single shape and size set up out there
Are you seeing a bigger interest with the quarantine? And how does that work if someone comes to stay at your place do they have to quarantine in place. We are opening up in two weeks, but they shut it down because so many people wanted to come stay at airbnbs to stay out the quarantine in Beautiful Montana and the Governor was like nope!
we are encouraging people to follow stay in place
stop the spread
at the same time a lot of our hosts are essential food, a lot of them wwoofers on their farms
hard to tell
travel is definitely down
at the same time there are hosts that need to safely host wwoofers who can self quarantine for a couple of weeks and they can providing food for their community
We are definitely seeing a really high interest in gardening and farming through our social media especially as people want to be in an open area and essential skills
may not be for all people to hop in their cars now
We are continuing to encourage people to shelter if they can and they are in a safe place
host wwoofers
not trying to tell people how to run their farm we are just a platform that helps people make these connections and helping people get their profiles finished like you.
memberships only averrable to registered members
full profiles
signed up with the program
membership is $40 for a single or $60/couple
families with minors can be under the account of their legal gardening
social profiles
usually your membership lasts for a full year
membership for a year and half for the same price so as travel restrictions
still go wwoofing
to sign up to go up go wwoofing it's $40-60.
to be a host we do ask for a sliding scale contribution from $20/50
accident insurance policy which we provide whcih really benefits the host
while a wwoofers is staying with you, any accident that could potentially happen they would be reimbursed for medical expenses if something happened in relation to the
Hey everyone it is Monday, May 11, 2020! I am here behind the mic to tell you that we are officially launching the Organic Oasis Master Class 2.0 on June 1, 2020.
Master Class 2.0It's a 6 week course where we are going to walk you through the Organic Oasis Guidebook but there is so much more then that! Can you go buy the book on your own? Sure. But having Me and Mike and Patti Armbrister by your side, to make sure you complete all the lessons in the book. walk you through and hold your hand
That's going to help you be successful in your garden. We're gonna make sure your organic oasis is complete, that you know all the parts and pieces!
GARDEN SUCCESS!I feel like this year, I've had more experiences were I have been been explaining to somebody a chapter in the book or explaining something in the class. People keep asking me questions that we answer in the book?
What did you say? Why do you want to plant sunflowers on April 22? You plant sunflowers because they get rid of aphids?
Especially at Free the Seeds! Not only are you getting my incredible knowledge. When you join you get membership in the Patti Armbrister Fan club where you get to do a monthly question and answer all the way through your Thanksgiving harvest!
If you can't figure this out:
Tomato blossoms have beautiful flowers but you aren't getting any fruit or your eggplants are bushy?
Whatever you questions are? This is my struggle there. You have access in the Facebook group but also you will get extra attention and a chance to ask her personally what's going on at your space.
Patti and I are going to a webinar where we answer all the questions that have been in the Facebook Group!People have asked me things like:
How do I take care of this banana plant or this coffee tree? Or what do I do about these squash beetles? The biggest question is repeatedly, how do I keep away pests and how do I keep my plants healthy?
Hard copy as long as you are in the US
People say things like I don't really want to journal all that much! I mean just because it has a space for every day, you don't have to document every day, you want to do it once a week, I'm sure on Friday you'll still remember what you at this week, or maybe your the opposite of me and you know this is what I am going to make next week!
The point is to make you conscious of what am I eating in November because when you're standing in the seed store you're not thinking about what you were eating in the fall or last summer in August, you're just thinking of what looks good now!
BROCCOLI This year we are going to grow more broccoli because I know broccoli is my number one food, even above pizza, I would try to bring broccoli pizza if I was stuck on a desert island. Broccoli is my super food! And number one favorite thing to eat!
Mike grows it it is so incredible, we had a big squirrel problem, this year we are putting it closer to the house where it can be guarded better and we can put row cover over it. We don't know if that was a drought year or what?
But we're supposed to be talking about your garden challenges.The new vegetable garden challenge. I know there is a big difference between being a vegetable gardener and growing a nice landscape. We're gonna talk about what's the difference between a garden and an organic oasis. Or maybe a farm. Like in Mike's mini-farm there's nowhere to sit. There's no designated paths!
In the book the Lil Gardener the other day, she was talking about it's important for a space to be inviting!
Even though the class is 6 weeks it's designed to walk you through the lessons in the Organic Oasis Guidebook.
The Master Class Also Includes Extra Lessons and ValueFor each section of the book, theres I think 12 podcasts that talk about that topic. There's additional reading like inJM Fortier's Market Gardener, in Jacob Jeavins book.
I could only make this book 145 pages, when I buy a copy it costs me $20, so I made it as short as I could but I wanted it to have the most valuable
Annuals VS PerennialsI just made a video for Instagram about the difference between annuals and perennials, I am the kind of person who comes home from the nursery and I'm like hey I bought strawberries and broccolis and don't you want to put these all together in the same bed, but you don't want to put those together because strawberries because strawberries are perennials that come back and spread every year and broccolis or brassicas are plants that need to be planted in a new spot each year.
Your can get in for $75.00 if you click on the link in this or somewhere there is a podcast special. It opens June 1st so if you want to get a copy of your Organic Oasis Guidebook, before it starts!
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy
Enter Here
https://mailchi.mp/7e1910df349e/littlegardener
Listen to our awesome interview here:
https://organicgardenerpodcast.com/podcast-2/318-little-gardener-julie-cerny/
Connect with Julie on Facebook Here
and on Instagram here
Purchase the book here:
The Little Gardener: Inspire Children to Connect with the Natural World
In my most recent interview with Julie Cerny she recommends Scott Mann's Permaculture Podcast so I thought I'd go ahead and post a replay from our conversations back in July 2019.
The Permaculture Podcast host Scott Mann shares his amazing journey into permaculture and podcasting in this must listen episode.
Learn about The Possibility Handbook: A Toolkit for Transformation So I ask myself today what lesson can I learn since all the work I did this weekend evaporated when my computer crashed yesterday. I am going to release it so I can listen on my way to work tomorrow and hope for the best. Sorry if there are any mistakes but I think Scott was an amazing guest you will enjoy hearing from unedited!
To see my unedited notes click here.
But I did put on my rose colored glasses on my way to work and ended up enjoying the sunny skies and beautiful Montana forests! Enjoy Green Future Growers! Here’s to technology challenges and hopefully better solutions! At least I didn’t lose my whole computer as I still have about 6 episodes in the bank to release!
Show notes coming someday!
I did want to make sure I include some important links Scott mentions. Two books and a website.
David Holmgren’s site and info at Permaculture Principlesand the Poster Download that lists the principles to follow along as we talk.
David Holmgren’s book:
Permaculture: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainabilityand
Toby Hemenway’s
Gaia’s Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy
The Little Gardener: Inspire Children to Connect with the Natural World It's truly a book out of my heart. BOOK GIVEAWAY: Enter here to win!They are giving one to a listener.
Connect with The Little Gardener author Julie Cerny Here:Find Julie on instagram @https://www.instagram.com/thehappylittlegardener/
and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/The-Little-Gardener-101235494924539/
Do you have any questions for me?
Well, I was wondering about your journey a little bit.Well, I call my audience Green Future Growers, mostly they are interested in growing a lot of food, they have large backyard gardens, they are master gardeners, but I have gotten a lot of new listeners so there might be more new gardeners. I started my podcast in January 2015, and I have done 318 interviews with backyard gardeners, market farmers, etc and so I feel like since I started my podcast I could keep a class of students alive if I had to.
My husband and I live on 20 acres in NW Montana, so deer is a big challenge here. Many listeners etc say that is a giant challenge. Mikes goal is trying to grow as much of our own produce as we can but this year we are trying to do more, we are even looking into having a WWOOFER coming to stay and maybe help Mike because we feel like this land should produce as much as it can and more then Mike can by himself in case we need food in the fall.
It wasn’t until I saw children in a garden—holding seeds, planting them, touching the soil, and smelling, harvesting, and tasting food (nature)—that I knew they were truly perceiving their place in the natural world. And it made perfect sense.
The most direct and intimate way to connect with nature is, clearly, to eat it. A small part of it becomes a small part of you—and it fills you up a little more every time.
Eventually you begin to realize that you have always been 100 percent nature, that you are made of the same components of all that you see in the natural world—your body made of water and carbon, same as the flower stalks. Gardens remind us that everything is connected, and that “everything” includes us.
The Little Gardener: Inspire Children to Connect with the Natural World
Here's my amazon review:
Five stars*
All you need to help inspire the little gardener in your life. Don't forget to leave yours so this book gets shared by all who need it: Illustrations bring gardening to life in this little workbook that is designed by someone who obviously knows kids + gardens and how to love and enjoy them together! Fantastic read. LOVE LOVE LOVE!
It is Friday April 24, 2020 It's truly a book out of my heart. They are giving one to a listener.IDK where you are?Find Julie on instagram @https://www.instagram.com/thehappylittlegardener/
and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/The-Little-Gardener-101235494924539/
Tell us a little about yourself.Hudson Valley in NY State. 2 hours of NYC.
I grew up on Long Island till I was ten. My family moved upstate to where my dad had a hunting cabin.
Moving from the suburbs at the age of 10 for a fledgling 6th grader, but looking back on it, I'm so glad they did.
How lucky were you to get to move upstate.
I loved the close knit community in the suburbs, but I'm a nature girl at heart, more of a country girl and I'm glad I got to develop a stronger love of nature.
Me too!
Even when we lived on Long Island, we had a tiny postage stamp backyard, and most of that, probably 20-30% of that backyard, we had in vegetables all along the perimeter of the yard. There was never any question with the connection to where food came from because we always had tomatoes growing etc. That was natural.
That connection was made pretty naturally, when we moved upstate dad really expanded his garden, put in an orchard
They had:
- 5 acres
- still live on that land
- apple trees are my dad’s heart and soul
helping in the garden
once I got to be a teenager I wasn’t super duper excited about it. But that really gave me a foundation and a jumping off point for a connection to nature.
not along of the typical
- forts
- streams
- mud-pies
always had this connection to natural world that began to manifest belonging to an environmental group in high school and then going to an environmental science and forestry program here in sunny Syracuse NY
What I started feeling that education
being an outdoor educator felt like my patheducational fellowship my last couple of years
inner city Syracuse
I felt like this is it! Connecting kids to nature is what I want to do!!That manifested over a few years
few different jobs
- NY state parks
- adirondack mountain club
- taking kids hiking
- taking kids in canoes
- looking at pond water under a microscope
nature still felt
When I would engage with nature, yes
- let’s identify this tree or this animal track
- it didn’t feel like enough!
- Nature still felt like an other
this one
Taconic Nature Center
I've been there (but really I went to the Ashokan outdoor center about 45 minutes away)
It's a great programing.
We didn't have blacksmithing but there was a farm nearby that had more of those historic skill type stuff.
We had a
- mammals course
- aquatics course
- project adventure ropes course for team building
we did have a lot of 6th graders, aligning with the 6th grade curriculum
Along with the quote from the book, watching kids eat from a book
I love identifying trees
I love identifying birds
observing in things in nature
but engaging in it is something totally different and actually putting a piece of nature into your body takes it to next level
nature communication and nature interpretationNature is food so I said, let me check out this organic farming. I tried this organic farming just for a weekend and I was sold.
I moved out to Colorado to intern farm
- part educational
- production
interest to sustainable living off grid 9000 feet elevation
- working with the land and allowing it to be part of our lives
- That was a big shift, watching where all my food came
- also took a course with the Audubon in Maine
3 week intensive just before I went to colorado
just watching, we took it back to basics!
we want to bake bread then somebody starts
- grind the wheat
- split firewood
taking it back to basics is different then the part of me that climbs a mountain to see a pretty view the working with kids to check it out flipping logs over and playing in streams
It came full circle back to gardeningits a really excusable way to connect with nature intimately and personally.
Do you want to explain about the little gardener big gardener and how it starts out, because people probably don't alway know how to start with a kid?
The Little Gardener: Inspire Children to Connect with the Natural World
the book is designed to be read by a big gardener to help guide little gardeners to create:
- dreaming
- growing
- harvesting
- learning
together! The book is laid out pretty chronologically, in terms of setting intentions, and mindfulness and always coming back to that dream to guide you and where you want your garden to go.
visualizing your garden
connecting your land
observing your environment
what kind of garden is going to work for this place
I love that you start out talking about an inviting garden!
the most the gardens I felt most wowed by a real energy shift by just walking into it, it was part wild and cultivated, when you walked into it there were
- places to sit
- defined paths
- it just had that element of wild nature
- and "domesticated nature"
I think that is so true, because like Mike has his minifarm that is production for vegetables but then we have our garden area that I refer to as the organic oasis because it's a place where we hangout and have picnics and bar-b-ques with the kids etc and I like to paint and relax and read. A place to be and enjoy is very different then a farm that just produces food.
the more kids feel invited into the garden, just like adults the more they are going to want to be in there
When they are a part of setting those intentions
building the structures that allow the garden to come alive that's gonna be a space they connect to more
something that’s woven
ecological literacythe idea that natural systems support all life on this earth!
We are a part of those systems, it's important to understand they sustain us and how to co create with those systems to create ideally a more sustainable society
In a garden that you are co creating with
it's more easy to see how your actions affect your immediate environment for better or worse
they will have a better sense as they grow looking beyond nature in their backyard and garden to oh, I can have an affect on the nature in my community
I think gardening is a lesson in so many things!
I think it allows us to see what we are capable of doing with our own two hands and in our minds in nature.
I love that so eloquent. It's amazing to me, when I look at your book, I'm like wow! because I like a lot of the things in your book are very similar to what we put it in our book the organic oasis guidebook is similar like the bean teepee and deep beds but I love your layout!
I think it is so timely right now, we've been teaching online for a month now, I am trying to think of different ways to engage my families. We just had Earth Day, we did just teach in Wonders Mc Graw Hill's curriculum for earth day we had great stories on recycling and solar power etc that we've been reading but I think there are so many ideas in your book I can use with them.
It’s a blessing and a curse
at our local nursery I can do a garden activity and book signing!
these things that are described in the book
my heart breaks a little bit not being able to do it.
but honestly the book is about parents and children for families to create and grow in their garden and parents are all stuck at home with their children so what could be more perfect?
pining for this connection to nature
how connected we are to the biology of the planet
there couldn’t be a more perfect time for the book to come out
One thing I wanted to add, there is this big gardener, little gardener dynamic throughout the book, people ask me is it for kids or for adults?
it’s for both of you
Most of the text is designed to be read by an adult
there are these side bars that are written for little readers, just a short paragraph
designed to pick up the book themselves
One of my friends, she has 2 twin five year olds, and she had a picture of Nora reading the book in a chair, so I was so excited!
the five year old is picking up the book!
- it’s so good!
- it’s so good!
I’m glad that I’m hearing from adults
picking it up on their own
I think the illustrations are invited, draw a garden map, that you phrase it like that, just like you said, I could see my 3rd graders reeaing a good percentage of this especially the side bars, the way it goes in chronological order, the journal prompts and the planting calendar, and the illustrations of teh tools. It's like workbook and draw in it or hav ea notebook with it. The layout is fantastic!
Yea the harvesting olympics!
I feel like the illustrations capture the vibe of the book, it’s a perfect balance between being able to something that was really important to me was
if there’s an illustration of a seed or a plant
if it’s a raspberry bush
I want ti to look like a raspberry
plant physically correct
soft and welcoming
Esemie the illustrator just nailed it.
I think you guys totally nailed it. Do you want to talk about the content in it? My listeners are always interested in what can they do to be more productive and grow more vegetables in their spaces. It's all gold!
The most important piece of advice I have used in gardening is observe observe observe.
one reason I like to water is it gives me time to stare at the plants
drip tape is super efficient, and turing on a sprinkler is super efficient tooBut watering by hand is one of the ways that helps me get to observe and know what is going on in my garden
Permaculture Design TipsThe other thing is I took a permaculture design course some years ago, some of the suggestions that come through in permaculture is to observe your space for an entire year!
Don't screw around, really get to know that space.* where does the frost settle? * where does it lift first? * where do the puddles form? * where is it more rocky?
where does it
before
Sometimes we get so excited about getting our plants into the groundfoundational pieces that are going to be important and trickle down
making sure your soil is good before you begin
or you're gonna be heartbroken!
If you are all excited about growing carrots and potatoes and you find out bedrock 6 inches down or less or your soil is filled with slate or shale pieces
I think it's worth taking the time inthe beginning
or you put it where the tree is going to grow up and be shaded in all of august or it's gonna burn in August
get to know where your sun and shadows are moving!it’s a very joyful and mediative process
- grow your potatoes in those fabric potato sacks
- have a raised bed to start and incorporate back to the garden later
once you have a sense of the ecology of your space
relationship between being efficient and being joyfulcome up agains rather, I feel like it ends with being productive and having a good time in the garden.
I’m gardening for a lot of reasons* one is for production and one is for joy * many other reasons
this mantra I try to embody
I am peacefully productive and mindfully efficient
taking both of those worlds
I feel good about both of them, I am at peace but getting things done, learning to find the joys of being efficient
if I am being efficient I feel like I have to move really fast then I am not really connecting to my garden in that spiritual, sacred way we connect to our land and there is a way to do both so I tried to weave mindfulness within the book.
I think that it's one way if listeners will bond with their children if they do the activities in the book, because like you mentioned the interview I did with Joel he talked about growing up with awful memories of just weeding, weeding, weeding...
that was what he was forced to do where as you're talking about all the joys of a garden you can get and they are going to eat but they are going to look back on with fond memories!
I really want to
this is kind of what I wanted to say before about ecological literacy
being in your garden that you are out in nature
I’m so glad you decided to share that one quote at the beginning of our conversation because my main goal for the book is to use gardening as a tool to understand that we are part of nature and we have the ability to co-create in a really positive way to make us healthier, good and more connected to our families and communities!
This is such an important time for that. In redneck Montana, there are lots of people don't want to wear masks, I mean our grocery stores are good, and people are staying home but I continually see things that say, people are gathering here.
I just feel that people who are protesting, we need to reach out to them personally, like literally call them on the phone, not through email, and reach out to them and say hey:
- the red cross needs help - most of their volunteers are seniors
- food banks need help
- what if we doubled all the backyard gardens where people are already growing and said if you grow food if we build you an extra bed would you grow more
- expand community gardens
- school gardens
We're gonna use part of our stimulus to help Mike grow more food because who know what is going to be like this fall. I feel like there are places in our community. You could probably build a deep bed safely on your own.
I also wanted to ask you about your club in high school, like I think if there was an environmental group, I think I would have been an environmental lawyer. Let's get the people who are wanting to be out to work...
From the Evergreen Urban Bee Sanctuary Heather Wood is here to share with us about natural beekeeping and why it is so important for everyone to have a hive on their property big or small.Donate to the Evergreen Urban Bee Sanctuary and help Heather continue her work on her Shunpipe donation page here.
Welcome to the GREEN Organic Garden Podcast it's Saturday • April 18, 2020 and I have an awesome guest back here to talk to us because she is just like you and me and all the green future growers out there so I know you are going to love every single golden seed that is going to come out of her mouth!
So, I have so many new listeners since I was on the Melissa Norris show so they maybe haven't heard of you.
Bonus Care Bellamy's informative Permaculture garden tour of her food forest and pollinator beds:https://youtu.be/C6SQUlsQq8w
Tell us a little about yourself.Returned to college a little later in life
taking a biodynamics class just different aspects of
farm
including beekeeping
watched a series of films, I said this is what I wanted to do. So I started a non-profit. Everything was in sync with other events.
We got to host Corwin Bell of Backyard Hive
He has done all sorts of research on Honeybee Geneticscolorado
natural style beehive that bees might prefer
honeybee genetics
non-profit to build natural beehives
awareness to catch honeybee swarms
straw hives
started to build his design which is the top bar hivestill have the sun hive which is the woven business
just about 150 top bar behaves now
so that’s pretty phenomenal for me, I didn't know anything about woodworking and I have developed a proficiency
Got my certificate in bee keeping
Where did you learn all this? I guess from Corwin?
local association before I
We hosted him to come and speak that drew all these people to the area and through my class and I became aware of this movement natural bee keeping that is geared toward local organic farming as opposed to giant mono-cropping and opposed the artificial insemination of honeybees
I just graduated in 2014 and I'm in my 6th year so I'm
learned about genetics, I knew it was important but haven't done a
- ton of homework
- still scratching the surface
The male honeybee is derived from an unfertilized egg!You can imagine all of those worker bees you see, there are 10s of 1000s of bees in any colony
most are female!
- foraging
- doing work
- queen of course laying eggs
The males represent a small percentage of the colony derived from unfertilized eggs so they only have mother s DNA!
So that puts them back need of diversity! That puts them back exponentially from having strong genes!
In nature the queen bee, is mating with 20 drones so she has tons of genetics there whereas now that we have been dependent on these mono crops there became a need for artificially inseminated queens because we go through bees that quickly now! They die at a faster rate for various reasons that we could talk about too!
They depend on artificially inseminated queens! They don’t take sperm from 20 drones from nature right? different drones because it's time efficient from a couple of drones that are invariably related to the queen.
So when you buy that package bees that queen from who’s inbred
They didn’t teach this in the entry level bee keeping class and I didn't learn this for a couple of years without doing a lot of my own research I really want to bring this aspect to the public!
Although there several layers to this
not that difficult
we cold be teaching this to our kids
designing our own curriculum for public
so now we’ve got these artificially inbred queens they send these out, we all buy these packages
all the big commercial beekeepers, and small beekeepers, there are tons of small beekeepers
because they're dying
buying from these
few different males
sperm
path
here’s one of the crux
The crux is that when a queen bee is laying eggs she chooses, or the colony chooses which kind of eggs is she gonna lay
do they need workers? or do they need drones?
they don't need drones, they need workers, so they tell her, however they decide we need workers.
She starts drawing sperm out of her sack, she fertilizes the egg with that sperm, which gets all mixed up, I don’t think she knows which sperm she’s drawing from those twenty choices, when she is artificially inseminated the sex ileles fo the sperm matches to her own DNA and turns the female worker bees into mutant males.
Mutant Males
Isn't gonna be the bonus at the end of this, the more flowers you can plant the better it will be. I will talk about how that is COVID related, because yesterday I went to the nursery to get potatoes and they said the nursery was closed because they couldn't sell bedding plants and my mom can't stay away from the nursery in NY where they are selling bedding plants.
Keep going this is fascinating, I don't know any of this!
See we are not learning this! they are essential
who’s in charge of the info were being taught, I think the states or the university and to change the curriculum in beekeeping is a lot of work and politics.
with this system of government, none-the-less
This is why I have gone around to all of the many of the libraries in king county
taught this information
created a poster board game to drive it home
here’s what happens
smell that mutant drone who would destroy everything and wreak havoc in the colony, they cull it out before it has chance to hatch
cone
where there is an minbar
They call it shot brood
culled out those mutant drones
you could do a measurement say it's 50% shot brood, this hive isn't gonna live through the winter and probably get eaten by wasps in the fall
so that is just where it is
- pesticide
- over development
taking away hives
this is just a new element, so I decided ... every year I have to ask myself what does the community at large need to do this year
a couple of years ago I created this poster gamewe hang up different queens
they get to velcro the drones
- mating ritual
- swatches of color that represent
- what does it look like if they are all the same color?
- that hive is not going to make it over the winter
written songs
honeybee songs
what do we need? National beekeepers what we strive for getting these genetically diverse colonies?
If they don't make it over the winter
how do we produce them?
came to need
I would call on people to become new beekeepers
I have collected funding to purchase all of the materials to
build the hives
- I have them all in my apartment
- I'm putting the lids together
- called on volunteers who cut the pieces out of the lumber
- we ordered packages
There are 22 packages coming
22 new colonies
18 new beekeepers
80 mile radius
and we have agreed to be in this club where anyone can participate
the core is that we support helping with new queens
if there’s a swarm or we catch one out of one of these hives. We can share or give it away
Somebody told me, and I was like but we have to make money, that years ago people gave honey to each other
this year it dawned on me
we need to have beekeepers!
it’s not occurring to us as a group yet, I don't think, it's beginning to, obviously, that we need to give it away to each other
People are selling and giving away diverse queens that cost a lot of money
not about a sliding scale for poor people
culture and need to get diverse queens
teach
every child
We need to help everybody who has an inkling of interest how to set a beehive on their property and LEAVE IT ALONE AND let the bees go!
You know I love this! Mike and I have struggled so hard to get bees to go, our hives are sitting here, our bees have either swarmed, or not made it to fall, IDK if it's because of pesticides.
Here we are in quarantine, in Montana, I think our governor did a great job, but there are so many people who don't believe in it, but what if we doubled every gardener who is growing things or building beds for community gardens, IDK how you would do things social distancing wise.
I love the bees! So many people have said on my show, guests who have said, I didn't know how much my vegetable production would increase from planting flowers like the pollinator border around the Brooklyn grange.
How do your make money? I know you have a non-profit? Do you do this for free? Do people pay?
so I have the non-profit, I have a fiscal sponsor, I'm going through Shunpike, which is sort of an art thing.
They support projects with art involved.
I'm also working with Christopher Gerber because I put beehives on rooftops and he's painting an entire rooftop with a big honeycomb on it and side of a building!
painting
I got a little job that I am just thrilled to do.
really funding this project this year
I think everything we do people see and it can become a new template for others to think about and envision and inspire people!
But this is what I do, it's important because it's my passion and I need to do it!
You know what's so interesting isCare Bellamy on the other side of the country in Florida you are both community minded beekeeping help your neighbors keep bees, share compost and grow flowers!
Bonus Care Bellamy's informative Permaculture garden tour of her food forest and pollinator beds:
https://youtu.be/C6SQUlsQq8w
So we’ve got farms taking these
bees going on rooftops
29th bees do come in
we need the bees
In nature, honeybee colonies do divide, that’s how they grow in number
I took the Cornell design but they are made with windows, but I took out the windows, so you are tempted to go into the hive, but I made them without windows because it's hard to insulate around window latches. We want to insulate the hives!
These are swarm growing hives!
The goal is to get them to live through winter!I made them a few inches shorter. So they will fill it up and swarm! That's really what we want the bees to multiply and divide!When the hive is full of stores, they are confident they can let half the colony go and the old queen will go with them and they will hatch out the new queen, they will have fewer honeybees in there and feel confident they have stores of food
hive is a little smaller so we encourage them to do that, that’s one difference in this years batch of hives! It's exciting every year it changes
maybe in the winter or next spring we will find out.
So I think I missed something? Do people buy the hives? There was some pipe thing what did you call it?
Shunpike
sponsor other groups who are doing projects around art.
I decided to use them, or we did because
I do artistic things too:
- write songs about bees
- poster games
- murals with other artists
fiscal sponsor when it’s art related
people have the option of yearly joining membership fee if they wanted to
$45/year
kind of a token commitment. It's a commitment right? This year I did fund all this myself, at my job excluding the volunteer work Scott Bishop who has spent hundreds of hours cutting lumber for me to spec!
this year the private donations really came from several memberships and then my job passion thing
Shunpike
Evergreen Urban Bee Sanctuary
on Facebook
passion
- if you are in this area
- get on the list
- we can figure out how you can have bees yourself
Evergreen Urban Bee Sanctuary website and Facebook
some times I get on there and do some work
- I’m building beehives right now
- I have to finish these lids by the 29th
- spend the day delivering them in a van
I got them from a local company in Monroe
Snohomish Bee CoThat's where I bought the packages, they're traveling to, to pick them up
I believe they are artificially inseminated queens, like Corwin told me years ago
bees are better then no beesGet some bees even if they are packaged bees and work with it, so in order to make this program work, I am doing that and I am encouraging them to swarm.
Last year, we were sponsored to take a class at Western Washington University with Sue Cobey
how to grow new queensnot necessarily super natural, but it involves scooping an egg out of a cell and putting that in a vertical position so the honeybees will grow it out as a queen
There are different projects in the making to get new queens that are local growing biggest best thing but the biggest and best thing is to get an exponential amount of new beekeepers who want to have a hide in their yard! And be part of a network of people who are sharing and giving bees to each other.
The most natural way I can see available to me to do!
This is perfect, last week this woman I interviewed Joan Gregorson, I interviewed for Earth Week, had the Earth Summit, and her podcast is the GREEN TEAM ACADEMY and you are the perfect example of what she is talking about look at you connecting with 18 other people and maybe my listeners are thinking wow is there someone in our community who is doing this?
They say that's super important to have someone a mentor to help and look at your hives, because it's expensive to get started.
Do you do that treatment free, like Jacqueline Freeman...
Bonus Care Bellamy's informative Permaculture garden tour of her food forest and pollinator beds:
https://youtu.be/C6SQUlsQq8w
and then listen to my interview with her last January while you're waiting for me to publish this great interview I did with Heather Wood yesterday!
I’m so excited I have a listener on the line who is going to share a ton of golden seeds! I talked to her before from Florida and she is going to share with us about her Sustainability Project!
- Tell us a little about yourself.By day, I’m a REALTOR® and beekeeper. I’m also a 3rd generation farmer. My grandparents owned a 100 acre wheat farm on the prairie in rural Dufresne, Manitoba. My family lived off the land, they grew their food seasonally in a 1 acre vegetable garden. After the local community collectively brought in the fall harvest, they would busily preserve and can their produce for storage in their root cellar.
These people were a hardy bunch, they managed to survive the brutually harsh winters with minimal resources using a wood burning stove for heat, crude electric and no running water or indoor plumbing. They kept and cared for livestock and only took what they needed to survive, my ancestors practiced “The Tragedy of the Commons” method. That’s how they managed to raise a family of 8 in rural Manitoba.
And Manitoba is where people go to see the polar bears right?
Yes Churchill Manitoba is where the polar bears are.
Then you went to the opposite end of the continent practically to Florida.
Yes I did I got hired to work for Disney at the Epcot Center back in the early 80s and that’s where I met my husband two weeks later and we’ve been here ever since!That’s so romantic! I always wanted to work for Disney, I tried to get a job or get into art school at the California Institute of Arts in LA.
Well, they must have liked me! I managed to beat out 64 other people fro the job! So yay for me!
And you worked there for a long time right?
Yes 35 years!
- Tell me about your first gardening experience?We used to visit the farm in the summer time every two years, however my mom! When my mother moved to the big city of Toronto, Ontario, she became a backyard farmer and composter carrying on her family farming tradition. I began helping my mother garden as a young child, she taught me valuable lessons in planting, harvesting and food preservation skills. All these years later I’ve been utilizing this and it’s been working out fantastic for me. Luckily for me, both my parents were award winning gardeners so pulling weeds or fresh carrots comes naturally.
So then is it challenging down in Florida? Do you have to learn different practices to grow in that climate?
Well, gardening is pretty much the same wherever you go. IT’s just the conditions and the climate. In Florida there is a sandy soil, where my parents lived it was a deep rich soil. You have to plant things things that grow well
I’m in climate zone 9b, it’s way different climate. They get snow and here we don’t get any snow, we hardly get any freezes?
- How did you learn how to garden organically? My mother taught me, she was a big time composter of our organic kitchen waste. In fact, she had 3 bins under the sink.
one for
- regular trash
- recycables and
- strictly for organic waste
She didn’t use toxic chemicals as there were few available when she grew up, instead she did pest control by hand and by natural methods. She would plant different plants with different vegetables using companion planting as well.
They had to learn how to grow their own food and preserve it or they didn’t eat. So they had to learn quick!
And probably some of it was passed on from generation to generation!
Yes, of course.
- Tell us about something that grew well this year.It is winter, but you can grow crops in Florida all year long.
Adding 2 beehives to my garden mix was a huge plus this year.I grew delicious Beefsteak tomatoes just like my mother did. We also had great success growing a wide variety of herbs, including our own organic oregano and basil.
We’ve grown* cucumbers * bananas * sunflowers * jalapenos * salsa garden peppers which are super hot! * bell peppers * limes
- lemons
-
mini oranges
-
blueberries
-
blackberries
- fruit and nuts
- pineapples
ended up growing delicious
What are pineapples like to grow?
Pineapples are so easy to grow* leave like an inch of the top * seed in some water * keep adding water * transplant to pot or soil * Next thing you know you have a new pineapple growing!
So you can just eat the pineapple and grow a new one?
Yes there’s no waste! You can do it with onions and some other things. Including strawberries as well.I think I knew that about strawberries, or at least I thought they would send runner out.
Yes, it’s like recycling the whole plant!
And fruit is so expensive, I hoping to add more fruit to our garden next year!
my sunflowers did great
Mexican sunflower
they are wonderful
especially for pollinators!5. Is there something you would do differently next year or want to try/new?I would like to design a permaculture garden to maximize my urban growing space.
Right now I have 2 raised beds, and when I mean raised beds they are like 3 feet off the ground, you don’t have to bend over at all! Using raised bed gardens is a great way to grow food and not injure your back in the process!! My husband built these.
Me Too! What’s he building them out of ? What’s he making them out of 2x4s?
I’m excited to take the soil out next year and paint them like my beehives! We want to do the same thing with our raised beds! Make it more impressive!
My husband’s a graphic designer and they just look great!
I painted a mailbox for my mom years ago I thought would be a great place to keep my pruners and tools.
- Tell me something that didn’t work so well this season. Pumpkins, they were devoured by some grey larvae. I haven’t had any luck with pumpkins.
They start to grow, they’re great if you sprout them chop off the leaves and eat them! But as far as actually growing any pumpkins they just keep getting eaten!
I don’t like to use any pesticides, or use chemicals on property* bees * non-toxic and organic
Last year my friend Dacia gave me a pumpkin right after Halloween and that’s what I am hoping is going to work for us. She got it from a local grower and it grew right out of her compost pile.
Someone recommended to me, that I could actually spray pumpkins with a kaolin clay and that would coat them and prevent them from eating by this larve.
I have to do some more investigation and see how that’s used and applied.
Let us know or I’ll see if I can do some investigation. My mom’s biggest struggle is the squirrels want to eat them when she puts them out at Halloween. I told her put clay pumpkins out.
I’m gonna look in there.
FLORIDA’S EDIBLE WILD PLANTS: A GUIDE TO COLLECTING AND COOKINGlocally
you can actually grow a seminal pumpkin
They’re like mini gourds
green
they’ve been growing them and selling them
very hearty
soil conditions
heat will kill them when it’s 90º+ but it’s great for growing peppers! Peppers grow like weeds. We grow bell peppers and jalopenos!
Do you make salsa? I need a good salsa recipe. What do you do with all your peppers?
We eat them in salad
sauté them with other vegetables a lot of time
I make my own salsa* grow my own cilantro * onions * salsa peppers * jalepenos
I chop them all up, not the corn, I grow corn, not too much it’s an experiment. We’re growing peaches and cream corn this year.
- take the corn
- kernels
- add that with the salsa peppers
- onions
- vinegar
- agave nectar
- corn
It sounds delicious!
And it’s good for you, it’s excellent for you!almost everything is fresh!
not too much that I don’t grow
I like to eat organic that’s why I grow a lot of stuff I want to know where a lot of my stuff is coming from!
Let’s take a minute to thank our sponsors and affiliate linksPlease support us on Patreon so we can keep the show up on the internet. It cost close to $100 a month just to keep it up on the internet for the website etc so if you could help by supporting it with an $8/month contribution or $10/month to join the Green Future Growers Book Club where we can delve deep into some of the best gardening books that have been recommended on the show! GoDaddy even is bugging me for dollars just to have the domain name…
https://www.patreon.com/OrganicGardenerPodcastGetting to the Root of Things!WHICH ACTIVITY IS YOUR LEAST FAVORITE ACTIVITY TO DO IN THE GARDEN?Pulling weeds and deterring pests!
I don’t like pulling weeds, it used to be a chore of mine when I was little.
I never wanted to do it!
They never did anything with toxic chemicals! They were all organic. It was like a little garden tool! It was like a little weed popper! IDK what you call it but it was almost like a golf club but it has like a hammers head and throw them in the compost bin!
Do you feel like you do thing now to reduce your weeds like mulch etc. I find with mulch and having such a water shortage at our house if there is no weeds where you don’t water.
Just recently when I bought my
FLORIDA’S EDIBLE WILD PLANTS: A GUIDE TO COLLECTING AND COOKINGThere are a lot of weeds that I used to pull that in the last couple of weeks since I’ve been following the guide, I’m actually not pulling them and I have bees
I notice that on my wood sorrel they have flowers that are pink! I thought why would I pull this, it’s bee food!it’s right be side my behave
sorrel looks like shamrocks
it’s bee-fedd and I’m gonna keep them
hawksbeard
thistle with the little yellow flowers
I haven’t been pulling them, I have been leaving a good portion for the bees and butterfliestrying to keep my bees nourished and healthy!
Is that part of your Sustainability Project? Do you want to tell us about that?It’s called the Sustainability projectIt’s a community composting project, where I encourage all of my neighbors to drop off their compost so i can compost it in the garden so I can grow fruits and vegetables that nourish bees and butterflies and keep them healthy so I can grow organic food and return the surplus! IT’s fantastic.
How is that working for you? Do you give them a bucket? I love this idea! How is it all working?
People can drop off their paper bags, drop off to me, on my door step, really any day of the week, my husband is retired and he can turn it to them.
I just turn it into garden soil. I know some people, they have a few acres of property. I take them the excess if I can’t use it all.
compost everything
we should composting food on the surface of the earth!
instead of sending it to the landfill
this is how people created garden soil
keep bees and pollinators healthy and nourished.The big questions people have been asking me, with my garden course, because I start with healthy soil, and I think composting and personally I think it’s an easy clean garden job. But they are worried about getting animals in it. Do you get animals in your compost?
no I started experimenting with a tiny little old-fashioned apple barrel!
I started composting originally in that, I wanted to see how it would do?
it doesn’t smell
weeks
eat a banana and throw the peal into the grass, it disintegrates back into the groundbucket or something, something that breathes, because wood breathes
that’s why I picked that little basket the first time.
it doesn’t smell it doesn’t smell at all
if you are just using organic scraps it doesn’t smell. If you add, potato peels,
don’t add potato peels
that I learned quickly
potato products will attract rodents!
But if you just use vegetable clippings and scrape them into the bowl and add to your compost pile. Just turn it once in a whilewhenever you can.
We keep our pitchfork in there so it’s easy to turn when you walk by.
don’t get a chance
what I did
I noticed
it’s so funny
metal lid that had a little hole
fruit flies
I was seeing lizards sitting on top of the lid where the whole was, waiting for the fruit flies to come out so they could eat them.
I start to see this whole ecosystem developing!then I have all these black soldier fly worms they were voracious. They ate through
- tea bags
- rice
- anything organic
- they ate every bit of it
I thought this is nature at work!
what I ended up doing
I needed more
put stuff in a bigger area
compost pile
go back with a rake and I turn everything! It’s really great!
I agree and I love your enthusiasm! I love also that it is so forgiving! If you can’t turn it for a few days. I don’t find that it smells.The only thing is if you put onion peels in there they will smell for a couple of days, until they start decomposing, other then that it doesn’t smell,
I have never had an issue with anything getting in there, any kind of vermin
What I do, I have a fake decoy owl sitting on a pole. Maybe that’s why!
- What is your favorite activity to do in the garden? Say hello to all my plants, and my bees, and all the butterflies in my garden!
I wanna make it a really pleasant place!
We’re all a part of nature! I like to connect with everything, including the trees!
I have my favorite trees!
I want a really good vibe in my garden! Kind of following in my mother’s footsteps.I love all of this, we talk about building an organic oasis, not just growing vegetables because we want you to create a beautiful place to hang out in.
I go barefoot in my garden all year round. I want to feel the dirt under my feet and between our toes.
You and I are different there!
I also live in Florida, the standard shoe is flip flops.
That was actually one of my biggest garden barriers, I finally got some awesome shoes from the Animal Rescue Sitein Seattle. Because what I would do is...
https://www.strawbalegardenclub.com/joel@strawbalegardens.com
https://www.facebook.com/learntogrowastrawbalegarden
800-901-9902 • 651-470-2096
Minnesota, Roseville Minn- St Paul
Tell us a little about yourself.12 days straight. I'm 3/4 of the way through a paitn job.
Roseville, MN between St. Paul
Tuesday March 24, 2020! The beginning of a crazy time! We are on spring break so I hope youare getting outdoors. HEre's Joel Karsten from stra balegardening
I'm in Minnnesota
I grew up in Southern Minnesota on a crop and dairy farm
grew up on a farm
moved to the city in college
Was gonna go back to the farm but I met a girl, never made it back to the farm
- author
- writer
- speaker
- gardener
- involved in several community gardens
travel around esp. in the winter and spring speaking at home and garden shows here in the US and some in Europe as well about
the straw bale garden method29 springs
Where do you want to start Pioniering this method, one thing my shuanbend who grew up on a ranch is there is a difference btwetn straw and hay.
straw is what remains cereal grains are harvested like
Wheats and oatmeal
bale up the stalks
bedding for livestock
has hollow stalks
stems are hollow
- hold air
- acts like insulation
livestock can lay on the bed of straw has this amazing path to suck up and hold on to moisture
that’s what makes it so good at holding on to large capacity moisture inside a bale which will hold 5 gallons of water
acts as a reservoir for urine for
son or pitchfork in the manure spreader so it's like a diaper for livestock
hay is food ~ Fodder
if you say I’m feeding my dairy cows a hay bale that usually means
alfalfa clover
if your are feeding horses it could mean alfalfa or clover but it could be grass hay
bale up grass that has seed heads
nutritional value
alfalfa has lots of proteins so it's a very valuable crop it's easy to grow
grow it to bale it and feed it to livestock
not a byproduct of oats or wheat
straw is a by-proudct
reasons you grow hay is to feed it to livestrock
- more expensive
- heavier
- has a lot of protein in it
protein breaks down into the
could use a hay bale but it's
- more expensive
- breaks down quicker
- doesn't hold moisture as well
hay bale you only get one seasons of growth
he uses it mostly for mulch, he says you get weed seeds in the garden
the if
depends on when you cut the crop when you get to
3 times
4 times
2 times
cut when you get to 1/10th flower so when one in ten plants has a flower with seeds are mature
weeds that have mature seeds
hopefully not too many weeds
if you are balling like grass hay usually it depends becuase if you cut it a couple of times a year the seed has won’t mature
If you don't cut it at all and you just cut it in the fall and bale your ditch grass, that could have all kinds of seeds in it
sprouting standpoint
depends
sometimes same with straw if you get a really good combine that gets all seeds off when harvesting but if you have a combine that is not adjusted right you can get a bale of straw that has lots of seeds in it too
happens early in the season
prepping the bales getting to plant
spray with a little vinegar and knock them back, then you don't have to deal with the weeds
delights of straw bale gardening is you don't have to deal with weeds
How does somebody start?
Process called Conditioning.
I should go back a bit
when I started straw bale garden
necessity of the mother of all invention
grew up on a dairy barn
When we had a broken bale, the string we would just toss against the barn and say we will come back down but as soon as it gets raining it's never used and you always say is never bed your baby with a wet diaper
rained on all summer
natural decomposition
The biggest vegetables are growing out of the bales
My dad would say hey kid run and get the pitchfork and put it on the manure spreader
try to pick it up with the fork it would fall through the tines of the fork so decomposed
go to college and get a degree in horticulture first instinct is to grab the shovel and run to the yard and see what kind of soil you have so I had a had a half inch of top soil
College kid I just bought a house
had no money to build raised beds
I remembered back to when I was on the farm and the great big thistles to grow the corn
same nutrient profile to grow thistles as it does to grow tomatoes and peppers
Got some bales and did some experimenting
tried different methods
First year I did this, about 2-3 months into the seasons
I knew I would never go back to traditional garden
perfected the method over the first couple of years.
I always say for the first 14 years I did this there weren’t a lot of people who cared
colleagues
15 years ago this spring, I got on the local news channel 11 affiliate, the NBC affiliate
it just exploded, the next day they started calling the tv station saying where do you get this?
early days of the internet
built a little website
self published booklet
that little booklet started going all over the world
- early days of Facebook
- started to spread
this technique
first published book
straw bale gardening in 2013 for cool spring press started this explosion
- 30 languages
- 60 countries
cult within gardening the straw bale gardening community is really sort of a family* teach each other * encourage each other * teach each other the techniques for people who are just starting
FIRST stepis to understand that plants down’t grow very well in plain straw
recently decomposed straw
take the bale 12 day prep process
called conditioning
rapid composting inside the bale
the inside of that bale is going to become soil it's in very early stage, by the time we plant the inside of the bale will be
don't just buy a bale of straw and pop a plant inside it, it doesn't work you need to do this conditioning process first!
amazingly well over traditional gardening methods in my opinon.
Do you have to buy other stuff besides the straw bale? What do you put in it? Or do you put compost in the middle of it?
straw bale metod
over
do I just dig the bale out and put the dirt out t there then your just soil gardening up in the air - defeating the purpose
You need to get some source of nitrogenorganic
blood meal works really well for this method* we like to use pork blood meal * feather meal * corn gluten
a lot of people who are vegan or vegetarian
you can find alternatives
You need something that has minimum of 5% nitrogen content
chicken manure if you have access to pure manurewhat I discourage people from doing if you have bedding mixed in with your chicken manure if it has lots of
- wood shavings etc
- sawdust
- wood chips
- straw mixed with the manure
because then you get enough stuff worked down into the bale there
something with at least 5% nitrogen content
use it every day for ten day period* water every day * nitrogen is going to feed the bacteria
not about feeding plant roots
invisible process you can’t see it what we are doing is feed the bacteria inside the bale
you can't see it hapen but you can feel it happen
feel that bale get warm
comes from the colonizing bacteria
metabolize the strawwork together with mother nature’s other tools from her tool kit
- insects
- worms
- fungi
- mold
- bacteria > the heavy lifter
they begin decomposing and metabolizing the straw
breaking down the leaves and stalks of the bale of the oats or wheat into the cells broken into compound then broken down into individually charged molecules of things we would recognize
- potassium
- nitrogen
- phosphorus
- zinc
- calcium
- magenese
micro and macro nutrients that the plant used to grow the
ions and cat ions
root of a new plant to absorb through the roots
when you put the tomato in the bale
absorb through the roots
individual ions
new compounds
new cells
new stems and new fruits that come out and grow out of this bale
basic biological processdecomposition
new growth from plants you put in the bale
You put plants not seeds right?
You can plant seeds bigs ones like beans and peas, something as big as your pinky finger
stick them right into the
tiny seeds like carrots or radishes or something real small seeds
need to make a seed bed
I recommend you buy a bag of planting mix
don’t want anything that is going to have disease or soil borne
if you take a shovel of top soil
you have introduced weed seeds or potentially disease that harbors
tiny planting
lots of advantagescommon question I get is why would I want to grow in straw bales when I have all this soil in the backyard?
no weeding thingYou go the whole summer! we get lots of posts on Facebook and twitter and Instagram
I am so excited I have gone all summer and not pulled one weed out of my garden. I should have been doing this the last 20 years.
The other common one
I will never go back to planting in soil, this is the greatest thing ever!
They do that say that!
people fall in love with this method of gardening, it's hard to explain how it excited people become! It spreads very quickly
why do you think it has become this phenomenon?
it’s so conspicuous
You could walk your dog every night, and a friend could ask you does that blue house, do they have a vegetable garden? you will say I don’t remember?
but if they put in a straw bale garden then everyone will know that house and then they see them plant
- grow out of these bales
- amazing harvest that they get
sort of becomes an attention grabber for the neighbor! They see:
Somebody did it!
- simple
- easy to do
- not a lot of maintenance
become a teacher
literally pull over and ask questions
what are doing here?
is this vegetable garner explain how this work?
You become a teacher
spreads because o f that
Big advantage, you don’t have to bend over
everyone's doing to get to the point where you become a seasoned gardener, it becomes more and more difficult to prepare the beds
modifying soil beds
that’s a lot of physical labor
roto-tilling your garden
That's a lot of physical work!
Once you get the bales in position
If you can get the delivery person
no physical work left after that no weeding or hoeing, or lifting!
might need a pruning sears have a planting trowel
You could put a lawn chair next to the bale and do your planting from a sitting position. If you are in a wheel chair from a comfortable position
you do have to buy the bales
straw
You are gonna use it for 2 seasonsfirst year you are going to grow warm seasons crops
- peppers
- tomatoes
- cucumbers
things that like warm roots
The second year you need to squeeze it together put chicken wire around it - they do slop into one. I like to squish 2 bales into one
then you plant your cool season crops
- potatoes
- carrots
- beets
- etc
by the time you get to the 3rd spring you go and use what remains this beautiful compost
making your own miracle grow at home
- containers
- flowers on the patio
- window boxes
sometimes you get it as a potting mix inside of a container
You really get 3 distinctive uses or seasons of use out of that 5-6$ bale
count up all the weeding time and watering you save
doesn't grow any weeds so you don't have to weed your gardeneliminates all that labor that you would normally spend
Significantly
A lot of my listeners are green future growers because they like to create green businesses and maybe they are thinking I can grow bales for people, like a landscaper who comes and does the lawn, since this seems like it doesn't require as much time per house.
I think it's a great idea?
We actually threw around a concept talked to a garden center. We called it
snap fresh vegetable gardensmarket it through home and garden shows
order a vegetable garden based on what do you like to eat
That garden would be delivered and set up by the garden center and all the prep would be done in advance, the bales would be delivered ready to plant or even planted.
All the family would be responsible for the harvesting process
To be able to walk out your back door and get pounds of vegetables out of 6-8 ten bales of straw and in the Fall the garden center would come back in the fall take it all away
it would be for many families
break down was
The garden centers said its a labor issue
early in the spring
of course you need one of your quality employees
take them away from the traditional garden center business
for many of them that's their busiest time, and they thought taking key employees out of my garden center or nursery would be bad for business.
downfall
that it was a high labor
A couple of your full employees committed to doing this
We thought about it a lot. I think if it was the only thing someone was doing. IDK I would think there are seasonal workers who would be looking for work.
I can come up with a business idea like every couple of hours.
I like people like that!
So what's next? I get a lot of people, who I talk to who are like, I don't have a Mike to build my deep garden beds, or get my soil all prepped for me. One of the reasons I don't do it is I'm usually working full time. This would be good for people who are busy. There are days where I don't see the garden by the time I drive and stop at the store etc.
good for a modern family
kids
- organic stuff for your kids
- teach your kids how gardens work
If you don't have experience gardening
I grew up gardening with my grandma Josephine
even for the parents would be valuable for them to learn to garden as well
traditional gardening
what kind of soil do you have?
What kind of soil modification are you doing?
- fertility level
- variables
- insect and disease problems
pests that harbor year to year in the tomato blight
they can cause tomato decline or tomato failure
in peoples gardens
a great solution is to not use your soil anymore and go to a straw bale that sits on top of your soil, as long as you don’t touch the soil and then touch the plant, the disease won't go to your plant
rotate crops
can be really important if you can move your tomatoes on your ranch or farm
if you have a small lot and you get the blight, you can’t really grow tomatoes for 4-5 years while it goes away out of your soil
people that
can’t grow potatoes
build up of disease problems
switching to this method allows you to not have to worry about doing any crop rotation
every time you bring in a bale you're starting fresh
great solution for lots of those soil borne problems
Modern family who is busy and doesn't have time to do
- weeding
- conditioning
- really of prep
literally 45 sec per bale
sprinkle fertilizer on top, spray with your hose with your done
- 45 secs on each bale
- 45 sec on 10 bales
- 10 minutes a day for 10 days
12th day
- 18 days for the blood meal to add fertilizer for water
- let it sit for another 8 days let the bacteria grow
if you didn’t grow your starts out
get your tomatoes already started
if you are doing seeds you can direct plant
right into the bales
for most of your crops if you normally grow them by seed you can plant them by seeds in your bales
If you have other crops where you sometimes start crops and other times you plant seeds, try the seeds because you will see the bale is so much warmer so you get faster root growth inside the bale
- catch up
- toss up
- go with the seeds its less expensive
- set up an irrigation system
- soaker hose
- hose and timer
don’t have to remember to water your hose and timer will water for you
number one mistake is they over water their gardensIf you over water you get symptoms will look like they are underwater they wilt, exacerbates the problem, think they need more water and it exacerbates the problem
Important part of straw bale gardening is never water more then one gallon per bale perone gallon will saturation the bale, dehydrate if you put more then that on it's gonna run through the bale and carry with it all your soluble nutrients
- calcium
- nitrogren
- things your plants are gonna need inside that bale
don’t over water
automated water
one gallon per bale
how fast does the water come out of the spot
one minute you get a 2 gallons then in five minutes you get ten gallons
As the plants get bigger you maybe increase frequency but never increase the dose* every other day * every day when its really hot
8 foot tall tomatoes
might water 2x3x a day
click dial on your hose end timer
So this is my question? What do you put under the bale if it's on the patio? or soil?
if you are doing them on soil you just put on top of the soil, I encourage people to mulch around them with wood chips to keep weeds from them growing between the bales
I do see a lot of people who test it to see if they are going to like it and they just put it right on top of the grass and then they mow around the bales
string trimmer
just like you have containers right in the middle of your lawn, you are not going to be successful if you plant pumpkin because you are going to get vines
once they care convinced this is...
I got a kale bed ready I am just about to plant. Mike started some heirloom tomatoes and broccolis. He's been working on the fence and we are getting ready to plant our garden!
I have over 20 years of garden data and most of them say that Mike starts things in the soil between April 7-14 so this year we're just a little bit late considering there was a big snow the first of April we are doing good.
What about you?!
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This is a replay from 4/21/15 my first year! And when I release this year's bonus Earth Day episode you will love her even more when you hear what she's up to now!
Meet the amazing Heather Wood saving the world one compost pile and bee hive at a time as she shares her journey to connect communities and show what living locally looks like. You’ll be truly touched by this mothers passion and commitment to the environment and world she lives in as she peddles compost from hub site to hub site, and bravely gathers wild swarms of bees to be relocated in a loving home with tenderness and excitement. Be ready to celebrate Earth Day after you hear this fantastic interview with one of the world’s young and inspiring modern day movers and shakers.
Tell us a little about yourself.
I was looking forward to graduating college and I was researching alternative styles of composting all over the country. When I was young I saw a show about a learned about a community in Italy using mules for collecting garbage and decided that was what I wanted to do. At the same I time I was getting my apprenticeship in Beekeeping.
Got two business licenses
non-profit: Urban Evergreen Bee Sanctuary Sun Hive and Swarm.
Community Compost Collection that’s 100% bicycle powered!
Got her degree from the Evergreen State College, in the capital of Washington, in Olympia. Grew up in Tacoma, Washington. Studying physics and animation. Started studying biodynamics beekeeping and biodynamics farming which sort of takes organic a little further. Always wanted to be a beekeeper.
Was able to get my apprenticeship through the Washington State Beekeepers Association. I also got to sit in on a workshop with Corwin Bell of Colorado
More then Honey and Queen of the Sun documentaries that talk about the harm that the bees are in. Wanted to get involved and believed that she could be involved.
Decided to build beehives. Sun hives – wild swarming … a step away from conventional bee keeping … talking about stepping away from conventional bee keeping which is wild swarming. Conventional bee keeping means we prevent our bees from swarming.
Natural swarming means ½ of the colony will leave with the old queen so we can have genetic diversity. If we catch wild swarms and trade them we are encouraging biodiversity and local native populations that will withstand winter better and will be stronger.
Bees start to swarm in the spring… Earlier that you can get a swarm to keep in the box the better, because they will have time to build up storage for the winter.
A swarm is a cluster (in the shape of a V or a football) on a branch – about 7-10 feet off the ground. This is about ½ of the colony, right before the new queen is about to hatch, the bees start pestering the old queen to leave and she takes about ½ the colony with her to find a new home. They have a better chance of surviving if we provide them one.
When they are in the cluster they have gorged themselves to carry food to their new home, so they are not wanting to sting, plus the queen is emitting a pheromone so they are sort of in a “love zone.”
Can shake them into a box, or use a net, be prepared they are going to be warm and heavy.
Start fanning their wings that “we found a home!! we found a home!!” They will recognize a home. If it’s new they’ll think its dark and like a hollow of a log.
Build sort of file boxes that have lids to them. Put a rectangular window and a screen, tape flaps so bees don’t get crushed, then cut a baby door on the bottom. After put the bees in the box and I have the lid on and they can get in and out. As long as the queen is off the branch and in the box, they are gonna be happy. Bees all go home after dark, and you can shut the door and then you can transport.
If you have bees you can sit with them and learn their language and be able to recognize when they are ready to swarm.
In Scotland bee keepers will put nets out so that they swarm right into the net.
Paul Stamets, fungi man, famous for studying mushrooms is out in Olympic National Forest too.
Compost ties in with bees because the Mycelium feeds the bees and its anti-viral sap from the mycelial roots, the bees drink the sap and it is anti-viral for them. So my compost hubs site have mycelium cubes which turns into compost for people to put in their gardens but it also feed the bees.
So a compost hub site allows me to transport compost mostly to community gardens mostly in community places, sometimes neighbors and community members will open yard and allow me to build compost bins around town. So I donate the compost to the community garden. People can pay me to bring compost to them. Eventually I might sell it. They can come pick it up and take it to their garden or pay me to bring it on my bicycle to them.
I was researching the mules in Italy and found East side compost peddlers in Austin, TX … 100% bike powered composting so I found a guy in Portland OR, Tom’s cargo bikes ….
donated mountain bike, and Tom helped me put it together.
Found customers by talking to people, found clients on Facebook, at local community gardens, got a website up.
When people ask me why I want to do this, it’s because I want to show people what it looks like locally. We don’t need to have giant diesel trucks come by to grow food, so this is what it looks like, it’s this simple, it just takes doing. And eventually this could lead to job creation.
Also pick up leaves, grass clippings, anything that will turn into compost. I can provide a 5 gallon bucket, I come around and collect the compost, I spray it with vinegar water, provide a new paper bag with the food coop’s logo stamped on it, and then they just put it out once a week and I come pick it up.
Installing apiaries in town, going and catching bees,
Lots of volunteers…
In June going to ID, National Blue Grass Convention,
Honey bees …
Honey bees are what I work with right now and they are what I recognize. Not doing Bumble bees or mason bees etc. Mason bees are excellent pollinators but they don’t collect honey.
Want people to not be afraid of swarms, and that we call the appropriate person to come get them. Look up local bee association or Facebook group and someone will want that swarm no doubt, you might even be able to sell it to them!
Gaia bees.com
Toward Saving the Honey Bee by Gunther Hawk
Honeybee Democracy
Keeping Bees with a Smile
Connect with Heather at the Urban Evergreen Bee Sanctuary or on Facebook and Twitter
Thanks for visiting Mike’s Green Garden. If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/organic-gardener-podcast/id962887645
If you have any comments, questions, guests you’d like to see, or topics you’d like us to cover please send us any feedback positive or negative. We’re here to serve our audience and we can only improve with your help!!! Thanks for visiting Mike’s Green Garden changing the world one garden at a time.
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https://www.earthweeksummit.com/
Tell us a little about yourself.
In Denver CO, one of a big family
I’m 59 years old
we were nature kids
IDK if they understand that they are nature kids
being one of 8 kids ~ my poor mom trying to cook for 10 people 3 times a day
- climbing trees
- digging holes in the backyard
At age 10 got my first job working for my dad if I needed a dollar
He was a petroleum engineer, so I plotted all the data. You plotted a curve on logarithmic paper and draw it out to 0. No wonder I’m such a nerd! and I’m on my 5th grade. I ask him
- what are you doing?
- why are you focused so much on this?
I was age 10 that was 1970 he said, I’m talking to people at the oil company.
I thought the adults have it under control
first earth day was in 1970
10% of the population
it was really started as a teach in
series of teach in
people just get together and talk to each other
what do you feel like is important
what do I feel is important
and what do we need to make the environment personal to them
working on projects together
demanded the government change them?
That was the start in 1970 under Republican Nixon
- started the EPA
- clean air act
- clean water act
I thought great we got this thing together!
1978 President Carter came to colorado
opened the solar energy institute
I went to the University of Colorado and said I want to work in Solar and they said we don’t have it so that should have been my first clue, that maybe the adults don’t have it under control
got into engineering
my way to make a big impact
results weren’t just the water saving projects didn’t have the results I expected
no culture around it we just did projects and left
we didn’t ever deal with the people
I wasted a lot of years trying to do things in my community on my own
spending up a lot of effort and not having much impact.
I ended up in Longmont
became a non-profit
in less then 2 years
I don’t think I heard the word community when I went through engineering. That's sort of what brought me what I am doing now, I learned what works in Longmont, I went to my hometown, and want back to Denver where we had similar amazing results!
We’re told for climate action to do these things, but the first climate action should be:
start a TEAMclimate action
- grow more food
- do recycling in your kids school or start a community garden
- bike share
- make a huge impact
that's why I started the Green TEAM Academy
2nd year of doing this Earth Week Summit
the Green Organic Garden Podcast is one of our sponsors! That's so exciting.
That's how near and dear to my heart this is, and do you know the senator who got that started is a play I have about Senator Gaylord Nelson. The play is about this little Bear Sally Bear who is upset about not having anything for earth day prepared and her bother billy bear is like why do we celebrate earth day anyway and she explains everything you just said and the other is the Turtle Mishap about a turtle stuck in a six-pack holder.
The Turtle Mishap PlayAnd then I have a video on YouTube about the science Earth day and its based on Bill McKibben's book Fight Global Warming Now on how to start an earth day event in 3 weeks.
This is so exciting I haven't met a lot of earth day nuts like me.
that was a long answer
doing so much already
One of the big things that changed things in Longmont was having an earth day festival
What was so weird for me was, as an engineer, the biggest thing I had ever organized was a family birthday party we ended up with this fairgrounds space and it was like 10 times bigger then we wanted, but the deposit wasn’t due till 6 months later which is why we picked this space
none of us had ever written grants before, but we learned how to write grants and we had over 1000 people come to our first earth day festival
- city council
- mayor
- 35 youth booths
- eco hip hop performers
- school choirs
- climbing wall
- teaching about everything from marine animals
- recycling trivia
non-profits and the local government
A combination of that and people had said before that nobody in Longmont cares about sustainability but to have 1000 people, obliterated that myth.
That’s one of my tips, if you are trying to build a community, you are trying to get partners to work with you, best way to do it is to have an event!
it’s like Hallmark for Valentines Day, they wouldn’t consider not doing something on valentines day, so if you are trying to establish yourself and get some partnerships aroundEarth Daywhich is April 22.
the timing of the summit starts on April 10-18
Earth Day is
What I love Earth Day for me is that is when I need to plant my sunflowers if I want them to go to seed in the fall.
Also, our first Earth Day, although not a lot of people showed up but we put the pictures etc in the paper and then people learned that there were backpacks made of recycled bottles for sale at the local office supply store and there was a green builder in town, so the publicity after made sure everyone learned about it anyway.
That's a sneaky trick. That's a good point, all the promotion befoer the event, sending them to the
- schedule
- showing them all the different organizations
that's all part of the awareness buildingI was gonna say, that my husband grew up in Colorado, and Boulder has a big spot in my heart because they really supported my hemp business back in the 90's
so so excited about this whole thing
- main vibes that I am committed to is that this is a
- creative
- collaborative to be online together
in this specific time
- fear
- risk
- which we need to know about a lot of those aspects
This is going to be such a nice contrast for people to dive in here
- live workshops
- happy hours
- when people register you are going to get access to last years speakers too! There were incredible speakers there!
website is earthweeksummit.com
If you click on the schedule you will see how it all lines out
The first day there is a keynotes
2 hour live sessions
We're going big this year, as you said the first time its kind of like, we had a couple hundred people last year, this year we are gearing up so we can have 1000s on these live sessions
happy hours will allow you to break out in break out rooms so you can talk in small groups
Facebook group
April 10th is our kickoff
Hip Hop Forestryomg I need to find this guy and bring him to our community. I ended up adding a day to the summit to feature him
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xu0tt9U8b5I
Dr. Thomas Richard musician * professor at Yale university * forestor * diversity professional*
How to make the environmental movement more inclusive
he’s the keynote speaker yes on Friday April 10th
Wait can you just explain a little.
I am on there too talking about
One World Wellnesswhat’s happening in this moment
- virus
- environment and our health
- things we should have bene thinking about
You'll have to check it out
He is an African American guy his message a lot of the environmental movement is a lot of white people coming at it from a certain perspective.
Michelle romero
Green For All started by Van Joneson the admin with Clinton
her background was working in racial justice an immigrant issue
friends living near refineries
kids suffering from environment pollutants
bigger social justice issue
key part is that if there are only a few people working on this were not going to make it happen
Just like the original Earth Day, Senator Gaylord Nelson how is the environment personal to you?
You might be thinking polar bears and someone else might think childhood asthma
how is it personal to how we can relate is the way we can make a bigger impact and turn this around.
OK, what other workshops are there?
good mix
Americas for Conservation and the Artslistening
using your plays and bringing in these other aspects
spoken word artists
Americas for Conservation and the Artspromotordas verdes
spanish speakers
works in all the americas
went in after the hurricanes in puerto rico
solar spaces
to help start gardens and
including the arts
Michael Alc
project motivate to plant 1,000,000 trees on one day in colorado
solar coop - coalition of people who own solar
island micrograms
individual areas
feed their own power to themselves
Franklin cruise is a spoken word artist
I mentored 22 green teams
- faith based
- schools
- businesses
sustainable highlands was one of our teams
after going through our process they started seeing issues that were beyond what their own level so they started the Northside Community Alliance so they started a collaborative meeting with all the different teams in their area
used to
bike shareWe should be able to do that thing somehow here
- Other projects they are taking on include policy review
- in any of the planning processes going on
- for sustainability
So that is Northside Community Alliance which is, Tuesday April 14, from 12-2:00. In our town, they want to build a school and it's been voted on 3 times and one of the things my husband and I are concerned about is if we are going to be paying for this building till 2040 we want something that is going meet sustainable design and requirements of the future with a green design.
They've had people come in and tell us it might not be safe for kids, and the repairs are 14 million dollars, a new school is 17 million so we just keep spinning our wheels so fixing things instead of building a nice new school you are saying what we should do is start a sustainability committee for our town..
YES! Once you know the solution is always start a teamIt's like YES we can do this! I can give you example when we were working in Longmont, CO. They had a sustainability plan they had started 2 years ago, the council sort of shifted and said we’re not going to continue ~ they shelved it and told the city staff do not work on sustainability. So when we were reaching out to city staff and they were unresponsive, we couldn’t figure out what was going on.
We didn’t know that history, so once we became a TEAM. We did things one day there was a meeting and you could stand up and speak for 3 minutes. So, one day we had 6 of us lined up you could speak for 3 minutes
We each said we want you to have a sustainability plan* the first person said you took the funds from the federal plan and you never did it * the next came on and talked about children’s health * and another who talked about economic competitiveness with cities around us who had a plan and new workers who wont want to work in our town * and the next... * and we got to the fifth one and they said ok, we were like wait we have one more speaker but they said ok, well do it.
when we go individually, I had never been to a council meeting, the first one I was probably in my late 40s
The way that our school districts and city governments work if individually we reach out and tell them something they feel bombarded but is we form a team together we represent this group of people.
we’re gonna ask you
we want our school to be net 0 energy meet the energy star rating of 99 and be a well school something like that based on a rating system. You an easily research some kind of those rating system and come up with something
TEAM ~ everyone comes up and says that same message!Ask will you sign the petition to ask the school? Then you go back to the school board and say, now we have this many people have signed this thing, we're telling you we want this. At some point they realize we work for you, we're the boss and your the employees not the other way around.
It's us, figuring out we are the ones who have the power that actually can do this.
In my book, in the course and coaching I do, my course is empower
Yes Jackie that is exactly it, start a TEAM!
You know what I was going to say too, most people are not going to do it, so when you step up you represent more people. I frequently say when you write a member of congress you represent like 22k people because that many people are NOT going to write so when you pick up the pen, or the phone, or write that email you are really making an impact.
Afterall what did Margaret Mead say?
And look at all that you have done! It's great when you talk about expanding incrementally! Tell me about your book!
in the book
course
step by step
such a great point when you show up, especially when you say I’m part of a team, it's like you have 100s and you become an amplifier for invisible people behind you. A lot of times, school board meetings will be broadcast, so you are getting this message the more you put it out there
the book is super exciting!
not gotten a lot of uptake
I do not want to do it again! So I am in a program so I have a development editor and different editors so I make sure that the book that I am writing is going to resonate
Climate Action Breakthroughreally what we are talking here
if people understood that this thing when you tell somebody I want to take an action well you should bring your coffee cup, that was back when we could go to coffee shops, but you can say:
- bring your coffee cup
- recycle more
- install a LED light
That's ok, but we need massive transportation, so when you focus on that personal level, first of all
- it’s exhausting!
- you know it’s not enough it’s depressing
- policy level it’s important but its’ slow so again it's depressing and frustrating
there used to be a thriving garden! And a small group of people could revive that in a year that could demonstrate and go to the school board and say hey
this is what we are doing
mission of the school so
- student leadership
- understanding biodiversity
- aligning with the schools missions always come back to that
- having kids take initiative
- integrate all the science and math
- grant writing
When you do that you are leading by example, maybe you will inspire another school to do it or there's a faith community we could convert these large lawns!
A new guy who came who was a master gardener, you'll love this! He was like, I don’t care about battery recycling it’s great but I want to feed the poor and I am a gardener!
He convinced the church and they deliveredfresh produce
mostly neighbors who are immigrants from African
growing greens* collard greens * mustard greens * nutritional greens
coking classes
helping them re-invorgorate
traditional recipes and share it with each other
doing that kind of stuff
I could be doing this at work! I could do this at school! I could do it in my neighborhood!
this to me is why I call it climate action breakthrough! Because what we are doing now isn’t working, we are on the path of failure! We need to do things different and this is the thing!
Awesome! I love all this. I have actually ben listening to non-profit podcasts and thinking about making this into a non-profit instead of a business.
Yeah! Get those Earth Day Plays out there! The cool stuff that you're doing making it more of an educational resource that could be funded. WE have talked about having an education center. Especially I am by trade an elementary school teacher and we recently partnered with...
https://ngb.org/2020/03/23/victory-garden-2-0/
National Garden BureauIt’s hard to keep up. Our role isn’t answers its information and inspiration so that’s what we’re trying to do!
Well, all sorts of people have been asking me about victory gardens so I am so excited I saw your email and here you are already! It's Friday, March 27, 2020 and we are right in the middle of the Great CoronaVirus Pandemic and here is:
Diane Blazek from the National Garden Bureau
I am very happy to be here, thank you for asking, it's kind of a funny story and don’t we need funny stories at this time? I have been with the organization for 10 years and the organization celebrating our 100th anniversary.
So as a group, as we were planning for the anniversary we had no idea that this pandemic was going to happen. Last week when we could still go to the office, we were sitting around the office, when we could still go and I looked up on my shelf and I looked up and saw the manual and thought why not roll out what was produced and published
our founder wrote the manual and was part of the whole
the timing would be right
mr. james burdett
in the 1920s and 30s and 40s by pulling all this information together.
It is a great time in our history. I have been talking to seed suppliers and today a facebook group was looking for someone to go the 65 miles to the local cow dairy for manure. I'm an elementary school teacher and I'm hoping my parents are going to grow some gardens with their students.
Today we just published another blog post, we're working with kidsgardening.org, with 10 ideas to get kids involved.
I spent like 4 hours yesterday just trying to create a 20 minute math lesson video.
you can get your kids involved in a victory garden. It can be fun for kids to research
1943 or today
2 things to start with* you must know your growing zone * last frost date
but there are tools online which they dd not have back in 1943 you can enter your zip code into the USDA and get your zone. There are multiple sites too.
you can enter and using your zone
without knowing those things
what it is to plant
Those are our two tips.
know your zone
know your last frost date.
You know, last year my husband and I built a free garden course and an Organic Oasis Guidebook to help you keep track of all that information together.the next step is very important for what you grow in your garden. I'm very bad at this part, I'm more of an impulsive buyer.
Do your planning.Make a list of what your family will eat
Think about how much will they consume.
Are you doing this in a community garden? Will you share with other family members or neighbors?
Think about when it will be ready to eat? How much of it will you be able to eat. If there is more then you can reasonably eat what are you going to do with it? Can you can it or freeze or otherwise preserve the extra produce you will have. I can see a produce sharing app etc popping up this year.
That will carry on to thinking about specific varieties of what you want to grow.
If you are a beginning gardener and you want to grow a tomato that's fine just grow any tomato but as you get more experienced
difference in varieties
amount of space when they grow
some are more unique
color variety
different tasting produce
exactly what you want to put in your garden.
This is so timely, I was just talking with my mom, and her experience with vegetables. My mom has been a gardener forever, and I can't remember a weekend or summer day with her without her pruners in her hand. And she said she has a hard time getting a tomato that tastes good.
I told her about Melissa Norris' tip to get a San Marzano paste tomato that I ordered some from Baker Creek and Johnny's to try to grow this year. And she said I wonder if there is a Long Island tomato?
it really is
I run two organization
national
All Americas Selectionswe feel like experienced and new gardeners
all america selection winners
tested by professionals
We know that taste is rather selective but the majority of judges said, taste is really good
on our website subscription
maybe she wants grape tomatoes
sweet
she wants something with a high brix, that’s the sweetness measurement
It's amazing the amount of information on the web
for us you can go to All Americas Selectionsyou are going to see a lot of information varieties
- hybrids
- easier to grow
- more disease
- taste is still
Wouldn't it be fun to have my students write with a sequence for planting
I have the student to do this, he's always growing things, every snack we get, he's like I saved this green bean to plant, and I'm like it's the middle of November I mean we can try but I don't want you to get your hopes up.
a little flow chart
we have been talking about a
so as far as our sequence
Next you want to figure out wherewho what when
plan your garden space
where do you live
do you have in ground space
do you want to use containers?
are you on a balcony
this tomato will
a lot of people try to push their growing zones Don't do it!
Plants are not like humans, they don't want to be in the shade.
There are some places, depending on where you are located and the amount of shade
maybe in the desert
most of the country you are going to want 6-8 hours a day.
There are some days in the hot summer in Montana been where we might have a day or two it's hot, but not enough compared to the number of days of sun you will need.
you may need to provide afternoon shade
the next steep then once you know what you are going to plant
know what your growing soil is
if you are digging up part of your yard
do a soil test
probably going to have to amend your soil
filling it with some growing medium
I have been very successful mixing my own growing my own
- peat
- topsoil
- compost
you can buy pre-made mixes
Which is the easiest to do which they did not have back in the early 1900s
base for what you are going to grow
you are growing these plants for food your body you need to make sure your pants have food to produce all these peppers or whatever they are producing.
I love that because my mom used to argue with me about the beginning of our free garden course was composting and she said don't start out talking about something so ucky.
You just gave one of our tips too!
Just start doing it, it's super easy to save your banana peals
don’t toss away the excess! And what would typically be the waste!
start a compost pile today you will be very happy you did when it's ready and time to put on your garden.
I would be remiss not to ask, people I feel like are hesitant because they are afraid they are going to get critters like raccoons. We live in the woods, we have skunks, chipmunks, my mom says we don't live in a city.
suburb of Chicago, yeah, sure they do, if they're not getting in my compost they're probably living in the garden or the neighbors, do they eat it all no?
they’re wildlife! We’re pushing them off our land!
they get in the compost and is there still plenty left? Yes of course!
Build a bin with a lid on it
One of my neighbors was concerned about the smell of my compost
- our lots are only 1/3 of an acre
- it’s just a nice earthy smell!
tell people don't worry about that they have other things to worry about!
then we’re getting into planning, still in planning
sowing and planting datesorignal frost dates
If you are wanting to get out and plant a tomato, don’t do it while the ground temp is still cool!They are not going to thrive till the soil is warm enough! So don't try to push the season too much, you'll be much more success if you follow recommendations
If you put it out before the first frost date, then all your hard work and money has gone for naught you might get snow.
sowing and planting datesgood tools online
I just planted my tomatoes and peppers in doors
I know I can go outside and plant some peas.
Be aware of what you can direct sow and what you can transplant for each location
Once you are making your list and planning you're gonna be much better off!
This is all perfect! What comes next? Actually planting what's next? I was surprised Mike and I have ben married 27 years and I have records from all those years, the majority of those year, he put everything in the ground like lettuce, spinach, cool weather stuff taht goes in as soon as the soil can be worked was consistently between April 7-14. Some outlier years but the majority was the 7-14 or right around there.
Knowing when, talking to other gardeners is a great resource and a lot of the seed companies are great resources! They have videos etc.
Its funny you say that ~
A huge number of the seed companies are members of National Garden Bureau so we have done a lot of linking in the blog post to those resources.
they may have a blog or a video
online tool
linked to you from this blog
I think we list about 10 additional blog post at the bottom of this blog. In the past somebody wrote
- about using seed tape and someone wrote about
- combining plants and vegetables and what you were talking about
- cool season vegetables like spinach, lettuce that kind of thing
You're right seed companies they provide a wealth of information, that would be an online resource, but don’t forget about your local garden retailer.
I know we are in some strange times, some garden centers are able to stay open depend on the state.
call ahead if they are open
The thing that the garden retailers will have is transplants or starter plants.
think about what you want to direct sow
What they will have are transplants or starter plant
transplants that's next tip!!Think about what you want to direct seed and what you want to transplant. Decide what you want to start from seed ready to start
Or you can go to your retailer and say, I want 2 of this variety of jalapeno, this bell pepper and 3 of those beefstake
transplants that you can plant
I think a lot of people are going to have transplants this year, because if you put a whole packet of seeds in you'll end up with like 50 tomatoes an that's a lot of plant you'll say where am I going to put all these?
if you do that! Let's say if you get a seed packet and you have good luck and you get 50 seeds to grow!
share them! there are so many online resources
who wants some of your extra tomato plants!
help out our neighbors and friends and family!
Do you want to talk abuut the history of where victory gardens come from?
so it really started in WWI there was a victory garden program
I take it a lot of people were involved
the concept then was taht obviously food was not in great supply, there were shortages a lot of the food that was being produced was going to feed soldiers that were protecting our country.
That left a lot of people at home with not a lot of food or what was not at top quality
The government encouraged homeowners to transform some of their yards into gardens
education about how to start a garden taking them from A-Z
If you didn't come from a farming background, you were not aware of how to do this
It was successful for WWI and between the two wars, Mr. Burdett did this, he was a journalist but also a seed seller.
founded national garden bureau
in tune to how you mentioned earlier
seed companies wanted to know how to inform their customers
National Garden Bureau Our mission is to “Inspire. Connect. Grow.” National Garden Bureau is a non-profit organization that exists to educate, inspire, and motivate people to increase the use of plants in homes, gardens, and workplaces by being the marketing arm of the gardening industry. Our members are experts in the field of horticulture and our information comes directly from these sources.
It seems like Mr. Burdett must have started this book in 1941, it was publishes in 1943 to carry over the successes from the first gardens.
if you don’t have the space go here. Governments of
- cities
- towns
were encouraged to make gardening available for community gardening
WE are not the only ones talking about victory gardens now.
Were we in the middle of all the steps, we didn't finish the steps did we?
Those of us on this side of the industry, the commercial side of the industry, saw something happen during he last general recession in 2009.saw something that happened
There was a big uptake in vegetable gardening at that time, but unfortunately people forgot to plant any type of flowers! Be it annuals, perennials, whatever! and they didn’t realize that there are certain crops that need pollinators or you are not going to get fruit or the shapely or large fruit or what you were expecting.
Our last tip is don’t forget to plant pollinator friendly flowers#1. They will make you feel good,
- they're pretty
- they will add to your vegetable
- they will do the work for you and you will have squash and cucumbers etc!
I love that! How do we connect with you?Our website is probably one of the smallest urls.
National Garden Bureau ngb.org
You will see a lot of info about
- new varieties
- program called "year of"
- inspiration tab is our blog
- kids gardening
- victory gardening
- one blog post up now
More on victory gardening coming posts on:
- planning
- planting
- care and maintenance
- harvesting
more blogs coming
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Won't You Be My Neighbor?I’m gonna just gonna hit record ok
OK ~ I’ll deliver!
Here’s a listener and awesome teacher! Matt Zoellerto share his garden journey and talking about edible weeds who was on my show back in February 2018 in episode 250.
Listen here to my interview with Matt about Edible WeedsIt’s a privilege to be back here, it’s now the second time I have done a podcast like this the first one was with you jackie like 2 years ago.
so many people have listened to your episode before, I think you are even in my organic oasis guidebook where It all about growing chickens in the suburbs, I spent so much time reading it last year and then I haven’t seen it for a year and then I was on someones podcast the other day
how nutritious they are usually people switch off the station not download it so, this is a cool place to be on the fringe organic gardener podcast which you’ve had some pretty bad-a**ed published guests lately.
I think you are just being humble. I know you dropped lots of great golden seeds. But since I did have Melissa Norris and Jeff Ditchfield my numbers have practically double and so there are a lot of new listeners who haven’t heard
I came up with an acronym…. My name is Matt Zoeller, I teach high school, I have a masters in education but all things health and plants, maybe wearing the color green I do wear a lot of green is something I love but it is not academic, I just have an organic interested, I am always reading and listening!
I live right in Denver, in a suburb, in a neighborhood, IDK how big my house is but it’s not big either
we have a good solid amount of garden space
chickens
salvaging wood
raccoon issue
we got 3 more hens
actually 7 chicks
that are 4 weeks old that’s really exciting
the thing I am kind of becoming famous for
love of eating weeds
my analogy
if you were to move into a house
spring rolls around and suddenly
there’s kale everywhere would you walk out and say we didn’t plant this kale we have to dig them all u
hire some ruminant
you would probably eat it because its kale an its health
most of the main ones we hate the most and probably Canadians
a lot are edible and nutrition
we went there
nutrients panicking
what advice would I have for people if the supply runs out
can’t count on my neighbor
you’re like the perfect guy for this
I came up with an acronym
take it or leave it
Compost
Oeuf (french for egg a plug for chickens)
Vegetable
Immune System
Dehydrate
In the spirit of survival
if I had a blog or we making a book
squeezed it into COVID
Chickens or compost -
I think that is annoying
make a big pile
talking kitchen stuff
do something with it
here’s some ideas
burry it
dig a trench slowly
so practical
your mom does it
whenever this comes up
oh my grandma used to do that
IDK what happened to make altho stop
really good for the soil
I have always
most people have a wrong sense of
don’t throw away biodegradable
the way we compost here
with our food scraps is feed to the chickens
I’l say
that’s it letter
let’s move onto the
Oeuf
so a little
you're listeners
no curses here (12:18
make a little plug for chickens
they’re so low maintenance
got chickens for 2 year
more stuff
more space
eat worms
kids love them
our neighbors
yeah
V for veggies
yeah veggies of course
I don;t want any emails
this is me
my ting always my thing
veggies vs fruit
I’ll eat fruit
if we are thinking we’re gonna be indoors
grocery stores are what they are
more bean for my buck
ratio or plants
I hate beets by the way
I have that gene
I can eat almost everything else
beat seems like the solid bet
tomato
maybe spits out a
leafy vegetables
leafy greens
grow itself
few things go to seed
thin it out
leafy greens
stay alive
very robust
all of mine are climatized
want me to send
what you said
pigment and nutrition
roll hand in hand
here’s the i
immunity system
informed but unprofessional
natural immune system starting with herbs
herbs
frankly English people
that’s ridiculous
look into herbs
herbs area amazing for so many reasons
immunity is part of that
quite cheap
buying res herbs
in the stores
every
so many are amazing
I have tested this theory multiple times
yet for anyone to prove me wrong
hot take
all herbs in the same color family go with any other herb in that color family
yeah if you are going to put
parsley
sage
oregano
heavy hitters
I did this major
what’s the word
compendium analysis of a lot of different
fresh out of grad school
herbs and immunity
price of them how potent they are and nutritionally dense
my son who is now 4 was in the hospital for
pharmaceutical
first thing
he was in the hospital
no body told us anything
top heavy hitters oregano
all the ones from
I eat it more then anyone else does around my house
I walk through fire around here
there’s other stuff I do too like eat weeds
there’s these claims I didn’t make them up
I will not say that like the successful prevention from the corona virus because that would be bold and reckless and it’s probably not true but you don’t want to be sick in any time in life with any kind of disease, especially now, right.
Having a healthy immune system is one of the best things you can do besides washing your hands right?
Yeah! So add to that
- turmeric
- ginger
- cayenne pepper
those three go together
if anyone wants to have a nice germ free
If anyone wants to have you mind blown and you own a nice germ free astronaut suit Illl show you all of my killer coffee recipes.
garlic too!
super power of the immune system
really cheap
garlic chives
any bulb you put in the ground
eat a little bit of it and you’ll be it’s powerful! I have so much!
Sometimes I just plant them and forget about them suddenly you have to
yeah if it sits for too long it starts to grow in your fridge with that green shoot.
Yea, I know but I haven’t had as much planting them.
I plant them in Oct on Halloween if I can and then harvest in July
start the in the fall m in Oct it’s out of the regular season. You get these shoots sticking out of the ground in the snow it’s amazing!
Start a few now you’ll probably get the chives or put them in and forget about them and 2 years later you’ll be like what is that plant, oh that’s garlic! Cool
that’s fun! some of the healthiest stuff is like garlic
I just talked to Diane Blazek from the National Garden Bureau about victory gardens and they are calling it version 2.0 because they added planting a pollinator border and growing some flowers like chives for the insects and pollinators.
IDK, the going back to garlic
garlic and onions
you can’t just eat like an apple just too powerful. IDK, maybe someone an speak to this but it seems like the same quality that makes it potent to your taste bud perhaps the same quality that make it efficacious to your immune system?
sweeter that’s sort of a rubric that runs in my head, checks out, like weeds, they don’t taste like cotton candy they taste like spinach at best.
They go good together!
they go good with lots of stuff
I’m not trying to rag on them
There are a lot of tasty ways to eat hard to eat things.
C.O.V.I.D.
here’s the D
it’s forced grant me a little clemency on my acronym here,
dehydrate
- in the grocery stores all the nonperishables are selling out fast
- all of the frozen stuff is selling out fast
- the produce as far as I can witness is not selling out so fast, I’ve had very little trouble finding produce
So the trick here, if you want it maybe you don’t need it is to dehydrate
if you have a dehydrator then you probably know what you’re doing but if you don’t but
- if you have an oven
- if you have a freezer
you have the means to take perishable things and make them non perishable
we’re all stocking up
you can stock up on produce
it is possible
I sound like more of a food scientist then I am, because most of life I’m wiping buts and cleaning dishes but
my son is gluten sensitive, he can’t have gluten in it
A lot of the good chips have gluten in it and we try to not eat in a lot of corn and stuff.
Corn is really hard to give up, it is in everything.
it is! no one’s allergic to corn in my family but
the health benefits of corn, at least there’s like none of like corn chips
we started messing around dehydrating things, let’s try this
everything is able to be dehydrated
I made my own spices
- I got a motar and pestle
- why can’t there be a healthy chip?
- how hard could this be?
jackie clear my schedule! my wife’s name is jackie
I bought a bunch of vegetables and shredded them in a food processor
kale kept the stems
used all the parts that you normally don’t eat and give to the chicken
made a liquid
got to increase the viscosity
added some flax seed and chia seed I think, and that’s about it, laid it out like a cake on some dehydrator sheets
green chips
kind of a pain in the but to make, it just takes time. But it’s pretty cool
hot take from that nugget
what makes chips good is salt!
I think, so at the end of the process we just up on some salt and our kids were eating them and loving them!
some families are just UBER healthy, our kids love eating weird stuff.
my kids go to public school! So they get fed candy all the time much to my chagrin but they are still loving these green chips
it takes a little time
it is pretty fun to do
make the batter like we say in the food processor.
- shred it up
- freeze it ad thaw it out later
- you could put it in a smoothie
A we’re using the whole vegetable!
B we still have vegetables from last summer we’ve been able to eat all winter long just cause we froze or dehydrated!
so today I’m gonna do that soon, we have a big batch ready to grow but the dandelions just started to show their little face around here, so our plant is today to top off all of our kale and leek with dandelion to keep us alive through the apocalypse!
I think listeners will love this and say lets go pick those!
The teacher next door to me dehydrates a ton of food. I like that recipe I think it would go good with some cherry tomatoes in it, it reminds me of those fourth of july chips. I think
We thought should we market it this? Then we saw it in our grocery store of course it was like
20 bucks for a bag of chips. It’s very doable.
The hard part about doing it in your oven is you're usually doing this when vegetables are in full bloom, oven running in the summer when it’s hot.
so what’s the E?
Is there an e? Did I forget the e?
Oh, no you're right.
the 19
I’m thinking of you want to have this circle of 19 people. You can put it in the comment seciton.
The 19. We legitametly ran out of toilet paper because everybody bought it up.
I hear you we were down to our last roll, so I called the store and she said I had to be at 7:00. there was a line to go in and people were just rude. Then we were on line at the tp aisle and these people come up and are just like what’s going on, and we said this is the line and they were like screw that and just walked up and took some and turned to me and said you better get some honey it’s going quick…
The panic was in NY and we didn’t think it had hit Denver, we’re down to like 3 rolls and we checked like 7 places and called and they laughed us off the phone.
Yeah, I’ve been calling for like 2 weeks now.
I know my wife is really frustrated. Truth be told
we have a bidet,
I could not recommend more but my wife is pregnant and she has a unique relationship with toilet paper so I thought I have to get some TP.
here’s what I did, I got on nextdoor.com I assume some of you stocked up, we’re legitimacy don’t reprimand me for not planning ahead, we’re all doing the best we can.
within 20 minutes I had 8-10 rolls offered to me, some were delivered to the house, after that I had to turn people down, thank you thank you , so kind
it worked within 20 minutes, I just asked for it we got it, and some time after it, I have more neighbors in my phone then any other neighbor. So I texted everyone, and said hey you all, we should have a thread going because we have some neighbors who might need help.
there’s a widow and some older people
be in communication and everyone was like good call, the next day I’m talking to one of my neighbors
And I’m like we have
this neighbor who could fix anything and a navy vet who could protect us if that came to try to steal and I was saying I’m gonna be a liability to this situation
He said dude your super power is having the humidly to ask for toilet people and having all of us in your phone.
no one of have each other in our phone
that was my 19!
I was gonna talk about community
spreading the joy
being less busy
going on more walks
planting some flowers
cause that seems huge right now
in times of big
flip my whole yard
people will steal it
I’m gonna grow more then plants
Compost
Oeuf (french for egg a plug for chickens)
Vegetable
Immune System
Dehydrate
hypen 19
Get out there spread some love! Live locally! How’s that?I think listeners are out there feeling more connected to everyone out there listening and the other Green Future Growers and I will put up the other episode October 18, 2018 when you shared your edible weeds talk!
I think Americans don’t like uncertainty, people are out of work. My uncle just talked to me on the phone, the last day with my student we had this little moment where I said, you know my mom was a kid there was the polio epidemic and my aunt lived with polio, she had one leg shorter then the other all her life and we beat that and we will get this together.
One last plug, Jackie you cover your ears. Get out there and send a couple of bucks her way and this is a cool resource.
Awww. thank you. That’s really sweet, you can buy a copy of the Organic Oasis Guidebook for your neighbor.
Let’s take a minute to thank our sponsors and affiliate linksPlease support us on Patreon so we can keep the show up on the internet. It cost close to $100 a month just to keep it up on the internet for the website etc so if you could help by supporting it with an $8/month contribution or $10/month to join the Green Future Growers Book Club where we can delve deep into some of the best gardening books that have been recommended on the show! GoDaddy even is bugging me for dollars just to have the domain name…
https://www.patreon.com/OrganicGardenerPodcast
The Organic Oasis Guidebook: Helping You Create Your Own Organic OasisThe Good Seed Company
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and don’t forget if you need help getting started check out our new
Free Garden Course.com Free Organic Garden Course Remember you can get the 2018 Garden Journal and Data Keeper to record your garden goals in our
You can
perfect example of what is a weed, and eating what a weed is.
- lambs quarter
- amaranth
- stinging nettles
- dandelion
- mallow
- palmer’s amaranth
- purslane (loaded with omega 3)
- plantain
Feeling just so grateful to be in Montana.
Feeling kind of blessed just to be alive! Right? Gotta keep a good attitude!
We can be candid! My listeners always say Jackie don't be so stuck to your script! I'm the one who likes my script!
Welcome to the GREEN Organic Gardener Podcast!Hey everyone! It's Tuesday, March 25, 2020! I'm on spring break and managed to book as many guests as I could this week! So if you want to be a guest reach out to me! I've gotten a lot of new listeners since I was on the Melissa Norris Show followed by Jeff Lowenfells and then Jeff Ditchfield so there are probably a lot of new listeners who didn't hear your first episode!
Tell us a little about yourself.Dec 14, 2017.
https://organicgardenerpodcast.com/podcast-2/198-green-home-coach/Nov 17, 2017
Tell me about your first gardening experience?
I am the host of the Green Home Coachgardening is not my best asset
part of my home
I got into grow boxes years agowe found them
Scott just went out to the shed to make sure to
this is actually a company that specializes in these
- 18-20 inches wide
- feet long
- 16 -18 inches tall
- they have a reservoir on the bottom
- we talked about that before
- remembering to water
- with this reservoir in the bottom
- the roots of the plants go down so they draw the water up
- bottom of the grow box that I buy
green home certification pretty high barcleaning is a great place to start* something we all do in our homes if we don’t we should * it is really easy to accidentally bring a lot of stuff into your house * chemicals that may add up * challenging * chemicals are tested
only look at one time that you are getting this certain level that is safe
repeatedly exposed to it
some kind of scent or fragrance
the levels that they are being tested on in one occurrence
I choose to take as many of these chemicals out of my home as I cansafer less toxic toilet cleaners
- all purpose cleaner
- laundry soap
- personal care products
just about everything
less is moreas I use up stuff
simplify what I buy
3-4 cleaners in the past
looking to go to 2-3
Shabby Chick Cleaners* woman owned business * won the SBA award * really cool
I have 2 cleaners* cleans everything * on my grease stove * shiny surfaces * alcohol based cleaner
that’s all I need is those two
if I want a scrubby powderscrubby powders is bon ami
Marla Esser Cloos Green Home Coach
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So I just did an interview with the amazing Diane Belzak at the National Garden Bureau who has the most awesome mission and sent me an email about building Victory Gardens and so I wanted to share this update with you and my recipe for Carrot Soup. What are you cooking during this crazy time of quarantine?
Mike planting carrots seeds: One every half inch and then thin...
https://youtu.be/bVeLoHnrGXA
Carrot SoupSaute some garlic or onions... add a bit of red pepper chopped up (like a sweet red pepper from the grocery store, not hot red pepper seeds)
add carrots cleaned (and peeled if you like) and cut into pieces. I added a bag of small carrots from school, but I would say about a 2lb bag full?
add some water to just about covering the carrots and let simmer for about 15-20 minutes.
Add some chopped kale at the end with the ribs cut off.
I forgot the Peanut Butter!!! and the COCONUT MILK!!!! First I blended the coconut milk in the food processor before adding the cooked ingredients to the food processor.
I think I added some spices like curry, nutmeg, and turmeric.
Take the thick mixture and pulse in food processor. Save the liquid.
When reheating add a little mixture of the broth to make a soup consistency and add a dollop of yogurt and chopped cilantro. OH So good. Serve with a slice of Mike's homemade whole wheat bread and ummm emm good!
The Organic Oasis Guidebook: Helping You Create Your Own Organic Oasis
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In my recent episode with Ira Wallace she talks about the work Craig LeHoullier does for the
Epic Tomatoes: How to Select and Grow the Best Varieties of All Time I’ve got my second book is out it’s
Growing Vegetables in Straw Bales: Easy Planting, Less Weeding, Early Harvests. A Storey BASICS® Title Sending them to friends so they’d be in seed savers catalogs
I am very lucky I have had a hand in reintroducing a couple of hundred different seed catalogs and availability. Kind of turning back the clock.
over 3000 tomato varietiesI’ve been seed saver exchange tomato advisor for over a decade now and it’s been so much fun!
Listen to the whole interview here!
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Ira Wallace serves on the board of the Organic Seed Allianceand is a worker/owner of the cooperatively managedSouthern Exposure Seed Exchange, which offers over 700 varieties of open-pollinated heirloom and organic seeds selected for flavor and regional adaptability. She is also an organizer of theHeritage Harvest Festival at Monticello, a fun, family-friendly event featuring an old-time seed swap, local food, hands-on workshops, demos, and more. She currently writes about heirloom vegetable varieties for magazines and blogs including Mother Earth News, Fine Gardening, and Southern Exposure.
Tell us a little about yourself.
At this trying time, the number of people who started buying seeds this last week, people with children
we homeschooled
to have a homeschool moment everyday
so much math and science
good nutrition and taste for your amid
Mineral, VA
east coast earthquake
epicenter between Charlottes Ville and
Southern Exposure Seed Exchange,
mid atlantic and southeast
people who have ea. yanking for
With climate change people are growing different things, I've heard of people growing okra here in Montana.Tell me about your first gardening experience?
well, It looks like our internet is a little unstable so that might be a problem but we'll try to keep going
started gardening with my grandmother about 71 years ago
in Tampa Fl
we had a double lot in one of the lots in the town was our big garden
pecan treehot in the summer
summer garden was partially shaded
- okra
- southern peas
however we had a 3 season garden in terms of the fall, winter spring
turned around from the way that I am used to now
my grandmother who raised me gardening
passed away when I went off with college
motivated me with my student friends to start a garden, it was a pitiful over by the art studios but we thought it was the best garden ever!
at The New Collegein Sarasota Florida
private college at that time, since it has become the honors college of UFLA system
yeah
so I was lucky that I had been admitted and had a scholarship
when my grandmother passed
How did you learn how to garden organically?
I learned the basics from my grandmother
David Bradshaw
I learned the sensible things from family and back it up from science in college
I took taxonomy classes
I never thought anyone would make a living out of farming, my grandmother said you garden for yourself, but only rich people can make a living at farming. But we small farmers have proved that to be wrong. I was lucky enough to come up in the florida where I grew up to Carolina, I was lucky of the part of the start of the farmers market
one of the early great farmers markets in north Carolina
same time
work with little kids
before I moved into being a crafts person and professional farmer and seeds person I did a lot of volunteering in botanical gardens and local garden initiatives. Especially with kids. The thing that I did with the North Carolina Botanical Garden was plant rescue of native plants so when they destroyed by buildings volunteers would come so with the botanical gardens would try to figure out easy to propagate them and save seeds
Tell listeners about the Southern Exposure Seed Exchangethese days the Southern Exposure Seed Exchange,
it is a small seed companyWe have as a mission to provide information so customers can learn about seed saving so they have more independence in seed growing!
In the early days there was a lot of the exchanging these were the people who were the early members of the Seed Savers Exchangelistening things in the yearbook and exchanging things with each other.
Not really so much thinking of it as a business that was going to be viable
grow heirloom seeds who were not as hard core about it as some of us
the opportunity to read about and purchase and grow some heirlooms
seed company developed
continued providing educational opportunities
about 14 years ago
We approached Monticello 25 miles from us about doing an educational event there heritage harvest festival
which SESE cohost with
Thomas Jefferson foundation
2-4000 people come
- seed swaps
- Tours of mr Jefferson’s gardens
now highlight the role of the slave people who made Monticello gardens something to be remembered.
That's good to hear. Sometimes it's hard to explain to kids who are in third grade how our history came about. I'm glad to hear they are highlighting more the role of slave people back then.
Tell us about your book series.
Wrote my first book was
The Timber Press Guide to Vegetable Gardening in the Southeastbut gardeners wanted more specific info about their individual states.
This last year, taking some of the general knowledge that I have been sharing and honing in for state by state for five different southern states:
- Grow Great Vegetables in Virginia
Grow Great Vegetables in North Carolina* SC * GA * TN
You know the timing makes all the difference with success
with things at the edge of your range
I like to have, I don’t like to tell a tall tale that you can grow anything in the winter but I will talk about growing some greens and roots
I haven’t been out where you are in the west
partner is from Canada so from Florida to Ontario you can have a year round garden.
gardened all winter in ontario
year round garden
give you the specifics about
timingvarieties that will do well in that arehow to overcome some of the challenges with thingshow to have more greens in the summer when it’s really hot and humid
natural shade
that kind of thing
able to work on this
and my previous book just had illustrations, this has lovely photographs so you can think about what you are going to have if you do all that work.
did I miss something
varieties that you might want to plant for a certain location.
some are good for people in Florida don't grow so good for people in Georgia where there is a longer season, so they will generally will plant two crops of early maturing varieties because it's really hot in July and August
That's so true and I know that is what my listeners are interested in is my most visited web page is most productive crops in NW Montana so your tips from the south are opposite. Mike and I were just talking that I have records since we first got married back in 1993, almost consistently it is almost always for 25 years April 7-14, for the majority of years, there are some outliers like the beginning of may or as early as March 29th but most things went in around April 7-14.
I can't hear you ... there's a bit of a delay ... I knew something peculiar was going on
One of the things with doing each of these books
looking at zone 7
in zone 7 in GA it might warm up a little bit faster then at zone 7 in Virginia and I didn’t expect that. But it’s one of the things because the you have
- coastal winds
- being further south
you get another week earlier of your production or you get stuff being able to winter over! It's lovely being able to tell people you can plant your bulbing onions in the fall and winter them over
like the bedalia onions you get in the store in GA and maybe in the Carolinas I try to grow them in Virginia and sometimes it works in VA and others not because we're a little further North
what’s likely to work in terms of the timing for planting them
I like that there’s each month what you can do and what you can do based on the zone and state that you are in!
I like to share little tips for the garden like about attracting pollinators so you have extra fun things to do each month in addition to the traditional gardening chores.
Do you have any tips for attracting pollinators?
one of the things that I like to do is have let my herbs go to flower I like having a variety of edible herbs
so things like chives, that come early in the season of the bed instead of cutting them all back planting enough so you have those early in the season is important even though I’m a seed person I really like things that self sow as well. So I tend to let things self sow
- calendula
- nigella
- poppies
that is fun
you don’t have to have a big area too because some people say my garden is so small
a little small 6 inch border along the edge and have flowers there, you mentioned having water there, the insects need water but the insects are small so a shallow bowl they know they can get water from especially during dry periods and some things they can make a little bit of nest
- twigs
- dead foliage over the winter
That allows someplace for your pollinators or beneficials to winter over
You can put it in a little orderly style so it sort of has that dog patch area
Kind of like JM Fortier makes an insect hotel?
.
Market Gardener Book Market Gardener: A successful Grower’s Handbook for Small Scale Organic Farming
Yeah! I visited their farm once!
My partner's family lives in quebec, we contacted them when were visiting and got a tour! so cool
this tractor that just sits there
got us all excited about using, have you done any of that occultation
rather than digging for preparing beds, covering it with the silage tarps?
Silage TarpsI finally just posted the other day about where Mike put his silage tarps and the lessons we learned, because I went down the other day and said do you want me to put rocks on it to hold it down and he said he can't yet because there is still too much stuff frozen that will poke through that he has to get out of there, and I also scored a billboard vinyl tarp the other day where they were taking it down and they just gave it to me.
I love
right you know
talking about preparing it in the fall
had an area that we prepared in the fall
put that tarp
when we got ready to put the other tarps down in the spring
that are
was beautiful you could just take the rake and things that were too big and branchy to leave there and rake them to the side and it was ready to plant!
compost on
probably would have been done better if we had sprinkled the compost in the fall
we want to do more!!!
I love it
who doesn’t want to reduce the amount of digging we have to do?
I love my walk behind tractor but it's great not to have to use it so much!
I'm also excited to use it down in this meadow that is full of an invasive weed- spotted knapweed and I think it will work well there, and we need to fence it in first. Those tarps are not cheap so I was so excited to score that one!
And I love chives! We do similar things with calendula and mike and Patti Armbrister talk about letting radishes and lettuce go to seed because the flowers feed the insects etc.
you know you can take brassicas that have wintered over
that went to
as well
- tat soi
- bak choy
- mixed winter greens
the flowers are really nice in salads in the spring
share some
one thing we do a lot of in the southeast is succession planting
so we have like you were mentioning Lettuce
This starts back from Thomas Jefferson who said from February through September plant a thimbleful of lettuce every Tuesday!
we don’t plant a thimbleful
we plant as much as we think we will eat that week getting into September plant every two or 3 days we want to have enough lettuce to harvest all winter so you put it close together in the seedling beds when the first frost comes we spread it out
row cover has made this job so much better!
when I was first gardening with my grandmother
frost which I wasn’t used to
did all of this mulching to try to keep
when in the 80s when spun polyester row cover and fleece came along it just made wintering over so much easier.
You probably know Lisa Ziegler she's a flower farmer in Virginia. It does and not only does it help with frost free, it keeps bugs out and moths from laying their eggs at night and then for us also in the middle of hot summer when we're putting broccolis out, sometimes we need to have them acclimate in the shade of the row cover.
Tell us about something that grew well this year.something that grew particularly well was roselle
IDK if you can grow it where you are. it's a
Hibiscus sabdariffa
I like it because my grandmother when she was young they grew it as jam at thanksgiving was cranberry sauce
didn't have much in the way of cash
- they would make tea
- now you see it as hibiscus tea
then they would make jam
I grow it and make jam out of the swollen calixes it's so beautiful red and slightly tart!
- tea
- jam
- sauce
really fun
my friends up in Maine have grown some but they grow as a potted plant! A tall potted plant like 3 feet tall!
that goes especially good
another thing that grew really well for us last summer
Crowder Peaswe got some crowder peas from a young man who is now an intern at so far farm
one of his elderly neighbors
crowder pea a type of southern pea that grows fast and used as a cover crops traditionally fed to the animals as well ~ Crowd out the weeds crowder peas!
I love that!
black eyed peas that cook in an hour
taking a long time
cooking your own bean
the world is probably not going to fall about.
things
crowd out the weeds
leaves of these are used in stews in Africa as well as the peas as well. It's something we haven’t, even in the southeast, run out of style. It's the food that sustained southerners all the devastation of the civil war all these various types of black-eyed peas
built back up the land after the land was destroyed for growing too much cottonIs there something you would do different next year or want to try/new?
what we are going to do us a big trial of various kinds of pole beans
like them because you don't have to lean down to harvest them
making these trellises out of cattle panels
ones we are going for are ones where the pod stays tender as the beans are forming in them so you can get both a nice protein rich bean inside and still have a nice crisp pod as well we’re gonna do about 15 of those and compare the taste
this is what they used to make leather britches out of which is to string them up and cook them in the winter as a dish that has both your fresh bean and your dried beans as a part of it.
We do struggle here growing pole beans because he say when he is about to harvest we get a frost so he grows lots of bush beans but I love that you are growing a protein and good for the soil at the saem. Someone else I just talked to said the same thing about growing in the cattle
they make your garden look so fancy
maybe I saw a picture of it, that's it!
Tell me about something that didn’t work so well this season.oh my goodness
you know we try potatoes
we because
oh were you make little potato boxes and you add layers of mulch
it was so dry we didn’t get very good yields from them
It was unfortunate because one of my coop,remember fondly growing them in those boxes in Missouri but it didn't work so well in VA on the other hand the ones that came out were beautiful and clean and easy to harvest.
That might be a good tip, for people who live in a dryer climate and if you live in a moister climate it might make sense. Mike had a very similar experience but we're very dry here.
some summers were moist and some are dry so I don't know if we can count on the boxes but we are going to try one more section
Yeah! getting some of those nice potatoes sounds pretty enticing!
we'll you know what we did have success with with potatoes
we grew a second crop we planted in June
it was not as productive if we had gone ahead and planted them in march like we did with the boxes but those potatoes we are just finishing them up and they stored so nicely because they weren’t ready till the end of October...
Guests wanted Hey everyone just a little rant on the mic, callout for guests, I could really use some I have no 0 nada episodes in the bank. Do you want to share your garden journey?
Help ~ What do you need?And if you need anything don't hesitate to reach out. I'll do my best to help in any way I can. My cell is 406-890-5167. My email is orgpodcast@gmail.com
Juniper BundlesDacia and I went for a walk and she suggested that I make some juniper bundles to burn in my house to help clear the air. Juniper is a native plant in Montana and a great and beautiful bush to grow. Sage also helps cleanse your area.
Tiny Leaps Big Changes PodcastSo I also picked up a part time job selling sponsorships on my friend gregg's podcast, but I thought you might be interested in some of his awesome tips he's been giving out on working from home and of course why politics matter.
Red Cross UpdateSo I went to the red cross to donate blood. For the last month they have called my phone and asked me to donate. This not something I normally do, I did once before because a friend asked me to. But I would if it was just like stop in and drop by I would probably donate regularly. It's super easy for me. Anyway then the Surgeon General asked for donations at the press briefing on March 19:
"SURGEON GENERAL ADAMS: Oh, thank you. Thank you, Mr. President, Mr. Vice President. Today, you heard a wonderful announcement from the FDA, and I just want to give a shout-out to Steve — Dr. Hahn — and the folks at the FDA, where about — where several hundred of my Commissioned Corps officers work. You’re right, Mr President, they are tireless. They’re doing things that have never been done before to bring the most — most prudent advances to the American people.
But I want to talk about something different, briefly. We know many of you are home practicing the President’s guidelines for social distancing. But one thing we should all consider, especially our millennials and Gen Z, is donating blood. As an anesthesiologist who still practices at Walter Reed, taking care of our wounded warriors and our soldiers, I know donated blood is an essential part of caring for patients, and one donation can save up to three lives. Blood centers are open now and in need of your donation. I want America to know that blood donation is safe, and blood centers are taking extra precautions at this time, based on new CDC recommendations, including spacing beds six feet apart, disinfecting surfaces between patients, temperature checking staff, and encouraging donors to make appointments ahead of time so we can space them out.
Social distancing does not have to mean social disengagement. So give blood today. You’ll feel good about it and you’ll be helping your country and your community during this crisis. And you might even save a life."
And they did all of these things, I guess the beds were 6 feet apart but I didn't like the fact that the woman who took my blood etc wasn't wearing a mask, I didn't like the fact that all of us sitting there together in the waiting room were maybe 6 feet apart, IDK, and the volunteer taking my temp wasn't wearing a mask, plus there were plates of pizza laying around... But I stayed, and gave blood and I hope it helps save a life someday.... so use your best judgement if you decide to donate wherever you live.
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Ira Wallace serves on the board of the Organic Seed Allianceand is a worker/owner of the cooperatively managedSouthern Exposure Seed Exchange, which offers over 700 varieties of open-pollinated heirloom and organic seeds selected for flavor and regional adaptability. She is also an organizer of theHeritage Harvest Festival at Monticello, a fun, family-friendly event featuring an old-time seed swap, local food, hands-on workshops, demos, and more. She currently writes about heirloom vegetable varieties for magazines and blogs including Mother Earth News, Fine Gardening, and Southern Exposure.
Tell us a little about yourself.
At this trying time, the number of people who started buying seeds this last week, people with children
we homeschooled
to have a homeschool moment everyday
so much math and science
good nutrition and taste for your amid
Mineral, VA
east coast earthquake
epicenter between Charlottes Ville and
Southern Exposure Seed Exchange,
mid atlantic and southeast
people who have ea. yanking for
With climate change people are growing different things, I've heard of people growing okra here in Montana.Tell me about your first gardening experience?
well, It looks like our internet is a little unstable so that might be a problem but we'll try to keep going
started gardening with my grandmother about 71 years ago
in Tampa Fl
we had a double lot in one of the lots in the town was our big garden
pecan treehot in the summer
summer garden was partially shaded
- okra
- southern peas
however we had a 3 season garden in terms of the fall, winter spring
turned around from the way that I am used to now
my grandmother who raised me gardening
passed away when I went off with college
motivated me with my student friends to start a garden, it was a pitiful over by the art studios but we thought it was the best garden ever!
at The New Collegein Sarasota Florida
private college at that time, since it has become the honors college of UFLA system
yeah
so I was lucky that I had been admitted and had a scholarship
when my grandmother passed
How did you learn how to garden organically?
I learned the basics from my grandmother
David Bradshaw
I learned the sensible things from family and back it up from science in college
I took taxonomy classes
I never thought anyone would make a living out of farming, my grandmother said you garden for yourself, but only rich people can make a living at farming. But we small farmers have proved that to be wrong. I was lucky enough to come up in the florida where I grew up to Carolina, I was lucky of the part of the start of the farmers market
one of the early great farmers markets in north Carolina
same time
work with little kids
before I moved into being a crafts person and professional farmer and seeds person I did a lot of volunteering in botanical gardens and local garden initiatives. Especially with kids. The thing that I did with the North Carolina Botanical Garden was plant rescue of native plants so when they destroyed by buildings volunteers would come so with the botanical gardens would try to figure out easy to propagate them and save seeds
Tell listeners about the Southern Exposure Seed Exchangethese days the Southern Exposure Seed Exchange,
it is a small seed companyWe have as a mission to provide information so customers can learn about seed saving so they have more independence in seed growing!
In the early days there was a lot of the exchanging these were the people who were the early members of the Seed Savers Exchangelistening things in the yearbook and exchanging things with each other.
Not really so much thinking of it as a business that was going to be viable
grow heirloom seeds who were not as hard core about it as some of us
the opportunity to read about and purchase and grow some heirlooms
seed company developed
continued providing educational opportunities
about 14 years ago
We approached Monticello 25 miles from us about doing an educational event there heritage harvest festival
which SESE cohost with
Thomas Jefferson foundation
2-4000 people come
- seed swaps
- Tours of mr Jefferson’s gardens
now highlight the role of the slave people who made Monticello gardens something to be remembered.
That's good to hear. Sometimes it's hard to explain to kids who are in third grade how our history came about. I'm glad to hear they are highlighting more the role of slave people back then.
Tell us about your book series.
Wrote my first book was
The Timber Press Guide to Vegetable Gardening in the Southeastbut gardeners wanted more specific info about their individual states.
This last year, taking some of the general knowledge that I have been sharing and honing in for state by state for five different southern states:
- Grow Great Vegetables in Virginia
Grow Great Vegetables in North Carolina* SC * GA * TN
You know the timing makes all the difference with success
with things at the edge of your range
I like to have, I don’t like to tell a tall tale that you can grow anything in the winter but I will talk about growing some greens and roots
I haven’t been out where you are in the west
partner is from Canada so from Florida to Ontario you can have a year round garden.
gardened all winter in ontario
year round garden
give you the specifics about
timingvarieties that will do well in that arehow to overcome some of the challenges with thingshow to have more greens in the summer when it’s really hot and humid
natural shade
that kind of thing
able to work on this
and my previous book just had illustrations, this has lovely photographs so you can think about what you are going to have if you do all that work.
did I miss something
varieties that you might want to plant for a certain location.
some are good for people in Florida don't grow so good for people in Georgia where there is a longer season, so they will generally will plant two crops of early maturing varieties because it's really hot in July and August
That's so true and I know that is what my listeners are interested in is my most visited web page is most productive crops in NW Montana so your tips from the south are opposite. Mike and I were just talking that I have records since we first got married back in 1993, almost consistently it is almost always for 25 years April 7-14, for the majority of years, there are some outliers like the beginning of may or as early as March 29th but most things went in around April 7-14.
I can't hear you ... there's a bit of a delay ... I knew something peculiar was going on
One of the things with doing each of these books
looking at zone 7
in zone 7 in GA it might warm up a little bit faster then at zone 7 in Virginia and I didn’t expect that. But it’s one of the things because the you have
- coastal winds
- being further south
you get another week earlier of your production or you get stuff being able to winter over! It's lovely being able to tell people you can plant your bulbing onions in the fall and winter them over
like the bedalia onions you get in the store in GA and maybe in the Carolinas I try to grow them in Virginia and sometimes it works in VA and others not because we're a little further North
what’s likely to work in terms of the timing for planting them
I like that there’s each month what you can do and what you can do based on the zone and state that you are in!
I like to share little tips for the garden like about attracting pollinators so you have extra fun things to do each month in addition to the traditional gardening chores.
Do you have any tips for attracting pollinators?
one of the things that I like to do is have let my herbs go to flower I like having a variety of edible herbs
so things like chives, that come early in the season of the bed instead of cutting them all back planting enough so you have those early in the season is important even though I’m a seed person I really like things that self sow as well. So I tend to let things self sow
- calendula
- nigella
- poppies
that is fun
you don’t have to have a big area too because some people say my garden is so small
a little small 6 inch border along the edge and have flowers there, you mentioned having water there, the insects need water but the insects are small so a shallow bowl they know they can get water from especially during dry periods and some things they can make a little bit of nest
- twigs
- dead foliage over the winter
That allows someplace for your pollinators or beneficials to winter over
You can put it in a little orderly style so it sort of has that dog patch area
Kind of like JM Fortier makes an insect hotel?
.
Market Gardener Book Market Gardener: A successful Grower’s Handbook for Small Scale Organic Farming
Yeah! I visited their farm once!
My partner's family lives in quebec, we contacted them when were visiting and got a tour! so cool
this tractor that just sits there
got us all excited about using, have you done any of that occultation
rather than digging for preparing beds, covering it with the silage tarps?
Silage TarpsI finally just posted the other day about where Mike put his silage tarps and the lessons we learned, because I went down the other day and said do you want me to put rocks on it to hold it down and he said he can't yet because there is still too much stuff frozen that will poke through that he has to get out of there, and I also scored a billboard vinyl tarp the other day where they were taking it down and they just gave it to me.
I love
right you know
talking about preparing it in the fall
had an area that we prepared in the fall
put that tarp
when we got ready to put the other tarps down in the spring
that are
was beautiful you could just take the rake and things that were too big and branchy to leave there and rake them to the side and it was ready to plant!
compost on
probably would have been done better if we had sprinkled the compost in the fall
we want to do more!!!
I love it
who doesn’t want to reduce the amount of digging we have to do?
I love my walk behind tractor but it's great not to have to use it so much!
I'm also excited to use it down in this meadow that is full of an invasive weed- spotted knapweed and I think it will work well there, and we need to fence it in first. Those tarps are not cheap so I was so excited to score that one!
And I love chives! We do similar things with calendula and mike and Patti Armbrister talk about letting radishes and lettuce go to seed because the flowers feed the insects etc.
you know you can take brassicas that have wintered over
that went to
as well
- tat soi
- bak choy
- mixed winter greens
the flowers are really nice in salads in the spring
share some
one thing we do a lot of in the southeast is succession planting
so we have like you were mentioning Lettuce
This starts back from Thomas Jefferson who said from February through September plant a thimbleful of lettuce every Tuesday!
we don’t plant a thimbleful
we plant as much as we think we will eat that week getting into September plant every two or 3 days we want to have enough lettuce to harvest all winter so you put it close together in the seedling beds when the first frost comes we spread it out
row cover has made this job so much better!
when I was first gardening with my grandmother
frost which I wasn’t used to
did all of this mulching to try to keep
when in the 80s when spun polyester row cover and fleece came along it just made wintering over so much easier.
You probably know Lisa Ziegler she's a flower farmer in Virginia. It does and not only does it help with frost free, it keeps bugs out and moths from laying their eggs at night and then for us also in the middle of hot summer when we're putting broccolis out, sometimes we need to have them acclimate in the shade of the row cover.
Tell us about something that grew well this year.something that grew particularly well was roselle
IDK if you can grow it where you are. it's a
Hibiscus sabdariffa
I like it because my grandmother when she was young they grew it as jam at thanksgiving was cranberry sauce
didn't have much in the way of cash
- they would make tea
- now you see it as hibiscus tea
then they would make jam
I grow it and make jam out of the swollen calixes it's so beautiful red and slightly tart!
- tea
- jam
- sauce
really fun
my friends up in Maine have grown some but they grow as a potted plant! A tall potted plant like 3 feet tall!
that goes especially good
another thing that grew really well for us last summer
Crowder Peaswe got some crowder peas from a young man who is now an intern at so far farm
one of his elderly neighbors
crowder pea a type of southern pea that grows fast and used as a cover crops traditionally fed to the animals as well ~ Crowd out the weeds crowder peas!
I love that!
black eyed peas that cook in an hour
taking a long time
cooking your own bean
the world is probably not going to fall about.
things
crowd out the weeds
leaves of these are used in stews in Africa as well as the peas as well. It's something we haven’t, even in the southeast, run out of style. It's the food that sustained southerners all the devastation of the civil war all these various types of black-eyed peas
built back up the land after the land was destroyed for growing too much cottonIs there something you would do different next year or want to try/new?
what we are going to do us a big trial of various kinds of pole beans
like them because you don't have to lean down to harvest them
making these trellises out of cattle panels
ones we are going for are ones where the pod stays tender as the beans are forming in them so you can get both a nice protein rich bean inside and still have a nice crisp pod as well we’re gonna do about 15 of those and compare the taste
this is what they used to make leather britches out of which is to string them up and cook them in the winter as a dish that has both your fresh bean and your dried beans as a part of it.
We do struggle here growing pole beans because he say when he is about to harvest we get a frost so he grows lots of bush beans but I love that you are growing a protein and good for the soil at the saem. Someone else I just talked to said the same thing about growing in the cattle
they make your garden look so fancy
maybe I saw a picture of it, that's it!
Tell me about something that didn’t work so well this season.oh my goodness
you know we try potatoes
we because
oh were you make little potato boxes and you add layers of mulch
it was so dry we didn’t get very good yields from them
It was unfortunate because one of my coop,remember fondly growing them in those boxes in Missouri but it didn't work so well in VA on the other hand the ones that came out were beautiful and clean and easy to harvest.
That might be a good tip, for people who live in a dryer climate and if you live in a moister climate it might make sense. Mike had a very similar experience but we're very dry here.
some summers were moist and some are dry so I don't know if we can count on the boxes but we are going to try one more section
Yeah! getting some of those nice potatoes sounds pretty enticing!
we'll you know what we did have success with with potatoes
we grew a second crop we planted in June
it was not as productive if we had gone ahead and planted them in march like we did with the boxes but those potatoes we are just finishing them up and they stored so nicely because they weren’t ready till the end of
Hey everyone just checking in and saying hey! I recorded this Thursday March 19, 2020! What a crazy week! I truly believe we are going to come out stronger on the other side. I know it's scary and crazy things are happening, I truly believe the good in humanity and that we should all donate blood if that's a possibility. Our schools all closed Monday, our governor said we were closed Sunday right after I bleached my classroom... and my principal said be ready to teach online when spring break is over (our spring break is 3/20-27/20) in case they ask.
Listeners I know I go oh! at the end, but it was probably just something in my car. I am jumpy! haha... don't panic no big deal... anyway, I will try to post soon. My storage is almost full out!
I did post a good instagram/facebook post of mike's minifarm and his lesson he learned about tarping.
Be safe and Let's Get Growing!
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Hi Jackie!
I am a new listener who has been (vegetable) gardening all my life & in the last few years added fruit trees to my repartee. I live in NW PA, tho my garden is about 30 miles away in Conneaut, Ohio, a few blocks South of Lake Erie. I listened to the show with Melissa K. Norris today & enjoyed it very much. I will definitely be listening more! (& I entered the book give away, too!)
Keep up the good work!
Cindy Ondish
Tell us a little about yourself.
The way this weird situation started is a long story
where I live in NW PA I had a garden
trees grew up
we live amongst woods
My garden got worse and worse eveyryeareveryyear
tomato plans around my house
separate from this
my husband bought a place
boat garage
lot with weeds taller then me
hacked them down with a cycle
he noticed there was an asparagus
there’s where my garden is
the ground is like a gardener’s dream
person who owned it before was friends
there’s my garden
I resisted the whole thing a bit of the time
nothing grows at my house because there is no light
we’re there all the time in the summer
we cleared an acre out of the woods
some of it I want to turn back to woods
didn’t want to cut anymore down
such a gradual thing
I will
always had tomato plants around the house
pepper plants
pots on the deck
it was ok
I guess if I do raised beds
right in the middle of the lawn
gradual thing
worked
how wonderful this stuff grows
expanded
I came from an Italian family
everyone grew tomatoes
which is weird
we canned teammates
we ate a lot of pasta
that’s all I really knew
he came over on the boat from Italy
knew about other plants
my first garden
out of college
live in an apartment and stuff
as soon as I had space
I did
I have a lot of house plants
I have kind of a green thumb
good place to grow then at that time
I grew corn
whole range of things, my family never grew
so nice
feel like you can take care of yourself
empowered
I am going to the store
can it
grow it and can it
as I had my children
got bigger
trying to feed them
knew what I was feeding
Tell me about your first gardening experience?
How did you learn how to garden organically?
4
Tell us about something that grew well this year.
4
I was head over heels in love with parsnips
always had good luck growing parsnips
I know now my garden was such clay
even thought I tried to work things in it
if they dry out
once they dry out they’re dead
old timer
teaching me how to grow parsnips
never eaten a warship
boiling water on them
board over top
never did the top
mine would grow
because my ground was so nasty and wet
so I have been trying to grow them in my good garden
drainage
mulching them
could not get parsnips to grow
bummed out of it
more that I read
what do I have to lose
let them start sprouting on the sink
tedious job of picking up the sprouts
biggest most beautiful
start them first
plant them
plant them
pour boiling water over the row
seeds make them float to the top
waxy coating that has to get through the coating
worked because my ground was so wet
didn’t drain
new garden is drains
my husband introduced them to me
cravings for them
sometimes
bounty of parsnips
we started out
my husband cooks everything starting with a stick of butter
long pieces
cut out the center bitter center
fry them in a butter
carrots and potatoes
quicker then the carrots did
then I wanted to try
cutting them in kind f chunks
brushing them with butter
get them with a little crisp
brushed over the top of them
butternut squash
Is there something you would do different next year or want to try/new?
I’m just excited for the whole garden
minimize my tomato planting
end of the year
I have tomatoes rotting on the plants
do some trellising
last year I got some of that fencing that they use
orange fencing where they are tying to keep people way
I found some that was green!
plastic fencing
just do something on the chap
put up posts
big giant U
put tomato plants
I have been using stakes
never wove them through the fencing as they grew
shoots off
between the plants
sit between the rows
didn’t have to sit in the sun
people laughed at me
beach umbrella
stick
20 feet long
just wide enough for the beech umbrella
moved it along with
Tell me about something that didn’t work so well this season.
Actually last year my russell sprints
little tin
2 different spots
giant mulberry tree
shades late in the afternoon
cold weather plants like Brussels sprouts
didn’t get any cauliflower
googling
watch how you rotate things
try to make sure my garden
make sure I don't do that
good rule of thumb
above ground
different bugs you can get
started planted flowers in my garden too
bring the pollinators in
might eat
I don’t think I did last year
this year again
before I started my garden
calcium
minimal the things we had to
how big is your garden
yes, I haven’t had a whole lot of luck with onions
I tried
haven’t had a lot of luck with that
use basil
don’t grow a lot of herbs
garlic a few years ago
whole education needed there
once you harvest your garlic
to process it
how do you do this
watch youtube videos
edu websites
pulled it
cooked it
didn’t dry it
so that the stuff I initially used
aired it for too long
dried up by the time I used it again
grew
my garlic
it’s easy to grow it
have to know
Which activity is your least favorite activity to do in the garden?
I really don’t it almost hurts me to see things rotting on the vine
figure out what I want to grow
I’m not good at starting my own plants
that little thing I should probably throw it away
end up with way too many plants
control myself
plant what I think I can really harvest and use
hate to see things rotting
find a food bank or something
mixed result
What is your favorite activity to do in the garden?
harvesting of course
with my fruit trees
I love to prune
I could weed all day long
suns going down
lost in pruning
an old throw cushion
boats
make perfect kneeling pads
crazy expensive
use the boat fusion
handle on the side
take that around
as I am rooting
pr
4
cold water
turn some music on
I’m good
music and water
something nice to
What is the best gardening advice you have ever received?
I thought about this, I can not think of anything specific
find things myself
parsnip advice was good
I hear things
grow what you like to eat
things like try something new
I tried kohlrabi last year
I tried it and didn’t really care for it
cook looking to grow
specific gem I received from anyone
gardeners are such awesome people
share and help
just sitting to you and talking to other gardeners
good advice
something new to try
one thing
so many
A favorite tool that you like to use? If you had to move and could only take one tool with you what would it be.
about a 40 minute drive from my house
weather’s bad we hang out and play
need to get there earlier in the day
not much of a morning person
before it gets really hot
weeding
watering
sprinkler
A favorite recipe you like to cook from the garden?
actually I discovered
it is wonderful
you can eat it and not feel so bloated and heavy
I’ve been making that
you can use this with whatever
brocoli peppers
beans
put in the pan with tomatoes
seem it
moisture in there
tomato will cook
pull the skins off the tomatoes
becomes like the base
sprinkle cheese over the top of it
vegetable
experiment
mixing different vegetables
I have a little bit of this
A favorite Podcast?
I love Joe Gardener
he also has a tv show
ever Saturday
he has a really good podcast
you bet your garden
Mike McGrath
out of Philly
gets a call in show
you never know what you are going to hear
ask him questions you will
topic of the day
A favorite internet resource?
penn state has a lot of ag things too
I look there
anything that ends in edu
more researched based
that’s
A favorite reading material-book, mag, blog/website etc you can recommend?
lasagna gardening
do layers on a raised bed
organic gardening magazine
Final question- if there was one change you would like to see to create a greener world what would it be? For example is there a charity or organization your passionate about or a project you would like to see put into action? What do you feel is the most crucial issue facing our planet in regards to the environment either in your local area or on a national or global scale?
My charity is arbor day
plant trees
we need to plant trees
and up
boy
try to
not use so much plastic
really hard not to use plastic I’ve tried
minimize how things are just so throw away
cheaper to buy something new then get it fixed
do actually have a shoe maker that works out of his house
try to reuse whatever I can
globally we need to concentrate
everybody go out and vote and vote climate
we can do our own little thing
lot more of a global effort
us is kind of lagging as far as that goes we need to change that
plant trees
even lawns
acreage of lans then national park
took small part of their lawn
planted flowers
or milkweed for the monarchs
something not grass
everybody could make a difference
combined would be a big
Do u have an inspiration tip or quote to help motivate our listeners to reach into that dirt and start their own garden?
I think scientific studies have shown that being out in nature is good for you
connected
find to do that
growing flowers
go ahead if you want to grow
vegetables more my passion
grow whatever makes you feel good
never had a garden
been in the woods
experience where they don
t can’t even impinge being so separated from nature
be in the house
feel that connection
I’m a master gardener
grow peanuts
lets’ all try it
I actually got peanuts
pulled the plants
they were good! They tasted like better
they were small
no they were easy to harvest
pull the plant
hang to dry
they didn’t all grow
How do we connect with you?
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Happy to talk about any Hemp building topics or direction the conversation goes.
I call my listeners Green Future Growers. I had a guest on the east side of Montana, and one of the things he talked about the importance of having a market ahead of time. And then my husband and I have always been interested in building a hemp house, or straw bale house but hempcrete would be even better.
Yeah it totally would and it's exciting all the different applications of hemp being used across the United States. For that eastern Montana farmer what he said was spot on.
You gotta have an idea of where the plants are gonna end up and who is going to buy it and using it for what purpose before you even start farming.
Mike said you have to interview these guys and here is Tommy Gibbons to talk to us today from Hempitecture! Part of me feels like I have been waiting for this for so long, I thought this would pass back in the 1990's and I talked to Tara Caton last year at the Rodale Institute and I was like what is going on in our country finally?
Tell us a little about yourself.
There’s so much to tell about our business
people in the 90s who have been fighting this battle, it's been an accumulative effort and truly the future is ahead of us and that’s what we look towards
We are HempitectureKetchum Idaho
sun valley ski resort
2014
built the first commercial hemp concrete
we make building with hemp easy* consult on different projects * train people how to build with materials * sell building materials * sell * come to your job site and professionally install your hemp insulation products
Just hempcrete and hemp wool now but who knows where it's gonna go!
wool
really exciting!
Maybe it was 2014. I remember going to this business thing. Our Senator Jon Tester, is actually one of those Eastern Montana farmers. He wanted to pass a hemp bill, but he said the problem was the police not being able to tell the difference between a hemp plant and a cannabis plant and I thought that was lame because for me, I always think that any cannabis farmer is not going to let any hemp seeds near their cannabis so they are going to regulate it themselves in a way. But that is sort of off topic.
common interest in
cultivate grow
Youre just allowed to transport
people didn’t feel they could tell the difference between marijuana flower passing through the state and hemp flowers.
difference
threshold 05
THC
send out for testing
Idaho police didn’t feel like they should pay, or didn't have the sources in place
ultimately
There is all this confusion about what is hemp and what is marijuana, but does come down to the THC content.
The hemp we use for building that looks nothing like smokable
0% THC content
stems or fibers
So we don’t bump too much into that problem, luckily now things are legal, the cultivation and transportation is legal
recently
in some states the battle persists and it was very important if it was
So where do you get your hemp then from local people in Idaho?
No we don't. They are still not growing in Idaho.
our current supplier s out of quebec
We've had suppliers more local like
kentucky in the US
until this year
more growers
and need to processors
inner core, needs to be chopped up, then it needs to be bagged
2 phases to the materials
use them for
grow them
process them
inner wooden core of the industrial
- hemp hurd
- hemp core
bags are mixed with a lime binder
hemp crete material
takes the shape of your wall
thermal and moisture regulator
plant to
wall
transition
stage might be there
a lot of growers are growing for cbd and you can’t use the left over biomass from the plant for building at least at this current time
CBD is a short bushy plant
industrial hemp for building is a very fast bamboo like cultivars of hemp
IT's really controlled by how you sow the seeds if you give it room it will branch out wide it will grow out to flower if you plant them more intensely it will grow the long fiber
long stem
You might know more then me.
It's the Tara Caton down at the Rodale Institute in Pennsilvania. So if you don't know they have been running the test plot comparing organic practices side by side vs conventional methods. She said the good thing for them, the first year they used it for a cover crop. The rotation was soy beans and where the conventional crop was growing the soy beans couldn't take the wet season that came that spring but the soy beans that were grown where the hemp had the long tap root were able to go to market.
collect a lot of biomass about that then me
get someone from the rodale institute at our summit
again this year in 2020
we can include them next time
researching regenerative sustainable farming
formalities and things that stand in the way
plant that is part of human history
longer then this government has
so that was a penalized wall system
prefabricated
constructed in that nature
hemp building
20-30 years in France and the UK even Australia
new to the US
unfamiliarity with growing hemp
commercial hemp build in 2014
largest hempcrete structure
bellingham Washington
highland hemp house
4 more project
Princeton
Idaho
first house
spray hempcrete
increase labor
ski cabin near us in Idaho
paneled where we poured the hemp
summit we had in Oct
attended by all thees international
networked and collaborated
huge step forward for the people in our industry
hemp wool
cultivar
fiber rather then the shiv
would with polyester
8%
fiber bat insulation
mineral wool
nontoxic
carbon negative
environmentally friendly
direct competitor
more traditional
hemp crete
straw-bale
building strategy
no vapor barrier
other breathable finishes
from inside
running electrical concrete
aren’t ready to make that step
hemp produce
disperse that heat at night
down jacket
long lasting plant based material
noteworthy quality
it is
sourced from Quebec as well
american distributor for this company
take up the volume
west of the US
a lot of our projects
shipping more then the material
slight premium
cheapest fiberglas
as hemp sources gets more abundant
our goal is to make this extremely cost competitive
yeah!
it was a carcinogen up until 2011
removed
anyone who has installed fiberglass
can cause rashing
not made from a regenerative s
depleting
no carbon
annually regrowing hemp
taking that volume of massive carbon
coming from a renewable resource
that’s what excites people
lowest carbon impact possible
home sickens
sick house syndrome new materials can potentially make them sick
looking to try something new
building materials
effect on their environment
different directions
grew up in NJ
making examples of themselves
doing work that they want
change that they want to see in society
small part
types of building materials
more sustainable options
movements
consumer choices
career choices
think about the transition to different diets
meat based to plant based
purchased in mass in my demographic
uses electricity
we don’t want coal
we care what turns on our lights
solar
hydro
less impactful source
upbringing and knowledge
generations that raised us
human growth and wellbeing of Th. planet
coincide
Getting involved in a stem program
open minded
millennials working on organic farms
home builder workshop
mentioned it as a
launched a Kickstarter
first commercial hemp building project
forward
growth tag
great for hempitecture
los angelos
venice beach ca
well renowned
designed by
go onsite
put in the hemp wool
photograph
shining example of it in use
contractor training session
in our offices
inhouse
make hemp insulation
train people up until this point
february
austin texas
thermal breaking
conversations every day with people who are building their dream house
hemp crete
yes
if you are designing you can use whatever materials
how are these materials gonna fit together
more depth to their wall
insulation value per inch is less
how hot or cold
moisture
thermal bridging
when you build a monolith wall
thermal mass
able to regulate the heat more effectively
standard per inch
deep walls
6-12 inches
that is set by code based on R value
hemp wool doesn’t have that problem
put it between a 4inch s
one funny anecdote
in that school in A
town is called Asbestos
mine
got bigger
Asbestos
they’ve kind of shut down production there
government
sponsored the creating of a hemp building
now this town
re-birthed this town
www.hemp
architecture
hemp
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https://www.advancingecoag.com/about
So excited because my guest today has this amazing green future grower story I KNOW listeners are going to absolutely love! So if you’re driving don’t worry I’ll make awesome SHOWNOTES because I know we are going to have a million golden seeds dropped with this amazing interview.
CEO of Advancing Ego Agriculture, John Kempf is on a mission to “produce healthier soil, stronger crops, and consistently higher yields!”What I love about his story is how he started out and I can’t wait for you to hear it too! His passion for growing healthy soil and healthy plants for profit is contagious!
Tell us a little about yourself.I love what I do I have fun!
I grew up in a family vegetable farm in snow-belt south of Lake Erie
Small scale market ~ fruits and veggies for wholesale markets
early 2000s we had 3 consecutive years
intense disease
we lost majority of crops to a variety of disease and insects
In the 3rd year in 2004, we observed that
plants which were grown on healthy soilbetter biology
were very disease and insect resistant
cantaloupe resistant to powdery mildew that was side by side
soil with he previous pesticide exposure for the prior decade of growing vegetables we lost the majority of the crop to powdery mildew, 80% of leaves
The new soil didn’t have pesticide exposure didn't have any powdery mildew. Not 5-10% you couldn't find any! ZERO! There was a knifelike effect right down the field.
really a major turning point
what was the difference between those two plants
resistant to powdery mildew when the next plant 2 feet away was susceptible. asking that question and the things I learned
plant science and agronomy from asking that question were what led to founding
Advancing Eco Agriculture (AEA)in 2006
AEA
Was the idea that we can grow plants that are completely resistant to diseases and insects based on how we manage nutrition.where we identified plants that are healthy
not only are they
resistant to diseases and insects but they regenerate soil health at the same timeprocess of this journey I was fortunate to be guided by
USDA experts
land grant universities
all over the world
realized this exceptional info that very wise people had was scattered all over the place
- difficult to find
- not recorded at all
- some experiences were not being transferred
Led me to starting the Regenerative Ag Podcastwith the intention and goal of interviewing
- leading farmers
- leading scientists
sharing their information with other professional agronomists and growers who wanted to produce in a regenerative agriculture context!Tell me about your first gardening experience?I grew up even from before I remember, we always grew our own food.
appreciate it as an adult
There were many years my parents purchased salt and pepper and spices and that was just about it
- maple syrup
- honey
- stevia
- sweeteners
- grew many of our own herbs
- 2 farmed ponds where we raised fish
- raised poultry
- grass fed beef
- family dairy cow
- grew a large garden
- small orchard
Lived an incredibly rich life from a food quality perspectiveMy parents started growing vegetables commercially in 1994, so I was still very young
My earliest memories are working out in the fields harvesting fruits and vegetables.
Awesome! I love millennials. I thought you were older then that.
So you have this amazing journey. I am curious it seems like you almost have this test plot like at Rodale's, how did you have this plot without chemicals and the other part was getting sprayed with pesticides etc. Is that it right?It was sort of an accidental test plot
land grant universities
pesticides were fine
didn’t know any better
surreal
were uninformed
Whereas the challenges and dangers of pesticides are now very clearly
as a result using a lot of pesticides on my farm
My dad was the original distributer
we were the first people to use to the newest products and cocktails so we could make recommendations to customers
I was a licensed pesticide applicator at 16.
As a result of this
farm we were farming on and managing
Had a history of growing very intensive vegetables
cover crop
intense pesticides
In 2004
We started renting
dairy
corn, small grains
2 year of alfalfa rotation
So that soil did not have the history of pesticide applications it had
- limestone
- manure
That soil was much richer and more fertile
field bordered up against our field and we started
one side intense powdery mildew infections and the other there was none present
This is fascinating?
That was the lightbulb. I wanted to know what was the difference between thee plants
what emerged after research and speaking to a lot of people
areas of plant science which are not even considered in mainstream agronomy
particularly in that point in time
Thanks to people like you...
Do you know who Liz Carlisle... she wrote the book the lentil Underground. It kind of asked the same questions. I think she was getting her phd from Stanford. She teaches there now.
there are
What I learned in my research
that plants have an immune system and yet they don’t all work equally well
We know people who become ill
never become ill
two individuals is the way their immune system is supported over the course of their lifetime even before they were born
holds true of plants as well
We can support a plant nutritionally so it has a very functional immune system
aggressive immune systems
extremely resist to a broad array of pests and diseases
I feel like a lot of people ask me these questions you have a great way of breaking this down.
there are agriculture ecosystems
it's challenging to communicate because there is a fundamental dissonance between the scientific method and agthe scientific method is based on the single factor analysisspecific factor or addition
when you add something
attract something
agriculture and soil are so interconnected and interrelated so when you shift and change one piece everything else also changes
One of the gifts I have been able to bring is to communicate these interrelated concepts is to communicate them in a way to understand.
On your website you have so many webinars my listeners would be interested in learning.
It’s hard to identify a single surprise.
Perhaps the biggest surprise is the realization that this knowledge and understanding of plant immune systems and managing plant nutrition has not already been the mainstream.I understand there are substantial economic forces that would be at a disadvantage if this information was more wildly known.
regenerative ag ecosystems have been around for 50,60, 70 years or longer
agricultural green revolution
refuted by some of the
Justice von Liebig when he wrote the law of the minimum
leaches
plant yields and development
Triggered the development of
- potassium
- phosphorus
- nitrogen
What most people don't know he published a 2nd book that completely reversed his position and said
it’s all about biology150 year old example
leading scientists of the day
understood the
knowledge
information today
how to implement regenerative ag systems on a very large scaledon’t need new ideas of
simply need to implement what we know
Is it similar to what people are talking about no-till, permaculture or is it something you're doing.
I think our approach
developed at Advancing Eco Ag (AEA) one key fundamental difference
in particular to other
- biological
- ecological
- organic
agriculture the difference is are very soil centric
common mantra to regenerate that healthy soil creates healthy plants but we believe that the opposite is true
healthy plants create healthy soilbuilding
plants and photosynthesis
plants create
- soil biology
- soil environment
in our approach where we work with very large scale commercial
Focus is on changing soil across the entire farm is by growing really healthy plants!
commercial strawberries
Focus is to change the health and quality of those plants such that those plants will change the soilWe can build organic matter while growing
- corn
- strawberries
- tomatoes
The only difference between regenerative and degenerative is how farm manager manages plant health
regen ag ecosystems
It's all about how do you manage plant health
- tillage agnostic
- permaculture agnostic
Valuable ideas that have merit and appropriate
You are not going to grow carrots in a no-till environmental on a large scale
practical
implement on large scale
don't have in depth conversations
regenerate soil health in a tillage environment
continual annual cropping system
much prefer to focus on the results then the specific ideology.
Ok, so then how do you create healthy plants then?
Ah, the magical question, the perfect question?
functional food as medicine
to do that I tend to
How do you create healthy plants then?
Foundation
if you're emphasis is not on soil health
mantra
you need to have healthy soil to have healthy plants is not a fallacy you can do that when you have regenerated and rebuilt soil health
challenge most growers don’t have healthy soil
common prescription is to
- cover crops
- compost
- no-till
those are valuable and useful tools don't always make sense for a given farming environment
Incorporate when we can.
The most foundational piece is we need to drive a plants photosynthesisWhat we have come to accept as common
normal
photosynthesizing at 15-25% of their inherent
Plant 5xs more sugar
5x more yield
more biomass?
majority
yield increase
particularly on vegetative crops
won't commonly see a
sugar production
where did all the sugar go? The surplus gets sent out as a root source for soil biology as root exudates
Foundation how
sequester large volumes of carbon
The have the capacity to transmit tremendous volumes of sugar out through the rot system as root exoduses
many crops the quantity of exceeds the quantity of plant biomass
if you have a tomato plant
20 lbs of tomatoes and 20 pounds of biomass
40 lbs there is an equivalent
if it's a healthy plant
in the soil
as long as you have a really healthy plants don’t do this
in a commercial setting
where we have compromised soils our approach is to use foliar application of trace minerals that are needed specifically for the photosynthesis process
give the plant the nutrients that it needs
to photosynthesize at a high rate
soil profile begins making extracts
foliar applications of nutrients are the jet fuel that get the plane growing
initial strong surge
not something that is necessary for the long term
can get things moving quickly on a much higher performance
where do you get the trace minerals?
We built a company called Advancing Eco Ag (AEA) to answer that questions
There are five key minerals that are necessary to increase it by several orders of magnitude
for all of our listeners
list of necessary nutrients. Your plants need to have enough of these
- magnesium
- iron
- nitrogen
- manganese
if any of those four is limited to any degree it will have an immediate blocking effect on photosynthesis
- fifth mineral is phosphorous
all the sugars that are produced
over simplification
gardeners are also lacking other nutrients
We find that these initial nutrients when we apply them as a foliar spray can accelerate
Can you get those minerals from any other sources
nitrogen can be sourced in many ways
commercial side
- urea organically
- dry powdered amino acids
Nitrogen is readily easy to source and supply
But we need to be careful not to do it in excess
magnesium can be
epson salts
mag sulfate readably
iron and manganese
must be chelated and in the reduced form
should be able to source them from any garden supply store
Fifth element phosphorus is also readily available
Source from any garden store and address from each of those
I guess what I meant is can you grow them? Like beans for nitrogen or buckwheat?
short answer is if you want to take 10 years
30-60 in 3 weeks No.
If you want to grow really healthy crops quickly
It takes a very long time to regenerate
The challenge is this, when you are growing your cover crop of buckwheat but it is only photosynthesizing at 20%
capable of what it is releasing
If you focus on managing the nutrition that cover crop and increase it’s photosynthesis you are going to get much more rapid release of nutrients in the soil profile
more nutrient availability
10 years to produce and effect or do it in 60 days
A fundamental difference and why we took different approach
need to deliver an immediate economic response. When a grower applies a product it needs to pay the bills this growing season
promise many soil amendments
rock powders
compost
other amendments
Cover crops take a long time and they make the other soil amendments work
So is the place to start a soil test?
I have to be the controversial person here and stir up a debate
you can take a soil analysis
We use soil analysis on all the farms we work on, we recommend it.
The question is if you do take an analysis, what are you going to do with that recommendations?
Add
- limstone
- gypsum
- rock phosphate
- compost
- whatever the list contains
that’s the wrong answer in my perspective.
My most recent webinar was on managing nutritional prioritiesI described the sequence
make an immediate impact
how do you decide whether a
- foliar
- biological
- soil amendment
what is the right place to start?
In my opinion
I believe the place to start is with the photosynthesis and growing really healthy plants.
When you have healthy plants can change the soil analysis really fast when there is an underlying geological profile.
is a farm we were working with in Nebraska commercial soy bean production
we put on one application on
30 acres of a 60 acre field
split the field and had soil analysis on both sections before the treatment
second analysis followed one year apart
same season
on the treated section before the applications the
untreated field
calcium deficient
acidic
ph
calcium base saturation on the treated field where we put one foliar application
calcium levels jumped
ph's were 6.2-6.3
We added no calcium no limestone
What changed is the plants put such a large volume of sugars out through the root system they were able to reach out to an abundant food source
release calcium
obviously this doesn’t work
in all soils
soil’s underlying foundation had to have adequate
I don’t want to suggest you can do this across the board and biology will fix all imbalances but I do believe that soil amendments aren't always the right place to begin.
What's the difference between a foliar application and a soil amendment?
foliar application is sprayed onto a plant leaf to accelerate plant healthy
amendment
large quantity of material to soil itself
100k pounds per acre 10s of pounds per 1000 to almost. feet
Truth be told, I feel like Patti Armbrister has said a lot of the same thing but perhaps differently.
I invite the dialogue and the debate, it's an intriguing debate.
shift the perspective
conversation should be framed as from the soil up it should be from the sun down
photosynthesis the engine we can harness that drives the entire system
the only way you have of building the new energy to ecosystemhave this conversation with commercial farmers but for gardeners
when you do the math
of the quantity of carbon that can be sequestered and fixed into a soil
written history of agriculture the agronomists of 60s and 70s engaged in converstations
fastest way to build soil organic matter is to grow corn.
idea that corn extracts organic matter, it's true that it does but it’s not the fault of the corn plant
1/2 of a percentage point of organic matter on a commercial scale on the same soil growing corn and corn and corn
when you do the math
a corn crop can transmit as much as 15000 pounds out of the root system to feed soil biology
On a farm that’s 7.5 tons per acre
A farmer can not afford to do that in compost
economics don’t exist in or less true in a garden because you justify dozens of tons of compost per acre
ultimately the fastest way to build soils to focus on building plants
emphasizing very strongly and specifically on plants because I feel that it's a side of the conversation that has been missed and not been well described
soil and plants are on the same ecosystem
healthy plants create healthy soil creates further supports further generations of health soils and...
Tell us a little about yourself.
- I'm from Minnesota originally
- family typical upbringing in the suburbs
- career as being a chef
my extensive hobby as being a gardener
market gardeninggrowing up in the 80s food was sort of an after
reddish
so I got a degree in psychology
needed to do something a little more inspiring
lived in Europe for a semester in college
traveled around Europe and really saw food in a different light
experienced it really differently from what I had
Then I decided to go to culinary school, I ended up in Vancouver BCrelatives out there as well so I came back to the twin cities
Italian kitchens
owners
kind of moved around bit as chefs do is quite normal
I also started gardening at a fairly young age
early twenties
I ended up dating a woman from the Ukraine, she had a strong gardening interest
I had always been interested in nature as a young kidgardening with my parents
but very simple, chard and green beans and that kind of thing
I started working at a natural foods coop right next to a really old and thriving community garden
in St Paul and that’s where I met some really great gardeners who I would call mentors
One particular gardener there was a soil scientist at the university of MN, she took me under her wing learned some incredible techniques
- raised bed
- no till garden
- cover crops
- rotation
One thing that really inspired me from a young age to kind of continue this and do a lot more was just witnessing the differences in her garden and other community gardens
She made her community garden plot not tilled in the back row and the rest of the 90 plots were tilled once a year. In the other plots, the soil was still quite good but it was obvious she had the
- best looking vegetables
- earliest
- largest vegetables in that garden
It was no mystery she was doing something different and right. It was from her I learned about
Mycorrhizal fungi and the relationship to the plants and how important that was
using those techniques
I was able to follow in her footsteps in a way when she got done, working at an urban agriculture non profit in st paul, centered at gardens all over st Paul
- children
- form a market garden essentially
I was able to take over that job when she was finished, working on her phd
I got to be a market gardener for 3 years, all the while I was cooking at night, I couldn't do that these days, way too intense, way too much
So wait, are you a rockstar millennial?
I'm 42 so I'm more of an xer
yeah for me
For many years, I've been involved in both the culinary world and the growing world
I see that they are so intermittently intertwined, and kind of dependent on each other, the communities overlap so much. I find that really inspiring, such that I was able to go to the MOSES
MIDWEST Organic Conference for Organic Farming and meet a lot of great farmers and gardeners
move to the country and start a land based business
Alas I stayed in the city and am still working as a chef
After working at some great restaurants and for some people who are superstars
for natural foods
local alice waters
worked for this woman for 7 years, after that ended
I started my own business as a personal chef, working in people’s homes
cooking Monday - Friday, everyday meals, it's different from catering
Gives me a lot more time on weekends and evenings
being a chef is pretty awesome but the restaurant life can be hard on you, working 60 hours a week bare minimum. The end game is sort of to own your own restaurant but that takes lots of hours and lots of risk.
Well, I worked at a restaurant this summer, and I told the owner over and over it's amazing what you do here. How many people they employ and the pickle guy, and the bakery guy next door, the egg guy, and produce guy, there is so much food and so much to run and manage all the employees, etc. What it must be like to pay all these people through the winter.
I've been listening to the organize 365 podcast and this woman talks about getting help, either in your professional life or home, like getting someone to cook for you!
I don’t grow it, but sometimes I will take a small portion from my own garden
if I have an abundance of something, inspired to use some of my own stuff
We know how abundant gardens are, so I do take some of that stuff
IDK if you know this but what is basic model, in the twin cities, we have a really strong natural coop, there are just a ton of them
they all supply great organic food and meats and cheesesblossomed and proliferated in the last 20-30 years. Went though a hiatus part of the 80s 90s so I am lucky to be a member of some of the co-ops where I buy that stuff.
when you are a personal chef* get to know the staff * board members * influence a little
learn how your membership can be a driver in decision making to get new products or find different ones
give feedback
My particular passion and interest is
- finding great farmers
- keeping great farmers
- coop has to the small local farms in the area
looking for the best nutrient nutrient dense food that is available.
that’s where I get the produce, I don't grow at the clients homes.
How many homes do you go to a day?
usually one a day sometimes 2
two is about the limit
We're pretty spread out, so just the commute time. I am hoping to maybe do some bike commuting next year.
I asked to describe a typical day.
I am a single employee, maybe in a catering job I hire some help.
in a typical day
I am just going to the coop, getting some things I might need
planning I am following an agreed upon menu
When you go into the store,don’t know what’s gonna be fresh and available
chef skills of thinking on the fly are pretty useful
I like to change the menu seasonally, dishes.
Do you have some entertaining or recipes to share?
One of the best cooking tips I could mention
crowding the panIf you want to sauté something and you put too many things in the pan, you end up steaming them which is a totally different process then sauteing.
One of the most common things people do to possibly get not as nice results
- vegetables
- proteins
matter of physics, draw more heat into the pan, the more things you put into the pan
heat is more distributed
don’t get the browning so you might as well get the steamer out.
You hit my number right on the nail, I usually fill a cast iron pan as high as I can, I tell my mom all the time, it's not that people don't want to cook, they don't want to clean up so one pan is better then more.
don’t have the time
We have a one year old now so I can relate to don’t have the time
- use a lot of herbs
- bold flavors
- a dish should have one or two herbs
it’s rare that I cook without an herb
Samin Nosrat
Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking she talks about
important acidic component you can find that in cultural cuisines* lime * lemon * vinegar * balsamic * tamarind
sour quality to lift the flavors
Kind of acts a little bit like salt in lifting the flavors balancing out the fattiness you
What about wine, for all of us Italians out there, my mom's big sauce is lemon and wine?
heres’ a tip about cooking with wine
this comes from Julia child, my dad used to do this, I just have this memory of slowly simmering tomato sauce. If you reduce your wine slowly you will get more flavor
bubbling real slowly through the day
different kind of chemical reactions happening
memory of that taste is really quite great
wines in a professional kitchen we sometimes we don't have time to slowly reduce, and have to do it more rapidly, can’t extract, not getting that long slow cooking
I'm thinking in red sauce my mom is more likely to use red wine and for fish she is likely to use white.
improved
ala manette sauces
your dealing with such a small quality bigger pot reducing tomato or Balinese
one recipe I love and will share with you
tend to cook simple
love to be in the garden
daylight hours are limited so you need to be out there
Tuscan Kalelacinto dinosaur kale comes from tuscany
strip off the stem
don’t alway have to do that
- brown butter
- cooking oil in a pan
- let it start to brown a little
- stir fry the kale
- popping sizzling
- blackening of kale
- few drops of water
- steam as well
- little bit of crisp in there
- lightly blackened
- grilled brassicas
- bok choy
- broccoli
mmmm, last summer I cooked a ton of that. Ever since I discovered it it is my favorite kale!
I'm curious. Tell us about your garden, do you live in the city.
I'm in Minneapolis, fairly urban. We have 1/8 acre
before buying our house a few years ago I was in a lot of community gardens
intentional community with a community garden attached to it. Before that we were in rural Wisconsin, I kind of revitalized and expanded an orchard
On our property we have 1/8 acre* we get full sun, do need to have that * raised beds * no till methods
when we set up this garden
curious to do
experiment
4 beds with 4 methods Double dug, john jeavons style * 2 years of layered lasagna gardening brown and green * 3 years of nothing but cover crops * sheet mulch compost growing something now*
To watch the different examples of things growing was really impressive to me, I found the one I used the cover crop on over the following 3-4 years really produced bigger and more robust
That was a fun little experiment. Also, the double dug one, we grew sunflowers for our wedding! The sunflowers were like 15 feet tall super happy, everything I have heard of that method produces a lot of productivity.
So how does the double dig method fit into the no-till method is it a broad shovel?
Well the idea is it’s a one and done process where your digging in deep the first time and not touching it ~ I guess that my reaction to that now is that it’s necessary or pertinent in the upper midwest. We have lots of water. Our soils are fairly decent.
- sandy loam
- fairly decent growing soil
What I have seen of the Jeavon's method is it is done in the summer arid where the water is not that abundant
don’t think it would be that important where I am again
my own thoughts now are, at least growing where I am, don’t need much of a raised bed
in GA where you have the clay soils you might go higher where you need the drainage in the Southwest you might go lower and have a sunken bed
different geographic influences
parent soil is really important and working with that.
I have had mixed results where we have imported compost,
- don’t always know what was in it
- not all created equal
small quantities
What cover cops did you put in that bed?started out doing a lot of
- rye
- vetch
- oats
- peas
Over the years, I started doing more. I have been recently interested in what Farmer gabe brown
diverse mixes
7 mixes
- buckwheat and
- sorghum and millet
- brassica root with the borage radish I LOVE THAT ONE!
so what I have been doing
doing that recently leave them in cover crop for half season or full season if I am preparing the soil.
section of bed
improve the soil
one of the things I have observed cooking and market gardening
one farm in i
gardens of vegan
first o farmers int estate
master famers
top of the market
partnering with the restaurants
been tot heat farm
see what they do
half of the farm in cover crops each year
other half
assorted vegetables
stuff looked so good
really regenerative ag before we were using that term
some of the things I am working on
diverse cover crops
if you are not putting
if you don’t have animals eating it
going to seed at different rates and different times
buckwheat
style
don’t manage them well
manage in terms of knocking it down
a lot of that in your bed
when you re trying to seed lettuce or something
can be a bit of a challenge
I have been teaching cover crop classes
various venues in town
comfrey is a used a lot in permaculture
one thing I will mention about
you put it in somewhere it’s gonna be there for a long time
has a deep taproot
it’s in to stay if you were ever to till
root you cut will start a new plant
easy to propagate
big reason to use comfrey
it’s a mulch maker
make mulch under some fruit trees
perennial plants if you like
throughout the seasons
use that as a mulch
how quickly the leaves darken and blacken
good sign it’s reacting so well with the soil
you can get the common kind
everything different everywhere
where I am in MN it doesn’t reseed itself
there’s a cultivar called
sterile cultivar
it’s seeds aren’t going to be
south in the south
time to reside itself
time to
become more of a problem
apply local factor
not too close tot eh trunk
feet away
use it to create mulch for that tree
pairs fairly well with fruit tree roots tend to be more horizontal
accessing different
use it cautiously
can heal things too rapidly
here
don’t forget to ask about comfrey as Patti as
Tell me about your first gardening experience?
How did you learn how to garden organically?
4
Tell us about something that grew well this year.
fro me one of the biggest differences I saw was cucumbers and apples
very different corps
doing a lot of applications of foliar feeder this year particularly the
ego ag products
accelerate
calcium
seaweed
different suppliers
not necessarily
spokesperson
do like what they do
saw really impressive results
more cucumbers that just kept producing
apples did extremely well
applications of calcium
right after bloom
absolute ton about plants and crops
how to increase the yield and maximize size
various foliar feeding
john kemp webinars
pretty
cucumbers did well
apples did well
cities are like petri dishes we have a lot of pests
apple maggot lie
coddling moth
decent harvest
talon clay
essential
other wise called surround
pest off of fruit
you know
one thing I observed
though some webinars
cucumbers
stopped producing for about 2 weeks in July it got so hot
plants basically shut down
not pollinate
don’t thing it had anything told ow with the insects
lull
proliferate
getting really weird weather basically beginning of fall
one nice bit of advice
planting and preparing for climate change
plant stuff that is a zone below and one above
plant for extremes cold and variability of weather
September of mine
week and half of high
Is there something you would do different next year or want to try/new?
let’s see
one thing I am excited building to try here is a cold frame
kind of the shape of a deep winter greenhouse
it’s gonna be cedar and polly carbonate
catch that sun at the end of the season end of the summer
carrots
kale
lettuces coming up
about to put the cold farm into place
nov dec
having them freeze
these big jugs
I’m gonna put in there
get from the greek groceries
fill t hem with water
extend the season a little
no fresh produce
I love
tend to do better in my garden in fall through spring
working though a problem
ascertain the issue
basically in spring
tends to go after little brassicas in
transplant
arugula over my life
in various gardens
is a little
growing arugula
in the spring for sure
sprout ing now
super cold tolerant
greens
you may not of have heard of
herbistella an Italian herb
thin
flat
tall
growing that a few times
continue to grow that challenging to grow
Tell me about something that didn’t work so well this season.
other example
polyculture of tomatoes
cucumbers
pole beans like a broad bean
grew everything too close
the cucumbers took over the tomatoes and shaded things a little too much
delayed ripening of tomatoes
keep the tolerances less
problems in gardening in urban areas
spreading things out a little bit more
poly
Which activity is your least favorite activity to do in the garden?I like most things
that grates on me
wood chips
mulching under fruit trees
wood chips for
keeping weeds off paths to keep them from being muddy
drop them in a central location
find the time
filling the back of a sedan makes a bit of a mess
least favorite job
interesting you mention it
gets at the question of it
are any of our farms
carbon negative
challenge to not bring in
st
What is your favorite activity to do in the garden?harvesting is quite fun
close to cooking
recipes and things I might enjoy
for example
one of the things I love
in June
Vietnamese soup called pho
thyme basil and cilantro
mint in it too
favorite meals
all of those head
What is the best gardening...
Author of
Ugly FarmTell us a little about yourself.
I am IDK if I am a rockstar but I am trying
NE CT, the poor part of CT, we’re not in Hartford
There’s a lot of farms in general in this part of CT* it’s not where I started farming * my husband and I bought a little piece of property * it’s sort of an Urban farm * we have neighbors we can see
1.2 acres
Oh, it’s um.
My husband and I were Goth kids in school
I’m really into growing black vegetables
love the black carrotsalways buy those seeds
with the black tomatoes
If you forget to trim your tomato bush for a couple of weeks the busy parts are hiding inside are going to have big green splotches on them
either assume
the tomatoes are only going to be black
turn your tomatoes toward the sun
by the time that happens
bugs
slice them
they are black
from the top
taste great
make salsa out of
not as impressive if the whole
Baker Creek Black Beauty Tomatoes
almost every tomato I have ever had
still tastes in one shape or form
sweeter or nicer
tomato tastes like at tomato
black like your soul
black jalapenosI thought they would be super spicy
picking them and eating them off the bush
the black nebula carrots
black all The way
blanch them for a two minutes
purple dye
You are just dropping golden seeds
Tell me about your first gardening experience?
my grandmother on my mother’s side
kind of a homestead
under an acre
being a little kid
blueberries
fruit trees
they were getting older
1910
1915-16
something like that
when I was little
mother was used to gardening a vegetable
little kid
mostly you go eat green beans when you are seven years old
crazy flower plant lady
8 gardens at the house
plants on it
with he crazy plant lady
didn’t always like it
used to it
can’t remember my first gardening experience
childhood was surrounded by plants and gardens
life and enjoying things
I was in Vo-Ag
We have poultry
here?
we have 2 goats
2 big geese
largest possible
that’s funny
they imprinted on her
that’s pretty cool
2 little boy goats
part of our 1.2 acres
1/4 acre is wooded area
just total junk
neglected the heck out of it
literal trash
tires
out of there every year
puling things up
2 little weathers
able to go back there and eat a lot of stuff
like having 2 dogs
just lost 2 hens
@blacksunfunCT
somewhere else
Yeah! I understand the fence dilemma
we ended up having to replace our whole flock last year
slim
our rooster was an Egyptian flume
they're flighty
he
drastic measures
we got rid of everybody except our favorite couple of hens
heavy bird that wasn’t going to fly up
trying to raise partridge
super cute
one rooster and one hen
doing a big chick order in a couple of weeks
I forgot the train of thought
don’t get skinny
another lesson we learned the hard way
any garden
you build
fence in
especially if you have birds
we battled 3 different families of groundhogs
under the fence into the garden
burry your fence
tall fence
birds out
runner ducks won’t eat your produce they will eat the bugs
a lot of people
chickens
they will also eat half of your vegetables
bush
new
geese
they are terrible
compost pile
works out
they can eat whatever they want
it’s a good symbiotic relationship
warm and cooking
bugs are going crazy
free
bring me
save all their leftover scraps and what not
birds get a nice treat
helps keep food costs down
vegetables
geese eat
tomatoes
carrots
apple cores
I keep them out
pet goose
get your but out of here
you know
How did you learn how to garden organically?
NO! I learned nothing organically from the family
2014
my ex husband and I got divorced
this is the sad story
we were getting divorced
I had never heard of a farm apprenticeship
discovered that it was a thing
work on that farm
they give you a place to live for the growing season
I found a farm that I could move to
they were paying a pretty meager wage
housing
food
vegetables
eggs
pretty good deal
stay at home mom for 4-5 years
going to live on the farm
I only got to see my kids 1-2 daysSunday
4 and 1 1/2
it’s the hardest thing I had to do in my life
if anyone can avoid
I knew that my ex couldn’t afford to put me in an apartment
I’m gonna get out of the ouse
growing season
april - oct
do the whole
he had a good job
paid a baby sitter
June he lost his job
he and I had bought a house together
no money to pay the mortgage
I learned a lot!
60 hours a week
I learned a lot
loved learning
I was the only apprentice
there was a couple of people that worked full time/part time
knew what was going on
customer said
when’
ties - Sunday
originally
first got Sundays and Mondays off
point where I got
market in woodbury ct.
bosses wife
didn’t want to go any more
offered to split the profits
if I went to the market
find a place to live with my kids
even less time to see my kids
managed
make some extra money
it worked out in the end
important learning experience
because of that being an apprentice
when you specialize in working
seasonal positions
desirable as a winter a
it was above their garage
contractor friends
sink
his old refrigerator
composting toilet
I had to take care of
shower behind the barn
most of the time
you only had the end of a day to do anything
I was seeing him at the time
another farm in CT
he worked way worse then
$200/week
good deal there
his farm living
literally a shack
run electricity to
toilets out way in the back
in a shack by the chicken and pig pens
$100
12-15 hours a day
Sundays
couple of hours off
8 hour a day on Sundays
exhausted
I had it better then he did
farming is not easy
this was
6 years ago now
I have been
still doing it
you get in good shape
when you are busting your butt
different organic farm in MASS
working
Do you want to save time in your garden?Do you want to grow a garden full of healthy vegetables but feel you don’t have time? Do you struggle to get all the weeds pulled and watering done in the heat of summer when your friends are all headed to the lake? Are you tired of paying the high cost of organic vegetables in the store but struggle to grow your own?
Well, our 2020 Garden Goals Challenge will help you find success in your garden journey!SYLLABUSDay One - Brainstorm - No Dream is Too Big
Day Two - Make A Plan
Day Three - Create a SMART Goal
Day Four - Research Time
Day Five - Get Organized
Day Six - Photo Time - the Before shotDay Seven - Reflect
Day Eight - Visualize
Imagine anything is possible!This is a great place to promote our blank garden journal!
My Garden Journal
It’s always good to have a before and after photo to record your progress. When I look back at our place in the early 90s I can’t believe how far we have come. Take a picture now of your before and get ready for the after!
If you need more help with your 2020 GREEN Organic Gardener Podcast Challenge let us know. You are more then welcome to email me at OrganicGardenerPodcast@gmail.com and I will answer as soon as possible. Or you can post in the Organic Gardener Facebook Group or message me or Mike on Facebook.
The Organic Oasis Master Class Starts Friday, January 24th and ends Friday, February 21st! Get in first and you'll have your workbook and journals before the first class! This $97 course can be had for $75.00 if you order before the 24th!
Join today!
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy
Check out the video version of the 2020 GREEN Organic Gardener Podcast Challenge here:
https://youtu.be/1Ki-9NNSBTI
Want to learn more join us for the Organic Oasis Master Class
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy
Do you want to save time in your garden?Do you want to grow a garden full of healthy vegetables but feel you don’t have time? Do you struggle to get all the weeds pulled and watering done in the heat of summer when your friends are all headed to the lake? Are you tired of paying the high cost of organic vegetables in the store but struggle to grow your own?
Well, our 2020 Garden Goals Challenge will help you find success in your garden journey!SYLLABUSDay One - Brainstorm - No Dream is Too Big
Day Two - Make A Plan
Day Three - Create a SMART Goal
Day Four - Research Time
Day Five - Get Organized
Day Six - Photo Time - the Before shot
Day Seven - Reflect
Day Eight - VisualizeImagine anything is possible!Now I want you to visualize yourself enjoying your garden this summer. You’ve done the hard work, you’ve mastered the challenges, your ready to harvest the fruits of your labor.
Close your eyes and imagine all of your garden dreams have come true. At least the goals we set out in the last few days.
What does that look like? What does it feel like? Can you smell it? Can you taste it? Can you hear it? What do you feel when you pick a fresh flower?
Are you drinking coffee or tea and enjoying the flowers? Are you taking pictures of a beautiful butterfly or flower? Are you eating a fresh garden salad or apple from your fruit tree? Are your grand children skipping through your earth-friendly environment? Are people raving over your fresh veggies at the farmer’s market stand?
What does achieving your 2020 garden goals really mean to you?
This is a great place to promote our blank garden journal!
My Garden Journal
It’s always good to have a before and after photo to record your progress. When I look back at our place in the early 90s I can’t believe how far we have come. Take a picture now of your before and get ready for the after!
If you need more help with your 2020 GREEN Organic Gardener Podcast Challenge let us know. You are more then welcome to email me at OrganicGardenerPodcast@gmail.com and I will answer as soon as possible. Or you can post in the Organic Gardener Facebook Group or message me or Mike on Facebook.
The Organic Oasis Master Class Starts Friday, January 24th and ends Friday, February 21st! Get in first and you'll have your workbook and journals before the first class! This $97 course can be had for $75.00 if you order before the 24th!
Join today!
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy
Do you want to save time in your garden?Do you want to grow a garden full of healthy vegetables but feel you don’t have time? Do you struggle to get all the weeds pulled and watering done in the heat of summer when your friends are all headed to the lake? Are you tired of paying the high cost of organic vegetables in the store but struggle to grow your own?
Well, our 2020 Garden Goals Challenge will help you find success in your garden journey!SYLLABUSDay One - Brainstorm - No Dream is Too Big
Day Two - Make A Plan
Day Three - Create a SMART Goal
Day Four - Research Time
Day Five - Get Organized
Day Six - Photo Time - the Before shot
Day Seven - ReflectDay Eight - Visualize
Imagine anything is possible!Go back to your garden journal goals and see if there are any new goals you’ve decided on or any that you might have left out.
What other things have you decided you would like to accomplish this year?
Do you have something you want to accomplish each month?
Is there something you learned when you were doing research you think you might also like to take on?
This is a great place to promote our blank garden journal!
My Garden Journal
It’s always good to have a before and after photo to record your progress. When I look back at our place in the early 90s I can’t believe how far we have come. Take a picture now of your before and get ready for the after!
If you need more help with your 2020 GREEN Organic Gardener Podcast Challenge let us know. You are more then welcome to email me at OrganicGardenerPodcast@gmail.com and I will answer as soon as possible. Or you can post in the Organic Gardener Facebook Group or message me or Mike on Facebook.
The Organic Oasis Master Class Starts Friday, January 24th and ends Friday, February 21st! Get in first and you'll have your workbook and journals before the first class! This $97 course can be had for $75.00 if you order before the 24th!
Join today!
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy
So, I just wanted to tell you what's been new since I released the 2020 GREEN Organic Gardener Podcast Challenge and see if you are having the same problems I am hearing it, as well as talk a bit about January 2020!
Appropedia is for collaborative solutionsin sustainability, appropriate technology, poverty reduction, and permaculture.
To Catch The RainTell us a little about yourself.
So, I’m an instructor at Humble State University in far northern California. to make real projects all around the world
in summers we're teaching in other countries
- India
- Dominican Republic
- Mexico
- El Salvador
always with the same kind of intent which is to work together to find out what people need
not coming in with solutions, locally or internationally.
we don’t come in thinking know we know the answer we just come in with the excitement of working together.
We work with a lots of grade schools k-12
- agriculture
- garden infrastructure
Zane middle school
- rain water catchment
- edible landscaping
- solar power robot stations
- human powered sundials
- permeable pavement
all type of projects to raise the educational experience with the engagement as well as an environment that’s really nurturing
You know if students are catching their own rain and using that to grow their own food on campus they're education is heightened.
I'm so excited this year to be somewhere were recycling is valued, recess is 4 times a day! There's an outdoor classroom! My kids are big into legos so solar powered robots sounds great!
educational experiences
oh yeah so we pretty much just adapted that project
stay outside and be inspired by the sun!
You're organization sounds like my ideal of the Peace Corps. My question with the Peaces Corps is why do they not send 6 people to one place instead of 1 person to 6 places?
I do international work because I love learning. I have a bigger impact in my own local community because I know where to find stuff and who’s gonna donate
SHOW NOTES COMING SOON! Read unfinished notes here.
We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!The Organic Gardener Podcast is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com
If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
and don’t forget if you need help getting started check out our new
Free Garden Course.com Free Organic Garden Course Remember you can get the 2018 Garden Journal and Data Keeper to record your garden goals in our
You can download the first 30 days here while you’re waiting for it to come in the mail.
We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy
Do you want to save time in your garden?Do you want to grow a garden full of healthy vegetables but feel you don’t have time? Do you struggle to get all the weeds pulled and watering done in the heat of summer when your friends are all headed to the lake? Are you tired of paying the high cost of organic vegetables in the store but struggle to grow your own?
Well, our 2020 Garden Goals Challenge will help you find success in your garden journey!SYLLABUSDay One - Brainstorm - No Dream is Too Big
Day Two - Make A Plan
Day Three - Create a SMART Goal
Day Four - Research Time
Day Five - Get OrganizedDay Six - Photo Time - the Before shot
Day Seven - Reflect
Day Eight - Visualize
DAY 5 Get ORGANIZED: What do you need to do first?For me this is the fun part. Making a list of things to do.
If your goal is to build a deep bed, do you know what materials you’re going to choose? Where you’re going to get your soil to fill it? What you’re going to put in there? Seeds? Starts? Transplants? Where will you get them and when do they go in the ground?
If your goal is to create a water feature for bees what’s it going to be made out of? Where will it go? How will you access water? What can they stand on while they’re drinking so they don’t drown?
If your goal is to plant an orchard have you picked out your fruit trees? Do you need fencing? If so how much? Will you need a post hole digger? Where will you get your fence posts?If your goal is to plant an herb garden do you have list of herbs you want to get? Do they need full sun or shade? Do they stay out all year or do you need to keep them in pots so you can bring them in during the winter?
Make a list of all the things you will need to purchase or gather and do for each step of your goal. Make sure you have an idea of how long each project will take.
This is a great place to promote our blank garden journal!
My Garden Journal
Garden Journal and Data Keeper
DAY 2: MAKE A PLANLet’s take your list and start to define a strategy.
The first step is to organize and prioritize your goals. I like to start with the calendar and put my goals into chronological order.
A general guess for now is fine. We’ll get to the details down the line.
- Which ones can you start now?
- Which ones do you need to wait until the ground thaws?
- Which ones do you need supplies for?
- Which ones do you have to accomplish this year?
A secret I have learned about successful gardening is that you should start with your harvest date? When do you want to be done? If you’re working on a landscape when do you want to be able to enjoy it? If you are planting vegetables when would you be harvesting? Do you have a list of seeds you want plant?
The Organic Oasis Master Class Starts Friday, January 24th and ends Friday, February 21st! Get in first and you'll have your workbook and journals before the first class! This $97 course can be had for $75.00 if you order before the 24th!
Join today!
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy
Cannabis Cultivator: A Step-By-Step Guide to Growing MarijuanaIt’s like I discuss book
The Medical Cannabis Guidebook: The Definitive Guide To Using and Growing Medicinal Marijuanastep-by-step guides
My name is Jeff Ditchfield I'm 60 years old this year.
Jeff started growing cannabis when a friend with MS got robbed at knifepoint for trying to buy some pot to help her pain. Listen to his amazing story and learn how you or someone you know can grow cannabis for medicine in this amazing interview that will tug at your heart strings when you hear how parents are struggling to save get medicine to help their children.
This book was recommended as the best easiest to follow guide to growing cannabis organically.
Listen to the full interview here Remember to join us for the Organic Oasis Master Class beta cohort starting January 24, 2020! And get ready for your best garden ever!The Organic Oasis Master Class
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy
Cannabis Cultivator: A Step-By-Step Guide to Growing MarijuanaIt’s like I discuss in the book
The Medical Cannabis Guidebook: The Definitive Guide To Using and Growing Medicinal Marijuanastep-by-step guides
My name is Jeff Ditchfield I'm 60 years old this year.
Jeff started growing cannabis when a friend with MS got robbed at knifepoint for trying to buy some pot to help her pain. Listen to his amazing story and learn how you or someone you know can grow cannabis for medicine in this amazing interview that will tug at your heart strings when you hear how parents are struggling to save get medicine to help their children.
This book was recommended as the best easiest to follow guide to growing cannabis organically.
Remember to join us for the Organic Oasis Master Class beta cohort starting January 24, 2020! And get ready for your best garden ever!The Organic Oasis Master Class
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy
Do you want to save time in your garden?Do you want to grow a garden full of healthy vegetables but feel you don’t have time? Do you struggle to get all the weeds pulled and watering done in the heat of summer when your friends are all headed to the lake? Are you tired of paying the high cost of organic vegetables in the store but struggle to grow your own?
Well, our 2020 Garden Goals Challenge will help you find success in your garden journey!SYLLABUSDay One – Brainstorm – No Dream is Too Big
Day Two – Make A Plan
Day Three – Create a SMART Goal
Day Four – Research TimeDay Five – Get Organized
Day Six – Photo Time – the Before shot
Day Seven – Reflect
Day Eight – Visualize
Imagine anything is possible!This is a great place to promote our blank garden journal!
My Garden Journal
What do you need to accomplish your goal?
What supplies are you going to need? Where will you get them?
Is your goal to plant heirloom tomatoes? Where are you going to get your seed?
Do you have a catalog? Have you picked out varieties that are acclimated to your climate?
Do you have your seed packets? What are your harvest dates, date to maturity, can you start marking on your calendar when each variety needs to get planted?
Is your goal to sell micro-greens to your local restaurants? Have you made a list of restaurants in your area? Spoke to the chefs? Found out what their needs are? Is there a special herb they would like too?
Are you going to install a new automatic water system? Do you know someone who has one? Is there a local sprinkler service that can help?
Are you wanting to plant Sweet Potatoes? There’s a great video on Johnny’s Select Seed Site or maybe you want to bring in some beneficial insects?
You are more then welcome to email me at OrganicGardenerPodcast@gmail.com and I will answer as soon as possible. Or you can post in the Organic Gardener Facebook Group or message me or Mike on Facebook.
The Organic Oasis Master Class Starts Friday, January 24th and ends Friday, February 21st! Get in first and you’ll have your workbook and journals before the first class! This $97 course can be had for $75.00 if you order before the 24th!
Join today!
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy
Haha! IDK what to really call this episode. TMI? Inspiration? RAW me? But if you're new to the show Jackie Marie Beyer the host is also an artist. And I am working (like for over 25 years now...) on a book called Dreams Do Come True and another on traveling around Paris. Something I dreamed about forever and really never thought would happen. I have led an amazing life. I have had basically all of my dreams come true and have felt that way since the very first step I took into Mikes kitchen all those years ago back in 1992! I knew I was home. I wanted to move to Montana since I was in 3rd grade and have been here since I was 21. How many people meet their husband on a mountain side? It hasn't always been easy, I have had more then my fair share of challenges, and I've been a member of the working poor for most of my adult life. But I've also had amazing experiences and when I got to go to Paris in 2016 I basically kicked my bucket list. Mike and I never thought we'd dig a well, but we did in 2013 after selling a small investment property we bought when I was teaching on the east side and he improved. And so my rant today is just me reaching out to you and encouraging you to believe you can do anything you really set your mind to. And let me know if I can do anything for you. 2013 was the summer I smiled! 2020 has already started out so good I am positive it will be the year I smiled!
Here's to an awesome new Decade everyone!
You are more then welcome to email me at OrganicGardenerPodcast@gmail.com and I will answer as soon as possible. Or you can post in the Organic Gardener Facebook Group or message me or Mike on Facebook.
The Organic Oasis Master Class Starts Friday, January 24th and ends Friday, February 21st! Get in first and you’ll have your workbook and journals before the first class! This $97 course can be had for $75.00 if you order before the 24th!
Join today!
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Do you want to save time in your garden?Do you want to grow a garden full of healthy vegetables but feel you don’t have time? Do you struggle to get all the weeds pulled and watering done in the heat of summer when your friends are all headed to the lake? Are you tired of paying the high cost of organic vegetables in the store but struggle to grow your own?
Well, our 2020 Garden Goals Challenge will help you find success in your garden journey!SYLLABUSDay One - Brainstorm - No Dream is Too Big
Day Two - Make A Plan
Day Three - Create a SMART GoalDay Four - Research Time
Day Five - Get Organized
Day Six - Photo Time - the Before shot
Day Seven - Reflect
Day Eight - Visualize
Imagine anything is possible!This is a great place to promote our blank garden journal!
My Garden Journal
The acronym S.M.A.R.T stands for Strategic * Measurable * Attainable * Relevant * Time-bound*
For each of your goals you are going to need to create a SMART strategy. Today we are just going to start with your most important goal you want to complete in 2020.
SmartGoalWhy
Let’s say your SMART goal is to plant a bed of lettuce every week for the first 2 months of spring. It’s strategic because you want to eat healthy lettuce while it’s growing before it get’s too hot and bolts in the middle of summer. It’s measurable because you can schedule out plantings each Saturday morning perhaps starting in March through the end of April. It’s attainable because by the end of March you should be able to get lettuce seeds started. And if you can’t you can always adjust your dates. It’s relevant because you like lettuce. It’s time bound because it will start in April and end in May.
This might seem like a lengthy process but if you really want to achieve your goals and not just say, I’m gonna put in a garden this year, it’s much more likely to be successful.
Another example of a smart goal might be you want to build 2 new deep beds by Spring growing season.
- Strategic - deep beds can add convenience, more space for planting, and organization to your garden.
- Measurable - you have decided you want 2 new beds.
- Attainable - you can create beds out of recycled materials or purchase new wood if needed.
- Relevant - deep beds help grow nutritious food.
- Time-bound - you can give yourself a specific deadline before June 20th the first of Summer.
If you need more help with your S.M.A.R.T goals let me know. You are more then welcome to email me at OrganicGardenerPodcast@gmail.com and I will answer as soon as possible. Or you can post in the Organic Gardener Facebook Group or message me or Mike on Facebook.
The Organic Oasis Master Class Starts Friday, January 24th and ends Friday, February 21st! Get in first and you'll have your workbook and journals before the first class! This $97 course can be had for $75.00 if you order before the 24th!
Join today!
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
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Do you want to save time in your garden?Do you want to grow a garden full of healthy vegetables but feel you don’t have time? Do you struggle to get all the weeds pulled and watering done in the heat of summer when your friends are all headed to the lake? Are you tired of paying the high cost of organic vegetables in the store but struggle to grow your own?
Well, our 2020 Garden Goals Challenge will help you find success in your garden journey!SYLLABUSDay One - Brainstorm - No Dream is Too Big
Day Two - Make A PlanDay Three - Create a SMART Goal
Day Four - Research Time
Day Five - Get Organized
Day Six - Photo Time - the Before shot
Day Seven - Reflect
Day Eight - Visualize
Imagine anything is possible!This is a great place to promote our blank garden journal!
My Garden Journal
Garden Journal and Data Keeper
DAY 2: MAKE A PLANLet’s take your list and start to define a strategy.
The first step is to organize and prioritize your goals. I like to start with the calendar and put my goals into chronological order.
A general guess for now is fine. We’ll get to the details down the line.
- Which ones can you start now?
- Which ones do you need to wait until the ground thaws?
- Which ones do you need supplies for?
- Which ones do you have to accomplish this year?
A secret I have learned about successful gardening is that you should start with your harvest date? When do you want to be done? If you’re working on a landscape when do you want to be able to enjoy it? If you are planting vegetables when would you be harvesting? Do you have a list of seeds you want plant?
The Organic Oasis Master Class Starts Friday, January 24th and ends Friday, February 21st! Get in first and you'll have your workbook and journals before the first class! This $97 course can be had for $75.00 if you order before the 24th!
Join today!
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy
Do you want to save time in your garden?Do you want to grow a garden full of healthy vegetables but feel you don’t have time? Do you struggle to get all the weeds pulled and watering done in the heat of summer when your friends are all headed to the lake? Are you tired of paying the high cost of organic vegetables in the store but struggle to grow your own?
Well, our 2020 Garden Goals Challenge will help you find success in your garden journey!SYLLABUSDay One - Brainstorm - No Dream is Too BigDay Two - Make A Plan
Day Three - Create a SMART Goal
Day Four - Research Time
Day Five - Get Organized
Day Six - Photo Time - the Before shot
Day Seven - Reflect
Day Eight - Visualize
Imagine anything is possible!This is a great place to promote our blank garden journal!
My Garden Journal
Garden Journal and Data Keeper
Make a list of all your garden dreams! Don't leave anything out! * Do you want a pond with a water fountain in the middle? * An orchard full of fruit trees? * A root cellar to store your produce come winter? * A green house to help extend your season? * A place to market your extra produce? * A fence to keep the deer out? * A chicken tractor? * Growing sweet potatoes? * Ordering some heirloom seeds? * Pollinator plants to attract bees and butterflies? * Beehives full of honey? * Deep beds full of healthy nutritious broccoli, tomatoes and fresh lettuce? * An earth friendly landscape your puppy can run around on without a worry?
Today I want you to start your list of gardening dreams!
The Organic Oasis Master Class Starts Friday, January 24th and ends Friday, February 21st! Get in first and you'll have your workbook and journals before the first class! This $97 course can be had for $75.00 if you order before the 24th!
Join today!
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
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- Tell us a little about yourself.My name is Michelle Lipp and I am an early childhood educator turned play-at-home mom of three kids and one renegade garden. In the classroom, I was infamously known as the teacher who went outside no matter what.
I’ve taught in 5 states with varying climates and firmly believe in the Scandanavian proverb that there is no bad weather, just inappropriate clothing.
When my eldest son was in his first year of preschool, his principal (and my former supervisor) remarked that my kids must always get to play outside. I realized that I had become an indoor parent--that even though I had no issue dressing and undressing a dozen children belonging to other people to get them out into the fresh air, I had become complacent at doing so with my own.
Outdoor play and nature experiences are so integral to healthy bodies and minds and so vital to early development.
Children learn to sit still by moving around and the great outdoors is an ideal location for this. I needed to get my family (and myself) back outside and I needed a way to be accountable for that goal so just over a year ago at the end of winter, 2018, I founded a local nature based meetup group for families and professionals working with children to gather at local parks, playgrounds and nature spaces.
I call my group Park n’Play. I live in the Richmond, VA area and our climate is fairly temperate. My group runs from the end of winter through the fall, although it is my goal to eventually have it be a year-round endeavor. I firmly believe that nature play and experience should be accessible to all regardless of age, ability, geographic location and socioeconomic status.
For that reason, I run my meetups free of charge and I am incredibly fortunate to live in an area with amazing public parks and nature spaces. I arrive with a nature-based or outdoor-friendly activity geared toward children of mixed ages and adults, a small, traveling nature-based library with relevant books for children and adults and more than anything else, it’s an opportunity to be outdoors together as a community and reap the benefits of fresh air and vitamin D.
- Tell me about your first gardening experience?I grew up when it was still OK to toss your kids out in the fenced in suburban backyard to play all day.
My mother, also an early childhood educator, gardened in our backyard. She had a vegetable garden, a flower bed and my sister and I had our own small plot to tend to. I was a notoriously picky eater who would munch raw chives straight from the whiskey barrel they were growing in and I am pretty sure I was covered in mud and smelled like onions at least until the age of 8.
The garden was a space for imaginative play, mud pies, digging up worms, picking cucumbers that were taller than I was and it was also a place where it was OK to fail, to fall and skin your knee and to learn the hard way that you can’t bring your pet goldfish back inside three days after his funeral.
- How did you learn how to garden organically?Adulthood and Parenthood are full of choices and many times we live in a society with option overload.In an ideal world, I would choose only organic produce and buy completely local and garden in a space that is fully free of chemical pesticides. My family currently lives in a rented property and our yard is semi-public and shared. Our property management uses lawn treatments I am not a fan of, so I choose to container garden and grow our produce in a raised bed table. Organic gardening is something I learned mainly by default. My mother gardened this way and I never really was exposed to other methods.
Here's a replay of my very first interview with the amazing Patti Armbrister! Get ready to join the Patti Armbrister Fan Club coming soon!
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Announcing the winner of the Family Garden Plan Book and if you didn't win don't forget to preorder today because it is released tomorrow and you want to get all the great bonuses that come with this book! I ordered a copy for me just for the bonuses. You can order a copy at https://melissaknorris.com/familygardenplan/
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What's your preference?Do you like long show notes that transcribe the full episode or do you like shorter versions? I made 2 copies of Golden Seeds From Melissa K. Norris. One I actually took notes by hand, 13 pages worth and then I typed them off. The other I just transcribed while listening. Which is your preference or do you just like to read it on the website? Would you like a printed copy delivered to your home each month?
Golden Seeds from Melissa Norris Short
Golden Seeds from Melissa Norris Long - Full Transcript
I'd love to know which you like better if you cold just hit reply and say long, short or website I'd really appreciate it!
Don't forget to sign up to Win a copy of Melisa’s New Book Hereand leave her a 5-star review when you're done reading it! Happy New Year!
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Melissa Kagiyama from Key to the Mountain I buy all my food from local farmers and then cook it.How do we connect with you?I love sharing with everyone
so grateful you are all listening
again, my name is Melissa Kagiyama
keytothemountain.com
want to share
just hit the contact us
I respond to all emails!
I love getting requests for new food and flavors
have an Instagram key_to_the_mountain
On Facebook at Key to the MountainAre you a millennial born between 1980-1995?
Yeah Millennial!
Awesome!
Today is Friday August 2, 2019!
So I am so excited to introduce my guest today who I met at the Farmer's Market when I was in Missoula for the 1/2 Marathon in June. And she gave me something that not only did I love but helped me complete the Missoula 1/2 Marathon standing up! From Key to the Mountain in Missoula Montana here's rockstar millennial Melissa Kagiyama!
I have had guest come on and talk about food they cooked from the farmer's market. You said when you first moved to Missoula, you were blown away by the quality of food available at the farmer's market and then you started cooking with it. People often wonder about those things. I am more the organic eater at my house and I feel like you as we were saying the pre-chat that you struggle with water.
Tell us a little about yourself.I really appreciate all our local farmers that are doing all that work. We cook it so we can preserve that amazing food that we grow for all year.
Tell me about your first gardening experience?A brief background, grew up not cooking, eating everything from a can, not cooking dinner, which is a way a lot of millennials grew up, with both parents working, it takes a lot of time to cook fresh food so we didn’t eat a lot of fresh food.
When I got into college, I got really exhausted all the time, I felt like something wasn't right, like I was sick, I went to the doctor.
I was sleeping like 16 hours a day because I was so tired. Going to the doctors telling me I’m fine and it was all in my head, was very discouraging and disempowering. I said, I’m gonna find something out and I'm gonna do something about it.
After much searching I found indian holistic medicine called Ayurveda what that is in a nutshell is directions on how to live and eat on a balanced life
Tells you how much to
- eat
- exercise
- sleep
Ayurveda: It's really about entire lifestyleReally for me, what shocked me so much was about the food I was eating, I thought for me if I was eating canned green beans, I was getting my vegetables, but that is not necessarily true sometimes its true it depends
I felt completely healed, I learned all this knowledge about how to eat. I finished my degree really great! I started teaching, so at this point I was
cooking all my food
basically really simple recipes
- salad
- spaghetti
But I was actually cooking my food. A book I really love is Mark Bittmans’
How to Cook Everything―Completely Revised Twentieth Anniversary Edition: Simple Recipes for Great FoodThat’s where I learned how to cook
I really recommended that book
I started teaching and I taught musicI had all sorts of kids
- young
- old
- poor
- rich
whatever background
I noticed after lunch I couldn’t teach the kids, they weren't focused. They were acting crazy bouncing off the walls. For me I personally decided it was because of what they were eating.
I felt the same thing happening to me in my childhood, eating food that wasn’t actually supporting me was happening to my students.
Then I moved to Montana, when I got to the farmer’s market I was like imagined! I was like:
This is what food is supposed to be! When you get something fresh from your garden!
I felt even better
We have such a short growing season and I wondered how can we take this amazing high quality food and keep it for the whole year?
So we’re a really high quality food manufacturing company
We believe everything we do we feel food should, that food should not just fill your belly but it should
- make you feel amazing!
- help you think clearly!
- empower you in everything that you do!
Everyone in the food chain should benefit from eating
Taking from the earth, so we source locally, we really trust our Montana farmers and organically that’s always better all the way! All the way through the chain till we get to the person who is eating the food so we are supporting that person to living a healthy organic life!
That's sort of a long answer to my first gardening experience but that's how we came to be!
That's why I love millennials so much! I think that what you are doing is so important. It reminds me of this little cartoon I saw on Facebook it's these 2 carrots talking to each other and the once carrot says, why do they call you food and me organic?Also Andrea Catherine who used to come on my show and talk about Ayurvedic healing and taught us some of those tricks and how to eat from the Farmer's Market. What I got fromMelissa was this EnerGHEE, and I also had this packet of gel I bought. I loved this so much more it was natural, it was easier to carry and just so fantastic for the half marathon!
I was surprised to hear you say, I find I have a hard time at 2-3 in the afternoon. I get a lot of sleep, I go to bed early and get up early. We have our first potatoes from the summer finally because we have been eating store potatoes and are so excited to have garden fresh food.
Let me start with that since you are talking about it.
The EnerGhee is like a snack bar but it's actually food* walnuts * raisins * and GHEE which is clarified butter
Ayurvedically it's actually super healing for your digestion heals your gut and * boosts your metabolism*
Super healthy been around for thousands years. It's getting popular with * KETO * Whole 30 diets
We've taken food and blended it in the proper proportions. Taken the food so you don’t need a ton of one thing to get you through the day
you get protein from the walnuts so you don’t need more protein
that’s just a misconception that a lot of people have
You also get the sweetness from raisins which are also natural!
Healthyeasy to digest
balanced portions of real food
people love it
it’s flying off the shelves
we put it in some grocery stores and we struggle to keep up with the orders
we do a lot of jam
so, we get all of our produce from local farmers
we don’t put a ton of sugar in our jams, so what other manufacturers do
First if you are gonna make this at homeyour gonna mix some:
- fruit
- sugar
- lemon juice
- pectin maybe
- boil it
- can it
What manufacturers do is they add sugar, extra sugar is much less expensive then fruit,
you only need so much sugar but if you add extra sugar you increase your profits.
that’s what manufacturers do
sometimes add water
that super dilutes the products
by doing that it’s so watered down
more pectin
corn starch
whatever
by then it has not got enough flavor so that's where the natural colors and flavors come in
we argue food is already flavoredhigh quality food
don’t need to add flavors
- jams like you make at home
- barbecue sauce
- relish
plenty more products in the works
same ideas that there’s no fillers because we want to eat food.
How does it stay on the shelf? Isn't the reason so it will stay preserved?I get that question a lot, I have to be careful how to answer this? When you are making food to preserve at home, it’s going to last years and years but because of the sugar, so for example, honey is shelf stable and never goes bad because it’s sugar.
sugar is a natural preservativebut you only need a certain amount of sugar. I think 60% is is a good safe amount of sugar, you don’t need 90% which is what so much on the store shelves is!
Yes you do need sugar but not that much sugar, that said a lot of our jams are low sugar and we do use a low sugar pectin which has calcium but that's just because we are going extra low sugar. If you are making jam at home you are going to get that high quality super flavor of how it's supposed to be made.
And the flavors of the jams are:Flathead Lake Brandied CherryWild Huckleberry Habanero JamJust Peachy Jalapeno JamHuckleberry Chipotle BBQ SauceIt's basically what relish should be. whatever you have at the end of your garden season
- squash
- cauliflower
doesn't matter
- take it
- chop it up
- put it in a brine
- put it in your jar
great way to use leftover vegetables
it's very creative. So delicious because it's actual vegetables, anything home canning would do.
Yesterday, I did an interview with Brian Moody From AERO about cooking things using up vegetables in the garden at the end of the summer! I think listeners will be interested in how to use food from the farmer's market and things they are making!
One of the most downloaded episodes on my show is Ed Evanstan from Helena talking about the new cottage food bill.
Enabling people to sell value added products to the farmer's market, the start has to be a hand to hand sale, can't go in the store and you are example of someone who started out that way and now has a business solving a problem that a lot of us have that food that gives you energy and enables you to live a healthy life.
people ask me, when you are eating organically, is so expensive how do you justify that?
how can you put a price on your health?
I would argue to take a look at your priorities and decide what you think what is most important.
This is a choice that individuals should makedo you value* your health * your self * the earth * nice cars * big houses?
You probably hear my opinion when you are eating well, you're gonna save so much money on medical bills and you are going to have so much more energy to go out in the world and create value and therefore create more money for yourself.
You are not going to pay for more food, it’s almost hard for me to wrap my head around that
I used to think that way
But it's more about how can I create myself to be the best version of myself to create more prosperity for myself. Then I can afford not just what I want but the other things including the houses and cars
You don’t have to choose between those, but it starts with taking care of ourselves.
Another thing you were talking about processed food.
processed just means cooked, so we have to be careful how we think about thatchanged some sort of way, if you get lettuce from your garden, and you chop it up, you have just processed that lettuce
if you spear some fish and it’s almost raw you have processed the fish.
Over-processed foodWhat happens, what you are talking about, you’ve shortened the word is over-processed food
what we are getting on the shelf sometimes is overly processed is it has extra preservatives, the reason why that happens is its meant to be safe, I’m all for safe food.
First I’ll talk about we’re overcooking our foodI’ll give you an example.
In order to make pickles, I don’t recommend starting with pickles because it's a really big process because vinegar is added.
If you are going to go to the farmer's market to sell something I would start with, I would do a jam or baked good
there’s a couple other simple recipes that you can do, that are not super risky, so they’re very easy to get into the market.
With pickles you have to send them to a processing authority and they send them back to you how to cook them, to make sure your food is safe. Which is awesome, I'm all for safe food. But when I sent in our squash pickle
They sent the squash pickles back:
I have to cook them for 18 minutes and when I did that, they got shriveled up, basically all the life and nutrients is cooked out of them. The reason for doing that is they are thick you have to cook them a certain amount, so you have to make sure that anything potentially hazardous is cooked out of the pickles
food safetylaws are to keep us safe which is really good.
But when you cook something at home you’re probably gonna cook them for 6 minutes, maybe 15 minutes top, you will preserve all of that nutrition. I am an advocate for cooking this at home, just follow the recipe and you’ll be fine!
The other thing that we do is add a whole bunch of preservatives, I'm saying we as a society, so that the product will last a really long time.
When you cook these foods at home, they'll stay fresh for 2 years.
Our season for growing until we get to the next season is only one year so it doesn’t even need to last 2 years. But putting all those preservatives lets it be on the shelf, it last forever, it's great for shipping really far, there are so many reasons to do that. But we don't need to do that , it doesn’t support our health. When you put preservatives in excess in products it's killing any potential bacteria that can grow in the food but when you eat that you are killing stuff in your gut health.
When we eat food hopped up on preservatives you are doing that.
If you make it yourself or buy form your farmer’s market
bigger manufacturer practices
label you can see what’s in it then your good to go!
Awesome, have you ever thought about teaching at the Good Food Store they have that classroom there. I think people would like to learn this and then they would say this is too much work and they would by yours.
Interesting idea, usually at the farmer’s market I explain and people say, oh, that makes sense so it becomes sort of an easy sell because people understand the value that they are paying for!
something I’ve learned that kind of surprised me and I love sharing it
when you look at the label, we pretty much all know that whatever is first in the ingredients is what is the most in the product so what we are starting to do as a culture
want to make sure that food is the first ingredient not sugar.
What manufacturers will do is split the sugar
I'm a big label reader.
What the label might say is it might be blueberry jam,
- blueberries
- corn syrup
- sugar
- brown sugar
- sucrose
Separately they are less then the blueberries so they split up but if you put them together it’s still sugar!
That is not always the case!
Sometimes for example there is sugar and brown sugar in cookies is for flavor
You can tell if it’s very neutral sugars you wonder why is it being split into different sugars.
You can also look at the added sugars. If one tablespoon of someone's jam if the sugar content is 18 grams there’s no way blueberries is the first ingredient!
an interesting thing about labels
what I have found, I'm not that big of a manufacturer yet, it’s like the wild west in labeling, you can almost put anything you want on your label and there’s no one enforcing it or verifying it.
So if I did put more sugar in that blueberry jam but I did list blueberries as the first ingredient, it's not like there is someone in the kitchen actually measuring what sugar I am putting it. What they tend to do...
When Melissa K. Norriswas on the GREEN Organic Gardener Podcast recently we talked about the amazing tip I got from my interview with Sally Fallon about needing to eat a healthy fat with beets etc to get the full mineral and nutritional value from root vegetables.
Check out the replay and see if you don't learn a ton. Sally Fallon and the Weston A. Price foundation was originally introduced to me when I interviewed the AMAZING Mandy Gerth From Lower Valley farm. Also great interviews.
Jeff Lowenfels author of the Teaming With Microbes Soil Trilogy shares his system for creating healthy organic ecosystems and how we can all work to save the world if we just answer the question What would Greta think?
If you wondered why we changed the name to the GREEN Organic Gardener Podcast there will be no doubt when you finish with this amazing episode. Get ready for Jeff to drop Golden Seeds Galore!
JEFF LOWENFELS "LORD OF THE ROOTS" AUTHOR OF THE SOIL TRIOLOGY:Teaming with Microbes: The Organic Gardener's Guide to the Soil Food Web
Teaming with Nutrients: The Organic Gardener’s Guide to Optimizing Plant Nutritionand
TEAMING WITH FUNGIThe Organic Grower’s Guide to MycorrhizaeAND NOW HIS NEW BOOK: DIY Autoflowering Cannabis: An Easy Way to Grow Your Own
Tell us a little about yourself.
I was a lawyer, I worked for a fortune 500 company
always been a gardener
Tell me about your first gardening experience?
my father had to take over a family
8 acres
frustrated farmers
all the magazines
JI Rodale
came over to the house for dinner
I must have been about 10-11
How did you learn how to garden organically?My first memories are being pushed around in a wheel barrow by my father in the garden
The first thing I planted was a wedding cake strawberry planter
Im in Anchorage Alaska, the longest running garden columnist
My new book is on a brand new kind of cannabis
It will be the next tomato plant
remember when the snap peas came out
everybody had to grow them
still growing them today
has no photo period
- same size as a tomato
- produces from seed to harvest
- just like a tomato plant
- small plant
one of the things I love about the books is the diagram in the back with the plant diagram, leaves
plant leaves
nitrogen deficiency
if you don’t know what the photoperiod thing is
cannabis has to have 12 hours day 12 hours night
they require
12 hours + one minute
poinsettias
cactus
triggered by length of light
If you take a christmas cactus and leave it in a situation where it gets more daylight then darkness it won’t bloom no matter what.
A Russian guy was wondering around in 1923.
vo
area
Says he what is that? looks down and sees this little plant
cannabis plant must have escaped from a hemp plantation growing for rope or something of that it thought. oh my gosh it’s gonna get cold here and I haven’t started to flower
photoperiod
In 1973 a bunch of hippie
they came out with a commercial but the size of the whole plant was the size of a thermos bottle the whole plant
it wasn’t very good the cannabis wasn’t very strong
people lost interest continued to breed them in the background
- 5 years ago
- 3 years ago started to get great
- 2 years ago they were phenomenal
And now if you go to a commercial dispensary in lots of places they are actually selling auto flower cannabis. When you use cbd products a lot of that comes from auto flower cbd plants. So if you are a home grower and you want to grow your own cbd auto flower. you could do that.
I’m getting a little a little bit a head of myself. A lot of listeners are thinking,
It’s all over Canada now, if you are not in a state where cannabis is legal, but it will be no question about it. It’s coming!
DIY Autoflowering Cannabis: An Easy Way to Grow Your Own
As gardeners exciting event to wait for!
these plants are spectacular.
different colors
different chemical extenuates
It’s a whole new aspect of gardening!
you can bread your own
just like a tomato plant!
so there you go, now I have 4 book
I am looking for a 4th book for the series
tell us little more about eh teaming series in general
the teaming with microbes was a different type of book, when it came out so Timber Press my publisher, the publisher scratched their head
they weren’t sure any of this was true!
What I was talking about was how plants feed themselves!
in a nutshell here’s the system:
they use the photosynthetic energy about 50-60% of it actually, not to produce a tomato or cannabis flower. They use that to produce exudates these are substances that contain carbons that drip out of the roots into the soil!
Now, we’re talking right now, you're exudating right now, your sweating, Your doing the same thing the plant is, and so that sweat is going onto that skin and what does it do? it attracts bacteria and fungi. That’s what these exudates in the soil do, they attract bacteria and fungi!
The reason why people use deodorant they want to contain the bacteria and fungi etc.
In the plant world the exudates go out into the soil and they attract bacteria and fungi. Why? Because they contain carbon and the bacteria and fungi need that carbon, so they eat the carbon. They don’t eat everything else that’s in the exudate, so they poop it out right there and it contains nitrogen in plant useable form . But more important the bacteria get eaten by protozoa and nematodes.
Nematodes are blind microscopic hairlike worms and protozoa are the things you studied in high school but don’t remember anymore.
amoebas
parameciums. They eat the bacteria and fungi and they poop out the excess. So you get plant usable nutrients being created as a result of these exoduses being consumed and then the bacteria and fungi being consumed so the plant is indirectly feeding itself
And if it wants a different mix of food it changes the exudates by attracting and makes the different mix themselves
bacteria and fungi
bigger guys eat the
soil food web
food chains
every now and then something looks up and sees another food chain
and connects it
two chains connected
form a web
All these things running around in the soil are creating tunnels where air can get in, water, a reservoir
spaces from water for the little guys to hide from the big guys
bacteria and fungi are producing all sorts of substances
acids that decay things
bacteria produce slimes that enable them to stick together but also enables little particles of soil to stick together
soil structure comes from these bacteria and protozoa on up.
You start to get a picture as a result of putting out there exudates creating its own food and changing the recipes to its own like
soil structure improve and created
So the plant is in charge of what’s going on, we tend to think plants are these stupid sedentary
now there are even stories about sounds plants make, I read a story a couple of days ago, the sound plants make when they are attacked and cut
wow!
How the p
really delve into how the plant attracts it’s food
bacteria
nematods
protozoa
all the way on up to us
By us I mean the gardener
we come along and we rototill
what does it do?
destroys the fungal network
up not he surface
Rototilling cuts a worm in half, when you cut a worm in half, you don’t get two worms.
what do we do now?
When you put the chemicals down, the plant says to itself, because they aren’t stupid, why are we expanding so much of ourselves to produce exudates to produce food?
you have to become
have to apply these fertilizers every 2 weeks because you have destroyed the soil food web
you’ve scared it away
In some instances the worms for example don’t like these chemicals so they go away!
Sometimes you get a microbe that loves the chemical you are putting down and you get an imbalance and the system doesn’t work right.
The whole system becomes screwed up when we step forward and try to artificially create
so much better then we can
I always end talks by pointing out to people The Red Woods
375 feet tall!
Over 500 years old
How did they get that big without anyone putting any Miracle Gro on them?
They teamed with the microbes!
They put out the exudates, they attracted the bacteria and fungi, who in turn attracted the protozoa and nematodes who ate the bacteria and fungi, pooped out the excess and fed the plants!
This is what they are doing today
So this is the system!
There’s no arguing about it. Timber press, realized about 6 months in when they went to the second printing
this is the system!
There’s no arguing
republicans
democrats arguing
this is what happens!
if we don’t accept then we’re bucking the system
THAT’s the BASIS of why you should become organic!
team with these microbes
so much easier
why do we have to roto-till? It’s a stupid thing to do.
to plant a pea plant
pea
marigold
You rototill for that? why?
if you are having problems getting it into the soil, take a dowel and make a hole, you don’t need to destroy 16 feet of soil structure to plant a seed. You take a 2 by 4, run it down the garden, make a furrow.
Well, won’t the weeds overrun it, or if there is sod there to start a garden, isn’t that why people use rototillers?
That’s why people use cover crops, that’s why as I point out in my books, there is no such thing as bare soil in nature.
We use mulches. So when I plant my garden, I cover the non-planted areas in mulches.
That does 2 things.
It feeds the microbes in the soil and it prevents the weeds from coming through.
If I don’t plant mulches, I plant a living mulch which are cover crops.
The only thing you have to worry about is competition if a weed is coming up, it doesn’t make a difference you’re plants doing fine.
you’d never know
that anything has never been rotated
want to use the right much
You want to use the right mulch. It turns out the bacteria creates the kind of soil that annuals and things that are in the ground less then a year like
FULL SHOW NOTES COMING SOON!Sign up for our newsletter full of Golden Seeds dropped by my awesome guests! To get a copy of the golden seeds issue emailed directly to your inbox!And to enter to win a copy of Melissa K. Norris' new book The Family Garden Plan sign up here
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Are you wondering why we are rebranding ourselves as the GREEN Organic Gardener Podcast?
Listen here to learn what's new!
Get ready for our first episode as the Green Organic Gardener Podcast where Jeff Lowenfels author of Teaming with Microbes, Teaming With Nutrients and Teaming With Fungi and his new book on DIY Cannabis, from Anchorage Alaska prepare to be dazzled! Afterall what would Greta think?
Love all of you green future growers out there!
Do you have your climate story ready?
Hey there Green Future Growers! thanks for joining us today. If you're new to the show, I hope you'll subscribe on iTunes or your favorite Android app and let's get growing.
18s
JackieMarie
Hey everybody, JackieMarie Beyer here, I'm driving to work so there might be a little static in the background, but this is like a good place for me to record, I feel like because it's kind of quiet in my car for me and I don't know it's just a good time for me. Thoughts are fresh in my head, I find like when I get my microphone out and I'm sitting at my desk later in the day, or even if I get up on a Saturday morning and do it, I'm just like, what was I going to say?
48s
JackieMarie
So anyway, in case you happen to notice there's a new word on the podcast logo, the Green Organic Gardener podcast. And it's funny because like, I've been trying to figure out how could I narrow my niche? And like reach out better to people. I mean, I feel like I have my avatar dialed in, but I don't know. I just, I just want to be unapologetic on my show and I, 1000% support Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's Green New Deal, and believe that, you know, just that my podcast, you know, definitely has an environmental focus.
1m 36s
JackieMarie
Like I call you Green Future Growers because I believe we're all dedicated to growing a greener future. And so I hope I'm not offending anybody. And if we lose some listeners, I think it's just like, I was listening to Sally Hogshead yesterday on the Marie Forleo show. If you don't know who she is, she wrote this book called Fascinate and like, I've taken her Fascinate quiz. If you're a listener and you've taken her Fascinate quiz and you want to send me your results, that would be so amazing. Or just like anything that you feel that would help. But like at the top of my, every time I do an interview with anybody like Sally Hogshead has this Fascinate quiz for businesses and she kind of like gives you these four powerful words.
2m 21s
JackieMarie
And I look at those four words every time I get on the mic to do an interview and talk about. Anyway, it's what Sally was saying like on the top of her front page, she has this thing about Hogshead means, I don't know, like 144 barrels of mead or whatever, if you don't like it. Like, I guess she gets a lot of flack about her middle, her last name, but she put something up there, like some kind of like curse word, or just like, if you don't like this, I don't know. But she says, people have actually written her and said, we were going to work with you until we saw your homepage. And then we decided not to, and she's like, what a greet screener.
3m 4s
JackieMarie
And so I do kind of feel like, and I know there are people out there that have very different political beliefs from me that have been listening to my show. And I, you know, you're more than welcome to listen. I've said before, I'm everybody's favorite Democrat. If you're a Republican, I have plenty of friends who are Republicans, but I am definitely very political. Mike and I are, you know, our marriage, our, a lot of our foundation, I was what we believe is we're hardcore environmentalists and you know a lot of what Sarah Harding said, I guess maybe that's where it came from. Just doing that interview with her last Friday and talking about we don't have time.
3m 46s
JackieMarie
We need have these climate conversations. We need to be taking bigger actions. You know, I'd love to Greta Thunberg. I just think this is going to help us connect better and I don't know, we'll see what happens. So I posted on Facebook and people voted and it seemed like the votes were all over the place. Anyway, I have to go talley them up and see if there was a real defined winner. I think it was the middle picture. It seemed like the majority of people, which I think is like a capital G with lowercase reen. People had some good comments, like maybe should make the banner orange or do this, make it pop more, it was hard to read.
4m 32s
JackieMarie
But I think another thing that kinda got me was somebody else came out with THE Organic Garden podcast, like with a capital T H E. And I was like, but also there is an organicgardener.com and I've never really wanted to have trouble with them. And as I make the Golden Seeds Magazines, which if you subscribe to the email, you can read, I usually post them in the show notes. It's always been kind of my intent like someday I would love to have, especially now that Rodale's Organic Gardening magazine has gone. Like, I just totally want to Golden Seeds newsletter, magazine, whatever it's going to be called.
5m 13s
JackieMarie
And I think that it would be great. And I think Amazon can print them and ship them pretty cost effectively if they're in black and white, but you can have black and white with a color cover. And the more I feel like the more I'm practicing making them the quicker I'm getting at them. I've been trying like with Melissa Norris is episode, I actually make two versions. Cause one, I actually sat down with her episode and a piece of paper, I think 13 pieces of paper's what I came up with the end and actually took notes by hand and then typed up my notes, to see if that was a little better. And I, I, I don't because people have told me, it's my responsibility curate my content and I would love to do that just, you know, if you've ever looked at my show notes, you know, they're just my notes I take while people are talking, I actually like played both Sarah Hardings and Melissa K. Norris' episodes and had like Google docs type to text them.
6m 14s
JackieMarie
But to be honest with you, it was just as hard to edit them those, because there's just so many words and it makes it all in one, like it's almost easier to just do it from my show notes, but I am not the fastest typist in the world. I'm not the slowest, but the best I've ever done is like 60 words per minute. I do have a pretty good accuracy rate. I usually am in the high nineties, if not a hundred percent accuracy, but you probably don't care about any of this. Anyway, just wanted to let you know, we are not the Organic Gardener podcast anymore. We are the GREEN Organic Garden Podcast. And hopefully those of you who are listening are going to love this change because you can connect and you can relate, and you support the Green New Deal and you want to see more action taken on climate change.
7m 2s
JackieMarie
And you want to see everybody in your neighborhood have an Organic Oasis and you want to help get rid of those stupid yellow flags in my mom's community. Like I just can't believe they are having these huge water problems. You know, obviously it's from seeping in through people's lawns. To me, it just seems like that's gotta be the most obvious thing. And yet still everyday you go out there and there's, you know, six lawns on her three blocks or whatever that have those little yellow flags! and you know, so every day it's like, so many of her neighbors are spraying these chemicals. It just drives me crazy. We just got to get rid of those.
7m 37s
JackieMarie
And so to me, and also like when Rodale's, I've said this a couple of times, like I've been going through old episodes of old issues of our Rodale's magazine. And they talk about that they have people who write in and say, Hey, we're sick of your politics. And they are unapologetic about it. They say that, you know, we feel like, you know, politics is part of it. Like, you know, we need to make sure that our listeners/readers know what's going on.
8m 4s
JackieMarie
And like Bob Quinn talks about he got into organic because he wanted organic standards. So we don't have organic standards. Like every time I go to the grocery store and I buy lettuce, I'm like, is this really grown organically? And now what's the big problem they're finding, even with organic oats, that even if they're grown following, all sorts of organic practices, there's so much Roundup in the water that just using the water in California and stuff is like, the food is coming out with, it's not organic, it's coming out with traces of glyphosate in it and traces of Roundup.
8m 38s
JackieMarie
So we're all getting that, no matter what you're eating, even if you're buying all organic foods because they've just put so much into our environment. And I just, I don't know, let me know what you think if you're really against it, Hey, we don't have to change it. It'll be easier. Cause I certainly haven't figured out how to do it. If I have to buy a new website, like the GREEN organic garden podcast, or maybe we'll just buy the greenorganicgarden.com. I don't, I don't know how that's going to be. But anyway, JackieMarie Beyer it is December 5th? Sixth? It's December 6th, driving to work on yet again, another blackie icy rainy road, not snow, but I get to go home to Mike every night and he's just been so wonderful.
9m 29s
JackieMarie
It's just like, there's nothing like walking into a clean house, with last night I came in and smelled so good! Food cooking and just warm, lots of firewood, like Melissa Norris talked about how much of their food was from Thanksgiving, was from their garden. And not that much of our food, like I think the potatoes were really the only thing from our garden. So, but it's exciting to have food. There was one point where I thought about, should I call my podcast the Organic Eater? Because we all know I'm more of the organic eater. Even though I don't get to spend as much on organic food, I have been buying more and more.
10m 14s
JackieMarie
Yesterday I walked into Super One foods and it was so crazy. They switched everything like where the organic food was, is now the normal food and where the normal food was is the organic food or whatever. The conventional food. I shouldn't say it's normal. And I was so surprised I was completely lost, but I wondered does that mean they get so much organic people shopping for organic that they put that in the prime place where people walk or, you know, I just wondered what was going on, but I have been following Bob Quinn's advice. And when I stand in the grocery store and I'm like, should I buy the organic version? Should I buy the other version? I've been trying to choose the organic version way more.
10m 56s
JackieMarie
So anyway, we'd love to hear from you. If you have any feedback, certainly got lots of feedback on the new logo so I was kind of afraid to even post the logo ideas. So happy holidays, everyone! Make sure you're having those climate conversations and you have your climate story down.
11m 19s
JackieMarie
Oh yeah. And then don't forget, we're giving away a copy of Melissa Norris's book. It's gonna launch on January 7th. But if you sign up in the Melissa Norris show notes, like it's like right there right away. And I think like I had a problem with my website and it was down and then they've reput it up.
11m 41s
JackieMarie
And now the show notes just appear underneath. Like when you go to details, the whole show notes are there. I don't know what I'm going to figure out how to fix that. So you can just go to details. And, and then the link to sign up to win the book is right there. So if you want a copy of her Family Garden Plan, all you have to do is click on the show notes and maybe I'll put another link in these shownotes so it's right there too.
12m 14s
JackieMarie
And then I would talking to Patty Armbrister about actually starting up the Patti Armbrister fan club. I've been trying to talk her into, well, actually she agreed to do a monthly call, a question, answer where she will.
12m 28s
JackieMarie
So I know you're gonna be excited about that. I had Fiverr design, some t-shirt logo. So I think that'll be fun. And coming up in the new year, we're getting ready to relaunch the Organic Oasis Masterclass. So kind of taking some of the things we learned from freegardencourse.com. I've re-done that, almost have that done. So that's only going to be like a very short 30 to 45 minute course. And then the Organic Gardener Masterclass, the Organic Oasis Masterclass is going to be a full out course. I think that's going to go over the course of the year. And so you'll be able to get the Patti Armbrister Fan Club access. I'm just going to be kind of bundled with that somehow.
13m 18s
JackieMarie
So that's, what's new with me. What's new with you. Happy 2019 and here's to our best garden ever in 2020.
13m 26s
OUTRO
Do you know someone who would benefit from the Organic Gardener podcast? If you like, what you hear? We'd love it if you shared the Organic Garden Podcast with a friend. Thanks again for listening.
And don't forget to enter to win a copy of Melissa K. Norris' new book The Family Garden Plan sign up here
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Don't forget to enter the Melissa K. Norris Giveaway to win a copy of her new awesome book!
So, if you listened to the interview I did with Sarah Clarkfrom the Get Pregnant Naturally Podcastwho challenged me to try an Elimination Diet where I gave up the top 5 allergens for 10 days. And I did it. And I wanted to share my results.
It's EasyI mention theJill Angie Not Your Average Runner podcast too who talks about a mindset shift from"I Can Do Hard Things" to "It's Easy". Kate Erikson has a great saying
"Gratitude is the First Seed of Abundance"And I tried it, I thought what am I going to eat if I can't eat:
- soy
- corn
- gluten
- dairy
- eggs
- peanuts
So I thought what could I eat? I can eat salad, fish, garbanzo beans (hummus)!
I was like I can do that. I love salad! I love fish! I love garbanzo beans!
And so it turned out it was easy!It was a little weird, I searched some vegan sites for recipes. I didn't really make any, other then the lentil burgers, which asked for eggs but I din't seem to have a problem. They also asked for bread crumbs, I was gonna make from some gluten free bread I did buy some gluten free bread boy was that expensive!
I looked at gluten free brownie recipes but they called for eggs, again. I bought some gluten free flour which was super expensive! I made a gluten free vegan pizza, it was not very good, I had a problem getting the bread to rise because I think my yeast wasn't any good. It really made some good habits.
I also put some ketchup in some lentil burgers from Making Thyme For Health that called for tomato paste. And it had cornstarch or corn syrup or something in it. So there's that I did on like day 4. And lentils were a great thing I ate.
I don't think I have food allergies. I didn't really seem to feel any different. I am an Italian and I feel like my stomach can handle just about anything. I thought it would get rid of the sniffling sound in my nose but it didn't seem to do anything about that.
I could eat chocolate, there are gluten free vegan chocolate bars from Endangered Species and they taste delicious and are frequently on sale! Just be advised they recently changed their labels, I stood staring at the chocolate display before I found them!
I'm used to eating ice cream every night. I bought some almond milk, after I found out I could eat nuts just not peanuts, but I never had it. I drank rice milk, with granola a lot.
So if you want to try the elimination diet think about what can you eat?It was definitely fun to say hey this is easy! and Hey I'm doing this!
On day 6 I was ready to quit, on day 8 I really wanted to quit. Especially I mistakenly ate some edamame at school they gave the kids for snack and I was like oops I blew it. But I ended up sticking it out. It was odd I felt kind of depressed that day.
But it could have been something else. We had an incident at our school. If you are not on Facebook you might not know but a little girl from my school was hit getting off the bus by a car and she's in a coma. It's so sad, if you want to donate to her fundraiser.
Montana law requires drivers to come to a halt no less than 30 feet away from a school bus with its red, flashing lights on, and to only proceed once children have reached the side of the road and the school bus has turned off said lights.
Did you know that 6 to 9 people pass a school bus with it's flashers on illegally while it’s stopped during student pick up or drop off, each month? Check out this article in the Big Fork Eagle!
Anyway, I mentioned that I didn't think it made a difference but then after eating everything again and adding everything back in, I am seeing some effects after adding corn back in so I think I am going to try to stay away from that. And I am going to try eating a bit healthier. I did bring a salad every day this week which it seems like I would but I usually don't do.
I hate buying the plastic lettuce containers. I hate buying a head of red leaf lettuce that's soaking wet and I usually eat in one salad. Which isn't too bad, $2.00 for a salad, add some
- chick peas
- tuna
- sunflower seeds
- Pickled beets if I have them
Maybe $3 and my yummy homemade salad dressing! Delicious!
The Family Garden Plan: Grow a Year's Worth of Sustainable and Healthy Food
Don't forget to enter the Melissa K. Norris Giveaway to win a copy of her new awesome book!
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Jackie,
Great! Then I feel I may have something of value for your audience. We have a flock of Gotland sheep, and that is our main focus along with offering Farmstead vacations to people. Oh now that may be an angle you would like to explore, adding agritourism to your farm business! I can talk about that for days on end. We also raise pigs and use them to reclaim pasture and to add nutrients to the soil. We do have a small garden and hoop house, but I only grow for our own needs and do not sell produce. We do however, sell our pork. We, at some point, may offer lamb, as in to eat, however, right now we are growing our flock and concentrating on selling breeding stock. I am not a vegan, so if that would be offensive to your audience, then warning should be given.
We are NOT certified organic, but 99% of what we do is organic.
Ha! I graduated from high school in 1980. I think what may be inspiring for those listening is that our homestead grew out of a desire to teach our children about life and death and the value of working the soil with your hands and about having a strong work ethic and being self sufficient. I homeschooled my children from birth till they went off to college and much of what we do now was out of a desire for them to experience life fully. Life and death tend to be taboos in our society, lock people up to die and lock women up to give birth...well ok, that sounds a bit dramatic, but my point is that birth and dying are not talked about in general. I wanted my children to see that it is a natural process and it is to be celebrated and treated with great reverence. So, at age 40, we added sheep to our family homestead. We began knowing nothing and as a family learned together.
There is so much value in the words from those who are older. My website is https://www.grandviewfarmvt.com/ and I keep an extensive blog on shepherding at http://www.livingwithgotlands.com/.
And from this email we would share this awesome interview!
FULL SHOW NOTES COMING SOON!Sign up for our newsletter full of Golden Seeds dropped by my awesome guests!To get a copy of the golden seeds issue emailed directly to your inbox!And to enter to win a copy of Melissa K. Norris’ new book The Family Garden Plan sign up here
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Melissa K. Norris from Modern Homesteading the Pioneering Today Podcast where everything is homegrown and homemade!
The Family Garden Plan: Grow a Year's Worth of Sustainable and Healthy Food
Gardeners are so excited to share what we have learned with others who are interested and I feel like that is what we get to do on garden podcasts! And I love podcasts!
Want to read my Golden Seeds Shownotes? There's even two versions a long version that's the full transcript and a short version.
I’m a 5th generation homestead and as a youngster I didn’t appreciate it. My dad lived through the Great Depression so if hey didn’t raise it they didn’t eat through the winter. I thought everyone grew up like that. With a
- garden
- preserving food
- raising beef cattle
It wasn’t until I hit high school really, I didn’t realize I was an anomaly. When my husband and I got married, I was working 40 hours a week and we started our family and I was trying to balance family, and growing our food and all of that, and it has been a 20 year journey to get here.
I feel like my husband grew up in a similar situation on a cattle ranch, growing a lot of their own food, baking their own breads and cookies.
I feel blessed now to have all that insight as an adult it has served me well, but as a teenager I didn’t really appreciate it. My husband and I got married, had kids and I was working as a pharm -tech.
I loved the Little House books as a child, my mother instilled in me a deep love of reading. For us to have tv where we lived you had to go out in the snow and turn the antenna. So I read a lot.
I wanted to write books, my lifelong dream was to write historical fiction. I was always writing about dutch oven cooking and barrel riding and all these things. I was at a writer’s conference and they said you had to have a platform with a blog etc. I was like what’s a blog?
But I learned, we had dial-up internet. And I wrote this blog about things my heroine did that I was also doing. I thought well I cook in a dutch oven so I’ll share my favorite recipes and hopefully people who wanted to read that would read my books and I eventually got a literary agent, and wrote lots of manuscripts but none got accepted. But then the last publishing house said how would you like to write non-fiction, your blog is amazing. And I said YES! Yes, I will!
We raise all of our own beef
pork
increasing a garden
Both of my first books I was doing all of this. Just 2 years ago I was able to “retire” and stay home to focus on
writing
podcasting
e-courses
pioneering today Academy
And of course raise our own food!
Learning how to do all that while I was working was very
Powerful!
because so many people are working and want this lifestyle and aren’t able to leave their regular jobs and I was able to say,
YES YOU CAN!
This is what I did
And how I can help you do it too!
And you do! And you give away lots of free content, but then you also go way in-depth in your classes etc.
Being able to feed our family and grow our own food.
My new book, The Family Garden Plan: Grow a Year's Worth of Sustainable and Healthy Food often people see we raise fish, or hunt, and then grow 55-60% of our own fruits and vegetables. I have over 20 years doing it on my own plus another 18 years watching my parents.
Get info at the FamilyGardenPlan.com
I have always raised enough green beens and we always had our own beef.
Those were easy for me to see and start with.
If your goal is to raise a years worth of food my #1 best advice is you pick one thing,
START WITH ONE THING
If you want, you can do 1 fruit and 1 vegetable.
This doesn’t mean you aren’t growing other things, but it means OK, this is the one thing I am going to grow enough of that we will eat FRESH through the growing season and enough to preserve it so we can eat it all the way through till we can harvest again next year!
Green beans was one we do. They have been in our family for generations.
Tomatoes are Very Versatile in the Kitchen
Maybe it’s tomatoes for you because tomatoes are very versatile in the kitchen.
Once you have one vegetable down, where you feel it’s coming on kind of easy over the seasons you add the next vegetable or fruit. Maybe after a while you add 2-3 vegetables each year. You get confidence and it’s contagious and things go pretty well.
And we all have those moments in August where we’re pulling our hair out and saying why did I do this to myself? But then when you see on the shelf “I don’t have to buy that again this year” you will feel so empowered.
But if you try it all at once the first season you will get overwhelmed and be like this is way too much to do!
So my best advice is build it slowly once block at a time.
Where are you located?
We are located smack dab in the middle of the mountains between Seattle and the Pacific Ocean. I’m technically Zone 7 but usually our last frost is about May first mid may, a lot of times we have aour first frost mid September. So basically the end of May through mid September.
We have a relatively shorter growing season.
Still a bit longer then us in Montana.
How do you get fish? I was watching the video of your in your pantry. My husband works at a mill, and we get fresh caught salmon as a bonus, so I love smoked salmon.
We live an hour from the coast so we also have ea little boat and we catch our limit of crab each year with our 6 crab pots too.
Picking Varieties For your Climate
It’s a good thing in fall and winter months to make a list of things that did really well and things that didn’t.
Do a FALL AUDIT
This is what I am gonna do again, this needs fixed. If you don’t take notes at the end of summer you are going to forget, you think you wont’ but you will.
Especially as you go from fall into winter and you are
- planning
- getting seeds
- decide what to plant next year
take note of crops that were cut short.
This is what happened to us with some new heirloom tomatoes I wanted to try. It’s good to try varieties because you never know when you will find a beloved favorite but I always struggle with tomatoes here in the Pacific NW.
As a matter of fact I have to grow all my tomatoes in a high tunnel or unheated greenhouse. It’s basically an old carport we covered in plastic.
But these tomatoes are more heat loving. They were good for sandwiches and slicing but for sauces etc. Melissa recommends a paste tomato"
"I tried someone varieties and usually always do an heirloom San Marzano Lungo No. 2 number to which is an heirloom paste tomato Paste Tomatoes. Especially if you're looking for that whole year saying and preserving them!"
If you are going to preserve tomatoes for the year, the majority of your space be paste tomatoes that you can use for
- pizza sauce
- tomato sauce
- pasta sauce
- ketchup
Paste tomatoes are
- fleshier
- more flavorful
- don’t have as much water
so they cut down your time simmering and overall preserving process.
Look for varieties in your area. The DAY TO HARVEST is so important.
Varieties you want to save will be ones that
- produced fastest
- forms blooms the earliest
- disease feee
- and of course most prolific
Eventually you will get the most perfect plant for your UNIQUE Microclimate!
It is a REALLY BIG DEAL if your variety needs 120 days versus only 90 days because that means you can harvest for a month instead of just a week.
The most important thing you can do is RESEARCH SEEDS that are best suited to your climate and garden!
Do you use paste tomatoes for SALSA?
YES! There are lots of different paste tomatoes. You don’t want salsa that’s watery and soupy.
When picking varieties you want to think:
How am I gonna use this thorough the year.
Sometimes you’re just so excited about canning and a new recipe but over year, our tastes change and often you find you won’t put up as much jam and jelly as when kids are young.
So I would write down this is what we had for dinner, this is how much produce we used? Maybe just do it for a week, and then multiply by 4 for a month and then x 12 for a year. To get an idea.
How many plants do I need if I use 4 cups a month?
Melissa has a free chart you can download from her website and the book is filled with charts.
Lots of charts tell what vegetables will produce but Melissa’s book includes how many berries and asparagus and perennials you will want as well.
A big take away is that it’s different for EVERY single family.
When picking varieties and ordering seeds, for example cucumbers.
We love garlic dill pickles. So I like a cucumber, a Chicago cucumber, it stays firm, is good with yogurt dips etc but also for pickles so I call it a dual-purpose cucumber.
If you pre-order the The Family Garden Plan: Grow a Year's Worth of Sustainable and Healthy Food you get all these bonuses including the Amendment guide!
I think the amendment guide is worth gold. Do you want to talk about soil health?
If you pre-order, it hits shelves January 7th at Barnes and Noble etc but if you pre-order you get access to worksheets an bonus items, video packages, including the companion planting and crop rotation courses.
Melissa states that those 2 things alone,
companion planting and
crop rotation
were big enough topics when she was first learning they overwhelmed her. Trying to figure out how to do it in a backyard garden and not on a big agricultural farm.
It’s all that I needed and what I use in an usable easy-done format. It’s what I implemented and the charts we used.
Soil Amendment Guide
is all natural standpoint. You can find a lot of things online that are synthetic, but this is an easy organic natural method for a small garden.
They had their soil tested. They found out that the ph level was off from around 12 years of growing.
After having a lot of troubles
blossom end rot etc
did a test for the 12 macro and micro nutrients in the soil and after a ton of research on what to do if soil is high or low and how to fix soil health back in harmony so you can grow
the biggest vegetables and harvest the best yields of produce you can get from nutritious soil.
I know you have been doing this a long time and it’s working as you feed your family.
Getting to the Root of Things
Which activity is your least favorite activity to do in the garden?
I don’t love to weed, it can be therapeutic but my favorite things are to plant, harvest, just stroll in the morning and enjoy. Weeding, not so much.
What is your favorite activity to do in the garden?
Pruning.
I love to prune.
It increases the health of your plants
it gives a larger yield.
What is the best gardening advice you have ever received?
Crop Rotation
Soil Health
We were growing our broccoli, first time, with brassicas and I had this close friend and mentor and she taught me how to prune blueberries…she said:
Don’t plant brassicas in the same place for 3 years!
Do you have any advice for squirrels and critters?
The most effective thing we have found time and time again is a barrier. We have deer, elk, and birds that get our fruit trees and perennials.
So I put netting on blueberries and fencing around fruit trees and then on some of the garden row cover especially to keep cabbage moths out of crops.
How big is your place?
People assume you have to have a big space. But depending on the size of your family and how much you eat of a particular item really makes a difference.
We have 14.96 acres, but only grow on one acre, the rest is woods and pasture for the animals. The house and yard are on one acre, less than 1/2 is the orchard and berries.
There’s a 20’ x 10’ covered high tunnel where there are 18-20 tomato paste plans and a 10 foot row of hot peppers.
And then the regular garden beds of annual vegetables that are about 56’ wide by 20 foot long.
Plants that grow vertically. There is a cement patio with grill and ag rape arbor that provides shade as well as grapes, but is only 2 plants on each side so takes up little space. There are herbs in containers spread out through the landscape.
Blueberries are with rhubarb so Melissa only has to amend one bed as they both like a more acid ph level in the soil. There’s also an asparagus bed. So less than half an acre in produce. Melissa says she wants it close to the house and water sources for summer irrigation. That way there is no time wasted going back and forth helps with productivity.
A favorite tool that you like to use? If you had to move and could only take one tool with you what would it be.
Heirloom seeds - green beans - that have been in her family for generations.
A favorite recipe you like to cook from the garden?
Almost everything Melissa cooks comes from their garden but her husband’s grandmother’s pumpkin roll is a seasonal favorite right now. Made from sugar pie pumpkins. Or a pumpkin savory soup.
A favorite internet resource?
Lately doing so much research for the book, from scientific sources, extension offices have some of the best information for SAFETY especially when preserving and gardening working with food.
A favorite reading material-book, mag, blog/website etc you can recommend?
I do really like as far as magazines go. I do like The New Pioneer Magazine and also Mother Earth News which I'm sure most people are super familiar with, but I feel like they have good solid stuff that's always right up my alley as a gardener and a homesteader resources when I'm surfing on the internet.
I like to look at Mother Earth News when I’m doing research. Then what do you think about the Magnolia Journal? Chip and Joanna Gaines newest adventure?
Final question-
if there was one change you would like to see to create a greener world what would it be? For example is there a charity or organization your passionate about or a project you would like to see put into action. What do you feel is the most crucial issue facing our planet in regards to the environment either in your local area or on a national or global scale?
You know really I was so what it boils down to for me as I really feel like we would see the biggest change in our world as of every single family and every single household grew at least one item of their own food!
And then they cooked with that because I feel like if everybody could see even in an apartment you can grow your own basil on a windowsill in water you don't even need to have dirt! I have a blog post on that, I didn’t mean that got be a plug.
Often times people say well, not everyone can do that, if you live in the city or you live in an urban environment or everything.
For goodness sakes you can grow sprouts in a mason jar in 3 days!
I feel like if every single family and every single household grew at least one thing that they would notice the flavor difference!
Then if you're growing something you're going to use it to cook from scratch with it or you're going to add it to a dish and you're going to notice that the flavor change like oh my goodness like this tastes better!
Especially when you get kids involved! When my kids grow a vegetable if it's something we purchase in a store before their like, I don't like that I don't want to try that!
The Family Garden Plan: Grow a Year's Worth of Sustainable and Healthy Food
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Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy
Read my this issue of the Golden Seeds Newsletter here.GoldenSeedsIssue15SarahHardingCompassionateConversationsAboutClimateSarah Harding from Coconut at Sea Soap Co.Friday, November 22, 2019
I’m super excited and last time she shared a ton of golden seeds with listeners and she’s kind of changed directions so here she’s here to tell us about her new venture the Coconut at Sea Soap Company.
We grew up in North County San Diego. We spent our childhood lives loving the ocean and surfing.
We moved to Montana when we were 22 and spent the second half of our lives farming, fishing, and raising a family.
Now we're Coconut at Sea Soap Company.A family business committed to giving our all in everything we do. We make soap because we want to save the planetWe love the ocean. We love the mountains.
Seeing plastic clogging up our reefs and blowing across farm fields broke our hearts.
So we decided to reduce single-use plastics. Bar soap and shampoo bars are an easy switch toward our goal of plastic-free showers.
And we know gardeners are always getting dirty! Welcome Sarah McPhearson, Sarah Harding?
McPhearson is my maiden name.
You're in Whitefish where I got a job this year and I feel so excited about this because this week we are talking about saving the animals in Wonders McGraw-Hill we’re reading Kids to the Rescue about saving turtles and manatees. And we did a puppet show called the Turtle Mishap about a turtle who get’s stuck in a plastic six pack holder.
Tell us a little about yourself.It’s kind of a long story. When I last talked to you, we were farming full mite growing asparagus, microgreens, cut flowers, it just got the word I think of most is relentless
RelentlessElizabeth Gilbert when she talks about jobs, that every job has a poop sandwich and you have to be willing to eat the poop sandwich that comes along with that job. And we just we got tired of the poop sandwich that came with farming. The relentless with it, we were growing microgreens year round, and how we never got a break and how we never got to spend quality chunks of time with our kids
- sold our micrograms
- leased the asparagus field out
- I still do cut flowers, because after all they’re beautiful!
And then I kind of flopped around for a few years. And we were on a family vacation, with my husband and his two brothers, and we were on vacation in Indonesia and we would pull up to this amazing island!
- on a boat
- dreamy
- white sand
- little spit in the middle of the indian ocean
- with coconut palms
just heaven!
And we would get off the boat and swim into the shore and it was covered in plastic! Plastic of every thing you can imagine! and it was heartbreaking I mean it just broke my heart and I got back on the boat and I was talking to my sister-in-law and she was like but
what can we do?I said
We can do better
We can use less plastic!We might not be able to save Indonesia because we’re not Indonesian
and soap making this was a skill I already had so I said
I’ll make shampoo barsFor some reason shampoo bottles on the forefront of my mind, I think maybe I saw one in Indonesia. So I did, I came home and John suggested I make some soaps that visitors to Montana would like.
We came up with
black bar
grizzly bar
shampoo bar, just for myself and maybe some of my crunchy friends.
I called it Mother’s Nature’s Shampoo BarI made it sort of as a joke because that’s what my mother calls me sometimes, Mother Nature
I put one of those jokey things on the label but then people got excited about it!
The shampoo bar, I’m actually trying to make other scents and then really trying to figure out how to make an all natural conditioner without using basically chemicals because the shampoo bar we make is all natural
- oils
- essential oils
- rosemary extract
- and then it’s saponified into this beautiful lathery hard bar that lasts a long time, but works really well.
So where does the coconut come in? Is it made of coconut butter? Or is it because your story was inspired by the coconut palm trees?
Kind of all 3.
- it does have coconut oil in it
- it was in a tropical place that I was inspired to start the company
- many years ago when I was in a my 20s, a friend told me I was like a coconut drifting at sea
I think it wasn’t a compliment like I was unrooted and just drifting, floating where the sea took me, but since then I’ve taken it as a complement, because that’s kind of what coconuts do, they get put out sea, they float around, land on an island, sprout into a palm, make more coconuts that float out to see…
So I am kind of trying to reframe it as spreading the good! I am so fascinated in this because I am so curious about the whole coconut craze, so many people are into coconut oil, what is the footprint on coconut since they don’t grow in Montana, but what did I grow up on, olive oil from Italy they don’t grow in Montana and then also my new favorite is avocado oil, which also doesn’t grow in Montana and then is the coconut actually the seed?
yeah! exactly, it sprouts into a palm, the the coconut is the seed and it sprouts a coconut.
But I just asked my friend Dacia who’s been making soap for years up here, you walk into her house and it smells so good, but just the other day i asked her do you make a shampoo?
I love your labels, and they are labeled with a bear.
It’s kind of a double meaning from my dad used to sing me Davy Crocket song
“Raised in the woods so he knew ev'ry tree
Kilt him a bar when he was only three”
basically
I love how your so honest about the poop sandwich part of farming. I’m also excited because Patti Armbrister is so big on growing cover crops seeds, because they are like flowers. I was dreaming about growing sunflowers for bird seed but I have a feeling you have to be growing on big acreage for that to be profitable.
And Elizabeth Gilbert talks a lot about not putting that pressure on your creativity. I have read Big Magica bunch it’s one of the books I have read over and over and actually have on Audible to listen to.
I wanted to be able to farming and gardening again didn’t feel so much pressureshe does talk about that
Another part of my journey is accepting the way I am
farming was my dream for a pretty long time, working toward farming or farming for a long time. Accepting that I am not the kind of person who sticks with one thing, because our society puts a lot of pressure on people.
I can totally agree.
yeah! it’s ok, that we’re multi passionate, that we have a lot of different interest for 62 years or jobs and bringing skills form the past
innovative
creative in our new jobs
big piece of my own personal work
ok that I’ve had 62 different jobs
flakey
flighty
I feel like being in 3rd grade this year, that being all those years in pre-k, kindergarten, first grade, Just looking at like I was working on my website and I'm like wow cuz they're so interested in somebody I brought in this typewriter this all the typewriter for one of my students corners and iPads and the other corners and like they're all and they're like if we could just only have an old typewriter!
which are super expensive !
that is so awesome!!
I love that technology sitting right there with you
What we can do with this go to Google Docs login and I spend so much time logging in and we're switching Centers before they ever get to type more than like one word I mean the third graders have got to learn it like I'm hoping by the end of the semester like it's finally starting to click in the you know some things like pages worth of documents this week so we're 12 weeks in the school but they've been struggling really hard just to get logged in like it is not the easiest thing, and our iPads are so old we can’t go to Google Drive that's how old they are Google Classroom we can access they can access Google docs so anyway but yeah I was so cute that they were like my old typewriter and they're all jealous cuz I only really was letting like one kid at a time to really tyoung for it might be some used ones out there for like a new Portable typewriter is like $175 was like the cheapest one I could find out I was like holy cow!
That's really seems backwards
We’re totally off topic here, so tell us about whatever you want to talk about.
Well here's what's interesting about my new company is that I don't actually spend much of my time like selling soap ~ which is really fun because I don’t know that I would actually be that good at you know …selling soap!
What I've been spending my time on is writing articles forMontana Woman Magazine, I gave a talk at a plastics symposium, a presentation that on Plastics and what we can do is consumers and how are the most important thing that we can be doing right now is
talking about it and having these like really potentially uncomfortable conversations with our friends and family!Because you know there's this is climate crises happening and people aren't talking about it and so we're all just in the keep calm and carry on phase of this emergency !and we need to be panicking a little bit more right now because
I love all of this and that’s how we are talking right now because you shared your article on Facebook and I was like Sarah you have to come back on the show and talk about this!
and that one was really that one takes my rights I'm so curious
So I was researching you know like watching TED talks and reading books and I went to a workshop and you know I just was feeling really confident and really prepared like oh my gosh I can write this article and it's going to be educational and inspiring and informative!
And then I went to kind of like a family reunion and eightieth birthday party for my uncle and my another family member totally cornered me and confronted me and was using all of these anti-climate talking points and I did not use any of the things that I had learned and I just like literally froze and turned red and like I couldn't get any words out of my mouth
and was like stammering like trying to clear up the 8-year know the world's not going to end in 8 years that's when you know the time that the ipcc you're not
so I was very ineffective! But it taught me like this is not as easy as you were about to make its out in this article!
This is actually a really difficult thing that you're asking people to do!
Then of course I went back and I did more research on listening and empathy and how to have a discussion and you know what TED talks on debates and you know the differences between liberal views and conservative views and our values and I really just dug a lot deeper.
Then at my really article changed, it became much more about listening and feeling empathy and connecting on a personal level with that person rather than just talking to them as if I was talking in the mirror to somebody who already believed exactly like I do.
So I think it turned out a lot better because I got my but kicked!
I'm so glad we’re doing this, I hope I can get it out before next weekend with Thanksgiving coming up I think this is so important because we're all super passionate about it! Tat's what I love about my audience that I love about my podcast but yeah you get out in the world specially where I live like and that's what I wasn't sure about the school that I went you because you don't wear in a very diverse Community wear like a lot of my kids parents work in the oil rig site at least two families do you know Dad's gone much of the month of the timer over in North Dakota working on the oil fields and this week we're talking about
I'm like well you know the article is all about apoquel spell and I'm like and besides that you guys realize every time you pick up at 5 take for core plastic spoon that's made out of I was saying you know I was cut my six-pack holders up but I was like I hardly ever by six-pack holders but yeah I know but I was glad to hear you said and just you know what I think Forward Thinking Progressive Progressive should be you know environmentalist type of community but I know also like Ryan Zinke came from there and he practically destroyed our EPA who is our Congressman right hardcore Republican choices
The fact that climate change has become a partisan issue just really makes me feel kind of sick because it's like oil companies got a hold of it and started an anti climate campaign to make more money!
That is really a big last question that all of us face I'm changing the subject but I like how we make our livings you know like is how we make our living connects help the earth or hurt the earth and for me there's no question that's that's why I'm you not rich is because most of the professions that make a lot of money on fortunately our wreck doing a lot of damage to our planet! Ethically, there’s no question that I could never do.
My husband talks about that a that a lot ~ he's always saying all the jobs I had that brought in a ton of money like as a logger as he used to work in the oil rigs in Colorado back when he was a pup, just planting trees and then are growing my garden you know and I'm trying to like you don't make a living sustainably has always been about so that's part of why he has the dream of building a concrete house or whatever it is
I’m glad that you're talking to your kids in your classes about Plastics!
in about an hour just even the fact that they didn't know that plastic was made from petroleum is just now that opens their eyes and now they're seeing what everything that's made of plastic maybe hoping I'm hoping that they'll see that they have a choice to use less plastic
I'm glad we're in a building that recycles and it's very conscious you see a lot of kids like that they're bringing like snacking grocery sack so you know their parents are using them and just stuck also think like there's a huge like you know this is what I love about podcasting and I know there's so much about Mark Zuckerberg but I love about Facebook is like connecting with Robin Kelson and Laura Behenna other people in the Flathead
I wish I could go to those climate-smart meetings like I just feel like there's there's more conversation the most places in the country and I'm glad to see that these Solutions are coming up!
Yeah Robin Kelson is my hero she is so amazing she just has been so supportive of me and my business and she's just doing so much good work!
Tell listeners where they can order it online!
Yes I learned how to build a website.
Wait you were going to tell us some tips for like how we can have those conversations!
The number one thing I
we interrupt you before we get to where they get yourself toilet like right yeah well then said something about empathy and listening but like you have any extra steps of what to do when somebody starts spouting like false what's the fake news
Step One BREATHEThe number one thing that I'd wish I'd done was breathed like I'm pretty sure I didn't breathe for like 15 minutes they're literally just focusing on my like deep call me back to let my brain know that I'm not in spider flight that this is not actually physically dangerous to me and that I can calm down and then might higher motor functions will start working again and I'll be able to find words!
Step Two: LISTENThen listen like really listen to try to get curious about not in like a snarky way level where'd you hear that but kind of like really honestly like where did you where did you learn that? How can I find out more? Like tell me more about what this is that you believe and connecting with them and really listening?
I mean the goal would be that by showing respect for them and their viewpoint you maybe at some point you would get a chance to be able to tell your story
Step Three: Know Your Climate STORYThat brings me to the other point of you need to be able to know your climate story. In the article I go over some kind of like writing prompts that you can use to uncover your on a sort of like how climate change has affected you and your family.
It enables you to express your feeling about it you know your vision for the future like all of these things that then you can share from the heart.
From this person instead of like you know starting facts and figures and engaging in like a horn swapped kind of debate you're saying we'll here was my experience and it broke my heart to see these beaches covered in plastic and the coral reefs dying and you know etcetera and then you know just leave them with love.
Like Pema Chodron is a Buddhist nun I'm sure you're probably familiar with her.No, I don’t think so…
Oh well your in for a treat! Her name is Pema and her second name is Chodron and she is a Buddhist nun. She's written quite a few books ~ she just has this like knack for explaining The Human Experience in just this beautiful...
The biggest question I’ve gotten this year again. Is what do I do for my earth friendly landscape and what do I do with all these dandelions? But I was at someone’s place the other day, I could just tell right off the bat, looking down, you don’t have very healthy soil, so I suggested planting some clover, and then also IDK if they have a bag for their lawnmower so when they mow they might be spreading those seeds, where if they put them in the compost pile it would be better. I think… Anyway…
It’s Thursday May 30, 2019. I’m feeling a little mic shy as I haven’t been on my mic for almost a month!
David Thompson from Food Is Free Tacoma is here to share his journey.
Tell us a little about yourself.
I’m a navy veteran, 35 year mechanic, and I am retired. Wht I do is I have a free table and everything I grow in my garden I give away.
Tell us a little bit more, how did you get started with this? Did you just say one day I want to put a table in front of your house?
I saw food is free project on Facebook, it was about veterans and giving away our extras to your neighbors.
I started with a small garden about 700 sq feet and now it’s 4000
tried to give it to family
kids
I tried a table where the food is free and started from there its grown into quite the little non-profit.
I like the way it started with Facebook. I have my FB page
food is free
Started a new project called gardens for the people
Parkway gardens throughout the city of tacoma for people to share their food directly between the sidewalk and the curb. Hoping to do 10 of those this year.
I love that idea, because where my mom lives there’s all these places just like that are covered in these little yellow flags and that’s where you’re talking about growing the ood?
We ammend the soil and remove the sod with local compost and plant straight into the ground.
I love this idea!
Tell me about your first gardening experience? I used to watch Crockets victory garden, I used to dream about having a garden but it wasn’t till I got older got this house with a small garden
10 years now.
I made a lot of mistakes, vertical gardening, I tried a lot of different things before.
Tell us about something that grew well this year. my cabbages
grew really well
tomatoes didn’t do too bad last year either?
I think we had a cool summer last year. That really helped the cabbage a lot.
Did that help with the tomatoes? Do you put them in a greenhouse, they don’t like the cold do they?
Yes, that’s true. The only thing I grow in the greenhouse is peppers.
Is there something you would do different next year or want to try/new? I’m kind of busy with the Food is Free project but next year I would like to try aquaponics.
And what’s making you think about that?
Well, I have this friend in Wyoming whos into hydroponics and he’s grown a lot of stuff there, and it’s just an interesting way to combine fish and food in an urban environment.
I know my listeners are interested in that as those episodes get downloaded a lot.
Tell me about something that didn’t work so well this season. tire gardens
I tried tires with tomatoes one year, I got alot of bugs and stuff inside the tomatoes.
Which activity is your least favorite activity to do in the garden? weeding, I’d say weeding, it’s not one of my favorites, but it has to be done.
I can relate that today, I went to the garden for the first time in a week, and I can’t believe what’s coming up and mike did warn me that I should cover the fresh weeded beds with mulch of straw and I didn’t it seems like the weeds are just coming up like crazy this May!
What is your favorite activity to do in the garden.
transplant
fun instant garden
I totally agree! And I’m pretty excited because I planted a bunch of zinnias that are just about ready to go in the ground.
What is the best gardening advice you have ever received?
stay organic. I’ve learned to build my soil, because I’m challenged on money I’ve learned to be frugal so I do whatever i can for free
What are some secrets you’ve learned?
woodchips
When I first started out I had raised beds
wood chips in walkways made soft loamy soil. Eventually the wood rotted out. What I learned is the soil where the wood chips were was a whole loat better then in my raided beds it was a soft loamy soil.
Where’d you get the wood cips.
The local power company – have to trim trees for the power lines so they will deliver them to your house for free!
Tacoma is a pretty big suburban area right?
Yes, we have about 100,000 people
Have you had any problems with getting neighbors on board? What have been the challenges that way? They are excited about it, when you tell them it’s about growing food. I go out and get them started in a vegetable garden and they tend themselves and then share the harvest.
Hopefully everyone gets involved, we see them around town now with these free little pantries.
Ohhh kind of like the little libraries popping up all over. I love them!
What I do is I ask them what kind of vegetables they like. If we can grow them in this climate we help them grow so they can feed themselves.
What the process is, I ask for volunteers that want to tend the garden
So we get out there and plant a garden for them,
supply all plants
seeds
and all they have to do is weed it and water it from then on.
Where do you get the seeds and plants?
plants get donated from local community gardens that have too many starts
local farm
donations of seeds
Didn’t I read that it started from some health issues?
I’m a cancer survivor
started from the necessity of having to give the food away because I have too much of it.
I can relate to that, I feel like Mike and I have too much of, but I find it is stuff like too much swiss chard or kale that people don’t want or maybe we don’t have enough extra. I’m about at the point where I don’t have to buy much produce from August through November. I think this is a great solution! I love how you are teaching people to garden themselves. You’re not having any problem with people saying I don’t want food in my front yard.
The city is really excited about it and behind it all the way. They;ve been very supportive.
Right you’re giving free food to local neighborhood, and they get to participate even if it’s just watching it grow but sometimes they even pick tomatoes or things. Kids have access to locally grown food.
A favorite tool that you like to use? If you had to move and could only take one tool with you what would it be. Broadfork
A favorite recipe you like to cook from the garden? cherry trees
plum tree
home brew I make wine and beer and cider
I grow hops for my beer
I dpn’t have a grape vineyard, a lot of times people have grapes growing at their house and they on’t have anything to do with them, so through the years I just pick up grapes from friends and neighbors.
A favorite internet resource? harvest first
They are our local food organization, they sponsor farms and local events.
A favorite reading material-book, mag, blog/website etc you can recommend? The Market Gardener: A Successful Grower’s Handbook for Small-Scale Organic Farming by JM Fortier If you have a business to you have any advice for our listeners about how to sell extra produce or get started in the industry? YEah! IT’s really easy to get started, all you have to do is put up a little table in front of your house and I put a sandwich board and put out in front of your house and an old table. Put it out, you’ll meet your neighbors, great way to build community.
Final question – If there was one change you would like to see to create a greener world what would it be? For example is there a charity or organization your passionate about or a project you would like to see put into action.
What do you feel is the most crucial issue facing our planet in regards to the environment either in your local area or on a national or global scale?
food security A lot of times people don’t even know where their food comes from anymore, we have become disconnected, by knowing where you food is and participating in it and growing it yourself. You can take control food security and have a little bit of power in that and say in what you are eating.
I think we need to go back to small agriculture.
What does that look like, can you explain to listeners?
I would love to see victory gardens again. I think it was a great trend. For people to get a say in their food security! Do you have an inspiration tip or quote to help motivate our listeners to reach into that dirt and start their own garden? It’s really simple to do, if you are here in teht acoma area I could come by if you have problems,
Grow something simple
- tomatoes are pretty simple
- green beans
give it a try and see how it goes!
Mikes aboot to plant our greenbeans, he’s been digging up the minifarm with the broadfork, I think he said he was gonna try to get them inthe ground today May 30, 2019 How do we connect with you? foodisfree253.com facebook food is free tacoma foodisfree.org Let’s take a minute to thank our sponsors and affiliate links Please support us on Patreon so we can keep the show up on the internet. It cost close to $100 a month just to keep it up on the internet for the website etc so if you could help by supporting it with an $8/month contribution or $10/month to join the Green Future Growers Book Club where we can delve deep into some of the best gardening books that have been recommended on the show! GoDaddy even is bugging me for dollars just to have the domain name…
https://www.patreon.com/OrganicGardenerPodcast
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Interview 289 with Health Coach Sarah Clark | Author of Fabulously Fertile + Host of Get Pregnant Naturally Podcast https://fabfertile.com/
Thursday May 2, 2019 I have another podcaster on the line we are going to talk about eating healthy today. The Get Pregnant Naturally Podcast.
Thanks for being on the show today. This is something that touches me personally, because Mike and I never had kids. I always tell people if I would have had my iPod touch when I was trying to get pregnant I’m sure we would have had kids. But anyway tech has come so far so I’m glad you have some solutions for people!
Tell people about your podcast and business. I help couples who are struggling with infertility. I had my own struggle I was diagnosed with premature ovarian failure at the age of 28 and that is the loss of function of the ovaries before the age of 40.
For me I had these weird health systems * cycles were irregular * urinary tract infections * acne in early 20s * cycles were irregular
I got married at 25 kids at 28 my cycles were still irregular so I went to my OBGYN and that’s when I was diagnosed with premature ovarian failure. I remember her reaching up for the packet to the IBF clinic and off I went.
Basically being told that my only option was to have donor eggs. I never looked back to any of the health systems I was dealing with. So I went straight to the clinic and got a list and I got a donor egg and had my daughter. She is 17! So this is the back in the day you say donor eggs and people are like IDK what you are talking about.
Now with western lifestyle people are having effects.
I was wanting to have kids close together, I was super stressed, I went in and those embryos failed. On the second list with another donor I was lucky enough to have my son will fresh transfer he’s 14.
After that my health took a nosedive, after I had my daughter, I took antibiotics for every sinus infections. I ended up * gut * vertigo * toenail infections * dandruff * chronic bladder infections * peeing blood * yeast infections * sinus infections just wouldn’t go away
I was in HR at the time, I wanting to bring life coaching into the corporate environment. I took a life coaching course.
Health and wellness That’s where I discovered I had these food sensitivities * I found out I was intolerant to diary and gluten * low and behold by making lifestyle changes * bladder infections went away * sinus infections * skin became clear * stool test a little while after that, so then I healed the gut
For me, I didn’t discover this to be 40
if you are cycling naturally for me food and diet are the key to everything.
I love to hear that, my show is all about growing healthy food, I am more the organic eater and we have that in common because it sounds like we were saying in the prechat your husband is more the gardener too.
for our couples that we coach
elimination diet Take out top allergens
- dairy
- gluten
- corn
- soy
- peanuts and
- eggs
Take them out for 10 days. you can do anything for ten days then you systematically introduce them. You don’t go out and have a pizza.
then this is the important part, this is the gold standard to see how food impacts their body.
First you bring in corn which
part of the body
corn can flare up the asthma
talk about a lot on your podcast, it’s the most GMO and sprayed with glyphosate. A lot of people have issues with corn.
Can we back up a minute, People complain about corn, people don’t realize corn syrup is in like everything Over 60-70% are tolerant to dairy.
high fructose is in everything, I have found corn starch in orange juice. What is it doing there? It’s a filler.
I think dairy and gluten are becoming a lot more mainstream but still even in my circles of people, maybe not as much, I did a whole rack of people who were doing KETO.
I was talking to a lot of people and the amount of people doing KETO there was the paleo crazy and now KETO.
Keto can be right for some people so we do the elimination diet feel dairy
feel sinus
feel fleghmy
digestive issues
impacts its digestion * gas * burping * mood * adhd * depression * anxiety * stiff joints * arthritis * acne * eczema * rosacea * dermatitis * auto immune * function thyroid * thyroid dysfunction
The food piece is huge because we are in the middle of this experiment we recommend everyone going organic because we are in the middle of this food experiment as we use glyphosate on everything
herbicides and pesticides
impacting
it used to be 60-40% impacting fertility and now it’s 50%50%
What about all these other symptoms.
Look at all the other diagnosis and symptoms were all facing. I’m hearing all sorts of symptoms it affects other people. a lot of times
- this infertility diagnosis
- premature
- especially with unexplained infertility
People usually look at food last but it should be what are you placing on your fork everyday
if you have a food sensitivity
hormonal birth control
a lot of people were on the pill for years which can impacts gut health. You can eat this beautiful diet and if you are not absorbing it effectively.
food sensitivities
gut infections
work with people
looks at DNA in stool
the majority of people are coming back with gut infections multiple parasites
yeast infections again it’s the health of the gut
what predisposed you, was it the environmental toxins, was it the pill, high use of antibiotics?
I was peeing blood and then I changed my diet and made these lifestyle changes as well
food is the most important thing to start with the elimination diet to see how food impacts your body so you will know exactly. Sometimes we think we have this digestive issue or
skin issue or we’re just an irritable person
When we take this food out we take the inflammation out of our body and start o feel improvements. that’s causing how it’s impacting us
Didn’t I hear on an episode of your show that or a blog post that walks you through how todo the elimination diet step by step.
Totally. It released the middle of may
how and why to do the elimination diet we go through the exact steps.
We recommend going 100% organic during this time I’m sure you maybe talked about this what the dirty dozen. If it’s cost prohibitive that at least the foods from the Environmental working group, I think strawberries there were over 75 pesticides on strawberries. Click here for the clean 15. Never get conventionally grown strawberries their like grown with so many pesticides.
I did talk about the dirty dozen and the next ones are like spinach and kale. I found that at school at the salad bar I would pick strawberries almost every day. Especially I wills and there in the store for like ten minutes going back and forth, I should buy these their healthy fruit and I never eat fruit, and then I’m like I shouldn’t buy these because they are wrapped in plastic.
My husband always says I should wash them with vinegar I think.
tap water
It’s not about perfection
typically
filled have water that is
chlorine floride
Berkley
water filter
tastes awesome
why do I feel so parched? I have interviewed a few doctors, I think the challenge I have is the food is not being absorbed well. I need to figure out my gut health. Yesterday I was talking to this fitness coach, and I was telling him I always conk out at mile 10, and he was saying if I just learn what my body needs, and to eat something every 20 minutes while I’m training, a fitness bar, gatorade, gel pack or what.
I have never ever thought when running a marathon that it would be my nutrition I always thought it was just not training enough running far enough etc. So the value of nutrition is just great because he told me that would make all the difference.
I have 2 more quick quesitons. Your in canada? In toronto. You get local food all year long.
Cucumbers
tomatoes
I guess they are importing some of the oranges
apples
broccoli
cauliflower
dry and wash your produce
30-40k
organic box delivered weekly
farms in your local area
customize the box
surprise to what I get
organic food
greenhouses
may 2nd
cucumbers tomatoes
kale
importing from oranges
imported
broccoli
cauliflower
bananas
most of the stuff s we get into the growing season
micro greens
cilantro
basil
basil plant will come in the box
exciting
I’m glad you said you get a box, a lot of my listeners might be interested in filling your box! A lot of my listeners are interested in growing for market. We are focused on the same things for the same reasons, I love to eat organic food and veggies all the time. I love our fruit like our raspberries. I do find fruit is messy, but that’s my weirdness. I like to hear about those things. Even if they have extra produce. If I go out of my way to share this, kale is one of them, I think it’s #2 or #3 on that list of dirty dozen an I think it grows well.
i also get a local meat box
it’s your health if your health is impacted
preventative
people with fertility
diagnosis
straight to the fertility clinic
60k dollars
elimination diet
lifestyle changes
going on in our body
some people
go that way
if you can’t conceive
food is a really good place to start
foundational pillars
sleep
movement
environmental toxins
plastics
IDK I have them I literally feel
disease
tools of functional medicine
broader
catching it before it goes
blood canisters review
and so a lot of times we find out there’s a gut infection going on with the man
hight sensitivity to gluten
non-celiac
equally as important
doesn’t want to procreate
highly sensitive to gluten
cross reactors
avoid oats
even gluten free oats
risk of contamination
body is having a reaction to that
they can be intolerant to dairy
cross reactor
protein
intolerant
lactose intolerant
Kevin
take out dairy and gluten
highly sensitive to
sandwich with bread
crumbs can cause inflammation
weeks to months to reset itself
food sensitivity thing to look into
switch everything to organic
eliminations diet
allows you to see your body reacts to food
xyz that i had on Friday
never really know
skin issues
acne
food that we had there
come to us
have an intolerance to eggs
infertility
more intolerant to the whites to eggs
food sensitivity test
leap MRT
foods and chemicals
foods...
Read the text version of my interview here: Golden Seeds Issue 13 Tad Hussey
My interview with Tara Caton At the Rodale Institute Hemp Botanist
I’m curious how you found out about me. Haha, IDK? Well, one I’m always looking for guests! But I did just release for Earth Day April 22, 2019, this interview with Tara Caton from the Rodale institute last week and since then I have been online researching hemp and cannabis and I am just flabbergasted at what has changed because when I started my podcast in 2015, I couldn’t find someone to come on my show and talk about hemp or cannabis for 4/20 day.
The other thing is I have always dreamed of being a sunflower farmer, and originally I thought I would sell sunflowers to florists, but then I thought bird seed would suit me better but this last winter, I thought I would like to grow sunflower sprouts after I was going crazy looking for fresh greens and my step-daughter gave me some and I was so excited, after the romaine recall. My husband planted so much kale and swiss chard etc last year for me, I didn’t have to buy any greens from August to November!
Wow, I can tell you’re a plant enthusiast.
Well, I’m a sunflower and hemp enthusiast!
It’s Thursday, April 17, 2019! Earth Day is coming up on Monday! I have another podcaster on the line. His business is KiS Organics. Welcome Tad Hussey!
I know we’re gonna learn a lot!
Are you in Oregon, Washington? Somewhere by the Pacific Coast? I am in the North West. About 20 minutes east of Seattle in Redmond, Washington.
Tell us a little about yourself. Sure so, I’m 41 years old, I grew up with father actually both my parents running a commercial nursery and landscape business here on 7 acres in Redmond. So, I grew up around plants, but wasn’t that into them. I kind of moved away from it but after college I came back with a masters degree in another field and I had trouble finding work in that field I really enjoyed.
So I ended up coming into my parents business which was all about compost tea at that point so I ended up learning all about:
- compost tea
- microbes and
- gardening
from that we sort of expanded we got the property where they originally had the landscape country.
This was about 2011. This was sort of the time of victory gardens and backyard chickens. Nurseries were sort of failing so we knew we didn’t want to do that.
So we started this thing:
KIS Farm Keep It Simple Farm
It started out as a feed store.
I knew there were no feed stores in Redmond, I wanted a place to have feed cause I was getting into backyard gardens and wanted chickens.
All these people started coming in who wanted:
- horse feed
- dog food
and all these other things. So we expanded that into an edible nursery. We had all these unique
edibles but we found out people in our area didn’t care. So we shaved that down to your classic favorites you find at a lot of other places.
There’s also an educational trial on the property that is focused on teaching about native habitat and salmon spanning. We get a lot of boy scout and girl scout troops through there.
There’s an outdoor preschool on the property that meets 5 days a week a lot of fun. So the kids are out there running around in the woods learning about the outdoors which is a lot of fun and on top of all this we also have:
- chickens
- pigs
- goats
free ranging on the property.
We also grow vegetables! We have a you pick, a large green house an 85 foot greenhouse and also a pumpkin patch. Every year we plant that out and so people can stop by and buy organic produce on their way home from the store or home from work. That’s sort of what KiS Farm is all about, focused on education and community support and helping gardeners and growers learn how to sustainably organically.
We also have KiS organics which is an online garden store provider offering a variety of soil amendments as well as soils that we have created that we have created specifically for growing high value crops like cannabis and tomatoes. We work with a lot of the legal market here and as far away as Puerto Rico.
Essentially what it is, is this whole idea of living soils this concept that we try to create living ecology in our containers with our media or in raised beds, indoor or outdoor, as a way of allowing the microbes and all the things I’m sure people have talked about on your podcast to really control the growing process so we’re not perpetually throwing out our soil every cycle each year and have to start over every years and learning how to amend that soil to build and grow each year.
In between episodes today, I was listening to your talk with Jeff Lowenfels, who wrote Teaming With Microbes and Teaming with Nutrients: The Organic Gardener’s Guide to Optimizing Plant Nutrition, etc it was interesting to hear you talk to him. I was supposed to interview him but he wanted me to wait till I had read his books. One of the things I really loved about your site is you seem really natural.
And Jeff’s newest book:
DIY Autoflowering Cannabis: An Easy Way to Grow Your Own Yeah, I never grew up without organic gardening, it’s something my parents have been doing since I was little. My dad did the chemical thing as a landscaper back in the early 80 late 70s but moved away from it for health reasons after he learned about the dangers from it.
So organics is all I’ve ever grown. It’s funny when you mention cannabis, because when I was growing up I was always really anti-cannabis. It wasn’t until I started this compost tea business, or my parents started and I was in my early 30s. Idk really know anything about cannabis and I would get these phone calls from growers and they would say things like:
“I want to use your compost tea and I have 40 tomato plants under artificial lights, and I started looking into it and realizing this is a huge industry and these people don’t know what they’re doing in regards to compost tea.There’s all these myths around that subject and I started writing on these forums and communicating and really trying to get all this information out there.
I thought I should try this and wanted to try growing it and learning about it and I went into this hydroponic shop and I was blown away!
I’d only been into nurseries and I had never seen this wide selection products!
My first reaction was I can’t wait to try this on vegetables! I can’t wait to try this on tomatoes! Cannabis is this special plant and we need all these special nutrients and a lot of that is just marketing! As my knowledge grew over the years I realized that all those products if you start reading the ingredients are just the same stuff with a 1000% markup of what you will find in your garden center store or you can make yourself!
From that I realized this market that needed education because it’s been underground for so long that a lot of growers all they could do is they could talk to their buddy who could talk to their buddy, who could talk to the hydro!
There was no access to information like there is now. That’s why I started my podcast which is called the cannabis cultivation and science to try to bridge that gap between the organic gardeners and the horticulture world.
That’s what I love to hear and that’s what I keep telling my husband, this is a very specialized skill and there is going to be a lot of people interested.
Well, I think anyone can grow cannabis if they are interested. I think it is a specialized plant for medicinal properties. But it really does want to grow, it’s called weed for a reason. If you can grow a good tomato or a good pepper you can grow a good cannabis plant.
There are a few things are different. Most cannabis plants with the exception of auto flowers, are photogenic, as in they need a certain amount of light (lack of light- dark cycle). It’s pretty straight forward. You’ve probably grown 1000 of tomatoes, so you would probably be really successful at it!
Well, my listeners know, that technically I’m not the gardener, I’ve grown some cherry tomato plants. My husband is more the gardener and I’m the organic eater. I do like to grow sunflowers and I did grow lettuce for my guinea pig.
But as I was just saying, yes it might grow like a weed, but if you are growing it for the flower that people are going to want to smoke, you are not going to want seeds in there, there’s that whole part, there’s the light thing like you were saying, and then there are the regulations again, if you want to have enough product to last a year, I mean it depends on your situation.
I guess my point would be I would say it’s the same growing principals for someone growing tomatoes as for growing cannabis as for growing for the soil really learn the plant. There are unique challenges to grow cannabis. Here in Washington as one of the first states to go legal, we would have a bunch of underground growers who come in and say, I have been growing 30 plants in my basement for 20 years. and grew using this line of nutrients and suddenly they are in this opportunity to be a million dollar grower as a master grower and they didn’t realize it doesn’t scale that way
1000 plants
skill set
gardener and a farmer
a lot of people failed and lost a lot of money here in these markets or they are struggling to maintain because the cost of production is way too high so that’s what I am seeing here.
I think that is along the same lines, not even up to 1000 plants. My husband always says you couldn’t really grow it here in Montana, because you wouldn’t et the daylight, you wouldn’t get that 12 hour light period during the season. Like my dream is to grow unlimited amounts and people because they were growing to get the most potent in their basement, I think there should be big varieties and what are they putting in things, they say emergency rooms visits are up because people don’t know how to eat their edibles and keep overdosing.
What I love about your site is growing it in dirt and growing it naturally. People are doing things in those small spaces, who knows whats in their pot. I think there is this assumption because cannabis is this groovy pat, it’s a bunch of hippies listening to reggae. There’s a lot of people who were doing a lot of bad things back when it was in the black market.
One issue we see is people using things like a bud hardener and there are lot of people using things that are illegal for use with edible crops it raises their weight of various yields, using things not approved for use on edible crops. The effects if it is combusted vs eaten you know through your lungs versus through your stomach.
Personally I wouldn’t let friends just go to a recreational pot shot here in Washington and buy anything, I tell them which growers are producing safe product so your not risking anything by
taking it and I think it’s another consideration a lot of people should grow it on their own.
and go to your website where they can learn how to grow it naturally! I think fertilizing and soil testing responsibly in a way that is more affordable! I know when I first started out gardening I would go to the store and I would buy the cheapest potting soil I cold find and then go to the fertilizer department and find a bag with a photo of a tomato on it.
in my experience
for me my suggestion is invest in your soil
best soil you can build using the best local inputs you can find and do a soil test and potentially a water test
We are finding a lot of people don’t have a commercial water supply
finding things
people’s water
lot more sense
customize their nutrient program for their garden. How much nitrogen is very different if you are growing lettuce and corn is different for sunflower
The right source the right products to maintain $25 for the one we recommend
logan labs
There are ones you can do at home but are not quite as accurate, but here in Washington state there are 4-5 free soil tests they will do for you.
I was going to say, the water testing. We have 2 wells on our property, the first one is a shallow well about 19 feet deep and then a few years ago we started using the deep well that’s 560’ And he’s been using the shallow well always and now the cloner is clogging up and we wonder fi that’s from the new well.
One thing to consider your soil could be over calcium and then it could change your nutrients could be high in bicarbonates. There’s so many variables, getting it to someone who can interpret that information and a lot of
times there’s local extension agents or services.
There’s something that was brought to my attention by his book the Intelligent Gardener
Steve Solomon it’s a concept from 189-
William Albect a concept of crop nutrition The idea that we can get the minerals and soils balanced to certain levels
healthier for us to eat
Steve talks about in his book he has some very anecdotal stories and they are quite powerful
check it out that and
Teaming With Microbes Everyone who asks me where I should start
organic is great!
he could care less about being organic what he cares about is that his food is nutrient dense. It’s much more important
the minerals are in the soil chemical or organic source
tomato
has all these properties
how is it going to get high in iron sulfur nutrient attributed to it if it is not in our soil.
Which is a really good point if they are not in our crop they not going to be in our bodies may not be enough
balance the soil
can do this organically
getting a soil test
right level of these trace levels of macronutrients. In Montana, I asked the guy from the extension office is going to come on in May, once I get the results back from the extension then he can help me.
Yes that is going to get you going in the right direction
not the end all of the quality of your soil
GoldenSeeds#12.NeilDiboll.Prairie
The Golden Seeds aren’t perfect but it’s a start. I like to read them in PDF format better what about you?
Neil Diboll, President of Prairie Nursery, Inc.
On the Web:
www.prairienursery.com
www.facebook.com/prairienursery
1-800-476-9453 (1-800-GRO-WILD)
We would love to help you with anything and even help you find some seeds or plants that would grow!
Gardens are focused on needs desires of humans only life gardening for all farms plants
- animals
- critters
- bugs
sustainable ecosystem on people’s properties native plants. The real importance of native plants is that they
have co-evolved with other linked to one
brought to another
long periods f coevolution support very few of other invertebrates adaptation foundation of the food change limited value ecology
what resource was important
doug
bringing nature home
more valuable
the other thing to get the chemicals out of the environment
native plants are great because 1 you don’t have to fertilize
and you don’t have all the maintenance associated with it and opposed to a lawn you don’t have all the petrol chemicals and
gasoline building it or running the equipment.
steal plastic
most important
if I don’t see holes in the leaves of my plants. I’m a failure as a gardener
encourage my plants to be eaten
insects are eating them and insects are eating the birds so I have an ecosystem in my yard.
I mean birds eating the insects.
You are creating a food chain, creating a food web, in your garden. So we are no longer just gardening for human interests and human returns gardening for all forms of life sharing
revolutionary concept for gardening.
Tell us about your very first gardening experience? I started out in first grade with my first garden. Our class was raising money for some endeavor by selling garden seeds for ten cents a packet, door to door to neighbors. I decided that if I was going to sell people a product, I should at least try it myself. The garden was a miserable failure due to terrible soil conditions, and I suspended my gardening efforts for ten years.
I learned to garden organically at age 16 when I decided to try vegetable gardening again in the same backyard. This time I double dug the future garden two spade lengths deep in the fall, and filled the hole with the leaves we raked up in our yard. The hole consumed all the leaves without hardly denting the chasm. I then collected leaves from the gutters on my block, and filled the hole with one foot of leaves, covered by an inch or two of clay, until I had a three foot tall “mass grave,” as my extremely skeptical parents referred to it. A giant mound in the backyard. By spring, it had settled down to about 18 inches in height, and I planted my garden.
It was a spectacular success, producing an abundance of vegetables and greens, and I was suddenly a genius gardener!
Used that garden for years ~ even after I went to college my parents used it for years.
I love that! It’s like you built your own deep beds right there. Like what people talk about today building deep beds no till style. Tell us about your amazing CV that talks about all these things.
I went into business in 1982! Why did I go into business? Well, for a number of different reasons.
I worked for the US. Forest Service in Colorado and the University of Wi where I live now. But there was limited employment for 6 months. and I just wasn’t a public sector person, there was a lot of bureaucracy. Then when the recession of 1981-82 hit.
When you can’t find a job, what do you do? You create your own
I created a backyard garden retiring at age 68
old farmhouse
outside of greenery
ok if we use that land if we rent the house
can I buy your plants and move your nursery
why don’t you just come down and run it
where the hell is Westfield
bought a cheap old trailer.
2 neighbors building garden in their backyard.
We were the talk of the town
little did they know we had girlfriends
but we let them talk. It was a barebones existence because in 1982 native plants were still weeds. We couldn’t give it away! My friends said hey, plant
day lilies
iris
I was like this is the future! I’m not giving this up! The problem was the future hadn’t caught up. We kept at it.
I was like I went to college for this?
first color catalog
sales doubled
interesting journey
tough rows to hoe
ahead of the curb
things came
There’s very good reasons why native plants make sense. It’s the four Es I call them. esthetics
first trees and shrubs
flowers grasses and shrubs
use the environment
don’t need all these chemicals
don’t have to use all these pesticides fungicides or gasoline for growing lawns!
You have deep rooted plants that increase water infiltration into the ground. Instead of that running off you have amuch more closed loop system
also have strips if you do have areas where fertilizers are applied native grasses with deep roots you have fertilized water running into them it can filter out that chemicals
3 energy
use a lot less energy then a lawn
nice beautiful prairie
burn it every other year
not spending a lot of time and energy
4th e is economics
It can save you a lot of money on time and maintenance.
The 5th E is an emotional connection to the
planting prairie
psychologically
So Neil do you want to give us some tips if you want to go this. I find the biggest barrier is where to start, find information, like that day lillie and irises are not native plants.
The first thing to do if you are just getting started with native plants is to avail yourself of all this resources on the internet
Most states have a native plant societies you will meet people who are into native plants but if you don’t want to be involve
Illinois wildflowers also have trees and shrubs
Another called the prairie ecologist which is an individual who puts out phenomenal information on prairies
You can get your own wildflower book
nature preserves
learn the plants on your own way! I took a botany in college where you get the basics but the best is to spend the time out in nature where you see them in action. With pollinators and butterflies on them.
On our website there is tons of info. We have lots of woodland parts that are midwestern but people who live in different part of the country they have completely different plants from us
you wouldn’t want to use our stuff in AZ
cal
grow in the high mountains
so the rest
find what the best plants are start with the university
I was gonna say your website because you share tons of information.
www.prairienursery.com Do you want to talk about pollinators?
Of course, pollinators are extremely important!
33% of the food we eat as human beings require pollination so we have a vested interest in supporting habitat for pollinoators.
largest producer of cranberries
drain marshes
plant cranberries in them
good pollinator populations weeks of
strips of prairies that will be available
vested intersted
The whole food chain is dependent upon insects!
We have had a long standing relationships co-evolution
native flora and native fauna
interesting
most plants use chemical warfare to ward off insects that would eat their leaves. So pants have adapted to
distasteful
overcome toxins we use
classic example the monarch butterfly that eats the toxic weeds of the milkweed family relationships
native insects
native plants nonnative plants
Very rarely do you have the depths of the relationships of the other critters that utilize
It’s not there.
Nonnative plants do not supply food or sustenance
do not support
native plants are so important! relationship and native plants and between native plants and pollinators.
The best books you can read is called:
bringing nature home
entomologist
university of nature
close relationships between native plants and
really explaining why native plants is so important!
I always tell listeners always leave a 5star review for that book so everyone can read it and I just read from AJ that he planted a pollinator border and when I went to the Brooklyn Grange one of the best parts was the pollinator border. IT’s so pretty it goes around their farm and full of snap dragons, and zinnias and cosmos and tons of herbs and lavender etc!
You know it’s interesting the organic gardener can take this to the next level! Beyond
pollinators
pollination vegetables
you also have bio control mechanisms
supported by native plants
There’s a plant called the rattlesnake master
yuca-folium but it’s actually a carrot humble and this plant is pollinated primarily by wasps. A lot of people would say don’t plant, but theses are a very high percentage are parasitic wasps
what do they do? very small
relationships
There is a parasitic wasp that attacks just about every other: * insect * spider * tic * mite
creator that flies around in the air
parasitic wasp
rattle
I think the people are one of the few plants around here that grow outside our deer fence that I think attract a wasp.
But here’s what’s so cool, I had a customer who
tomato horn worms every year on his 1/4 pound
had rattlesnake master and it takes 3 years for the perennial seeds to mature and begin blooming. He called me and said I have no tomato horn worms what’s going on.
I said do you have rattlesnake master? Is it blooming? He said, yeah’ it’s doing great!
Well rattle snake master attacks the tomato horn worm from the inside out. It burrows in and eat it from the inside out and kill.
He say’s my prairie is my insecticide
maintaining the balance
That’s what they are doing with the rooftop garden For years people have known all about this but it’s a new concept for people that you can use non chemical.
Well lots of people ask about this on my show or in my Facebook group. I have had people talk about this, but not in such specific detail about attacking tomato hornworms, I do think people will say where do I get Rattlesnake master?
you don’t want to focus on one plant
core on our landscaping is biodiversity What we are trying to do is spread the diversity of our native plants diverse area of different flowers
grasses
shrubs
trees
you are now setting stage t make space to support all these different creatures that make life
native shrubs
more native grasses
more beneficial
you will have a wide away of critters nature that allows you to maintain a balance naturally
Everyone knows when you spray you are killing good guys and bad guys
I tell customers get rid of that stuff right away, take them to a disposable site. We know they kill the good guys!
Here’s the revolutionary part. in my native garden
if I don’t see holes in the leaves of my plants
fairlure
people only
our own benefit and enjoyment
biodiversity
restoration
creating habitat
creating sanctuary for all sorts of life
if I am not feeding the insects in the
complete failure as an ecological gardener. I want to see the holes
plants because I know then if I am feeding my neighborhood.
That’s interesting because last year I...
Tara Caton
Rodale Institute
Senior Lab Technician
Industrial Hemp Project Lead It all started when this listener said, every time I hear you say millennial I think of this video of this guy bashing millennials sitting around in their yoga pants and so I made my own video of the amazing millennials I interview who are so not ever lazy. I was going through some old Organic Gardening Magazines. A lot of my listeners are asking me how to get rid of pests organically and there were all these letters to the editors saying I’m not ever reading to you again because you are too political and they answered back and said we believe they are integrated and you can’t have one without the other.
I have always wanted to sell ad space for Rodale’s so I would see Organic Gardening Magazine in every store i went to as I traveled around.
It is Tuesday March 26, 2019. I am so stoked because not only is my guest a rock star millennial but she is the Senior Lab Technician at the Rodale Institute on the Industrial Hemp Project . So welcome Tara Caton!
Over the course of a four-year trial, we are exploring hemp’s powerful potential to heal soil and support farmers.
Hemp, marijuana’s non-psychotropic cousin, was grown in Pennsylvania for more than 260 years as a valuable cash crop.
Tell us a little about yourself.
Shownotes coming ASAP! to read what’s done already click here. The Organic Gardener Podcast is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com
If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
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The Good Seed Company
Now Let’s Get to the Root of Things!
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Get Your Copy of the Organic Oasis Guidebook or Blank Garden Journal on amazon today!
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You can download the first 30 days here while you’re waiting for it to come in the mail.
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I’m so excited! On Tuesday I talked to Tara at the Rodale Institute and she got me so excited about all the things going on in the Hemp World. I’m so excited to introduce Josh Mezher from A Pot For Pot.
If you want to read the Golden Seeds just click here.
Are you a Rockstar Millennial born between 1980 and 1995?
I was born in 1986
Awesome! I’m writing a book about the rockstar millennials I interview on my show!
Tell us a little about yourself.
Been in the cannabis industry for about a decade now. I moved from the UK to go to school at the USC Santa cruz.
I moved here at a great time where you could legally grow your own cannabis at home and walk down the street and take it to a medical dispensary.
I actually dropped out of school
hobbies
I always loved gardening and it’s an amazing plant to grow!
I love all of this! Tell me about your first gardening experience? Did you say you grew up in the UK?
My mom is actually a California and she is actually a fanatical gardener. As a young kid I was always trudging around vegetable patch.
digging up the garden
underrated species
I give full credit to my mom, for everything she taught me, I have applied that
- vegetables
- flowers
- more utilitarian based plants!
I love that answer! I am not sure I express enough on my show that what makes the rockstar millennials so amazing it’s because of their awesome parents! Of course my husband is a parent to 2 rockstar millennials!
How did you learn how to garden organically or do you want to talk about what’s going on?
i didn’t start
hydroponic side of it
focus on the product
It’ funny the evolution of cannabis cultivation is really going
traditionally this plant has been grown in small spaces inside houses.
A lot of people are not aware of, is how much cannabis does the U.S. produce? and who produces it?
now they get marketed PR
impressions
there are these huge cannabis
predominately
11k tons grown annual
low end estimate
largest cannabis farms
barely hitting
one to five tons in production
hundreds of thousands of people who are growing this in their garden
larger scale
smaller scale
plant that is spread throughout the country and doesn’t get a whole lot of recognition
Out of the house and out of the cupboard!
This plant has so much to offer. I can’t believe I see adds for Hemp Levis and Hemp Overalls. I can not believe the growth in this industry in just a year, stuff that wasn’t there a year ago.
its cool
look at the cannabis plant
-
indica
-
sativa
-
rooterallis
-
auto flowering
original plant
archeology
humans
domestified
started agriculture
really good reason
forget about the drug side
mind altering affect
put that to the side
have a plant that almost naturally grows rope.
branch
twist
you could throw
secondly it gives seeds that are so nutritional
hemp and cannabis and how healthy it is for humans to consume
other aspect
mind altering
My husband is pointing to all this research that humans are not getting a lot of our nutritional value because we used to get a lot of it from animals that we eat but they are not getting it in their grain so it is not passing on to humans. … People always tell me that hemp protein is good for me, and I can’t afford to buy it and why can’t my husband grow it for me?
medical effect
often draw the parallel of Michael Pollan’s book
evolved us
cannabinoid system
designed to work in the home growers club
I don’t agree with a lot of laws around cannabis cultivation
In Nevada, you can’t grow cannabis at home if you are within 25 miles of a dispensary. Even in California you are not allowed recreational without a card.
I would like to see people grow their tomatoes, next to their cbd pot, thc pot growing next to it
I mean who grows the most tomatoes in the US?
IDK marijuana growers?
No home gardeners…
I would say that I think there has to be a certain amount of regulation because people are going to the emergency room for overdosing on al these edibles they don’t know what they are doing and I would also say it’s not the easiest plant to grow.
I would beg to differ ~ It’s called weed for a reason and it’s also called pot for a reason because it’s always been grown in a pot I have a whole blog on that
What we have tried to do is to create the right conditions
having great soil
plant in the right soil it should grow
it’s all in the soil!
Our goal is to make this really easy for people
our average customer can grow 3 oz in 80 days!
We want to demystify this plant that is really easy to grow, i mean don’t get me wrong but the only time it’s really hard to grow is when you start to scale up.
If you grow a couple of plants in your backyard.
We try to educate people on soil but also
on a particular variety of cannabis that doesn’t get anywhere near enough credit
which is auto-flowering which is the street name, called rootarellis.
If you look at the cannabis ~ indica and sativa and forget everything you have learned of the cannabis plant from a different perspective.
When does this plant flower? What most
commercial growers which is photoperiod
and it only flowers once a year in the fall
cannabis gardener
have to grow it in tents because you have to get the 12 hour darkness to generate hormones to say to start flowering
rooterellis
auto-flowering,
that strain evolved I actually make the argument that it is the original strain of cannabis that we created photo period
I’m alive
above the ground
right way before I die
flowers
80-100 days from seed
one of the cool things about rooterellis
high in bcd and it has tech
10% all day in rooterellis
Commercial growers don’t want to grow the plant predominately because you have to start from seed and you can’t clone it.
lose a little bit of crop consistency
square foot greenhouse
all these seeds
grow a couple of plants
grow 20 foot tall
If you want to grow a 3’-5’6’ foot plant
never exceeds 6 foot
typically 2-3 foot range, and you get an ounce a foot that it grows
I have customers in San Francisco who grow them on their windowsill for fun.
I am here in a state where if you have a medical marijuana card you can maybe grow 8 plants. I also feel like another problem is that people grow it indoors and I would like to see what you do is that people are growing it organically in their gardens and not with a bunch of chemicals indoors.
takes the heavy metals out of the soil
When I talked to Tara about their hemp trial and how good their soy beans which grew after the hemp was incredible!
Before we get to the root of things let’s take a minute to thank our sponsors
Getting to the root of things!
What is your least favorite activity to do in the garden?
trimming of the plant
harvest
30-25 cuts per gram of cannabis
just to get it t the flower
One of the most mundane parts of growing the plant is
And it’s all sticky and your fingers are sticky.
The only blessing.
fingers are st
within the industry one of the more challenging jobs. I can definitely say I have trimmed my fair share and it’s mundane!
On the flip side what’s your favorite activity to do in the garden?
I think my favorite activity is playing with the plants, Is kind of playing with the plants altering their growth pattern and training them a bit.
I’ve got one plant that’s a regular plant kept in a vegetative state for 365 days
I’ve trained it, it has this sort of twisted bonsai planting you can do a lot of pinching the stems ~ you can slow down one shoot so another one catches up, thinning it there
That’s the fun part of growing! Trim your plant as it grows, it’s very rewarding thing that takes quite a bit of time but is worth it in the long run!
What is the best gardening advice you have ever received?
Don’t overwater your plants! Definitely the biggest complaint we get.
Plants don’t need that much water, depending on the species
haha, my listeners are like this is the plant for Jackie! Because I struggle to water my plants the most!
A favorite tool that you like to use? If you had to move and could only take one tool with you what would it be?
My phone ~ It’s the star trek transponder
I’m still curious did you say you are doing a daily call with Amsterdam?
We haven’t even been selling the product for a full year yet This year is our growth year.
Last year was more like
- testing the product
- customer results
- data back
somewhere in the pacific
weed inventory
We’re giving away 1k units looking to, trying to get 10k product testers on board
We kow the product works but we’re looking for testers to grow one ton of cannabis. We work with
ilovegrowingmarijuana.com
strategic partners at this point
My week includes 12-14 hour days but I I love it
Been waiting for the opportunity so not complaining there
satisfaction
thrilled with the results
tag line for this year
help us grow one ton of Tax Free Cannabis by being part of this 10,000 growing army we are sort of creating here.
How do my listeners find out about this?
The program is launching here in a couple of weeks.
Sign up for the email and you will know when the program launches.
1000 kits we give away
We’re trying to target it to
- veterans
- people in need
- opioid addicts
every hundred kits we sell we can afford to give one away
We’re in start-up mode. We’re a scrappy little bootstrapping company here!
Go to the website an sign up for our newsletter.! Just after April 20, 4/20/19 which is a good time to get growing.
Tell listeners about the kit because I’ve been to your website!
Releasing two versions of the Pot 4 a Pot kit.
so, what we want to do is empower people to grow their own
affordable
simply
The soil is the key ingredient it’s a blend 18 in gradients
Kit comes with:
fabric pot
great for growing cannabis in
carbon dioxide
saucer
seedling kit
scissors
watering can
neem
diatomaceous
new version comes with a smart phone camera lens
sticker
grow guide
coupon can go to
discount on your seeds
can’t com
as far as I am concerned we ship everywhere
there’s no THC in our product.
Provide you are willing to grow
We have sent them all over the world at this point to some surprising countries.
He’s in the Netherlands, ILoveGrowingMarijuana is able to send seeds anywhere they want to.
And then on top of that my mom and her friends are buying all this cbd oil to reduce their brown spots. I’m like seriously, you have no idea how much they laughed at me back in the 90’s. I’m glad. But it drives me crazy how many people mocked me for saying it could help us!
the blessing of the cannabis plant
Thursday, March 28, 2019!
It is a pleasure to be here!
Thanks for dealing with my tech problems gla we were able to connect!
Back in the spring of 2009, my wife asked me to plant a small garden so she could can some salsa for the winter.
Laid off- started farming with a tractor on 2 acres (terribly!), got into chickens, laying hens, pigs, and even a few cows.
And after a radical diet and lifestyle change that followed our Daughter health crisis we started to consume large amounts of Vegetables, a lot less meat and in the fall of 2015 we made a leap of faith to sell our meat business, stop using a tractor, and farm using only one acre. Our farming friends thought we were insane, but we were pretty certain that focusing on just produce would allow us to master the lettuce crop in 2016. We had lettuce for sale every week that season! We were so thrilled to discover that we tripled our income on half the amount of land that year! Excited and inspired, we knew we were heading in the right direction. By focusing on creating better growing systems in our produce operation, changing our farm practices, we now have year round production, a near weed free farm (which makes me thrilled nearly every day) and being really aggressive and creative about our sales outlets for our area, we have been able to live a sustainable and enjoyable life, rarely working in the fields more that 8 hours, which was one of our top goals!
wife ashley – 5 kids
1981
Tell us a little about yourself.
My name is Ray Tyler with my wife Ashley of Rose Creek farms down here in Selma TN
Between Memphis and Nashville
Mississippi border
Kind of in the edge of that zone 7-zone 8
depends on what kind of year we are having
trying to grow as much food as we can on one acre Battling the pests that never seem to die and the endless weeds thanks to the humidity
raising 6 young at the same time! And having a blast!
Wow you must have had a new baby!
7 month old baby to 10 years old so there is never a dull moment!
How great is that? These kids being raised amongst others by a garden like this!
as they get older
we don’t make them work on the farm
We know a lot of children who were forced to work who hate it
all do the house chores dishes
farm
they only work if they want to and we pay them for it
It’s created a very healthy environment
They look at the farm as a very positive aspect of their life
fortunate
every year they want to make more money
do more things
so it’s a kind of tremendous joy
So we are homeschooling as well so they are always with us.
Now do you have animals too?
When we first started 10 years ago, we had this dream of farming full time. When we first got started, for the first few years the farm was absolute chaos!
We’re trying to
- start a business
- farming things in the south
- raising children
It’s a pretty tough market
east coast
west coast
local food
pretty tough gig!
theres not a lot of information on small scale farms in the south so we were really carving out this farm from not a lot of info we could find anyways.
We were on 2 acres * 2-3k chickens * 300 turkeys * 50-60 hogs * cows at one point * 2 acres of produce with the tractor
we were
starting
I’ll bet you learned a lot.
We learned a ton! so much!
we learned just a ton!
we got at this point at 2015
when a lot of people start farming or gardening, thinkingwe have this idea of we want to have time we wnat to go out work the land of our family
Get out of the rat race and the 9-5 grind and we wanted to farm to escape that
Fast forward a few years and I was finding I had less time for my family before I started farming then after
In 2015 we had this wakeup call, February 2015
greenhouses packed of transplants for production
big batch of broilers on order
My wife came home with my daughter and said are you ready for life to change?
I said don’t be silly we’re farmers, nothing new around here
Can I just back up, your baby daughter?
Some back story, we sent our daughter to a dentist, they saw something funky to gums and it came back positive for carcenoma, and she was 6 years old!
It was a big deal, and a tough time to put the farm on hold
spring
tough time to do that
best thing that ever happened to us believe it or not
organic farmers
worst eaters of all
on the road
deliveries
not spending as much time as you would like cooking your food
So our health was terrible!
gaining weight
ailments
so what it did basically we had to take a step way back and reevaluate everything we were doing and the children, we had 4 at the time
With all the chaos that comes with
all those animals
driving to market
and all that time we were taking her to the hospital
our daughter is cancer free just so you know, we thank God every day for her life!
at that season ~ we were like, what we want at the end of the day
you can have a farm and houses and land and cars what is important is that at the end of the day we are surrounded by the ones we love and they love us we stressed for the rest of our life would be based on time with our family and brought everything back through this lens that looked like
if this takes away time from our end goal
- healthy family
- home school them
- time
- trips
- experiences
If it takes away from any of that we have to reevaluate if that’s what were supposed to be doing at this time.
we questioned should we keep farming? This is a big deal if there were a few weeks of her to live.
There is nothing worse for a parent to be faced with the thought for losing a child and we are thankful we did’t have to do that. But we realized that life is precious, every moment is fleeting, you never know if tomorrow or today is our last day.
At the end of that season we basically got rid of our animals and changed our diet for her
- no pork
- vegetable based diet
- to help her recover from cancer
- less meat
- more produce
looking at raising the animals, if processing them was no longer bringing us joy so we imagined what life would be like for us without the livestock portion of our business
life would be good if we
- didn’t have to feed the pigs
- take care of all these turkeys
sold the livestock
We’d been growing on 2 acres
Had all the tractor equipment where I had no idea
sold all the equipment
went down to one acre
knew I had a big market for lettuce
developing on how to have it year round
never really had the time to give the proper attention to this crop
focus her in the south
lettuce needed to be planted
cultivated
time and attention that it needed
all the animals
one acre
Really focused on 10-15 crops
tripled our gross on the vegetable side of business on 1/2 the amount of land for probably
working
2016 commitment we were only going to work 8 hours a day
I wanted to be home for suppers, put them to bed, and to have that quality time in the evening.
How were able to do that? Did you hire help? Farmer only working 8 hours a day during the season? Maybe in Tennessee your in season all year?
In Tennessee, three’s this time in August its so hot, other then greens there’s not a whole lot going on, everything’s just done.
how we did that We already had some accounts that we had been working on for 5 years
we were very deliberate what we were going to grow
growing is the easy part
selling is the hard part
sales
records
what we knew we could sell
80 varieties of vegetables we cut out all that waste and we grew the probably 10-20 crops we knew we could sell at that time of year
Simplified everything! another thing we did we still o to this day at certain times of year
what killed us wheat
wheat acropolis down here in the
Invested in like $2000 of landscape fabric.
automated
10 hours of cultivation
for the season
landscape fabrics
- laid out the fabric
- plant
- set up automatic water
- next thing you do is harvest and sell
- eliminated hundreds of hours
Eliminated hundreds of hours on watering and and cultivation
changed everything!
Streamlined our whole process,there’s a lot more complicaterd but aht’s the basic thing
knowing we were only growing
I did spend $1500 various educational consulting for my business
I want to make this thing happen this year, I could figure this out but that investment in the education really helped combined with my experience
Can I just ask, did you take a class or invest in a mentor? REad books?
A number of things:
I did a series of phone conversations with Curtis Stone
He took a look at our farm, he didn’t really tell us what to do but asked us some questions of, have you considered this?
I already knew what to do, but having that sounding board really helped a lot
Then I did another series of consulting, be cause me and my wife farm together
farming with a partner
that was really the biggest thing
interseeding thing
At the end of 2015 I hired JM to come down to my farm, I ended up selling tickets for that event, because it is pretty expensive so I sold tickets for that event which sold out in a short amount of time
idea to give me some tips on my farm but since I spent so much time organizing this event, we became great friends, but I didn’t get the consulting I was planning. Doing workshops on a farm is a tremendous amount of work. So it was a mixture of all that
It wasn’t as much what we did as what we did not do. When you drop a pretty large animal business, it opens up a tremendous amount of time.
Having that other business took up a lot of brain wave, like where’s this going to be sold so I was able to put time towards my produce production.
And when you go from two acres to one acre it just makes things Very very simple
When you go from chaos to order it makes things very easy to metabolize
how all this was going to work
I had 5 years experience before . It was just taking out the fat and really leaning being deliberate about what you are going to grow and getting some other help looking at the whole system!
You have no idea how fascinating this is to us. My husband and I are drooling over this place in Maine that is 175 acres of woods with 13 acres of farmland, with 2 homes, we are in just 20 acres. It’s like less then 60 miles from Johnny’s selected seeds in Maine. It’s got a house that needs a ton of work, I feel like the house could be an awesome education center. I just can’t imagine what it would take. My husband grew up on 1200 acres and we’re just so boxed in here. I keep asking the realtor aren’t there any records, that’s what I feel like what we need to do, is to offer a farmer in the local area that cuold pay...
Permaculture Soil Science & Solutions KICKSTARTER campaign Matt Powers Rockstar Millennial, high school English and Social Studies Teacher, and Permacutlure Curriculum designer is here to share his amazing journey and passion to teach everyone he can reach about the power of permaculture. Working with some of the most scientific names in the field including Elaine Ingham, David Montgomery and the Geoff Lawton Matt is on a mission to change the way we look at soil in the 21st century.
Matt was my guest on episode 132 where he shared his amazing garden journey from professional bass player to high school educator to science curriculum creator!
This episode is a must listen for any master gardeners or even novices who want to learn about soil in a way that any high schooler can understand. With over 20 years of experience teaching and gardening Matt’s passion shines through as dad, husband and steward of our planet.
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
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Matt Powers is an experienced teacher, family guy, author, consultant, farmer, seed saver, plant breeder, musician, blogger, & permaculturist and creator of the permaculture student curriculum and online course.
Permaculture Student Online Curriculum The Permaculture Student Curriculum is focused on starting resilient small businesses and homesteads from scratch. Students of all ages and families learn through weekly collections of videos, worksheets, coloring pages, projects, activities, & critical thinking with teacher’s guides, recipes, plant focus, seed saving, & Q&A.
Mike found a great guest on Facebook yesterday, we are having a bit of a tech issue, but he is dropping lots of “golden seeds” about everything from gardening to promoting an online business, and running a positive Kickstarter campaign! Plus he’s a fellow educator!
Interesting that you guys found me yesterday!!!
Tell us a little about yourself. I’m a seed saver, a plant breeder, and an organic gardener, I’m also a teacher. I was an English teacher at high school for many years, a tenured teacher at a local district 15 minutes from my house. I live with my in-laws and my father -in -law’s parents on family land, 4 generations. My wife and I live here with our 2 sons. We have about 2-3 acres of garden area I’m heading towards becoming a farmer, a subsistence farmer.
I’m a teacher, before that I was a musician. I played with SNL house drummer, Shaun Pelton, their house drummer for 20 years now… but this was back in the day when I was a young man… I was just a traveling musician. It was my dream to do all that.
What kind of instrument? I was a bass player. I played with Rachel Ray’s husband, John Kusimano for 7 years. I did lots of other things, my music is still on the Major league baseball channel everyday, I still get checks in the mail, it’s like pocket change…
It was a thing for young people to do. It was great and I loved it, but then I had a family! And I was like I can’t tour for 2 months, I got to be a dad!
That was like a generational moment for me. What happened was, I basically quit that band when I was in NYC and my wife got cancer the first time, and then when she got cancer for the second time we knew we needed to change a lot more because what the doctors were telling us wasn’t accurate, they were just reading from a list.
From there we went out west to recover from cancer, I didn’t know what else to do so I was still doing music, but I was trying to figure out someway to be more present to take care of my wife.
She wanted me to do substitute teaching, I hated school. I just hated school, I loved certain teachers and I loved certain classes.
But the framework, of compulsory education where I’m being held against my will for 8 hours a day for the purposes of tax dollars for funding that school district mostly the salary of administrators.
I didn’t agree with that. I don’t want to go…
I just felt obligated, but as soon as I did, I fell in love with the kids, but I feel like we weren’t educating them.
I had this crazy education that my dad gave me, they’re amazing, ones a University Professor, one’s a financial advisor for people with incredible amounts of money they’re just unbelievable people. They were both were stellar athletes so they had coaches. I got a lot of that bleed over and that education stuff.
- I applied all that to my music.
- I applied all that to my business.
I want to pass that on to kids. And I show up as a substitute in Fresno, and I freak out, because those kids are cheated and robbed of their education, meanwhile the school district is getting the same amount of money as a good district right
IDK what kind of education I had till that point, I went to NYU, I was an english major there. I couldn’t believe it. I started subbing everywhere, I wouldn’t turn down any job…I went to the areas people said were dangerous. I had a great time, especially in the places people said were dangerous, because that’s where they need you the most.
I would literally go in with my guitar and play music
I was at this radical school where we were teaching with laptops and had no curriculum and the kids had laptops, so I was writing my own curriculum. Using my NYU curriculum with sophomores in one of the lowest performing districts, and I just kept doing things to prove these kids were amazing. And the scores started jumping higher and higher!
I didn’t do like homework.
I was having issues with answers that weren’t politically socially charged. If you’re a teacher in high school, their adults, their young adults. They have adult questions and they have pertinent questions, and they are hard to answer without the people in the room, wanting to create things out of it so I learned to talk in this spectrum.
They believe this and they believe that. And I became this very pc person, it was like I became a picture frame… And the kids were like
Well, which is true Mr. Powers?
Well, that borders on opinion…
Until Permaculture, I didn’t know how to prove that my food was better, then non-organic food was better, that nutritional quality was higher… I didn’t know how to prove it…
Wanting answers and I didn’t have answers like, how to pay for college all these sorts of things. I didn’t have the answers, or a method for them to scurry around what is going on, narrow restriction of most kids… we’re still that good
I discovered permaculture, world hunger is not an issue and we can fix this at the source! Well we can prove that GMO’s are genetically solution not based upon science … on top of permaculture and the way things work.
We can repair the decertified landscapes, the degraded landscapes… Permaculture’s already done it. I was able to find videos … I played them in class… We have kids in the classroom that burned down that year… and they’re watching videos of places that burned and get turned into a paradise in a course of 7 years. It’s also the size of the central valley which is decertified itself and which is the bread basket of america which were’s assaulting.
Tulare Lake, once the largest body of fresh water, drained it from growing cotton… all the aquifers are…
I don’t know if we told listeners where you are. So I am imagining you are in California where the wildfires burned down houses last summer.
Oh yeah! The ones you saw on tv last summer those are 15 min from my house. The ones that were 150,000 acres last summer.
We went up to Sonoma county to get away from, because our kids were breathing it constantly and you could;n’t get fresh air.
People had squash, that didn’t produce fruit that year because the squash flowers smelled the smoke so they went dormant and just shut down. Lots of plants did that last year. All my big tomatoes last year didn’t do well, for a few reasons. The overhead water is only good for small tomatoes and perennial nitrates. But I left for 3 months, put sprinklers on and walked away but came back to
- 300 pounds of squash
- Gallons of amaranth seed
- and gallons of aztec spinach seed
got to pick your polyculture carefully.
My wife got cancer, my kids really needed me, my wife has no thyroid, they removed it surgically, gave her melanoma, later, upper leg her hip and she’s a Mormon doesn’t sunbathe.
So I started doing research and using all the education, the coaching….I turned all that on I had been listening passively. . . Little Powers as I was called as a child, because I was no longer a musician … Working on my wife’s health and children’s health …
My kids have a much higher chance of having cancer because my wife’s had cancer 3 times
Continuing cycling of ecosystems both
- Economically
- socially
- biologically
hasn’t really changed everything but I am able to communicate to my brothers … much more with greater depth and clarity, because I understand their systems better … pattern of literacy I got form Permaculture, I have an ecosystem language, which is the economy of everything … Even sociology… One of my brother is a social science professor at U Iowa. My mom was a politician in Connecticut. So I have all these people in my life who are doing all these thing.
I was just a musician and a substitute teacher, it just exploded.
I took Geoff Lawton’s online course, I said Geoff, I’m a school teacher and I don’t see anything for kids. I write curriculum everyday, I think I can do this. But I need someones an authority to peer review it. He’s the leading permaculture teacher in the entire world. With is initial encouragement, turned into his family helping and this entire community over 500 people peer reviewed and edited the book! The first volume.
Right now the Kickstarter …
First high school permaculture text book ever High school kids are plugged in and they’re racing they have no contacts, they are like Idk what I want to do. . . they have no framework … they have no way to guide them .. . they have no way to take an apple and another apple and say which is better
…
this book and this series gives the tools for regenerative living in a modern world, in a city, in the past 10 years, that radically updates Bill Mulligans’ original permaculture manual
For organic gardeners this is where you switch from a bicycle to a car. Literally I was gardening, it was like I had my 10 speed, it was awesome, i had my mountain bike!
I got a car! It’s called permaculture! I have fruit trees with legumes that are edible between them, so they are fixing nitrogen nodules with the soil, … bacteria forms a symbiotic relationship with a tree. Can happen with poppies or clovers, but with trees!
Black locust, Siberian pea shrub, between two fruit trees and it will feed them nitrogen!
Just that alone! I was like What?
I knew about cover crops
you chop the beans down
But I didn’t know about the root nodules! didn’t know about the trees! I’m gonna set up a system that’s protected by perennials, that uses the mulch from the perennials, because then I don’t bring in mulch… It’s like oh yeah!
You made compost that’s great! Do you want to multiply it by 1000 with your efficacy
You know what I mean?
No?
r. Elaine Ingham is making rye grass grow 11 -12 feet deep in ph soils in Nevada. She’s doing incredible things with just compost tea!
Open this door and gusts of air crushes in!
Curtis Stone is doing spin farming! He’s putting back in, he’s keeping, he’s using people’s front and back yards in the middle of Canada in the middle of the city …
The Urban Farmer: Growing Food for Profit on Leased and Borrowed Land Making $70,000 on part of an acre and on a full acre he’s making over $100,000!
Realm of possible is!
Jean Martin Fortier in Quebec, he’s doing $140,000 on an acre and a half in the middle of the city where it’s snowing there a a lot of the year.
Her’s the Market Gardener Guy
Curtis Stone is the Urban Farmer
Friends Peer reviews
I read their books!
translate it into … Governors James Joyce, taking excerpts form college … bringing it down to sophomore, they can do it but its all about engagement and motivation. It’s all about understanding how these things connect … if a child doesn’t have any context.
I was gonna say since it’s written for high school students, that listeners might be interested cease it will broken down into an easy understand absorb, easy to follow basic steps.
On the weekend, my first choice to read is usually YA novels, IDK why exactly. I never heard of permaculture until I started this podcast and Mike found your video because Kelly had shared the post and that’s where Mike found it in his Facebook feed.
I was telling Matt in the pre-chat… you’re response about your Kickstarter campaign was that he would have read it…
volume 1
I didn’t give you the backstory. I had a permaculturist in San Diego ask me to turn all 13 hours of my course, into deaf ready format. He wanted the curriculum wanted closed captioning just starting I should have it written it out, I put it up. So they’re gonna read it because they read it they’re gonna click on it, so I’m saying it as it’s being read
there’s no gap as
really works well as a way to reach people…. so if you’re
I run an entrepreneurs group. Permaculture Entrepreneurs Facebook group
I’m just trying to launch my Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook group. They might be interested in yours or differently.
Let me give you the definition:
Permaculture is a design science based upon the patterns of nature that benefit people and the earth. Regenerative pattern based literacy. Permaculture is the holistic concept.
Instead of learning about history as just what happened, you would learn history what happened, why it happened, who it effected, and what you felt was right, what they felt was right… How it affected things social, economically. You would look at it holistically…
Critical thinking is part of my permaculture course, it doesn’t go into the hypothetical … It’s action based so it’s always solution based… Schools are a place that a place that are safe…
Handbook for living on earth regeneratively. Have you told everyone, tell people why they want to support your KickKickstarterstarter campaign. What is your Kickstarter campaign.
My Kickstarter campaign is for the first high school permaculture textbook, its a handbook for living on earth regeneratively. It can be used for business, see it’s a holistic manual for living !.
Illustrated by Wayne Fleming
My first book check out at permaculturestudent.com * my first book * free video * samples for my course * there’s...
Terra BIRDS educates and empowers youth through gardening to help prepare them as the stewards of a sustainable future for humanity. Regan Emmons is here to share her story of teaching elementary and high school students how to garden as well as about her seedling CSA model!
Tell us a little about yourself. My first podcast! So very exciting!
I live in Flagstaff, AZ, I have really awesome job very fortunate to work with elementary school students, high school students and I run a 100 member seedling CSA farm, that runs about Jan through the end 0f May. The rest of the year I’m doing a lot of planning and educating and so forth.
Tell me about your first gardening experience? I am from Tennessee. One of my formative experiences of being in a garden, working in a garden, I was in high school and I was living with my mother. We had to move into s small apartment on the ground floor. And my mother being the tenacious woman she is, talked the landlord into tilling up the little space in the back of our apartment. She grew mostly tomatoes and peppers and if she grew other things I don’t remember, but the tomatoes were amazing and I just remember’d them for so long. They were big and juicy and ripe and a revelation! I just remember my friends would come over in summer and we would make these tomato sandwiches. I remember leaning over the sink was this beautiful memory that I have
that my mother grew in this tiny space
wasn’t mind blowing
I thought everyone did that and
later
amazing how productive wasn’t even, wasn’t even 10 square feet. And I didn’t really help her very much, I was one of those teenagers who didn’t really care about helping my mother.
I didn’t help my mom either, she’s still wondering how I ended up with a gardening podcast I’m sure. My husband wonders that too, but I definitely help him more then my mom.
What does organic gardening/earth friendly mean to you? I believe in my realm it really means growing without adding a lot of things, pesticides and chemicals and really trying to work on soil amendments and soil health and to let that dictate the health of the plants. I feel like it really has to come with the soil and I’ve learned that through my work with the garden starts.
using fertilizers sparingly, and the fertilizers you do use need to be well sourced from natural sources, I really really dislike synthetic sources. I really don’t like to use them at all. To me, organic gardening is not using additives and working with the space that you have, definitely have some permaculture training, it’s all part of that gardening sensibility.
Who or what inspired you to start using organic techniques? Back when I was living in Hawaii, and I met my husband there. I was working in Hawaii, on the island of Maui. I met my husband there and we were getting to know each other. He came from a place and a family where they really cared about what they put into their body. I grew up caring about what I put in my body, but not really thinking about the food and what was in the food that I was eating. I didn’t really think about additives in my meat, and things like that. And it really stemmed from that, learning about food system and our industrial food system, and that was a challenging place to eat anymore. If we weren’t trying to grow our own food or trying to eat more locally, it was really detrimental.
How did you learn how to garden organically? I read a lot, I’m still learning, I consider myself a novice gardener and novice grower. But in my career, I have had a lot of jobs where I grew things. In Hawaii I grew a lot of native plants at my job at the park service. As a community gardener here in Flagstaff, working with other people in the garden a lot! Great mentors along the way. Worked one on one with business management end of things, helping with the watering, from my mentors who offered a lot, in my current job, picked up a lot from my coworkers.
I’m curious to learn about your job at the park service because work is always the best way to meet your spouse and then also the Park Service has my favorite commercial out, if you can have a favorite commercial.
I am, I always had an interest in plants, had been working in Tennessee, working on invasive plant issues, my boyfriend at the time, I went sort of following him he went to Hawaii first, I really needed a change and needed to get out of dodge. I had a family connection, my mother grew up in Oahu, I always wanted to visit, and never thought I’d actually live there, but it just worked out. I applied for a job before I got there, met the guy who would be my future boss, and we got along really well, I went out into the field with him on volunteer basis and did a couple of volunteer trips with the group I ended up working with for 7 years.
I was really lucky, and lucky was able to get a job. I also had some undergrad experience with propagation, working on an American Chestnut trees and I had a lot of really good references and I really wanted that job and worked really hard to get that job and tried really hard and got it!
That’s interesting because my guest right before you Anna Peach is from Hawaii and also I found you because Bill McDorman talked about your seedling CSA so I wanted to hear about that too but I also want to hear about the schools so which every you want to talk about first!
2016 will be the 5th year that I managed it. This is kind of an opportunity that fell into my hands. This Garden Starts CSA Started by a business here called Flagstaff Native Plant seed.
They really had a heart for the program and wanted it to continue but didn’t want to do the work, it’s a lot of work, and with all they were doing it was just too much for them. So they approached a non-profit called Flagstaff Food-Link, and I was on the board and still am of Flagstaff Food- Link. So they approached us because they needed a non-profit partner so with this business, they worked together to see how it would work out and if it would work?
That year I was not involved with the CSA, I was just involved with Food Link, but after the first year, the grower didn’t want to continue growing. So they approached me, would you like to run with this? And I said sure this sounds amazing! Food Link really wanted to bring in the community more and have them help with the sowing, and a lot more help with operations
CSA also community
members and volunteers from community at large where able to participate in it. Before that nobody had brought volunteers into this arena.
They had a grower who was in charge of the green house, I was in charge of finding volunteers. The CSA had always had 60 members so I was charged with the task of getting 100 members!
That sounds like a lot!
first year was a lot of fun, learned a lot,
grower at the time, I’m still really good friends with! We made a lot of mistakes, but we also made a lot of decisions so that was a success that year. I’ve been doing it ever since 2012! We’ve changed growers around, but I’ve been still involved, it’s one of the most amazing experiences I’ve ever had! We have volunteers who still come back, and often members as well! We involved students form Northern AZ university, and students from terra birds.
high school students
give seeds for direct sewing as part of the CSA share. I get to meet all kind of people and it’s just been really fun! A person I went to grad school with owns a compost company, so we use some of their soil for some of our seedling mix! He was also the same person went to go look at land that is for sale in Flagstaff that was preciously farmed for years, we actually did have an agricultural economy here in Flagstaff that was mostly beans and potatoes. He went to look at this land, spoke to widow of the Walter Brandeis. Walter grew pinto beans, and she said I have this really old bag of pinto beans and it turned out to be this 50 lb. bag of pinto beans, he started getting them out in the community.
I was excited because I wanted someone to grow a fresh batch of them I could distribute them to the CSA. So Patrick got the word out, asked the community if any one can grow out some seeds, I will pay market price for them. I want to give fresh seed, I didn’t know how old the seeds were but we wanted to give members fresh seed. Sure enough I had a backyard grower grow out the beans, and he gave me about 5lbs which is more then enough to give our members for 2016. So we are going to be able to grow beans that have been grown here for decades!
It’s really excited side projects have come out of this
really fulfilling and exciting
program itself now operates through terra birds
So how does it work? What do you grow?
A Seedling CSA The growing season in Flagstaff is incredibly short! We are sitting at 7000 feet, not like the rest of Arizona, in some places the growing season is 60 days, in some neighborhoods. It’s very diverse in some micro-climates, the mountains here in Flagstaff really changes and in season temps.
if they are really interested in growing and having food gardens, and vegetables, they need to get their starts from somewhere. A lot of people grow their own in side but a lot of people don’t have the space etc. Like in my house I can’t start don’t have enough south facing exposure, and I don’t want to buy a light machine. So the options were before the CSA you would go to the nursery and buy vegetable seedlings
They weren’t grown here so to
nothing agains CALI but it’s not Flagstaff not always appropriate for Flagstaff, not grown here at this elevations,
To get a plant a cold hardy variety, that might be drought tolerant and all these other things are going to be a lot more successful in your garden,
thorough native plants seeds
Kim Costion, has been doing it even longer, and we’re all friends here and we all get ideas from each other. We start registering members in January, we start growing thousands of seedlings. A share consists of about 120 plants, we do everything from kale to tomatillos seedlings! We did tomatillos for the first time this year!
We distribute at the end of April, which is early for here, and then our last distribution day right before Memorial day weekend, which is actually a little early for some things, but people can coddle their seedlings if they want to for a little bit, they don’t have to plant it that weekend.
We will distribute the cold hardy stuff at the end of April, warm season things like tomatoes at the last pickup
Last frost day is June 10th
pretty late
We like to say it gives Flagstaff gardens a jump start!
If you we’re to plant a tomato seeds on June 10th you’re probably not gonna get tomatoes, by the time they start to get ready to produce it’s gonna be getting cold already. So it’s pretty much a necessity here in Flagstaff, you gotta get the starts from somewhere.
You could if you don’t want to how much is a share?
offering
It changes every year but it’s about $100 a share.
Wow that’s a great deal!
So about 3 years ago I wanted to be able to offer scholarships, so I said how can we do this? Because we did not have any extra money, it was basically a break even deal. We were talking to other people to see how it would work, so we asked people to donate to the scholarship fund when they signed up.
based upon availability of farm use
every year we have been able to offer more scholarships, every year we have enough member donating, we were able to offer 8, and it doesn’t come out of our income which is really good because we are breaking even.
It’s a really good deal, you could not get that good of a deal at the nursery.
That’s what I was thinking you would never get that deal anywhere, they’re usually like $2-3 a plant except at the end of the year when it’s too late to plant. That’s less then a $1 a plant!
There is a cost of uncertainty, there could be a die off of something. Some times you might only get one of a certain kind, instead of 3 or you might not get any.
I’ve had a few guests say CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture nobodies’ really mentioned that it means your taking part in the risk, but also a theme is that there’s always something that doesn’t go right the way you wanted but there’s always things that work well.
And then just some things just don’t do as well. this past year I tried this cress, this mustard cress I thought it looked fun! It didn’t grow, nobody liked it, I didn’t even ask about it on our member survey, I was like oh, and I got so many emails about it, it was a grand experiment for better or worse.
do you want to say something about that because if you are getting emails at least you are getting feedback and people are reaching out to you!
We do everything by email. I will send out an email, to tell people how to grow all of our starts, some people find out about our program and maybe they just moved here. It seems like everywhere else its easier to grow stuff then Flagstaff? or they never grew before, and they want to know how to transplant a seedlings into their garden. I’m sure many members don’t read, but we try to always work at the basic level, because one of the ideas is to get people gardening so we want to offer people as much opportunity for success as possible.
this is what plants your going to picking up, and this is how to grow them and how to transplant them etc.
We always do a member survey in August/September, at the end of the year. It’s always interesting to read. But my members are always writing me to say things like my broccoli hasn’t done a thing what is wrong? They write me, usually really positive they’re loving the program! Some of it’s good feedback, like my mustard cress is not doing anything what’s wrong? And it’s like It’s ok nobody’s is!
Terra BIRDS I feel a little funny talking because I am the newest employee
everybody
slowly 2010, became a non-profit in 2013
John Taylor the founder and director of Terra BIRDS, saw a need in the schools and just all this work that could and should be done around the schools. It’s a really sustainable idea, anymore schools are so strapped for funds. So to take all the 4th kids to a museum could cost several hundred dollars. And those are great experiences and they will always be happening and should be happening but we can also take these great programs to the schools! That’s where this whole idea came out of, John saw all this work needs to be done on the schoolgrounds!
all these learning experiences
Basically we will go, we work with the teachers and school administrators and we work with a class to build and design a food garden, for example!
We will work them maybe an hour a week per class for a whole academic year, well maybe not a whole year from Sept – Nov and then pick up again in March until the end of the school year. Because it’s still cold outside. We grow food gardens with them.
There’s been a huge push in the world around pollinator gardens to support monarch butterflies and other pollinator species that have been in decline. We’ve been working with the local arboretum here to build pollinator gardens.
Do you want to explain to listeners what a pollinator garden is?
It will have native plants to the area known as pollinator species that provide nectar to pollinators, monarchs, bees, all of those pollinators. Because pollinators have been in decline, it’s all the more important and it’s a great way to teach students about pollination species and pollination period. It’s a great learning tool and there’s also a lot of funding for it now, so that always kind of helps!
The other thing we do, which I’m still learning how to do this, is to work with local hydrology and if there are erosion problems on the school grounds which there usually are! So TerraBIRDS works using a lot of permaculture techniques like building water basins and building swales.
And the idea is to make these landscapes more beautiful, more functional and low maintenance. Again schools are strapped and so they don’t have money to spend on great landscaping and to maintain great landscaping! So we work with the kids and we build swales and all these things, and they get to learn what a water shed really means and how their school fits into a broader water shed. And what water flow across their school really means and looks like and when that’s not managed well what can happen.
So there’s just a lot of different angles that we can approach these experiences with, so it kind of depends on what is already there. Cause it’s not just about growing food, but growing whatever, and just working with the land that is already there and taking advantage of all those opportunities and turning them into teachable moments.
So how many schools do you go to is it just one?
We have ten schools that are part of the district a couple of charter schools, Montessori schools, lots of elementary schools. So we work in all ten of the Flagstaff elementary schools. We’re working towards working in the other charter schools. We are focused on 3-5th grade – upper elementary. The educational standards curriculum with 4th grade makes sense with what we do, we work with all grades, but fourth is the focus.
My big question has been, gardens are big need a lot of work in the summer and school isn’t in session then? Can you tell us a little bit about dealing with that summer when kids are there?
Yep, and that’s always the questions and concern….
Brian Moody shares his passion for organic food gardening and AERO Montana in this must listen interview. A rockstar millennial to boot, he worked at Terra Birds in Arizona where Reagon Emmons worked as well. Listen to my interview with her here as well.
Tell us a little about yourself. East of Yellowstone in Wyoming
avid gardeners
looking back on it is pretty impressive now all throughout the rocky mountain
early and late frosts lots of other challenges
I remember growing up and eating fresh carrots and peas from the garden, big influence on me.
We moved around quite a bit
moving back to Montana and then
Flagstaff, Arizona ~ down there, I gained a whole other perspective on farming
indigenous folks down there and hopi people. Learning about how they farm and gardenI I never had my own farm or garden business
How do we connect with you? you can connect though my work email
bmoody@aeromt.org
a lot of what
missions
gardening comes into that
been around since 1974
comes out of the early years of AERO
original founders
alternatives of how to generate electricity
wind turbines
educate folks about alternative
in the 80s added the sustainable agriculture side
changes and shifts
AERO’s newest focus alternative energy and agriculture come together
strong community food systems production distribution
dealing with food waste
local scale
so much of our energy use comes from producing and shipping food
strong local food systems
deal with energy use as well
AERO is focused on doing workshops and meetings and communities
where their food comes from
all of the above
- when you make food peelings
- stuff that doesn’t get put in
- food leftover in meals
- school cafeterias and hospitals
- anything we don’t eat
- doesn’t get sold in grocery stores
directly from farmers
damaged
past its expiration date
food waste comes out of commodity food system doesn’t make it to market * never makes it to the market * food that goest to waste
The food system is so complex – food sates conversation gets pretty complicated
personal use
businesses
lots of different ways
feeding it to livestock
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I’m so excited! It’s Monday March
My guest has been here before but he’s started his own podcast the No-Till Market Gardener Podcast and from Kentucky he’s here to tell us about their
garden journey and a rockstar millennial right? There’s Jesse Frost to tell us about his podcast and farmstead!
Tell us a little about yourself.
I am one half of the farm team, my wife Hannah Crabtree is the other half, arguably the better half.
We’re in Central Kentucky
about 25 min
hour from Louisville
nw of lexington.
Kind of in the middle of the state it’s a pretty hopping spot as far
as Kentucky goes.
We have 3/4 of an acre
mixed vegetables
Our 4 year old has 10 chickens!
Mostly we have vegetables.
Our entire farm is 100% no tillage
I’m happy to talk about that
The podcast is geared towards that
No-Till Market Gardener Podcast
growers like ourselves who are small production but trying to make a living off our vegetables.
farm ecologically
eliminate
tillage
various people
all over the country
all over the world
And talk about their methods and it seems that everyone does it a bit differently.
Growing for Market Magazine
market gardening stuff
Andrew said
publishing articles
since way back
cutting edge trend setter
Rest of show notes coming ASAP!
Make sure you listen to the No-Till Market Gardener Podcast and give it a great review on iTunes!
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I thought I should replay this episode from last winter because the applications for School Gardens opens in 2 weeks on September 1st and I thought educators and people who want to help get a garden in their school would be interested. Applications are due by October 15th.
I’m just thrilled to be back behind the mic it’s January 7th. I have a great guest that was recommended by Lem Tingley from Growing Spaces in episode 256 and here from the Whole Kids Foundation is Nona Evans!
Whole Kids Foundation Facebook Page
It’s always so much fun to see how seeds that you sprinkled about germinate. It’s so fun to know how we connected!
Thank you so much! I reached out to you and you said you checked out the podcast and thought it’d be a perfect fit. Tell listeners about the Whole Kids Foundation because I had never heard of it!
We are on the order of things, a pretty moderate size non-profit organization. We are Whole Kids Foundation and our mission to improve kids nutrition because we know when kids are well nourished they learn better have the opportunity to reach their full potential.
we found 3 ways we are capable of reaching children.
-
salad bar equipment for schools Because the moment you put a salad bar in kids have the power of choice and kids get to choose the vegetables they want.
-
support school gardens which is how I connected with you.
we have the honor and pleasure with supporting
5,000 school gardens in
USA, UK and canada
we know when kids are connected to the roots of their food they make better school choices.
it’s not just kids
The secret is: It’s not just kids it’s us adults too
when we start understanding what the magic we all make good choices.
Personally I’m a foodie
I’ve worked in the food business my whole life but I didn’t meet vegetables until I was well into my 20s. Kids need to know food needs to come.
Are you a rockstar millennial? Born between 80-95.
I was not
I’m much older then that. I spent
- 15 years working in conventional grocery stores
- last 19 years at Whole Foods Markets
- closer to retirement if anything
You sure sound young! Is it related to Whole Foods or is it separate?
I worked at Whole Foods Markets
Back in 2011, the companyWhole Foods Markets start a new foundation which is something they do. So we were founded by Whole Foods Markets.
We are independent organization we are not connected now.
Their ongoing gift to us which is amazing they provide the funs for the admin budget!
every dollar we raise goes to schools and programming
So it’s a wonderful thing they have done. We have work in every market, where there is a Whole Foods Markets
100s of other stores.
So I have a question? What is salad bar equipment? Is that like knives and forks? or the salad bar itself? The fruit and salad bar was a huge hit at the schools I was at.
You bet!
we have learned over the 10 yeas we’ve been supporting salad bars there is
one particular model that works really really well in * high school * elementary schools * middle schools
Is a plastic model
- really durable
- chill pads to keep food cold and safe
- super flexible
Generally you find the salad bar in the cafeteria which later becomes the gym and the theater
So they fold up and roll out of the way when we need to.
We provide the equipment * unit * knives for cutting up fresh vegetables * tongs * training
Probably more important than anything we provide is the training if anyone is interested
lunchbox.org
It’s a website that has an amazing array of free tools that any school can use to improve their school lunch program! I come from the grocery store and I always tell people if you can imagine I work in the
- supplement area
- bath and body products
If I had to leave the prepared foods department tomorrow and all the delicious scrumptious food and learn what to do to start.
A school that has never cooked and prepped any food
That’s done with the cooks right? Not the students.
generally work with school service
same cafeteria staff that serves school lunch today can supply and support and serve the salad bar
There are an amazing number of schools that are using another tool kit
to grow food at their school afters school and then use it in the cafeteria!
favorite projects to talk about is to
farmlab Encinitas Union School District It’s the largest organic school farm in the nation
They are on about 9 acres, growing crops growing food in their High school kitchen! And then turned into recipes for their High School Food program!
It’s just thrilling!
Tell me about your first gardening experience? I think that’s a great question! You know I’m certain that I had some early garden experiences but the one that was really important to where I am now is I married a lovely fellow who’s family were German farmers. He always tells the story of how in middle school he bought the copy of the
All New Square Foot Gardening II: The Revolutionary Way to Grow More in Less Space and he put a paper bag cover on it so no one would figure out he was reading it about gardening. He inspired me one of our favorite activities was the day after election day we would go pick up all of the election signs on their wooden stakes and use those for our tomatoes. We were crafty back then!
That is crafty and I’ll be they were glad they didn’t have to pick them up themselves that you were recycling for them.
How did you learn how to garden organically? I think because I’ve always loved food, the nature of organics was always second nature so in my garden, I never wanted to use pesticides but there’s so much more to organic gardening
time and travel Because I travel extensively,
- I get to see other people’s practices
- tuning into this podcast!
- then just trial and error have taught me most of what I know well
mother nature that can work Two of my favorites because we get to garden at whole kids with people all over the country and sometimes we bring them to Texas!
I didn’t realize that not everywhere has fire ants! Now any time we do a volunteer project I’m always sure to tell people watch for fire ants! They are really challenging!
I didn’t know that cayenne pepper can relocate them very effectively! So I always keep a big carafe of cayenne pepper in my garden.
I battled snails for a long time. I tried to do it humanely and someone told me about a beer trap that was a good organic solution!
I want to hear about the fire ants because some of my guests have talked about the struggle with fire ants. Especially Jenny Jackson down in Georgia, they’re like a family farm, I know they have a new baby.
They don’t like it. I’m not sure it could work on the scale of a farm but for my backyard that’s 200 square feet it will locate them.
Grocery Girl I’ll see them crop up in the corner of my basil bed so I sprinkle a little application of cayenne and they’ll usually go somewhere else and I can usually get them out of the garden beds. That has been my experience! And I’m a grocery girl, so it’s pretty good return on your investment! Low cost.
Tell us about something that grew well this year. It’s so funny! I think as a multi year gardeners, just because it grew well this year doesn’t mean anything!
this year it was kale I actually planted from seed in 2017m in Texas we had that hurricane Harvey that blew through. All of my beautiful kale plants were literally laying on the soil!,all I could do
The kale just regrew! I had the same kale for us for 2 years!
so well, I let it go to seed, I decided I was going to let it save the seed
if you have never saved kale seed for about 2 acres!
it is a commitment! They are teeny teeny and wow is it time intense!
I let it go to seed in its own spot. I loved the pretty yellow flowers.
I will relish any time I get to pay $3-4 for a packet of kale seeds now. Did you it’s a delicacy! The kale flowers.
Restaurants are selling them at a premium!
They roast the seeds themselves?
not the seeds the kale flowers! I kind of fell in love with kale last year. I didn’t really like it but I fell in love with that lacinto kale last year. Now the curly kale that came back in the spring I have to say was so tender and delicious I mean I never tasted anything so sweet. It was like adding maple syrup to my stir fry!
I will send you some great recipes!
Is there something you would do different next year or want to try/new? There’s 2 things
For a couple of years now I have always wanted to grow amaranth I just think it is so amazingly beautiful and talk about health value. I’m not sure it would make it to the table but I enjoy it in the bouquets
IDK if you have met the folks at Row 7 seeds Chef Dan Barber
stone barns
passionate
because we have cultivated crops for their ship ability and longevity
Row 7 seeds just about flavor! they might look funny
might not ship across the country really well but they have amazing flavor!
beets and peppers
I would like to talk to as many chefs as I can.
I have a question about amaranth, because it’s a great cover crop right even if it doesn’t get harvested at least it’s good for the soil right? I struggle to grow it too.
Tell me about something that didn’t work so well this season. I think what I have learned over more seasons then I care to admit
I always end up planting something for the benefit for the garden friends
Sometimes it’s the dill that I plant that I don’t eat but it’s just for the monarch butterflies
Last year it was chard
I do so well with my chard
last years chard was just for the snails.
That could be tough. I love chard! I had so much between the chard and the kale I don’t think I bought a salad from August till November. What I love about rainbow chard is I will eat it instead of celery those big stems!
that was the thing that I was like OK! you guys have the chard and stay off everything else and we’re good! It’s a symbiosis!
I love your attitude about it too! Like it wasn’t such a giant loss you felt compelled you had to get rid of the snails. You just sacrificed it to the snails!
We can grow something for mother nature.
Let’s take a minute to thank our sponsors and affiliate links
Today I am so excited to introduce my guest Bob Quinn who is back to tell us about his new book
Grain by Grain: A Quest to Revive Ancient Wheat, Rural Jobs, and Healthy Food You can read the Golden Seeds Issue #7 here if you prefer!
Here’s my 5 star review, make sure you write yours!
Thanks so much for sending me your book, you were worried if I would be able to read it and then I whipped through it in under 48 hours was so engaging!
Thanks Jackie!
It was a lot of fun to write with Liz who is a great partner who made the story easy to read. She was able to keep it free flowing from one topic to another.
There’s so many things to discuss, it’s a bit of a challenge to meet the limitations that they place on us from keeping the book from being a gone with the wind version with so many topics.
We tried to hit the highlights of subjects I’m passionate of
- The High Cost Cheap Food
- Decline of Rural America and the
- Disappearance of Our Farms
all because we have been encouraged to look at our farms like factories and industrial agriculture food systems.
I love the relationships you build and people you talk to. I love biographies, I’ve had a lot of time to read this year, I’ve been to the library a lot this year!
Along with Liz Carlisle author of the Lentil Undergound Why don’t you tell listeners a little about yourself?
Well I was raised on a wheat and cattle ranch in Big Sandy about 12 miles out of town. Near Havre Great Falls. It’s South of Canadian border where Alberta and Saskatchewan meet. My father was raised here and I started after him and now I raised my children so 3 generations ~
I don’t see any of my children coming back. I have 18 grandkids, maybe one of them. I leased out my farm to a couple of my employees, that I have trained.
I had a great time! I had my turn in farming! It was fantastic now it’s time for the next generation to learn! I’ve gone from 4000 acres down to 4 acres. I continue some of my experiments throughout my life and try to grow all my own food:
- dry-land vegetables
- grow melons drylands
- storage
- non storage like tomatoes
in a field with no irrigation which is a total challenge.
We’re sort of like that here, my husband grew up on a 1200 acre ranch and we have the last 20 acres and we have very limited water. You’re such a scientist and talk about how you try 40 lbs of potatoes and narrow it down to five.
If we look at food as a health component and they have different criteria to add to that there are all kinds of things we can learn. with different types of food. What we have looked at in recent years is the cost of food and making it cheap and high yielding in order to have it cheap.
High cost to the Cheap Food Starts with the farmers aren’t paid enough to stay in business and make a living
consumer
artificially cheap food at the check out counter
That’s only the first parts of it. I’m interested in teaching people
food should be ear health and medicine and medicine should be your food. If we could reduce the cost of medicine and health care while food has decreased in price.
The cost of food in the average budget has decreased 61% while the extra money we saved on health care we didn’t get to spend it on boats etc the cost of health care has increased 61% and those are astounding statistics!
what we have done to make food cheap.
Is it true in drylands farming something new farmers would be interested in. They’re not getting watered down so they increase in nutrient value?
Reduce Inflammation
I’ve compared tomatoes I’m raising tomatoes in my field with no irrigation side by side, the flavor intensity in the drylands tomatoes is really noticeable
what makes
secondary
polyphenols are very strong antioxidants attributed to reducing inflammation
choosing higher nutrition in almost aliases vegetables and foods by their aromas
one criteria
one thing we notice in drylands
organic non-organic
People often comment on the intensity of the flavor and that’s what were seeing which is connected with health.
There’s no way they could grow dry-land vegetables non-organically could they?
I suppose but the value of non-organic
People are willing to pay more and they’re higher value and so they’re actually getting more for they money. What we do is give those vegetables about 3xs more space then you would normally do in an irrigated field or in places like the midwest where they don’t even water their lawns
density
vegetable
3 times more space then they normally receive
produce and each plant will produce as much as an irrigated.
1/3 per many per acre but we have lots of acres so that’s not a problem. Really reducing the cost of our farming except the labor to control weeds.
But the cost of inputs like water is just nil. That makes sense because clean water is becoming more scarce, and so people might want to learn about this drylands farming. I feel like if we were practicing more of these practices we wouldn’t see so many fires and smoke in summers.
We are seeing that on our own farm. There’s no time to debate about climate change farmers need to respond to it. What we see, generally, what we see are the rains are ending sooner and the heat is coming sooner. So our spring crops are becoming higher and higher risk. One thing we’re trying is planting traditional spring crops in the fall so they can get through the winter and benefit from early spring rains and start maturing before the heat really hits.
Yeah this year we still have 2-3 feet of snow in our yard and 2 weeks ago we were below 0º at the beginning of March.
It’s not really correct to just refer to climate changes as global warming per say. Although the glaciers are melting in Glacier Park and also in the ice caps.
What we are seeing more of are the extremes.
A few years ago we went from the extreme a high amount of rain that we would normally have on the top of the rain cycles to the very next year was an extreme drought which would normally be at the other end of the cycle and 5-6 years off.
And you are definitely the data man to know all that kind of thing.
Grain by Grain: A Quest to Revive Ancient Wheat, Rural Jobs, and Healthy Food What do you want to tell us about our book? I’ve seen a lot of people write a lot of books to tell their story. I spent 5 years trying to put something together that would be the story of our
- KAMUT® story and
- ancient wheat story and what I have
- learned in organic agriculture
- importance of food as medicine
- lots of these different things I have learned along the way.
I didn’t have any luck finding a publisher.
Finally I bumped into Liz Carlisle, author of the Lentil Underground who is from Montana we bumped into at that field day and many of the people in the book she wrote about we were having reunion and I asked her if she would partner with me.
The bigger story is what we have done to our food system. So we dive into the high cost of things: * the high cost of cheap food * the high cost of farmers the high cost of going out of business * farmers who went out of business * next high cost to our planet
global climate change ~ a vehicle to tell the bigger story
- My listeners are always interested in learning what they can do to be more productive and better farmers and I’m sure many of them are wondering how can they become a Kamut farmer, I know one thing I am interested in is the hemp project and how is that coming along?
Montana Hemp Farming Project Well, for us a little bit slow we started out with 7 acres that took us 2 years to sell that crop. I always caution my friends to be sure you have a market before you sell it.
That’s interesting because there’s actually a big CBD plant here in Eureka and they were saying they couldn’t get their hands on enough hemp and had to start their own farm in Shelby kind of near you.
Well now CBD that’s a different product then we were growing. We were just growing the industrial plant for the seed and with the CBD oil you have to harvest the plant green and then you extract the CBD oil with alcohol. So it’s a completely different process then waiting for the plants to mature and gather the seeds so that you harvest the mature plant for seeds and we were crushing those seeds for oil. Cut and bail your hemp crop as it’s quite immature just as it’s beginning to flower you have to know what’s your market.
Industrial Hemp We were involved in distributing industrial hemp this spring. Maybe a 100, couple of thousand acres. I don’t know if they were sure they knew where they were going to sell that product.
I was thinking you were so good at making connections and building relationships and I love that picture of you and your parents at the farm show in California and how you were willing to get out there and find markets and talk to people, starting out with your Kamut and have just gone on from there.
Well you mentioned a story about not everybody gets to be a farmer but I like to remind folks if you are eating, you’re actually a co-producer. As Carlo Petrini in the slow food movement in Italy if you are not a farmer but eat you are a coproducer
That’s a connection not often thought about but very important.
The eaters in this country are really in the drivers seat! what they order at restaurant
what they eat at home
really drives what the farmers are planting
That’s the vast majority of farmers now only about 1%. So we’re looking at the 99%
If they want a regenerative organic agriculture and renewable systems that don’t pollute the earth we have to grow food more that’s actually nutritious all they need to do is buy more organic food
All they need to do is just buy one additional product then you did the last time that will begin to make an enormous difference!
But isn’t that part of what you re talking about, I can’t afford to buy organic food a lot of the time. I’m lucky Mike grows for me a lot of organic food.
Just one more organic item If your at 0 buy one more item.
Those incremental differences don’t make that big of a difference on your bottom line. If you are on a reduced budget just buy things that are less processed and therefore less expensive.
Our KAMUT® brand grain is a very expensive grain, it costs a couple of dollars a pound were to buy the it in the store. But if you were to buy that and take it home and crack it and make hot cereal you could feed a family of four for less then 50¢, so it’s not a big cost.
So if you look at the drivers if we start increasing the amount of organic available the transportation and handling costs will start to come down the more we have available and it becomes less of a specialty item.
Do you want to talk about your fruit trees and 4 acres you are gardening on now? Sure, I also like to experiment with what else can we do in the prairies of northern Montana besides wheat and barley. One thing I have been experimenting with for 10 years is fruit trees. We have about
- 21 different varieties of apples
- pears
- plums
- sour cherries
- fruit bushes
We can’t grow sweet cherries here but we can grow sour cherries.
I have about 20 different types of native berry bushes. All the way from:
- seed buckthorn from Siberia
- buffalo berries
- currants
- chokecherries
- service berries that are native berries available here in the coolies on our farm. We want to see what berries grow best.
We grow grapes!
Some varieties my daughter is making red wine vinegar out of the grapes and sour cherries which is just fantastic!
Happy August! Announcing the winner of Andrew Mefferd’s new book:
The Organic No-Till Farming Revolution: High-Production Methods for Small-Scale Farmers And the Winner is
drumroll please
John Keith!
Remember you can get a 20% discount by using the code: garden on a subscription to Andrew’s awesome publication Growing for Market magazine or any of his books or the books in their online store.
The Greenhouse and Hoophouse Grower’s Handbook: Organic Vegetable Production Using Protected Culture Congratulations to a listener, Organic Gardener Podcast Challenge participant and hopefully future guest!
Carrots going to seed make great flowers for beneficials that eat pests
Scott Mann and I just talked about how he plants onions and other umbel shaped flowers at the end of his rows of vegetables
because they attract a parasitic wasp that eats pests.
Herbs in the garden Should have mulched my lavendar…
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So in this update I go through the questions I usually ask others on my way to work.
Tell me about your first gardening experience?
Clark gardens and I hated it.
How did you learn how to garden organically?
My mom, Mike and Organic Gardening Magazine
Tell us about something that grew well this year.
So far potatoes and carrots.
Is there something you would do different next year or want to try/new?
Strawberries
Tell me about something that didn’t work so well this season.
My blueberries and raspberries
Which activity is your least favorite activity to do in the garden?
Anything that requires me to get down in the dirt. I like raised beds and keeping my jeans clean.
What is your favorite activity to do in the garden?
Eat the food. I’m not the biggest fan of harvest I just like to cook it.
What is the best gardening advice you have ever received?
Water your blueberries.
A favorite tool that you like to use? If you had to move and could only take one tool with you what would it be.
The broadfork, although I’m still a big fan of the wheelbarrow. I want 4
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Jennifer Smith a Rockstar Millennial is here from DeerBusters today to tell us about fencing. DeerBusters has been leading the fencing industry for over 30 years with reliable DIY garden fence in poly and metal fence materials for homes, farms, forests, colleges, orchards, vineyards, and gardens. We are proud to work with wildlife conservation agencies and landscape architects as well as deer farmers who are looking to keep in deer and elk herds with our fencing.
Don’t forget to ask about Jon Moore – portable fence
Tell us a little about yourself. I was born and raised in S Florida, I was always an outdoor enthusiast.
I was brought up with this preconceived notion that Bambi is innocent and cute. Then I grew up and realized:
Deer are very destructive most come about animal between farmers and gardeners IDK I still think deer are pretty cute, they are all over the place although we have had our struggles with deer in the garden and can cause a lot of heart break, also, lyme disease is a very dangerous disease.
No, you’re right it’s not just a problem for gardeners, lyme disease is certainly an issue for
- campers
- hikers
- pet owners
A lot of owners are not aware their pets can get lyme disease because they are not aware that deer can drop the ticks in the yard.
tick species out there
vector dieseases
pets and humans
other wireline
reroute the deer
reduce the amount of diseases
animal and animal and people
Tell me about your first gardening experience? I remember growing strawberries with my mom in our backyard. That was something that was very touching and personal for me
We never really had a deer problem in South Florida, I grew up on the beach, I never saw a deer until I went to College around Tampa.
new to me
moved up north
mid-atlantic region in Maryland
deer are everywhere
deer destruction in gardens
It is a serious problem
Not just Florida, or Maryland or penn
How can DeerBusters help people with their deer problems? DeerBusters is located in Waynesboro, PA
We work with many different
- homeowner
- pet owners
- landscapers
to protect
We offer
do it yourself deer fencing and plastic and metal fence options
offer for unique gardener.
You’re right Long Island is a huge problem, deer love the landscape there! It’s a huge territory for us. I think one of the reason on Long Island there’s lots of amazing nature walks and places that probably encourage the deer. They can be vicious when they have their babies born they can fight off our dogs.
Deer breeding season happened at the end of the year
People should start to see baby fawns in the next couple of weeks
even more deer
does are protective of their young
stay with mother before they go off on their own
more deer
deer movement is going to bring wildlife encounters with pets Do you want to talk about the diy fences a little? I know my husband is really good at putting up fences that last a long time, but if it was me it’d be falling down in not much time.
so for do it yourself project
you don’t need to be that handy
fun instructions on the website
I’ve even done it
You need just a
- few basic tools
- maybe some helpful friends
- within a day or tow
Tell us about something that grew well this year. Yes, I actually grew tomatoes and ironically, deer love tomatoes.
I was a little nervous, and I was like I’ll just go down and do it, so I grew these beautiful tomatoes and now I love gardening!
I encourage anyone who is interested in starting a vegetable garden, to go out there and try it, it will get you in touch with nature and you will have more appreciation of where your food comes from and being sustainable.
That’s something I love about my podcast it gets me out in the garden more!
Is there something you would do different next year or want to try/new? I think I want to try peppers. I’m really into peppers and salads so that might be my next venture.
I think peppers and tomatoes go really together.
Is it cold in Pennsylvania? That’s something we struggle with getting tomatoes to ripen.
so the cold weather can be challenging
various techniques
- move plants inside
- cold frame
- drape them over with sheets
something to insulate the plants
Something to think about as you move forward
Tell me about something that didn’t work so well this season? I only grew tomatoes it was a starter project for my new house. It was successful so I am going to continue the trend and work my way up!
I think that is a good point for beginning gardens
don’t get too ambitious
It’s a labor of love and it can get expensive quickly
try a few techniques
Which activity is your least favorite activity to do in the garden? I’m so bad about pulling weeds but it’s such an important part
It might be the most important
suffocate plants and completely kill off your entire garden
Watering? I was so bad about watering when I first started I just assumed they would get all their nutrient
Watering especially when it’s getting warm outside, it’s important to water early in the morning
heat of the sun scoops up all the moisture
I love that, I created this book called the Green Queen, I ran into this friend of mine, who was watering in the afternoon instead of evening and the water was just evaporating as we stood there. I’ve been wondering all along what do you do if you go no-till, what do you do with the weeds. I finally learned is don’t pull the weeds, cut the weeds, and let it sit there. Don’t actually pull the weeds out of the ground, cover it with a good mulch.
A lot of people have said their favorite tool is a good hoe.
I considered growing them in pots
just outside in the backyard
What is your favorite activity to do in the garden?
Yes, that’s funny that you said that.
I absolutely love the fruit of my labor so to speak
It’s so amazing to see your handwork and enjoying You really get to see how sustainable
You realize that gardening can feed a family of four for over a month! It takes a lot of maintenance but it’s totally worth it!
I love that. Mike likes to grow our food for a year but we’re not all the way there yet. Mike spoils me, I didn’t have to go to the store from August till November, even longer this year and now I am having to go buy produce again and it’s so frustrating.
IT’s a cost savings
If you would just start your garden, you would realize how much you’re saving and your feeding your family more nutritious food and better quality things
you know
chemicals
this that and the other
sustainability
What is the best gardening advice you have ever received? The best gardening advice I have ever received was
- to take things slowly
- not put all your eggs in one basket
- take one step at a time
If you want to plant tomatoes just do one thing
Do your research before you dig into the ground!
if you do not do your research it’s going to fall apart
read up on the type of vegetable
do they need direct sunlight?
Do they need water?
Certain soil types?
All of these are going to affect whether your garden is going to grow or not!
You are so right there! Mike and I have been pouring through the seed catalogs, I love do your research and start small!
A favorite tool that you like to use? If you had to move and could only take one tool with you what would it be, didn’t you just move? I did, yes, I have a new house.
I think there are many tools that are great starter tools
first of all you need a great pair of gloves
I started out with cheap gloves and doesn’t cut it
You will really appreciate it after a couple of hours in the garden
- great watering can
- great shovel
- wheelbarrow
top three
I would definitely get a wheel barrow to move things around.
Bionic Garden Gloves
Have you ever heard of bionic gloves I’ve been wanting to get those for my mom?
Yes, I’ve used those, those are perfect.
A favorite recipe you like to cook from the garden? I’m really into Italian food so just making my own tomato sauce is beautiful, I love cooking.
Mmm yeah, I love homemade tomato sauce with a little garlic and olive oil yum!
A favorite internet resource? I’m I actually float around to different Dept of Wildlife and Forest Websites
they don’t just give tips on gardening
Yes so for white tailed deer the most effective is a fence
people want a 7 1/2′ to 8′ foot high fence
coyotes and wolves can get away with a 6 foot high metal fence
For Rabbits only need like 2-3 feet high
but the main problem with rabbits and even ground hogs
burrow and create tunnels
These pesky critters can be troubling and can be a headache for gardeners
Should dig a trench a rabbit 6-12” to prevent borrowing
fencing
the second thought for wildlife management
is to plant deer resistant flowers
- marigolds
- daffodils
- verbena
- garlic
deer and rabbits hate the taste and smell of
They may take a few bites but they hate the taste and smell will turn their nose and walk away
The last thought is they can sprinkle deer repellents around the yard
granular or liquid based
usually have:
- hot pepper
- garlic
I interviewed another Rockstar Millennial Kristi Waterworth in episode 169 from GardenKnowHow and she said:
Natural Deer Repellant There are so many deer there!
One of the ways they say is to put a fence up and hang onions on it. I think it works if you don’t actually have deer. But what does work is if you have old pie pans and you hang them off the fence, anything that will make a lot of noise and that will scare the deer because they’re skittish pest animals.
also things that ed
yes, even laser pointers
As long as there’s a noise or some kind of light that will startle them
shinny paper or even scare crows that get rid of birds
It’s to startle them and derail them! Those are all good tactics What about the portable electric fencing? I know Jon Moore was interested in portable electric fencing. And I know the problem we have is predators getting into our chickens.
so electric fencing is a really good technique
It’s actually the number one technique for people in bear country.
I go so crazy, I’m like we live in the woods if you don’t want a bear in your yard why are you living here?
bears are coming out of hibernation
been away for a couple of months
electric fencing for bear deterrent
Gardeners also use electric fencing for deer management
peanut butter
deer at bay
Use electric fencing for coyotes
especially for poultry farmers who have chickens or turkeys
any other type of bird
electric fencing
doesn’t have to be plastic or metal
Any sort of deterrent to keep animals at bay
The Permaculture Podcast host Scott Mann shares his amazing journey into permaculture and podcasting in this must listen episode.
Learn about The Possibility Handbook: A Toolkit for Transformation So I ask myself today what lesson can I learn since all the work I did this weekend evaporated when my computer crashed yesterday. I am going to release it so I can listen on my way to work tomorrow and hope for the best. Sorry if there are any mistakes but I think Scott was an amazing guest you will enjoy hearing from unedited!
To see my unedited notes click here.
But I did put on my rose colored glasses on my way to work and ended up enjoying the sunny skies and beautiful Montana forests! Enjoy Green Future Growers! Here’s to technology challenges and hopefully better solutions! At least I didn’t lose my whole computer as I still have about 6 episodes in the bank to release!
Show notes coming someday!
I did want to make sure I include some important links Scott mentions. Two books and a website.
David Holmgren’s site and info at Permaculture Principles and the Poster Download that lists the principles to follow along as we talk.
David Holmgren’s book:
Permaculture: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability and
Toby Hemenway’s
Gaia’s Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture
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I just want to make sure everyone has the link to enter the contest
The Organic No-Till Farming Revolution: High-Production Methods for Small-Scale Farmers to win a copy of Andrew Mefferd’s amazing book here’s the link to enter the contest
and listen to the interview here:
Interview link
Andrew’s book outlines the advantages and disadvantages of different methods of no-till agriculture that are being practiced today by many small scale farmers and how they can easily scale down to backyard gardens which has been a challenge in the past.
Key to the Mountain I also have some updates about our garden in Montana and also I talk about Melissa from Key to the mountain who has a small business I met at the Missoula Farmer’s Market and I just loved her Ener-ghee packets I got to run the Missoula half marathon.
Our biggest challenge in Montana is probably just getting everything in so late mixed with lots of cool weather and rain.
the link to enter the contest by filling in the poll is
The Organic No-Till Farming Revolution: High-Production Methods for Small-Scale Farmers So far the responses to the question: What’s your biggest garden challenge at this very moment?
Win a copy of Andrew Mefferd’s amazing book here’s the link to enter the contest
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Part 2 of Denise and Tony Gaetz, from Bare Mountain Farm are here to share their flower farming journey. Their belief is that healthy soils equal healthy plants which provide for vibrant, strong long-lasting blooms.
Over 10 years of Growing at Bare Mountain Farm Living in the Willamette Valley of OR, they’ve been on their farm for about 27 years, they have 10 and 1/2 acres grow flowers on only about an acre and 1/2. They’ve been doing this for over 11 years, starting next year will be their 12th season. This is a second career. Both had previous lives and sort of semi-retired, but not really retired because this is a lot of work. But they’re doing something that both of them really love, it’s hard work but it’s super they enjoy it!
How do we connect with you? Bare Mountain Farm as in Bare Naked. We also have a Facebook page, and Pinterest page, and Instagram.
Full show notes
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Originally published Jan 1, 2016 Denise and Tony Gaetz are featured in Andrew Mefferd’s book
The Organic No-Till Farming Revolution: High-Production Methods for Small-Scale Farmers And most of all I want to make sure you have the link to enter to win a copy of Andrew’s awesome book Denise and Tony Gaetz, from Bare Mountain Farm are here to share their flower farming journey. Their belief is that healthy soils equal healthy plants which provide for vibrant, strong long-lasting blooms.
Tell us a little about yourself. Denise: We live in the Willamette Valley of Oregon, we’ve been on our farm for about 27 years, we have 10 and 1/2 acres. We grow flowers on only about an acre and 1/2. We’ve been doing this for over 11 years, starting next year will be our 12th season. This is our second career. We both had a previous life and are sort of semi-retired, but not really retired because this is a lot of work. But we’re doing something that both of us really love, it’s hard work but it’s super we enjoy it!
We have 4 unheated, unlit hoop houses that we have built, we have a little greenhouse where we start everything. For the first ten years of our business we sold in the Farmer’s Market in Corvallis, Oregon. A couple of years ago, the demand for our flowers from florists and designers increased, so we started to sell directly to florists and designers. The Farmer’s Market was a blast and we really loved it but it was a lot of work and very long days! So we decided we would let that one go, and just sort of focus on selling directly to florist shops and designers all up and down the valley. From Portland all the way to Eugene.
Tony: We are what you might call a micro-farm in a sense that our objective is not to become world flowers inc but to use sustainable practices develop a nice business that really concentrates on selling to a local area. We sell from Eugene which is the southern end of the valley to Protalnd on the northern end. A lot of what we sell is seasonal. We do some season extension as Denise allege about in our hoop houses.
What we try to do get our product at is at peak for our area and work it that way instead of we were trying to raise orchids in the middle of winter or something like that well sweet peas are on in June. It’s that sort of thing. We try to keep an emphasis on keeping it seasonal!
Tell me about your first gardening experience? Denise: I’ve been growing flowers and veggies since I was a little kid. I think my first experience with flowers is about 7 years old growing pansies in Montana! When my family moved to Oregon later on, it was my responsibility in the family to grow as many vegetables and learn to preserve and can them and freeze them and what not for the family. I always had sort of an interest in plants. I spent a lot of time in high school and early college in horticulture programs, I also worked several years for a florist. I’ve always been really interested in growing things particularly food but my passion was pretty flowers.
Tony: My respect I started when I was a kid too. The family always had a garden, when I 12 years old it became my assigned chore. And when you’re 12, your like oh great you know. But I really started getting into it, and learned a lot, I just started reading a lot. For a 12 years old that’s really weird. I read a lot of organic gardening magazines. This is the 1970’s. 1972, that range of time, we I learned a lot just by reading and what my family had done at that point. Our family kind of followed organic practices and we had our own place, and it was the natural thing to start that whole process again.
Where were you raised Tony? Are you also from Montana?
My father was in the army and worked for the army for most of his career, so we moved around a lot. Not necessarily on military basis. We lived back East in Virginia, and lived in California and Washington, just kind of as his career went, we went. That was also part of the challenge, new places presented a whole new set of new challenges.
Denise: We met here at Oregon State University, we both attended the University and that’s where we met and after we graduated then we got married. And we’ve been growing gardens and flowers ever since.
What does organic gardening/earth friendly mean to you? Well that’s kind of our philosophy, a lot of these philosophical things kind of evolved over a period of time. Sources of inspiration for us have been, besides J.I. Rodale. There’s also Fukuoka and Natural Farming, learning a lot more about permaculture and that movement. What we try to practice here philosophically, is we’re not certified organic, in many respects we’re beyond organic. I don’t mean that in a haughty way.
A lot of organic farmers now-a-days use organically approved things that could be called pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers, we tend to not use anything other then replacement of the minerals in the soil itself. We use natural fertilization in terms of compost that is either made here on site, or we use some recycled compost that’s made by a company here locally. What we try to do is keep the soil fertility up, that’s really our key focus, start with the soil build from there.
Our philosophy has been a healthy plant grown in healthy soil doesn’t need additional fertilizers pesticides or things of that nature as best as we can. Also as we go through look at what we grow, we make decisions about things that don’t grow well in our location or particular climate, we try to look at the plants that thrive the best here.
Who or what inspired you to start using organic techniques? Denise: We were also inspired by a lot of our local growers, since we spent so much time at the farmer’s market there are a whole lot of growers that sell at the market that are fantastic people to follow and understand and kind of emulate their practices. We got a lot of that from a couple of really terrific growers in Denison’s Family Farm and Gathering Together Farm. Both of those are doing fantastic things with season extension and organic practices and sustainability and they were very kind to us and helping us find our way along the way. We’re always inspired by what other small time, small people, local growers are doing. And also paying forward what we learned.
Tony: Philosophically part of what we look at, there are some circles that say if you learn this info you should charge money, but what we try to do is help the new growers avoid some of the dumb things we did. So it’s kind of like Denise is saying paying it forward more of an obligation, that we look at it from a more philosophical standpoint that knowledge to help people, either local people or local flowers or local agriculture, things that can thrive on a micro easies is different then a mega farm that have five thousand acres and has millions of dollars of equipment. We don’t operate that way on any level, a lot of what we do is somewhat under the radar. A lot of companies are starting to pick up on the fact that small farms need unique tools and things of that nature.
I want to say I found you guys because you posted on Facebook and you had Dahlias and people were signing up like crazy?
That was the Lisianthus we were posting about. Lisianthus is a tricky flower. It is an absolutely beautiful flower that kind of looks like a rose. But its a tricky flower to get started form seed, it takes an incredible long long time to get it started and sometimes it doesn’t even germinate. So we’ve been playing around figuring out how to get it to germinate and how to get it up to size and into the ground. And low and behold we were experimenting, which is what we do an awful lot, we try things just to see if that will work. We decided we would try the Lisianthus for a cooler period of planting, because we had such a hard time last summer was way too hot for them.
We got them to germinate in soil blocks that we have been working with, and they grew up nicely and we put them in the ground. It was a total experiment of can we make them grow through the winter? They are fairly cool seasonsish, although they do well in the summer. We wanted to see if we could make them grow and bloom early in the spring next year and that was our experiment. So I posted it to the flower farmers, and say hey take a look at our experiment, and maybe it will work and maybe it won’t.
Our comment was “if it does you’ll hear about it and if it doesn’t it never happened!”
Tell us about a flower that grew well this year.
Anemones What grew well this year was the anemones. There are a few other things, but I will just start with the anemones, becasue they are one of my favorite flowers. The reason I love anemones is because they are just the toughest little plant and flower that you can imagine. They can grow through sometimes some of the roughest weather we can have. We do grow them in a an unheated hoop house or what we call a crate house, because we are growing them currently in crates in a little house. Mostly to keep the cold Oregon rain off of them, it’s not so much that we are protecting them from frost, although we do provide some frost protection. We’ve had them make it though on some pretty cold winters. They are one of the first flowers to bloom for us!
The goal is always to try to get them on Valentines Day. Because our florists and designers absolutely love them! They are so bright and cherry, and such a pretty flower for Valentines Day! Something different then the traditional rose or carnation and what not. This year we were able to harvest our first anemones on the fifteenth of January. We were so excited that we had them on time for Valentines.
Scented Geraniums The other thing that grew well for us this year was Scented Geraniums! We had a nice hundred foot row of scented geraniums, because we had such a mild winter last year we were able to keep protected and then when the weather warmed up they just started to go crazy. We were able to harvest them, probably from Early May until our first really hard frost at the end of November…
It was the week before Thanksgiving.
Snap dragons
That’s a pretty common flower, there are some new varieties that are what they call open faced butterfly. They don’t have the traditional snap look, they have an open petal look to them. The florist have been really receptive to those! We grew a lot of those.
Sweet peas are always a big thing. They just remind folks of s simpler times or maybe something their grandmother did or something of that nature.
Tulips There’s also on the early part of the spring: tulips. Quite a few of the taller varieties. The shorter ones get shipped on the more wholesale, so we usually look for a more unusual color, or a taller stem or something that sets them apart or being different. Different petals or parrots or doubles.
So our season goes from, like last year it went from Jan 15th to Thanksgiving. That’s a little longer then normal, in a normal year from about first of February to the first of November. It just seems like the climate this last year was exceptionally warm. So it enabled things to move along faster then normal.
When the day length gets shorter and shorter, as hard as we want to keep the flowers growing, they just stop producing nice big blooms. They may not die but they don’t produce. We just haven’t gone to any kind of lighting and any of that kind of stuff. There’s typically, kind of a dead zone where plants don’t grow that much even when the temperatures are that moderate. That usually runs when you have daylight that hits 9 hours on the other side coming out, things start growing again.
Some times you’re kind of nervous at this time this year, you think I got my ranunculus in but they don’t seem that big, at Christmastime they should be bigger then that so they hit! But as soon as they hit that 9 hour mark., it’s incredible how much they can change in a short period of time.
That they are really doing there, the roots are all growing and getting bigger and stuff, so that when they do hit that time, they have a super great root system, then that’s a stronger plant that has more blooms and they get even bigger. Then they have really big fluffy blooms.
Have you guys heard of Lisa Ziegler from Cool Flowers? She’s been my guest twice she talks about the same thing, but she’s on the other coast, in Virginia. I was going to remind people to get her book for Christmas. She has documented and is an amazing wealth of information.
We have her book. We’ve read it from cover to cover!
Did you get your soil blocks from her? That’s what reminded me because that’s the first place I heard of it, and I think I didn’t understand till I saw the pictures in her catalog actually.
Soil Blocks We’ve been doing it for years and years, we’ve bene in a tranisition away from plastic plugs. What started it with us, is we just got tired of plastic. The transitione noticed the quality of the plug. The plug trays work well in a large industrial, with automate machines where they fill them and plant them with a nice chemical soup of fertilizer. What we noticed for us as a small grower, that the quality of the plant the roots tended to get, no matter what you tried, the roots would swirl around the edge of the plastic, and the plant was not developing as good of a root...
A replay of one of the most downloaded episodes of all time from last spring!
In Search of the Next P.O.T.U.S.: One Woman’s Quest to Fix Washington (In Search of a Popular America)
Judy Frankel shares her incredible gardening knowledge, her expertise in the pesticide and sustainable agriculture industries, and journey to grow nutritious food for her health and family.
Tell us about yourself. I grew up on a farm in Pennsylvania believe it or not, and I have the farm genes in my genes…
It was eating those unbelievable tomatoes. Uou just can’t buy those tomatoes in the supermarket. I moved out to California it was because I wanted warm weather all year. Wrong! So when I tried to grow them on a balcony…
When I met my first master gardener.
I took the 10 week course, and passed the test. You have to do a bunch of volunteering.
Then we moved to Massachusetts. I took it again there…
This zone is completely different. California is all about growing food. The mission is to teach low income families to grow your own. In Massachusetts you can’t do that because their growing season is only 3 months long . You can do it in Montana if you have a greenhouse. If you take your plants inside.
full show notes coming asap
How do we connect with you? pledgeforhonestcandidates page.
I’ll answer your questions.
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If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
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It’s July 16, 2019
Hey Everyone!
So I just wanted to give a little July update, make sure you heard about the Andrew Meffered interview and giveaway and had the link to win a copy of The Organic No-Till Farming Revolution: High-Production Methods for Small-Scale Farmers Also Organic Gardener Podcast listeners can receive a 20% discount at
Growing for Market Organic Oats In my interview with Judy Frankel she talks about how when her daughter became ill they found non-organic oats contributed a lot to her health decline and that oats are sprayed with glyphosate
- Judy Frankel | In Search of the Next P.O.T.U.S.: One Woman’s Quest to Fix Washington (In Search of a Popular America) @NomadikDreamer on Instagram
The Organic No-Till Farming Revolution: High-Production Methods for Small-Scale Farmers Giveaway ends Sunday July 28, 2019 Enter to win a copy of Andrew’s Book by filling in the poll here: https://forms.gle/qTWJcDxhtZiMjoA18
What podcasts do you listen to? Are there any shows you think I would make a good guest on? I know the guest on the Organic Gardener Podcast share so much great information I think it’s imperative we share their stories so do you know any other shows that would like to hear them?
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Announcing The RegenEarth 2019 Online Conference: Living Soil Growing Your Backyard Regen Garden Reversing Climate Change through Regen Gardens
The greatest change we need to make is from consumption to production, even if on a small scale, in our own gardens. If only 10% of us do this, there is enough for everyone. ~ Bill Mollison
Because change means all of us Do something that actually makes a difference to your life and the planet’s. The RegenEarth 2019 Online Conference: Living Soils will be presented from 16 – 18 September 2019 from 7pm to 9pm. What’s On?
| Time | 16 September | 17 September | 18 September | | 19:00 – 19:40 | Why Regen Matters! Climate change, future proofing and building a carbon sink. | The greatest secret: No-dig Gardening! | Animals in the system! Chickens in a backyard permaculture system. | | 19:40 – 20:20 | The importance of food, how it’s produced and community nutrition. | Building soil with earthworms. | Intro to Backyard permaculture. | | 20:20 – 21:00 | What is soil? How do we build it? How do we nurture it? | Compost and fungi. There’s life in that there soil! | Bringing it all together! |
What you get: * A personal carbon sink * Change that matters * Easy steps * Fresh Food * A Better Planet * Cleaner Water * Cleaner Soil * End of Chemical Use
Grab your place at the Online Conference for just $67 through PayPal by clicking the “Buy Now” button:
Climate Change Actions Of all the things we are asked to do to “save” the planet, nothing makes our own lives any easier. They are all good, virtuous ideas but they are abstract in some sense. The link between having to bring your own shopping bags and changing the climate for good is not obvious.
They might provide a warm inner glow but?
Surely there is something we can do that actually makes a difference and leaves us in a better position in our lives?
Regenerative Ag (Regen Ag) Regenerative agriculture is one of the most effective ways we can draw carbon out of the atmosphere and store it safely. Carbon held in the soil has benefits beyond reducing atmospheric concentrations. It drought proofs soils, turning them into sponges. Droughts will still come and go, this is Australia after all but we lessen their impact. Waterways are cleaned by the filtering effects of regeneratively cared for soil. Chemical use drops to zero as the biological systems do what they have evolved to do. No more dust storms dumping lost topsoil on urban areas.
“But I live in a town, a city or even an apartment, what can I do???”
A fair question.
It turns out there is something we can all do on any area of land, yes even an apartment.
Regen Gardening The bonuses from regen gardening are many. No exposure to garden chemicals, healthy yards for children to play in, improved biodiversity, less flooding as suburbs become water sponges rather than flat hard surfaces, food, yes your own food.
We’re returning to something humans have been doing for 10,000 years. And you get to grow strawberries, or plant apple or orange trees, bananas if that’s your climate.
The ongoing work, even with vegetables, is minimal once the system is set up and then year after year your little piece of the planet is working away diligently to remove excess CO2 from the atmosphere and thereby improving your soil and therefore your food quality and taste.
What We Offer Kicking off in September with our RegenEarth 2019 ~ Living Soils conference you will learn a variety of tried and true methods to create your own regen garden. Biodynamics, permaculture, soil amendments and the web of living things amongst other things are all on the list to be covered.
The focus of this year’s conference will be the biology of the soil. Too many understandings of the soil are based on chemistry (pH) or physics (particle size). We bring the biology. The intersecting webs of life in a living soil. A soil that is growing year on year.
From then on you can join our ongoing membership where each month a new technique, idea or theory will be explored on the ground with practical applications.
To Learn More Click through to our RegenEarth 2019 ~ Living Soils page. As we book in people with years of experience and an understanding of just what it takes to keep soil alive and thriving we’ll be adding to that page. The RegenEarth Podcast
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To win a copy of Andrew’s Book answer this poll where you can enter the raffle. And remember you can get a 20% discount by using the code: garden on a subscription to Andrew’s awesome publication Growing for Market magazine or any of his books or the books in their online store. I know you are going to love this interview as much as I did. Remember to share this episode with a friend!
The Organic No-Till Farming Revolution: High-Production Methods for Small-Scale Farmers
The Greenhouse and Hoophouse Grower’s Handbook: Organic Vegetable Production Using Protected Culture Andrew Mefferd is editor of Growing for Market magazine.
He has spent 15 years working on farms in six states, including a year working on a no-till research farm, and worked for seven years in the research department at
Johnny’s Selected Seeds . He travels around the world consulting with researchers and farmers on the best practices in greenhouse growing and sustainable agriculture. He is the author of The Greenhouse and Hoophouse Grower’s Handbook, and has a passion for promoting local farming movements. He lives and farms in Cornville, Maine.
The Greenhouse and Hoophouse Grower’s Handbook: Organic Vegetable Production Using Protected Culture
coupon code for your listeners for either the book or a subscription!
OGP
New Society willing to give away a book its really up to you to decide how to give the book away!!
I’m so excited to hear that because I usually would give the copy you gave me away but it’s one of the ones I really want to keep in my library. Well I love my listeners that’s amazing! They are all dedicated to growing a greener future by saving the planet not just growing food but growing an organic oasis.
I’m not from Maine, and moved here and love it! So I feel I can recommend it.
Maine is going to have its bicentennial, the little town we live in was founded in the 1800s
very old
small farm state
because we don’t have the big expanses of land, like out west
the place was carved up into little farmsteads
and it’s not flat
remains that way.
a lot like the farm I live on * house and a barn * 30-40 acres of open land * Another 70 or something of woods
People farm and get their firewood
it could be a good deal
sounds like a fixer upper
You would have to do things to it, I think that as long as you know that going into it, and
Yesterday even my mom went to a CBD oil place with her buddies, we are thinking we could have a hemp field and we are thinking the building could be a school. We could have some vegetables but mostly hemp. IDK it’s the first place we’ve ever thought of moving to from our place… who knows it could be sold by now. Let’s talk about you!
Tell us a little about yourself. Yeah sure! I would say that I grew up in the state of VA in northern up close to Washington DC
where it’s very suburban. My entry point into farming really was through gardening. We had a garden there were I grew up in VA and I had a farm one generation back in my family. My dad’s mom had a fairly large farm in PA
As I grew up I got more and more interested in the growing side of things, which started out as a garden. We had this compost pile for years at my house
sort of Mount Compostmore! kept piling stuff up and up
huge compost pile and finally I said we should have a garden! One of myfirst gardening experiences was spreading the compost out!
We were, we wanted to have a garden and ended up just spreading the compost pile on the garden site
We spread it out and it ended up being a really great garden! I love that story! You don’t ave to have a garden to save your compost maybe you will down the line!
right!
Compost is like fine wine the older it gets the better it is.
We just wanted to get ready to have a garden
potentially
organic matter
filing it up
sitting there rotting and when we were ready to have a garden!
there it was
that was kind of my entry point
as I got more and more interested in growing
I thought that I wanted to have a farm
I went to school for journalism and my first few jobs as apprenticeship in journalism I was in a cubical all day long
this is not what I want to do
I want to be outside
talking to my brother about organic food. I had always
ignorantly
blissfully assumed that that government was making food safe
whatever is sprayed on the food is safe
talking to my brother
I can’t believe they let you spray that on food!
it made the most sense to work on a farm in the neck of the woods
the apprentice circuit Did an apprenticeship on a farm in Pennsylvania
not wanting to spend all day in a cubicle
met my wife there and we did what she calls the apprentice circuit
That fall at the end of the apprenticeship in PA we took a road trip and visited farms in the country
Ended up picking a farm in California, so we went straight to the fall season on a farm in AA
started a
Mediterranean
jan 21st one of the first jobs was
- bucking up the olive wood into firewood
from there we went to Washington state
research farm for VA tech
We did start a farm in PA and that’s a long story and we loss the use of that land
- bounced around
- more apprenticeships in upstate in NY and then up to Maine and actually out on the coast of Maine
now I do live on a farm in Cornville, Maine
this is
our farm is about 45 min from Johnny’s research farm which is longer then I wanted to commute and we live in a rural area
that’s like where we are
- rural people can relate
- a lot of suburban people can relate because
which is like northern VA I just couldn’t take that too much time in the car
mainly to farm
one thing a lot of growers do is to work for johns in the winter
if you called into Johnny’s and said you were a potential grower I would have potentially helped you make that order and this job in the research department became available
running trials on different and tomatoes are my spirit crop
I applied for it and I sure enough I got that
I ended up at Johnny’s for seven years in the research department running trials on tomatoes I ended up getting into greenhouse trialling as well as you know the national
funding a lot of high tunnels
increasing demand for recommendations People would build one and call us up at Johnny’s and saying I got my high tunnel up now what do I plant in it and
that led to my first book
The Greenhouse and Hoophouse Grower’s Handbook: Organic Vegetable Production Using Protected Culture
because not only was I putting a lot of energy for Johnny’s but also putting a lot of it into our own farm when you consider that we moved from Pennsylvania to Maine.
My favorite thing is tomatoes
place where you have a nice long growing season to a place where in my mind it’s not commercially worthwhile
They take so long to ripen, our season is so short.
I think that’s a lot like us but now isn’t Jean Martin Fortier north of you or is his season different? I know he says greenhouse tomatoes are his number one crop in his book:
The Market Gardener: A Successful Grower’s Handbook for Small-Scale Organic Farming
His season is probably similar. That’s why he’s growing them in a hoophouse, I know he has a nice greenhouse too. I think that’s it, growers in these northern areas really need to use season extension to make those crops profitable.
Here we have all the
- diseases
- heat humidity
- splits
and to make matters worse you can’t plant them in the field to June, by the time those big beefsteaks are starting to ripen the weather’s cooling back off
lots of gardeners grow large fruited tomatoes up here, but it’s the kind of thing where you are a commercial growers trying to make a profit it
If you only pick
That’s a decision we made and what I know most of the commercial growers are producing them indoors.
i have been to one of his places, he is more or less due west, we’re in central Maine and he’s just over the border from NY. I would guess that he has a similar climate
There’s a lot of demand for those local tomatoes
I think protected culture instead of trying to grow them.
I think it’s his hoophouse tomatoes.
I continue to be obsessed with greenhouse tomatoes but I did leave Johnny’s to take over the Magazine, Growing for Market which is something I had written for from time to time, leading up to taking it over.
IDK how familiar your readers are
We are now in our 28th year
Lynn Byzanski, she started as a flower farmer in Kansas
She wrote the book:
| The Flower Farmer: An Organic Grower’s Guide to Raising and Selling Cut Flowers, 2nd Edition |
I remember buying that book 15 years ago when I was at VA Tech, getting close to the part of start of our farm,
She started the magazine 28 years ago now
3 years ago she was ready to pass it on, asked me if I would be interested
When I asked her why, she said cause I was already writing for the magazine
I thought it was a great opportunity
small publication
not affiliated
kind of like a family business
she wanted someone to take it over that was writing for the magazine so they would continue to do so
editor to write for it
since I was already
Growing for Market – for direct to market farmers It’s something we subscribe to for over a decade and really the only publication specifically for direct-to-market farmers.
- farmers market
- farm stand
- CSA
- those kind of...
The Farmer’s Office One of the things my guests have talked about a lot is effective bookkeeping and record keeping whether your a small backyard gardener or a busy market farmer. Today Julia Shanks is going to share her knowledge of business, farming, cooking and restaurants, her books and her new course on how to be the most effective producer you can be and how to enjoy growing a successful garden.
Julia Shanks Author of the The Farmer’s Office: Tools, Tips and Templates to Successfully Manage a Growing Farm Business is here today to share her brilliance and talk about her new course the Farmer’s Edge starting January 11th, 2017!
FULL SHOW NOTES COMING SOON! Let’s Get to the Root of Things Which activity is your least favorite activity to do in the garden.
No, I love it all. I can’t get into the garden enough. I love weeding in the morning with my coffee I find it meditative . . .
What is your favorite activity to do in the garden.
Probably, I do enjoy the weeding I get the weeds in the thread stage and I get to see the clean beds….
just sitting and pondering the different cycles
vegetables behind
watching the vegetables..
What is the best gardening advice you have ever received?
Well, I’m thinking the most recent gardening advice
there’s a dfference between decomposing vegetables and compost
my compost system isn’t very good, that’s
I tried that. as long as it’s composting well, if the worms the die… the compost gets really stinky, I have a lot of worms in my soil, I feel like I’m vermi-composting, it’s aerated,
You have to drill al to of holes, holes in the bottom of the bin… as you put
not gonna get the same air s
A favorite tool that you like to use? If you had to move and could only take one tool with you what would it be.
I don’t have a lot of tools, I need my hose to water, I just got drip irrigation
I have a trowel, a
Well, I just got the drip irrigation hoses, I bought them at home depot, I just snaked them around the garden… water doesn’t
plant everything pretty darn close
small garden, 100-200 feet was enough…
especially with the drought, on the
be careful
concentrate the water where you want it, turn it on when you need to soak the water …
A favorite recipe you like to cook from the garden?
I do make that kale salad regularly
the other dish
- I saute with garlic raisins
- curry powder
- romesco sauce
- tomato
- pepper sauce
that’s a favorite
I wrote this book with my friend Brett, the farmer in Maryland
he has a dish … for potato
December dishes because it’s cold
- sauted greens with potatoes
- scallions
- simple
good curry recipes
I like the coconut curry with chili paste
restorative and creamy and rich
healthy
The Cookbook is called the
The Farmers Market Cookbook: The Ultimate Guide to Enjoying Fresh, Local, Seasonal Produce A favorite internet resource?
this is gonna be really self serving but my website
I have a lot of resources
I’ve been writing lots of articles
lots of tools and tips
templates
find a cash flow
lots of excel templates
webinars
videos
accounting…
food and ag
links to the
articles….
A favorite reading material-book, mag, blog/website etc you can recommend?
I gotta say I do enjoy growing for market
guilty pleasure is Modern Farmer
I don’t think anyone
written who want to be farmer…
I enjoy it… good magazine…
If you have a business to you have any advice for our listeners about how to sell extra produce or get started in the industry?
I would say, track your costs… as much as you can… that’s the only way you are going to figure out what works
if you do’t know how much you are growing…
if you’re gonna make that kind of financial investment
Final question- if there was one change you would like to see to create a greener world what would it be? For example is there a charity or organization your passionate about or a project you would like to see put into action. What do you feel is the most crucial issue facing our planet in regards to the environment either in your local area or on a national or global scale?
What I am thinking about right now is how can we support small farmers to be sustainable, they are the ones thinking about our soil
providing
the carrot project
providing business
that’s what I’m thinking
in California
local dept of ags
supporting local farmers …
Do u have an inspiration tip or quote to help motivate our listeners to reach into that dirt and start their own garden?
follow your passion but be realistic
if you love gardening
How do we connect with you?
Sure!
They can go to my website JuliaShanks.com
The Farmers Market Cookbook: The Ultimate Guide to Enjoying Fresh, Local, Seasonal Produce cookbook and the business class
The Farmer’s Office: Tools, Tips and Templates to Successfully Manage a Growing Farm Business
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Since Ellen Polishuk and I talked about my interviews with Richard Wiswall and Julia Shanks last week I thought I’d replay them for listeners this week. Here’s the amazing Richard Wiswall.
Welcome to today’s episode of the Organic Gardener Podcast! I am thrilled to introduce my guest who has written an amazing book about the business oforganic farming that I think will inspire listeners to think about the options for their future. His book starts out peaking interest with a quote from a talk a fellow farmer gave at the New England Vegetable and Fruit conference “Sometimes I think I should have listened to my parents and become a doctor or a lawyer, but you know, I don’t think I could take the pay cut.”
Eventually he would write the Organic Farmer’s Business Handbook: A Complete Guide to Managing Finances, Crops, and Staff – and Making a Profit. This book comes with a companion CD that included templets for creating worksheets, budgets including cash flow projections, and even payroll.
He’s manager of the Cate Farm a family owned and operated organic farm in Central Vermont that includes 22 acres and seven 100-foot long greenhouses of organic vegetables, medicinal herbs, and flowers. Everything they sell is certified organic.
Tell us a little about yourself.
So I’ve been farming full time for about 35 years now. Business has changed over the years, for the first 20 years, I was a highly diversified organic vegetable, herb and flower produce that sold to markets in Central Vermont and through Deep Root Organic Coop, which is a growers coop that sells to Boston and NY to bigger stores.
We had a CSA in the nineties, went to Farmer’s market for 25 years. As I get older I don’t want to work as long and hard as I used to so we no longer do the CSA or Market, even though I’m big fans of both of them.
The other thing I’ve been doing besides farming is to help other farmers trying to help tune up their businesses, because I’ve seen a lot of people after 9-10 years they’re struggle after making long hours, their burning out because the money is not there. I was helping others at conferences etc so I wrote the book because I saw things that came up over and over again that seem to be point needing to be addressed.
In short farmers love doing what they do for all the right reasons, being outside and watching plants grow, and nurturing them and producing delicious nutritious food, what could be better there’s a fundamental satisfaction from that.
I don’t think anybody gets into farming because they want to be a business person, and study business sheets and cash flow projections but ultimately the reality is farming is a business and you have to know the business end of it where you’re not gonna succeed. You can be as ecologically sustainable but if you aren’t economically sustainable that goes out the window because you wont be in business anymore.
I try to get people to spend a little time to work on their business not just in their business, and ask them to set aside 3 hours to do some long range thinking and planning and look at the business and also analyze where the money comes and goes so you can work fewer hours and make more money, ultimately that would be great that’s what a lot of people want.
I think a lot of farmers tend to over work themselves. Farmers can be guilty of self exploitation because they believe so strongly in what they do and it’s a great life but they can work longer and longer hours and sacrifice other parts of your life to make your farm succeed but that self-exploitation has a boundary as some point where you can’t do that as much anymore and you can’t keep going or you burn out. That’s where I’m coming from, that’s where I like to point people, if you are going to try to make a living farming or market gardening, pay attention to the business end.
I heard a guy say in a Facebook group the other day that you can’t make money farming unless you have big average and its a struggle. And certainly all of my podcasting friends talk about how if your podcast isn’t making money it’s a hobby and not a business you need to think about, know how much you want to follow your passions you have to be realist, and as an artist it’s the same lesson I need to learn there too. No matter how much you like to do what you like to do it there’s always that piece how are you gonna make money at it..
It’s interesting you bring up people say that’ it’s hard to do, I don’t want to sugar coat it, it’s true there’s a lot of barriers involved, farming is a hard way to make a living, but there’s that kind of nay-sayer attitude that is self-fulfilling and I’m not sure if it’s a genetic defect of farmers that tend to moan more then look on the bright side. I think what you hear in the farming community more people are complaining about things that can go wrong, whether its markets, pests, or disease or the tractor breakdown. You hear very little from the people who are successful and there’s a reason because people who are successful, don’t like to brag about their success. So you don’t hear from them.
Also if you say I can’t make a living farming, its an easy course to teach, well you just taught yourself, the more you think that then you can say you achieved your goal.
As opposed to I believe very strongly a good living can be made farming, you just have to think about it treat it more as a business then as something that will fall into your lap.
One thing has been a bit of a theme this year on the show, with things challenging even if one thing fails, the majority of things work. One thing might not work and you’ll learn something. Every year there’s gonna be something that fails but the majority of things grow.
Tell me about your first gardening experience?
My parents kept a garden all through my childhood and my first gardening experience was me and my brother was maybe 2 years older then me, I don’t think we were hired just we were asked to flip a new piece of ground. So we took some spades, hoeing it into shape, and it’s a very fond memories of the satisfaction in working in the earth. After that my parents had a garden we helped tend the garden.
My first solo garden was 19 working at a summer plot, there was a community garden, that’s the steep learning curve, you have to try putting peppers, what kind of peppers are you gonna grow, spacing, and cut worms what are you gonna do about cut worms? There’s all those things, that was a very positive thing. Plus the fact that all the neighbors and fellow employees were so willing to help share their knowledge about how to do things. I think that’s a positive part of the gardening community people are willing to help one another out working for everyone’s success, that’s a very positive thing.
It wasn’t till I came to Cate farm and tilled up an acre, we had someone custom till an acre we had a very diverse shotgun approach of what would do well, and what would sell well. The next year 2 acres- doubling to 4 acres and then … 6 acres, 8 acres… 12 acres. up to 16 acres, and so very quickly we went up to scale, then actually back down to about 12, because 12 highly diverse row crops was about all that I wanted to handle with the crew that I had.
As a kid I always grew up wanting to be a homesteader, me and my brother would go read Mother Earth News from issue one and totally into the self-sufficiency and independent living skills. I thought as a kid well I would be half-time farmer half-time professional but I became a full time farmer pretty quick. Luckily happily so.
You grew up in Vermont right?
No, I grew up on Long Island (NY) on south shore which was very agricultural I grew up with potato and cabbage farms surrounding me, even though my family weren’t farmers but I was surrounded by it. Since then it’s changed to more houses and woods. Long Island was a great place to grow up in the 50s and 60s. Then I moved to VT in college and have been here ever since.
I grew up on Long Island too and people are always surprised, Long Island has lots of nature preserves and cool farms on the Eastern end.
Once you get past the commuting line, half way out on the Eastern end it has lots of agriculture and almost has a New England feel and look to it.
What does organic gardening/earth friendly mean to you?
I think I was attracted to organic farming, besides reading all the Mother Earth News way back when. I went to school, during junior year went to Nepal, outside Katmandu valley, living in a mud hut and they raised water buffalo and we biked to school for language and culture classes and that was a pivotal part of life. I did an independent project on effects of green revolution. That started me thinking along the lines of wanting to run my own farm.
Helena Scott Nearing came to talk.
Diet for a Small Planet and Radical Agriculture,
Wendall Berry Unsettling of America kind of capped it all, but it was when my college advisor put me on a tractor one weekend to help him disc a field, when I realized what I wanted to be doing. That’s kind of how it started.
Organic Gardening is kind of living by a set of values, for me, being an organic farmer I like having a business compromising my values for having a healthy planet and producing nutritious food. To use natures cycles to produce a nutritious food without any undo impact or harmful impact. So for me it’s using as much that’s given to us, whether is’t sunlight, atmospheric nitrogen, carbon, very incredibly diverse microbial complex soil and inter-relationships that we can use to grow good food for people, plants and animals.
Organic gardening on a technical level we’re certified organic, so there’s a federal law that says what’s organic and what’s not. But on a general level it’s using those natural cycles and treating the soil with the most upmost respect so you are encouraging it, nutrient cycling as much s possible and treating the soil with respect. On a practical level we use a lot of cover crops. We have the ability because we have more acreage then we row crop that we can rotate things in and out of cover crops. We actually got a combine to grow grains as part of our rotations. If you grow cover crops, you are basically growing a crop that is resting the soil from row crops, as well as increasing it’s biological activity and increasing its organic matter by just plowing the crop back into the ground.
We also use a lot of compost and rock minerals. We do a lot of soil tests to quite a bit to see, if you need rock phosphate, or green sand or lime to put on soils to achieve the balance your looking for.
Do you want to tell listeners what a cover crop is?
A cover crop is anything you put on the ground that is not for consumption. If you have a bare piece of ground you are not going to grow for seed next year. It could be anything from oats to rye to mix of grasses to peas to radishes anything that helps to contribute organic matter, shade out weeds, and get tilled back in to feed microbes in soil so in the future you can plant your garden with very little extra inputs. Cover crops come in all different forms,some are nitrogen fixing like legumes peas, beans alfalfa, clovers. Some are used for smothering out weeds like hat kind of grow close together things like oats, rye, buckwheat, mixes. It’s fun to try different things some are cold hardy, some are not cold hardy. As a farmer when you get everything out of the ground it;s fun to just sow some oat and get some oats form the feed store, it will pop right up
grow a few inches and it will winter kill in the norths, quickly till that into the soil and build your soil that way so it protects your soil, it increases your soil biological activity, it adds carbo nall good things.
Tell us about something that grew well this year.
This year we had a challenging spring weather-wise. We have a lot of cover crops in the ground. We are growing more greenhouse crops. The greenhouse crops are insulated from bad weather. We have 7 greenhouses that we grow some seedlings for sale for others, 6 packs of tomatoes and broccoli for example. Then we have a couple of greenhouses where we have tomatoes in the ground…grafting. We have other greenhouses where we grow greens lettuce and beets and other things in the ground that we harvest for sale.
In terms of how did the season grow, outside it was ok, we had a partial crop loss due to weather, but that’s ok because you roll with the punches. In the greenhouse everything was find because can control heat, we are able to roll up sides so we can lower when it’s cold and we have drip irrigation so we can add it when we need it. The top is like a big umbrella even when it’s open so those are big factors when growing a crop, is to provide the right growing conditions.
Do you keep the greenhouses growing during the winter?
No, in VT, you can, but our markets are much more spring and summer and fall oriented. In the winter time, at least where we are at 44º north latitude, you don’t have enough photoperiod the days are too short from Mid Nov- Dec till the first week in Feb, so basically you can’t grow without lights, without supplemental lighting. But what you can do is you can start some spinach in Sept and let it get up to almost full size as it get’s colder even without the heat on it will be like having a refrigerator full of spinach., then on a sunny day when it warms up you can cut it, and sell it and it will freeze solid no big deal then come spring it will actually start growing. Around feb 15th window it will start regrowing, will sprout up again, get another crop off by the end of march we do that with spinach but generally we like to freeze greenhouses, we drain water but we let it get really cold to help control pests and disease.
When I first asked do they keep their greenhouses growing all winter.
There’s a tomato grower who does that as well. I don’t like using fuel to heat our greenhouses anymore then I have to. I used to make biodiesel for the green houses I used to take old french fry oil and make homemade biodiesel. I’m not doing that any longer so then we tend to heat our greenhouses later in the spring, and not at all in the fall
less
greenhouse tomatoes
If you are having a problem growing tomatoes, because of early blight or leaf diseases that a simple unheated greenhouse makes your job so much easier, because you can prevent rain from falling on the leaves, if you can keep the leaf surface dry then you have eliminated 95% of the problem because they can’t colonize bacteria and fungi on it.
You just roll up sides to lower for extra warmth.
You can produce fantastic tomatoes that taste great and that look perfect. We simply trellis them. We drop strings down from the greenhouse structure. so they are about 8 foot tall looks like a hedge row these five rows that are 8-10’ tall loaded with tomatoes. It’s not hard to do with some kind of greenhouse structure, and even on a small scale proven winner. Almost every professional grower I know relies on greenhouse tomatoes and not field tomatoes. They do grow some field tomatoes but it’s so much better to grow in greenhouses.
Listeners maybe think greenhouses tomatoes don’t taste that good, but they get a bad rap from commercial growers, but they actually taste better, because you are providing every thing it likes. By providing warmer nights, even irrigation through a drip hose, you get higher fertility and better management everything a tomato wants, you can grow any variety in a greenhouse, but you can grow incredibly good tasting ones, that will be producing right up through a hard freeze outside.
Do you have raised beds in the greenhouse or they are in the ground in the green house? What are they growing in?
When I talk about a greenhouse basically these are metal hoop kind of gable pitched roof, metal pipe frames with a covering of plastic one or two layers of plastic, of special greenhouse poly that lasts a couple of years, so we basically you can take regular garden soil and put a greenhouse over it, by put posts in the ground and covering it with plastic.
We add compost and rock powders, and till the beds up, we will make small raised bed, not dramatically, then lay drip lines, and then put mulch on top of drip lines, and then plant tomatoes on top of the it, then through the mulch. and they grow up like Jack in the Bean Stalk.
You are putting starts or seeds?
We will start tomatoes in a flat and grow them up to be about 8 inches tall and then bring them into the greenhouse for rest of life till they set red fruit till we pull them out later in November.
So when do you start the seeds and then when do you transplant to greenhouse?
A tomato plant from the time you take a seed to the time you want to transplant it into the ground typically takes 6 weeks.
when do you plant? 6-8 weeks. From there you put in the ground, we start seeds inside in February under lights, then we transplant in late March/April 1st here to a greenhouse,...
I am delighted to introduce my amazing guest from Plant to Profit Farm Consulting Ellen Polishuk is here to share her amazing knowledge and story as well as her new book available on amazon or her website!
Start Your Farm: The Authoritative Guide to Becoming a Sustainable 21st Century Farmer Listen to your first audio book for free by clicking on our audible affiliate link
Tell us a little about yourself you were telling me today in Washington DC you had snow today. Yup! as you said, just the end of January having a little bit of snow
raised in the DC Suburbs
55 been here a long time
whole career has been in agriculture
vegetable gardener
part of a farm called Potomac Vegetable Farms
25 year career there growing and selling organically grown * vegetables * herbs * cut flowers
Tell me about your first gardening experience? It’s good story everybody has to start somewhere
easiest way to describe it I think I was just born loving plants, they were sort of my sort of pets
as a little child I would collect indoor plants in my room. I got a community garden plot when I was like 8
goes back quite a long time even though I grew up in a cul de sac, the most ideal suburban childhood but somehow
agriculture grabbed me ended up getting a degree in horticulture in college
not growing up on a a farm.
Do you want to tell listeners what sustainable agriculture maybe means to you did you learn that in horticulture school? As a young person when I first
15-16-17 years old, luckily I worked on farms, that were quote unquote, “organically”
started getting Organic Gardening magazine like everyone else,
keep up and see what other people were doing sustainable ag
organic more specific and legally defined now
- bigger umbrella
- terminology
- organic
- biodynamic
- some conservation practices
- irregular
- no-till farmer might take part in
- fairly broad term
- specific
- legally
Do you want to tell listeners about your book?
so, the book is written
Forrest Pritchard
grass-based livestock grower
sells in the larger DC market area
our idea
how to grow things
how to grow animals
vegetables
technical aspects of farming
what
bugs are
What we felt was missing was a book that helped described the foundational thinking, that goes with the thinking involved with a farm business
Especially for people who are thinking about moving into a farming business income generating
what things they might want to think about
personal temperaments
resources
help
think about the business and financial aspects
manage your energy and not burn out
how not to kill relationships when your pressing hard
That area of the business mind is probably the most striking thing Like I said, I’ve been pouring through JM Fortier’s book. Trying to figure it all out and then he talks about 2 acres which is a lot more then our 1/3 acre. IDK why at this time in my life I’m obsessed with business podcasts which is so opposite when I was in college and you probably couldn’t even get me to go into the business building. But that’s part of my personality too when you talk about temperament. So what else do you see missing?
The biggest thing is the business mind missing in folks that have an impulse to be a grower
not the same thing
at all
need to have both of those combined
in order to run a business to pay the bills to
getting friendly with numbers
can you get friendly
sustainable ag
bring together this ecological balance and all the beauties most of us growers are attracted to
- being outside
- touching the sun
- watching the plants grow
- nurturing impulse
combine that ecological care
economic stability
having a reasonable head for numbers
how much is it costing us to grow things?
what does my price need to be so I can stay in business
We talk a lot about business mindset * roi * how to handle your money * pretty specific aspects
that’s the main thing
some conversation in there
thinking about your temperament from other angles:
like whether or not you’re a perfectionists? Perfectionists are not going to find themselves particularly acceptable if you are super detailed oriented, there are not many tasks where you will be recompensed in the market
88% perfect is pretty good
I’m gonna go with it
ability
temperament without withstand things never being done constant work in process
never finished with anything
always
- growing
- learning
- more projects
- more weather
seasons
constant growing process
maybe difficult going to bed each night knowing there are lots of things that didn’t
I think this is so fitting, I look at this from a teaching perspective. There’s so many things about my personality that don’t fit a teacher like, repetition, having to do the same schedule exactly the same way every day at the same time. That’s a part of my temperament. I’m a very visual type or person and a visionary, and I’m always looking into the future and the pace of education changes at a snails pace. And then I’m not a perfectionist, I could never get an A no matter how much I studied but I usually got B+s which I thought was pretty good.
My big question is last summer we found a business that said they would take everything we would grow but I started looking at my kale etc and was thinking other people might not like my kale with little insect holes in it that don’t bother me.
we don’t specifically make any kind of quality standard
I’m happy to parse that out with you now.
And maybe down the line we’re gonna figure that out.
Let’s just say that probably at this moment in time there’s the most capacity for regular person or consumer to handle imperfection
movement and talked about on TV, written in the paper
less then perfect vegetables more robust in Europe but coming into the US
more organized recognition
cosmetic standards usually has to do with this
pepper has this funny shape
doesn’t mean is it going to rot but more of a cosmetic standard
shape and color
doesn’t fit in the box with the other ones
positive awareness
- lets loosen that up
- let’s not throw those things away
- make sure somebody gets to eat them
good news aspects
When it comes to bugs I think there is 0 tolerance people don’t like bugs at all
it freaks them out
there is no respite and no place to hide
exchange a product that has bugs in it.
I know. It makes me laugh I remember when mike would enter the fair they would want everything to be the same size. Like 5 potatoes or 4 tomatoes on a vine all the same size.
I think that’s an interesting point that your making, its a good point that
there is a difference between feeding yourselves and your standards are going to be lower then what’s ok in the market place
in the market place there’s a big difference
At the farmer’s market you can get away with lots of imperfection, people sort of expect it
They’re standing there and they know what their weather is like
what their garden is
chard missing
get into the wholesale setting
sell to someone who’s going to resell
It’s interesting when we went to Young’s Farm, we were looking at the peach trees and he was saying that the peaches just weren’t ever good enough to sell, but they could sell peach pies. Like 5000 of them!
don’t have a lot of experience in the restaurant selling business
determine where ever piece was going to go
would send the worst looking stuff to a restaurant
gonna wash it and cutting it up and cook
perfect place
restaurants to taken up that mantle
thats our role to take
I’d like to spend some time talking about
What resources do you have to bear When you talk about a farm organism? Things cost money
building up a set of tools
infrastructure
things cost money
you need to have either time or money or both
what I find in my consulting business and teaching business
come across folks who have neither one
in a sense like this
someone writes to me
I’m on this family land
I got it for free
- I have no other job
- have to get money off this piece
They send me this soil test
soil is broken and it takes time for soil to heal
for free
money
not ready to create your amazing living right off the bat
You can heal and fix things
if you have time
3-5 years you can bring that soil alive doing good practices or if you have a huge budget bring 50 tons of compost
JM Fortier
liquid fertility
foliar sprays
buy microbial inoculants
I used to work for a printer he had a triangle on his wall:
I thought you were going to talk about tools, as far as labor how long it takes mike to weed his minifarm with his cultivator hoe. But I feel like you just dropped a ton of golden seeds about things I have never thought of.
I always tell people, go ahead and quit your day job, but get a night job. We delivered the paper that was helped me get my podcast off the ground. People always say to me you’ve been doing this for 4 years why aren’t you making money but it takes a long time to get an online business off the ground.I feel like I grow in leaps and bounds.
on target with what I am trying to talk about
closely related
said a different way
read books like JM Fortier’s book and say I’m gonna do that but then they don’t buy the 50 tons of compost.
think they are going to plant intensively and all these plants and their soil resource isn’t ready and they don’t get very good crops
be careful about following the advice or a book or something you have read
if you don’t understand how that person is building a whole system
some part is successful
JM Fortier style
you have to do do 50 tons of compost over and over and over again
that’s his system. If you want the results of his system you have to put it to work.
Not to say anything negative his book is amazing very inspiring.
That’s like I was looking for a job online customer service and I was reading people’s terms and conditions for refunds, and it was like can you prove you did this, this, and this.
I’m glad you brought that up, because that’s another thing
somehow people think that faming doesn’t require practice and it isn’t a profession especially people who aren’t even gardeners think
I’m super excited to introduce my guest today Julia Henderson from Confluence Farm who is not just a gardener but a chef who is going to share their garden journey from restaurants to organic farming and more! Sorry folks show notes to be completed in the future! Enjoy the audio! Rockstar Millennials
Confluence Farm is an organic vegetable and flower farm located in Sebastopol, CA along the picturesque Green Valley & Purrington creeks. Julia and Andy are chefs turned farmers who truly understand high quality products and making people happy. We focus on generating the healthiest soil we can in order to grow the most nutrient dense and healthy vegetables possible. A confluence is when two entities come together, be it water or people. Our food and flowers bring people together, whether it be at on our farm, self grown and catered events, or nurturing our own community and family through markets. Our motto is “Come Together, Eat Well”.
Tell us a little about yourself. My name is Julia I own a 3 acre farm
an hour north of SF
certified organic
vegetables
I used to be a pastry chef
my husband
we met in San Francisco
always had a garden
only a small amount
about 4 years ago
we were both looking to transition away from the restaurant world
we still wanted to do something with food
the property where I grew up
it had been bought to be a farm when my flimsy original moved there
saw the potential for it to be a farm
we decided to move back
having worked in the food industry
committed to working with local growers
for the ingredients we used in the food
husband especially had the green thumb out of the two of us
inspired by what he saw
dove in headfirst
neither of
3rd year
exciting
backstory
farmers mart
Tell me about your first gardening experience? my mom has quite a green thumb
always had a garden
some vegetables
still has a garden to this day
right next to the farm
- flowers
- perennials
- least
- cherry tomatoes
- lettuce
- swiss chard
what ever else she was interested in
can’t say I had a super green thumb
interested
later in life
learned a lot love for plants
first ex
How did you learn how to garden organically? her garden was always pretty small
when we decided to start the farm it was important to be organic
getting certified from day one
Tell us about something that grew well this year. I was happy with was our carrots
Is there something you would do different next year or want to try/new? bringing someone on full time
needed more help to be productive
bringing on hands and help
Tell me about something that didn’t work so well this season. biggest pest pressure are flea beetles
love baby greens
brassicas
Which activity is your least favorite activity to do in the garden? moving materials
moving plant material out
- tarps
- row cover
feels a little bit like straight manual labor
What is your favorite activity to do in the garden? I really love greenhouse work
seeding
tending to the baby plants
one of my specialization on the farm
love the
harvesting flowers
we don’t have as much flowers as vegetables
What is the best gardening advice you have ever received? Um, I think well one thing I think is the idea that there is a difference between dirt and soil
you really want to keep your soil alive and active
A favorite tool that you like to use? If you had to move and could only take one tool with you what would it be? greens harvester
baby greens
lettuce mix
cuts it extremely fast
A favorite recipe you like to cook from the garden? we do is kind of an easier go to
rice bowl
grain bowl
veggies on top
one of my favorite things he make is incredible tomatoes sauce
A favorite internet resource? youtube
is really great
a lot that we have learned from youtube
Curtis stone
learned a lot from his videos
about growing is really helpful
A favorite reading material-book, mag, blog/website etc you can recommend?
Jean Martin Fortier Market Gardener he focuses on especially for a smaller farm
certain resources
geared towards
maximize efficiency productivity
how to
small farm
how to really be more
If you have a business to you have any advice for our listeners about how to sell extra produce or get started in the industry? I think that one of the advice that I would say is to really think about where your farm is and where your market would be
do some research
Final question- If there was one change you would like to see to create a greener world what would it be? For example is there a charity or organization your passionate about or a project you would like to see put into action. What do you feel is the most crucial issue facing our planet in regards to the environment either in your local area or on a national or global scale?
yeah that’s a hard one there’s so many thing
moving towards renewable energy
create jobs
effectively implemented on a large scale
see in my life time
it would make a big difference
talk about
more solar
farm and property
that’s something I would really like to see change
within my own work
responsible ag practices
sustainable ag practices vs not
really important to support farms that are really doing it right
small medium larger scale farm
supporting
putting our dollars towards those farms
ag practices have a large impact on the land and
environment
really complicated
global economy
need to feed the world
really supporting farms that are making it
an effort
gives back
that’s something I really hope in my lifetime we more support for
really funding
more support and research for that
actual
funds to help people to implement things on their farms to soil
our markets most are fairly small we’re gonna be at one a little bigger next year
most are small to medium farms
a lot of people are organic
some are not certified
some do not
conception from people
all farms
common misconception that all farms at a market are organic
hard to compete with other farms that are not
pretty good awareness
smaller
most of the other farms
if they’re not certified
growing organically using good practices
hard to compete
relay why there’s value
in what you are growing why it might be more expensive
work on our messaging
value in our product
Do you have an inspiration tip or quote to help motivate our listeners to reach into that dirt and start their own garden? you would be amazed how much you can grow in a small space
plants s
easy and prolific
tomatoes
summer squash
if you are interested
grow a lot of food
just a yard
few pots of different vegetables
really rewarding to
bias both cooks
rewarding to cook with fresh ingredients
extra satisfying
fresh ingredients
don’t be intimidated
that’s such a good point
my sister was asking what should she grow in her backyard
even if you don’t use them all
snip some herbs
cook with them
bring in so many
How do we connect with you? our Instagram is @ confluence farm
website is confluencefarm.com great way to get a sense
my one of my really close friends
her mother did it
really talented artist
farming
politics
how i built this
farmsmall/farmsmart
farming focus
ted radio hour
doesn’t
listen with forage beautiful all about herbs
herbal studies
really
every episode dived into an herb
have another herbalist on
growing of it
I was gonna say
a flower farmer who would be amazing to talk to
Heather
full bloom flower farm
wealth of knowledge
young
andy’s age
wealth of knowledge
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For Valentine’s Day I asked Mark Usewicz from Mermaid’s Garden NYC to talk to us about their Fish Market and CSA since it seems like the news is all about the Mediterranean diet. I love fish, and caring for sustainable Oceans and water is important to me, and I think it probably is for you too. I’ve got some great videos of my mom making her delicious fish I’ll try to add at the end. Sorry it took so long to get this out there, but I always say the perfect interview happens when just the right listener is in the audience!
MermaidsGardenNYC.com Mermaid’s Garden On Instagram
Check out Mark’s pieces in Martha Stewart
Tell us a little about yourself, Mark Usewicz. I was trained as a chef
restaurant business
lived in NYC
last thing I wanted to do was open my own restaurant and the next worse thing is open my own business but
my wife was in the restaurant business
trained as a fish biologist
We saw this need for a great fish market in our neighborhood, there really wasn’t anywhere great to buy fish
We knew a few fishermen and we built this network started a fish share kind of like a CSA or CSF but we’re not the fisherman Started by connecting our customers with a weekly fish sourced in the Northeast
we work with fishermen on
- Long Island
- Massachusetts
- Rhode Island
Developed this whole network of
- aqua-culturists
- small boat fisherman
retail space
fish share going retail market * all domestic * small boat * fisherman sourced seafood
I grew up in Buffalo, NY so other side of the state
a lot of people don’t know where that is in NYC,
- different vibe
- different pace
I grew up on Long Island and I have sooooo many fond memories of buying fish on the docks from the fisherman in Freeport on Long Island. My mom would cook all the fish from scratch, cut the heads off scale it etc… and then there’s been so much on the news this year about the Mediterranean diet being the best and that’s my mom’s favorite so I thought it would be interesting.
So tell us about sustainable fishing So sustainable fishing
The methods they are using to catch the fish are sustainable like
habitat preservation
different kinds of nets they drag along the ocean floor like a steam roller running along the ocean floor so it preserves the ocean floor
limit the size of the nets
so if they are targeting porgies
juveniles
It made sense from a preservation to preserve their livelihoods That’s why we focus on these
not a lot of young people going into the industry
quota
getting big
How do you think that’s gonna affect you guys?
We’re such a small niche
the fisherman we work with are able to supply us with a steady supply Hopefully we’re able to keep the oceans nice and healthy
Keep a steady supply of sustainable seafood, the US has the best regulated fisheries in the world right now
come backs on certain species of fish over the years
That’s good to hear, you don’t hear that very often. I know we don’t eat shrimp much because they say farmed fisheries are destructive to people’s livelihoods.
destruction of the mangroves
source our shrimp from either
- gulf of Mexico
- south east off the carolinas
Got to work a little bit if you want to find the good stuff but it’s out there Do you want to tell listeners where is your place?
we’re in Prospect Heights in Brooklyn
not quite downtown Brooklyn
10 minute train ride into Manhattan
pretty area
Brownstone Brooklyn My very first college I went to was a Pratt Institute. You have all these pickup locations how does that work?
Those are our Fish Share locations the way we started our business
satellite locations around Brooklyn
recently just started a pickup at our shop the past few months
How does a Fish Share work? That’s a lot of places to deliver to it looks like. The locations are run by volunteers in return for administrating the share they get a free share
great for people who have more time then money but wanting seafood
mother of 4 who really relishes the 2 hours without her kids and helps feed the family
- a share
- 1/2 share
- 1 pound of filleted fish for a week that’s the default
2 pounds
- most weeks we offer an alternative item which is usually shellfish
determined by what’s in season
Migratory more in the warmer in the summertime
bass and blue fish Running on the east coast
shell fish
seasonal
fish in Florida
stone crabs coming to us tonight
In the summer time when Salmon is in season in Alaska
We have some friends here who go and fish in Alaska that have been doing it for generations
Their whole family gathers and they are able to fed ex us fish that we get 12 hours after they caught it
So how long have you been doing this? Is there something you would do differently if you were going to start over?
Our retail store a little over 5 years old and the share is 7 years So long enough 5 years is usually the make it break it part right?
Our fortune has yet to come pouring
making a living
I wouldn’t sell anything perishable if I had to do it again, haha…
Running a small business anywhere is difficult. Especially here in NYC. Why is that, it seems like there would be a better place there’s so many people?
in a way people still shop where they’ll go
- just opposed to the super market
- rare that this is a place like that
- where I grew up in Buffalo, there was sort of a local supermarket
I’m in Montana, and health food stores in Montana what’s different here, I feel health food stores in NY were more like vitamin stores and supplements whereas here you walk in and there’s a giant produce section with organic vegetables, and they will have lots of things I like to eat like tempeh and tofu and there will be a whole foods section where you bring your own bags and get bulk nuts.
The one I’m thinking in Missoula, the Good Food Store has a great salad and now they have a full size deli and bakery. They are like a regular grocery store. Even the little town I live in has a pretty big Health Food Store, but she sells a lot of wine that I know helps them succeed. It’s kind of more like a Whole Foods.
Sadly the internet is taking a toll on a lot of the businesses here. We had a local store but on a smaller scale but a lot like you described it that just went out of business after 25 years. Great produce and bulk section.
Do you think it’s because like Whole Foods got bought out by Amazon?
I think it’s a mix. I personally don’t like to buy anything site unseen.
Maybe it’s the chef in me, I rarely go into the store with a recipe in mind, I just buy what looks good to me. I know a lot of people still go out and shop.
There’s such a mix of things here! We have really amazing green markets here, in the city.
GreenMarket NYC Union Square The Union Square Market in the summertime is pretty amazing what you can get here.
Farms from within 100 miles can come in and sell their stuff and that’s pretty awesome!
What about your chef background? What’s your favorite recipe you like to cook? or fish to cook or for someone who has never tried anything but trout or tuna? Got any cool cooking tips.
Try to get out of your rut, if you’ve only cooed:
- trout
- tuna
- arctic char
wouldn’t say I have any one favorite
whatever looks good to me
I tend to eat small bits of things with different flavors so I really like shellfish
stone crabs coming tomorrow, looking forward
My mom used to cook crabs in tomato sauce, IDK what a stone crab is, is it a soft shell? I suppose stone it would be a hard shell?
Stone crabs have a great story They have them down in the
- south atlantic
- gulf
really sustainable fish, they’ve been doing it forever!
region
catch
- hard shell
- break your crab cracker
- Need to smack them with the back of a spoon or a hammer
take the crabs out
take one claw off and put the crab back and will grow back in the water which will regenerate the claw so they are not actually killing any of the crabs. Pre cooked
- steam the claws
- cooked already when
All you are getting is the claw, and they can put it back in the ocean and it will grow it again to harvest again? Wow that’s crazy!!
We just crack em with a mustard sauce and serve them with a crem fresh delicious!
mustard lemon juice
Crabs used to be one of my favorite birthday dinners!
look forward to the varieties of crabs
softshell crabs in Maryland
What do you do about media and marketing?
word of mouth definitely is the thing
- got some press when we started our fish share
- pretty popular blog wrote about us
That was a good jump start for us
a lot of people in the immediate neighborhood
NYTimes we’ve gotten some pretty good press for us
IDK if that has a huge
I’ve always thought about that with the advent of amazon, here where you drive for a long distance and fill up your trunk once or twice a month at the most in NY it’s like the opposite you shop a lot because you have to carry everything home. I thought having things shipped to their door must be changing things.
You can get anything delivered these days
I can’t remember the last time I had something delivered to my house but I think we are the rarety.
The density of stuff here too, you don’t have to go very far. I think people shop more frequently.
My mom shops almost every day, she likes here fish really fresh.
for fish, I just keep it pretty simple.
- I put a little salt and pepper on my fish before I cook it
- lemon juice
- olive oil
I don’t like to mask the flavor of it with sauces and stuff.
You’re getting it so fresh
freshness is a key
Fish actually lasts a lot longer then people think, if you store it properly it will last a few days.
poised the question a lot “when did that come in?”
direct from our fisherman
traditional supply lines people can be pretty old by the time it reaches the store.
I’ve heard of cases of fish being caught in North Carolina, in a big ship market in the bronx and then go back to N Carolina.
Can it go anytime or do you ave seasons too?
it goes year round
join anytime
- people pay for a 4 week cycle
- your 4 weeks
if you are going on vacation you can pause
We take a few holidays off, but I would say it goes 48 weeks
Well that’s good to know and I’m so glad we did this! Tell everyone your website again!
MermaidsGardenNYC.com
Are you on Instagram etc?
Let’s take a minute to thank our sponsors and affiliate links Please support us on Patreon so we can keep the show up on the internet. It cost close to $100 a month just to keep it up on the internet for the website etc so if you could help by supporting it with an $8/month contribution or $10/month to join the Green Future Growers Book Club where we can delve deep into some of the best gardening books that have been recommended on the show! GoDaddy even is bugging me for dollars just to have the domain name…
Onika Abraham from Farm School NYC shares her passion for sustainable agriculture and food justice education in New York’s 5 Boroughs. I’m so excited to introduce my guest from Farm School NYC Onika Abraham! Tell us a little about yourself. I reside here in beautiful Brooklyn NYC.
I’m originally a New Yorker from the lower side Manhattan, if anyone is familiar with NYC accents, it’s obvious.
Grew up in NYC from parents who grew up on farms, always loved visiting my grandparents seeing them grow what they eat and always inspiring to me!
I have come full circle by being the director of Farm School NYC
Tell me about your first gardening experience? I have to say, I grew up on the lower east side on the 18th floor an apartment
- lucky to have a little terrace
- little concrete shelf
- does not sound like a bucolic farm
- but was definitely my first gardening experience
My mother grew up on a mid size family farm in Alabama, when she moved here she brought her love and passion for growing things with her and she just recreated that in a little postage size terrace.
I really grew up in pots and containers on my parent’s terrace had to be flowers
house plants and all different flowers
- zinnias
- marigolds
were some of her favorites I remember from when I was a kid!
Awwww that’s like the sweetest story. I didn’t really get to meet a lot of people from NYC proper, even tho my cousins lived on the Upper East Side, but we only saw them at Christmas and it’s fun to imagine, a little children’s book. Have you seen Sarah Stewart’s book The Gardener?
What is FARM SCHOOL NYC? Is it for adults for kids? What kinds of classes do you have? FARM SCHOOL NYC is for adults folks who are interested in learning how to grow sustainably
- sustainable organic practices
- people who want to use that knowledge base to
address some of the inequities in our society resources
health wellness
access to healthy food
cultivate an awareness of how to grow food and collecting or make an impact on those health and wealth disparities
bringing things together culturally
See our work at FARM SCHOOL NYC as a way of * building community * building justice
through food
cohort moving through our certificate program
certificate in Urban Agriculture
20 courses in succession
20-30 people moving through that program at any given year
Take a variety of courses at FARM SCHOOL NYC containers grounding in the methodology
- educate entire communities
- comes onto the farm
one point of entry of a whole community of people who can learn with this person and share that knowledge come in
start taking courses
anyone over the age of 18
- youngest student is about 20 maybe 21
- oldest student is about 62
Cohort
- racially diverse
- culturally diverse
- age diverse
- gender
diversity
Did you tell us already? Is there an actual farm FARM SCHOOL NYC?? And if so where is that and how big? feed each other
that’s the beauty
we were originally created as a collective of farms
things we have here at our fingertips and resources that we have
and one thing NYC does not lack at all believe it or not is space to grow * rooftop farms * over 600 community gardens in NYC * farming spaces
because we were developed as a collective of groups, we didn’t want to create something else that would compete with that for resources to fund these projects
or an alternate income that is required to make it happen
didn’t want to create another resource to be maintained by this community
access and feed and invest in what already existed
Community Diversity at FarmNYC
Most of hands on activities and most of our FarmNYC coursework happens on different farms and gardens around the city founder
seed
so we don’t have our farm
every farm is our farm in some sense
where we go to different places throughout the five boroughs!
That is so cool! Other people are gonna learn so much more by seeing all these different systems and who would have thought there are so many? Is there a map? Can the public go see them?
Oh yeah sure!
How fun it would be to go tour 600 community gardens or even 25 of them!
there are some great non profits
community gardens are part of my childhood
postage stamp that my mother turned into this beautiful sky garden
grew up on the lower east side of nyc
reclaimed vacant lots from the 60s and 70s
and create wonderful oaises like all over that neighborhood
I would weed my mothers garden, and see all of these little pocket gardens 20×20 footprint of a brownstone building in NYC where that house was torn down or vacated in someway and
communities would come together and reclaim that space and create a lush collective for that community
I think a huge part of what I saw growing up.
Me too! One of my first college experiences out of high school was a Pratt Institute in NYC and I was just there this summer they have a huge rose garden. Some of my fondest memories were of being at the quad at Pratt, it was
I live not far from there, I ride my bike past there quite often.
I was surprised we went to the Brooklyn Grange and walked right past there a couple of blocks away.
The certificate program is really intensive, 20 different courses and takes at least 2 years It’s a level of commitment that is not for everyone.
We have other points of entry into our courses
Beginning in the springtime individual courses
not enrolled into the program you can take one course there
range in terms of how long they are
They are stand alones
dont need prerequisite of another course
one I taught for many years, this is the first year I wont teach it myself propogation
working with seeds/transplants
working with seeds for scale
If you have aspirations for becoming a market farmer it will give you a better sense of what it would tae and looking at the resources you might have at your home * getting a grow light * finding a sunny window * looking at large production scale * visiting greenhouses
how all of the seedlings sold and come into being
hands-on course with a lecture component
meant for full-time working adults
- evenings
- weekends
classtimes so people are able to take them
folks can visit our website
Farm School NYC to get more information on the course offerings
- propagation
Growing soils all about soil science with a practical perspective 1. hands on 2. farmers need to know about building soils and caring for them 3. developing a lifelong relationship with land
10 courses for anyone in the public smaller workshops
some are free with partnerships
folks can find a way
so much of what we do is building community Like minded of finding people who are growing and interested in social justice
stay in our community
how to plan
people on this planet
Do you have any major steps or tips you would share with listeners if they wanted to start a community center in their place or a sustainable tip to do in their home.
I like the first question of people wanting to have some impact in their community. People come to us with that * hope * wish * desire
first thing I say is
- teachers
- staff
- tells folks
check in with what’s happening in your own community work to be isolated in some sense of all the things going on already see if there are already projects that need support
often tempting to have an idea that we think is wonderful and want to run with that
something already existing that is also a wonderful idea, it might not be yours totally but if there is something ingrained a community already and there is already support and interest help those projects that are already needing help as opposed to competing for resources
I suggest walk the neighborhood and find out what
- community gardens
- community centers need a volunteer
abandon your own idea but get involved in an interaction
Boy we could sure use you in Congress right now! You’re very eloquent and have a lot of background knowledge and the kind of person who can unite multiple groups of people while putting our planet first!
That’s a big part of our mission here at
Farm School NYC everywhere
work at diversity
inclusion
work
ongoing challenges that are inherent
prestige bar
practice
applicable no mater what
- growing food
- creating policy
- creating relationship there
not everyone who comes into FARM school is looking to be a full time farmer definitely
central to that
- people who come in as lawyers
- policy advocates
- teachers
- educators
very visceral
hands on ways
learning from farmers
food system that
whole ways that we interact with our system
that’s what were trying to do
sustainable ag and a more just food system folks more educator
I was talking about the diversity of farm school some ways the deeper meaning of that
wrap my thought about how we got on there…
One thing that what makes farm school different as far as education as farmers
- our broader goal
- our aim
- vision
is a more just food system
larger food system that corrects the inequities that are systemic in America farmers are a foundation of that
feeling that there is a real connection to land is a huge part of grounding ourselves in our what relationships were’ looking for food systems
I
Part 2 Michelle and Larry Lesher from Eastward Gardens drop golden seeds galore in this episode about running a small successful Flower and Vegetable CSA in Indiana. Final question- if there was one change you would like to see to create a greener world what would it be? For example is there a charity or organization your passionate about or a project you would like to see put into action. What do you feel is the most crucial issue facing our planet in regards to the environment either in your local area or on a national or global scale?
Understanding the importance of how we teach our children. Long days inside, sitting down in a class room was not what we were designed to do. We were designed to move, to be in nature and to grow our own food. There is a place for textbooks but it should not be the primary line of education for our children. They need hands-on practical education. We would love to see more schools participate in true education, using agriculture as a lesson book.
In every school should be a garden
education
fresh air sunlight
nutrition
experience
principles of health
important
health of growth of minds and bodies
passion likes
mother sand farther
really try to get
I was thinking about this question I think it’s important
using the garden as an education tool
greener world part
if we could get people to understand the impact that agriculture has on our planet carbon secessions
understand how much we could change some of that through our ag practices
when we do that disease problems
associated
self inflicted
sedentary lifestyle choices
don’t think about
is our food is fundamentally
most plants
photosynthetic level
functioning
even just above 60%
90-
photo
rusvaretraols
secondary metabolites
food nourishing
dealing with on a global scale
re-imagining what agriculture can be
part to see what can be
don’t think we’ve begone to tap the genetic potential
world would be a much
How do we connect with you? eastwardgardens
on Instagram
eastwardgardens as well
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We were city kids, he was a professional skateboarder and neither of us had a background in farming.
There’s just the two of us but we do it for a living.
I think I found you on Floret. How big is your place?
I’m going into my 3rd season growing flowers. We’re going on selling vegetables etc on 3 years. I was a nurse with the dream I could leave my job.
took us a while
try to make it quick
We moved from Seattle to louisville so I could go to grad school
that’s when Larry started interning on a farm. He’s been farming ever since then.
I just joined full time in June I quit my job. That’s when I bumped up the flower production.
I can do more with it
a lot of flowers
we grow on 2 acres
our farm is 16 1/2 acres
We crop rotate
we only have, theres about 6 acres of workable we rotate it and do about 2 at a time.
We sell
- Vegetables
- fruit
- culinary herbs
- micro greens
We sell a lot of micro greens through the winter, we sell a lot of microgreens through the winter months.
Culinary herbs who do you sell those to and do you want to tell listeners the diffeence between culinary and medicinal?
we just specific culinary
herbs people cook with * rosemary * thyme * sage * sorrel * parsley * basil
Who do you sell to? A CSA?
- 20 week CSA
- 2 famers markets a week
- local health food store
small scale because there’s just the two of us
have
health food store we consistently
20 week CSA program
2 farmers market
May or June – Oct
- radishes
- turnips
- arugula
flower share this year for the first time
flower bouquets in with vegetables
- ranunculus
- anemones
Start April
4-6 weeks once they start
more veggies I can say
definitely
- salad mix
- spinach
- first boxes
unique about our CSA
Organic Farm dietician
newsletters in each box
recipes
items in the box
recipes
are all plant based recipes
nutritional value
how to store the crops
processing and preserving
website
under the CSA tab
6 years worth of newsletters there
that have recipes
work really hard on the newsletter
cook
sharing recipes
good cooked simply
lentils and rice
beans and rice dishes
white bean dish
good to add in
pesto
plant based pesto
doesn’t have cheese in it
have to add cheese
this
when you’re a farmer I don’t like to see anything go to waste
Pesto is a great one you can process and freeze arugula have to blanch it
boil for 30 seconds
stop cooking process
- arugula
- basil and cilantro
- kale
- brocoli
- parsley
all those options are really taste
5 cloves of garlic
walnuts ~ healthy for your brain
pesto is a great way to do in the
store with parchment paper
ring and the lid store in the freezer
easy
great way to use up the foods
best on homemade bread
so the flowers are a total labor of love for me
I’ve wanted to grow flowers my whole life, never really have
year before I quit my job
he was hesitant at first
can’t really eat a flower for one
he didn’t see that we would have much of a market for them
if anything it will attract bees, be pretty
happiness to the farm
wanted to get bees
plan to do in the future
plotted out the field
wasn’t the best spot
drainage
space
come to find out the flowers are easier to grow then food
- zinnias
- sunflowers
our first go at it we actually did really well
Mennonite neighbors who do dahlias
gave us our first dahlia tubers
- sunflowers
- zinnias
- cosmos
sun friendly
started bringing bouquets to market
give one bouquet away at market to be thankful
when we started to do that,
it was amazing the reaction
people started crying
I’ve given a lot of tomatoes, but there’s something special about these flowers
he was really sold
the produce is nurturing and feeding our bodies and our health
nutritious
flowers are feeding people’s hearts
impact on him and I both
3rd flower season tripped the amount of flowers
we added
- 1000 ranunculus
- 1000 amenones
we’re doing heirloom mums for fall planting
extensive season out on the back end of it
brings a lot of life
beautiful
attract a lot of people to the table
found customers
with the produce
come for the flowers buy the produce
incorporate for us with the flowers
personally
struggled with depression
when I’m out there harvesting
it’s interesting
one of the things that spoke to me with flower farming
as christians
we’re all individually made
very individual
god is life giving to us
I would go out
Sunday morning
pick em heavy
I think I’m not gonna have any flowers for Tuesday
I won’t have enough
harvest aggressively
zinnias pick
lower you harvest the stem
lower you do it
pick a lot
more they grow
sunflowers
celosia is not that way
zinnias
cosmos
more aggressive you harvest
more they grow
all these new flowers the next day!
That would be one of my biggest pointers
pick them low
there will be some branching flowers
don’t pick it low
cut off those buds that are branching
stem for the bouquet
more aggressive you are with the depth of cutting
first buds
bushed out a lot more
other little tip I would say
old videos
this year to last year
only going into my third year
did in mason jars
cumbersome getting to
predominately f
now I need to add
where are they
45 min drive
right outside Louisville KY
have a CSA pickup Jasper ID
drop spots
what I have discovered
wrapping bouquets in paper I think they look better
sticker with our logo on it
we just get
what’s the paper called
forget the name of it
something you can buy at Lowes
you can fit a lot more bouquets in a van
jars are cumbersome
masking paper
tan paper you can pick up at lows
wrap the bouquets
rubberband
customers like it better to
farmer’s market
where are they going to put
he’s the backbone
he’s been farming for 12 years
when we met he was a professional skate
Tell us a little about yourself.
We, Larry & Michelle Lesher, are going into our 13th season farming. Larry was a professional skateboarder before farming and Michelle was a student. Both of us grew up in Louisville KY as city kids…never really planted any food of our own to grow. Michelle pursued a nursing degree at University of Louisville and realized she did not want to become a medicine dispensary and decided to get her masters degree in nutrition to empower people to heal themselves and prevent disease with diet and lifestyle. She was accepted into Basty Universities Masters in Science and Nutrition program and that was when we made the move to Seattle area in 2006. Larry decided before moving there that he wanted to learn more about growing food and had already been avoiding GMOs and eating organically for years. He understood the importance of knowing what happens to your food from the beginning to the end of the growth process. And this is how it all began.
Tell me about your first gardening experience?
Yeah, probably I grew up in the city
we really
when I went and interned in Seattle
one experience
owned a body piercing shop in Reno Nevada
total mess
planted sunflowers
at home
I saw the packet
that would be neat to see what they do
see them sprouting
they’re actually growing
always been into nature and hiking and being in the woods
sort of marvelous thing
totally unprepared for this experience
planting these 400 foot rows
planting everything!
broccoli
head lettuce
chicories
transplanting
this is like
I had no idea what I was doing
3 of us
2 planting
by the end of the day I thought I was gonna day,
Michelle’s like what happened
I worked all day
about to die
are you gonna be able to do this
I’m the chattily strong person
the first week
$25/day
got those muscles into shape
ever since then
first time I went to farmer’s market
this was the moment I knew there was nothing else I could do anymore
lettuce
literally got goosebumps
ever since then this is all
hard worker
couldn’t find
that thing that was his purpose
In 2006 Larry interned on a farm in Carnation WA outside of Seattle. It was here that he realized the impact and responsibility that growing food for people really has. The concept of stewardship and the exchange of service between plants, farmers and the community.
never understood the bible
eastward and eden
the first gardener was god
a lot of people don’t think about this
adam
who’s job was to tend to the garden
Things I talk about today * blueberry bushes * mason bee disaster * buckwheat cover crop * Mike’s Minifarm * Weeds • Weeds • Weeds – in the garden
Summer Solstice Challenge coming possibly June 20, 2019
New Job in a New Restaurant learning about recipes and sharing gourmet recipes Health Club Bliss – massage therapy for gardeners
So what’s going on in the garden? Mason Bee Confession
Olivia Shangrow from Rent Mason Bees
Dr. Andony Melathopoulos ~ PolliNATION Podcast
Apple and Pear Trees Blooming
Blueberry Plant Update
Blueberry Plants from Lowes
My arugula past it’s prime is a bit bitter really strong already
If you’re not in the Facebook Group I’ve been posting pics about the minifarm and updates etc.
Mike planted 5 rows of potatoes all from our potatoes last year so we didn’t have to buy seed potatoes, he’s planted swiss chard, radishes, carrots, beets, fava seeds from our garden last year too! And there’s garlic and onions growing he planted last fall. He also transplanted some cabbage and broccoli.
The most asked question from last year coming up again!
What do I do for my earth-friendly landscape that is full of dandelions etc? Well, don’t spray weed and feed that’s for sure, but the solution isn’t an easy overnight success.
Garden Design Ideas Using the Blank Garden Journal to design some perennial beds to reduce the amount of lawn and add easy low maintenance native plants.
Ideas include building healthy soil – finding free local manure, cutting weeds and hauling them away, spraying molasses to help add nutrients, plant clover seed for nutrients and pollinators, and bagging lawn clippings for compost.
Podcast Love I love my guests! Learning so much!
Any questions?
Frustration with sound problems.
The Organic Oasis Guidebook
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy
Modern Homesteading Podcast
Tell us a little about yourself. East Central Indiana
nice and cold here
- married to my wife Mary for a little over 26 years
- 3 daughters
- couple of grandkids running around
- Most of my life I was a truck driver
Had my own trucking company * led to me being gone a lot * led to some bad eating habits
Sure! It’s tough when you’re on the road. It lets you listen to a lot of podcasts but it definitely makes being healthy a challenge.
Tell me about your first gardening experience? Kind of I grew up on a homestead really, we didn’t call it that but we had * animals * large garden * more property
did all those things
always grew up working in the garden
in garden
never thought about it being my garden first time it was about 3rd or 4th grade
Really got the bug for growing something on your own! in school believe it or not
- bean plants
- styrofoam cup
- gardens at home
I remember that vividly, growing that bean cup grow and replanted it in the yard!
gave me a bug
Like I said, we worked in the garden all the time
always loved
That Green Freak in school! loved growing stuff
gardening
animals
teenage years
got more into cars and girls
stayed away from it
in my mind
always assume I’d be living that lifestyle
I always wanted to be Caroline Ingalls in the mountains, I knew the minute I walked into Mike’s house this is what I have been dreaming about all my life, it’s a little bit bigger.
How did you learn how to garden organically? it never seemed important to me then
in my ind I thought
I guess I thought about sustainable practices But my dad
he would dump any chemical fertilizers
on the lawns
dealing with the animals we would pump em full of antibiotics whatever would keep them alive so we could survive.
wanted the most productive garden what we thought would be our best garden
doesn’t seem right
old ways
people have always done it that always worked
time period in the late 70s and 80s
Everyone was doing it! It’s what people did to have a great garden!
miracle grow then
dump all kinds of liquid fertilizers pesticides
When I got cancer didn’t
- because of all my bad decisions
- eating out 2-3 times a day every day for years I did that
- stage 3 colon cancer at 39 years old
- At my 40th birthday I was doing a chemo treatment
- back in 2012
things are really good now
opened up my eyes
Even the doctors said You can’t eat like that! * that stuff is horrible * highly processed * preservatives
handle quite a bit but it was just too much!
opened my eyes to important of eating healthy
nutritious organic grown food THAT stuff is expensive!
I was off of work for a couple of months
- chemo and surgery
- ate up our savings
- organic food
- we can’t afford that
What are you supposed to do, is grow your own? for a lot of people that wouldn’t be a big deal
live in town on a 10th of an acre
I was discouraged
run across a video
not doing a lot
Homegrown Revolution
Dervaes family they were on a 10th of an acre and they were growing 6-7000 pounds in their backyard
It’s so inspiring! Go watch that!
solid
raised beds
I could do that in my backyard
They’re in Southern CA
they’re growing season
a lot more food
I took a lot of those practices
never weighted what kind of food we generate
some other practices
took on
increased the amount of food growing here
way to grow healthy food
inexpensive way
built my first beds out of scrap wood
laying around
old fence
friend who had an excavating business filling up my raised beds
cheap as I could
worked out We still grow a lot of food 2 raised bed just kept building and building And now my whole yard is raised beds
I saw on your website! The Small Town Homestead I know my mom would love raised beds, she grows a tomato plant or two. Do you want to tell listeners some things that you have learned and done to be productive.
You don’t have to build raised beds
A concern I had at the time was dogs
- 3 little dogs
- backyard was their bathroom
- kind of afraid to just dig up the soil and till it
not that healthy
that’s why I built raised beds I wanted a healthy soil to grow
not something people have to do
I feel like raised beds make it more convenient and fun and your roots grow deeper, you can fit things closer together in there.
It can take you years to amend
best of soil with a raised bed that might take you years to create in the ground
that was the beginning for us
really increasing I just kept adding more and more
expanding that garden
We brought in some animals, rabbits and quail that increased the production with manure for our gardens
Things went to the next level for me was when I heard the term permaculture it changed everything for me read a few books
podcasts
I started implementing things on my property it just increased our production healthier garden
grow my own fertilizers
comfrey is something we have brought a lot in on our property
Russian
variety
fertilize the beds with
chop and drop
planting that around a tree, make it more productive
doing all these practices
building herb gardens
book by David Holmgrown on permaculture
Permaculture: Principles and Pathways beyond Sustainability talks about the 12 design principles
implementing on our property
able to do so much right here with the design
dont shade
plant this benefit
symbiotic relationship
garden
homestead
most from one another
even things like your house
garage
part of that ecosystem that are working to increase the production of what you are doing
world of difference
a lot more fun
enjoy it so much
seeing things work together
working with the insects
weeds
purslane
get in your garden beds
fill up
edible weed
probably my favorite herb to eat
salads
soups
grows pretty low
taller then it
ground cover in that bed
retain moisture
keep other weeds from taking over
lower level of purslane
peppers growing above it
things like that
controlled it
let it go where I wanted it to grow
work with it
benefit
Tell us about something that grew well this year.
so many cucumbers
we love them
run out of ideas
few plants
so many cucumbers
pickles
relish
salads
ferment them
wow we had so many
grow so well
something that I like that
grandkids
tripled the area I was growing strawberries
what they like the most
berries
where I planted them made sure soil was good and loose
well fertilized before I planted them
patch
dead areas
old stuff will die off
air flow room to spread
make room for the new
more productive every year
add a little bit of comfrey
rabbit manure in the fall
Is there something you would do different next year or want to try/new? I started something last year I want to expand
I built an aquaponics
worked real good
didn’t build it till summertime
expanding that
working it with in connecting
wicking beds
beside it
have a layer at the bottom
water
rock
lava rock or some other medium in the bottom
water will flow through that
landscape fabric
soil
wick up from underneath
still water
by hand
wick up in the soil
don’t ever have to water it
wicking
bigger you get
more stable and better it would probably work
well designed ones
in connection
fertile water
nutrients as well from the fish
get into this next year
potential production
I like everything about it
it’s fun
projects
Tell me about something that didn’t work so well this season. I tell you, I didn’t have a great grape harvest
jellies and jams
issue was insects
Japanese beetles
never had an issue
swarms
destroyed my grape vines
tried a few things
there’s some treatments
I know what I wouldn’t do
is try traps
they actually draw them in on a small property
scent
boy you don’t want to use them
far enough away from your garden
brought those in
increased 100 fold I had
bags were full
traps were full
large property
back forty somewhere
mistake I made
I don’t like using things that are considered organic pesticides
don’t feel
I know you are a going to love this interview I did with RockStar Millennial Nick Lubecki as much as I did because I listened to it today as I drove to work. So the shownotes are completely raw from the day we actually spoke. I didn’t have time to fix them but they are great! I have 20 episodes in the bank I can’t wait to share. In an ideal world, I would share them all right away! But in reality it’s all I can usually do to produce one a week. I will try though to get them caught up so they are current! In the meantime I hope you enjoy as much as I do. I’ve been having some sound problems too it seems in Andony’s podcast last week I thought I was too loud, this one I feel like I am can’t always hear everything I say? I’m as frustrated as you are that way, as I just copy and save everything, the settings don’t really change? I feel like ever since January 2018 I’ve been struggling with my sound? But I think you will love the content as much as I enjoyed recording it! Happy Spring Everyone!
Tuesday February 5th, 2019
Today we have a rockstar millennial Nick Lubecki from Grow Pittsburgh who is giving a presentation on Learning Circle: Weed Management in Intensive Veggie Production.
Tell us a little about yourself. Right now I am the Farm Manager
which is a project of Grow Pittsburgh
- urban nonprofit
- help people start community gardens around the county
- we have 2 urban farms
Currently I manage the Braddock farm about an acre or so
borough of Braddock
town just outside Pittsburgh
last remaining steel mill in the next door
It reminds me of the Brooklyn Grange on your website with the urban mill and the farm together.
Yeah! It’s a great photo shot for sure!
Tell me about your first gardening experience? my first memory visiting grandparents in northern PA
They had a huge garden
- fruit trees
- sunflowers
- all that sort of thing
as a kid I was really excited about that!
at our home, my grandmother helped put together our first big garden, Imust have been 5-6 years old.
Do you have brothers and sisters?
Yeah, we were all involved at first, eventually became me and my brother and we’re still growing together today!
we are about an hour about north of the city! I’ve been gardening for a while!
Tell us about that. How does a millennial come to be growing as an adult.
grow
subsistence crops
corn
I had that as a background
as a child the thing I liked to do with my free time was hangout out in the garden and in the backyard
When I moved to Pittsburgh to go to school I missed it. As soon as I could I got gardening again gardens a couple of years then got a couple of urban community gardens growing
At some point, I remember working at a grocery store
not being very satisfied with my life.
I’ve always been into homesteading and wanted to grow all your own food and preserve it
decided to try to work on a farm so I quit my job and got a job on a farm in central PA
been doing that every sense
big step from gardening to working on a 6 acre vegetable farm what I wanted to do
love watching the plants grow and being able to take it back and cook with it
worked on farms
start my first farm in 2012
had an urban farm with a couple of friends in the city and did that for a year
some one had an urban farm hadn’t been used in a bit. They weren’t using
Got a start out there
after that season I was sold on it.
Later started a bigger farm
equipment
great way to get a taste of doing our own thing
after that season sold
did that for a couple of years
I know my listeners are wondering, our goal is to grow enough food for us to eat to supplement our produce at least. do you have any tips for going through that curve.
I found it really valuable to work for somebody else already doing it
so many things you don’t even think of
farmer has already thought of them
Weather working or work trade for a farmer
valuable insights What’s a good example of one thing you learned?
logistics
of having produce for market
having knowing when to harvest before your market
depending day of week
do I do it that morning or the day before? Depending on the time of market
how to wash everything in an efficient way
presentable at a a market stand
bunches of herbs like cilantro and then at the market stand they just wilt into hour
put in a plastic bag
most significant things
working for someone who was able to have a consistent offering as much as possible throughout the season * lettuce the whole season * carrots the whole season * customers used to the grocery store where they have everything all the time * expectation that people are disappointed if you don’t have tomatoes in May
beyond our capacity
How do you sell your produce? CSA or Market or
I’ve done all three in the past
Braddock
biggest goal is to grow produce for the town of Braddock
no grocery store
- farm stand
- sell to some stores in the town as well
That’s the main goal for vegetable farm
We also
use our space to fundraise for our efforts of providing produce for the neighborhood
We also sell to restaurants
2 outlets
We’re members of a farmers coop called Penn’s Corner here in western PA
They handle the ordering and the logistics of that. We just drop everything off at the warehouse, it’s worth it for us!
Do you get a smaller profit then?
yeah. That’s definitely true
it can be nice
depends on how you do it
planning for a market stand vs planning for wholesale
different
took me a while
market want it to be pretty diverse thin margins
handful of crops for wholesale
grow things like salad
we’re not
weather here is all over the place usually
last week we had couple of days of highs in the single digits
today highs in the 50s
yesterday in the 60s
30s and 40s for highs
maple sugaring
How did you learn how to garden organically? well my grandparents had a big compost pile
thought it was a magical process
scraps turned into what looked like dirt
mom had a copy of the rodale envy
read that when I was a kid
before the internet
resource for gardening info
then
also I didn’t really know what I was going just reading ab look
trying to figure it out on my own
working on a farm
helped me learn the practical application of a lot of those things
when to do something about a problem
Tell us about something that grew well this year. Ok! I’ve been trying to figure out for a couple of years celery
pretty wet here, get a lot of fungal disease
tried a couple of different varieties
really good celery for the first time
one people buy
don’t often see at the farm stand
we also had
did red, yellow, orange bell peppers
started
different colors
that really turned our farmstead into a rainbow
looked really nice
I also, tried out transplanting green beans
did that last
it worked really well
that kind of
plant green beans every couple of weeks to have them all season
buys us extra weeks by transplanting them
planted them at the time at the direct sow
pretty excited
more space
on an acre
trying to cycle through crops
one or two more crops
first crop
double triples
faster too
Is there something you would do different next year or want to try/new? I like trying things out every year
something trying right now
overwinter strawberries
plant in the fall
for us was sept
cover with row cover
supposed to produce first June with good yields
have them in the ground see if it works
along those lines
try to have as many crops as we can as early as possible
more things in June
our last frost date
middle of may
couple of high tunnels
June is like the least exciting farm stand
green things radishes
as much as we can add to that
better anyway
good luck
getting
zucchini and cucumbers earlier
red yellow
orange
some green
ready in June
weren’t picking them waiting to turn colors
customers more fruit
planted some blackberries and red raspberries
should produce for this season
red raspberries in high tunnel
should have a longer picking season
rains a lot
off of the berries
rot right when you pick it
red raspberries
grown outside
fruit flies
pick
look forward
ever bearing ones
i have tried those before
bigger farm
my experience you get a little bit at a time
backyard garden too
snacking thing
Tell me about something that didn’t work so well this season. Every couple of years I try to do some broccoli as long as I can
had a couple of weeks of good broccoli
people
got too hot
hotter weather ones
broccoli didn’t do so well
I think I sold about a handful of units
not gonna grow it
sales weren’t there
okra transplanted did really well at first
early okra
did great
got about 2 feet tall
stopped growing
used to okra getting 7 feet tall
do some transplanting
some transplant and some direct
get 2 rounds
apart from each other
direct seed root system can get bigger
yeah, yields suffered
it was still ok
able to bring it to market every week till the season was over
lot of demand for okra
could have had more
half the plants just stopped growing
struggled
some plants have tap roots
okra has a tap root
damage the root
I was thinking along those lines
stopped a certain point
doing it 2-3 rounds
separated by a couple of weeks could be good
spread out the damage
whenever gets to that point
great cucumber...
Do you want to know how to recognize Bees in your garden and neighborhood? Do you want to plant flowers that will invite more bees to your garden? I’m super excited because for Earth Week, it’s April 27,2019. I have the Assistant Professor Pollinator Health Extension from the Department of Horticulture | Oregon State University, Dr. Andony Melathopoulos from the Pollination Podcast!
Oh there’s more then one bee?! When I do master gardener training is I help people identify 5 bees that are in North America. When you garden for bees it gets kind of complicated. If you can identify these 5 bees then you can go visit a neighbor’s garden and say oh! I see that bee on this plant.
Identify 5 Bees | 10 tips to use in their garden tomorrow cheat sheet Pollinator Habit
Tell us a little about yourself. I’m in beautiful Oregon
looking out the window in Oregon
- Horthornes are just starting to come into bloom
- Ceanothus the California Lilac
Tell me about your first natural or gardening experience? How did you fall in love with horticulture? I was an urban kid, I remember I come from a Greek immigrant family. I remember my aunts and uncles having great tomatoes and going to Greece and the produce there that just tastes wonderful.
I remember starting to do it myself in my late 20s in the most northern part of Canada
In the Peace River District where we would get a frost August first so we grew a lot of Kale!
Where is that? Nova Scotia or the Yukon?
It’s mile 0 of the Alaska Highway. It’s the most northern growing area in the US.
the one things that lovely when it hits solstice.
sun dips down around three and then just pops up again
You get this really long exceedingly quick and rapid growing season It’s amazing! The downside is you’re always dodging the frost
One year I had the audacity to grow tomatoes and the ones that grew they were the size of a marble I was like I’m learning!
What could you grow? Could you grow potatoes?
potatoes
frost pocket
I was working at the aG Canada research stations
It started because it was so far from anywhere the idea was to make people self sufficient * prairies * Northern climate
fruit trees * hapscas * apple orchard
You have to adapt your gardening for it, it’s tricky, but there are ways to get around things. People were always pushing your envelope
For me as a beginning gardener I struck to the fundamentals
- great garlic
- tomatoes
- cherry tomatoes maybe but doing real tomatoes was beyond my pay grade at the time.
Me too, I stick to cherry tomatoes in Montana.
Tell us about the bees This is how I start it off
the first thing we are confronted with these plant lists. You can go anywhere on the internet and type pollinators and plants and they spit out these lists
problem with the lists
they’re ok
There’s lots of good plants on them
But there are a lot of bees! there are not just honey bees
yellow jackets I get calls all the time
- yellow jackets
- hornets
different groups bees and wasps are closely related
thing with bees
You can always tell a bee if it’s carrying pollen on it’s body
not all bees do
BUT IF YOU SEE a lump of pollen on an insect flying through the air it’s a bee! Their protein comes from pollen! They’re vegetarians! BEES! No other insect that relies on pollen and nectar and for it’s life! radical turn towards the flowers
ok
yellow jackets and hornets are not bees
What’s a bee? honeybees
bumble bees
mason bees (you had a great episode on mason bees!)
There are 800 bees
Colletes Cellophane bees If you go on your goldenrod
little specs with a white dot on their face you’d never think they were bees
they’re so small!
You would never think they are bees If you go to your golden rod in the late summer
you’ll see a spec with a dot
little critters going from flower to flower those are bees
It’s intimidating
They’re not going to be out at the same time of year
coming out at different times of year
just getting a plant list aint gonna cut it you are going to need to pay attention to the bees in your backyard!
I can five you today special Once you see those five bees, then you can poke around your neighborhood and say this bee is on that flower and start to fill out your garden with plants that are really specific to your area
- don’t have pest problems
- available for nurseries
- local seed growers are growing them
come up with something that works!
Awesome! is that including the tiny one we can’t see? or five others?!
So I gave you six! Bonus just for you!
I would start first of all there’s some confusing things because lots of people want to trade on the bee brand
- wasps sometimes it’s hard to tell them apart
- flies
You have these beneficial flies join your garden number of genera that look like bees
look at their heads and legs
Bees have chunky back legs. Usually it’s where they carry their pollen females do, some carry on their bellies
If you look at their heads they have branched antenna sort of elbowed and it sticks out a way Flies have a nubby antenna * head is almost entirely eye balls * fly that looks bee like usually their abdomen is thin like a ribbon * a lot of flies hover
hover flies great bio control for aphids every organic gardener should be watching for these
real sign that maybe aphid potion
they will hover
Bees don’t hover they dart around flies and wasps look like them
There’s a couple of things that look like them
flies and wasps
First is a honey bee everyone knows, kind of iconic * not yellow and back like a wasp * striped on the back * light part is leathery brown to kind of gray
real like the bumble bees
pull out
They carry polling a little basket
The females have a spoon on their back leg so they pack the pollen, so it looks like a little lentil
Only bumble bees and honeybees do this Everyone knows the bumble bees they’re really fuzzy!
Only thing you can get confused with in the southern US are carpenter bees that looks a little similar
look a little
clear difference
bumble bees are gonna carry pollen in their back legs.
Bumble bees big and furry in a few places carpenter bees look like them
got it
lentil shaped pellets
- honeybees
- bumblebees
In Oregon we have close to 30 different species all have different color patterns. Carrying pollen in their back legs.
I just have a quick question about the flies? You want the flies, or if you see the flies you should be concerned because you’re getting aphids or it’s a good thing because if you have aphids they are eating them?
The adult flies are not the aphid controllers. It’s the larve A lot of the same flowers that attract the bees are going to feed those adults so to find those aphids they are going to run off nectar. They go to your flowers looking for nectar and poppin off aphids!
If you start to see them pop up in density, check your plants out
There’s a lot of good aphid controlling insects. It’s one of the
(I’m not a pest management expert)
one of the easiest things to control organically with natural predators if you wait a bit they are going to find them
- lay eggs
- hoover them up like PacMan
- eat aphids like nuts!
They’re good and any of the garden tips are really generalists will go to shallow flower to nectar
When you see them and check the plants out if they are hovering around something if you see them you may say omgosh the aphids! they are going to take care of your aphids.
The next bee you talked about a group you talked about in a previous episode
It’s a big group.
I keep picturing Bee Movie and the Pollen Jocks
I love it that Jerry Seinfeld had one thing, after he finished Seinfeld there was one project he wanted to do, which was make the BEE Movie.
Because of Bee MOVIE when I’m down there watching our bees I notice the pollen jocks. We have had a hard time with keeping honeybees alive. I think it’s because my neighbors spray pesticides but we’re not sure.
Honey bees are tricky.
So many things you can do. bees do
- cut comb honey
- queens
- divide them
There are all sorts of tools
We had a great episode with Kim Flottom from
bee culture He just talked about the history of bee keeping, there is an amazing long history of people keeping bees! It’s amazing!
tricky business
pesticide use
we have a survey where we don’t ask beginning bee keepers why they are not successful. Most often they don’t feed them enough
80% of the situations the colonies run out of food
He started a magazine called
beekeeping in your first three years
often times
If you think your gonna watch some youtube
It really does require mentorship, it’s tricky to get up and running. You can have these problems like a neighbor who sprays pesticide
any gardening
You need a strong skill set to pull it off
I always worry there’s a lot of people getting into bees because of conservation purposes.
I am not going to convince you
- rich habitat
- more
Don’t want to persuade anyone from beekeeping.
We were talking about bumble bees
moest bees are solitary
There’s no queen. A little nest not very big
no nest mates one female doing all the work
different
When you’re doing honeybees you’re like I know about bees
no, no, no
All the rest of the bees are so different in the ways! They’re all collecting bees.
That interview I did with Olivia from Mason bees? Do you think we will have more success with the honeybees.
Out there in Montana.
I’m an albertan
run out of state
Montana and Alberta honey is some of the nicest on the planet
It’s so mild it smells like cinnamon
I totally get it
getting fresh honey and be able to put it on toast
It’s super healthy for you, it’s good for your immune system and if you want natural sugar and I think there are people who say a teaspoon of sugar a day is good for you.
especially for baking too easier for digestion
I have lots of guests that have been booking and lots of great interviews coming up! A Montana rockstar running the food truck here in Montana!
Tell us a little about yourself. I did grow up on a farm and a ranch
A little bit about my past
I was raised in a world of agriculture
I grew up on a farm and ar ranch that was not always organic, my dad converted to organic in 2007
I was 10 years old it was interesting as a young child to see that process of old ways and shifting to new ways of organic and
how much better everything becomes with that process
with that conversion
we moved to a lot of diversified crops
Before we had converted to organic we were just doing the same old thing everyone else does. Switched to doing a lot of
wheat
and same
clover
alfalfa
growing ancient grains
- kamut
- farro
- lentils
- chickpeas
while we were learning and growing all those
I was also at a pretty young age learning to bake
native to Montana at that time
I think that was where I got a pretty strong base
with working with local and available at any given time.
That’s the farming side of it.
We raised cattle as well. So that was really interesting for me to grow up working the trails and the
to grow up working cows
trail them
calving season everything you go through
on the organic side
everything 100% organic
grass fed
everything takes longer
I remember watching food inc when it came out
I remember seeing the vast difference competed to the feed lots they have pictured!
Everything how everything is so crammed
compared to our open pasture
administering antibiotics and growth hormone
we were just allowing our cattle to grow naturally it takes longer but I believe it does allow for a healthful product
and a product that tastes better
Through all that processI think I gained a really good appreciating for the organic food system
extra time and thought that goes into it
That’s the same for a lot of people who are gardening
I love to have conversations that they are trying
some are working and some aren’t
learning what grows well here and what doesn’t
how to utilize in cooking.
Did you have a lot of brothers and sisters? You seem like you had a very mature upbringing. Mike and I were talking about chores the other day.
similar upgrading
yeah I have 3 brothers and 2 sisters
I’m the 2nd oldest so I just have one older brother.
We’re ranging in ages in 23 down to 7.
I think growing up especially with so many younger siblings inputs a little bit of extra responsibility automatically to a person.
I think that was some part of it
cooking was something because I did like to do it, but I didn’t always cook because I wanted to
had to do but it was something we had a lot of people to feed
working on the ranch
not always great help
had a lot of kids
We were out there whenever we needed to be.That built a really good work ethic I appreciate all of those opportunities
Tell me about your first gardening experience? Yeah! You could say, we did have a pretty good garden for the majority of my childhood
wouldn’t classify myself as a green thumb I am better at cooking then gardening. I enjoy the process. I had my little herb garden on the back porch in college.
- tons of root vegetables
- melons
- corn one year
- strawberries
- rhubarb
Pretty standard things you could say
definitely lots of salad greens and tomatoes.
Now you’re up in the northern part of Montana, close to the border of Canada. Very cold right. Not easy to grow food.
It’s not, unless you have a greenhouse
even still there’s challenges. I’m about as close to Canada as you can get. It takes about 40 minutes to drive to the border.
from where I live
It definitely does present some challenges
climate but there’s ways to work around it.
I think that’s where experimenting with what really grows well in Montana. There have been a lot of farmers around the area spending time.
fruit trees
varieties of tomatoes and peppers what’s gonna produce the best in the soil in the time frame that we have. Very different from other states across the country.
I was just going through our garden journals from when Mike puts the seeds in the ground, for the most part it’s between the 7th and 10th of April, cool starts, lettuce, spinach, peas, etc. Stuff that can’t have a frost, it’s more like green beans etc. it’s right after our anniversary in the first week in June.
I also have dates of when did we first harvest it, and things like, I thought we didn’t really harvest asparagus but actually it was for like 5 years. A lot of my guests have said keeping data was good.
Even so, I think your ahead then I am with the gardening data I agree with you, I love to analyze data! I haven’t done it as much with gardening but especially for the STREATERY this past year.
I closed for the winter and so it’s been a time to rest and regroup
closed through
I have been going through numbers and analyzing what worked and what didn’t
- what days of week?
- what events better?
- which menu items did the best?
I could spend hours pouring over the information. Why don’t you tell us all about Streatery and your food truck and how all that got started.
Getting into a little bit of the agricultural background.
Now getting into the culinary realm I entered a few years ago, it all kind of started gradually. Like I can’t remember a point where I decided I want to be a chef. It just sort of accumulation of events in high school I did a lot of farmer’s markets
mostly baked good local
I would go to the mountains and forage for * June berries * currant berries
ancient grains we were growing and grind the
local honey
as many things I could get my hands on. Feature all of those local ingredients.
My senior year of high school I took a trip to California to the bay area. I thought this was interesting.
I interviewed Liz Carlisle!
So, awesome Liz Carlisle wrote this amazing book called Lentil Underground farmers in Montana who were some of the first people growing organic lentils and just that process because now Montana is the number one producer of lentils. She goes through the whole story!
They are who are your parents?
Chapter 12, in
Lentil Underground the gospel of lentils
because of that she flew my family my siblings and everyone out to California when she launched the book
It wasn’t just my family it was all of the families featured in the book, and we stayed in this huge Airbnb house and had a great time and got to meet all the people who were reading the book and explained about the process of everything
through that trip I made a lot of great connections. One of them, are here near Havre and they farm as well they are Doug and Anna Crabtree with Vicious farms. On that trip, they sort of casually offered me a job in between that summer between high school and college.
I had decided to go to culinary school but didn’t have a plan beyond that. They hired me on as their culinary specialist and I lived out at their farm M-F cooking for their farm crew.
At the time, I felt highly unqualified. It turned out really great! I loved every minute of it. It gave me freedom to cook whatever I was feeling that today but also to use what was readily averrable and locally grown
We were totally tracking each other on
- what’s important in the food world
- what’s nutritious
- how can we utilize these things?
they were really great to work with. I think I got lucky to get that opportunity.
Then in the fall I attended Culinary Institute of Montana in Kalispell. It takes a little under 2 years to get an associates degree. I graduated in Dec 2016 and kind of just craving an adventure at that point. I had always leaned towards entrepreneurship and self employment and tie that into the food world, so the most obvious choice was to start a restaurant but that seemed daunting at the time.
I actually moved to Maui went with the WWOOF program
worldwide
They have this great online directory
wwoofusa.com
You can essentially type in the type of agriculture you are interested in or you can type in the city or state that you would like to
go have an experience
You can stay from a week to a month to several months! Depends on what you are looking for and what the the operation needs
you go and the standard agreement is you work 20 hours a week then in return you get free room and board so some places that means they feed you 3 meals a day someplace that means give you staple ingredients and a kitchen
literally ground breaking * We made raised beds * worked on some beehives * managed a farm stand
It was very rugged. I actually lived in a tent for a month. We didn’t have running water and we had to haul that up to a top of a mountain.
Did you get to go to the beach?
It was hard work but it wasn’t’ very long so there was definitely lots of free time.
the farm in Maui
You could see the ocean from the mountains of Maui called upcountry.
You could see the ocean and beach but to actually get there you would have to walk a few miles to the beach. Since none of us had cars. Between that and hitchhiking, so we did make it to the beach a couple of times.
There were other people there? Were you scared going from Montana to Hawaii? Were your parents like oh my?
My parents were nervous but I was ready. I had a skype interview. I had my tent and a general plan and they picked me up at the airport. After a while I got a phone call from mom after I was there a couple of days she was like I know that you landed in Hawaii, but never confirmed you made it to the farm. I thought I should check.
There was quite a big group of people * CA * North Carolina * Montreal * Netherlands * Colorado
It was a great group of people
work together
have adventures together
Quite a few of us ended up switching to another farm after a month.
permaculture farm
rancho relaxo
first I had learned of permaculture
found this farm online through the website
said it was fruit orchard
Did mention permaculture but I didn’t know what to expect and so in my mind I thought it would be rows of
- orange
- avocados
- mangos
- papayas
permaculture
looked like the garden of eden!
mystical
You walk in and there is this winding dirt road going through this tropical forage. Going on the first tour and he’s pointing!
there’s a banana tree
mango
coffee is growing
tilapia ponds
2 chicken coops
vegetables gardens
intermixed and benefiting from each other in turn!
That was a wonderful experience to see that different approach to agriculture.
While I was at that farm it didn’t take the owner long to learn I could cook. So we ended up
putting together a farm-to-table event while I was there!
We had a group of people come out to the farm.
A local hunter brought some venison tenderloin
lots of greens
eggs
veggies from the farm
featured as much local produce as we could get from markets and things
four course dinner with wine pairings
fantastic. IT was this little moment of paradise in my past.
Then the advent of Streatery came about a year later. I moved back home in the summer of 2017
To help out with a few things. We had a huge farm tour coming up.
We were also a little short handed, my dad needed me to help
- sort cows
- drive tractors
thing I hadn’t done in a long time after being away. It was good to get back into that
summer of 2017
Towards that fall, I noticed that we could possibly benefit from some direct marketing of our organic beef...
Tara Caton
Rodale Institute
Senior Lab Technician
Industrial Hemp Project Lead
Want to read the unedited computer generated transcript provided by Podscribe, just click here.
It all started when this listener said, every time I hear you say millennial I think of this video of this guy bashing millennials sitting around in their yoga pants and so I made my own video of the amazing millennials I interview who are so not ever lazy. I was going through some old Organic Gardening Magazines. A lot of my listeners are asking me how to get rid of pests organically and there were all these letters to the editors saying I’m not ever reading to you again because you are too political and they answered back and said we believe they are integrated and you can’t have one without the other.
I have always wanted to sell ad space for Rodale’s so I would see Organic Gardening Magazine in every store i went to as I traveled around.
It is Tuesday March 26, 2019. I am so stoked because not only is my guest a rock star millennial but she is the Senior Lab Technician at the Rodale Institute on the Industrial Hemp Project . So welcome Tara Caton!
Over the course of a four-year trial, we are exploring hemp’s powerful potential to heal soil and support farmers.
Hemp, marijuana’s non-psychotropic cousin, was grown in Pennsylvania for more than 260 years as a valuable cash crop.
Tell us a little about yourself.
Shownotes coming ASAP! to read what’s done already click here.
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I’m super excited because my guest is as passionate about social justice as I am and she’s used her life and skills to really connect social justice and food justice together. I think you will love this interview with Leah Penniman from Soul Fire Farm in New York!
Soul Fire Farm is committed to ending racism and injustice in our food system.
20 years of experience as a soil steward and food sovereignty activist.
Tell us a little about yourself.Farming While Black: Soul Fire Farm’s Practical Guide to Liberation on the LandDefinitely, I’d be happy to!
I’ve been farming 22 years and I am the founding co-director of Soul Fire Farms
IT’s a little community farm run by Black-Indigenous Latin and located up in the mountains of Grafton NY
in love with farming my whole life, NY and really see it as a foundation for social justice and environmental stewardship. Here at Soul Fire Farms
We are committed to ending racism in the food system.Part of that is what we grow in our food.We grow on 5 acres and all of that gets boxed up to those who need it most in the communityrefugeesimmigrantspeople who have an incarcerated loved onelatin indigenous folks who want to farm
We have cultivated 500 new farmers over the years through our program.
How are you supporting your farm if you are donating all of this food? Where are you getting your money from do you sell some food too? Do you get donations? Where do you get your income from?
That’s a really valid question, we started out as a family farm and we started out to be a viable business. it would be a little strange to be training the next generation of farmers if it was a farm that relies on donations or a slush fund.
So we use a sliding scale model
people who earn more money and have more wealth pay more
less
balance
The farmer get’s market value for the produce
non-profit branch to our work we get some funds for that that helps with our education
youth programs we do
public education
We travel all around the regions sharing information about food justice.
I love all this, this weekend was the indigenous march in Washington DC and the kids at a large interaction with the and the government shut down over immigration and here you are helping train immigrants and doing all this wonderful work. I feel like it’s such a timely topic.
Tell me about your first gardening experience?So, I did not grow up gardening
I did grow up in a rural area and was friends with the trees for sure. Our family was often one of the only brown skin families in town.
We got
- bullied
- taunted
So we spent quite a bit of time outside and the forest was really our first friend.
When it was time to get a summer job as a team
got a job in Boston at the food project
From the very first time I felt the satisfaction of using a strip hoe to clean up a row of cilantro I was just completely hooked.
Not only did we grow food on 40 acres
- urban market
- garden in the city on vacant lots
- soup kitchens
social justice and working with the earth directly!
Fascinating! I love the way you talk about getting hooked cleaning up a row of cilatnro? So what were the next steps how did you start a farm?
yeah! So Soul Fire farm started with just our partner
Jonah and our 2 children
newborn and
south end of Albany my
high poverty area
food deserts
food apartheid
results in certain folks being hungry
others having
join a farm csa that was super expensive and walk over 2 miles to pick up the vegetables
Our neighbors, didn’t have that luxury and when they found out we knew how to farm
encouraging us
purchased this inexpensive and highly eroded land up in the hills no one wanted
took
build a house
soil
driveway
open the farm in the beginning of 2010
So to me this must be a suburb? Rural? Of Albany?
3 1/2 hours
40 minutes
rural
everything is through a CSA farm share
Dr. Booker Taliaferro WashingtonOut of Tuskegee University
The idea is people are members. Our commitment because a lot of people don’t have transportation is to take it to their doorstep. We provide this service
delivery service
In Albany and in Troy 25 minutesWe deliver 100 families!You have so much going on in a small space
5-6 hours
for meat
Small demonstration flock
for meat we raise in batches of 50
learners get to learn the process of chicken harvesting
we time it so folks get that
acres of fruits and vegetables we have here on the farm.
Tell us about something that grew well this year? What was I excited about?
a few things winter
unconventional thing
the horseradish cropsafrican/american african/dispora
horseradish we grow for a jewish
holiday of passover we use horseradish in cerimony
to remind us of the bitterness of slavery
horseradish
know matter what you do to it, put it in the most waterlogged, clay soil and hack it up and that reminds me of the tenacity we need in these troubleing times.
We have horseradish growing, we never eat it but it’s definitley growing in very poor soil, getting bigger over the years.
Is there something you would do different next year or want to try/new?something we have been trying to grow
culantro
an herb that grows almost like a weed in puerto Rico
important
- salsa
- Sofrito
- apies
culantro doesn’t like upstate NY
north Carolina house
culturally important
- pigeon pea
- lemon grass
- black peanut
I’m super excited we have the traditional herbs that our community needs Tell me about something that didn’t work so well this season?
well in our region we had a really wet excessively wet
curcubits
melon collapse
squash weren’t super wicked about it
that’s why we have a diverse farm and you always win some lose some so if you have a lot of different crops you’ll be ok
What are some of the tips you might have like my husband and I have about 1/3 of an acre that we planted and 2 acres sounds so big, do you have any tips for people who want to make that jump from backyard gardener to market farmer.
with 2 acres you can do a lotreally intensively
row crops
10 20 30 acres
100 different types of veggies
We probably started on a 1/3 of an acre. I was just doing it Sundays after school
expanded as capacity and time
don’t have to grow a lot of acre
1/3
commercial operation is just
- sauerkraut or
- mushrooms
- honeybees
So you just focus on one place
I just was going through an interview I did with Aidan from Young’s Farm that was transitioning from traditional to organic farming.
Which activity is your least favorite activity to do in the garden?I’ve tried to eliminate those as much as possible!
I really do love a lot of the tasks others don’t love
- more rigorous
- sweat inducing
- challenging
- hand digging beds
Last year we had a winter operation
our climate yesterday, it was negative 26º with the windchill
We were doing cut greens in the tunnel, I had frozen fingers and I look around and I realized that the bears and deer, owls are hibernating and here I am trying to farm.
I know that when I go to Long Island i the winter, it’s so cold. I can’t imagine cutting greens in the winter
We reserve our winters now for our community education work.Do you want to talk about that?
did that for
it’s huge
that’s the main thing I do at this point
managing the farm
farm team
farming
People probably don’t know but
commercial farming is the whitest profession!
farmers
latin x
good diversity of people managing farms
it isn’t by accident
discrimination by government
taking away indigenous people’s lands
unfair
state of subjugation
At Soul Fire Farms we’re engaging by trying to make as many opportunities for farmers people who want to be farmers from marginalized communitieseducation programs on the farm
trainings and mentorship
land some jobs
making sure that this next generation can make a life on land if they want
Do you have any tips for things that work good? How to set up an internship, how to find people, or mistakes you would tell people not to try. Because having people come work can be a challenge.
absolutely
definitely get involved in a network
craft
apprentices
help give you best practices
don’t have anyone
That goes both ways
make sure you are set up to give them a positive experience
- fair wage
- adequate house
- supporting
volunteer days
people come and make sure we have enough experienced folks set up and if we find they keep coming on an ongoing basis we hire them as staff
time to be focused
That’s something people have mentioned that really focusing on teaching and working with the volunteers are doing, make sure you are providing them with an education and a nice lunch, don’t think you are going to just get things done because the volunteers are here that day.
What is your favorite activity to do in the garden?oh, I love almost everything!
I would say the more gross motor skills. I like to
- dig beds
- weed
- transplanting
- direct seed
fine detail
- picking bugs
- harvesting
not so much!
I feel like I can’t loose myself as much
love farming on my ownletting my mind just run free while my body is really engaged in the work of tending the soil!
What is the best gardening advice you have ever received?best advice
not in the practical
Karen Washington
rise and root
growers
she’s the reason I’m still farming
I was ready to quit
passionate went to all the conferences
wouldn’t see anyone who looked like me
- did I chose the wrong thing?
- did I miss the memo about where I am supposed to be?
few people in that space
Don’t give up, you’re part of the returning generation of black farmers
hang in there
she was really right and she continues to be a close mentor of mine
Hang in there!
Do you have any suggestions listeners can do to help with things? You seem so solution oriented
that’s the great thing about a problem that’s so big
- hurting farm workers
- distributing land unfairly
- not getting food to people who need it
there’s so many points of solution
If you go to our website at Soul Fire Farms we have all these ways to get involvedaction steps on ourwebsite
whole list of things communities are acting for
volunteering
visiting our reparations map
tool folks who have gone through our program put things they need
whether it’s
- land
- or a tractor
- tech assistance
A favorite tool that you like to use? If you had to move and could only take one tool with you what would it be?Hands down it would be the hoe specifically it would be
the heavy hoes that the use in west Africa and Haiti
- primary tillage
- forming beds
- cultivation
- ton of fun to use!
A favorite recipe you like to cook from the garden?Soup JoumouHaitian national dish
jewel pumpkin
Tiano people in Caribbean
forbidden
island of ispanola
After the independence was fought and won, the formerly enslaved people celebrated with this pumpkin
every year on new year
independence day we make the soup joumou and share it with our friends and with our community members
That’s interesting!
A favorite internet resource?To be honest I don’t do much web surfing because
because something came across a list serve. I’m part of
Food Service Alliance
US Food Sovereignty Alliance
National Black Food Justice Alliance
So people are kind enough that they will post things relevant to these lists so I don’t have to scroll.
That’s a good recommendation there those listserves because who has time to watch video?! That’s why I love podcasting, cause I’m always like who has time for video? And if it’s a book I want the hard copy in my hands.
A favorite reading material-book, mag, blog/website etc you can recommend?I love to read!
My all time favorite
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plantsby
Robin Wall Kimmerer
Like me she is a
- scientist
- gardener
- plant-lover
Has a deep spiritual connection and she weaves all of those together in her book!
I’ve wanted to read that!
If you have a business to you have any advice for our listeners about how to sell extra produce or get started in the industry?
I think what’s so important is knowing your marketdidn’t struggle with that aspect because we started a farm on community interest
stated community needWe were told we need doorstep delivery of vegetables
That’s a good first step
market research
community buildingSometimes when I’m doing the interview. IDK anyone else that I remember where a CSA actually delivers to someone’s home. I always thought I would not make a good CSA customer because I don’t want to be somewhere on a certain day? Does it give you some flexibility. Do you harvest some the day before?
Oh absolutely of course it depends on time of year
mon and tues
putting things in the cooler
Wed morning we box everything up a separate box for each customer and then we deliver between
noon at
range of times
usually get to your neighborhood between 1-2 so make sure you are home or you leave a cooler or cool space.
I think that doorstep to doorstep is a cool tweek, I talked with Casey O’Learyabout doing everything on a bike in the beginning hauling things to the farmer’s market etc.
Final question-
if there was one change you would like to see to create a greener world what would it be? For example is there a charity or organization your passionate about or a project you would like to see put into action. What do you feel is the most crucial issue facing our planet in regards to the environment either in your local area or on a national or global scale?
it is
I’ll do my best to choose one thing
more on the environmental side of things
climate chaos
The soil itself is the biggest reservoir of carbon
If everyone in the world would use indigenous agriculture practices we could sequester all that carbon and halt climate change in...
It’s Tuesday, January 15, 2019.
You must be doing something right? I can’t seem to get anyone to watch my videos.
The one thing I have noticed lately is, we don’t really watch tv so in the evenings, what we do, we’re about done with our day around 8:30ish. We stream Youtube.
Watching on TV you can’t interact but I get on the iPad and if I like their video or make a comment I get a lot more people who seem to be interested in my channel.
You have like 35, 53 views, etc. I have like no views. 0 views at all. Watching others, I’ll have to try that.
You have to be persistence. We’ve been doing it for a year and we’re only just getting somewhere.
I see it as you’ve only been doing it for a year!
Honestly it’s been the easiest gardening method I have ever learned!
Savvy Organics Farm YouTube Channel
Savvy Organics Farm On Facebook
Savvy Organcs Farm On Local Havest
Tell us a little about yourself.
Sure, well basically I’ve been gardening most of my life since I was s little kid, life happens to you, and you have kids, we have 2 kids. We always have a family garden, nothing but raising a few vegetables for ourselves. The last few year with the kids out on our own. We have 5 acres, so we don’t need it for livestock and when the kids were in ag.
October 2017. We kind of came up with the idea, what are we going to do with our land now?
We’ve always been avid gardeners so we started .
- market gardens
- CSA programs
- reasons they do it
- health benefits
1/2 acre and pasture next to our house
basically ripped
what are we doing
Just watch YouTube at night
Who do you feel like you’ve been watching that give you the most.
The subjects range from homesteading to organic gardening
Some of our favorites.
MI Gardener
he’s a good one
Justin Rhodes with the abundant permaculture
vlog everyday they do everything
- livestock and gardening
Living Traditions
- homesteading
- raising animals and things
Well that’s a good list.
Tell me about your first gardening experience?
Well, as a kid, growing up in town at my parents house, my dad just let me sort of get a small garden plot in the backyard. Other then some squash, IDK what remember what I grew then.
My parents had a lake home and we had a 1/4 acre had a big garden there, always helping in that.
Over all the years, raising our family and stuff, the importance of teaching your kids
- where food comes from
- nutritional value of it
raise our kids
responsibility
Good work ethic, things like that.
So did they do 4H or FFA (Future Farmers of America)?
We were involved with the FFA for all of my kids. We primarily raised Texas Long Horn show cattle. The kids earned scholarship money for college by doing that.
- horses
- play days
- little rodeos
Always had an active lifestyle, hunting and fishing as kids, my dad did that when we were kids.
Are you from Texas, born and raised?
I am, lived here all my life, here in the Dallas area.
How did you learn how to garden organically? Over the years, but in the last few years more important! The older you get, you think.
I’ve been putting this in my food, I wonder what that actually does?
You read the labels and think, I can’t pronounce that why am I eating that?
Sure! Vani Hari, the food babe just sent out an email this morning with all the weird things in Almond milk.
Yeah, absolutely
so many things in
We agree, other than for a holiday or something where we need it as an ingredient we pretty much only use almond milk.
make it ourselves
almond milk really easy
The almonds:
- get soaked
- ground up and put in a nut bag
- after ground up squeeze through nut bag
what comes out almond milk
takes 10-15 minutes
really easy
almond butter which I love and a lot of the store bought things have a lot of additives
butter is really easy
roast almonds at about 350º
Use a Vitamix to blend them into butter if they are a little dry add a little oil really goes a long way
a lot less expensive then what you would buy in the store.
Does it come out the texture of peanut butter?
What we typically make is a little bit thicker
add anything like a tasteless oil, avocado or sunflower oil something that doesnt’ have any flavor. You can thin it a little bit by adding oil to it
consistency of buying anything that is processed food and all the additive things that go into them.
I often wonder, is buying peanut butter and making a sandwich is that processed or does that count as home made? Or is that still processed if all the parts are processed but you put them together.
I was just talking to Olivia who Rent Mason Bees about the bees pollinating the almonds.
my sons a bee keeper
sent all of his hives for the winter
leases the beehives to them for the almond bees
have not had any luck with mason bees.
She said their main goal is to spread them, they’re super pollinators and they’ll pollinate so much more then a honeybee, but they do require a bit of maintenance in the winter, they actually give them a bath, if you don’t clean out their homes, the pollen mites grow and grow and wipe out the bees.
I’ve heard that they are such great pollinators
- not as aggressive
- don’t sting
IDK why we don’t have more of them. They say they’re everywhere
maybe Idk know what I’m looking for
I would love to know about them and get them on our place.
I know she said that they ship different ones at different times of year. Maybe it was the wrong time of year or something. Maybe you’ll want to give that episode a listen to.
Tell us about something that grew well this year. It’s pretty much winter right now
a few things in the ground
first greenhouse able to put up this past season
- carrots
- spinach
- broccoli
- cauliflower
growing and doing pretty well.
Over the season last year, the biggest things we had the most success
- lettuces
- kale
- daikon radishes
I didn’t know about them until I started gardening. They are
- amazing
- grow huge
- flavor is good in soups and salads
Really diverse.
I didn’t know that you could saute radishes and in the beginning of the year before the beets etc were ready, and they were so good. Mike grew a lot of different colored giant radishes. I grew kale for the first time last year!´
first vegetable!
- dinosaur kale
- blue dwarf kale
- garlic did well for us
I call it a green house, but it’s basically more like a hoop house
not polycarbonate
green colored plastic mesh that filters out some of the UV rays
really inexpensive
starting on a shoestring budget.
challenging
found this company
here in Richardson, just north of us, fresco
Delta Canopy Company greenhouses of all kind
I found this greenhouse, that was like $400
I put it together one day, literally took maybe a day to get it all set up
We really had one big failure, before I had tried to make a high tunnel or greenhouse out of pvc of grannies plastic. The day that I finished we had a really big windstorm, it was kind of funny we were out there.
trying to tag this thing down
We kind of worried when we bought this one
Our wind can be horrible sometimes
40-50mph for a couple of days sometimes
held up well
lightweight aluminum frame
Greenhouse * door at both ends * windows down both sides for ventilation * plastic comes down on the sides * wider then the greenhouse frame
So we put a lot of mulch on outside edges of it. On the inside I took the screw end ground anchors. We wired an anchor from the frame to the greenhouse, it might move an inch or two here or that but it still strong so far.
We’ve had a lot of wind and snow problems here.
Every once in a while we’ll get a snow.
I know it snows in Texas because when I drove through Texas I was going from New Mexico to New York the day after Halloween and I got stuck in a big blizzard in Texas!
Is there something you would do different next year or want to try/new? Well, last year the produce that we grew,
- friends at church
- people we would meet and talk to
- come to our house
- take things to church to buy
Which worked pretty well with what we were growing but this year with our new garden plan and layout we should have a lot more produce this year!
So what’s exciting for me is we are going to try to set up a little farmstead, under a couple of tables and so people can come to us on Saturday mornings and buy what they want.
Some gardens and market farmers will do a pick your own, but I’m a little skeptical of that right now.
What I am hearing is that sometimes you get people who don’t know how to harvest lettuce and they’ll not know to cut your lettuce and pull it up!
Leaf lettuce will continue to produce pull the plant up it’s done
exciting thing to try to grow enough
I talked with Pam Grewe here in Whitefish and they had a farm and they would have a big volunteer day once a week. She said she really had to focus on helping the volunteers and managing and moving around interacting, helping them and then on the other days, she would work quietly and be very specific about not having people on the farm on off days.
That’s might be something you want to look into is having a volunteer day, where you focus on teaching them so they are getting an education too.
build our clients up by having them
That’s a good idea, I have thought about it, but haven’t really done anything to get it going.
She said so many people told her how much they loved the farm and remember visiting as children. Management whether your managing preschools or volunteers or a farmer’s market that takes a lot of give and take, and understanding and listening. I always like to expand on what’s successful and go from there.
Tell me about something that didn’t work so well this season. What didn’t go so well last year? I’ve been gardening last year was simple green beans!
I was reading that blog post.
it’s like what is going on here
planted
different points
different times
different conditions
They just wouldn’t take off * they’d grow up * would look great flower * wither away
no idea what was going on?!
last round planted some
simple blue lake bush bean
literally so prolific, I thought pretty much the same thing, they flowered and we were having beans like crazy!
So I had to recheck the package
- climbed everything
- went crazy
- vining climbing all the trellises
- everything they could touch they were climbing.
bush beans really climbed like crazy!
Trying to grow them the normal times and stuff that you would normally grow...
This replay is a must listen episode about building soil health that was originally published February 2017.
It is Monday, January 2nd, very early in the morning and I am headed back to school today. I know you are going to love this guest from Black Swan Organics and Grow Ohio Valley in Appalachia!
What a great guest to follow up after Jean-Martin Fortier because Danny is basically doing everything JM Talked about. A great educator and farmer you are going to love this episode as much as I did!
Grow Ohio Valley.org is a nonprofit organization working to improve food justice in Appalachia.Grow Ohio Valley is working to fashion a new economic landscape, one offering increased prosperity, improved health and a better environment.
Things they do is change:
• Vacant city lots become fertile and productive.
• School children who think it is “normal” to grow and eat healthy food.
One thing I am curious about is their “Food Stamp Challenge”
From Black Swan Organics andGrow Ohio Valley here’s Danny Swan.
Tell us a little about yourself. Sure, I’m living here in Wheeling West, VA. It’s kind of hybrid Appalachia Coal town and mid west Rust Belt town. Has a lot in common with some of it’s larger brothers, like Cleveland and Akron. Had lots of steel mills which have largely gone away and coal mines, that are dwindling, kind of post industrial situation.
I grew up about an hour away, and I came to live in the big city about 10 years ago. At that time kind of found a love for organic gardening trying to share that with other people since in a variety of ways.
Sharing the Love One of which is Grow Ohio Valley, a company founded with other people here in Wheeling, West VA to bring this local food movement, which is pretty fringe here. You’d call it a rust belt climate….
What does that mean a rust-belt climate?
Wheeling, it’s been a hard up town. It was pretty prosperous up until the 60s and 70s and before. As factory work moved overseas, and as coal ran out or other forms of jobs, there are:
- high unemployment rates
- everything that goes with that
- poverty
- low scores on health performance
- low educational performance
- high drug usage which is a big thing we’re seeing right now.
It’s a kind of mentality where people just want a job … want things to get back to normal as they remember it … so things that relate to long term health, don’t get on the radar screen I would say, if you look at it as an average across the town as it is in other places as frequently.
People are
- not thinking about farmers markets
- not thinking about organic food
- growing own food
more immediate and pressing concerns … way to address these concerns … direct these …. business opportunities in farming and gardening …. that’s the obvious one …. under employed to do something… either a backyard garden to support their home …. economics or kind of a market venture like were up to here…. there’s also that empowering energy that comes with doing something that is live giving for your and your family … putting your flag in the ground that you have control over … something I have power in in this sort of complex challenging world… for decades now…
We’re in a similar situation because the timber industry has left and our mills have shut down. I think that this is a popular topic whether they are interested in creating their own green jobs or supporting their farmer’s market.
Tell me about your first gardening experience? My mom had a small flower – vegetable garden, my grandfather was a farmer and I spent time as a kid … but it was all sort of part of the background as a child and not something I had a keen interest until I moved out and had my first backyard. I had a friend he was interested in trying a vegetable garden, we were living together and we just went out in the backyard, dug up some grass, and planted a few seeds and I was hooked … you probably understand as well as your listeners….it’s hard to describe … what a feeling! I haven’t thought about much else…
How did you learn how to garden organically?
Rodale Organic Gardening Book Basics …
No, we just went down to the used bookstore, and got a guide to Rodale Organic Gardening Book Basics …
… that was really the beginning for me… I didn’t really know anything, I had just kind of taken orders how to help in the garden … I hadn’t really thought about!
But what a great book! It gave me some methods and ideas.
I love Rodale’s, I was just looking at some of my Rodale books the other day, my herb book and my perennial book … Do you want to explain what Grow Ohio Valley is?
Let’s see it was 8 years ago, I was working in an inner city after school summer school here… basically the after school program for the poor kids… at this great place called the Lockland Chapel … working there, my job while I was in college …
I just wanted to get the kids outside and off the concrete, looking back at my childhood I wanted to give them a taste of the things that were important to me and having a connection to the natural world… rode our bikes around, settled on one, found a vacant lot, dug up a little land on this lot and growing a few tomatoes … later on we found out someone owned the property – the Department of Transportation and they formalized our permission to grow things there and that sort of started out my beginning of doing community gardening in a community engaged sort of way.
We took the kids down there and just did some fun stuff … we didn’t have a curriculum and we just wanted to let them run around and do that sort of thing…
The first year we took the boys down and take one chunk and grow some pumpkin seeds and the girls had a different plot and held a little competition see who boys or girls could grow bigger pumpkins. They really got into it, wheelbarrowing manure around and stuff.
At first I was skeptical, they were looking at the grass wondering is this gonna get grass stains on my Nikes etc but soon they loved it …
I just had to ask what age kids? Middle school or older? I teach 2nd grade…
At that time I had 2nd to 5th grade kids, but shortly after I took middle school to high school… this was a corner of a big vacant lot – about an acre … size of a football field.
Once I got into the high school, kids who could do al little bit more and more of the lot… down the road… We have chickens there… still do, perennial patch with blackberries and rhubarb and annual vegetables … I have these middle school and high school boys
mostly boys…
They were out there helping me all the time… they wanted to make some money, said these vegetables have some value … so every Saturday we started taking to the Woodville Farmer’s
That’s when I started my intensive education on Market gardening
- efficient production
- holistic soil and health…
So starting with your market gardening education. If you were starting over today, what is one big thing you would do differently?
So many things wrong, it’s been part of a fun and interesting journey… doing one thing because doing things wrong one farmer shows up … your doing something wrong and that attracts people… I have this weird theory…
Determined incompetence… It’s really attractive to people because when you don’t know what your doing but you really want to do a good job… people who know what their doing start showing up … brought so many interesting people … so many mentors who saw what we were doing here in the city and wanted to help people to succeed so great relationships started out of that… so I am not sure I would go back and go to ag school or do something like that.
There have been some resources since that Rodale Organic Gardening Book Basics that have been super valuable to me…
These are the kind of things on my desks all the time that I’m referencing
Lee Reich? Weedless Gardening… and several other books with the same theme of no till gardening, which proved to be really important to us, kind of lifesaving on our innercity lots… all these vacant lots used to have houses on them… so we’re lucky if the demolition contractors spread a few layers of topsoil that’s still laying in the basement under your feet.
tilling the garden after we broken three rototillers so we realized we had to find a better way.
No Till Gardening opened us up to no till gardening … coming form a permaculture garden…
Ruth Stout of how to garden without an aching back…
to becoming a really dedicated mulcher who never tills and just cultivates the soil…
That was a gift to us and another farmer and really changed things and probably what gives us where we are and allowed us to be successful to be doing this now…
lately new info coming in from
Steve Soloman and Erica authors of the Intelligent Gardener
I’ve heard of the No-till method who first started out with Jon Moore in Australia ….
- really great resources
- the one I was talking about is a really quick read
- novella size book that fits in your pocket.
- light on technical jargon
- user friendly
- could hand to the high school kids and they could wrap their heads around it…
- more production gardening
Little Tweaks Add Up We’ve expanded to four lots of intensive production here in the city. That making little tweaks and little changes can really mean a lot if you can get 10% more production, if it’s a big enough garden space that can be really meaningful… sort of economics in a community if you plants can be a little bit more efficient and productive it can be really crucial!
soil science info about how to balance micronutrients and minerals, learning about he soils
cat iron exchange capacity… 3 pathways by which can find nutrients
which have we been paying attention and which have we been neglecting…
This book the the Intelligent Gardener really comes in handy. It’s basically a soil science 101 primer coming from people who are life long organic gardeners themselves.
I’ve really appreciated what it comes from.
Nice I’m so curious about a lot of what you are talking about…
So I teach on a Reservation there’s a lot of similar burnt down houses etc… just sitting there… so you’re not even removing the old houses etc… You’re just building right on top of it.
a lot of words for it
- sheet composting
- sheet mulching
- lasagna gardening
a lot of terms for what we’re doing
Lets say you start with just plain grass in your backyard… patchy grass, whatever you’ve got, let’s say it’s a building demolition site kid of rubbly or grassy.
First thing you need to do is get rid of the grass … normally this would be done with a plow or a rototiller or a shovel, however your gonna get rid of the grass… but instead of doing this we we lay newspaper or cardboard something biodigradeble to starve the grass of any light. We use string to lay out the corners, then inside that area we lay newspaper or cardboard on top of all the grass. On top of that newspaper of cardboard we throw any kind of organic mulch, anything we can get our hands on
- leaves
- mulch
- manure
- chicken
- compost
- anything at all to cover up cardboard or newspaper
and then wait a month and the grass is dead underneath, not dead but just in a passive way… root structures are not disturbed
plant matter is decomposing right into the soil soil life, especially earthworms, are very happy in an environment that’s moist and dark and not being disrupted. They’re tunneling through the whole thing brining it down and bringing this organic matter that you have put on top of the cardboard they are grabbing it and carrying it down through the soil.
In a very short order
not as short order of if you had a rototiller of course but in a few months of this you start getting a nice soil tilth. Soil that you can move though your hands and break it into different clumps.
After a few more years from this, after adding lots of mulch. We are always adding mulch if a lawn care company drops off some grass clippings they go straight into one of the garden beds! We’re always adding mulch so we can never see bare soil… bare soil is sight unseen at least that’s our goal in the garden!
By adding that mulch and the bottom layer decomposing and adding more mulch on top and always doing that, we...
This episode was originally posted August 2018. It’s a great resource for building soil health. If you want to join the Patti Armbrister Fan club send me an email!
Connect with Patti Amazing Arbrister on Facebook at her Agrarian Food Web Page!
I’ve been wanting to see some podcasts on you know the organic gardeners when we talk about soil health and composting and the principals of cover crops
they just turn their lights off and don’t want ot talk because they are doing organic gardening and
every single farmer
including your household vegetable gardeners
they’re doing production organics
they’re on a fast pace to destroying their soils and don’t know it
finally on fb yesterday, the day before
one of my friends, she is a leader in organic gardening, she made a video on the same topic,
when I started hearing about soil health she didn’t think they were talking about her, when she realized the principles are about her
they have this mindset
they are above and beyond soil health
they are some of the ones the fastest
What are they doing? To ruin their soil.
These are the principles for regenerative farming or gardening 1. Minimum disturbance to low disturbance * boar bottom plow * shovel * chisel * roto tillers
use a broad fork
a real shallow device
That’s minimum disturbance 2. Keep the soil covered 24/7 365 other then the day you are going to pull the weed mulch
soil should be covered
so when you look at it you should either see
dead organic matter
wood mulch/chips that you’ve added or you should
see live plants
never see bare ground
next rule or principal
- Plant diversity more plant diversity
Companion planting
farming solar rays of sunlight that is coming to the earth
as those plants do photosynthesis then they are dropping root exudates ~ they leak them out of their root system for the
soil food web Uses those sugar and carbohydrate
Then they deliver to the plant something the plant needed. They do this with signals depending on the root exudates.
Let’s say it’s a corn plant, it needs nitrogen. And next to it is a, tomato and a tomato needs calcium.
sending different signals
biology brings back different
nitrogen is getting created by protozoa, then eating the fungi then pooing it out
form of the bacteria fungi, attached to the roots
The plant couldn’t use it until it went through the stomach of the protozoa and it poops it out. Kind of like a seed….
so it could sprout
nutrients become available to the plant. The more plants and species of plants in that group the more sugars there is in the soil life and more diversity of the nutrients cycling around in the soil.
too good a job
too much calcium
sending the signal
tomato
- the corn
- peas
- beans
need it and it’s available to them too. So it’s like a sharing event taking place.
So the more diversity there is the healthier
Next rule or principle is to 4. keep a living root in the soil as many days out of the year meaning if we’re gonna take out a crop
just got done with the spring
spinach or arugula
bed is empty now,
as soon it is done I chop them down and they become part of the leaf litter
the next succession of plant
pepper into that spot
For the biology of the soil, there is always a living root there, always giving off root exudates. This exchange is always going and can go year round if we have a perennial plants in the system!
This is awesome!
There is another thing that happens with the root structures
A carrot is obviously a taproot, it has a singular taproot can break up hardpan
radish can break up the hardpan.
The hardpan is created by us
- walking on the ground
- driving an implement
- tractor in the farm gound
- train as it is going by my house
the train is 200 yards from my house, making the ground bounce and causing compaction
taproot breaks that compaction layer up
softer soil
worms will feed off that decaying root
make channels
just the tap root looks like it is just the tap root but it has a long long skinny root, but it’s several feet on the ground, then the worm able to go down the channel and burrow. Let’s say next to the plant is a carrot
fibrous
thousands of roots in a mat
hairroot
next to the carrot
root system is called biological tilling
- softening the soil
- ammending
and making it better from the soil from their root system.
carbon
decomposing
Some of the carbon is getting stored into the soil
versus one type of crop, if we are having a field of corn, we have one type of root in the soil
those are the principles
think about the principles
You’re an organic farmer who just prepared the seed bed
roto-tilled the bed.
dead organic matter
deep as your tines will go 4-5-6 inches deep
bottom half 6-inches deep
roots have to break thorough that in order to have a system of any kind going on
so they come down
root turns on the direct
across the hard pan turns on a angle because it is looking for nutrients and water but it can’t grow through it so they are fighting for the nutrients and water.
So what does someone who has a large acreage like 2 acres or 10 acres without a tractor?
You would use a tractor and then plant a cover crop. But you’re gonna cut it down or a roller.
lays it into a mat
then they go in with a no till drill, that has a disc, two little discs
opens a furrow
that drops seed in
roller that goes over that that has a way to pack it down.
seed soil compact
no-til planter
This is awesome! This is what a lot of Liz Carlisle’s book The Lentil Undergound is about right? If we know these are best practices why aren’t we doing it? and I was talking to Megan Cain the other day and she was saying she tries to put something in the same day she takes it out so she doesn’t have bare soil. That’s good advice for me because I am the worst at getting my seeds in the ground!
there’s another thing they call inner seeding
we could inner seed
- peas
- beans
- clover
In between the corn, so they are growing the whole time the corn is growing. We may not harvest them, like the clover, but we could harvest the beans or peas, we might be walking on some beans or peas
a lot of the inner cropping
the inner crop is just to help with fixing the nitrogen and keeping the roots cool
So you have a cooler soil, where it’s not getting dried out by the wind but not super cool
soil biology, creates some heat, so that soil temperature might not be major difference but it’s better then dry air exposed
baked
soil life
exposed tilled soil
if they are there they’re dormant, not doing anything
They have to have moisture
not over a 100º
doing their thing
Anytime we have exposed soil on the surface that’s expose to the air and wind
wind demonstration traveling before some soil erosion
- white t-shirt
- plastic mat
- pan of top soil
- leaf blower to generate the wind with
With a mph reader
They said everybody start watching the t-shirt, it’s already running at 2-3 mph think we haven’t seen anything it, but you look down and the dirts all over the t-shirt….
so tiny
already moving
can’t see them by the human eye
if we can’t see we don’t conceive it, that it’s already happening. He had it go up to 20 mph, you could see the soil rolling and bumping, rolling and
on top of this little mph
20mph is a little wind. The other day we had in eastern Montana 90mph
you can’t even just stand, you’re just left with rocks
soil exposed
mulch
is on top of this soil
And it would also help like in the forests where they fires are burning to hold in the soil there too.
So those are the main principles are those five things
They have tried all the principals separate from each other, they do work to a certain extent, but if you put all five of them together
You get incredible responses! You can turn soil that is almost on the verge of decertification and turn it into healthy soil in three years!
We can start whenever the person can wrap their head around starting
once we decide it doesn’t matter what time of year. Let’s say it’s fall,
You would normally go in and pull your tomatoes
I would never pull the root out of the ground, I might cut the plant off, but let it do it’s natural thing and let it catch snow and it will slowly break down into the system
as long as it isn’t diseased, if it’s diseased take it out.
first thing is
I try to catch people in the fall
you should maybe leave that. Once you recognize these principals it will save a lot of labor and time! And wonder we haven’t done it all this way all the time?
I never thought about that before, if you leave it there, what do you do in the spring?
That’s nature’s way is already starting to decompose it
We have the most decomposing going on right underneath the snow
decomposing already taking place with the moisture of the snow, it will be already breaking down
In the spring we hope you have some mulch left, a system in the spring…
A worm can take a whole leaf, and pull it down their den 3 foot deep. So a lot of that stuff is just going to disappear. You get into this.
I have a friend I her into this started this 3 years ago
third year of white dutch clover in the walkways
Already she is like I need to get more mulch
leaves in the fall. I told her in the future you want to be thinking about growing a cover crops to put in for the mulch.
- green living
- grass seed plants
- all winter
In certain areas, you would be able to cut it, and use that as a straw mulch. It will be green when you cut it and it will turn into something that looks like straw.
I was going to ask you about the clover. I guess I was just thinking is the bees like the clover. You also posted the pictures of her garden right?
put it
turns into
She has it between all of her beds, she mows it when it gets 4 inches tall,mows it late evening when the bees have already left
She mows the walkways and lets the leaf littler from the clipping go into the beds
- feeding the plants
- plant is stressed from the cutting
- releases nitrogen into the soil
Justin Rohner is a presenter and speaker and owner of Agriscaping!
I didn’t realize you have a restaurant.
Tell us a little about yourself. Serve a number of restaurants in the Phoenix. About me and who I am which is sort of a serial entrepreneur.
honed my skills to put all my eggs in one
Agriscaping I’m all about improving
- local food economies
- strengthening families
- strengthening communities
what I’m doing fits into one of those categories.
Tell me about your first gardening experience? born in Alexandra VA just outside Washington DC, my dad was in the FBI
I remember a forest, living in a forest and went back and visited it was 4 trees thick by a busy road! It was nothing but a couple of trees but I was a kid.
I moved to Arizona when I was young
Being in the garden with my mom little kid
probably about five years old peas
seeing this caterpillar rolling across the
slow motion
tiny thing in the garden I could be with the caterpillar
infatuated by everything about how plants grew and that we could eat this stuff
My mom telling me about how the butterflies oddly enough same time of year we’re doing this recording when that
whole scene played itself out. From then on you couldn’t get me back inside.
My mom would yell and I didn’t even hear here because I was just so engrossed in how life worked.
outdoors
continue to expand
first passionate experience to be in the garden and what it tasted like and how something that had grown
I think a lot of my listeners are going to relate to that story about being kids like that and getting lost in the garden maybe even today as an adult!
How did you learn how to garden organically? back then
backyard gardening
there really was only
we had our compost piles
grandpa owned a dairy farm
last in Tempe Az where AZ State U resides
dairy farm in the family
seeing all that stuff work
too normal
Distracted me a lot from making this a profession is it was so normal as a kid it was just the normal thing
- easy stuff
- tech stuff
- hormone
belittle to use methods
I watched that side of the family business shift the way of all the. world that twas
I always loved the organic method * easier * less expensive
In my mind it was cheaper, I wasn’t trying to run a commercial so I didn’t need all that techy stuff
grew stuff the way I knew
photo by Agriscaping
Agriscaping is a blend of the best of productive agriculture best of ornamental landscaping! Integrating all the things we do not just food
growing production into a landscape!
Easy to maintain
integrating local food into the local economy
foods for fodder for animals and textiles
types of things we’re growing too are different then you would expect!
I’m in Pheonix, AZ where the temps get in the 120ºs winter now the temp was below freezing this morning
weird but that’s how deserts work and the high today is going to be 71º
Do plants like that or does it make it harder to grow?
It makes it a little challenging
we know we’re still headed into some freezes
drop by checking out some of their trees.
Their desert gold peach is starting to bloom! I say ought oh?! We might have some freezes
- gonna lose all of it’s fruit
- damage production
- too early in it’s cycle
In the extreme heat it’s definitely a challenge. Our break of the year is usually during June and August. That’s when we back off most of our planting and growing
that’s where the major stress
things
- sweet potatoes
- sunflowers
- jerusalem artichokes
There’s a lot of cool things you can grow during that time but relatively speaking that’s when we take a break.
photo curtesy of Agriscaping
One thing I saw on your site was your edible flower guide and you have a lot of classes.
we have a ton of different classes
elegant edible approach integrate that into the food economy
cool technology
blending technology with traditional practices and a lot of design
a lot of artist in me
I can’t help but make things look good
Having restaurant gardens in Scottsdale. the way we got that approved was to
- align the beauty
- integrate beautify
begonias
edible flowers
work them into their salads and even some of their drinks
- pansies
- violas
- petunias
this time of year
petunias in salads
edible flower guide get to know what types of flowers are edible.
Can I ask you, do they have to be special? I mean can you eat just any petunia?
I would be careful where you get it
industry for flowers
- petunias
- pansies
- especially begonias
systemic pesticide is one that they will either spray on the plant or put it in any granules uptakes inside the plant
anything tries to eat it the bug
cellular level
infused with the pesticide is not something you want to eat, that will cause digestive challenges
systemic pesticides
ensure your getting stuff organically grown source for organically grown flowers! great relationships with our nursery
agriscaping hub
will have preferred nursery sourcing grown in a way
system supported where you can trust the sourcing
that kind of agriscaping certified sourcing
We had to create that sourcing ourselves because it didn’t exist in the market place
Do you want to tell people, a lot of my listeners have been growing a long time, but interested selling at market but maybe selling some of their produces
not really a channel
there’s actually 5 different certifications Justin is a natural teacher!
DIY Agriscaping Mastery Program Teaches you all the aspects
outdoor to indoor
all the integrations
microclimates so you can understand how to expand without hoop houses
integrate the beauty no matter what the sun orientation or shade orientation in your property or forest you can grow food
Agriscaping Educator Certification create these little teaching platforms teach our
ACES so they can help families
garden consultant
economically
families become productive
Agriscaping Design certifications from people have never done it before but are interested in it or people who have been landscape architects for years, enable them to add a new component and expand their offering
professional approach
Agriscaping Contractor Certification
licensed contractors that can implement these designs and build these machines
when designed right is a machine that not only looks amazing but produces revenue for homeowner
Rate on the expense
silver
18c garden and a 24 carat garden qualify what kind of productivity
installed the way we do it, and then maintained the way our
agriscaping pros
another certifications
harvestors
business model
We teach a class on 7 ways to garden and get paid there’s also a lot of other ways
How a diy can garden and get paid
I was a hobbyist that grew and attracted enough income to pay for my hobby
more and more people kept asking how I did it and what I did?
It really all started from a hobby that I chose to make a professional hobby
it’s own industry basically is what’s really pulling out of it.
What we have built in these programs is a shorter journey, for anyone who wanted to get involved and get started doing this quicker. I started this in 2001 professional hobby side
built it to what it is today
this is a great year to get involved
we developed the hub systems
scalable to be
no matter because of the tech we have brought to it!
One of the upsides is you are not doing this on your own land so that would be a barrier that a lot of people have is not owning their own property. I think it’s also good timing, you’re finally hearing people talking about climate change on the news and millennials are getting older and they seem to be interested.
Tell us about something that grew well this year. definitely have a garden 1/4 property
strict HOA driven subdivision
Even in my 1/4 acre I have 72 fruit trees growing in the garden backyard
square
grass the kids grow well in grass, better then in the garden. I have a bad mitten net
useful to the function of my home
trampoline subterranean garden
shade loving edibles a lot of fun loving vegetables
one of my favorite things
Jamaican hibiscus
It grew amazing! It loves the heat! It produces! A wonderful don’t even remember what we call the
roselle
We don’t eat the flower, let it turn into a roselle that is encasing the seed pod and the outer part
The kids call it the healthy sour patch kids petals are sour
almost lemony sour
same thing they make red zinger tea with
hibiscus lemonade, you can make a lemonade about of that without any lemon at all.
roselle petals
that
they grow amazing the restaurants loved them!
They integrated them into a number of different drinks
It’s a sour leaf which makes it a fun add to a salad! triple crown type plant
roselle fruit
leaves you can eat
the stalk is a good fiber just as good as jute
You can use for rope, we used the stalks to make our twine that we wrap our veg in at the markets
recycling
quadruple crown of a plant we are able to grow this year! Wow awesome! Lots of great information there? Does that grow in other places like Florida, and Texas?
it can grow pretty much anywhere you have a good amount of warmth...
I feel like I haven’t explained exactly what is the big difference between the Free Garden Course itself and the 2019 Challenge that is worth $37.00?
So the Challenge will officially start Monday, I want to give Progressive Radio Network listeners one more time to explain exactly what the challenge is enough.
And really there is not that much! EXCEPT when you complete the 2019 OGP Challenge One if you live in the United States and you sign up for the challenge and you are one of the first 25 people, you will get a hard copy of the book and a hard copy of the garden journal delivered to you!
When Mike reads it I know it’s good!
And it keeps the checklists all together.
Remember you can get the 2018 Garden Journal and Data Keeper to record your garden goals in our
You can download the first 30 days here while you’re waiting for it to come in the mail.
Free Garden Course Workbook
Garden Journal
And the bonus journal will allow you to write in all year!
First I will make a case for learning something with an instructor versus studying on your own. When I learned to play the guitar, my growth accelerated at a rapid pace when I started to take lessons overnight compared to the first couple of years I just tried to figure it out on my own. When you want to learn a foreign language, a new fitness regime or yoga, it’s often beneficial to do it with a teacher in a class.
I know there are some listeners who would benefit from this awesome opportunity. And bonus you get access to both me and Mike!
So I modeled the class after a grad school class I took online and what I loved about that was reading the other people’s papers and having to comment on each other’s work and I feel like that helped me more then anything so getting to be in the private Facebook group with other students enables you to learn from others.
That way you wouldn’t have to listen to maybe all 12 lessons. Learning in a more academic environment. Granted I recorded the videos, I put some extra pictures in, I will have some extra recordings, as we move into March and April we will get some things growing here that I will share. You can watch the videos, read the content on the website and download the checklists. I feel like it’s a lot of content to get through.
Everyone will be growing an herb. I share my pictures of herbs. At least a plant but I feel like every organic oasis should have herbs in the landscape. I really feel this passionately. They are so good for the environment even if you don’t eat them!
Part of it is making sure you feel confident you will build your own organic oasis this season. Get it started and has all the essential components.
My listeners say they struggle with time and design. And they want to know how to get more vegetables from their beds and the time and space and energy they put into it and how to bring in more pollinators? Bugs and pests are questions a lot of people ask me a lot.
And a lot of my guests talk a lot about having a healthy ecosystem, developing an entire oasis there! You’re flowers are there to bring in pollinators, they will bring diversity to your yard. I think there are
I use the Search bar at Organic Gardener Podcast a lot. If I get a question I go there first if I remember a guest talking about it and then I research other sites. Or I’ll ask in the Facebook group. Tying that information in. Amazon gives me a little discount for some promotional books. So I can send a few out to the U.S.
The other thing we are going to do for Progressive Radio Network listeners and Green Future Growers is we’re going to garden with a friend. If you want to bring a friend! We will give you two log ins to the Private Secret Facebook Group. And you will each get a certificate. (Only one hardcopy of the workbook will be sent but both members get a digital pdf copy.
One of these things I saw the other day was gardening with a friend. So two people would get in! I know Carolyn is going to bring a friend I think and if you already joined you can also bring a friend! You will get an email from me.
The syllabus includes additional reading and podcasts to listen to so you will go more in depth learning about soil health and pollinators.
Mike keeps asking me, if it’s a free course how come it’s a $37.00 challenge? I think it’s like the Green Smoothie Girls who did a 30 days challenge for $47.00? So it’s a lot of material to cover and if the challenge is a good fit for you and you want to get a certificate that shows you completed this informative course.
Join the challenge here
Free Garden Course.com
Free Organic Garden Course
We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community! If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
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Get Hippie Certified! Welcome to the Organic Gardener Podcast today it is Thursday, February 28, 2019. I’m so excited to talk to my guest from Texas because I’ve been looking for someone to talk to us about Organic Lawn Care! So from Hippie Fertilizing here is AJ Olson!
What would you like to know, actually how you found me was you shared a micro prairie article that I had had shared on my Hippie Fertilizing Facebook Page. So you posted something and I shared it and you liked it and I sometimes look at who like’s my posts so I can figure out what people like and look for more things like that to help them.
Hippie Fertilizing Natural Organic Lawn Care I’m a H town baby
Im 31, I grew up here Houston in between here and Galveston
I’ve been in lawn care and tree service. I thought how can I learn something and grow as I learn? Lawn-care seemed to be something that would keep me moving, because I hate to sit still. It’s been really successful over the years. I started out doing what we know and often that’s what we see on TV on commercials or what friends tell us.
I found out the hard way that doesn’t work very well! Put down some weed and feed, burn some lawns, spray some weed killer, get very sick! No that doesn’t look like a good idea anymore! I’m gonna get older one day I don’t want to kill myself to make a living.
Hippie Fertilizing Natural Organic Lawn Care That’s where I found out about organics and every since I did it’s been such a wonderful thing!
Not only a great way for me to have a business where I can do something positive.
Also it’s been a fun amazing way to educate others on the
- importance of our environment
- how we effect ecology
- supporting soil biology is the best way to go!
- It’s the most environmentally supportive and supports our own health!
That’s good to hear because the number one question I got last summer was How do I take care of my organic lawn? Do you want to give some tips for how do we build soil health in our lawn?
Can I say what the biggest question I got last summer was? How do I kill the weeds? That’s always the top questions
Yeah they say the same thing to me? What do I go buy?
And heres what you do. A lot of people don’t like my answer in the beginning because it’s an education process.
- Why is it a weed?
- Why do you want to kill it?
You know most of the weeds have benefits to the soil, so they’re not really weeds you just see so many silly commercials from those big companies out there that want you to buy their stuff and it’s not worth it!
alright?
How do you take care of an organic lawn?
You sit back and relax and let it grow!
A good way to start this, because I know there are lots of people who are like I have to do something?!
Go to the store and and get some organic molasses! Molasses has * iron * calcium * magnesium * potassium * B vitamins * lots of sugar that feeds the soil microbes
I know people are like I need to jump on this and do something so grab some molasses and sweeten up the day.
You know what’s awesome about that, I put a tiny shot of molasses in my coffee each day and I put that on my plants at the end of the day I wonder if that helps them grow?
Well the molasses, and the coffee, coffee has a very low consistent rate of nitrogen. If you have
- roses
- azaleas
- other acidic types of plants.
I actually put it in my basil, lettuce, whatever is in my window. I love that idea! Go get some molasses, like a cup of molasses and a gallon of water.
8 oz of molasses?
I have a tank, so typically I’m putting a quart, which is 32 oz reservoir
A gallon is 128 oz. So I use about a quart (1/4 of a gallon) of molasses for about 50 gallons of water. So for home gardeners usually has a 32 oz reservoir I recommend 8 oz of molasses
Organic Lawn Care Natural Spray Spray it on anything to your hearts content, it won’t hurt anything it will just make your plants and grass greener!
This is so fantastic! I am so glad I talked to you! So what else do you tell people for their soil health?
I follow a couple of Rules for Organic Lawn Care
1 if I can’t touch it with my own hands I don’t use it!
If you think your following an organic program
Let’s say your using a pre-emergent,
read that package
if it says you can’t touch it with your bare skin maybe you should wonder why you are using it at all?
- We walk on our lawns, we have pets
- They have smaller kidneys etc
- Pets can’t handle stuff the way we can, they can be 5 times more affected by it!
- “No it’s not that bad!” someone will say
- You need to wait 24 hours before you go on the lawn, ok pup?!
I know I hate those little flags that say don’t walk here!
Besides pets, where do babies crawl in the summer. Exactly!
I remember before I started Hippie Fertilizing I had a lawn maintenance company
I had a customer
using organic products on her lawn, she was like look AJ it’s looking a lot better but how do I kill these weeds.
I said, let me ask you why do you want
My little one year old is learning to walk, I want her to walk on these weeds in her bare feet.
I said, hold on, let me explain this to you and ask you some questions?
So you want your little baby girl with her little baby feet on the lawn you want me to poison because of the weeds?
I heard her pause for a moment
I could hear in her voice it clicked, Oh, I get it!
Your little baby girl is more important than what you feed weeds are. So for me it’s about sharing that message so
feed soil first relax guys
I hear it all the time, AJ, my lawn is killing me! No, it’s not.
You’re really funny and that’s a super powerful story about the baby and her mom.
So, to go on to how to feed soil biology what i’ve learned and experienced
humic acid it’s amazing
If you heard good stuff it’s true
If you heard bad stuff they weren’t using it right or enough. to spray on everything with the molasses
What’s humic acid?
it’s a by product or it’s a product typically from what’s called Leonardite ore
- chelates minerals
- opens up clay
- neutralizes toxins
- benefits in the soil are such a long laundry list
I couldn’t explain it all in a little talk, I’d have to go back and make a whole script
serious stuff
It’s good for
- trees
- roots
- feeding microbes
- boost fungal activity in soil
people get freaked out!
bacteria
fungus
nasty
we see 3-4 types that are bad
100s that are good
before you get rid of the bad stuff ask yourself are you even working on feeding the good stuff? humic acid is great!
plant based amino acids! * alfalfa meal * cottonseed meal
Not a big fan of soy bean or soy fertilizers, they’re ok definitely better then a big brand chemical fertilizer
Plant based amino acids and they don’t smell like manure based which I’m not against
AJ you do organic fertilizer so you say you spread crap everywhere?
Not cause I’m against them but they tend to smell more and customers tend to not like that.
I know when Mike makes his chicken manure tea, I’m like how can you smell that, it makes me want to gag when he just opens the lid. It smells really strong, give him a lot of kudos.
poultry litter is great
it’s a good nitrogen source, when it’s diluted well because high nitrogen can burn things a little.
it’s excellent
more of a true slow release
here a lot about that
I used a slow release fertilizer
Was it really? I never heard of a slow release red bull, from what I’ve learned, there’s not really a quality slow release chemical fertilizer
Organics They’re all slow release because they have to be utilized and eaten up by bacteria
I haven’t heard of any of that stuff, slow release, but I’m not in the lawn care business. This is fascinating ot hear all of this, I think most people don’t even pay attention to what their landscaper does.
Organic goes back to you only do what you know. It’s important to get the right info out there.
If you did a google search right now, you could look up
how to treat brown patch.
That’s a common one.
It’s all over my mom’s town, they kept telling me it was crab grass, and I kept telling my mom, you should take your soil over to the extension office and you should plant clover in our lawn. Cause the other thing all over her town is this bindweed vine all over.
I’m not a super plant expert, It may be invasive I’m just starting to learn about
- native plants
- prairies and wetland
get more knowledge
emphasize hey
pointing at your neighbor
environmental green space and how we’re impacting our community.
Check this out I want to give you some numbers.
on 4000 square feet of turf do you know what the average rainfall is?
I have no idea?
1” per week
Is that average? That sounds like a lot.
Its’ been wet.
We’ve had snow all February! I remember months where Mike was like I want to go out an turn the beds and it’s just been cold and snowy all month!
For 4000 sq feet 1 inch per week that equals up to almost 10,000 gallons
It’s 9920 gallons in one month I know all about water that way because we hauled water for years. We had a 1200 gallon water truck!
let’s take another look at our lawn for the 4000 sq foot, if we can absorb if we can 8” in a single day, that’s over 27,000 gallons on that same turf
Here in Houston we’ve had lots of flooding.
I’m sure you heard of Hurricane Harvey
It flooded a lot of stuff! I continue to bring it up and mention it in a lot of my articles It was a huge impact.
It devastated a lot of people. Quickly people forget the tragedies that happened but I don’t forget because I work in this stuff.
People say well it has’t rained for 3 weeks we’re going for a drought. Then when we get rain, I say don’t worry we’re gonna get 6 weeks of a drought it’s gonna dry up passion and love for soil biology is how much it can take a load off of our infrastructure and our sewer and drainage if if we could absorb 27,000 gallons of water! That would reduce so much of our flooding.
I interviewed Anastasia from the Brooklyn Grange and they were able to start because they got like a $200,000 infrastructure grant. But I’m confused how do you absorb all that rain in a single day? It seems like a huge amount? Do you get that...
I start out with the formal Arthur but by the end of this interview with this rockstar millennial you’ll be referring to him as your good friend AJ too because he speaks for the earth and is just one of the most awesome stewards of our planet out there plus he’s just a natural action taker and educator!
He said post it raw and I know you’ll love it, if you want to see my shownotes just go here
otherwise you’ll just have to listen to to here him share all these golden seeds every neighborhood should know.
And don’t forget to sign up for:
Creating Your Own Organic Oasis and FREE Garden Course Webinar I also want to invite you to our next webinar either Sunday, March 3, 2019 or Tuesday March 5, 2019. I am giving an ONLINE Webinar about Creating Your Own Organic Oasis and how FREE Garden Course can help you develop your own organic oasis.
And you can also learn is the 2019 Organic Gardener Podcast Challenge for you. Sorry I forgot to mention the other day it had a $37.00 fee. It’s certainly not for everyone but I think there are a lot of my listeners who want some guided instruction and a cohort to learn along with. There are extra assignments to post in a Secret Private Facebook Group where we will go through the course over 6 weeks and if you get all the work completed you will graduate on Earth Day 2019 with a certificate signed by me!
So I hope you’ll join us. Thanks always for listening and reading!
To learn about the 2019 Organic Gardener Podcast Challenge click here!
We’re giving away 25 free workbooks to the first 25 listeners who sign up for the $37.00 challenge to finish all of Free Garden Course, pass a midterm and final by Earth Day 2019, April 22nd!
If you just want to purchase the books on your own you can order them direct from amazon here!
Free Garden Course Workbook
Garden Journal
I know it’s good when Mike’s reading it!
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy
Hey we made the top 2 in organic gardening and #5 in regular gardening on Feedspot for 2019!
I didn’t really understand what feedspot was till yesterday when I actually entered my email and got their newsletter this morning. Very cool. It basically sends you interesting news in your feed from your favorite sources.
Creating Your Own Organic Oasis and FREE Garden Course Webinar I also want to invite you to our next webinar either Sunday, March 3, 2019 or Tuesday March 5, 2019. I am giving an ONLINE Webinar about Creating Your Own Organic Oasis and how FREE Garden Course can help you develop your own organic oasis.
And you can also learn is the 2019 Organic Gardener Podcast Challenge for you. Sorry I forgot to mention the other day it had a $37.00 fee. It’s certainly not for everyone but I think there are a lot of my listeners who want some guided instruction and a cohort to learn along with. There are extra assignments to post in a Secret Private Facebook Group where we will go through the course over 6 weeks and if you get all the work completed you will graduate on Earth Day 2019 with a certificate signed by me!
So I hope you’ll join us. Thanks always for listening and reading!
To learn about the 2019 Organic Gardener Podcast Challenge click here!
Click here to read the tentative syllabus
We’re giving away 25 free workbooks to the first 25 listeners who sign up for the $37.00 challenge to finish all of Free Garden Course, pass a midterm and final by Earth Day 2019, April 22nd!
If you just want to purchase the books on your own you can order them direct from amazon here!
Free Garden Course Workbook
Garden Journal
I know it’s good when Mike’s reading it!
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy
Olivia Shangrow is an Awesome Rockstar Millennial and the biologist and operations specialist for Rent Mason Bees. She completed her bachelor of science degree in biology from the University of Washington. She’s passionate about teaching the public about wild bees and her research focuses on increasing the value of rural and urban habitats for native insects.
I can share information on the mason bee lifecycle, what to grow in your garden to support them, and the best ways to care for/host them in your backyard
We’re up north of Seattle in Bothel, we do some propagation in Oregon too!
We travel a lot but when we’re actually hands on in Washington
Tell us a little about yourself. I’ve always been interested in bees my whole life, myself have been hearing the bees are struggling and our bee populations are down.
I just decided when I was finishing school I wanted to do more to help bees and that’s how I ended up running a program where I rent bees.
I have to back up a little what made you want to go to college and get a science degree and what about bees? Watching Bee movie?
I think I’ve always loved all types of animals!
I can’t remember when I first decided that I thought bees were awesome!
I had heard of the honeybee before but I ended up I took a class in between high school and college where I learned about the Mason bee.
That opened up my world to something I never knew existed. When I went to college I went back and forth between different programs, I finally settled on biology that coupled my love for nature but would help me get a job in the future. I wanted something that was applicable and hands-on
Anytime I got to do any kind of independent focus where I got to pick what I was studying I always chose bees
When I was senior research project
went out to one of the
power pollinator patches
stuck my head in big bushes of flowers and counting the bees
Identifying
- honeybees
- bumblebees
- anything I could find
had so much fun with all of those projects it landed after I was in college I ended up with a job in bees.
I always say you never know what you are going to learn in college what jobs that you will learn about, I always tell them take any job you can to travel. I got to take a class in Olympia in Washington where we studied starfish and all sorts of cool sea anenomes. I love how you picked places to learn about bees. I don’t actually know anything about mason bees other then their a native bee?
So sure, they’re a native bee found in the US there are a lot in the pacific northwest, their range is pretty broad.
a bunch of different species
75 different kinds of bees around the area and we focus on one in particular
blue orchard mason bee they are much different from honey bees! They’re what they call a solitary bee
there’s no queen bee
- don’t live in a hive
- don’t make honey
- all females lay their own eggs
Which makes them non-aggressive so you never have to wry about getting stung! super pollinators and visit up to 2000 flowers everyday she’s gonna be flying around visiting fruit trees bushes
pollinating
Really important for the overall health of our ecosystem because they are pollinating your backyard! So why renting them? What’s that all about.
And a little about their lifecycle the reason why don’t make honey
hang out in hive eating honey reserves
instead the mason bees are going to hibernate inside their own cocoons in the winter time
How their lifecycle works
- they’re hybrinating in winter
- hatch out of their cocoons
- mid to late march
- males and females
completing their nesting activity to lay the next generation of bees
looking for little holes in the backyard to lay eggs
- woodpecker hole
- hollow stem of bush
- in between siding of your house
They’re gonna use those small holes that’s what they’re doing in the springtime while doing pollination work laying eggs for next generation
once they’ve done that process they’re done flying around, their life cycle is over
adult bees
so these bees have a lifecycle of one year but we only see them flying around for 7-8 weeks as adult bees
Mason Bees Renting Program * provide nesting material * adult bee cocoons * host them for springtime * they get pollination * watch the bees flying around * some of the bees will return to nesting block
at end of season
original population is over
What they are giving us back is the next generation of bees We take care of them for the rest of the year
There is a little bit winter maintenance just like a honeybee hive What we do during the fall
- take the nesting material out
- scrape cocoons out
- wash them they’re waterproof
- bathe our bee cocoons
- wash all the nesting material to make sure there aren’t any pests or predators that could be harming the bee populations
- put them in a walk-in refrigerator to simulate hibernation process
Wow isn’t this fascinating? So do you find you have more success then leaving them out in nature? We do!
Because we are propagating a large population of bees there are certainthings that can hinder their development
- pollen mites
- chalk brood fungus
can be really harmful
So of course there are bees out in nature who don’t get washed that are staying dormant in a tree in a backyard
offer to more farmers as an alternative pollinator to alleviate the stress in bee populations
Do they go down in the almond farms in California? so we actually just starting to pollinate farms with the almonds
Our bees are really great for that
almonds
a little bit heartier
can fly at 55º F!
The don’t mind it when it as bit windy or rainy so we have seen great success in the almond orchards because often honeybees wont leave their hives in that temperature.
So we’ve had really great success and farmers are seeing an increase in crop yield because these bees don’t mind the cooler temperatures.
One of the other cool things about the program We’re not putting a bunch of bees in one spot so because we have renters all over the country putting bee kits, not all of the bees are going to return.
Some are going to naturally disperse and lay their eggs so over time we are seeing native bees being able to repopulate
particularly urban areas where our green spaces are getting smaller and we’re building construction so we’re trying to bring them back to those areas
not only are people getting the pollination
apple tree blueberry bushes
native plants that are growing just in people’s yard
That means that those plants can
- grow taller
- grow larger
- healthier
Which means they are going to be filtering our air and water better crux at the health of our ecosystems! Really really important for that. They do a lot more then enable us to have fruits and vegetables
doing a lot of good stuff in people’s backyards!
I love that if you have a flower garden you don’t realize how much your garden is going to bloom and I’ve had lots of guests talk about bees made their vegetables thrive so much and when we were at the Brooklyn Grange the pollinator border was just so pretty and cool! I know it was there to encourage pollination and beneficials.
so how does it work? Do you ship them?
People sign up for their rental kit what we do is we package
- nesting block
- house to hang in the backyard
- one inch pvc pipe with a cap on the end
rent a kit everything is included
Also we work with a leaf cutter bees
you can sign up for one or both
Mason bees are the springtime in April and May
leaf cutter bees fly in July and August
vegetable garden pollination * tomatoes * cucumbers * squash
anything that is going to be blooming in the summertime
host them for the season
instructions
youtube videos
everything to be successful
I send you an email
included with every package is a return label
pack it up in the box
tape it on the front
drop it off at the Post Office
Goes to Seattle where we do all of the cleaning of the bees in the fall really straight forward
relatively inexpensive we charge $50 and that’s everything you get for a season.
That’s a great deal because compared to honeybees, let me tell you, we’ve invested a lot of money in honeybees here and again we’re without any bees. They were doing good for a while and then IDK what happened. We bought local hives, got hives from Washington and other Montana places and IDK…
one of our biggest goals is to grow the population of bees because we want to work with more farmers
even though using mason bees in ag industry is a relatively new industry
new thing
because you need so many fewer bees to pollinate the same amount of acerage.
For instance if you have an acre or apples you may need 1-2 honeybee hives that would be upwards of 50-60000 honeybees! Our mason bees are such efficient pollinators you really only need about 400 females to do the same pollination work.
So what we are finding because you have to use so many fewer bees
The farmer’s we are working with have to agree to use less chemicals during the time the bees are flying. They are more sensitive to those chemicals if you only have 400 you don’t want to wipe out your pollinator so we’re actually starting to see fewer chemicals used on these farms because
it’s worth it to the farmers!
- they’er getting an increase yield
- it’s less work
- don’t have to rent honeybee hives
So we are seeing some systemic changes in the portion of the agriculture industry that were working with!
What else can I ask? Is it going to be kind of like a franchise? how did you start this? Did you just start working for this company? How did it start?
It started about 10 years ago, around 2008. It was just this little business this woman started in her garage
She was going around the area teaching mason bee classes I think I thought the class was about honey bees when I showed up I learned all about this idea of mason bees
it started catching on
she wanted to raise more bees
I don’t have to worry about getting stung
so many perks to the program
Eventually she needed to charge a little bit of money to provide the supply
so many people wanted to participate
She ended up selling the business to a man named James Watts from Watts Solitary Bees His family has been in the business of large scale pollination and working with apple and almond farmers and he thought this idea could go somewhere because it’s so accessible and easy for people who want to do something good for the environment and good for bees and through one of those projects I was introduced to Jim
Fast forward a few years later this has been my full time job and I learn as I go and we are trying to figure out how to make this as accessible as possible
do a lot of local events in Washington State
go to farmer markets
different conservations
Were do in person handout events
I show up with the truck and the bee houses and I answer everyone’s questions. local scale
recently we started mailing bees
So we’re just trying to figuring out how to get this in people’s backyards
people can find out more about your program
platforms like the Organic Gardener Podcast
We’ve got the bees we just need the backyards
Cool when can people order them? You can’t ship us any now. What about people in Florida or Texas?
I have a big range of ship dates. You can go on right now. It’s open for reservations
RentMasonBees.com mason bees or leaf cuter or both
We have a pollinator package as well
different ship dates
We start shipping in early feb
places where it warms up sooner
Like down in California...
So, I heard Thom Hartmann read the actual wording from HR109 about the Green New Deal and thought that’s what I want but it’s taken me over 20 minutes to find the actual text so I’m going to share it with you and you can decide if you want to support it and the Sunrise Movement or not.
So I didn’t really mean to read it all but it was so good I couldn’t help myself and it only took 10 minutes.
Let me see if I can grab the highlights here especially as they apply to farmers and gardeners but the whole thing really applies to any environmentalist and if you listen to my show you probably are an environmentalist.
Based on: the October 2018 report entitled “Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 ºC” by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the November 2018 Fourth National Climate Assessment report
HR109 Recognizes the duty of the Federal Government to create a Green New Deal
Goals:
(1) it is the duty of the Federal Government to create a Green New Deal—
(A) to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions through a fair and just transition for all communities and workers;
(B) to create millions of good, high-wage jobs and ensure prosperity and economic security for all people of the United States;
(C) to invest in the infrastructure and industry of the United States to sustainably meet the challenges of the 21st century;
(D) to secure for all people of the United States for generations to come—
- (i) clean air and water;
- (ii) climate and community resiliency;
- (iii) healthy food;
- (iv) access to nature; and
(v) a sustainable environment; and
(E) to promote justice and equity by stopping current, preventing future, and repairing historic oppression of indigenous peoples, communities of color, migrant communities, deindustrialized communities, depopulated rural communities, the poor, low-income workers, women, the elderly, the unhoused, people with disabilities, and youth (referred to in this resolution as “frontline and vulnerable communities”);
And then they lay out their plans to meet these goals by
1. Building resiliency against climate change
2 Upgrading our infrastructure including guaranteeing a right to clean water and ensuring any bill regarding the infrastructure addresses climate change.
3 Meeting 100 percent of the power demand in the United States through clean, renewable, and zero-emission energy sources
For Farmers: Working collaboratively with farmers and ranchers in the United States to remove pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from the agricultural sector as much as is technologically feasible, including—
(i) by supporting family farming;
(ii) by investing in sustainable farming and land use practices that increase soil health; and
(iii) by building a more sustainable food system that ensures universal access to healthy food;
I mean this is really general but reducing the pollution and negative affects of climate change. And then at the end: L. ensuring that public lands, waters, and oceans are protected and that eminent domain is not abused;
(M) obtaining the free, prior, and informed consent of indigenous peoples for all decisions that affect indigenous peoples and their traditional territories, honoring all treaties and agreements with indigenous peoples, and protecting and enforcing the sovereignty and land rights of indigenous peoples;
(N) ensuring a commercial environment where every businessperson is free from unfair competition and domination by domestic or international monopolies; and
(O) providing all people of the United States with—
(i) high-quality health care;
(ii) affordable, safe, and adequate housing;
(iii) economic security; and
(iv) clean water, clean air, healthy and affordable food, and access to nature.
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So this is our Organic Gardener Podcast Challenge for 2019:
Complete Free Organic Garden Course in 6 weeks. Starting March 11, 2019 and ending on Earth Day April 22, 2019
Join the Private Secret Facebook Group of Green Future Growers and post all assignments each week by midnight Sunday. Complete all lessons, quizzes and bonus assignments. Submit midterm and finals for credit.
Receive your certificate on Earth Day Monday, April 22, 2019 to celebrate!
- Do you want to learn how to improve your soil health?
- Do you want to know how we built our organic oasis over the years?
- Would you like extra help finishing Free Organic Garden Course?
We know it’s a lot of material because we created it, but we’re here to help you finish and come out with a plan to create and most of all be able to enjoy your own organic oasis in 2019!
2019 Organic Gardener Podcast Challenge Tentative Schedule pdf
Watch the video to see the tentative schedule
Don’t forget the bonuses as a founding member of the first 2019 class!
Get our List of Favorite tools for any homestead or oasis.
Recommended resources ~ Reference Books every garden library should contain.
You’ll also get a copy of my relationship building checklist already filled in so you know exactly what episode to listen to help you on your garden journey.
And we’re also going to include for the first 25 people who sign up we’re also going to include a copy of both the Free Garden Course Workbook and a copy of the Garden Journal! (*hardcopies to US locations only ~ international students will get a digital pdf)
Click here to read the tentative syllabus
Join here for only $37.00 by March 8, 2019 and let’s get growing!
Remember you can check out the first few videos of Free Organic Garden Course here! If you just want to purchase the books on your own you can order them direct from amazon here!
Free Garden Course Workbook
Garden Journal
The Organic Gardener Podcast is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com
Remember you can check out the first few videos of Free Organic Garden Course here!
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I know you are going to love her because she was our Crossfit gardener of the year in 2015! And you have taught me so much! I love all that you do and your delicious food and what you do! And she’s gonna share their new LVFarm Academy
Tell us a little about yourself.
I am Mandy Gerth! Farmer and co-owner of Lower Valley Farm in Kalispell, MT
my husband Jay and I are are going in our 7th year of full time farming. We run, I think we’re at about
4 acres of production
all organic
primarily sell through a CSA
2 acres of that is using the intensive model that was kind of pioneered by JM Fortier! I know you had him on your show!
community supported ag
- winter squash
- sweet corn
- potatoes
separate rotation then intensive
I think that is new since I last talked to you.
We go really hard may through oct * we run a 20 week vegetable CSA * Kalispell Farmer’s Market * do a tiny sizable amount of wholesale * food aggregate * directly to small grocery store chains
overview of the farm!
We also have 3 school-age children 7,9,11 they have grown up on the farm very literally
co-owners
awesome crew
really helped make this farm go
under all of that is our community, we also couldn’t do this without our awesome customer base!
I could talk about the farm forever!
OK, I think, what we want to hear about what’s been going on and how does your journey go from gardeners to farmers.
Back to the beginning?
We started out thinking we would be running livestock
vegetable operation would be what would help us make money while we get a livestock operation going.
Before the beginning ~ what made us want to do this
our family had a life changing experience
eating nutrient dense We volunteered on farms a lot! We loved being a part of our farm community in that way
in Indiana
We were doing a raw milk share
you can do in Indiana but not in Montana
super local food
- grass fed beef
- lamb
- backyard chickens
But we were buying farm pastured eggs
slowly with each investment we made in lifestyle changes in our food
Our young children’s health changing dramatically
one of our children had some serious sensory issues
We got in really deep and we were spending almost all of our money on food
why don’t we have a farm? it was like we don’t have a farm because we aren’t farmers because we
don’t know how to farm
if I could go back to myself
First of all I would give her a big hug you have no idea what you are getting into!
We have a garden we can do this!
what I would go back and tell myself
having land is not having a farm
access to land that had been in Jay’s family for 3 generations
Parents had put it in a conservation easement
But we built the farm and all the infrastructure! It was just a conventional hayfield
That’s what we want to hear is how did you create this farm, that’s nutrient dense and it melts in your mouth and the table is laden with just an incredible amount of food! it’s been a steep learning curve
made that huge dive
Joel Salitin’s book
You Can Farm: The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Start & Succeed in a Farming Enterprise you should farm
I was like yeah!
we can do this, if people like us don’t do this who does?
IDK maybe people with experience
in combination
.
Market Gardener: A successful Grower’s Handbook for Small Scale Organic Farming IDK if JM’s book was out yet? I’ll go back and look and see
The Urban Farmer: Growing Food for Profit on Leased and Borrowed Land
in Curtis Stone, I’m not sure his book was out yet, we were watching lots of stuff on youtube then, watching tons of things
go for it
that first year we did everything by hand 1/4 acre
That’s what I feel like, when I look at Mike’s mini-farm it seems huge but then compared to what I saw at your place on the farm tour! I’m like whoa!
It’s a lot but what makes it doable is the 2nd year we invested in the BCS tractor and that was amazing!
What JM Fortier says to buy in the book
.
Market Gardener: A successful Grower’s Handbook for Small Scale Organic Farming when I called to make that order he was like oh you must have read the book.
started out there with JM’s template
since then we’ve adapted it to what works here for us, we’re in a similar climate to him but I think our weather is a little more severe. We’re just North of Flathead of lake and we have some really intense wind so we have to adapt.
And with all that wind, you end up with lots of erosion you have to worry about? Right?
We don’t have too much erosion problems is we are always keeping the soil covered The problem where we keep the soil covered is we have invested in a tremendous amount of sandbags. The first ones were not the ones.
Now we get them from
Farmers Friend LLC lots of sandbags I’ve seen on other hand poof!
What are the sandbags for? Holding down plastic?
So our row cover we use
2xs as many sandbags
on the south as we do on the northside
we cover the sandbags for row cover
use the extensive use of Silage tarps that JM’s lays out in his book we also get from Farmers Friend LLC
We’re wind pros now!
Well that can be trouble also like your high tunnels.
Jays got that really dialed in, he take’s care of taking care of our infrastucture need extra reinforcement.
We’ve
it is amazing! we have a lot of snow here, right?!
our large tunnels they’re 35 feet wide by 100 feet long. Those stay up over the winter
We also have small caterpillar tunnels those come down
I think there are six
12 foot wide by 100 foot long
caterpillar tunnels
two full size that stay up over winter.
When we get heavy we snow, then we go out and bang the snow off the tunnels so they don’t collapse.
Good thinking, I think Mike was just so surprised last year.
A family with small children
first we did 1/4 acre
then the second year went up to one acre which is a big jump able to do that because of the BCS tractor
Then the third year we went up to 1 1/2 acres
1/2 an acre were non intensive crops
squash
potatoes we kept in a different rotation then the intensive crops
That year we bought a 4 wheel tractor
non-intensive crops putting compost
all of our weeding is done by hand
We are just using the tractor for all of our intensive crops
4 wheel tractor is complete different production system for the little bit of storage crops we do for our CSA customers.
slowly adapted over the years
Our 4th year we brought in a full time employee she’s wonderful
we had our one full time employee and now we have 5 wonderful part time people who work with us who work with us May-October.
It’s not just Jay and I working with us.
We have our full time person Mon-Friday and she’s here April – Oct
Then how we set up the systems on the farm our one full time person she’s trained to do lots of things! She’s incredibly super intelligent. She can do everything! And she’s a quick learner!
before lunch
part time people trained to do a few things
monday and wednesday those are the days we have our part time field work people come in
tues and thurs
harvest days we have our packshed crew there.
On Friday we go for early out for the crew.
pack for market
field, harvest, packshed
hopefully they can go at 1pm
leave us to do paper work office work done from 1-5pm.
don’t use any interns
no interns we only use paid employees
We have a young family so we are attempting to keep our life structured for your children. You know that a farm can swallow all your time
Learning how to create systems on the farm to make life manageable and the farm run smoothly so it’s a positive place to work! What’s the difference between employees?
So we have one person who can do all of those jobs who is with us m-f full time
mon-wed field workers
We train how to
- weed
- silage tarps
- transplant
Where do you find people to do that work? Do you have to do it those days because of the market setup? We’ve been really fortunate to find great people
I’ve heard so many horror stories about hiring
put an ad out on
- craigslist
- social media
- customer base
Usually get about 20 applications for every job that we post
we first do a phone interview 3 questions have you ever worked in a woman run business? questions for men, we have a primarily female crew here
everyone coming into our team listening to woman
somebody doing field work
people who have had experience working in the sun heat
heatstroke
why they want to work on the farm? call their references
Then we do a full day paid workday interview
WE usually know right away if they are a good fit for our crew. If they are we hire them at the end of the day
That’s the process
field workers which is really fun pack crew which is also really fun! It’s always in the shade
it is wet that can be uncomfortable
On a hot sunny Montana day that could be nice.
we do!
may is a little uncomfortable
Oct is miserable and really cold!
That’s a downside pack shed work
fun place to be they’ve got the radio going
In the season May it’s the garden season summer coming. In Montana, people don’t understand you get off of work you get like an extra day after work, the days are so long to go to the lake after work! It’s like crazy summer!
third position you ask about
harvesting crew
our full time
Hey everyone! So watching the news this morning, 1 year anniversary of the Parkland Florida massacre at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High. The interesting fact about Marjorie Stoneman Douglas for me is that she was a passionate environmentalist! She basically created the Everglades. I never heard of her till last fall, when we read about her in the incredible Wonders curriculum. So, IDK for me I have more of a connection there then to the other shootings in our schools.
I wish I had some words of wisdom for you today. All I can say, is I feel like what we need more then anything is to teach kids proper use of social media. It should be our tool to teach them how to connect with like minded friends. I am not a fan of violent war games and I do think video games and television has a huge roll to play. Why we glorify violence? Sex and violence. Anyway off-topic.
My mom actually told me about this, but my favorite musician Michael Franti wrote a new song and he was promoting it on the Morning Joe. It’s called a Flower in the Gun.
I wish I could say Mike and I were ready to launch our Free Organic Garden Course today. We’re close that’s all I can say. I posted a pic on Facebook yesterday of Mike reading the workbook. That’s always a good sign, because he never reads anything online. He’s approved everything and I have almost finished all the recordings.
We’ve aimed to use our place as a guidebook to help you take your garden journey to the next level using pictures to try to illustrate as many concepts as we can that have been taught on my show. Today I am going to visit with the AMAZING Mandi Gerth! Can’t wait to share that with you! She also has a class coming out ~ The Lower Valley Farm Academy.
If you didn’t get to catch the webinar Steve (and I ~ haha ~ I could barely get on the line) put on was very informative. Something I could watch a few times to get the hang of all he said, but a lot of what he teaches is an in depth version of the same principles Patti Armbrister has shared so I know you are going to be super interested. He hasn’t released the replay yet but when he does I’ll make sure you get a link.
So, wishing you all a very Happy Valentines! Stay warm and safe and thanks always for listening! I hope you have something growing, something you’re tending too, caring for watering, because really plants are more then just something to look at they become almost like family. I love my herbs growing in my windows. I look at them everyday with a little bit of love.
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OK, for starters MY BAD!
So, Steve Szudera who was my guest in episode 253 talked about nutrient rich soil is going to teach a much more in depth class on building your soil health. He’s going to give a webinar on the
5 Principles of Soil Health I made the webinar post the other day, sent it out, sent the link to Steve and he said, but hey Jackie I told you it’s on Go-To-Webinar not Facebook. And I was like oh YEAH!
So easier for you. You can register here if you haven’t registered yet!
Click here to register for the ONLINE Soil Health Webinar
Just enter your email and you’ll get an invite with all the info!
I also mentioned a couple of things in the news.
Alexandria Ocasio Cortez’s green new deal and the Sunrise Movement. I hope you’ll support and tell your Senators and Congressmen this week and be part of the
OPERATION GREEN NEW DEAL BLITZ I also mentioned Comedian Lee Camp who talked with Ellen Brown about how Europe is leading the world in renewables because they have these things called infrastructure banks.
You can watch the interview here.
I think I also mentioned that when I was reading some old issues of Organic Gardening Magazine from years ago, there were lots of letters to the editor complaining about them mixing politics with gardening and they wrote back they were sorry they felt that way but Rodale’s felt politics and sustainable ag were interconnected. And Mike and I feel that way too.
I hope you do to! That’s why you’re green future growers with me!
Anyway. Happy Valentines!
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I’m just thrilled to be back behind the mic it’s January 7th. I have a great guest that was recommended by Lem Tingley from Growing Spaces in episode 256 and here from the Whole Kids Foundation is Nona Evans!
Whole Kids Foundation Facebook Page It’s always so much fun to see how seeds that you sprinkled about germinate. It’s so fun to know how we connected!
Thank you so much! I reached out to you and you said you checked out the podcast and thought it’d be a perfect fit. Tell listeners about the Whole Kids Foundation because I had never heard of it!
We are on the order of things, a pretty moderate size non-profit organization.
We are Whole Kids Foundation and our mission to improve kids nutrition because we know when kids are well nourished they learn better have the opportunity to reach their full potential. we found 3 ways we are capable of reaching children.
-
salad bar equipment for schools Because the moment you put a salad bar in kids have the power of choice and kids get to choose the vegetables they want.
-
support school gardens which is how I connected with you.
we have the honor and pleasure with supporting
5,000 school gardens in
USA, UK and canada
we know when kids are connected to the roots of their food they make better school choices.
it’s not just kids
The secret is: It’s not just kids it’s us adults too
when we start understanding what the magic we all make good choices.
Personally I’m a foodie
I’ve worked in the food business my whole life but I didn’t meet vegetables until I was well into my 20s. Kids need to know food needs to come.
Are you a rockstar millennial? Born between 80-95.
I was not
I’m much older then that. I spent
- 15 years working in conventional grocery stores
- last 19 years at Whole Foods Markets
- closer to retirement if anything
You sure sound young! Is it related to Whole Foods or is it separate?
I worked at Whole Foods Markets
Back in 2011, the companyWhole Foods Markets start a new foundation which is something they do. So we were founded by Whole Foods Markets.
We are independent organization we are not connected now. Their ongoing gift to us which is amazing they provide the funs for the admin budget!
every dollar we raise goes to schools and programming
So it’s a wonderful thing they have done. We have work in every market, where there is a Whole Foods Markets
100s of other stores.
So I have a question? What is salad bar equipment? Is that like knives and forks? or the salad bar itself? The fruit and salad bar was a huge hit at the schools I was at.
You bet!
we have learned over the 10 yeas we’ve been supporting salad bars there is
one particular model that works really really well in * high school * elementary schools * middle schools
Is a plastic model
- really durable
- chill pads to keep food cold and safe
- super flexible
Generally you find the salad bar in the cafeteria which later becomes the gym and the theater
So they fold up and roll out of the way when we need to.
We provide the equipment * unit * knives for cutting up fresh vegetables * tongs * training
Probably more important than anything we provide is the training if anyone is interested
lunchbox.org
It’s a website that has an amazing array of free tools that any school can use to improve their school lunch program! I come from the grocery store and I always tell people if you can imagine I work in the
- supplement area
- bath and body products
If I had to leave the prepared foods department tomorrow and all the delicious scrumptious food and learn what to do to start.
A school that has never cooked and prepped any food
That’s done with the cooks right? Not the students.
generally work with school service
same cafeteria staff that serves school lunch today can supply and support and serve the salad bar
There are an amazing number of schools that are using another tool kit
to grow food at their school afters school and then use it in the cafeteria!
favorite projects to talk about is to
farmlab Encinitas Union School District It’s the largest organic school farm in the nation
They are on about 9 acres, growing crops growing food in their High school kitchen! And then turned into recipes for their High School Food program!
It’s just thrilling!
Tell me about your first gardening experience? I think that’s a great question! You know I’m certain that I had some early garden experiences but the one that was really important to where I am now is I married a lovely fellow who’s family were German farmers. He always tells the story of how in middle school he bought the copy of the
All New Square Foot Gardening II: The Revolutionary Way to Grow More in Less Space and he put a paper bag cover on it so no one would figure out he was reading it about gardening. He inspired me one of our favorite activities was the day after election day we would go pick up all of the election signs on their wooden stakes and use those for our tomatoes. We were crafty back then!
That is crafty and I’ll be they were glad they didn’t have to pick them up themselves that you were recycling for them.
How did you learn how to garden organically? I think because I’ve always loved food, the nature of organics was always second nature so in my garden, I never wanted to use pesticides but there’s so much more to organic gardening
time and travel Because I travel extensively,
- I get to see other people’s practices
- tuning into this podcast!
- then just trial and error have taught me most of what I know well
mother nature that can work Two of my favorites because we get to garden at whole kids with people all over the country and sometimes we bring them to Texas!
I didn’t realize that not everywhere has fire ants! Now any time we do a volunteer project I’m always sure to tell people watch for fire ants! They are really challenging!
I didn’t know that cayenne pepper can relocate them very effectively! So I always keep a big carafe of cayenne pepper in my garden.
I battled snails for a long time. I tried to do it humanely and someone told me about a beer trap that was a good organic solution!
I want to hear about the fire ants because some of my guests have talked about the struggle with fire ants. Especially Jenny Jackson down in Georgia, they’re like a family farm, I know they have a new baby.
They don’t like it. I’m not sure it could work on the scale of a farm but for my backyard that’s 200 square feet it will locate them.
Grocery Girl I’ll see them crop up in the corner of my basil bed so I sprinkle a little application of cayenne and they’ll usually go somewhere else and I can usually get them out of the garden beds. That has been my experience! And I’m a grocery girl, so it’s pretty good return on your investment! Low cost.
Tell us about something that grew well this year. It’s so funny! I think as a multi year gardeners, just because it grew well this year doesn’t mean anything!
this year it was kale I actually planted from seed in 2017m in Texas we had that hurricane Harvey that blew through. All of my beautiful kale plants were literally laying on the soil!,all I could do
The kale just regrew! I had the same kale for us for 2 years!
so well, I let it go to seed, I decided I was going to let it save the seed
if you have never saved kale seed for about 2 acres!
it is a commitment! They are teeny teeny and wow is it time intense!
I let it go to seed in its own spot. I loved the pretty yellow flowers.
I will relish any time I get to pay $3-4 for a packet of kale seeds now. Did you it’s a delicacy! The kale flowers.
Restaurants are selling them at a premium!
They roast the seeds themselves?
not the seeds the kale flowers! I kind of fell in love with kale last year. I didn’t really like it but I fell in love with that lacinto kale last year. Now the curly kale that came back in the spring I have to say was so tender and delicious I mean I never tasted anything so sweet. It was like adding maple syrup to my stir fry!
I will send you some great recipes!
Is there something you would do different next year or want to try/new? There’s 2 things
For a couple of years now I have always wanted to grow amaranth I just think it is so amazingly beautiful and talk about health value. I’m not sure it would make it to the table but I enjoy it in the bouquets
IDK if you have met the folks at Row 7 seeds Chef Dan Barber
stone barns
passionate
because we have cultivated crops for their ship ability and longevity
Row 7 seeds just about flavor! they might look funny
might not ship across the country really well but they have amazing flavor!
beets and peppers
I would like to talk to as many chefs as I can.
I have a question about amaranth, because it’s a great cover crop right even if it doesn’t get harvested at least it’s good for the soil right? I struggle to grow it too.
Tell me about something that didn’t work so well this season. I think what I have learned over more seasons then I care to admit and I always end up planting something for the benefit for the garden friends.
Sometimes it’s the dill that I plant that I don’t eat but it’s just for the monarch butterflies
Last year it was chard, I do so well with my chard, but last years chard was just for the snails.
That could be tough. I love chard! I had so much between the chard and the kale I don’t think I bought a salad from August till November. What I love about rainbow chard is I will eat it instead of celery those big stems!
That was the thing that I was like OK! you guys have the chard and stay off everything else and we’re good! It’s a symbiosis!
I love your attitude about it too! Like it wasn’t such a giant loss you felt compelled you had to get rid of the snails. You just sacrificed it to the snails!
We can grow something for mother nature. Let’s take a minute to thank our sponsors and affiliate links
So, Steve Szudera who was my guest in episode 253 talked about nutrient rich soil is going to teach a much more in depth class on building your soil health. He’s going to give a webinar on the
5 Principles of Soil Health By the time he’s finished you’ll not just know the difference between dirt and soil but how to make your garden feel like an enjoyable place not a second job!
Many of my listeners have shared with me that time is the number one barrier they have to living in their ideal organic oasis.
Steve has secrets that you can learn to do in your garden that will reduce the amount of labor and energy you have to spend because he reduces the need to till the soil and do a lot of that back breaking labor that makes gardening difficult.
He also helps you reduce the weeds in your garden which was another question I get a lot so I wanted to make sure if you want to learn more about soil health you knew about his webinar.
Mike and I got a little preview yesterday and we were able to really see what he is talking about with the slides and photos he includes. He’s giving a live webinar on Tuesday February 12th morning at 12pm EST, 10am MST, 9am PST. So if you want to join us that would be great.
You can ask questions and see his slides. Register here!
I know we’re gonna do a couple of these, including another one the following Saturday morning because he’s got a lot of info to share and the more people that learn these soil health techniques the happier mother earth will be.
You can register for the webinar. I know he’s going to offer some bonuses just for my audience so let me know if we can do anything else!
And let’s get growing!
ps. if you haven’t seen my pics of my herb experiments I’ve been doing this winter trying to get some herbs growing in my windowsill, you can see those on Facebook or Instagram. I’ll try to get a blog post out about them.
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Snake River Seed Coop and Earthly Delights Farm Internship Program
Monday, Martin Luther King Day, January 21, 2019 You are going to love her blog Earthly Delights Farm, at but I invited her here because she runs the Snake River Seed Coop so here’s Casey O’Leary.
Tell us a little about yourself. I’m in Boise, ID
I don’t own my own land but I farm on a 3 acre in the city. I farm on about acre and half and share with the landowner who runs a nursery and other farm projects. On our farm we grow about 100 varieties of seed crops for the Snake River Seed Coop
We also have a CSA program
I have been doing for the last 15 years, spring and summer 18 week CSA 45 members
going a different route, we’re just gonna do a fall CSA pickup. Just one big pickup in the fall of storage crops and instructions on how to store them.
Also, spring garden box shares for people who have small urban gardens, we’re making
4×4 garden boxes of seeds and starts I just want to make sure I am understand, you are actually giving them a 4×4 garden bed with the lumber etc, or just the stuff that goes in them?
No, we’re assuming they already have the boxes and the soil in those boxes
It’s a pretty common thing for Urban gardeners to have some sort of
4×4 or 4×8 box just a way to maximize the amount of food they get out of it and use locally grown seeds
Is this your first year offering that?
Yes it’s the very first year
It’s interesting, you had mentioned in starting market farms
I’m in an interesting place because I’ve been running a CSA for 15 years
I am getting to the place where I am burnt out
In the past I have run this massive internship program that is really involved and a CSA with a lot of moving pieces and a serious commitment all season long.
I’ve been wanting a bit of a break, us farmers can’t just take time off in the summer, but just not having to harvest for CSA every single week would feel really nice to me
Trying to provide myself more flexibility this summer and see how that goes first time
we already grow our own seeds and starts
I’ve gotten decent at doing that and thought it would be offering that to other people
Like the fall CSA, instead of offering harvest and succession plant every week from May-Sept
- carrots
- potatoes
- onions
- garlic
- root storage crops
do the work of growing those on a less rigorous schedule, if I want to take a few days off and go camping, I am not locked into harvesting every week.
doing this one pickup in the fall ease my constant need to be on the farm
I might miss it, not know what to with myself.
You have no idea how timely this is, I’m working on this free garden course and a workbook to go with it, as I’m finishing it, every page I’m thinking how to help my listeners get from one-to-done in the easiest way possible that they have started their organic oasis, and at the end of this year being able to enjoy it, and this weekend I wrote a whole page on time commitment.
Realistic Time Commitment Thinking about what are you really going to be able to do. I told you in the pre-chat I am more the eater then the gardener. I like to go hiking, and I usually have a full time job. So, I was saying in the spring you get fresh rain and water from nature. Those crops are best for people who want to go hiking in summer.
The other part is I’m always telling my husband that I think selling organic starts would be huge. The thing I was excited about was I thought you were selling the boxes because I feel like my listeners frequently say one of their barriers is building the physical beds. And then I really want to get my masters too.
When we start farming, I started my farm when I was 24-25 and my farm model has continued in the model of a 24 year old. I turned 40 this year, I need a little more grown up model.
not quite so scrappy, hanging on by the seat of my pants. I don’t own my land and probably for many of your listeners they probably don’t own their own land
When you want to start a farm one of the biggest issues is the access to farmland
Boise is maybe the fastest growing city in the country We have tons of people moving who have a lot more money then we have in Idaho.
from wealthier places
- California
- Bay area
- Washington
Is that because of the fires? What’s going on in Boise? * change * quality of life
Also, probably the growing number of people able to work from home over the internet.
Yes, exactly and making the same wages with a lower cost of living, it’s driving up the land prices. I want to say I just read something about Idaho 48th in the country per capita wage for employees for Idaho, so we don’t make much money here.
It’s hard to figure that out
land prices And because it’s a city there’s a lot of pressure to develop agriculture land into houses you’re not interested in selling to people who could pay the mortgage off of farming that land not anything new
It makes it hard to figure it out where you can have security
kicked off of several pieces and that can make it very difficult.
I was surprised you didn’t own your place.
It’s definitely a scrappy business model.
Tell me about your first gardening experience? I do remember there was raspberry patch at our house, it was very
- unruly
- full of ear wigs
- not exactly pleasant but you could get in there and have berries
I got into doing it through environmental activism in college I spent a lot of time on public land issues. In Idaho, the political landscape is different then my politics are, working on those issues felt like running my head into a brick wall. Someone else was setting the agenda. I felt like I am wasting my time to shut them down.
no, no, no you can’t do it you shouldn’t do that!
I just want to turn and run as fast as I can in the direction in that I want to go and let someone else waste their time trying to shut me down!
reading stuff about CSAs
local food and how valuable it was as an environmental choice
Idk anything! OMGosh! My first gardens were horrible! You’re still so excited! And the more into seed saving too!
Just a lot of mistakes!
learning about I planted hopi blue corn and sweet corn next to each other!
blue corn in sweet corn
neither is good to eat!
a lot of that in the beginning
but gosh even though there were a lot of mistakes and failures, it’s such a satisfying way to spend my time! I was riding my bike home from some of my gardens I feel like my 12 year old self!
- best self
- happy
- free
- strong
- interested
it is a lifestyle commitment
lifestyle change to start gardening
grateful
angsty person before that and it’s led to a really meaningful life. seeds have bene really useful
roadmap
We have so much in common, when I was in college, I met my husband because I felt like I was banging my head against the wall and my friends said go plant trees, and that’s where I met my husband on a mountain and our goal is to be as self sufficient and local as we can be.
I love your logo of your little bike, do you want to tell us about your sustainable bike part? Boise’s a great bike friendly city I will be honest as I’ve gotten older, biking has not been as much as a crucial part of the farm
10 years we did almost everything by bike
bike trailers
- move chickens
- straw bales
- manure
- produce
- farmer’s market set up
- tents
- tables
Everything! We would pedal those around by bike! It was fun! How far would you go like a block or a couple of miles?
A couple of miles!
I now have one piece of farm only
I always had 2-3 plots of land farming concurrently so we would go between them. In the very beginning they weren’t all in the same neighborhood
3 those three would be within 10 blocks of each other
but now I’m just at one place, it’s 2 miles from my house
I have a dog that is kind of a pain in the neck now, he has to be on a leash when I’m riding with him, he won’t stay next to me. So that’s been annoying to get around by bike
it’s one thing to have myself, but to pull a giant ass cart, I feel like a horse!
more reliant on my little truck
human powered farming
important to never use fossil fuels for stuff we were doing
There’s a tractor on the farm, I don’t own it but I can use it once a year
Maybe to till in a cover crop instead of with a shovel which is really nice.
I think I double dug an acre 1/2 of land I didn’t own.
That like countless thousands of hours, when we got kicked off those pieces of land, that was horrible!!! * older wiser * more practical
the true authenticity has suffered in that
I’ve done it for 10 years
I took a class through the University of Idaho
Cultivating Success series of classes about this or that about beginning farm.
Certified farmer mentor course
I took it maybe 12 years ago where they taught you how to outline a really good internship so you could share the info that you have in a way that is respectful of people’s time and gives them lots of resources and not like exploited free labor
I ran the internship with woman who I was farming, it ran for 3 years, till we parted ways and then I did it by myself for 7 more years
10 years developed a really rad curriculum! It’s really good. We go through everything through
- soil science
- pollinators
- seed production
- vegetable production
a lot of Philosophy!
We read a lot of Wendell Barry
- permaculture
- water use
commercial
Try to combine that with hands-on farmwork
We read
- articles
- group discussions
- share lunches
- field trips
- guest speakers
really good overview of what a season on a farm looks like.
We start in March and go through October
2 days a week essentially 5 hours including lunch, class, a few hours in the field So when they are done
Help with the CSA harvest plan out a CSA crop if they take good notes the idea is after they
Free the Seeds! provides community-powered opportunities to build a sustainable and resilient future through real seeds, real food, and real skills. We look forward to you joining us for our 4th annual Free the Seeds! on March 2, 2019.
This year’s fair will be held again in Kalispell at Flathead Valley Community College in the Arts & Technology Building. The fair will open with the seed swap and vendor booths at 9 am. The seed swap will run 9 am–noon. Workshops, booths, and kids’ activities will be held 10 am–3:30 pm, with a 45-minute break for lunch at 12:15 pm. Food will be available for purchase at the event all day.
Ready for some inspiration? Check out our workshop videos from the 2017 fair.
We look forward to seeing you in March 2019!
Free the Seeds! is a program of Farm Hands – Nourish the Flathead, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, whose mission is to reconnect people to the sources of their food and those who produce it through education, outreach, and market support.
2018 Free the Seeds! Last year we handed out between 15-20,000 packets of seeds. Donated by local growers and seed companies. Volunteers who help clean and pack the seeds. Every year we have over 1000 people show up. The event is free at the local community college and there’s events upstairs and downstairs. It’s an incredible lively gathering and information.
Resilient Communities
Tweet ThisIt’s a great way to learn about growing food and what’s involved in having access to good healthy local food and why that’s important.
One example there are folks who process herbs and teach how to make tinctures, and how to grow the herbs for oils, medicinal purposes.
Workshops on * Herbs * ferment your food * Sourdough * how to raise chickens * well taught by experts in the field all from the Valley
So this is the 3rd? 4th?
We started 4 years ago this is our 4th!
Do you want to talk about what tips or tricks have made it successful as it keeps growing?
The main thing is we didn’t limit to a sharing of seeds
help people get access to quality food for their health and their families health
So we made it about sharing
- seeds
- information
- skills
inclusion of workshops
The whole event is free! That’s important! We don’t sell anything so there are not vendors who have intention of selling products
People who man the booths for low entry for between $25-40
educate people what you do and help them understand how the info you offer
whether you have a farm and you offer CSAs or
offer products for sale
letting people know what you do to improve their health or choice of food
willing to create an environment as a free resource to community
tremendous positive feedback and support from people on a financial level
support people who save seeds
build community * keep it free is really important! * share info * share skills * share seeds
Plan for a big space because you will attract a lot of members in your community! We spent a lot of time being creative to get the word out. Our first year our intention
anyone in a huge area wanted to know about Free the Seeds knew about the event.
Social media * radio shows * podcast promotions * newspapers to write articles
as long as you heard US was what we wanted! Whether you came was less important as people learned about our organization.
Reach as many people as possible!
We thought maybe 300-400 people first year and as you know we were quite surprised!
We’ve gotten over a 1000 people every year so having a space that will accomodate everyone!
It’s a hit! I remember at the door with you and Pam and the first 500 flyers were gone before we even opened the door at 10:00 they were all gone with so many people already through the door!!
I think we were part of tipping point!
It’s so important communities are understanding the need for
- good quality
- nutrient dense food
- specifics
- how to grow
- how to access
- where to find it!
It underscores there’s a vast need for this information and to get this info out to your community is very valuable not difficult to do
tremendous amount of work
The other thing we have done is
Clarified focus we have secured a container for Free the Seeds moving forward
Free the Seeds!
is about building resilient community based food systems So a food system is not just about growing food * processing * distributing * consuming * reclaiming waste
putting all those pieces together in a circle or a cycle It’s critical and essential for having a
- robust
- resilient
- based food system
local or regional based food system is how our ancestors lived because we didn’t have access to food from large distances away and the most successful way of keeping a community thriving!
Infrastructure built in to grow it’s own food to the best of its ability
key
Not just the people who grow it it includes the people who eat it
process
distribute
all have a role to play
If you eat your in! there’s no body outside our circle. We’re all a part of it.
We’re about helping the community members
It isn’t about the growers over there and the eaters over here were all part of the same system
play who eat the food have a role to play as much as those who grow it together we build a functional robust system. Where to find the role that we have to play in that circle is where we are going to put our focus moving forward.
Thanks for sharing with us because it’s your busy season packing up seeds and mailing them out.
freetheseedsmontana.com Facebook Page
website is freetheseedsmontana.com
We’ll be putting posters this weekend, if you’re in the area you’ll see posters
At FVCC in the arts and tech
- volunteer
- booth spaces I think there are a couple of booth spaces up until Feb 15th.
- financial sponsors of course
There’s also the archive of workshop videos you can see some info we have presented before.
Last year you were going around to Breweries to get the word out. Are you doing that again?
we are, we have one in early feb 5th
this year we are going to combine with seed packing and
Bonsai brewing project
again to Eureka
- people love to pack seeds
- have some fun!
- new feature!
Thanks Robin from the Good Seed Company!
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Happy Anniversary to you Green Future Growers. Thank you for letting me be your host of the
I hope to finish up the updates to Free Garden Course and the workbook for you this day or this week at the latest!
Free Garden Course.com
Free Organic Garden Course Let’s get growing!
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Andrea Catherine introduced me to Lindsay Jean Hard who wrote
Cooking with Scraps: Turn Your Peels, Cores, Rinds, and Stems into Delicious Meals something I’m super passionate about and learning about. She blogs at this place called Food52, which I love reading and I get their emails it’s always exciting! I was just reading somewhere about broccoli stems were even more nutritious then the florets maybe we’re gonna learn more about nutrition too!
Well, i don’t necessarily have a nutrition background but there is a lot to be said as far as nutrients and great things in the peels and things that we tend to discard a lot! There’s benefits to not throwing our scraps away!
Oh year I was loving he sugar peels looked awesome because I’m always trying to get more fruit and fiber in my diet and I think there’s a lot of fiber in the peel right?
Tell us a little about yourself. My path to where I am now has been an interesting one
Like you said I got my masters in Urban Planning here at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. I worked for our local downtown development authority for a couple of years, so that was a solid 2 years to put masters to good use. Then my husband and I moved to Japan.
The intersection of cooking and writing. We joined a CSA when we were there where we would walk down the street to the local grocery store and pick up a box of vegetables.
CSA learning process every week walking into the store to ask
what is in my box
That’s where I first started thinking about cooking with scraps because I knew these farmers taking this time and energy to grow.
putting it all to great use
friends of ours from college
told us they were going to start
Real Time Farms.com
resource to find farmers near them and learn about their growing practices and connect with restaurants and see where those restaurants were sourcing their ingredients from
It was a really exciting time to be working for a start up
We were acquired by Food52.com It’s a food and lifestyle website. I worked for them for 6 years
community management
started
Food52 Facebook Cookbook club
Food52 Facebook Baking Club
I wrote a lot and one of my columns was cooking with scraps community based so I would hunt for recipes that people shared that found other use for scraps.
Food52 community wanted to share that with a broader audience that’s where this cookbook came from.
Wow sounds almost like a real life Julie and Julia and right along with the ups and downs. My mom just made this delicious stock out of the scraps of our carrot peels etc.
it was so fun!
We had found a cute tiny grocery store we found on a preview trip to find an apartment. One of my husband’s colleagues introduced us to the owner and let him know we were gonna be there and would appreciate friendly faces!
I was shopping there and I saw these vegetables but I knew I didn’t have enough language skills to get signed up for CSA. They did have other produce.
Some of the things I really learned to love but others just never resinated with me
Yamaimo Japanese Mountain Yam it was a mountain yam and it was really slimy when you grate it and something I could not get past the texture so I would sneak it into other people’s boxes. The owner of the store just about fell over laughing, he said if there’s something you don’t want just tell us if you don’t like it!
There were a lot of different greens that I hadn’t been exposed to and then learned to love
- variations of bok choi
- imuzuma
- lotus root
That’s one of my favorite things now that I hunt out at asian markets to cook with.
What do you do with lotus root?
slice it show off it’s lacy patter saute it with a little bit of soy sauce.
Now that you’re back in Michigan can you add any of those things there?
I have not added many of those things to my garden
not great with starting with seed
starter plants most of the time
shizoh the herb I grow them from seed almost every single summer
it’s a cousin of basil
just a little bit of a spicy bite then basil does but they’re similar.
Tell me about your first gardening experience? I actually think it was in Japan for the very first time. We would walk around the neighborhoods and people would grow things in pots.
Most people don’t have a ton of space but they would have a porch or a lānai and we were like we can do that!
We got a couple of essential window boxes on our patio and tried to grow a few things from seed. I don’t think anything was super successful, it got under our skin enough that when we got back from Japan
I think growing things from seed is difficult. Mike has the patience and persistent to see it through, by misting them lightly and pampering them. I like things that you just broadcast like Buckwheat!
especially with Michigan climate
can’t
How did you learn how to garden organically? I have always been interested in sustainability and the environment has always mattered to me. It wasn’t something that I
didn’t consciously
organic garden
it was more like I don’t want to put pesticides or chemicals on what we are growing
really just trail and error
moved back in 2010
raised beds a couple of years later. It’s been about 6 years of expanding our garden Home and garden shop right downtown in Ann Arbor we really love.
Tell us about something that grew well this year. The squirrels and chipmunks were our nemesis this past summer!
We lost a lot of our garden, we have 4 raised beds that are surrounded by raspberry bushes. The raspberries always do well with very little attention from us other then thinning them out, then we also have a number of rhubarb plants that do well too without interaction from us
different spot for tomatoes
that didn’t work out quite as well as I would have liked?
So what worked and what didn’t?
we have 4 garden boxes, one is much more sunny
It’s the perfect box for tomato, but we had had tomatoes there for a couple of years in a row
We haven’t done much more then amending the soil other then mixing in the compost we make, so we tried to shift entirely away from our 4 raised beds and put them on the side of the garage so they don’t get as much sun.
I think they didn’t get enough sun.
I know exactly how that grows. IT’s tough sometimes because you have to do that rotation of crops but some things just fit some places really well.
Is there something you would do different next year or want to try/new? I haven’t thought too much about it yet
Cucumbers I would like to get those back in the garden again
I love cucumbers in the past I love how prolific those tend to be
did lemon cucumbers Let’s take a minute to thank our sponsors and affiliate links Free Garden Course.com
Free Organic Garden Course
The Good Seed Company
Now Let’s Get to the Root of Things! Which activity is your least favorite activity to do in the garden? I don’t mind weeding at all
I like sitting there and picking out the weeds
I don’t like dealing with bug infestations mainly becauseI don’t have a ton of knowledge in that area. It’s been learning by trial and error
It’s frustrating to see bugs and have to go back inside and start googling see if
- vinegar water
- hot pepper water
if that’s gonna work
I talked to Siri Jostad* who has this awesome plant app. Yesterday I was talking to this interesting guy on farms, the bigger farm scale and he was saying if you have healthy plants you are not going to get any pests at all. He was talking about how having healthy plants will give you healthy soil and he was talking about sugar in the roots and more photosynthesis. I was curious about how it could work on a smaller scale.*
I remember talking to people this summer that were saying their zucchini’s were gonna cost like 46$/lb by the time she’s added up all the time picking the bugs and beetles off.
I think its almost meditative
zone of a small
What is your favorite activity to do in the garden? I would say picking and cooking with it for sure!
Do you want to share some recipes or tips for people with scraps or maybe something they might be surprised that they would say no way I could do that?!
I think the two most surprising recipe
banana peel cake most people don’t think banana peels are edible but it does make a delicious cake
gardeners love coffee grounds
I like to cook with a lot of spent coffee grounds
In the cookbook I
using them in a nut butter add a nice crunchy texture to it
Food52
french silk pie
2 different ways
first to infuse whipping cream for the topping
crushed with some crushed chocolate cookies
That was another thing I saw was super surprising you were whipping up the liquid that came in the beans?
bean liquid is called aquafaba It’s a really fun ingredient to play around with
cooking water from beans
dried
if you haven’t done it before I kind of recommend you start with the liquid that comes from a can of beans
behaves like egg whites
forms peaks
a couple of ways
In the cookbook to make a mayonaise
vegan mayonaise with it
could be adapted to play with and see it form peaks
But when you add sugar to it, it wouldn’t taste sweet
use it in baking
using it in brownies
brownie recipe isn’t vegan
fun to play
wouldn’t work for whipped cream
make meringues with it
sugar or cocoa powder
Yeah! It would not make whipped cream but you might want to add some sugar flavoring to make merengues if you take it straight up it would taste like
I have the strangest recipe, that you separate the eggs and you beet the egg whites and add them at the end and I always wonder who came up with the recipe idea?
I’ve always liked food and cooking but it wasn’t a big thing for me till we were in Japan tiny kitchen
We didn’t have an oven we had a fish broiler draw
Adapting to cook instead of an oven or stovetop
I started documenting my cooking experiences and experiments on a blog for the first time
cooking became a big deal
working at that start up and then also at food52 and being surrounded by people who are passionate about food and cooking
So fascinating!
What is the best gardening advice you have ever received? that’s a good one
we’ve mostly gone to that gardening store that I mentioned for advice on different organic products to try. IDK if I have asked for...
Today, I’m excited to introduce my guest from Tara Austen Weaver who’s written a book about growing
Growing Berries and Fruit Trees in the Pacific Northwest: How to Grow Abundant, Organic Fruit in Your Backyard
I know that you are going to love this because it’s got lots of great tips for anyone living anywhere not just in the Northwest and I’m super excited because last summer I was visiting Nola’s yard last summer because her blueberries were amazing and I am bound and determined to grow some this year! And there’s just so much to learn so welcome to the show!
Tell us a little about yourself. My mom had a giant organic garden!
I guess I’m sort of a second generation gardener I actually grew up not really liking to garden I liked playing and running around but weeding seemed like drudgery to me!
I have all these very visceral memories of just being out in the garden and sunshine, my mom would pop cherry tomatoes into our mouths when we were kids, because we just picked it in the sunshine!
fruit that was warm from a tree
So I have all these really positive memories of being in a garden but not doing any work!
I was living in San Francisco in my late 20s, early 30s
I started coming back around to the idea of gardening I remember one year for my birthday I got the idea to build these window boxes ~ I had gotten into cooking. I wanted to grow herbs.
It is so irritating to buy a whole bunch of parsley when you just need a sprig.
I lugged these boxes home and I’m dangling out this window and holding this heavy drill and I got them put up and filled them with soil and nestled my tiny little herbs and was so so pleased!
Then within a week or two, I noticed the sage leaves had this kind of white stuff on it. I was concerned and I lived on the foggy side of the city and thought oh my is this is fungus or blight on my herbs and when I went to investigate I discovered it was pigeon poop and I realized I wasn’t gonna be a gardener in the city.
It wasn’t till I moved to Seattle about 10 years ago that everything fell into place, Seattle has such a giant gardening community!
Everyone here it seems even if they just grow beautiful yards edible ones and everyone is out working and tending vegetables
I got bitten by the gardening bug * quickly used up all of the area * didn’t have much of a yard * I got a community garden plot * started studying permaculture
Eventually my mother moved up to Seattle and bought a house on half an acre! For the last 9 years we have been collaborating
The Neglected Orchard there were 9 fruit trees on the property but they were engulfed in blackberries
adding to it ever since
We have 20 fruit trees now
12 different types of blueberries
- raspberries
- strawberries
lots of annual vegetable gardens
I’ve recently got more into flowers I’m obsessed with my dahlia patch and also interested in flowers to support pollinators.
So, are you following Erin Benzakein’s blog at Floret? She’s really big into dahlias. I tried to grow some last year but I must have buried them too deep because they never grew. I’m gonna have to try that again next summer.
I’ve enjoyed your story here. I’ve been painting pictures of Paris, and there are so many window boxes in Paris it’s interesting to think about growing in the city. Plus I’ve been reading this very strange children’s book about pigeons, there’s like a place in Pennsylvania where they have a live pigeon shoot. Anyway…
I think my situation in San Fransisco, my neighbor fed the pigeons
lots of ones going back and forth and they would nestle down so that seems like a nonstarter.
With a half acre, I do have a few things in pots, that keeps me more then busy
I do have a a few window boxes on the deck, I mostly grow my basil, so I walk past it multiple times a day to keep an eye if it needs water.
I do grow citrus we are not suited to
- Meyer lemon
- recently given a a kaffir lime
South Asian
thai curries
You use the zest and leaves These are my California roots but I’m attempting to grow a lemon in Seattle.
My mom grew a Meyer lemon in NY. It’s funny my memory post on Facebook was a pic of her plate of lemons in NY. People are growing them indoors, she was gonna send us one.
actually have a section on growing citrus in the NW
I know a lot of people are interested there’s a nursery on victoria I think they are called
fruit trees and more They do an amazing job with
- in-ground citrus
- avocados
and all sorts of things shouldn’t be grown in their climate.
They have this approach where they plant them on walls on the south side
- winter string old fashioned lights
- cover them in ReMay
coldest winters they give just the small amount of heat to keep them growing enough they have citrus all year long.
They have some videos on their website! It’s really worth checking out because it’s very inspirational!
We’ll have to check that out!
Tell us about something that grew well this year. I’m coming off not a fantastic garden year, because I moved this spring! I wasn’t thinking it through thinking I could move and garden and that didn’t really happen!
that
didn’t grow
usually do
let grow wild
this is true in any gardening year, some years one things does really well and another year it was another thing that do really well
So because I wasn’t growing as much, I ended up paying more attention to some things like my basil crop! I had time to pinch it back and ended up getting like 5 crops of basil! I made into pesto and ended up with a freezer full of pesto
couple of things
I usually plant a lot of winter squash
but I didn’t have the band with for it
The benefit of having a lighter gardening year that I had the time and energy in the fall to put the garden to bed well, focus on soil fertility for next year
We have neighbors that clean out the goat barn and I did use that bedding and that material that is going to breakdown over the winter!
I am already looking forward to a good season next year!
I think that is so important. Some years things go great and other times you maybe change your focus. In 2018 my motto was Life happens for you not to you and focuing on accomplishments and what did get done!
focus on
I was gonna say that is one of the situations that makes me so gratified to make the berry bushes and inspired me to write this book because you can have an off year and they don’t mind
Perennial gardening is growing obsession I have a busy life and in the summer I also like to go hiking. I am really really interested in those things that don’t need as much help and tending as lettuce and peas do
those twelve blueberry bushes were fine and asked nothing of me!
The fruit trees the same, we do our winter pruning and they are really pretty much on their own and give and give and give
Fruit trees is kind of being like an aunt and uncle, you have to putting in some face time but nothing like a parent and so for minimal effort the berries are the same
The reward to effort ratio is 1000%
I agree 100 percent. I feel like you that I like to go hiking, I usually teach full time and only can hike in the summer. And I almost always work full time if there are so many days I don’t even get home till after dark and won’t see the garden for a week.
Prolific Fruit But I talk a lot on my show about if I had to start from scratch I would put a lot of raspberry bushes and fruit in. I’m always surprised how prolific you are and how much fruit you get back. I was talking to someone the other day about how much time Mike puts into growing green beans is insane. I’m very excited about the perennial garden idea!
I have some friends who had a house with an old pear try
raspberry canes
prune them back and clear them out
I warn people a little bit you can get big harvests and be prepared for them
overwhelmed in the fall
rotting
attracting the yellow jackets
Ended up not knowing what to do with it and they got so many flies, so they dug a whole and berried all of these pears!
They didn’t know what to do with a glut of tree fruit
recipes
master recipes I have developed over the years * this jam * crisp
you can make with any fruit
raspberries at
blueberries
pears or apples in the fall
I really lean on those recipes
My secret weapon to use up and preserve it
When you get that much you can’t give it all away
- friends
- food bank
something with it
so we can enjoy it throat the winter
states that a
countries that are far away
Because I became a food person and food writer so I thought that was an important balance
good ways to grow it and great ways to use it up
not a bad problem to have
You’re so right! I always end up feeling guilty if I don’t take care of things or let things go, then the next year I would think should I grow that. We have chickens now, which helps a bit. Mike also canned apple sauce this year we had so many apples which was great because he bakes with a lot of apple sauce to make his cookies etc softer. The apple sauce itself was delicious!
something that can take
quality of what you grow yourself is so much better then you can get at the store, and honestly sometimes even the farmer’s market as they’re picking ahead of time to get at market
picking your own strawberries first thing in the morning!
It’s true a strawberry or raspberry you put in your mouth in the garden is not like anything else!
the other thing people don’t realize
commercial growers grow certain varieties because they stand up to transport that will stand up on the shelf.
There are a lot of amazing varieties that don’t get grown commercially because they are just too fragile.
My favorite strawberry variety is called Shushkan not grown commercially
They really need to be processed within 24 hours
They have the most amazing flavor
There are farmers who grow them and take them to the farmers market but you have to buy them and eat them that day
if you are used to
never experienced
friend who was a big proponent of Shushkan strawberries and he brought a group of food writers on a sort of a tasting trip
And one of the writers tasted one and said if this is a strawberry what I have I ben eating all my life?
12 different types of blueberries
big and juicy
high bush and low bush blue berries
low bush
you get out of Maine a bit smaller
don’t see those in the supermarket
People want those big plump juicy berries!
But compared to these small flavorful ones.
really interesting
my favorites and other people favorite varieties recommended
You have to make sure they grow in your growing zone but there is a whole world out to explore!
I’m glad you said that, because after I tasted Nola’s blueberries I was like I am never going to pick another huckleberry again, but the one thing I bake is huckleberry coffee cake I don’t think it will take as good with large berries.
the low bush blueberries, the smaller more flavorful ones are suited to colder climates.
That would make sense because you said they came out of Maine right.
They grow best along the US Canadian border.
Is there something you would do different next year or want to try/new? well I feel like I actually had a slower gardening season next year so I have a jump on this year and I have my fava beans in already!
My favas are already 4 inches tall
I had a really good tomato season about 2 years ago growing tomatoes from seed
pretty good plant sales
Today, I’m excited to introduce my guest from Tara Austen Weaver who’s written a book about growing
Growing Berries and Fruit Trees in the Pacific Northwest: How to Grow Abundant, Organic Fruit in Your Backyard
I know that you are going to love this because it’s got lots of great tips for anyone living anywhere not just in the Northwest and I’m super excited because last summer I was visiting Nola’s yard last summer because her blueberries were amazing and I am bound and determined to grow some this year! And there’s just so much to learn so welcome to the show!
To read the full shownotes click here. Tell us a little about yourself. My mom had a giant organic garden!
It wasn’t till I moved to Seattle about 10 years ago that everything fell into place, Seattle has such a giant gardening community!
Everyone here it seems even if they just grow beautiful yards edible ones and everyone is out working and tending vegetables
I got bitten by the gardening bug * quickly used up all of the area * didn’t have much of a yard * I got a community garden plot * started studying permaculture
Eventually my mother moved up to Seattle and bought a house on half an acre! Tell us about something that grew well this year. I’m coming off not a fantastic garden year, because I moved this spring! I wasn’t thinking it through thinking I could move and garden and that didn’t really happen!
Perennial gardening is growing obsession I have a busy life and in the summer I also like to go hiking. I am really really interested in those things that don’t need as much help and tending as lettuce and peas do
those twelve blueberry bushes were fine and asked nothing of me!
master recipes I have developed over the years * this jam * crisp
you can make with any fruit
the other thing people don’t realize
commercial growers grow certain varieties because they stand up to transport that will stand up on the shelf.
There are a lot of amazing varieties that don’t get grown commercially because they are just too fragile.
My favorite strawberry variety is called Shushkan not grown commercially
They really need to be processed within 24 hours
They have the most amazing flavor
Is there something you would do different next year or want to try/new? well I feel like I actually had a slower gardening season next year so I have a jump on this year and I have my fava beans in already!
I had a really good tomato season about 2 years ago growing tomatoes from seed
I want to really be on my tomato game next year
Once you start doing things from seeds and have access to all these interesting varieties you want more and more sort of like collecting baseball cards and you want all of them!
I am interested in doing more of that
I have really also gotten into chicories and radiccio and bitter lettuces!
I have some that are actually growing on 2-3 year now, like the same plants, I just cut the seed stalk
do it sort of as a cut and come crop cut all their leaves as they are growing in the summer and it just resprouts from the root stem!
3 year old chicory
I let some develop seed stems and the seeds drop reseeding themselves
very attracted by perennial gardening! I love being in the garden but summer’s short in the US and in NW and I have lots of things to do
half an acre a lot to look after
- shortcuts
- easier
permaculture approach if you can have a cycle that replenishes itself is fantastic chicories
Year-Round Vegetable Gardener: How to Grow Your Own Food 365 Days a Year, No Matter Where You Live I follow her on Instagram it’s so fascinating to see what she is doing in Nova Scotia!
She has all of these cold frames and exciting to see what she is doing in the middle of Canadian winter surrounded by snow! There is also another book
growing oriental vegetables
sounds like an outdated title
It is all about cold season gardening and talking about different varieties that do well in cold climates
I know mustards are heartier in cold climates.
We go through a lot of kale! My family eats a lot of kale. My mother has been kind of holding back from gardening as she gets older but one year she would plant things in the spring. She would be gone all summer long! She goes to Canada and she can go
I was like did you know how many kale plants you planted and she’s like oh, year a dozen or so and I was like no you planted 110!
- can go multiple years
- let it go to seed
- bees love the blooms
- birds love the seeds!
They crack open the seed pods and I let them open the seed pods and it sprouts!
Call me the lazy gardener I think we are just busy so I would call you efficient. I just wanted to correct the title, the 4 Season Harvest is Eliot Coleman
Eliot Coleman: Four-Season Harvest : Organic Vegetables from Your Home Garden All Year Long, 2nd Edition She just came out with a new book I have been trying to get her to be a guest on the show.
| Niki Jabbour’s Veggie Garden Remix: 224 New Plants to Shake Up Your Garden and Add Variety, Flavor, and Fun |
I have a green house doesn’t get a whole lot of use. We start seeds indoors and then we move them out to the greenhouse for a while. It gets a month and half of use. I would like to get some things growing things in there in the winter but the area in ground, is a mess of bind wind and quack grass.
Tell me about something that didn’t work so well this season. I have actually been struggling a little bit with peas
sounds a little silly.
I have been having really low germination rates
This is the part of the show we call getting to the root of things! Which activity is your least favorite activity to do in the garden? I have
- bindweed
- blackberries
- horsetail
That kind of weeding is just misery.
What is your favorite activity to do in the garden? This is gonna sound funny my favorite activity is going to be sitting and enjoying. Especially the first five to seven years I was working at my mother’s house and so I wasn’t living there all the time. I was just coming here to work in the garden and never getting to enjoy it and this friend of mine said, you have the worst situation here because
the best part of gardening is kicking back and having a nice beverage and enjoying it Another part of my enjoyment is also bringing other people in * particularly kids
Sometimes I think gardening is just a seed that has a very long hibernation period!
if it gets planted in you as a child it usually sprouts at some point! What is the best gardening advice you have ever received? golden rules for being a happy gardener I was reading through them and going yeah yeah
One was have a right size garden * One of my goals is to work on some irrigation systems which I don’t have * A favorite tool that you like to use? If you had to move and could only take one tool with you what would it be. the hori hori * I use the red Felco clippers
Every spring I get our clippers sharpened and it’s such a pleasure to do that! I didn’t realize all of our clippers were really dull, I have a friend who takes them apart and oils them and sharpens them but that’s not in my skill set yet. * A favorite internet resource? It’s interesting a lot of my garden inspiration is coming from Instagram
That all comes down to who you follow
I have been following a lot of
- English gardeners
- Dutch gardeners
@growntocook
@Fordham Abbey * @yougrowgirl * Margaret Roach * I know you had Erin on your podcast from Floret in Skagit Valley which is about an hour north of where I am.
But there is another farmer in Ontario
Dahlia May * endless summer farm (which is actually Michael Genovese’s Summer Dreams Farm) * What about what’s your channel on Instagram? Handle?
@tea_austen on Instagram I post about the garden and I also do some food writing
- posting what I am cooking out of the garden as well
- travel and different things
- I had a blog for years, although I don’t write much there
tea and cookies blog.com * Growing your own food changes how you cook
It’s no longer what do I feel like eating what looks good at the grocery store, it’s I have 6 heads of cauliflower what am I going to do with them?
choices happen very early in the year in the choices start in what you choose to plant!
Tell us about your book!
Growing Berries and Fruit Trees in the Pacific Northwest: How to Grow Abundant, Organic Fruit in Your Backyard Some of the things that stood out to me were the apple socks and that raspberry starts were really called canes.
We have coddling moths here in the pacific nw.
pom fruit – pears and apples Pruning can be really complicated but it doesn’t have to be * trees want to grow! * berries and fruit trees
This is sort of like legacy gardening
It requires a lot less work from you that annual vegetable gardening but it is gonna be around for a long time * real fan of kiwi berries they look like miniature kiwis the brown fuzzy kiwis
miniature size * They come ripe in September and October summer berries are out the door
- take up into winter
- high vitamin c
- good for cold season
fun for kids to grow!
- wildberries
- salmonberries
- thimbleberries
- evergreen huckleberries
- currents
- gooseberries
- Final question- if there was one change you would like to see to create a greener world what would it be? For example is there a charity or organization your passionate about or a project you would like to see put into action. What do you feel is the most crucial issue facing our planet in regards to the environment either in your local area or on a national or global scale?
I think climate change absolutely
I just want you to get a copy of
Orchard House: How a Neglected Garden Taught One Family to Grow I interviewed Tara Austin Weaver and hope to release the full version of my interview today, but in the mean time, I think you should go to your library or local book store and pick up a copy of her inspiring and delightful memoire.
You can order her amazing book
Growing Berries and Fruit Trees in the Pacific Northwest: How to Grow Abundant, Organic Fruit in Your Backyard
on amazon in advance and while you’re waiting for it to come I recommend you read Orchard House: I guarantee it will inspire you to grow some food, grow some berries, and love your family!
It brought back so many memories for me of growing up with mother (and then marrying a man) who never stood still out in the garden. Something always needed (needs) pruned, pulled, weeded or tendered.
Her dedication to creating an oasis for her nieces to enjoy and her relationship with her family will probably bring back memories of growing up and sharing time together around food.
A delightful read from start to finish, nothing better on a cool winter day when you can’t get outside yourself!
Growing Berries and Fruit Trees in the Pacific Northwest: How to Grow Abundant, Organic Fruit in Your Backyard
So don’t forget order her new book and read the memoire and leave her a review on Amazon so more people will be inspired as well!
The Organic Gardener Podcast is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com
and don’t forget if you need help getting started check out our new
Free Garden Course.com
Free Organic Garden Course Remember you can get the 2018 Garden Journal and Data Keeper to record your garden goals in our
You can download the first 30 days here while you’re waiting for it to come in the mail.
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I’m so excited because is gonna energize us and it’s Sunday January 6th and I just talked with Lindsey Jean Hard yesterday who wrote the book Cooking With Scraps!
Cooking with Scraps: Turn Your Peels, Cores, Rinds, and Stems into Delicious Meals Hi everyone! I’m glad you got a chance to talk to Lindsay Jean and I interviewed her and it was really valuable. I have the cookbook in hand! Today, I want to share what I am up to in this transition the holidays I’ve been making things like
- polenta
- And craving cooling herbs
- mint
- cilantro
- coconut! Shredded coconut and coconut milk
recognizing my body’s wanting to cool off from the inflammatory foods of the holidays! IDK if anyone is experiencing that.
I can totally relate except in a different sense. I was really good during the holidays, it’s more of an after the holidays problem.
I went home, had a great holiday with my family! I hadn’t been the four of us, my parents and my brother and I, and especially with my brother and I and just thankful to soak up all of that love! And maybe a little more gluten and sugar then I normally eat
my body was really feeling that for a while
I got home still wanted
nourishing foods I had this cornmeal from Wicked Good Farm
polenta! Last night we had friends over, and so I put a whole chicken in a crock pot
chicken had been with
- tomatoes
- onions
- peppers
put that over polenta!
We also made polenta fries!
I’m happy to tell how to make those things
using organic cornmeal and having something different then just flour is really nice!
I feel like I get that nourishment without getting inundated with sweet things!
How do you make polenta fries? I just saw something on Facebook about vegan quinoa nuggets! There was a restaurant in Ann Arbor that had really good polenta fries! I think it was Grizzly Peak Brewing Company.
Make polenta like you would
1 cup fine to medium cornmeal to 4 cups of water you can add:
- butter and cheese
- skip that
- use coconut oil
spices
whatever works for you
after the polenta is made it’s a sweet slow cooking process
I enjoy that
after it’s done
you can spread it on a cookie sheet so it’s an inch or 1/2 inch thick, thinner if you want
let it cool, then once it’s cool, I put in fridge over night
Then slice it like french fries cookie sheet
in our oven, it broke this week so we weren’t able to do them fully in the oven
Just make sure there’s enough oil in the pan!
It doesn’t have to be deep fried
oven fries
fry sauce
so many different recipes and ways to make fry sauce. Ours had a pickle brine in it.
I want to keep experimenting but I think you need tomasa for that?
I have a lot of cornmeal so I guess I’ll do a lot of polenta or some grits.
I never made polenta you made it sound easy!
It thickens up quick.
That’s good to know cause polenta’s not cheap.
Yes and cornmeal is less expensive. You know Brooke Bohannon
she sells it every week
order
in the valley
looking for a local source here in Montana I have a whole big ceramic jar
- blue cornmeal
- yellow
have some fun with it
I’d like to make some corn chips, although I am trying to not have chips food
more wet food over the dry processed food
Mike made me homemade whole wheat tortillas and they were so good!
I’m not sure how good they are for me, they are kind of on that dry side. I was telling my mom, I put salsa on just about everything, I try to find ones that don’t have extra sugars. That’s probably on the wet side.
impacts and qualities
what has your body been processing
inflammatory foods around the holidays * dairy * gluten
time of year we could utilize those in some ways
how much we want to talk about digestion ~ There maybe other options for dipping things in.
I made a coconut Tahini sauce
I found a recipe for hummus the other day without the tahini
Good time to try different things.
Hoping to limit the # of inflammatory foods
Well it sounds good to come home to a meal all cooked after spending the day out climbing a giant mountain on skins!
digestive fire spicy food for example
we can still go into that space of too much
it wasn’t super spicy
I had a tomato base sauce
marinated all night
really delicious
wasn’t dry at all
- cooked for 4 hours on high
did it the morning before we left and then put it on warm I think you could do 8 hours on low. It doesn’t need as much liquid.
whole chicken in the
I cooked it down on the stove made like a thiner gravy to put on top of the chicken
- polenta
- red sauce gravy
- avocado
- lime
- cilantro
I forgot to get sour cream so we ate whole milk yogurt which was really delicious
bring in the cooling elements. I like yogurt better then sour cream anyway. Anything else you want to talk about?
I think just encouraging people to experiment and explore We walked into the grocery store and my boyfriend said oh look they’re really into the diet things in the front of the store!
recognizing that hit doesn’t have to be a crazy overhaul
one turn of the overall
all those baked good
smaller qualities
lighter and without all of the sugar
Looking into how can you make that one percent turn
if there is a lot of inflammation or inflammatory foods in your diet just looking for other way to explore eating
I made a chic pea salad * soaked the chick peas overnight * cooked them down * made rice to go with it * mint and cilantro * tahini dressing
warm or cold what is your body craving right now that will balance who you’re feeling
craving things that keep us out of balance does that make sense
If we’re feeling lethargic then we’re craving pizza and heavy doughs
What does your body crave or actually want that might uplift you?? What sounds good that might be more lighting and stimulate you? I hear you there, one thing I am struggling with is the e-coli recall, I’m thinking about maybe creating a winter crop or putting in some micro greens
I want a shelf something in the winter to have readily available, having something that’s alive, eating it right out of the ground. I know I’m always surprised at my mom’s she doesn’t have fresh herbs in her kitchen because she’s so into cooking and she has like a million plants?
Oxygen is a little less food related, but having house plants makes such a difference I visited a couple of friends in Michigan who both have lots of houseplants so let them do the work of cleaning the air!
Good to talk to you!
I know it seemed like it was taking a long time to come and now it’s already the 6th of January!
I’m ready for it to e new and different without a ton of upheaval.
Happy New Year!
The Good Seed Company
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and don’t forget if you need help getting started check out our new
Free Garden Course.com
Free Organic Garden Course Remember you can get the 2018 Garden Journal and Data Keeper to record your garden goals in our
You can download the first 30 days here while you’re waiting for it to come in the mail.
We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community! If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
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I’m so excited I have a listener on the line who is going to share a ton of golden seeds! I talked to her before from Florida and she is going to share with us about her Sustainability Project!
- Tell us a little about yourself. By day, I’m a REALTOR® and beekeeper.
I’m also a 3rd generation farmer. My grandparents owned a 100 acre wheat farm on the prairie in rural Dufresne, Manitoba. My family lived off the land, they grew their food seasonally in a 1 acre vegetable garden. After the local community collectively brought in the fall harvest, they would busily preserve and can their produce for storage in their root cellar.
These people were a hardy bunch, they managed to survive the brutually harsh winters with minimal resources using a wood burning stove for heat, crude electric and no running water or indoor plumbing. They kept and cared for livestock and only took what they needed to survive, my ancestors practiced “The Tragedy of the Commons” method. That’s how they managed to raise a family of 8 in rural Manitoba.
And Manitoba is where people go to see the polar bears right?
Yes Churchill Manitoba is where the polar bears are.
Then you went to the opposite end of the continent practically to Florida.
Yes I did I got hired to work for Disney at the Epcot Center back in the early 80s and that’s where I met my husband two weeks later and we’ve been here ever since! That’s so romantic! I always wanted to work for Disney, I tried to get a job or get into art school at the California Institute of Arts in LA.
Well, they must have liked me! I managed to beat out 64 other people fro the job! So yay for me!
And you worked there for a long time right?
Yes 35 years!
- Tell me about your first gardening experience? We used to visit the farm in the summer time every two years, however my mom! When my mother moved to the big city of Toronto, Ontario, she became a backyard farmer and composter carrying on her family farming tradition. I began helping my mother garden as a young child, she taught me valuable lessons in planting, harvesting and food preservation skills. All these years later I’ve been utilizing this and it’s been working out fantastic for me. Luckily for me, both my parents were award winning gardeners so pulling weeds or fresh carrots comes naturally.
So then is it challenging down in Florida? Do you have to learn different practices to grow in that climate?
Well, gardening is pretty much the same wherever you go. IT’s just the conditions and the climate. In Florida there is a sandy soil, where my parents lived it was a deep rich soil. You have to plant things things that grow well
I’m in climate zone 9b, it’s way different climate. They get snow and here we don’t get any snow, we hardly get any freezes?
- How did you learn how to garden organically? My mother taught me, she was a big time composter of our organic kitchen waste. In fact, she had 3 bins under the sink.
one for
- regular trash
- recycables and
- strictly for organic waste
She didn’t use toxic chemicals as there were few available when she grew up, instead she did pest control by hand and by natural methods. She would plant different plants with different vegetables using companion planting as well.
They had to learn how to grow their own food and preserve it or they didn’t eat. So they had to learn quick!
And probably some of it was passed on from generation to generation!
Yes, of course.
- Tell us about something that grew well this year.
It is winter, but you can grow crops in Florida all year long.
Adding 2 beehives to my garden mix was a huge plus this year.
I grew delicious Beefsteak tomatoes just like my mother did. We also had great success growing a wide variety of herbs, including our own organic oregano and basil.
We’ve grown * cucumbers * bananas * sunflowers * jalapenos * salsa garden peppers which are super hot! * bell peppers * limes
- lemons
-
mini oranges
-
blueberries
-
blackberries
- fruit and nuts
- pineapples
ended up growing delicious
What are pineapples like to grow?
Pineapples are so easy to grow * leave like an inch of the top * seed in some water * keep adding water * transplant to pot or soil * Next thing you know you have a new pineapple growing!
So you can just eat the pineapple and grow a new one?
Yes there’s no waste! You can do it with onions and some other things. Including strawberries as well. I think I knew that about strawberries, or at least I thought they would send runner out.
Yes, it’s like recycling the whole plant!
And fruit is so expensive, I hoping to add more fruit to our garden next year!
my sunflowers did great
Mexican sunflower
they are wonderful
especially for pollinators! 5. Is there something you would do differently next year or want to try/new? I would like to design a permaculture garden to maximize my urban growing space.
Right now I have 2 raised beds, and when I mean raised beds they are like 3 feet off the ground, you don’t have to bend over at all! Using raised bed gardens is a great way to grow food and not injure your back in the process!! My husband built these.
Me Too! What’s he building them out of ? What’s he making them out of 2x4s?
I’m excited to take the soil out next year and paint them like my beehives! We want to do the same thing with our raised beds! Make it more impressive!
My husband’s a graphic designer and they just look great!
I painted a mailbox for my mom years ago I thought would be a great place to keep my pruners and tools.
- Tell me something that didn’t work so well this season. Pumpkins, they were devoured by some grey larvae. I haven’t had any luck with pumpkins.
They start to grow, they’re great if you sprout them chop off the leaves and eat them! But as far as actually growing any pumpkins they just keep getting eaten!
I don’t like to use any pesticides, or use chemicals on property * bees * non-toxic and organic
Last year my friend Dacia gave me a pumpkin right after Halloween and that’s what I am hoping is going to work for us. She got it from a local grower and it grew right out of her compost pile.
Someone recommended to me, that I could actually spray pumpkins with a kaolin clay and that would coat them and prevent them from eating by this larve.
I have to do some more investigation and see how that’s used and applied.
Let us know or I’ll see if I can do some investigation. My mom’s biggest struggle is the squirrels want to eat them when she puts them out at Halloween. I told her put clay pumpkins out.
I’m gonna look in there.
Florida’s Edible Wild Plants: A Guide to Collecting and Cooking locally
you can actually grow a seminal pumpkin
They’re like mini gourds
green
they’ve been growing them and selling them
very hearty
soil conditions
heat will kill them when it’s 90º+ but it’s great for growing peppers! Peppers grow like weeds. We grow bell peppers and jalopenos!
Do you make salsa? I need a good salsa recipe. What do you do with all your peppers?
We eat them in salad
sauté them with other vegetables a lot of time
I make my own salsa * grow my own cilantro * onions * salsa peppers * jalepenos
I chop them all up, not the corn, I grow corn, not too much it’s an experiment. We’re growing peaches and cream corn this year.
- take the corn
- kernels
- add that with the salsa peppers
- onions
- vinegar
- agave nectar
- corn
It sounds delicious!
And it’s good for you, it’s excellent for you! almost everything is fresh!
not too much that I don’t grow
I like to eat organic that’s why I grow a lot of stuff I want to know where a lot of my stuff is coming from!
Let’s take a minute to thank our sponsors and affiliate links Please support us on Patreon so we can keep the show up on the internet. It cost close to $100 a month just to keep it up on the internet for the website etc so if you could help by supporting it with an $8/month contribution or $10/month to join the Green Future Growers Book Club where we can delve deep into some of the best gardening books that have been recommended on the show! GoDaddy even is bugging me for dollars just to have the domain name…
https://www.patreon.com/OrganicGardenerPodcast Getting to the Root of Things! Which activity is your least favorite activity to do in the garden? Pulling weeds and deterring pests!
I don’t like pulling weeds, it used to be a chore of mine when I was little.
I never wanted to do it!
They never did anything with toxic chemicals! They were all organic. It was like a little garden tool! It was like a little weed popper! IDK what you call it but it was almost like a golf club but it has like a hammers head and throw them in the compost bin!
Do you feel like you do thing now to reduce your weeds like mulch etc. I find with mulch and having such a water shortage at our house if there is no weeds where you don’t water.
Just recently when I bought my
Florida’s Edible Wild Plants: A Guide to Collecting and Cooking There are a lot of weeds that I used to pull that in the last couple of weeks since I’ve been following the guide, I’m actually not pulling them and I have bees
I notice that on my wood sorrel they have flowers that are pink! I thought why would I pull this, it’s bee food! it’s right be side my behave
sorrel looks like shamrocks
it’s bee-fedd and I’m gonna keep them
hawksbeard
thistle with the little yellow flowers
I haven’t been pulling them, I have been leaving a good portion for the bees and butterflies trying to keep my bees nourished and healthy!
Is that part of your Sustainability Project? Do you want to tell us about that?
It’s called the Sustainability project It’s a community composting project, where I encourage all of my neighbors to drop off their compost so i can compost it in the garden so I can...
I’m so close to wrapping up Free Garden Course.com and I know you are going to love the new one that will take place in a real google classroom! When it’s ready, we’ll have a new 2019 Garden Goals challenge and full color workbook I think you will love! Go ahead and listen to last year’s challenge. There’s a facebook group you can join and even access the google classroom with access code 75yju4. Do you want to save time in your garden? Do you want to grow a garden full of healthy vegetables but feel you don’t have time? Do you struggle to get all the weeds pulled and watering done in the heat of summer when your friends are all headed to the lake? Are you tired of paying the high cost of organic vegetables in the store but struggle to grow your own?
Well, our 2018 Garden Goals Challenge will help you find success in your garden journey!
Free Garden Course.com So, if you follow me you probably know that I created a Free Garden Course also known as Free Organic Garden Course over Christmas break!
Days 1-8
2018GardenGoalsChallenge
For the first 8 days of 2018 I’m going to walk you through the steps of planning your garden goals so you are growing awesome nutrient dense vegetables with the least amount of work and time. Now I’m not gonna fool you and say it’s all gonna be easy but I will say it will be worth it.
Day One is all about brainstorming! You can download the first 30 days here while you’re waiting for it to come in the mail.
The first page is a great place to make a list of all your garden dreams! Don’t leave anything out! Do you want a pond with a water fountain in the middle? An orchard full of fruit trees? Deep beds full of healthy nutritious broccoli, tomatoes and fresh lettuce?
Imagine anything is possible. The first page is a great place to make a list of all your garden dreams! Don’t leave anything out!
- Do you want a pond with a water fountain in the middle?
- An orchard full of fruit trees?
- Deep beds full of healthy nutritious broccoli, tomatoes and fresh lettuce?
- An earth friendly landscape your puppy can run around on without a worry?
- A root cellar to store your produce come winter?
- A green house to help extend your season?
- A place to market your extra produce?
- A fence to keep the deer out?
- A chicken tractor?
- Growing sweet potatoes?
- Ordering some heirloom seeds?
- Pollinator plants to attract bees and butterflies?
- Beehives full of honey?
Today I want you to start your list of gardening dreams!
Day Two Make a Plan Let’s take your list and start to define a strategy.
The first step is to organize and prioritize your goals. I like to start with the calendar and put my goals into chronological order.
A general guess for now is fine. We’ll get to the details down the line.
- Which ones can you start now?
- Which ones do you need to wait until the ground thaws?
- Which ones do you need supplies for?
- Which ones do you have to accomplish this year?
A secret I have learned about successful gardening is that you should start with your harvest date? When do you want to be done? If you’re working on a landscape when do you want to be able to enjoy it? If you are planting vegetables when would you be harvesting? Do you have a list of seeds you want plant?
Day Three – S.M.A.R.T. GOALS To listen to the podcast go to organicgardenerpodcast.com
The acronym S.M.A.R.T stands for
- Strategic
- Measurable
- Attainable
- Relevant
- Time-bound
For each of your goals you are going to need to create a SMART strategy. Today we are just going to start with your most important goal you want to complete in 2018.
Succession Lettuce Let’s say your SMART goal is to plant a bed of lettuce every week for the first 2 months of spring. It’s strategic because you want to eat healthy lettuce while it’s growing before it get’s too hot and bolts in the middle of summer. It’s measurable because you can schedule out plantings each Saturday morning perhaps starting in April through the end of May. It’s attainable because by April you should be able to get lettuce seeds started. And if you can’t you can always adjust your dates. It’s relevant because you like lettuce. It’s time bound because it will start in April and end in May.
This might seem like a lengthy process but if you really want to achieve your goals and not just say, I’m gonna put in a garden this year, it’s much more likely to be successful.
Two New Deep Beds Another example of a smart goal might be you want to build 2 new deep beds by Spring growing season.
- Strategic – deep beds can add convenience, more space for planting, and organization to your garden.
- Measurable – you have decided you want 2 new beds.
- Attainable – you can create beds out of recycled materials or purchase new wood if needed.
- Relevant – deep beds help grow nutritious food.
- Time-bound – you can give yourself a specific deadline before June 20th the first of Summer.
Here’s a great article by Rodale’s on building deep beds in an afternoon!
If you need more help with your S.M.A.R.T goals let me know. You are more then welcome to email me at OrganicGardenerPodcast@gmail.com and I will answer as soon as possible.
S.M.A.R.T. Market Farmer * Strategic – Reach out to your market manager and 2 fellow farmers. * Measurable – Yes because you did reach out or you didn’t * Attainable – It’s attainable because you should be able to find your local market manager and fellow farmers * Relevant – it’s important because finding out about your market is crucial to your success. * Time-bound – you can give yourself a specific deadline like 2 months before the market opens.
Or you can post in the Organic Gardener Facebook Group or message me or Mike on Facebook.
Day Four – Research Time What do you need to accomplish your goal? What supplies are you going to need? Where are you going to get them?
Is your goal to plant heirloom tomatoes? Where are you going to get your seed?
Do you have a catalog? Have you picked out varieties that are acclimated to your climate?
Do you have your seed packets? What are your harvest dates, date to maturity, can you start marking on your calendar when each variety needs to get planted?
Is your goal to sell micro-greens to your local restaurants? Have you made a list of restaurants in your area? Spoke to the chefs? Found out what their needs are? Is there a special herb they would like too?
Are you going to install a new automatic water system? Do you know someone who has one? Is there a local sprinkler service that can help?
Are you wanting to plant Sweet Potatoes? There’s a great video on Johnny’s Select Seed Site or maybe you want to bring in some beneficial insects?
Seed Resources The Good Seed Company has been a huge source of seed for us. To listen to my interview with Robin Kelson the owner and learn about the Good Seed Company’s roots!
We’ve also used a lot of seeds from Johnny’s Selected Seeds, Organic Peaceful Valley and Bountiful Gardens
And like I said in Lesson One the Fedco Seed Catalog is highly recommended!
Some other highly recommended seed companies include:
- Seed Saver’s Exchange
- Don Tipping’s from Seven Seed Farms and Siskiyou Seeds
- White Harvest Seed Company
Day Five – Get Organized What do you need to do first? For me this is the fun part. Making a list of things to do. * If your goal is to build a deep bed, do you know what materials you’re going to choose? Where you’re going to get your soil to fill it? What you’re going to put in there? Seeds? Starts? Transplants? Where will you get them and when do they go in the ground? * If your goal is to create a water feature for bees what’s it going to be made out of? Where will it go? How will you access water? What can they stand on while their drinking so...
Thursday, Dec 27, 2018. I have an old friend from HS on the line, who is a little bit new to gardening, but has had some early success as a neighborhood gardener and a teacher as well!
Tell us a little about yourself. I’m an elementary school teacher for 21 years on Long Island.
I’ve always been a renter, love to rent! I always say, I’m the best renter you could ever have! Then at 47 bought a house with my husband and my daughter. When we bought the house in our price range, we had to look really hard to make sure there were no structural problems.
We wanted unusual things * workshop * shed * shop
skimming things in our price range. We weren’t looking, I thought funny in an ad,
- landscaping
- old growth plants
I thought that was a funny thing to put in.
Bought our house dec 31st never looked outside until the spring when my daughter went to kick a ball, and it landed in some kind of thorn bush and that’s how I got into gardening because we had to do land clearing first!
I never expected to be doing land clearing in my forties! Shock!
You were telling me a bit about it! Like you were joking about your husband getting a chain saw and you had to have 6 guys come in with machetes! Like this isn’t just a little project!
Yes, there was an invasive vine that was killing trees
It was so thick, some of the roots were thick as a leg
very deep into the ground
I had some friends come over who said things from
you will never get rid of it
to it will cost $35k
To get rid and I sometimes think that was the best thing they could have said to us was you’ll never get rid of it! Because my husband’s an irishman and we took it on as a challenge
It took about 3 years to get all of it
our neighbors were infected too!
Community Neighborhood and Team Work and we worked together
Got rid of the fence between us and we got rid of this invasive vine! bundle it
take it to the garbage collectors
It wasn’t easy to do! But we did it! However, once you clear land, then you have these big spaces and you have to put something in them, so then I had to figure out what plants to buy. It was a big project!
And you have such a lovely tiered garden, when I was here in June we got to come over for your solstice party, it’s just gorgeous!
my husband did it
He was very clever, our backyard that is sloped
put in stones! big stones
to create these three tiers
cement steps
easy access the garden
I think that is a big key to make sure that it is very easy to access
stepping over the plants
not gonna fall
danger
in those tiers
I don’t think it would be as easy to access.
And it looks lovely!
thanks, thanks to him!
Tell me about your first gardening experience? no garden
scary home
we had the home where we left the bicycles
My mother was not a gardener, my father was not.
I think I came into it very late in life!
I think that will be inspiring that you did come late and are doing so well!
You can do anything in your life if you really want to, you’re body might not work as well, but you can do it! I’m a big believer in that too!
How did you learn how to garden organically? Well my husband just said no chemicals
don’t want to put in any part of the lawn because they can run down to where we’re growing vegetables
You have to do more weeding that way,
it’s also cheaper so that appeals to me.
I have a daughter I wanted her to see:
- how garden grows
- dormant period
- the excitement of spring
- the cycle of life
I hadn’t really experienced myself
That first year * we started with tulips
We just love that the colors that come up!
Explaining to her!
Planting the bulbs in the fall is a very good lesson
One thing that gardening teaches to you is
- patience
- faith
You’re not gonna get return on everything that you do, but whatever the percentage is, it’s very worth the effort
learned pacing myself at first we were hoping we would clear it in one year, so we have to be patient! It didn’t take one year to get to this condition
That’s great advice! I agree! My husband is very patient, sometimes I’m like how do you
he has that vision, sometimes I’m like I don’t remember all this dirt!
Tell us about something that grew well this year. The tulips grew very well
I think in terms of vegetables I really liked the cherry tomatoes I don’t have as much success with the big tomatoes! But the cherry tomatoes!
they’re so easy
I can make a salad
I make a simple sauce by cutting them up with garlic and basil
My daughter likes to eat them like a snack
They don’t take a ton of room, they grow well where you put them and you can use them so many ways.
That’s the same problem we have.
they take so long to ripen
animals sometimes they come and eat them.
big rabbit problem here on Long Island
I know there is a big problem, they are everywhere!
They are reproducing like rabbits!
Is there something you would do different next year or want to try/new? I wanna try and put in some more flowers
tried to put in a wild patch of flowers
issue is to try to seed in the pot
I would like to have just a patch of wildflowers but we don’t have that!
I’ve had the most luck with perennials, we were talking about sage last night, things like
echinacea
butterfly flower – which is like this big red kind of bloom with yellow
Mike does plant the seeds and then transplant them
You know what grows good is calendula and they come up like the dill, popping up all over!
Tell me about something that didn’t work so well this season. The fennel
I thought
it grows beautifully
it seems like a shame when you harvest it
it’s a root vegetable so then it’s gone.
I’ve been just keeping it, it has a beautiful white flower. It does draw bees, we’re always looking for bees
I was just reading that fennel is good for you.
that seemed like
I’d rather keep it like a plant
roses that I had, they were choked with this invasive vine
I haven’t gotten them to go up the trellis but I’m getting there.
Hey interesting fact, I’ve been researching for my garden course is that garlic is a companion for roses, it keeps the fungus away and bugs.
Let’s take a minute to thank our sponsors and affiliate links Please support us on Patreon so we can keep the show up on the internet. It cost close to $100 a month just to keep it up on the internet for the website etc so if you could help by supporting it with an $1/month contribution or $10/month to join the Green Future Growers Book Club where we can delve deep into some of the best gardening books that have been recommended on the show! GoDaddy even is bugging me for dollars just to have the domain name…
https://www.patreon.com/OrganicGardenerPodcast
Let’s Get to the Root of Things Which activity is your least favorite activity to do in the garden? I think weeding is everybody’s bug-a-boo
clean out at the beginning and the end of the year
multiple days just to get the garden put to bed
clean up in the spring and I have five yards of mulch that has to be put down!
that’s a lot of mulch!
what’s helped me is having a wheelbarrow
look at your backyard if you have any kind of slope or rocks or bumpy surfaces, it’s worth getting a wheelbarrow with
big round tires
dumping feature.
That’s interesting, I first thought shovel but then I a changed it to a wheelbarrow and what was a game changer for us was getting one with a flat free tire!
I’ve never gotten a flat, hope you didn’t curse me Jackie!
Yeah! I flat free tire. We have about 3-4, Mike’s always hauling rocks, out of the garden, doing rock work. We live in the Rocky Mountains so they are always coming out of the soil!
What is your favorite activity to do in the garden? harvesting vegetables
going to cook something
We love to cook in our house!
getting fresh herbs * we just had Thanksgiving and getting that huge sage from our garden * adding the taste of a fresh sage! Seeing my husband’s face!
also, the first tulips
the first signs that winter is over and spring is coming and we got through another New York winter
My family always laughs, they’re like you live in Montana and I’m like I hate NY Winters, i come here and freeze!
What is the best gardening advice you have ever received? I was shown how to prune, I didn’t understand it
the person who was showing me how to prune
I wasn’t understanding where to cut down to!
that’s ok
I realized it was ok to make mistakes in gardening
you’re not gonna get everything 100%
that’s a good thing for a perfectionist like me!
It’s fine to make mistakes!
I’m glad to hear that because I often don’t feel like I have any idea what I’m doing when I’m pruning, and she just walks around with her pruners all the time, but she did get me these amazing CutCo pruners and they make cutting lilacs etc just like butter. And also I want to put a mailbox down in the garden so they are protected but always down there.
I did find myself wanting to deadhead more, and I was learning about the chop and drop with the buckwheat last year, which was hard to cut these beautiful flowers but I just kept repeating I’m feeding the soil, I’m feeding the soil!
I wanted to ask you because you said you put down 5 yards of mulch, but is that every year, or just the first year when you pulled out the vines, because we had a cute little 5 yard dump truck once and I know what that means and that’s a lot of mulch!
Yes, you do it one time in the spring!
Wait, every year? Or just the one year?
When we removed all those vines there’s like a trench its the length of the property that’s about 4 feet deep, I put mulch down there, we have some bushes, its gonna take a few years before it’s a full hedge.
I put it there, I put it down where I have hostas I have it all there. It seems we have a lot of borders for the size property we have. I put it inside all the borders, it keeps the weeds down!
Jim Swanson shares his journey of raising llamas at the Fantasy Land Ranch in Bigfork, MT and raising vegetables in a Montana rain forest climate. Living near the famous Flathead Cherry Orchards on the East Side of Flathead Lake, Jim turns hard work and initiative into a successful life living in Montana’s beautiful outdoors.
Tell us a little about yourself. Bigfork (elevation 2900’) is like a rain forrest. We get double the rainfall in Kalispell, same with snowfall, they’ll get a couple of inches in town and we’ll end up with a foot out of the deal. The confluence of the Columbia range runs up there behind me and then there’s the beginning of the Swan Range and where those two ranges meet, is what makes it’s own little weather system there.
The lake has a lot to do with it, the extra moisture in the air helps with the greenery and ability to grow fruit. Born in Whitefish grew up in Eureka.
Tell me about your first gardening experience? My memory with my first gardening experiences was with Mom, always had a garden, real nice flower gardens and vegetables. My introduction and she was totally organic herself, so that was the only kind of garden we ever really knew.
What does organic gardening/earth friendly mean to you? Just pretty much making your own soil. Not adding any artificial nutrients or anything like that.
Who or what inspired you to start using organic techniques? Just knowing how she did it. She mixed her own own soil. Using cow manure mixed it horse manure and with sawdust. Started with the llama dung down here at Fantasy Land. Have 6 females now, no males, a few years back had a grizzly bear come in and get our baby up and coming male, and then our oldest male, poor Benny he succumbed to old age. don’t have a breeding program anymore.
Just on a whim, the mountain trader will get you every time. Reading there were 11 llamas for sale, make an offer. Had all this property – just a little over 5 acres. A buddy of mine’s dad had an orchard on the lake, and ended up with a whole bunch of old wire for helping fence a cherry orchard. Once my property was fenced I was just looking for something to raise, so in the middle of one of the winters (1996) over 10 feet of snow in the yard here, renting a bobcat to keep the road open and it had started in early Nov and snowed feet at a time, and it was just after Thanksgiving, we got a huge snowstorm and then at Christmas time we bought the llamas.
Fantasy Land Llamas.
How did you learn how to garden organically? From my mom, helping her in the garden watching her mixing her soil. As soon as I had the llamas, creating as much dung as they do, the males can crap in the same spot as
Benny had a couple different spots, always in the rock pile, the females, would just crap where they were eating, so they started keeping their dung in the same pile, and that makes it so easy to clean up, and I have a big spot where I keep it.
Tell us about something that grew well this year. Tomato crop. Peppers all different kinds, have a little bit of hot house on our front porch covered with clear plastic. They all did real good. Wasn’t a real phenomenal year for squash, but still ended up with a couple of 100 lb., still have a few spaghetti, and butternuts. Squash generally does real well too.
What do you think led to that success? Mainly the soil, using the composted llama dung, when I do my beds I just take and add more of the raw dung in and mix that up a bit and then put some of the compost too as well. Grow right in the ground in prepared beds.
Got a couple of different Costco structures -10‘ wide x 20’ long, and I just leave the weed mat down, cause I don’t have time for weeding. It’s just amazing. Used to just use black plastic, anything to keep the light off of the other seeds.
Is there something you would do different this year coming up or want to try/new that you’re excited about? Got some new plants that we’re gonna grow this year. Going to make a compost tea this year.
Tell me about something that didn’t work so well last season. I guess sales on the llama dung could have been up, 50 bag of composted dung for $10. Feed them hay year round, at least ½ a flake each day and then pellets. Hay is a base to put pellets on. Only a few have shelters, they each have designated area they eat.
Can you use the hair or fur for wool or yarn? Carding to get all fibers and the stuff out of the hair. First time I set and started trying to clean and card it, I spent about an hour and ½ trying to card the llamas by hand and came out with just a small handful so that was the end of that. Now they got a group that comes in and will do all that for you.
Something that you find is easy to grow and is generally successful every-time. Squash, here in the last few years I’ve been trying to grow some melons. Got a spot on top of the hill where my original dung piles were and that’s where I put these Costco things up,
I have a small greenhouse down at the house where I get things started.
Growing cantaloupe, watermelon, and a musk melon.
Having them right on top of my hill, so they’re getting the most sunlight, till sunset still getting some light up to dark, and the llama dung.
Pretty amazed by that. Like the heirloom seeds. Save seed out of everything out of everything we grow.
Something you would steer new gardeners away from that you find is typically challenging to grow in your climate. Carrots, don’t want to grow carrots in composted dung. Haven’t ever tried to grow them up on top of the hill. Used to grow. tomatitos, peppers and homemade salsa etc, homemade tomato juice.
Which activity is your least favorite activity to do in the garden. Weeding is the worst part of growing your own garden, that’s why I recommend using that weed mat. That’s what eats up all your time.
What is your favorite activity to do in the garden. Ohhh harvesting I guess.
Tell us about the best crop you ever grew. Best one was accidental, that’s how I stumbled on the composted llama dung. We had the lower garden here across from the house here, I had some tomatoes that froze I hadn’t harvested, and I threw in the compost, and one of those seeds came up and I had my best tomato plant ever was like 6 feet tall and just loaded with fruit and that’s when I realized that’s the best thing to grow in. Then my mom grew them in her rose beds, then she started growing award winning roses, and then that’s how I started selling the composted llama dung.
Have you ever entered a fair? No, I guess I haven’t. Thought about entering a bud I had that was about a foot long and as big around as your arm.
What is the best gardening advice you have ever received? Go organic!
A favorite tool that you like to use? If you had to move and could only take one tool with you what would it be.
Probably have to be my crane, 10,000 lb. mobile crane, was a utility truck, has a post hole for putting in telephone poles … With the bigger 18’ poke and fill that hole with dung and just plant on top of that, gonna try that this year.
A little hand spade, a little hand deal you twist, that works real good for busting up your soil where your gonna seed. Or my leather-man.
(https://jackiebeyerartist.wordpress.com)
Eating or harvesting vegetables or fruit on time? Depends on if you’re planning on saving it on time is don’t wash it till you’re ready to eat it. Don’t pull the end off of your tomatoes or pepper till your ready to eat it, as soon as your ready to eat pull
Do you have any secrets for preserving food-making it last? Last year did 25 quart jars of dill pickles, some green beans, fruits, a freezer jam. Canned up a bunch of cherries, and stuffed the pit hole with huckleberries. Just something we wanted to try. Made some chocolate covered Parker cherries, and some Parker chocolate huckleberries.
Do you have any special techniques for cooking weird or unusual foods? When I can those I have a pressure cooker, so for pies, my wife just made me a nice cherry pie.
Pit em, then stuff one or two hucks in a pit hole. Put a little bit of sugar cherry water but not much and then just pressure cook it and their own juices will come out. Do a cherry-huckleberry syrup for pancakes. Just smash the cherries and berries together with a little sugar, freezer jam it or can it. Maybe use a little bit of pectin, I usually don’t as long as I use it within a month.
A favorite recipe you like to cook from the garden? Vegetable stir fry. Really good luck with the zucchinis. Get some pretty good size zukes. Like to cut it in chunks and cook it with stewed tomatoes, a little bacon in it, anything to make it good. Another way is to grate the zucchini and make like a cheese mixed in with a crust, like a vegetable patty. Make some cracker crumbs on each side and then put some egg and fry it in butter n then flip it, or do that same thing with a beer batter, flour based batter.
A favorite reading material-book, mag, blog/website etc you can
High times. Winter time have time to read, but don’t now.
Final question – if there was one change you would like to see to create a greener world what would it be? For example is there a charity or organization your passionate about or a project you would like to see put into action. What do you feel is the most crucial issue facing our planet in regards to the environment either in your local area or on a national or global scale?
If we as individuals are willing to take some of your income, and put it into a renewable resource invest in solar, or wind, solar is probably your best option, but make some of your power you use yourself everyday. If you work your way towards it, you can lessen the amount of power you have to buy. And what causes more degradation to the planet is these coal powered electrical plants.
So that would be my recommendation is for everybody to …. make some biodiesel – turn some french fry oil into diesel. The wife and I each try to buy a solar panel. A few years back had a 24 volt system. Had a wind generator, but it collapsed, but about to stand it up again. Had an opportunity to pick up some used 24 volt panels for about 1/2 price. That’s how you can do, every little deed you do can help change the world.
Any little bit you can do.
Do u have an inspiration tip or quote to help motivate our listeners to reach into that dirt and start their own garden? Every time you plant a seed and it comes up and you’ve created life yourself right there. That’s what inspires me, especially if you make the seed and it grows and then you get seed from that, why you’re in business! It’s a blessing. Every plant you get is a blessing and when you grow your own vegetables at least you know who the farmer is.
If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/organic-gardener-podcast/id962887645
If you have any comments, questions, guests you’d like to see, or topics you’d like us to cover please send us any feedback positive or negative. We’re here to serve our audience and we can only improve with your help!!! Thanks for visiting Mike’s Green Garden changing the world one garden at a time.
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Welcome to the show today! I’m so excited because I have a guest who’s in the Facebook group and a listener and on the other side of the world who shares her passion for homesteading also known as Lifestyle Block.
Tell us a little about yourself. So, I’m in New Zealand for start in the north island in a place called Wanganui which is on the west coast of the North Island. It’s about 1/2 way down in a pretty good climate. You can grow pretty much anything here!
We’re about 20 minutes out of town of about 40k people. An average size town here in New Zealand.
We have 2 hectacres about 5 acres
- 4 1/2 acres of pastureland
- 1/2 acre around the garden which is pretty much food
- few roses and things but
mainly food
We moved here in May 2017, so we’ve been here just over a year and a half and made huge strides. Doing things slowly isn’t really my style so we decided to jump in gunboats and all!
We made the decision to change our lifestyle dramatically on the back of the US elections
2016 Elections a lot of people in America might be surprised to know that New Zealanders followed that election really closely. Aside from us being really horrified, we decided that you know, individuals have to take a move to really counteract some of the nonsense that’s going on in the world.
So we decided we would move and make this a place for ourselves for our family and friends. It was a really big jump but we did it!
Well this is so fascinating and you know I’m very interested in politics.
Tell me about your first gardening experience? I’ve lived lots of different places, but my very first gardening memory, when I was about 6, my parents moved from the lower part of the north island up here to Wanganui, that was back in the early 70s. Wanganui is really coastal, so there is a lot of land on sand dunes.
We have this really intensely black iron sand. nothing grows in this sand other then
- coach grass, this gnarly tough grass
- June grasses
- box thorn
But your making things grow?
Well, my mother bless her tried to put in a garden, but didn’t really know about putting extra organic material, because my memory was she would try to plant things and they wouldn’t grow. I remember watching the water disappear, I remember being out there and watch her trying to water the garden and her just really having no success at all.
Then when I was twelve
Mum took me on holiday to England to see her parents. My grandparents were avid gardeners and I remember thinking as a child at home, my grandparents garden where everything is blooming and they can’t and there was such a difference between what they were growing and I thought, why can they grow things and she couldn’t?
Sounds like she was sure trying?
Yes, she was trying!
I think putting a lot of organic soil in the sand would make a big difference.
How did you learn how to garden organically, is that what’s made you be more successful?
yeah, it is, but I kind of feel like, I inherited green fingers from my grandparents I’ve really never needed to apply fertilizers, always been into composting.
The first house already had a compost bin already sit up. I didn’t seem to have any pests. I didn’t have any money to buy fertilizers and it worked. The next garden, again, I just had amazing soil, this was a big vegetable garden and I had 2 little girls by now so I was growing food for us
- no money
- making due with the compost
I’m kind of a really active person and I found when I had little kids, one way of, I wasn’t sort of to sit down and play on the uni-ball. I used to take them out in the vegetable garden digging
- used to sit in the garden
- digging up worms
- looking for insects
- always had them out in the garden
That was another reason to be organic, I didn’t want them sitting in the garden playing in chemicals. So, I’m torn between going with the questions and asking about something that grew well, you about your sweet little farm and the llamas and the animals you have. The cute little animals you have. Did you just get 2 new goats?
No, but we did just get 2 new baby alpacas and they are alpacas, if you call them llamas they will spit at you! A quick thing about alpacas and llamas they are vastly different.
What’s different, I thought it was just their fur, I thought it was more for clothes, etc.
Alpaca fleece is really very fine Is there a reason that you chose alpacas over llamas? How did you get into them to begin with?
The Cute Factor
Because we’re crazy
We have a term lifestyle block which is probably similar to what you call homesteading? lifestyle block that’s where you live it’s like a tiny farm. Lifestyle block people in New Zealand have a problem with the “cute factor”
If you’ve got a bit of land, you’ve got to have it
We were on holiday on south island and we went on an alpaca farm tour.
We met all these alpacas and we got to:
- touch them
- cuddle them
- fell in love with these alpacas
When we came back and bought this land and looked into the animals that we wanted.
I spin too. For my alpacas, I use a lot of fiber, so the idea was
- get the alpacas
- for their sheer
- keep the fleece
- process it and sell it and use it!
But, that so far hasn’t really worked out, because I just haven’t had time to do the processing and spinning. So got them for the fiber.
fiber pool I did talk to a friend Jim Swanson, I interviewed in episode 42 who has llamas here and he talked about using the manure in his garden. Do you do that?
Peruvian black gold Yes, Wow! The manure is just astounding! Anything will grow, I call it Peruvian black gold
hail from Peru originally
good thing is you can use it straight on your garden I learned a lot about paddock rotation
Joel Salatin
Dirt to Soil: One Family’s Journey into Regenerative Agriculture Dirt To Soil by Gabe Brown
follow a good paddock rotation
I don’t have to use wormers on my animals
- take alpacas
- sheep
- goats
leave the pastures for a month
Tell us about something that grew well this year. 1/2 an acre
try to grow all of our own food
something that grew well this year
so blessed with the soil
I attract good soil
broccoli was just fantastic
autumn and winter
summer now, early summer
man it’s hot!
- broccoli
- perpetual spinach
- silver beet
grew really well last year
so many herbs
grow like weeds
dry a lot of herbs
bought a dehydrator last year
honestly
some weeks I’d be drying a different herb
use it myself
given
I’ve got lots of herbs * 2 types of parsley * Italian flat leaf and afro parsley * oregano * marjoram * mint * pig mint * ordinary mint * chocolate mint a handful * chives * garlic chives * lemon balm * pineapple sage * sage * chamomile * rosemary
every herb that I would need I planted a lot of plants for the bees
When we moved in here one of the first things I did was put in an orchard
Is there something you would do different next year or want to try/new? This year, I think I missed the boat a bit, I wanted to put in some currants.
I would like a chipper, for garden mulch, I have a really large area that I use for composting.
Tell me about something that didn’t work so well this season. my garlic
my first season when we moved in here the garlic was just amazing, did us for a whole year * harvested it just before Christmas last year * I’ve given a lot of it away * garlic rust * leave it to do it’s think * tiny stunted garlic bulbs * rust all up the leaves * pretty wet * fungus * I’m still gonna use it, but it’s just hard because the cloves are so tiny * learned my lesson to put it somewhere next year
put it somewhere it’s gonna get a lot of airflow though it, that’s somewhere really important that it has the airflow goes through it! * attacks the leaves * really ugly * google garlic rust
leaves are green, it has these ghastly broad orange spots all over Did you put it in the same place as the last year?
- bulbs didn’t grow
- that was
- disappointed
- whole nitrogen fixer
- gross feeder
moved it somewhere, that on reflection, when I saw the rust it probably wasn’t getting enough breeze to dry off the leaves! So I learned my lesson.
Another lesson I’m trying to learn!
There are things I can’t grow here two things basil
just kind of
just sits there
gets to a certain point and
aubergines
Those are eggplants right?
they kind of flower they limp along and hang in there but they just don’t produce.
Mike used to have a problem like that and what seems to work for him, is that he used to put them spread throughout the garden, one or two in a tomato bed, and one in a pepper plant, and then he started put them in a dedicated bed with several plants that is just eggplants and that seemed to work.
That’s what I do, so that’s not working.
Well, maybe that’s not the solution that worked.
sunlight factors
You never know what has been put into the soil previously
The weather makes such a difference, perhaps it doesn’t like a hot climate so
- maybe it’s too hot
- or I’m watering them too much
I’ve just got to do the research.
Before we get to the root of things, do you have a farm where you’re selling things for market?
I start this interview reading an article that Jason Stuck submitted to me to link on my website. I knew listeners would enjoy it and gain value from the article, but I also asked that someone from Growing Spaces come on the show and talk about their awesome Geodesic Dome Greenhouses.
5 Garden Herbs for Flu Season Look forward to learning how to garden as I go, and learning from customers.
Well, I can relate to that, we have a lot in common that way.
So you guys are in Montana?
Yes, my show is great because I have awesome guests and they are interested in Green jobs and I call them green future growers, because they are interested in learning about
they’re kind of visionaries and entrepreneurs who can make a green business as much as growing a green planet.
Agents of Change I think that fits right in with what we are trying to do here. We call them “agents of change” Where we highlighted some of these green businesses that are
non-profits trying to build a sustainable feature
how they use the products.
More focused on them and how they use the dome. I think that fits in with some of your listeners.
I was curious how many listeners you have.
Well, I guess when it comes to podcasting, I guess it’s a bit difficult to really tell. I know my stats say that I get about 1500 downloads per episode. But how many actually subscribers I have? I don’t know where you get those stats?
But Google Analytics says I get 1000-1500 people going to my website each month, but then they seem to leave right away. Like 60 seconds and they’re gone. I think they want more video then audio.
So last Christmas my husband and I put together this Free Garden Course last Christmas break and pounded out the first 6 lessons, but I’m kind of stuck on the other 6. But now I’m close. I did actually reach out on the phone and talk to my listeners and I have had several listeners on the show. Often they have more experience then I do, kind of like my husband who’s goal is to grow as much of our produce as he can.
We are in the same process, we have
- a lot of words
- need more videos
- infographics
I was listening to a show on promoting your website the other day and he was big on infographics. I go back and forth on my show notes, it doesn’t take much more to do the typing while I am editing the audio. Which I like to do my own audio, I feel like that helps me it’s good for me to listen to the interviews multiple times so I can synthesize what my guests say with what we do here in the garden.
How long are they usually?
Well, my ideal is 35 minutes. But because I am on PRN.fm who needs a file of 53-58 minutes. My listeners like longer episodes because they like the content.
Welcome to the Show today and here’s Lem Tingley from Growing Spaces! I’m the owner. We’re based in Pagosa Springs. My wife and I bought the company from the owners Puja and Udgar Parsons they developed the growing dome almost 30 years ago after working with Buckminster Fuller and John Denver at the Windstar Ranch** out in Aspen Colorado.
It’s a geodesic greenhouse kit that allows you to grow food year round even in extreme locations like Montana or Colorado!
I think someone reached out to me. I know my listeners are definitely interested in extending their season. One thing I have learned is that in some ways it is actually easier to grow in Montana then a lot of other places because we don’t have the bugs but I am chomping at the bit for some greens.
I generally don’t have to buy produce from August until about November anymore. I finally bought my first bag of produce the other day and what happens they have the romaine recall.
Janet and I first met Bjorn Oliviusson
Tell me about your first gardening experience?
My mom, got a plot she would take us there and grow our own vegetables.
not a whole lot. We would bring those vegetables home and eat them ourselves. It was a short growing season out in Mass but it was nice to have that opportunity in the town that I grew up.
Tell us about how you bought the Growing Spaces**
I’m an engineer
Colorado
48 years old Just kind of always had that entrepreneurial bug. I realy wanted to do something that helps
something with the
- environment
- sustainable living
Looking at companies that
photovoltaic and other sustainable tech
search
looking to retire
put their business up on the market
The produce being an energy efficient net zero design really attracted me to the product and company to
help promote a healthier and more sustainable lifestyle through the sale and distribution
growing dome sale That’s where we got really excited and have had lots of fun working with the staff and meeting our customers as we go. With the hope eventually we will have our own domes here in where we live in Golden, Colorado
incredible experience of the past year.
So many things I could ask there, and my husband was born in Colorado. We’ve been down there several times, he lived outside of Aspen in a little town called Basalt. Of course I’m thinking is your business booming for growing cannabis.
people do use our domes to grow cannabis
Doesn’t really apply to commercial growers of cannabis because of the dome shape but it’s perfect if you are going to grow your own
market to the home gardener
Those plants are very happy in our dome.
Speaking of backyard gardeners, since listeners can’t see the website do you want to tell listeners about the kids.
We sell the dome in 6 different sizes all the way from 15 feet in diameter to 42 feet so it depends on your application.
If you’re just growing food for a family of 2-3 you could probably grow it in the 15′ diameter dome. Which is about 150 sq foot of gardening space for organic fruits and vegetables.
The 42 foot dome we usually sell to schools and community gardens and it will feed 15 or more people out of that dome. It’s a pretty large structure at that point. 4 different sizes in between.
6 different sizes * 15 feet in diameter * 42 feet in diameter
Geothermal Greenhouse Partnership in Downtown Pagosa Springs.
- Education dome
They’re doing some exciting things with those domes one geared toward education
local school kids to do classes in that dome.
- There’s another more of the community dome
rent beds
community groups
3rd dome
- innovation domes
farm to table
local growers come in to do more innovation with aquaponics and hydroponics.
Back to your other question what do they look like.
These are geodesic shaped invented by Buckminster Fuller. It’s made out of
- glazing pannel
- cut into triangles to form the geodesic shape
- doug fir and lumber
structure
- 2 foot wall structural wall at the bottom to form the circular foundation
- Then we put insulation
- weather resistant siding around the base as well
Now do you install them, or it’s a kit people put together themselves?
Either way.
We ship all over the world
You can install yourself, you just have to be handy with a saw or a socket wrench or you can hire us to install it. We mostly installs here in CO but we’ll go anywhere in the world.
We can help you find a contractor locally.
Can take 3-6 days depending on the size.
All the instructions online and helpful videos on our website that show you how to install. You can always call us to help guide you through it.
What’s the base made out of? It seemed like they had some rock bases? Are they all the same?
All the bases are the same that we ship. It’s just a lumber structure 2 foot high but a lot of owners will customize the siding.
That may be important if you have an
- HOA
- want to match the decor of your house
encourage people to customize the siding
But behind that siding the structure is the same.
landscaping material
simple lumber structure.
I’m sure people are curious, can you give us a ballpark price range? 15 basic kit for kit without shipping would be $7800
prices go up from there
22 foot starts at $12k
42 foot dome $39k
That’s really just for the kit itself, then you work with a product specialist about where you are
- located
- shipped
- installation options
owner supplied items * insulation * sheet metal * costs of those
You can purchase those at your local box store before installation.
So, how cold can it get? I know when Mike builds plastic covers etc he figures he can get down to about 27º and then after that it’s just not gonna work. How cold can it get and can you get a heater?
We do recommend heaters for the colder climates where you are not getting so much sun. Like up in Canada you might want some external heat.
You can typically grow year round here without external heat and that’s because there is an indoor pond
During the day it will radiate the heat during the night It stays typically 25º inside the dome then it is outside the dome even in the dead of night so you can really plan around that and make sure those vegetables are warm and cozy in there during the night.
If you are going to have a long period of time without sun you might need some external heat
We have had experiences where people can grow tomatoes year round
frost hearty plants leafy kale etc you might want to make sure you are optimized for the winter.
That could really pay off if you were not having to be buying produce. I bet you could have fresh tomatoes from June through November which would be awesome for us. I was looking at this house the other day that someone was moving into, that had a giant glassed in porch and I was thinking it would be so nice to sit there at a kitchen table in the winter!
yoga studios
party spaces in there to have a table
lots of different uses of the dome then just growing food people get into the spiritual environment of being with the plants.
The other thing I like about it, this was always a big struggle with me with the schools is that when the majority of the work in the garden is going on is during the summer when kids are not in school.
We work with a lot of schools
There are great curriculums not just around growing food but also * engineering * STEM * thermodynamics * how to be used for different applications * experiments * project based learning
fun to visit the schools in the area and see what types of curriculum they are using Now is there something about that design that makes it more heat efficient and then of course I am more curious about the pond? Did you say there is a pond in all of them?
It comes standard with the pond to act as the thermal mass We do have customers who use
- geothermal
- other types of thermal mass
The pond is a really nice feature because not only does it act as a thermal mass but you can grow fish in there
- harvest fish
- decorative fish
- use the fish waste for aquaponics
- kids go crazy over the fish as well
aquaponics system harvesting fish
Key is passive solar design * polycarbonate panels * can diffuse the light * right types of light that plants love
bathes the plants in the light as well as warming the greenhouse
solar powered fans
photovoltaic panels that power some of the fans as well as the water fountain in the dome to circulate the air as well as there is an undersoil fan that keeps the soil warm and humid in the winter time that runs off solar panel
net zero design don’t need external power unless you want...
Andrea Catherine is here from the Fearless Self-Love Podcast.
What’s cooking? I’m gonna talk about 3 things
The seasons and what’s going on for me and my body has this desire to cleanse, but it’s just not the right time because it’s holidays!
It’s frustrating every time I eat sugar my body’s like no and alcohol and I do it because it’s the holiday season!
talking about that and how to manage that
lots of squash
everything I can with acorn squash
very simple slice the acorn squash in half
bake it to make it super soft
while that’s roasting sauce a bunch of root vegetables * beets * onion * chickpeas that I marinated in a soy sauce
made this filling basically
- added bacon and spinach to it
- the second time I added raisins as well
It was just a really hearty meal served in the squash half
really creative way to at the end of the CSA what do I do with it.
I wanted to share that
what was the 3rd thing using a lot of cookbooks
Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and Diet Dictocrats
Moosewood Cookbooks
Cooking with Scraps: Turn Your Peels, Cores, Rinds, and Stems into Delicious Meals my friend Lindsay-Jean’s, I interviewed her on the podcast her book is all about food waste recipes
I reached out to Mollie Katzen from the Moosewood
Those are my favorite cookbooks! I do, what I made out of the Moosewood yesterday was this recipe for Chilean Squash that has peppers and corn and cheese and eggs and lots and lots of pumpkin!
The other thing I get out of the Enchanted Broccoli Forest Cookbook is her quiche crust, I use that for quiche or pie or anything.
The Playdough Master I don’t do well with doubling recipes, I can double the playdough recipe, but I have to constantly make double batches.
I found an old copy of her book at a garage sale or thrift store.That’s what I was looking at this fall.
- I changed it up a bit like I didn’t use tofu chickpeas
Using it as inspiration because I have been more attracted to following a recipe I think it is maybe because I think this season of such intense change that I’m
craving stability and almost instruction simplicity of being able to follow something, instead of everything being self-generated all of the time! It takes a lot of energy! I have up-teem business ideas!
I love being creative!
I start things and love doing things!
This season has been about * grounding * connecting * restoring my energy
I think that’s why I’ve been cookbooks
When’s your birthday?
October 26 just turned 34 about a month and a half ago! When’s your birthday Jackie?
I’m 1000% Leo, I was born in the middle of the summer of love on July 31, 1967 in the middle of NYC.
I feel like I’m on a rollercoaster for folks who do
being really focused
seasonal change
life just constantly changing
really sensitive
- not being over stimulated
- almost hardly on social media this fall at all
- little time online unless I’m checking my email
- remove myself from that over stimulus
Less of the Roller Coaster Feel
a lot of intention
tune into the channel of life
Intro?! Andrea Catherine is here to give us a little self-love!
Were both looking out over a little bit of snow!
I’l start with the seasons
shared a little bit
settling and reducing stimuli
having a lot of change, moving, illness, my family visited, started a new job in August
A lot of really good things! Requiring a lot of energy. I’ve been subconsiously finding ways to just be without as much input
enjoy what is already here
What that meant for me is it meant:
- removing myself from social media
- enjoying cookbooks
- state of mindset
- not making any plans
Sundays become my new work for myself day
do my thing
- grounding
- nesting in a new place
- settling in
suits the season dry
windy
lots going on people getting ready to travel for the holiday There’s a lot of sugar out there!
Adds for the season and all the marketing that is up.
The chaos of the season and how that relates to nourishing food
We aren’t just what we eat but what we digest!
feeling anxious
overwhelmed
our body goes into the sympathetic nervous system kicks in and we can go into that fight or flight survival mode. When we do that our digestive system shuts down! It’s not insignificant and I’ve been trying to do this at work.
I’ve been trying to figure out
those 3.5 hours I am fully engaged
I need to be fully nourished by the time I go in and I need to be calm by the time I need to eat again. I’ve been trying to figure out:
how to navigate my day
check in with them
still digesting that experience when I get home
Shift to a big meal around 1-2 pm and then maybe just some soup when I get home.
That represents a shift for me
noticing being aware
I feel like that’s important to share as this can be a season of over stimulus!
People
- handing us sweets
- inviting us to parties or having that extra glass
- root vegetable time of year
- it is eating a 4th meal
- having that extra glass of wine
- 3 more cookies then normal
and our body’s are gonna feel it!
I know and Mike has been baking his best Christmas cookies! And when they come out of the oven who can resist them!
The best thing he has been making lately are these yummy french fry home grown potato fans!
We’ve been doing a lot of potatoes too!
I think it’s root vegetable time of year!
We went to a potluck the other day and we brought sweet potato fries
oven runs from 100-125 º on hot
some kind of scale
turn it down to 400º turn to 300º
Harvest Bowl Squash Burnt our first batch then we made a second with this chipotle sauce delicious!
- Acorn
- butternut although that’s just so good in soup or chopped up!
- buttercup
The smaller squashes when you slice them open, they have like a semi-circle, a whole
use it like that so you can slice it open
- oil in a baking dish
- put those in the oven
- accurate 350º
sautéing all the other things you need to use up! Vegetables
I marinated some chick peas and soy sauce and made this delicious filling for the squash!
Part of my garden course I was telling you about and lesson 12 is about cooking and I call my cookbook the Tri-color Cookbook
so beautiful the ones I made with acorn and butternut squash
dark meat
chick peas
spinach
tan and deep red and green and orange of the squash! It was beautiful looks like a festive meal!
Festive Meal bringing the colors together! That’s the kind of stimulus we want!
the natural
craving Instagram
stimulate your eyes with what your making
be more tactile
full experience of sound and touch
- feel
- tactile!
- taste and smell
- really what we’re craving this tim of year
We’re sucked into this two dimensional thing on a screen.
I saw these really cool scented gift bags when I was looking for a Christmas gift idea I liked that had an orange, some cranberries and like some cinnamon sticks or cloves. It’s seems kind of calming to give someone the scent of Christmas!
adding those spices
that aroma it’s like being by a fire. If you don’t have a fire mulling some spices or wine!
interesting time of the year
Another thing I didn’t mention that I’m excited to do is my friend
flour
farmer friend Brooke Bohannon
mills her own flour
homemade pasta making recipes
Mike was telling me he was gonna have left over egg yolks today because he made macaroons so he makes awesome noodles. His raviolis are to die for! The other day he made corn tortillas!
have a lot of corn flour
corn tortillas and polenta I ended up with some blue and yellow flower and mixing some of them together
this is going to look really interesting not a pretty color
exciting to have all of these resources
At this time of year it’s easy to say
The CSA is over and all the organic food is coming out of state! Unless you live somewhere where you can grow food all year round.
store some food
who is selling food year round
here in the flathead valley Brooke has a second business called
wicked good produce partner with farmers in the valley
things available throughout the winter you can get
just bitter greens and squash
Through the winter it will be mostly apples
So figuring out can I do some of those things
up levels my gratitude and what’s gonna time in the New Year
Can be a time to explore things in other places
I like this time of the year because of that!
It’s still changing even though the garden isn’t giving us all of these things we can go out and pick!
Actually I can still pick kale, it’s still out there, it’s frozen, but I can pick it through the snow, these giant plants still standing but they are a little more chewy.
So we’ve been into Mike’s canned goods, green beans, and pickled beets. Our health food store has been having fresh good that say organically grown locally grown, it’s in a bucket and says locally grown.
talking about sweets and pasta mentioned
Ayurvedic dry mobile season
if there ever was a time to eat gluten and sweet would be this season!
My encouragement and challenge is all things sweet and nourishing don’t have to come from processed sugar and flour and to experiment
substituting grains and flours in your cookies this year satisfying that sweet tooth with some of those things we were talking about
that squash recipe we were talking about will meet that sweet flavor ~ not sugar
It will meet that need desire taste for sweet
- squash
- beets
- caramelized onions
They’re gonna pop that spot on the tongue
craving for sweet that we have this year is natural we don’t have to punish ourselves for craven sweetness
Try to make the glutenous and sweetness more natural ingredients
Can be a fun challenge
I was telling you about the Amy Porterfield Online Classes and she was recommending this podcast called Lose 100 pounds. The main theory the woman talks about is, is planning your day, and what you’re gonna eat, if you are going to eat sweets, admit it but say I am going to eat one cookie or whatever you’re going to eat for 24 hours.
Food Babe 7 Day Detox
It’s tough for me because planning is not one of my strengths. The other things is the food babe has this 7 day sugar craving detox and I know the only way I can survive that is by eating sweet potatoes etc.
I...
I am so excited to tell you about this awesome Soil Health Summit that my past guest from episode 253 Steve Szudera put together with over 25 Expert Farmers and Gardeners talking about how to care for our soil!
Soil Health Summit We’ve spent the last 3 months interviewing top experts all over the country!
Experts talking about
- Seeds adapted to area
- microbes – within both our soil and our bodies
- edile landscapes
A lot of people coming together and sharing their experience not just for soil health but a lot of things that they have done around the country that all ties back to the soil!
It all starts with the soil! They talk about how they maintained and restore soil health and keep their projects going!
Awesome! Well let’s give listeners some specifics! Because quite a few of the people that are going to be there have been guests on the show like Lee Reich and the Kombucha Mamma and Jacqueline Freeman the treatment free beekeeper and John Montgomery and his wife Anne Bikle!**
Productive agriculture Probably one of the highlights, I’m connected to productive agriculture
4 guys traveling the U.S. on a pretty massive scale! These guys have been 20-30 years of soil health on their farming and ranching operations. But in addition to that they do gardening on a massive scale!
Dave Brandt Soil Health Consultants A True No Till Pioneer 14 acres market gardening at one time! That’s massive. Him and his wife did that, he talks about how they put that all together.
Ray Archuleta a soil extension person.
Dr. Allen Williams has a ranch in South Georgia integrating livestock in with that which will help with people who are
Homesteading as well who can take that and use that. he talks about the systems he does.
There’s two-three calls with homesteaders, including one that talks about a couple that came out 30 years ago out from Chicago!
It was pretty rough when starting out, 30 years of mistakes, they share those mistakes so people can avoid them in case people can do it or are dreaming about it.
Dreaming about it
favorites
Jerome Osentowski is actually at 7200 feet, sounds like it was a steep rocky mountainside. He’s been up there for 30 years he used to market garden as well.
He moved to Colorado moved steep rocky mountains and built this climate geenhouse thing
high tunnels
put together a climate battery system
Kalispell in a school up there.
Huh, I wonder if they did it at Olney Bisell, I’ll have to look into that?
He talks about that in his call as well, he actually grows Bananas at 7200 feet and lots of other trees and plants he grows all year round! It gets pretty cold there. It’s pretty amazing what he does! We have some things on seeds too!
Brims in Waco Texas
familiar with Bill as well. Both these people work in this heritage seed thing, bringing seeds to people!
more Bill McDorman talks about adapting seeds to area is so crucial! Looking for that seed!
You might be looking for as well. With your short growing season and you shared some things with me about growing in your shaded areas.
It might not seem so intuitive but it’s all about the seed! I certainly get that. This is adapting seed just by growing it. Bill told me I think he did a workshop somewhere around Pheonix before our call, and he sold loads and loads of seed at that workshop because he’s such an expert in that area and he knows what does best in what areas.
If you go on their website which is on the call, you can actually look at those areas that he has on that map and you can figure out where your at and what seed is reproducing in that area.
Yeah! He was a fantastic guest and he did a workshop up here and we’ve grown lots of things from his seeds we couldn’t normally. Mike get’s some short season corn adapted to the Rocky Mountains and also he grew a watermelon and cantaloupe from seeds I got from them.
You didn’t mention me!
You were the first call kind of cutting our teeth
first into the podcast
you and I have connected a lot since and just what you do in NW Montana with your husband Mike then spreading the word about organic side.
The path to
A lot of these soil experts start to focus on nutrient density and just growing good food through the summit a on a path about nutrient density of food
Dr. Allen Williams in Chico, CA Chico campfire and they were right in the middle of the episode with the campfire out there, and he said you just can’t imagine!
They had to postponed days of their workshop. But the big thing is more about where they landed down there, they were on their drive to the workshop didn’t see a bit of cover crops on a 2-21/2 hour drive didn’t see a bit of ground cover!
There’s a lot of market farming and produce grown there that is shipped all over the country for market farmers. They are talking a lot about and Allen has this farm in Georgia, it’s a ranch but the main focus is the frost health nutrient density. People need to understand
We need to feed the soil! First is to keep that Armor Layer there!
no till
Gabe Brown
Soil health Acadmey
5 principles No matter where they travel around the US or globe
If we feed the soil feeds us it feeds our our plants that natural nutrient density back do that through soil health. That’s kind of the main topic that came out of the soil health summit, we need that food to get that nutrient density back
You shared on our call how you and your husband are doing cover crops and different things, just establishing cover crops like you do and leaving them stand or breaking them off so we have that armored layer on top of the soil!
Armored layer of soil Whatever we can do to leave those living roots through growing cycle all the way in the spring all the way up until freeze up in south living roots I get really excited with people doing that because that is so
key to live a healthy lives and there’s a great source of abundance to living we can have!
I’m so glad you said that, and I just feel like its cause of my great guests like you that I have learned all this since I started my podcast. I mean I knew some things, certainly like I said, Mike’s been gardening here for 25 years now but not anywhere what I do now about soil health and nutrient density.
A lot of my listeners are going to know a lot of this, but what they might have learned is how much easier it is to do! I know a lot of my listeners are going to love this summit!
Tell them the details! They’re audio files that listeners can download, there’s the website soil health summit at tabletop farmer and they register and then they can go to the website next week and download the files or how is that all going to work?
Soil health summit First off if they go to soilhealthsummit.tabletopfarmer.com
- We will be releasing starting on December 12th, 2-3 speakers a day all until 21st
- Then on the 21st all speakers will be up on page
You register there at soilhealthsummit.tabletopfarmer.com
And then you will be sent a link to access
mix a variety a lot of fermenting
Anne Bikle
Her husband David Montgomery who was in episode 186
has a geologist
human microbes and how we need to take about those.
Along with the
The process that we are going to mix these up a bit so we don’t have all one type of person on one day.
It’s a great groups of speakers Maybe I’ll do some replays of episodes of some of the people that are going to be there! You were just on November 11, 2018 episode 253 you can listen to my interview with Steve Szudera!**
I’m excited to listen because we did that a long time ago and I want to remember what we talked about. It’s a relaxed call and there’s loads and loads of information here.
And it’s all free!
You can go to that website now and see the speakers and talkers! It’s so important I’m so excited you put this all together! People are more interested I feel like people have been asking me more to answer questions and do interviews! I’m so excited people are learning about it and getting interested! I’m starting to get more comfortable talking! I’m glad people are applying these best practices.
That’s so sad that in California they had all that land that was barren, I think that’s why Liz Carlisle wrote her book the Lentil Underground questioning if we know these are best practices why don’t we follow them? I think we might have talked about this on my call!
Traditional Farming Practices A lot of it is just traditional farming practices shadowing what we do. Unfortunately big box home improvement stores have taken the garden industry and they have made a huge business out of it. And they are not so concerned as what’s best for...
Replay of my interview with the engaging storyteller Liz Carlisle from December 2015 because she asks the important question if we know these are best farming practices why aren’t we following them?
I am very excited to introduce my guest today who has written the Lentil Underground: Renegade Farmers and the Future of Food in America, one of the best books I have read this year about some amazing Montana Farmers. A great story teller, I think you will be inspired not just by the tale of these visionary and dedicated farmers who stuck with growing organic lentils against some amazing odds, but you will also learn about how simply adding a new food like lentils to your diet can help change the world!
Liz Carlisle is a fellow at the Center for Diversified Farming Systems at the University of California, Berkeley. She holds a Ph.D. in Geography, also from Berkeley, and a B.A. from Harvard University. A native of Missoula, Montana, Carlisle is a former Legislative Aide to United States Senator Jon Tester.
Tell us a little about yourself. My name is Liz, I am originally from Montana, I didn’t grow up in a farming family but my dad had this great garden, and my grandma was a farmer and she had lost her family farm in the dust bowl. So grew up in Montana hearing these stories about why its so important to make our agriculture sustainable. So that’s how we got interested in Organic Farming, I didn’t even know it was called organics then.
Fast forward a few years, my first career was as a country singer, so I was traveling around the country, and meeting farmers from all over the place and I realized people were having some of the same problems actually my grandmother’s family had in the dust bowl with the industrialization of agriculture essentially. Using too many chemicals, and soil health was declining and farmers were seeing those problems and having other kinds of problems with the industry associated with conventional agriculture as well, so I wanted to try to be part of the solution.
I heard about Jon Tester of course when he ran for senate that made a lot of news, this organic farmer, made his ways in the halls of government. I went to work for him, so I quit my job as a country singer. And though that work, met all of the innovative farmers from around Montana. ‘Cause my job was as liaison for the state and get ideas for a policy team. I realized we had such an innovative group of or organic farmers and gardeners in Montana who took it upon themselves to find more sustainable systems and that was the inspiration for me to go back to grad school and do this book project to write the origins about the organic movement in Montana.
In case listeners don’t know or didn’t catch it, Jon Tester is our Senator from Montana and he grew up and has a huge farm in Big Sandy and is still our Senator from Montana today. So how do you go from country singer to lisason out of Washington, DC?
Well i pretty much told them the story I told you. So I quit my job as a country singer, and knew I wanted to go to work in sustainable agriculture and I came home to Montana and this position was advertised it was called legislative correspondent for department of ag and natural resources for the office of Jon Tester. I didn’t realize based in DC at first, I thought it was a position in the state and I went in for an informational interview and I was sold on the job before I realized I’d be moving back to the East Coast. I think they heard the honesty and motivations for doing it. I had a college education and I knew about writing and story telling. It just worked out, it was a great education for me in addition to the senator he had a lot of incredible Montanans, with a long history of doing natural resources collaborative work. It’s kind of like a masters degree just working in that office.
What did you end up getting your masters in?
So I went straight from that to a PhD program in Geography at UC Berkeley. What I really liked about geography was I could study both natural science and social science so I could get both of those aspects of how do we make transition to a more sustainable food system and focus on a policy angle as well as learning some of the ecology behind why do we rotate certain crops, what do we need to do to take care of water, our soil and all these resources at the heart of food system.
Who’d of thought would come out of a geography degree?
Right! We do more then maps!
So then you came in the spring and went to Timeless Seeds with David Oien?
I had met a few of these organic farmers through my work in the Tester office, they started telling me, the key to doing organics in Montana is we have these monocultures in wheat in Montana now and in order to convert them to a system that doesn’t rely on chemicals. These wheat mono-crops rely on the chemical fertility. We have to put the nitrogen back in the soil that the wheat keeps using up. So in order to go organic we need a crop that would make it’s own nitrogen.
All of the crops in the legume family do! Your listeners know organic gardening 101 you gotta to fix nitrogen! So anything in the bean family will do that. These farmers needed a crop that they could also market. And they needed a crop that worked in Montana’s climate. So they hit on lentils. I kept hearing from people that lentils are so important to be able to do organic farming in Montana.
Lentil Master And the person who taught me about lentils was … either
David Oien or somebody else who learned from David Oien. This guy who had tried this in the 80s and had built this business with some other farming friends. So what I gathered from that was I really need to meet this David Oien.
So as soon as I had done the coursework in my degree, then I drove to Conrad and interviewed him.
Do you want to tell us about that and how the interviews went, where did you go there?
Super genial guy and had a lot of info to share about his background in farming, what it had been like to how to start a business, to try to make it economically viable to grow these ecologically appropriate crops because you go from hauling your wheat in the elevator to having these lentil and nowhere necessarily to sell them. So he and his friends they had to develop their own processing and their own markets, with the idea if they did that they would be possible for other farmers to add rotations and make the transition to organic.
This was fascinating and this needs to be the focus of my dissertation project and he was kind enough to put me in touch with the network of people who grow for Timeless Seeds. This business that was started to process and market ecologically appropriacte rotation crops, mostly lentils, also chick peas and some ancient grains. Based in Ulm, Montana is where their facility is, right outside of Great Falls.
So the next summer 2012 I spent the growing season interviewing all these people who grow for Timeless Seeds. 15 current growers, and some past growers, and some researchers who collaborate. Overall I probably interviewed 45 people and getting to kind of shadow them in what they did, and get a sense for it. When the organic inspector, I would go along, I’d ride along in the combine, and get a sense of what made this kind of farming different from typical conventional wheat farming. And honestly how they all did it!
How do you start a new farming system from scratch that doesn’t have markets or research to help you think about when should I start planting this? What should the seeding rate be? and so basically came to find that in addition to developing these cooperative systems among plants, and synergies in the rotation crops, they had developed cooperative systems among people. They had figured out ways to share labor and knowledge, certainly to pool their resources to come up with processing infrastructure, so that they could actually, on a certain scale really develop a new food system in Central Montana.
Central Montana is really dry, and part of what inspired them also right in how to grow in an area where you get a lot of drought.
Exactly, rotations are a little bit of an easier puzzle if you get a lot of rainfall. The midwest has been rotating legumes for ages. They’ve been rotating soybeans into corn. They have longer growing seasons and have more rain so that was really the challenge fro the northern great plains, and for central Montana if you have 14-18 inches of rainfall you know you need a certain amount for your wheat crop it doesn’t make sense to rotate anything or you’re gonna be using up moisture that you need.
They just tried it, they looked at other dry lands around the world, and they said we think we can do these legumes, and we can do theses chick peas, these dried peas, it’ll be good to use these cover crops to keep the soil covered, rather then having a fallow year. It’s a great example, when we look at the impacts of what climate change are gonna be in different regions around the world and how we can be more resilient in our agriculture. Central Montana has a lot to offer as a region that has weathered a lot of drought and a lot of volatile weather conditions.
When we were at the AERO conference you talked a lot about if we know this can help farmers be more productive and have a better season then what are some of the challenges and why aren’t more people doing it?
So many different of categories and challenges like that gardeners will recognize this some are just plain agronomic. I’m worried I’m not gonna be able to terminate a cover crop in time, or this is not gonna fit into the other things I’m gonna plant. Some has to do with not as much research, on some of these rotations systems as we have on hybrid wheat that is managed with chemicals. We have so much research we have really dialed in that system, and we don’t have that advantage with some of these organic rotation systems.
The Social Aspect There’s kind of a social aspect as well, if you live in a rural community and it’s relatively tight knit everybody kind of knows everybody and social life is kind of based on a particular farming system. Everybody’s in the field at the time, they’re used to seeing weed free plants, only one plant, it’s going against the grain, so to speak to do something different. And that can have a lot of social consequences, maybe you use a friendship when you no longer go to the fertilizer dealer, when you’r not contracting to spray, maybe one of your neighbors starts to make comments if your lentils look a little weedy.
That was a you talked about a lot in the book, was neighbors questions what you are doing, and the weed problem.
I think that is resonate for most people who live in a farm community, it’s so visual, it’s such a public occupation, people drive right by and look at your field and they adjudicate it from the framework they have of what successful framework looks like. Diversified farming looks plain different, a diverse organic garden is gorgeous, but if it’s outside your experience and your used to seeing a precise wheat field, you might even see a crop plant and think its a weed that looks different. Plenty of people would see a lentil plant and not realize it was intentional.
Wasn’t that some of the problems they were having was they were little, and how to sort them. Lentils, I read the book over Thanksgiving and I had to give it back. They got their first contract from Trader Joe’s?
Timeless got their first contract with Trader Joe’s, that was their first big buyer, and Trader Joe’s contracted for so much volume they couldn’t buy it all in Montana and they had to bring in some additional lentils.
From Canada right?
Yes, there was a rock in the cleaning process and that’s not unusual for grain, certainly but what’s challenging for people with lentils they are lower to the ground so you can use a conventional combine, people have better luck with some of the older, just drive it a little more slowly. There are some special combine headers that are specifically for lentils, they’re called flex headers.
Another thing that’s funny about lentils compared to wheat, from a climate perspective, they have an indeterminent growth habit, which means they don’t necessarily all mature at the same time, at the same time of year or each other. It’s based on how much rainfall that they get, they grow when it rains and then they sort of pause themselves, go semi-dormant.
So it’s helpful because they can whether periods of drought, ad sort of wait for the rain they’re sort of adaptable in a way, however it makes it harder to plan for them. They sort of mature, not quite all at the same time, and not at a predictable time. So you have a week window when you can harvest them if you harvest too early they will be too green, if you are too late they’ll ripen and they will fall on the ground and you’ll lose them.
You’re kind of judging the median of your crop, because it’s not fully uniform. It takes extra knowledge, so it’s a bigger intellectual challenge for the farmer which is what excited a lot of these farmers, some felt they had hit the limit of their curiosity with the industrial system so they were able to use their brains more by incorporating more diverse crops and having to work with these ecological cycles.
Some of the other challenges if I remember were they had started small, people who had been family farming one way for years, they would start with a small thing and grew as they went.
That was a common story, somebody wanted to convert to organics, they were maybe 30s coming back to a family place and parents were still managing it and they would ask could I have some land to experiment with organics and crop locations, thinking if this pans out maybe they’ll let me do it on more fields. So that’s the way it’s happened on some of these multi-generational farms and it’s happening in Montana right now.
Do you want to tell us about some of the characters that you met?
Character is an apt term, not just in the context of a book. Certainly if you’ve ever been around Montana’s organic farming characters, or a lot of organic communities its full of characters and diverse characters, and that was one of the things that interested me in researching this story why I wanted to tell it. I think there’s this perception that organic gardeners culturally are all of a piece, were all hippies and vote for the same people and have similar liberal beliefs and politically system.
But what I found is people came to organics from really different value system, some cases from deep religious beliefs, some homeschool and devoutly christian, some people came out of the counter culture and were inspired by Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring and some participated in the marches against Vietnam, and some people very politically libertarian and their concern about the industrial food system was they wanted more independence and corporate and government power that was represented. They all came together believing if we could build a local ecologically food system and had control over our own destiny and weren’t using so many chemicals that would be the right thing.
It was the right thing for the bottom line, right thing for the health of our customers and the right things with our land. I was telling you I was at the Montana Organic Association Conference the first weekend of December, a couple of these folks who come from different backgrounds, got into this really deep question about spirituality and institutions and outside of institutional religion, and it just reminded me that the level of dialogue going on as they cooperate making organic farming possible it goes to the heart of the human experience. And in this day and age of really divided politics it’s a pretty refreshing thing.
I think Montanan’s are a special kind of person, you know. I have friends from all different spectrums, and if we can get along just about everybody can.
The Front Lines Do you want to tell us about some of the people from the farms you went to visit? Like I was excited learn about the Crabtrees by the border.
Doug and Anna Jones Crabtree literally farmer about as close to Canada as you can get without being in Canada. They are 45 minutes of Havre Montana a thriving metropolis!
Well they do have a college.
They are out there in North Havre, it’s interesting, Doug grew up on a farm, lost their family farm in the farm crisis of the 80s. Anna did not grow up on a farm. They met...
Originally published March 12, 2016 Jacqueline Freeman and I will be featured during the Soil Health Summit hosted by the TableTopFarmer starting December 12, 2018. To learn more sign up here!
Treatment-free Beekeeping relationship building treatment-free beekeeping
or now on
audible.com
If you’ve never tried audible you can get a free audio book from the Organic Gardener Podcast and audible today!
The Song of Increase by Jacqueline Freeman JACQUELINE FREEMAN is a pioneer in the emerging field of natural beekeeping. A biodynamic farmer, she is gifted in perceiving nature intelligences, particularly honeybees, and has spent many years working alongside them with an open and prayerful heart. Her work with the bees has uncovered how bees fulfill broader roles in the hive and in nature. Jacqueline teaches bee classes at her farm and honeybee sanctuary in Washington state.
The documentary movie “Queen of the Sun” showed her caring work as a gentle swarm rescuer. Her bee articles appear in national magazines and anthologies. She is a featured speaker at conferences for organic and treatment-free beekeeping, permaculture and sustainable agricultural.
In 2013, the Dominican Republic hired her to work with rural beekeepers to help them create healthy bees through respectful and treatment-free beekeeping. Jacqueline’s ongoing bee work is updated on the website: SpiritBee.com. Jacqueline and her husband Joseph live on their biodynamic farm in southwest Washington. (from amazon)
Friendly Haven Rise Farm Where Spirit and Nature Meet
Our farm is located in the tiny village (pop. 2000) of Venersborg in southwest Washington. We have beef and dairy cows, dairy goats, layers and broiler chickens, seasonal turkeys and many honey bees. The farm is a bee sanctuary with native pollinator hedgerows and blooming bee pastures.
We grow a dozen kinds of apples, grapes, berries and other fruit. We’ve got a vegetable garden and two greenhouses so we can grow food year round. We grow and bale our own hay and always have a construction project going.
Living on a working farm is a real pleasure and even when the work is hard, we feel blessed to be in partnership with this land. We work with joyful hearts and open minds in gratitude for the many lessons our good farm teaches.
Hunter Lyndon told me about today’s guest in episode 64 said ” She’s an amazing bee woman in Washington who you can watch in the video documentary movie “Queen of the Sun.””
So wonderful to hear Hunter is the one who connected us.
He’s really sweet, everyone who knows him as great things to say about him
- Tell us a little about yourself. Farming for 15 years, bought our 100 year old farm 15 years ago. Were second owners, it’s always been organic, and it was because of frugality more then a political action. Then we came in, we did not intend to become farmers, at all, that was not the direction we intended to go in at all. My husband works with horses, and I run a school for people who want to work with horses.
And that’s what we thought we’d be doing. But once we bought this farm, we bought it because we’re both from small towns in New England and we both want to move to the west, but we wanted to live in a small town again. But once we bought this farm, it’s funny
This farm wanted to put itself back together again and be a farm. I got started in chickens because one day my neighbor down the street raises heirloom chickens, Brenda, showed up at my door and said you have a farm and said you should have chickens…
I said, “Well, ok, that would be good!”
She said “Great! I have some in my car!”
And you know chickens are the gateway animal on a farm! The next year I had a friend in Portland, OR, and she had a friend who had just sold her house and had some bees in a hive in the woods behind her house, and they had been abandoned and the new owner didn’t want bees in the backyard. And she said the same thing:
“You have a farm, you should have bees!”
Never having a clue, how much that decisions would change my whole life. The next year, I started dreaming about cows …
Jacqueline and Joseph with one of their cows …
I’d wake up in the morning and say, cows in the field and cows in the barn? And so we went out and got a cow, and she became the mother to many. At the maximum we had 8. My husband just came in from milking her right now. We have seasonal animals like the turkeys, and dairy goats and my bees have turned into hundreds and thousands of honeybees.
Wow! That’s quite the introduction. Now do you have horses?
Now isn’t that funny? That’s the one animal we don’t have.
Equine Natural Movement School
When we teach people to work with horses, my husband works with them all the time, and when you teach people to work with horses, we teach people with fresh horses. That’s the reason we don’t have them here. I grew up with horses, I probably have a 30 year background with horses. But we decided not to have them here because for students, it’s actually better to always have new horses so they can tell the effect of their work.
I don’t know anything about horses. I guess, you’re training, breaking a new horse?
He does a kind of work called structural integration, on horses, and teachers people how to do it as a career. His school is called the Equine Natural Movement School. And that’s what it does, it brings horses back into balance and structure and they become more fluid in their movement and it’s easier for them to be healthy and strong and stable and sturdy. If someone shows, their horses, it helps with the grace of their movement.
I do usually start the show asking about your very first gardening experience. Were you a kid or an adult, who were you with, what did you grow? Gosh, I never had a garden when I was little. I didn’t, I lived in the country. I had ponies….
I was a little girl and I had ponies, and that’s what I was completely wrapped up. One time I planted radishes. I was so surprised that they grew at all. That was kind of an experience.
We lived up in the outskirts of Seattle for a few years, we started having gardens there and that was kind of fun. Here we put up some raised beds, we went to the local store where you can get compost soil. We had some clayish soil and we were supplementing it, we built this raised beds.
This stuff smells funny We took the truck down and filled up our beds with this nice dirt, one of the truck loads though my husband said, “This smells funny, doesn’t smell like the other stuff?”
We planted our food, and kind of forgot about it, but then things started coming up in half the beds, and yellow and curled and obviously, very damaged. And we went what the heck is that? Why is it those beds? and not in these beds? And then an article came out. a lot of the golf courses take their clippings to be made into compost, it’s just a place where you can bring your branches, and leaves and grass clipping and they turn them into compost… they sell the soil, compost, three way soil.
It turned out there was a chemical that the golf course that doesn’t have a short half life, it had a 2 year break down period!
So when that refuse was broke down into compostable material, the chemicals the toxic chemicals in it were still active. So we had picked up a truck full of contaminated soil/ It was a heart breaker and there farms who were organic around her and they lost their certification and now they had toxic chemicals on their stories and they had to go back and start all over from the beginning!
Clean and re-certify! I was furious! Wait a minute I’m growing stuff in my backyard!
We were furious!! We were not that strong about organics back then … I really wasn’t buying organic food at that point, I didn’t know enough about it! That politicalized us! I was so mad, I thought here I am growing food in my backyard. If it had it grown and we had eaten it… terrible chemical and none …. it was awful … none of the helpful bugs were alive…
We need to be really on top of this. How can we trust what we’re buying in the store? Up until then we had bought conventional food without even thinking about it. From that point on everything I bought, if I pick up something that it has 98% I’m like what’s in the 2%? Toxic chemicals?!
organic I don’t want to support
we had to dig it all out! We took it to the dump, that’s trash dirt …
It’s got to sit there for 2 full years because it’s clean… compost can dismantle a lot of chemicals, when something has that long of a half life … you have to wait it out, mother nature is brilliant about how to dismantle things.
I knowJon Moore from the Organic World News over in Australia talked about golf courses when he we son my show! I’ve seen what manure’s done on our land, we’ve gone from forest land, I know mowing the lawn but we sprinkled just manure around and I know that makes a big difference. We have a beautiful lawn and I’m just as nice as a golf course. I’ve brought some stuff home from the big box stores that said it was organic Mike wouldn’t put it on his stuff, he said he’d bought it before and it killed some of his plants. And also Peggy Jane Ousley was on my show and talked about a lot of people around here getting weed-free manure, which you would think, “Free” is chemical free” but really what it means is it has chemicals that make it weed-free and it ruined a lot of gardens …
Weed free Manure The marketers know what to write, oh weed-free that sounds good, I don’t want any weeds in my garden. So you have to step back and go, “How would it get to be weed free?”
We’re also biodynamic by the way, a few years after we started being organic, we got into permaculture and loved that and then maybe 2 years after that we started getting into being biodynamic. We have cows. I read that a cow makes 80 lbs of manure a day! And I can believe that. 80-100 lbs depending on the size of the cow. So we make a great deal of compost!
Biodynamic I had this weird thing that happened one time … we put in a big septic system … past the septic/ From the septic to the leach field it was probably about 300 feet … when they buried that ditch back in there was a big long scar of red clay … towards fall … I had some women who were interning with us, I said lets spread some compost over it, I have this truck load here with biodynamic compost, it’s very potent you only need to sprinkle a half an inch. So we spread it out along the … we ran out of the compost maybe a hundred feet short of the leach file. That’s enough we; pick up again next spring when we’ll make some more … the stripe that we had sprinkled the compost….
It found every single flower seed in the soil. It was like some of these seeds probably been waiting 40 years to have something nurturing come and find them. It was so beautiful we had evening primrose, and asters, all kinds of beautiful flowers, all along this stripe going down the middle of the house … red clay scar with almost nothing growing on it.
I’m gonna leave this here and we can watch and see how long nature takes to bring it back. It’s probably been about 3 years and pits spotted then where we put the compost on and compare it to where we put the biodynamic compost on … what a difference … except that skinny little half inch of that biodynamic compost on top of that red scar of clay. When you dig up a ditch … when you put that dirt in that ditch you don’t have that layer of top soil there anymore.
Whatever was down further in my clay … it’s good soil with lots of minerals, it’s not loamy and rich like the bottom land is that is down form us.
Do you want to explain to listeners what biodynamics is because I did’ there that till I started my podcast and maybe listeners don’t know because I still don’t know much… Biodynamics is a really beautiful system started by Rudolph Steiner who was a scientist and a philosopher. The thing that appealed to me about it is, the approach that we have on the farm, this goes if you have a backyard or a little house you treat everything as if it was a living breathing entity.
I did something biodynamic, I was dreaming about cows. And I was wondering about that, its the farm telling us we should have cows here again. That’s reaction is kind of what you do in biodynamics. How do you respect your land? How do you act in concordance with it? How do you bring this land to its’ fullest expression of life and vitality?
Like bringing the cows, to making the compost to … you treat it in love and with respect and you are always respectful of the spirit of everything. I’m not a normal biodynamic farmer, I’ll just say that upfront because I have some quirky little things, I do just because I do them just because I’m me…my girlfriend Patti who also has a biodynamic farm, says “You’re not a farmer…you did up your weeds and you go plant them somewhere else and farmers don’t do that.”
What I’m resounding to is sometimes I’ll see something in the garden coming up and I’ll go that is the most beautiful vital oh, what weed would be a good example, let’s say a dandelion? … That is the most beautiful mound of dandelion or chickweed! or something, I’ll dig it up and I don’t want to just plant it on my compost pile, I’ll say keep growing…
It makes it so much fun to interact with the life on the farm in that manner. My husband is like that with animals on the farm, he has such a tremendous respect for what their needs are. How to interact with them that your are always honoring the life spirit in that animal?
Now Rudolph Steiner is from the Waldorf schools right? He started Waldorf schools, he had the first concept for the first CSA’s for people who didn’t have gardens in their backyards, so they would participate with the famers gardening …. with their hands a little bit, and they would have more of an understanding of how their food was, it was more participatory, some CSAs still do that, they will have a farm day, where everyone comes out, others are more where the works is done and you just trust that it’s being done well, you don’t really get your fingers dirty.
He was just amazing, anthropocropic medicine, eureitimie … just really brilliant, different kinds of psychotherapy, everything he looked at he seemed to have animate understanding of the harmony in all of life he worked to bring that out … biodynamic agriculture was something that came along from working along side farmers that were not being as productive as they could be.
Just as a coincidence I grew up when my mom’s backyard backed up against a Waldorf school, and there was the school and then the soccer field with a d a track around it and then it was surrounded by a nature trail, and I think that always influenced my life having that school and nature trail back...
Here’s my interview on the High Energy Girl Podcast! where I talk about earth friendly practices, growing organic nutrient dense food, and living sustainably. Tracee: Hi Jackie! So excited to talk with you today!
Thanks for having me Tracee!!!!
Well I think we have a lot in common I can’t wait for listeners to hear from you! Why don’t you tell them a little bit about yourself!
My name is Jackie Marie Beyer and my husband Mike and I have a property in NW Montana and he’s a gardener so I started a podcast called the Organic Gardener Podcast, we’re just about to celebrate 4 years our anniversary we launched on January 29, 2015 I just posted episode 254?
Organic Gardener Podcast I think, with interviews I’ve done with market farmers, backyard gardeners, sustainable agriculture experts, nutritionists and all sorts of people about the conversation all about growing healthy nutrient dense food.
My husband and I are just dedicated to helping people create their own organic oasis. Whether you want to grow, or are just interested in landscaping.
Organic Lawn Care I have gotten so many questions this summer especially on how to grow an organic yard! You know people really interested in just being more…
One of the things I’ve learned from my podcast is your yard is one of the biggest places you don’t want chemicals! Cause where do
- babies learn to crawl
- toddlers and kids run around
- dogs run around
So I’ve gotten a ton of questions about that this summer, and then he has what I call the
Minifarm that he planted, so our goal is to grow as much produce as we can possibly grow for us for our family and if we can eventually get to be market farmers down the line, IDK or we’re not there yet, we have limited water resources. We just keep learning.
IDK if I said in the pre-chat, but we’ve been married 25 years so we’ve been slowly building. We started out the first 6 years I was here we didn’t have running water and just we would have like 2 little tiny beds, I’ve just really we’ve come a long way and we are dedicated to helping people create their own organic oasis.
Whether it’s small just growing a tomato plant or some herbs for your food, or growing a bigger place and maybe even starting to sell for market.
Where are you located? We’re in the Northwest corner of Montana in the Rocky Mountains. We’re about 7 miles south of the Canadian border in Montana. We have a pretty short growing season so we’ve learned a lot of techniques to extend our season, but one of the benefits I’ve learned after talking to my guests it’s actually a lot easier for us to grow then in the south because because they have a lot more bug and pest problems.
Benefits to growing your own healthy food So everybody has their challenges, the north east had a lot of rain problems the last few years, and just as our climate is changing gardening is really changing. The benefits to growing your own healthy food that
- has more nutrients in it
- you are eating fresh
- grown locally
are just gigantic!
From brown thumb to green thumb! I used to say I had brown thumb and I could barely keep a basil plant or a geranium alive and I have learned to grow a ton! I think that is part of what makes my show a success! Is my guests are amazing and it just really produces! I was telling you I am not known for my sand but the quality of the content that is shared we have all learned so much from!
We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!
Garden Friends and Connections And the friends that I have made! Even people that live a mile from me and then people from the other side of the world, in my Facebook group we have people from Kenya and Australia! And lots of different places, I’ve met so many local people.
That’s one of the things I love about podcasting you meet so many people that are like minded! We have this thing here called a seed fair and seed swap and there are so many seeds given out and classes taught and I’ve made so many friends there that I’ll eventually we’ll go hiking together or work in different gardens or go to the movies together or one friend and I went to an agriculture workshop and she drove me through Glacier National Park!
Last year I grew up in NY, so when I went to visit my mom I met many of my guests in person. It was so cool, I talked to ANASTASIA COLE PLAKIAS author of The Farm on the Roof: What Brooklyn Grange Taught Us about Entrepreneurship, Community, and Growing a Sustainable Business!
Anna Peach from episode 105 said she learned a lot of her techniques volunteering at the Brooklyn Grange.
Aiden Finney at Young’s Farm on Long Island
So, what brought you to gardening? Did you have a health issue at one point? It’s kind of funny, a lot of my guests agree with this and my mom is always like how did you end up with a gardening podcast?
Because I am not really a big gardener, like I said my husband does most of the garden work but I love vegetables! I’ve always eating a ton of vegetables, I’m really big on eating super health food!
Then my husband’s always been a gardener, his mom had big gardens and my mom had big gardens and she was always an educator and passionate about teaching people about organic gardening. She tried to get me to garden. But people laugh a lot, but I don’t like to do what I call
Dirty gardening jobs as I call them. But like you, I almost always have a full time job, and unless I’m going down to the garden on garden days, because one thing I do like to do is dig new beds.
Garden Barriers IDK why, maybe because my trade by college is I am an elementary school teacher, and also like weeding just reminds me of cleaning the blackboard. So I do like to do that job, but that’s like the day I have my garden shoes on, have my garden jeans on, I don’t care about getting dirty, but when I come home from school I am not necessarily wanting to get all dirty and start picking tomatoes or weeding.
One of my biggest barriers is having the right garden shoes
Which my listeners are not like that they are more likely to be like, I’m gonna run down there and be barefoot and be out there all day! My husband and I are just passionate environmentalists, we’re really passionate about eating healthy food and growing locally and he is an amazing gardener! The things that he can do.
It’s kind of interesting since I started my podcast I pay more attention to what he does and we share the things we have learned from the other gardeners. IDK my passion really comes from loving to eat healthy food and the environmentalist in me, caring about our planet! If you are gonna have a garden hoping you’re gonna go the organic way and trying to teach people there are lots of options besides the first time you see a bug growing and grabbing a bottle of pesticides.
Creating a whole environment like I said in the beginning, like my brother is in NY and he has been one of my most downloaded episodes because him and his wife don’t grow any vegetables they just are both busy and they have kids and both work so the big things he talked about was composting in the summer and then growing herbs and fruit trees and their lawn really.
They don’t grow, like my husband grows 100s of pounds of potatoes and cans 100s of jars of green beans and as much food as he can. We’re totally on opposite sides of the spectrum. So different things you can do if you have landscapers giving them options so they are not spraying your yard.
Tracee: So my husband is a landscape Contractor and he has a division called Green Streak Organic where he does an organic ground management for his clients so they can spray herbicide and fertilizer and all of that but it’s healthy. He does this combination that kills pests but it fertilizes at the same time and it’s all organic.
I’d love to talk to him sometime.
Farmscaping Tracee: We should come on together because I look at it from the health perspective he just looks at it from the business side. But one thing I would like him to do instead of landscaping call it farmscaping.
Oh yeah!
Tracee: Like instead of planting things that are just gonna sit there and suck up water, what if you plant things that are actually gonna feed your family.
Sure! Or a big one is bringing in the pollinators. There are so many beautiful herbs and perennials you can plant that if you are busy, or especially a lot of my listeners are in California where they have access to farmer’s markets or fresh produce is growing food for the pollinators!
Food for bees and pollinators, flowers for them or having a fruit tree there. One of the things I’ve been amazed with is, so we dug a 560 foot well here I think in 2013, so just 5 years ago, so we were able to put in an orchard and how much food we get from the fruit trees!
Our cherries are sour cherries, but it feeds the birds and the bees in the spring! The butterflies that it brings in are incredible! It’s just worth it to have those trees! Cause that might be something else to think about, your husband might want to talk about with his clients is having those native plants for the beneficial insects.
Native Plant Landscaping A lot of my guests have talked about, this one guest that I had lives in this town with 100,000 people and they have a beautiful yard people are constantly stopping by to admire it! But they never water their yard, the only water they use for irrigation is for a small vegetable bed, because they have access to healthy food and a good farmer’s market in their community they grow a lot of specialty foods like hot peppers but that take little water. They have this beautiful native landscaping that doesn’t require any watering! I think they save some rain water because they are using native plants in a fairly dry climate.
Native Plant Societies Most places will have a Native Plant Society like Native Plants in Arizona or New York. You can access to native seeds or plants or transplants!
Tracee: So if you were to offer someone advice on how to get started with gardening, what do you like teach people on how to at least make step one. So, I always tell people
Start Small in Your Garden and think about what do you like to eat. Don’t just grow something because those plants are in the store or the nursery when you are going to plant something.
Think about what is it you like to eat? You know a basil plant in your windowsill is one of the easiest thing to keep alive. If you like to put herbs or spices in your food that’s a great place to start. I also say I think my mom would grow more vegetables, it would be easier for people if they have a deep bed they can sit on the edge when they plant, harvest, weed! It makes all the difference in the world!
It’s so much more convenient! It’s gonna make it less work! To do all those things, you don’t need a big edge, I like to have one bed that’s hip high and a longer bed that’s not that high. For me
Convenience is key Sitting on the edge of a bed makes it convenient! And then grow something you like to eat!
Tracee: We have 80 fruit trees! Oh my goodness!
Tracee: I know it’s crazy! But we planted the ones we like to eat! But what you said earlier about the birds get the cherries! It’s so true! We never get the berries, the birds just when they’re perfect!
I don’t mind feeding the birds they’re good for the yard! The trees provide blooms in the spring for the beneficials and shade in the summer! And the apple trees and others are just so...
It is election day and I’m excited to have a guest here to talk about Bee-Friendly Gardening and Bee-Friendly Practices and sustainability! from GloryBee in Eugene Oregon here’s Shandy Carroll!
It is election day and I have my mail in ballot in my purse and I’m excited to where my sticker the rest of the day!
Tell me about your first gardening experience? I actually grew up in New Zealand, apparently my sentence structure is British Colony, which I really don’t know what that means. So, I grew up in New Zealand in a fairly rural part in a town known for it’s diving and fishing. I grew up in a nice area with a great big garden and a view of the ocean!
The great thing about that spot was we could grow whatever we wanted! It’s pretty temperate located at 34º south on the coast
- tomatoes
- carrots
- lettuce
- kale
All these things meant my mother didn’t have to drive 30 minutes into the supermarket too often.
We had a really fun kitchen garden! So that was my first experience with it!
I live in an apartment now my garden is some basil that is quite sad and some succulents that are doing pretty well because I can ignore them!
I admire folks who are able to garden and my neighbors who have an amazing garden on their balcony.
Sound issues of restaurant?
Tell us about Glory Bee ! Glory Bee is a family owned company in Eugene OR it’s been in business since 1976. I have worked there for the last five years as the sustainability manager!
The main products are natural food ingredients
- 30% of honey
- nuts grains
- flours
- sweeteners like agave and molasses
once a year we bring in bees
We have a partner who is a bee breeder. We have a a whole big event
introduce our customers to bees and their hives. We have a whole education piece.
Anyone can come that wants to learn about bees, they don’t hae to be getting bees to attend right?
sell NUCs and hives
and educational events
Yes, anybody can come to the event It is in Eugene Oregon.
we have food trucks and music
Try to have lots of vendors that can talk about bee-friendly practices and bee friendly gardening!
bee friendly practices for folks like myself where I don’t have a garden, I do live in an apartment complex. So I don’t have a garden so the easiest thing is to do is
Have a side conversation with the property manager make sure that we are not putting harmful pesticides on the flowers. That’s important to because I have a pet and friends that come to visit so I don’t want pesticides sprayed around my home.
products that are pollinated by bees are best to be organic for the bees. So sometimes that’s really easy to do. Where I live avocados that are pollinated by the bees.
organic avocados cost like 10¢ organic almonds
What about bees and almonds? My husband is always concerned about the water with almond trees that they require and the droughts in California.
I know, that’s concerning
I live in California, I’ve seen they’ve had to pull out almond plantations because there isn’t enough water for that agriculture sometimes.
They’ve put in a lot of really friendly water saving practices so most of the existing almond farms have drip irrigations that’s because the price of water is going up so it makes business sense for those farms to put in those practices.
Sometimes that is an excuse for people to eat cheese and not almonds, but the amount of water that goes into producing the amount of a pound of almonds vs a pound of meat it’s disproportional the amount of water needed to produce a pound of meat.
it’s interesting to get hung up on the popular boogie man
the big picture we do need to eat locally as close to your home as possible and as much plants and vegetables as possible.
That’s the biggest environmental impact we can make! Well, we don’t have almonds in Montana, so that’s part of why I go back and forth thinking like would it be better for me to have a local cow. My mom’s been buying goat cheese in NY from Bozeman, MT
So what other gardening tips do you have to share?
If you have a garden onsite if you can do some good things with the bees.
Keep a look our for any sort of pesticide that has a neonicatinoid It’s best to avoid it completely!
Lots of states are passing legislation that clearly says that on the label that it’s harmful to bees.
That’s the main ingredient
what it does it gets the bees excited
sugary candy
eat some other pollen and get some diversity in their diet
Just like anybody that easts too much sugar would slowly die so it’s best to
avoid Neonicotinoids If there are other insecticides that you have to use them do it when there are
no flowers
if you have to use them when there are flowers * at night * not on the flowers * really topical applications
What does that mean really topical applications?
I think that means you spray on the dirt and not on the flower.
bugs on the leaf
make sure you keep it off the flowers
most folks are happy in their own gardens to avoid those pesticides that will harm the bees in anyway.
Find a different way to keep pests out of your gardens like * essential oils * coffee grounds
How about ways to encourage bees to grow in your garden? That’s the really fun way of bee friendly gardening is having flowers throughout the season.
Planting gardens that will flower and attract bees was starting as early in the season as possible or late
Especially where it gets cold in the winter is giving those bees a really good pollen source! All season long! Through late summer
I’m not an expert on what flowers all season long but I know a lot of herbs come on early and then the seasonal flowering fruits and vegetables that come on late on the season.
That’s true my chives are some of the first that come on and then the dandelions and then my oregano and what I love about herbs is that they usually take care of themselves, they’re easy to grow and they are perennials.
At least for me. I was talking to someone the other day in California who said it was so dry it was hard to keep herbs growing and that she had a lot of succulents like you.
I think the bees visit the succulents but they are not as in to them as other more colorful plants.
Bees seem to love * lavender * sunflowers * different more colorful
I can’t tell if some of them do, they have such a microclimate IDK if it’s so hot on my porch IDK if that’s why they bloomed
I do, her name is Nell Foster who I talked to at the beginning, her website is Joyous Garden, she is really active on twitter from Santa Barbara. My mom has like a million succulents, the last time I was in NY she has as many plants indoors as outside. I have to say, I felt like the air in her house was cleaner because of her plants.
I love them but I have trouble keeping them alive, they take a little more concentration then I give them.
Do you want to talk more about Glory Bee and their products. Im the sustainability manager so their products are available on line.
the things I’m really excited about Glory Bee is they’re a family company they get to act independently. They can really act, the management can decide to do things like
Save the Bee Program is a social initiatives program stated at Glory Bee, started in 2012
it’s our way of trying to help prevent colony collapse disorder and save honey bees.
It started because our founder is a beekeeper, he had up to 300 hives when he started.
Then, as the company grew he stopped keeping hives, he put his effort into the company and now his son who is our current president.
They’re expert bee keepers but they still lose about 1/2 their hives and they are so upset by this.
It’s really upsetting in the spring to go out and find half your hives are gone
What can we do to save bees? * what is the best way we can save the bees * fund research * outreach and education – particularly for part time beekeepers and backyard gardeners * support any kind of legislation that makes a lot of sense * like putting labels on privately available that harm bees
So people know what they are spraying in their homes.
So putting labels on products that are available that harm bees. What other legislation else makes sense?
That’s the main one, there’s other legislation that supports backyard gardener and small holder farms in the US. There’s also like beekeeping as a business it’s important and write letters towards.
Its hard to be a beekeeper in the U.S. It’s important because most of our honey has to be imported from overseas which is harmful to the environment and it’s also kind of a bummer because beekeeping is this incredible American tradition and then when folks
lose 1/2 their hives
Why are people losing their hives, is it because of all the pesticides we’re putting on the planet? I mean they didn’t used to lose 1/2 their hives right?
it’s between
- commercial beekeeper will lose about 35% of their hives some are less and more
- backyard beekeeper will lose 50%
part of the reason is around the learning curve
if you’re new on the learning curve you’re more likely to lose a hive, that’s just being really familiar with the bees
that baseline 35% of really experienced beekeepers are sill loosing their hives
The bees are visiting these neonictanoid crops with pesticides on them, is getting the bees focused on one different pollen not getting their nutritional needs met from lots of different pollens, they’re not coming back to the hive and being really strong because they’re eaten lots of different pollens. They have just been going to the one’s with the neonicatinoids that are the ones that tastes really good so it’s basically like feeding bees junk food so they are not as healthy going into the winter.
The same goes for mono cropping It’s the same problem with the almond populations and plantations in CA the bees are only visiting almonds and are not getting some other protein mixed in there from different pollen, they go into the winter weaker less able to survive!
Anything else you want to tell us about the sustainability part? one more thing that I think is just awesome
First of all, I want to send lots of love and prayers to all of my listeners in California who are suffering from fires and smoke. You have no idea how much you have been in my prayers.
Growing Berries and Fruit Trees in the Pacific Northwest: How to Grow Abundant, Organic Fruit in Your Backyard
I’m excited to do an interview today with Tara Austen Weaver who has written all of these cool books! She even sent me a copy of her newest book that is going to be released this spring
Compost Infographic from the Organic Gardener Podcast and Free Garden Course
I created this simple little infographic to go with the Free Organic Garden Course Workbook to be released ASAP! It’s about 120 pages full of golden seeds from my guests and what we’ve done and I know you’re gonna love it!
What do you think of our first infographic?
I have been amazed at the progress I have finally made this week on the Free Organic Garden Course! It’s funny how it’s all finally coming together, we’re in the homestretch and I can feel the light at the end of this very long yearlong journey to create the course from idea to completion!
I know it’s taken me a while but I think you are going to find thanks to Amy Porterfield’s amazing guidance the finished product is going to far superior to the current website. Thanks so much to all of you who have shared your stories with me this last year, I feel like I know you all so much better.
I also made this cute little listener/guest avatar page to think about whenever I am working on it! Thanks so much for sharing your journeys all you amazing guests and gardeners!
I think you are also going to love the addition of the hardcopy workbook I finally got a basic outline uploaded to create space that will tie it altogether get ready to make 2019 your best garden year ever!
Also if you know anyone from any of these states I am always looking for guests! 1. ~~Alabama~~ 2. Alaska 3. ~~Arkansas~~ 4. Connecticut 5. Delaware 6. Iowa 7. Kansas 8. Louisiana 9. ~~Maryland~~ 10. Mississippi 11. ~~Missouri~~ 12. Nebraska 13. Nevada 14. New Hampshire 15. ~~New Mexico~~ 16. ~~North Carolina~~ 17. ~~North Dakota~~ 18. ~~Oklahoma~~ 19. Rhode Island 20. ~~South Carolina~~ 21. West Virginia
To learn more please visit our website at the organicgardenerpodcast.com
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If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
and don’t forget if you need help getting started check out our new
Free Garden Course.com
Free Organic Garden Course Remember you can get the 2018 Garden Journal and Data Keeper to record your garden goals in our
You can download the first 30 days here while you’re waiting for it to come in the mail.
and remember we’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!
If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
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Originally publish April 30, 2015 and replayed on August 12, 2017. But always great advice and a top downloaded episode. New today for PRN.fm listeners!
Farmer’s Markets and Garlic Growing Kathi O’Leary shares her passion for gardening, her amazing knowledge gained over 35 years, and valuable tips to make your gardening journey successful! She’s grown garlic for private clients, sold starts at the farmer’s markets, and grafted fruit trees for her own orchard. Living in the Rocky Mountains, Kathi shares her experiences of living off the grid, hauling water, and growing a garden close to the earth.
Tell us a little about yourself. In 1978, my late husband and I moved onto 20 acres in the woods in North Idaho. I was 21 so I had a lot of energy. It was a basic piece of ground, I started gardening the following spring. I was digging rocks out by hand, and building a deer fence, we had no running water or electricity so I hauled water from a nearby creek. Over the years the garden got bigger, I planted fruit trees every year, many of which I grafted, then I got a small greenhouse, and then I would sell starts and extra produce I had at farmers market.
So I started growing garlic, I like garlic, over the years built a bigger greenhouse, eventually I basically just sold to friends, and private clientele.
Hauled water from the creek, and had a gravity feed system into the garden. Early in the spring I couldn’t get to the creek, so I would melt snow in early March.
Last few years I have been living in Trego, MT but still have my place in ID. I still grow my garlic back there, and am experimenting growing things that don’t need attended too much, and my fruits trees have to make it on their own.
The elevation in Idaho is about 2800’ and here it’s about 3200’. It’s a lot colder here. Season here is a bit more extreme. Hotter and dryer in the summer but short, and much colder in the winter and early spring.
Have really scaled down to a 4x4x12 foot cold box and a fruit trees and building a greenhouse that should be operating in a couple.
Tell me about your first gardening experience? Grew up in Washington State and Central coastal California, Santa Maria area. Moved up to Sierras and lived there for a couple of years. Always wanted to live in the mountains and grow a garden ever since I was a little kid or become a street musician in San Francisco. Lots of instruments, harps, guitars, accordions, ukuleles .
Have always loved working with plants. Probably my biggest first start was my grandmother. She always had a vegetable garden in Issaquah WA, my mother grew plants but more flowers and berries.
What does organic gardening/earth friendly mean to you? Nurturing the soil. That’s the most important part of organic gardening. The health of the soil and nurturing that.
Who or what inspired you to start using organic techniques? I don’t know who inspired me. I’m not certain my grandmother grew organically, it was never a question to me to not use chemicals, it seemed natural to grow things without the use of herbicides or pesticides. Just something I felt very moved personally to do.
How did you learn how to garden organically? First winter in Id, moved on our land in November which is kinda silly, but we were young and it all worked out fine.
That first winter I read, I read, and I read. I read a lot of Rodale publications, checked books out of the library, had a subscription to Organic Gardening magazine, wrote a lot of notes about the things I read, and started a strategy about the garden for the spring.
I also met a woman about 7 miles away who had been living there for quite some time and she shared a lot of info about different varieties of what would grow well there and shared her experiences. And of course, the long slow process of years of mistakes and successes, that is the most valuable experience.
Tell us about something that grew well last season. Had the best crop of fruit on my trees that I ever did. Much to do with the season, some of the trees are 35+ years older. Huge crop of apples and pears and plums in my garden in ID. I had also planted a few other things that I wasn’t tending to. I broadcast seeded some kale early in the spring. Whenever I was there I would water and pick, I had a great crop of kale which is a fairly easy crop to grow, and I also had a good garlic harvest.
For about 10 years I worked at a tree nursery. We would graft seedlings there during 2-3 months in the winter. I decided to buy some root stock. Most fruit trees have a really hardy root stock. Super hardy but doesn’t necessarily have a lot of fruit.
Slice off the small seedling, up a few inches 8” or so, do another slice on a cutting off of a tree that has really good fruit, then you wrap them together. You can wrap them together with electrical tape, at the nursery we would use tree rubbers – kinda flat like a rubber band and you could wrap it around the tree and someone would put wax on it to keep air away from the two pieces. Grafting in a field usually doesn’t take as well because you have elements, cold, air, wet. But I had really good take on the apples that I grafted, and they have been producing really well for a while now. Unfortunately can’t remember what varieties, probably have some notes somewhere.
Purpose is to have a hardy root stock, that will live these cold Northern winters but then you have a good variety. Some are Macintosh, which are a nice fall apple, some nice yellow transparents that are an early summer apple, that don’t keep as well, and then several other varieties. Most of the ones I experimented with did take.
Is there something you would do different next year or want to try/new? Here in Trego where I have running water and electricity. We tried to do an automatic sprinkler, drip system on the cold box last year. This year I have the opportunity to do a bit of traveling after staying put for 35+ years, and pursue my music a bit more. So the automatic drip system is what I am excited to try.
Tried a lot of things in ID where we had gravity. What worked best for me, which was not the most efficient for time, but was hand held watering. I paid attention to what needed water. Because I tried using drip irrigation, but the water just kept getting clogged up, and I tried a filter, which would get clogged. And just kept coming back to just standing there with the hose. But not a bad way to start the day.
Tell me about something that didn’t work so well last season. Automatic Sprinkler system that we’re gonna sort out this year.
Something that you find is easy to grow and is generally successful every-time. Early spring greens, as soon as the ground can be worked, things like mustard, arugala, and lettuce, and peas, and radishes. A lot of times I plant that I like to use the row cover, Agribon or Reemay. Like Johnnies seeds out of Maine would sell this. I had a friend who was a market gardener in Moise Springs and she would buy it in bulk and I could buy a row’s worth.
I don’t know what the fabric is, it’s like a spun polypropylene and it allows moisture and air to flow through, and protects till about 5 degrees, and it’s really handy in the early part of the season and the late part of the season. You can plant things as soon as you can. Plant the row cover over it. They come up through the holes. People used to use plastic but this fabric is wonderful. You have to use rocks to keep it down or put it over pvc.
I have grown peppers like that for the major part of the season. I would grow those a lot, because others couldn’t grow those, I would grow tons of hot peppers and protect.
If you wait to long when the weather turns hot, they will bolt and go to seed.
Something you would steer new gardeners away from that you find is typically challenging to grow in your climate. In this northern climate, anything that requires a warm season and warm nights like watermelons or okra. If you want to play around with it it’s ok, but don’t plan on having a crop, especially something like okra that requires warm nights. The way you find these things out is from the seed packets or talking to local gardeners. If there’s a vegetable you really love, you might want to find out first if it’s really seasonable to grow in your area.
Also, don’t plant the tender plants too soon. It starts getting warm and people get excited and run out and plant and then in 2 weeks it gets cold and they die. If they make it through some cold conditions they end up being stunted and not happy, and if you plant later they end up surpassing the ones you’ve gotten in early in the end anyway. Stay calm! In this area or Northern Idaho! Wait until the end of May or early June.
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The Market Gardener If you’ve never tried audible you can get a free audio book from the Organic Gardener Podcast and audible today! Let’s Get to the Root of Things! Which activity is your least favorite activity to do in the garden.
Pulling quack crass. It has these rhizomes that just go on and on, and if you leave a tiny piece it grows. One year I was so determined to find something useful with this tenacious weed, and I had some really long rhizomes, so I actually tried to use them as string but they dried out.
When I did have a really big garden in Idaho, the fall clean up after the frost, was necessary but not my favorite thing to do, especially after the frost things start getting slimy. I would wait for snow so I could quit working.
Here in Trego, with smaller situation and learning what the problems are here the most difficult is trying to keep the Canada Thistle back and trying to protect everything from the ground squirrels.
What is your favorite activity to do in the garden.
Setting in transplants. I would grow my own starts. I would harden them off, which means bringing them in and out of the greenhouse and getting them used to the weather. Then setting in the garden, and all these places that were bare and then there’s like instant garden at the end of the day.
Tell us about the best crop you ever grew.
Last year’s fruit harvest.
As for crops of vegetables, one of my varieties of garlic called northern white, very consistent every years, also a hot pepper – Louisiana hot also called Arledge hot, very prolific, tons of hot peppers, about the size of a jalapeño or bigger, beautiful compact plants loaded with peppers.
What is the best gardening advice you have ever received?
Notion of succession planting. Really useful in these shorter growing areas. Not really companion planting. Planting say radishes, that are going to grow fast and then they are going to get out of there, and then plant something else that is going to grow longer and be there the whole season like kale next to the radishes, something in succession that would be out of the ground before it crowds. In wide beds that something that’s easy to do instead of rows.
Another tip from a Mennonite farmer out of Bonner’s Ferry that has to do with tomatoes, in this climate it’s challenging to get ripe tomatoes on the vine, but if you stop watering in August it kind of forces the tomatoes to. Would cut back a little, and then by mid August pretty much stop.
Have you ever entered a fair? How’d that go?
No, too busy.
A favorite tool that you like to use? If you had to move and could only take one tool with you what would it be.
Practical but very sentimental. Little three pronged sort of rakey thing that was “Me grandmother’s claw” looks like a 3-fingered claw. I would always freak out if I left it in the garden.
Eating or harvesting vegetables or fruit on time?
Everything is a little different and the requirements are different for when they’re ready to harvest. If you have apple trees, they start falling on the ground that’s an indication that they’re ready. If you’re super busy you can let some fall and then you can use the ones that fall for apple sauce. If you want to pick at prime when you start seeing apples start to fall. I hold onto an apple if it bends on stem and it comes off easy it’s ready. Same with pears. If you cut them in half and the seeds are brown it’s ready. If the seeds are not brown yet they are not ready.
Yellow transparent apples are very susceptible to going bad fast, they will start rotting on the ground right away. They are really good for pies or apple sauce.
Do you have any secrets for preserving food-making it last?
Have done a lot of canning, freezing, pickling, and storage. When you’re gonna can and pickle, it’s best to pick them when they’re ripe and put them up right away. Don’t pick one day and then can 2 days later. Product will be so much better if you pick em and put em up right away.
Garlic: For harvesting garlic, usually planted in the fall before the ground freezes. You can plant it in spring but you won’t get as big of bulbs and you’ll have a later harvest.
Planting garlic in the fall, gets early start in the spring, it ripens and is ready to harvest late July and mid-August, and you need dry warm weather to cure, so if you plant in spring it won’t be dry and hot enough in fall to cure. Some people like to let plant dry out and fall over. Leaves represent the bulb wrappers, if you have all dead leaves, all the bulb wrappers will be gone, need the bulb wrappers for storage. Each green leaf is a bulb wrapper.
Want to harvest when it has 4-5 green leaves left. If you’re new to this, you might want to dig around and make sure it is formed into the ball, and wait till you have 4-5 green leaves. You don’t want to water after July if it was planted in fall. I never water garlic crop, winter snow does a lot when it melts. Nice crop which doesn’t need me there staring at it. When you pull it you want to lay it on screens or hang it in bundles of 8-10 in a shaded ventilated area outside. Don’t expose it to the sun. Roots will absorb more moisture then the leaves will when curing. Start clipping the roots off in the summer.
Onions. When you’re growing onions, it’s the same thing, they will be done later at the end of August, so you want to quit watering them at the beginning of August. When they start to fall over you want to let them sit in the garden for a couple of days, and then you can pull them. I put onions on racks in a well ventilated shaded are like you would for the garlic. Make sure you don’t clip the tops off before they are completely dry, otherwise they could get rot in the onion in storage.
Potatoes. Vines have to be completely dead. If it’s getting super hot into the 80s+ its gonna get too hot.
Carrots. What I like to do when I keep carrots I grow them in a wide bed, which is more efficient for space. In the fall mulch with some nice dry straw or leaves, or plastic, drive a stake into the front of the row you’l know where it is. If you don’t have ground squirrels, you can leave them in the ground and dig through the snow and dig 2 weeks worth of carrots at a time. They are just so fresh, and sweet when they’ve gotten cold. If you have a nice layer of mulch, the edges might freeze a little, but they shouldn’t freeze.
What do you mean by a wide bed? Instead of old fashion long beds with one row of carrots or one row of lettuce plant take about a 3 foot wide area, something that’s easy to reach from both ends and then plant in that. For carrots instead of doing long rows of carrots in wide beds, I do short rows of carrots across the width. So you have all these short rows of carrots. Don’t have paths between little rows of vegetables.
A favorite recipe you like to cook from the garden? I made up this favorite recipe, one year, when I had a lot of patty-pan squashes. I would pick them when they weren’t really huge. I make grilled patty pan pizzas.
Cut in half, use homemade pesto, sliced cherry tomatoes, freshly shredded parmesan cheese, sesame seeds and then put them in the barbecue. I lived that off for weeks one summer.
Do you have any special techniques for cooking weird or unusual foods? Grilled garlic. Roasted garlic. Put a bulb on the grill, roast it, and when I grew corn, and you can smear it on the roasted corn. I like to do a lot of grilling on the bar-b-que at the end of the season. Roasted peppers …
As a kid, we made what I call pocket stew, we would take it...
I’m excited to introduce my guest who also has a podcast called the Farmer’s Market Podcast to talk about some of the success he’s had! Tell us a little about yourself. I’m in South Carolina. I’m a local cause I’ve been her the longest, but my dad was in the Military, Stefan is a German name. I’m an army brat. My career as far as when I went to college is mainly broadcast television and into digital media and marketing. Did a stint with a fragrance company. I’m always appreciative of the experiences I’ve had and led me to be the marketing director
For the past 2 years I’ve got the bug for market farming. You can’t really count your first year. Really heavy this past year.
So you went from pasture to following a plan of following a market farm. You are already selling at the farmer’s market, I see there’s a list of crops on your website. Tell us about the transition from pasture to producing food.
It’s a journey. It’s not easy. I’ve always been a hard worker. If you ask people that now me, I’m a get it done kind of guy. I can have fun but I like work.
SCA Farms
farming is relatively new, 12 acres
2 acres of pasture
horses to different barn
I’m looking outside. It’s either got to have animals on it or something growing. There’s really nothing going on on this pasture
I’m a big believer in something should give back, conservation land birds or animals
had this pasture land. I believe in farming is that everything has a purpose.
What can I do with limited equipment. I always wanted. I was so close to getting one of these big farm, tractors.
Now I really understand. I started out just doing reserach. A lot of research I was doing.
I used tarps over the winter my frist year.
let me look into some gardening or planting
got into market garden style intensive 10 inch walkways
bunch of guys online doing it market
Curtis Stone and Canadians
followed those guys
the Lean Farm
Ben Hartman
Ray Tyler out of Tennessee
I like lettuce
broadcast and now doing a farming
I’m in SC
I’m a local because Ive been here the longest
part German
dad was in the military
army brat
my career as far as when I left high school went to college
television
heavy into digital media and marketing
stint with a fragrance company
I’m always appreciative of the experience I have had
marketing director for a finance company
got the bug for farming
market garden style farming for the last 2 years, can’t really count the first year
say two years
I’ve always been a hard worker
I’m a get it done kind of guy
pasture for horses
SCA farms
started out
horses left to another barn
barrel racing made sense
got to do something
something growing in it
things have a purpose
watching beauty and relaxing
learned since farming
has a purpose
is kind of wasteful
turning the pasture into a productive field for crops
limited equipment
always wanted a tractor
close to get a big farm tractor
put a down payment
something fell through
selling so cheap they needed the money soon as possible
keep the money
I wish you the best
missed the opportunity to get ta big tractor
means to farm put your hands in the dirt
doing research
a lot of the research
other farmers who boot strapped it
I used tarps for over the winter
my first year
got rid of a lot of the grass
decomposed allowed the micro-organizers
I am not a believer in spraying, pesticides or putting chemicals on anything and my wife will tell you the idea of eating from the stores, I don’t know what’s been sprayed.
eating organic knowing what Im growing
some pests
see OSEM bites
it’s about organics as your gonna get
start the organic seeds
The only thing I spray is water, that’s kind of how I started.
Tell me about your first gardening experience? I will tell you, growing up in the military you hop from place to place
we stayed on base, when I say that and even when we weren’t on base, my whole high school I spent, we were overseas in Germany in a little town
never had an experience
My dad always did little stuff around the house but my grandma had a garden in the back of her yard, it was a pretty big yard. It was as a little kid. She used to grow stuff all the time. She would get fresh blackberries.
Made a blackberry cobbler that I loved
We didn’t spend a lot of time, she was in Clarksville, TN.
She always wore that the old school smock like a one piece and boots and that smock. She’s be in the house cooking breakfast and go out to the garden and that’s what she would wear all day.
Reminded me of old school, she had a little bit of indian in her but reminds me of
old school farming women * hearty stock * don’t mind to get dirty
My dad does the tomato plants and all kind of things at his house in Columbia. I think it’s in the genes
now that I am doing it
I have 4 kids
after about 2 you loose track
4 kids
2 boys 2 girls
when your raising kids, it’s the same thing when you’re raising plants. A baby is defenseless.
seed is defenseless
it’s either gonna grow or it’s not
like a little child
teach your children
become somewhat a mature plant like teenage kids, they grow up like an adult. But when you see your plant grow up
you know what it took to raise and grow your produce
There’s an attachment to that, you can share that with children
grow
when they make a difference
You’re hoping that when you grow your vegetables or they grow out in the world that they make a difference in someone world.
philosophical answer but that’s how I feel when you’re growing stuff.
I think listeners will relate to that and that’s why were interested in that. I call my listeners green future growers because we’re interested in sustainable practices and growing a greener world.
It takes a caliber person to get out there and do the work.
the weight loss program is grow your own food
I didn’t know the
You never see it till the end, you don’t know till you see a crop come in
go out an harvest it
once you see that happen one time you have confidence you can do it again and then replicate it.
I did it with lettuce can I do it with arugula?
hey arugula works can I do it now with kale?
you start to build confidence
what seeds you’re purchasing Non-gmo, organic
your supplier
nurture that plant in order to have a bountiful harvest
Carolina farm Steward conference in durham. I’m gonna meet a lot of folks that are going to have a wide variety of beliefs on what they grow and why they grow it and how they grow it but it all boils down to people trying to grow the most good food.
Im looking down at Mike’s minifarm. It still seems like almost one of our 2 wells is always running out. I always wonder how we are ever going to produce enough food for other people, it’s hard enough for us to grow enough for us. I think Mike has grown enough potatoes this year for us, I think he harvested 250 lbs if that doesn’t last IDK what will.
Kale this year, I learned with it how easy it is to grow and get a strong crop and I might not grow spinach ever again. Other things we struggle with, tomatoes are really hard. Corn is so hard in our climate, he was so close this year with a nice crop. Plus kale is so much stronger. Arugula.
Tell us about something that grew well this year.
Several things grew really well, arugula grows here well
without a doubt I can get an arugula crop if not every week it’s pretty much every other week, it does really well in this climate.
We’re in upstate area in S Carolina
charlotte
Atlanta
2 hours in between, basically near Clemson (who won the national championship a couple of years here)
- upstate
- rich area
down from asheville
hour and a half
lettuce
green ice
recommended by
fortunate
Clemson University Extension program
good crops to grow in certain areas in South Carolina especially in this area.
I grow a variety of lettuce called green ice
2 different types of kale that I grow.
did the red Russian
I’m partial to a blue scotch curl
grows really well
gets really mature it really tastes great!
tastes great
I’d love to be known as the lettuce king of Lawrence county
but I don’t have an aspiration of having rows and rows of lettuce
easy at the farmer’s market who have red tomatoes
I don’t grow tomatoes necessarily, it’s not my speciality not what I want to be known for
cherry tomatoes
radishes
everybody I know can grow radishes even if you have never tried, they are very easy to grown
as long as you have some loose 1-2 inches of soil
bumper crops of radishes
We did french breakfast radishes they taste amazing.
Want to here something about radishes this year, I just happened to see this post on Megan Cain’s Creative Vegetable Gardener, is that you can saute them, and I ate so many of them this spring!
now that I am growing vegetables!
A lot of people say I am turning into my dad
he did a lot of pickling
getting into pickling and jarring
pickle radishes
didn’t turn out very well need to figure out a recipe
Like you said, sautèing radishes I have heard of roasted radishes
roasting radishes I’m partial
salad and prepare it
took my cucumbers that I pickled this year I had them with some radishes
carrots and celery
I basically blend them up in a mixture
fine type of mixture
lay that on top of my kale
oil based vinaigrette
It’s the best salad I can eat that till I’m blue in the face!
I’m not gonna say it’s contributed to my weight loss
I always feel like I have a full meal
It blends up the radishes, even if you are not a consumer, it’s blended so well you only get a little taste.
I’m sure it tastes good with the pickle vinegar in there.
In S Carolina you can go to almost any store and you see all these different relishes
Maybe it’s my German blood I love pickles
pickled herring!
IDK why I saw it when we grew up in Germany
German market selling everything!
- fish
- bread
lined up with people
If someone has a recipe for pickled herring please share.
great recipe
definitely post it or send it
pickling recipes
I try to keep it simple on the farm
I don’t want to complicate thing
When you complicate things it cause you to think and work more
lose energy and I’d rather put it into the plant.
Keep it simple, I always like to start small. It sounds like you started off gigantic!
planting about 2 acres
where I’m planting it’s probably about
40 x 100’
50’x40’
not much but if you are planting intensive, market garden style
a 50’ row in lettuce multiple times in a season will produce a lot of lettuce.
For sure!
It will produce a lot of lettuce
You were asking how did I get from pasture to market?
the first year I had no intention of going to the market, none, zip, I
I’m excited to introduce Steve Szudera from North Dakota who’s going to talk to us about No-Till Farming and soil health, we talked a little bit before when he did an interview with me.
Tell us a little about yourself. I am a no-till famer Check out Steve’s website at tabletopfarmer.com
grain farm
western North Dakota, eastern Montana on the border
going through some drought
tired of watching the soil
blow away
1981 made our first no till pass
In ’82 I bought my own drill we were doing it for wind and water erosion
In the 90’s we had created a mono culture
wheat on wheat on wheat
Our first rotation was field peas that helped tremendously!
towards the mid 90s
a little bit further
I was introduced to Dr. Dwayne Beck
he’s still on that research
He started diversifying our rotations similar to whats in the prairie
so we started adding a more diverse rotation, teaching us we had to add similar to what’s in the prairie. We started adding a more diverse rotation to that
warm season grasses
warm season broadleaf
cool season grass and broadleaf
get intensity up
how to use whole water profile not just the top
a lot of our nitrates were going
at some point in time goes into
- water tables
- water systems
healthy things there as well Then about four years ago this month I was at a conference for a different reason
I mentioned something I was interested in doing for the last several years
teaching gardeners what I was doing.
how to take the principles I have learned and teach it to gardeners.
very little information
about no-till gardening 4 years ago
out there by myself doing a lot of things
I did some suggestions
It started out as a container situation
The first one failed miserably and I knew we had to change our
media mix
two and a half years go, three
struggle
What do you mean by container thing?
container gardening indoor
what they watered indoor
grow boxes
earth boxes
build living soil indoors
Take that environment I have growing outdoors and bring it indoors
do it indoors teach people how to garden all year round I took a bobcat out in one of my fields, we ended up there for 3-4 days trying to figure out how are we gonna capture our soil
At that time it was 34 years of continuous no-till, every time we tried to capture a 12 foot profile it would just fall apart
so alive
and crumbly
wouldn’t stay together
soil that is
living rich soil
wants to just crumble
12 inches deep
We eventually accomplished that we built a box around it in the fired brought it indoors and it failed miserably that soil indoors
It’s just made to be outdoors So we had to establish a media mix that will work for raised beds as well as container gardening. We were able to do that about 3 years ago and then apply the principles we use in a no-till scenario of building nutrient rich soil and doing it in a container making it so it survives
we work on a lot of testing things yet
always improving things
tabletop farmer
in that error where we can teach people how to thrive.
2015 we took it outdoors there was a lot of demand to take it outdoors
We started looking for people who had gardens, we could take gardens that was completely worn out
Sarah’s little angels that was so infested with weeds it was unbelievable with the weed growth. We applied our
no-till principles * fabric barrier * developed a watering system to water the roots * natural fertilizer system
neat part of about that whole
18 by 80 feet long
amazing part about we didn’t pull one weed all summer.
no weeding no backbreaking part to start
who’s we and what’s table top farmer?
Table Top Famer started out container on your table top
I labeled myself as the table top farmer It expanded from outdoors to inside as well?
The outdoor side of it is that we can grow outdoors naturally grow nutrient dense produce and do it all naturally
- without any soil amendments
- without any backbreaking work
I have help
Some friends that help out
My hired man that I hired on the grain farm gets stuck doing something
Worm farm commercially do worm castings
The reason I did that was I wanted a consistent product. I wanted to know what I had not something someone else was making that I was shipping in. I wanted a
natural grain not something that had maybe a pesticide in int
worms will break that down but I wanted to make sure when I tell people that it’s a natural product it is
What all are you growing?
Anything in these featured gardens, what we would grow, we would go through the corns
we learned that there were certain wind loads, so we would plant corn on those outside to help break the wind
- zucchini
- lots of tomatoes
- pumpkins for the kids
How big is your place again?
We did these featured gardens for a year or two
The property that Sarah’s Little Angels was on was sold, so we are starting Serenity Farm and Garden. That I own, on some property as part of my farm.
We purchased a high tunnel this summer to do some testing IDK if you are familiar with high tunnels, they’re a fabric where the sun can come through.
There’s a huge demand for those in this area
get in earlier and stay later in the fall.
It also helps keep pests out and helps you regulate your water a little as well too right?
I have a friend on a farm east of us doing it about 5 years, I’ll be a student of Jay’s as well
There are mistakes that can be made, of course lots of mistakes, he will help us avoid those. There’s a learning curve to it.
Not everybody is going to purchase a high tunnel but there small green houses people can purchase too.
There’s a program that people can utilize through the NRC I did an interview with Andrew Malucelli about the program in Episode 117. We applied but we didn’t get approved but one of these days we will.
It’s interesting – Community Gardens I’ve ran into church groups that try to do gardening, they’re interested in this approach. Naturally we have to get it up and the training to teach them how to do it but I see a big benefit for community gardens.
the one that I am familiar with turns into a big wreck with certain things that happen to it. I think high tunnels would be good for community gardens.
a lot of avenues we’re running with this
I am a soil health expert I am an expert
I’ve been good
You’re doing it on a bigger scaled then most people I have talked to.
It isn’t quite that big, a large farmer in this are is several thousand acres!
We’re not that big in this area. We’re a couple thousand acres.
We have honed in on those, We have been more niche oriented.
Value added crops We raise things like garbanzo beans
We have buyers waiting, they’re calling 30 days before harvest to tell us, you know we have a bin open for you! We have space available for you!
That’s generally unknown, but they know that we are capable, depending on the weather. It’s a really good feeling.
They know we are able to produce a high quality crop and a high producing crop that they can trust!
Lentils I got a call the other day, text message from a buyer looking for white proso millet bcause he knows thats part of my warm season rotation
evolved
used to farm a lot more acres
niche orientated
quite frankly the bottom line gets better for us when we can do that
Niche oriented and more profitable on less acreage sounds good to everyone doesn’t it?! How big did you say?
It’s a couple thousand acres, but your market farmers are on 1/4 acre and they’re pushing the production side of things there as well
There’s a lot of things we can learn on that area, I have been studying that area as well to see how we can build better soil health for what they are doing.
Our whole focus is so they have a nutrient dense crop. That’s what we want is the nutrients back in the plant. Well that’s what I want I know to eat healthy food.
Tell me about your first gardening experience? Actually my first experience was with my mother, as a little guy I watched her garden.
She had a very little garden that was fenced because of other things out there for things they were raising
- chickens
- livestock
I remember dad taking the fence down on one end and plow it for her she would plant into that. I do remember my mother coming in being totally exhausted from working in that garden. It was kind of therapeutic as well, but I looked at the labor that was involved. We would get out there and when we would do sometime wrong, which we did, she was very specific on the way she did things. She had a pattern on the way she had done things that was the way it was. I didn’t spend a whole lot of time out there, but I watched what she did and quite frankly that turned me away from gardening because I saw the labor she did, and I thought that’s a second job.
At least a second job if not a full time job. So then
How did you learn how to garden organically? well I actually
the no-till thing came relatively out in the field. To move it into an indoor setting was tough. Much tougher then outdoor. I can’t say we have a total no-till system but we have a system where we can renew the soil by the same methods as what the soil is built underneath our feet.
So you never have to buy new potting soil again! Outdoors it was relatively simple. I basically just started thinking about different ways the raindrop falls.
If we think about how the raindrop falls on cement is it splashes. this is what they teach inside of our no-till farming
When it splashes it carries up soil up with it, those spores hit our crops and those start disease and I thought gardening has to be the same way.
The first thing I did was I built a garden with armor on top. the insulated layer, I’m not talking about compost In my world we have to be careful not to get too much compost on top because then we start with other issues. The armor is a layer of carbon to insulate this top layer, then we start thinking, how are we going to water it? Because we have chlorines that aren’t in rain water.
issues there
visited with other gardeners
soaker system that we actually put in the soil.
worked on and tested
put in the soil methods where we instal it so it irrigates the roots that is on a timely manor.
The interesting part bout that whole process was we able to use 70% of the water where you have drought
That makes sense.
In areas like San Diego where water, good water, is limited, even though they are surrounded by oceans, the water that is usable, the people who are saving gray water in gardens, there are systems set up for that.
Outdoor Systems for Gardeners I took the systems that I’ve used outdoors over 30 years and brought them full circle and used them in gardening. The neat thing about gardening is we are able to what I call put that on steroids because we can speed up the process!
We can see results in 30 days or less by applying principals of this system. The reason being is because in a farming scenario we have 4-5 months of growing and then the rest that we call
- frost
- cold ...
Tag me on Instagram or Facebook, send me an email that says I voted and you can enter to win a copy of Mary Robinson’s Book (digital kindle edition if you don’t live in the US.
Climate Justice: Hope, Resilience, and the Fight for a Sustainable Future Also, I did want to talk a little bit about the garden course I have been working on and working on it, I went through the 2018 garden challenge, and I was looking into the 2019 garden challenge, maybe what we need to do more is walk people through the challenge instead of just leaving people on their own. I realized people are looking more for community. I have also been working on redesigning the website, taking some copy classes, and working on the Golden Seeds Magazine which I think is what people will want to see in the show notes.
I hope you enjoyed Matthew Zoeller and I am so honored to be your host, and I have packets of seeds and some journals and other packages to get in the mail. THANKS For listening! And happy voting day!
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Free Organic Garden Course Remember you can get the 2018 Garden Journal and Data Keeper to record your garden goals in our
You can download the first 30 days here while you’re waiting for it to come in the mail.
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I’m happy to be here to talk about gardening and some other things.
I’m in Pennsylvania
Tell us a little about yourself. I enjoy gardening with my wife and I am a free lance writer so I spend most of my time behind the computer.
When I’m not behind the computer I’m out there doing yardwork like crazy and I’m taking care of weeds!
Tell me about your first gardening experience? It’s hard to nail down what the first was, just seems like in some capacity I have been doing it my whole life.
One of the earlier memories is just a neighbor with a great garden!
He had flowers everywhere, I just got to know my neighbor I must have got the bug from him. Helped him out there, listening to music.
I like that because when I very first started my podcast I wanted to ask the questions what do you listen to but my first few guests were all like, I usually listen to the birds and nature etc. I don’t listen to music so I took it out. So what kind of music do you listen to?
Well, at the time that was like 1980s we were gardening outside so we had Pink Floyd the Wall blasting much of the time, kind of hard to explain but did seem like the perfect sound track.
I could see that some of those songs that could seem more relevant today then back then even.
How did you learn how to garden organically? that neighbor I learned to garden
the organic part of it didn’t hit me to my wife several years ago.
- grow your own medicines
- she really introduced me to the organic garden
A lot of other people I grew up with, this might be controversial with your audience, they would use Miracle grow
that stuff is not really good for your garden really bad stuff in it, so stopped doing that
Started making the soil very rich and healthy
miracle grow thing is kind of like you can use that to grow plants to grow plants really fast and really big or the other option is to
- take your time
- amend your soil
- make it really healthy
- then you won’t need that it will grow on it’s own
That’s the perfect thing to say on my show, what are you doing to amend your soil? Are you composting?
Composting is a passion of mine big thing for a couple of years now
we have a half acre
this past season I created a compost pen sort of thing with wood pallets stuck together into stalls
Anytime I mow the grass
clippings go in there
- rake the leaves
- table scraps
- fruit and vegetable left overs
It can sit in a great big pile for several weeks then you turn it and get that smell that great smell!
everything’s breaking down
love the whole composting process
main way we get our dirt doing great
We had sunflowers that grew about 10 feet tall! Which surprised us!
I love to make compost too! I’m so curious people have been telling me, compost is so messy, we get bugs and animals. So I’m curious what do you collect it in the house.
We have the same problem that everybody else has, I don’t think there is any really good solution.
We have 2 buckets on the door part of our freezer, anytime there is a banana peel we put it the bucket in the freezer.
I’m having a really hard time now that there’s no recycling of plastic in Montana, I used to feel like we’d reuse it a few times and then we’d recycle it, but now I’m thinking about quitting coffee ~ My mom has this ceramic one with a charcoal filter, she puts it in a plastic bag and then she puts it in the freezer.
You’re the first one who said that on the show, so already dropping golden seeds. We have a bucket for chicken scraps on the counter and then coffee grounds and egg shells go on the porch, we have skunk who gets in that every once in a while, but that’s no big deal. We have several bins with pallets.
attract
it works really good you
I’m passionate like you are, I think even if you are not gardening you should create compost. I used to think like you it would help in the landfill but then I found out it actually creates like a noxious gas so we don’t want it in the landfill anyway.
Tell us about something that grew well this year. this year seemed to be the year for squash
we had squash, tomatoes
potatoes
not food related
morning glories
took off like crazy
we had a very wet summer but it was also hot and humid when it wasn’t raining
constant moisture squash and morning glories really took off because of that
Did you ever eat squash blossoms? My mom used to make these delicious squash flower fritters with just blossoms in a basic flour batter with just salt and pepper
my wife might have had those
I haven’t had those
Is there something you would do different next year or want to try/new? there’s always new stuff to try
hugelculture I heard about it after I first started my podcast.
I would like to try that
building those mounds with all the sticks
large compost piles really, you can grow things directly on them and plant directly in them. We’ve got
- tons of sticks
- tons of wood
Tell me about something that didn’t work so well this season. well, I mean, there were a few things,
groundhog problem pet groundhog
- stealing our tomatoes
- bean sprouts
- things like that
that’s what didn’t work out well.
What do you do about him? He’s a pet?!
not a pet
He comes in under the fence
We like to let small things like rabbits, so we don’t want to close the holes under the fence completely.
main strategy
he’s got some and we get some
You don’t worry about the rabbits taking your food too?
rabbits don’t seem to bother the things we’re growing, they seem more interested in the grasses around here.
Let’s take a minute to thank our sponsors and affiliate links The Organic Gardner Podcast is sponsored by Health IQ, an insurance company that helps health conscious people like runners, cyclists, weightlifters and vegetarians get lower rates on their life insurance. Go to healthiq.com/OGP to support the show and see if you qualify.
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Now Let’s Get to the Root of Things! Which activity is your least favorite activity to do in the garden? yeah, probably like a lot of people
that would be weeding
that no matter what I do is take care
What is your favorite activity to do in the garden? making compost
What is the best gardening advice you have ever received? yeah, that’s a tough one!
I’ve gotten so much of it, that’s really hard, it kind of goes along with good advice
grow your own medicine
Is there anything in particular?
just in general
what ever you need you can find in your garden in your grass
anything specific
when you need something
I just posted a great episode with Matthew Zoeller about edible plants
A favorite tool that you like to use? If you had to move and could only take one tool with you what would it be? there are probably
be a hard one
a metal rake
there’s this one rake that I have
3-4 prongs for every thing
so much you can do with it
rake the leaves
weed, really weedy patches of garden
aerate the soil
metal rake
A favorite recipe you like to cook from the garden? yeah, there are several recipes
she likes to make fresh salsa with tomatoes
squash soup
my wife handles that stuff, I don’t really have the recipes
yellow squash soup
A favorite internet resource? yeah, we generally like any of the Pinterest gardening stuff
permaculture related sites
probably the Pinterest organic gardening
A favorite reading material-book, mag, blog/website etc you can recommend? I’m usually too busy working online
we feature gardening things
internetvswallet.com
shopping site that has unique things
random internet website
curated by me
sharable things
you can choose either a random internet website
really funny videos
games
It’s kind of like a product review, it’s kind of like a game. I found this really cool lock box for when you have packages delivered. And you can choose to buy it or the other links are to fun games. A lot of the things you can find are things that you wouldn’t find anywhere. There was that giant cabbage blanket. It’s kind of like novelty stuff. There were those vegetable towels gardeners might like that have like Kale Yeah!
If you have a business to you have any advice for our listeners about how to sell extra produce or get started in the industry? electric lawn-mower
its basically goes back to my love of compost
I was going to talk about how you can use the lawn mower with
exactly
I’ve got so many leaves
there just seems more and more
if you go and buy a leaf mulcher
I just figured at one point I’m just gonna start mulching with the lawn mower
you don’t necessarily have to buy the expensive
one of those things
they have a bag on the bottom
essentially it’s a fan blade
cuts them interrupt
just compost
compost for a healthy garden
I like that cause I was kind of shocked this summer because both my mom and then I talked to this business coach, she was like why are you starting with compost? And I don’t know it’s so easy to me, and I’m as passionate about it as you are and then I’m always into clean garden tasks and I consider it one of them, so IDK what they are all talking about? I feel like I’ve found all these people this summer who are resistant to it and I think composting is so important that needs to be done whether you have a garden or not.
I think people think it is a lot harder then it really is. The ingredients are just
- greens
- browns
- your scraps
And I think air! To me the big thing was when we had lots of air. The one thing I did notice definitely if you are just composting fruit, that’s what the kids had a lot of in the classroom, pears, watermelon, etc where as I’m such a vegetable eater, I always have lot of greens to go with it, so I think that’s where we had a lot of flies or if we put a lid on it
Final question- if there was one change you would like to see to create a greener world what would it be? For example is there a charity or organization your passionate about or a project you would like to see put into action. What do you feel is the most crucial issue facing our planet in regards to the environment either in your local area or on a national or global scale?
I mean, I think I always lean towards a couple of different things with this sort of topic
I would love to see people stop mowing their lawns. Stop with the well trimmed...
Mary Robinson is the author of Climate Justice: Hope, Resilience, and the Fight for a Sustainable Future She was the president of Ireland and the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. Her essay in Stop the Next War Now: Effective Responses to Violence and Terrorism now is as relevant today as it was in 2005 when this book was published. I hope you listen to her words and are inspired to be the positive change in this world I know exists. I love my audience because I know they are like minded social justice activists and passionate environmentalists that can see a better world just like me.
“… True security is possible only when the full range of human rights ~ cicil and political as well as economic, social, and cultural ~ is guaranteed for all people.
This thinking isn’t new. In fact, it draws on the best traditions of US Leadership, epitomized by president Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s celebrated 1944 State of the Union address. But succeeding US administrations have rejected the idea that education, health care, adequate housing, and food are rights citizens are entitled to, sometimes contending that these are aspirations, not justifiable rights…”
Stop the Next War Now: Effective Responses to Violence and Terrorism “Warfare is only an invention ~ not a biological necessity” ~ Margaret Mead
I ordered Mary Robinson’s Climate Justice: Hope, Resilience, and the Fight for a Sustainable Future book from the library did you?
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The Organic Gardner Podcast is sponsored by Health IQ, an insurance company that helps health conscious people like runners, cyclists, weightlifters and vegetarians get lower rates on their life insurance. Go to healthiq.com/OGP to support the show and see if you qualify.
Over half of Health IQ customers save between 4-33% on their life insurance.
- Health IQ uses science & data to secure lower rates on life insurance for health conscious people just like you green future growers! Like saving money on your car insurance for being a good driver, Health IQ saves you money on your life insurance for living a health conscious lifestyle.
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The Good Seed Company
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This has nothing to do with gardening but I thought you would like it anyway. It has to do with the founder of Earth Day and I feel is very timely now as we think about the things in our government that don’t work the way we always want them to, it’s an example of what positive change we can do when we work together.
This is my get out the vote Earth Day Play.But I feel it’s important to know the history of one of our most influential Senators, someone who courageously worked to protect our environment and he’s the reason we have an Earth Day.
I thought you might like to share this with your students. They can make paper plate puppets, of course I have paper Mache puppets I use in my theater, or you can even just read the script together.
I feel like this play really illustrates the good things our government officials do! Senator Gaylord Nelson wanted to protect our natural resources and came up with the idea to create the first Earth Day back in 1970s to help children learn how to protect the planet. He was worried about detergents in the lakes and rivers of his beautiful Wisconsin and also to prevent the spread of DDT.
Here is my Turtle Mishap play too about a turtle who gets stuck in a 6 pack holder.
the-turtle-mishap-playDownload
I found it was often more engaging for my students to read something if they felt they had a part. I think it’s inspiring how our government can work together and pass legislation to make our world a better place.
Also if you want a fun project to do with kids here's a fun video on making a mason bee house: https://youtu.be/m0re9o1ZqX8
Hope you enjoy it and remember get out and vote!
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“That Crazy Neighbor!” I don’t think there could be a more fitting guest for episode 250 is a listener who reached out to me with a question and after a bit of prodding agreed to share his own expertise on a topic about sustainable living, eating locally, and growing your own food in the middle of Denver, Colorado!
AGAIN~ I apologize, IDK what happened my mic is barely picking me up. So sorry :((
A fellow educator and self-proclaimed president of the Patti Armbrister fan club! Matthew will charm your hearts as he share’s his passion for eating edible weeds right out of your neighbor’s yard. A neighbor we all want living next door I know you will love this interview with Matthew!
I always say that newer gardeners are great at remembering newer lessons. It’s kind of like when you first start teaching, new teachers sometimes can tell you more things that are new to you.
Welcome to the OGP today! I’m super excited because I talked a listener to come on and share because he sounded like he already knew a lot. We even went to the University of Montana at different times but we’re both alumni!
It’s an honor… that was the most flattering into I have had in my life! Let me mention I haven’t been on other podcasts, I called in once to a radio!
Before you know it you’ll be hosting your own podcast. I never thought I would have a podcast, even after I joined my podcasting group, I still didn’t think I would have a podcast and I love it!
Tell us a little about yourself. Well, I live in Denver, proper in the urban heart of it, I teach high school, but I’m mostly from Montana, we went to University of Montana, maybe at the same time but I think you were before me.
I’m in Denver and I’m into super nutrition eating healthy! I know that’s true of a lot of people and I know in Denver there’s a lot of hipsters
We’re a blue state through and through
My wife and I and our family have a foot in two worlds, in some ways were fairly conservative Christian and on the other side we’re
into herbs and have opinions about organic that are too liberal for our conservative friends and other opinions about things for our liberal friends. So
it’s kind of fun place to be
Can I share a short story? I think I’m a fairly normal dude I have short hair
funniest description of me,
last summer
we decided we’d get chickens and there are dumpsters full of wood probably 50% of your listeners are driving to Denver as we speak, it’s an official statistic
investing in our
free wood in dumpsters all summer long, so I told my wife,
I’ll just build a chicken coop, it’s just a box and doesn’t need electricity. Im not incredibly handy
I would be running with my kids and scope out the dumpsters
I would grab the pieces I want
if they would fit, I didn’t have to take my car.
neighbor next door
you are the example of that crazy neighbor
the other neighbor who’s British, he says,
“Well do you have an example of a crazy neighbor?”
I said no,
He said, “Well I think you’ve found your answer.”
(this comes out better listening to Matthew’s British accent imitation.)
everything
is poignant
we did finish the chicken coop paid for some
chickens
It is legal up to 8, we had 6 all last year, we recently got two more!
its awesome having chickens in Denver! IDK why everyone doesn’t But lots of people come over they’re just blown away! I can see why would be but it’s actually kind of rare
observe and rare
and how easy it is they instantly eat all of our compost! In the summer we have Japanese beetles so my daughter and I go out there and catch them!
It seems like a lot of work, on an average 8 minutes a day! Most days it takes 2 minutes a day but some days you have to clean the pen every once and a while.
its fun having chickens in Denver
I’m curious what you do with all the eggs? Give a lot to your neighbors!
we eat a lot of eggs
some are not pulling their own weight
we consistently eat all the eggs they give us!
Tell me about your first gardening experience? I know you were gonna ask this, because I listen to your show all the time!
I don’t have a good answer
I don’t know if I remember, I do know that my mom and dad grew up in Minnesota
They lived the farm life
wake up early
go to bed late
As soon as they left Minnesota, they were not eager to recreate that there was no real nostalgia.
We had a long period of years we never grew much other then flowers
I didn’t start growing anything edible till I had a paycheck and lived in my own house. I was like I’m gonna really own this, that was like 10 years ago.
Now for sure I do, I started caring more
IDK what would count as my first gardening experience.
Did you ever go see your grandparents? did they still have the farm?
it just
one side of my grandparents died when I was fairly young.
gardening wasn’t a big part of it and the other side of my family they kind of left the business same time as we did and moved to Arizona.
How did you learn how to garden organically? I guess just the internet, and I’m not afraid to ask for help
I ask a lot of people questions
What I notice about gardens people love to talk about gardens it’s like in college and every body was in a band
they wanted you to come to their show
gardens are like people’s bands
I see their yard and say what is that?
people are thrilled to tell me about it!
I don’t claim to be an expert on anything.
My husband’s still learning, I’m for sure still learning, I know a lot of my listeners have been doing this a long time.
I’ve been thinking about this of course
I’ve had this phone call, like 50 times already in my head,
I had the same thing, I thought I’m gonna remember this!
I was gonna be so funny!
I had a list
This is a good segue! growth mindset pun intended
keep learning and getting better
I was somewhere was talking to this guy who was busy doing some intense WOOFING
He came back just full of knowledge and I just happened to hang out with him in the summer one time in Nebraska!
He was telling me the irony of this soup kitchen somewhere, here’s what’s funny about all this, is at their feet are all these weeds and those weeds are far more nutritious then any kind of soup in any grocery store right now.
I knew a little bit, that you could eat dandelion but it’s bitter and gross whatever * stinging nettles * lambs quarter * marijuana
which was right next to us and we were in Nebraska
it just blew my mind
all ten feet from us
little bit extreme!
I was like “you can’t just pick it right now and eat it?”
this is basically like lettuce
we should clarify what kind of weeds we mean if it says, edible and weed and from Colorado!
such a conversation topic everyone is always asking me “what’s it like having legal weed?” I don’t smoke it . I’m not interested, I just know there’s a lot more traffic.
So this guy he taught me about lambs quarter
well maybe he’s just a wild card dude
lambs quarter is an edible weed you can just eat it raw I say it has some taste
taste likes a green
no one would notice
- aromatic
- pungency
- cousin of spinach
interesting thing about lambs quarter it’s really close it’s like a first cousin of quinoa
There’s lots of videos of people telling you how to tell the difference, the fact that you have to have a video to tell the difference, that was really fascinating at the time!
In Denver, are probably about Montana too, you know people love quinoa that is basically growing in your backyard.
I haven’t really gotten into the grains
take off the part that would be the part that would make the
Some people do make lambs quarter seed bread
I’m more lazy then that, I’m pretty big on just straight up
salads and leafy greens.
it gets big
We get a reddish purple one, I have always cooked it. I remember talking to Joe the Mason, who works at an elementary school in Maine, he talked about growing it there. Someone was telling me about the seeds, if they could do something to lambs quarter, they could make a fortune, I can’t remember, it grows so much beter in Montana then spinach is, which is not easy to grow in Montana. It’s pretty and grows like a weed.
I personally don’t think spinach is that good
I eat tons of it, but it’s more then just a vehicle to carry my dressing and other stuff
perfect example of what is a weed, and eating what a weed is. I don’t walk into every room and my agenda you should just eat your weeds!
When it comes up I will stand up for my agenda and it’s funny because you can’t convince people, lambs quarter can’t be edible because I didn’t plant it
Because spinach is a lot of work! It just does not grow as well as lambs quarter.
One of my friends, if you buy a house in winter and the lawn is covered in snow
snow melts
starts to bloom in the spring
They tell you the whole yard is kentucky blue grass but then it grows and if all spinach grew up and you find your covered your yard as green spinach
would you mow it?
They say, No, I’d eat it
get that out of there and put in the grass
if there’s something that healthy that easy growing on its own, it’s worth learning a little more and give it a try.
They get nice size leaves.
I kind of gave up on spinach this year, I finally grew dinosaur, lacing kale, and it is still growing, so why grow spinach. The kale is more nutritious too!
I had at the same experience pretty much
let me run you through my list of Edible Weeds I’ll tell you if you haven’t noticed me pulling wood out of people’s dumpsters. I’m a little cheap.
I would call that thrifty. There’s lots of good stuff in the dumpsters.
dumpsters
stinging nettles beneficial properties
resources in people’s top few
If you look up the top detoxifying herbs
extract
24 ounces on amazon
stinging nettle extract
everything I’m about to tell you
herbalist
Apothecary
stinging nettles
don’t even know if they grow in my zone or zip code
never seen them in Colorado
Nebraska
nettles
ate stinging nettles
prepped them in a way that they don’t sting
thinking
since learning about weeds
Now I have a fairly good repertoire ~ of Edible Weeds go around to other states and other places
I was thinking
3,5,6 here
these are the ones I have the majority of people will be able to find without much effort
One that everyone knows dandelion is an edible weed Dandelion is, anyone can look this up anywhere, but dandelion is a pretty heavy hitter! It is nutritionally dense. Every part is good you can make:
- wine out of the flowers
- eat the leaves straight up
- freeze them
- dehydrate them and use them as a tea
- sprinkle them on a salad
- sneak them in
We have a lot of dehydrated dandelion to use it as tea
Root is good for all kinds of things
bake them following the directions to make coffee
I felt like a cowboy when I was drinking it but it was a lot of work, so I only did it the one time.
If you look up the medicinal qualities of dandelion It seems like it’s too good to be true
- loss of appetite
- upset stomach
- eczema
- bruises
- lots of different things
I find if I eat them raw, I didn’t like them at first but now I eat them straight up
start small and cook them into things, dandelions are fairly easy to eat.
Next on my list is...
I am thrilled to introduce my featured guest today on a webinar by John Lee Dumas and the guy hosting the webinar wanted a business example and she explained she sold compost tumblers and I was able to connect with her and today here is her husband Java from Java’s Compost!
Tell us a little about yourself. I live in the NE my wife and I and our 3 children
NE region of NJ
we own a little company called Java’s compost
Java’s Compost Service we basically offer 2 services
one is a do it yourself option
basically the do it yourself option
we have a starter kit
set up
a set of items that a backyard or home composter might want
keep things simple
We want to set up a system for people. A lot of times when your steps are not clear, its easy to get in your compositing efforts. At some point the system breaks down
The system
includes a tumbler
includes a square rectangle shaped bucket that its easily in the sink or a corner or someplace
and a counter top
all optional
if someone says, I have a composter already in the backyard, we will work with whatever system they have or whatever they want
Compost Orientation Also, we have an option for an orientation where we go over the
dos and don’ts in your backyard
what can you compost
what are the important steps
the recipe
so people are well educated or better educated
they know what whatever happens you can always remedy your system
Things that can come up can be
smell or pests
dy
full
I love this because one I am building a garden course, and I feel like the first step is building compost and people are like ick, no, but I love the orientation idea I think you should have a compost orientation webinar.
Compost Orientation Webinar: we have been talking about for a while how can we digitize this whole thing where we have the resources that we make available for a broader audience
strategies
techniques
etc
we haven’t had time to get around to it,
definitely
god willing
Tell me about your first gardening experience? Well you know interestingly I don’t have a ton of gardening experience, but my first exposure was as a small boy. I grew up in San Francisco CA I was about 15, w
when I was about 4-5 years old we had this backyard area
my mother when she was in her late teens lived on a farming commune in West VA
She picked up some farm-gardening experience and she decided to plant some simple vegetables
go out there occasionally
I don’t remember specifically what she grew tomatoes or anything
I thought this is pretty neat, I remember I didn’t know you could grow food in your backyard. Most kids grow up and think you get food at your local market
That was my first exposure.
We had some family friends in northern California, and they had a small homestead, and that was a very powerful experience
I think we only went up there once or twice but it left a lasting impression
animals they were managing
They were doing all the things a homestead does
churning their own butter
cream
do those things
gardening
basic animal husbandry
the beauty
magical most of that
really stuck with me
Over the course of time, it’s been mostly circumstances or time that has allowed us to do some gardening, or prevented us from doing as much as we like
Those are my early experiences to growing your own food and a little bit of self sufficiency
To be perfectly honest, I still feel like I am about as close to doing all of that as I was when I was 5-6, as far as being able to spend chunk of time doing any of these things
that is our hope to do more of that in the future
We did have some time, when we lived in a different town and the kids were much younger
joined the community garden having
bring my boys down there
manage my plot
when everything was really popping
beets were coming up
string beans
cabbage
tomatoes
all these beautiful things.
magic of seeing that stuff on your kitchen table
everybody was impacted
new town we haven’t been able to start it yet, but again, god willing we will be able to that’s one of our goals.
But what I love about that is you’re actually talking about exactly what I think is important that even though you’re not ready to garden now, you’re figuring out the compost part before you get to garden.
I’m trying really hard not to interrupt because I was actually interviewed the other day and realized what people are talking about.
so the full service where we provide the same kit, you get
- a tumbler
- a bucket
- bin
we take care of the composting
the only thing the family does if they want the full service option is they scrape their plates and clean out their fridges , whatever they are doing in the bucket we provide them
That bucket is put out once a week similar to their garbage, and we bring it around back on their property, and manage everything on their property and they get 100 of the finished material with minimal work. That’s the full service option
you can get a significant amount of material that way. Full service
- a tumbler
- a bucket
- bin
- we take care of the composting
- manage everything on their property
- they get 100 of the finished material with minimal work.
4-5 member family
You’re producing upwards of 5 gallons or more a week, you’re filling up your bucket to the top
that’s over a 1000 lbs of food scraps every year for that family
you break it down
ends up being somewhere between
200-250 lbs of composting material per person
which is actually the EPA average that they have listed on their website
for food waste per person
When we’ve done data collection we come up just about their number
@241 lbs per person
our numbers come up about the same.
so you can get a lot of material
In the end you come up anywhere between 5-6-700 lbs of material a family would have at their disposal
they can put compost material on their * vegetable garden * landscaping * lawn application
we can do that as well
landscaping application do that as well
I wish you were here, my mom’s neighbors could use that. Your pictures are so gorgeous and the things are clean
Do you mix it in with grass clippings etc? Leaves, how does that work? what we
the tumbler that we use fro the most part
Jora form composter
that the manufacturers recommended carbon input or dry material is wood pellets
used for horse bedding
it’s a soft wood, I believe it’s pine
collected at lumber yards
from the sawdust
pelletize it
incredibly effective
very efficient
that’s the carbon input that we put in to every batch that we put into the composters
Every week this is what we do
this is what we tell the diy customers work out your ratios before hand,
fill up the first fraction of the bucket
1/4 or 1/5 of the way with the wood pellets
that changes the ratio, typically you look on line, you do some reading
if you look online the ratio is typically 2-3 one
dry to wet
browns to greens
you typically have more of your carbon rich material then your nitrogen rich
because it’s pelletized
but when you’re using the wood pellets moisture it expands
In the brochure, it says something like,
carbon-nitrogen
dry-wet it’s only 1-10 when you’re using the wood pellets which is a significant reversal the extreme
normal carbon material that you put in
it expands a lot typically we don’t go with 1-10 we go with 1-4 or 1-5
we have found that when a family is just starting out we encourage them to use more then less, start out with 25% of your bucket with wood pellets for the first two weeks
2nd two weeks so 20%
then scale back you can use less and less, so you are dealing with smaller ratios
once you get a good healthy
that will help element odors sand pests etc. very effective way of managing your compost bins
wood chips in our own composting efforts over the years we have used a mix of wood chips and pellets
years ago we would save up our paper bags from local grocery store
every couple of weeks, I would go through and spend 12 hour 40 minutes, shredding paper bags and adding that to the compost bin but when you have a ready supply of wood chips or pellets it makes it easier to manage the labor you have to put into
only down part
the more labor intensive dry material more
the free dry material
- paper bags
- junk mail
more labor intensive
super simple material requires a little more to access you either have to find a * tree guy * neighbor who just took a tree down, * wood chips * tree taken down * or pay for wood pellets
pros and cons and all the different options
a lot of times
different carbon sources and components
all the options
in this day and age
people are so busy they just go with the one that’s simplest
least amount of labor as you said earlier or maybe it was on your website, they’re already buying this and spending money on it.
do you want to tell people what it looks like? Because I’ve been to the website and seen it.
dEsigned in Sweden but it’s manufactured in China, around 1992?1994
There was some claim to them being the first or if not the first
the original tumbler whether they were one of the first or just t created a really nice version
it s a very
created a really nice version
nice looking piece of equipment
- galvanized steel
- weather resistant paint
- olive green color
- insulation
styrofoam ~ polyethylene=food grade styrofoam
not polystyrene is the stuff outlawed in CA for use n outlawed for use with food materials
not a harmful material
in terms of the design
it’s simple to manage
the turn on it is super easy
used many different types of tumblers
old tumblers
difference between these different models
there’s so many ways to compost
Get Out the Vote Letter to the Editor
Here’s the text for this week’s letter we are planning to send to the editor to encourage friends and neighbors to vote.
If you would like to use this text to write to your own paper feel free:
Dear Friends and Neighbors,
This year we celebrate an historic moment for women, the passage of the 19th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution by the House of Representatives in 1918, which states, “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.”
Yes, we are celebrating 100 years of the right for women to vote! And a very important reason to vote in the upcoming election on November 6th this year.
“In 1848, in Seneca Falls, NY, five women gathered frustrated by the inequalities they faced as women. They decided to call for a Woman’s Rights Convention to discuss the social, civil and religious condition and rights of woman.” They issued the Declaration of Sentiments signed by 68 women and 32 men. Among other things, it called for the right of women to vote . It took 72 long years and numerous acts of courage for voting to come to fruition for these women.
Women should march in unison to their voting booths to show their appreciation for the efforts of these women. Many of Long Island’s women joined back then in the effort to change their lives. Elizabeth Oakes Smith of Patchogue, spoke out, “Let women learn to take a woman’s view of things. Let her not say, what does my husband, my brother, my father think, wise and good and trustworthy though they be ~ but let her evolve her own thought, recognize her own needs, and judge of her own acts by the best lights of her own mind.”
Judge what is important to YOU, YOUR family, friends, and neighbors and VOTE! Stand Up AND Speak Out GC For the Women’s Equality Quiz Click Here If you’re a millennial who doesn’t want to vote or has questions about voting don’t hesitate to reach out to me I’d love to help you understand why this election is so important and how much your vote really matters!
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy
Sound Trouble Again! I do want to apologize for the sound once again. Part of it is on my end, idk what happened but maybe my headphones weren’t plugged in so Kara’s voice is on my track too, I tried to edit out this echo/double voice over as much as possible and then there are still sounds in the backgrounds throughout our conversations. So sorry listeners :((
I’m excited to introduce this guest because we met on Facebook and she has a great group I think you are going to be interested in called Organic Living For Moms Kara Grant
Tell us a little about yourself. So I own a bed and breakfast, Ive been doing that for about 12 years, I was born and raised here in New Mexico. My parents were actually farmers and ranchers here.
I grew up with a love for the earth and gardening.
Homeschooling lesson on Apples for Organic Moms from the Facebook Group
homeschooled my kids
original education is in elementary education.
2 boys and 2 girls
- married
- college
- graduates
I’m 12 years into my B&B business
I’m actually more freed up
Organic Living For Moms My son, he’s a digital marketer
So many women and people who would like the knowledge you have, this would be a great way to share it. You found me in that group.
So many questions I’m so curious about that B&B, what’s that like. It was kind of an accident, we had been restoring properties
- historic neighborhood
- We were living in it and we ended up buying the one next door
- home with our for kids
- I was like I’m up fixing breakfast anyways
We started with that house doing the work
- restoration
- landscaping
- everything
It has challenges because it is a business your on 24 hours a day. I actually got a phone call yesterday at 5 in the morning! People are in different time zones.
You get up and do breakfast, my kids have grown up and raised in it
My personal experience cooking and growing organically. We raised our own chickens so we cook their eggs and they are served to the guests
tomatoes are coming like crazy.
fresh tomatoes Canned up some jellies and the guests some times buy that. It’s a fun way to use some of the joys doing and passionate about in my business as well
It has its challenges, it’s a full time 24 hour a day
Fun business and a chance to meet a lot of intersteing people.
I feel like your kids got to meet some amazing people that way
They did! One of my fun stories is my son played the flute and they had a flutist convention. One of the big performers was actually staying with us and he worked with my son and he taught him some special techniques.
It’s been really and interesting and fun! But the kids sometimes say, where’s our private life? Sometimes you get tired of people too.
again
I do have a property 15
more of my chickens
It’s quiet place I literally just dive in and lose myself everyday
away quiet time
I grew up on a farm and a ranch so I enjoy people but I also love my solitude.
My parents only stayed at B&B when were kids, I don’t think we ever stayed in a hotel.
Tell me about your first gardening experience? That was probably my first
growing up as a kid
to the side of the house
my parents always had an amazing big garden
time when it wasn’t
not fun
playground
as well 3 other siblings
found some unique way got us in trouble
that was probably some of my favorite things in the evenings as the sun was setting going out with my dad, and picking a cantaloupe him pulling out his pocketknife and us eating the whole cantaloupe together.
older
longing for that type of life
mentality
way that it is so connected with the earth
a little bit more space! That’s why I am really grateful I can pursue that passion that I love. I actually enjoy going out and weeding.
How did you learn how to garden organically? You know the thing about it, my dad being in the farming stuff he would always say, “I’m not an organic gardener”
I remember us growing up and him and getting a shipment of ladybugs and us going out behind the tractor and us throwing the ladybugs out into the earth. He took care of the earth by
- rotating your crops
- not taking all the nutrients out by planting the same thing
- putting the right nutrients into your soil
a lot I did learn from him.
Some of the things like making my own compost and stuff like that are things I have expanded on from my experience growing and continuing researching on my journey on my own.
Can I ask you about compost? Because I’ve been working on building this organic gardening course and to me compost is this easy extension of building soil, I can’t even imagine not composting? But I’ve been getting feedback from a lot of people I am talking to that it’s not that easy, for them. Or people are really struggling with what do I keep it on my counter that’s not going to let flies in or ants, etc.
We keep ours in a bucket on the counter, and one on the porch and I have a compost bin right outside my kitchen so IDK, we don’t have that problem. How does your compost work for you? Do you keep it in the house?
It is what you said, people feel it’s tricky I mean you have to keep it rotated
we try to keep very green and keep all food scraps.
We have two buckets One is the food off the plate that we scrape that’s for my chickens to enjoy
- eggshells
- coffee
that’s what I dump into my compost pile.
For the coffee you can add the leaves you rake up
food is what I save to feed to my chickens
Some of the waste from chickens you can add to coffee grounds. I don’t feed them their own eggshells because we found the more you add eggshells to their feed the more prone to eat their own eggs.
soil compost my eggshells I just have a large trough outside and when I move it from inside the house I just dump everything in that large trough that’s covered and keep that then for my soil compost.
I don’t find it that hard at all. It’s just two buckets.
I dump it each day, it is important to keep them rinsed out, because that’s when the flies happen.
I do, what I use is I have big stainless steel cooking pots, almost for canning. I have a 2nd sink in the B&B so I leave those sitting in the sink and clean them out each day. They have a lid on top
like that
Our enamel compost buckets
We’re actually a lot like you, we have enamel buckets on the porch for the coffee grounds, and Mike also doesn’t let the chickens eat anything that isn’t vegetarian.
Tell us about something that grew well this year, I know you had pictures of okra in the facebook group the other day. omgooodness
that grew really well
tomatoes
cukes
three batches of dill
sick of canning dill pickles
I got a recipe for cucumber jelly
a lot of okra. I went to OK to visit my grandson
you have to keep it picked
once it gets to a certain level
overly mature
I’m gonna save some for seeds for next year
I found drying it I’m gonna make it into fall garlands
In New Mexico chili wreathes are popular and I have an idea to make some of my over-mature okra into like a wreathsta!
I love those chairs that you weave the seats, they came out so nice. I love the colors etc.
I was hanging one upside down, I was with my mom, I said lets make an okra-wreathesta!
You sound like such a creative person. I thought you were so young, I thought your kids were toddlers.
Is there something you would do different next year or want to try/new? One of the things that I want to try different next year, you know, this year IDK why I struggle with it but it was even worse this year then it’s ever been.
Squash Bugs I had squash bugs so so bad, that’s the fun thing with my group page, someone was telling me, she said they waited till July 1st and they didn’t have any problems so thats something I am going to try!
I did use the diatomateous earth you have to stay on top of it
infestation
doing different trying to plant that particular part of my garden later, to see if that works, idk the correct name, we just called them
squash bugs
- little flat bug and they lay eggs on the underside of the leaf
- you can try to squeeze and kill them underneath
- if you kill them while they are young
- once they get mature that doesn’t work
tenacious little creatures and what they do is kill the vine and it starts withering and they won’t completely mature, the vine is not getting the nutrient
- squish them
- adult ones
once you get an infestation
in the past
every single vine
turn the leaf upside down
eliminating the eggs
there comes a certain point especially if you aren’t on top of it where they just take over and then you’re done!
Someone in my facebook group just posted about that and she said she was gonna charge $41.95 a zucchini for all the work she put into them.
I’ve talked to them at the extension office where you planted them this year
move them and plant them in a different place
where the garden is planted I have flowerbed areas up close to the house, cause I said I am not going to put them in the area where the garden is and they were worse there and I was like what in the world? They say a lot if they are in an area, just don’t plant squash there the next year again.
soil in that area
that didn’t work this year
Ia m going to try the tip of planting them later and see if that works. If you hear of anybody else.
I know I did a bunch of research on this because someone asked about a vine bore or something I can not find the blog post if I didn’t write...
We did this interview on my 51st birthday, Tuesday, July 31, 2018 and here’s some pre-chat before we talk about how to make your plants smart and the Smart Plant App and their beautiful Smart Plant Website.
I am a super naturalist, my children are now 20 and 18 but I sent them to the Waldorf school. They focus on organics and they teach the children how to garden as well as how to build things and plastic is the big no, no we’ve had glass straws in their life, because I just wouldn’t have to have straws, let’s make it nice. They just go right in the dishwasher.
Glass Straws That was my question, how do you clean them.
When you buy them they come with a tiny bottle brush, I just keep that by the sink. Because if you make smoothies it doesn’t all come out, so I stand it on the spike, kind of vertical, we have a whole bunch!
It’s easy!
I grew up with a Waldorf school in my backyard by my mom’s. She wanted me to go there and I was like no way. I thought there’s only 20 kids I can’t get along with the 350 in my class.
I call it the philosophy. I don’t always understand it, teachers don’t always explain, but if they would have told me that, I could have swallowed it. It’s totally been the best decision I ever made!
I was fortunate, my sister who is older then me, I saw her children go through school and I got to see what the magical education it was. I had to really work my husband over to make it work ~ It’s a private school tuition.
more the philosophy. There’s no TV. The kids can’t watch it, you don’t hand your kids screens until high school. All kinds of stuff like that.
It’s a rhythm and routine not having mirrors for kids because it makes them self conscious, because they’re always looking at themselves. There’s like a million small things.
The good things classes are small.
learned that
most kids only have 3 good friends anyway
probably not gonna have more friends. My point is if you are only going to have 3 friends it’s better to have 350 to pick them out of then only 20, but that was just my theory, but I have no idea, I could have been totally wrong! I was probably just a dumb kid and should have listened to my mom.
My daughter who just graduated, you know, she every body wants to try a different high school experience, but in the end she said she feels like she found her tribe in her class and since they traveled together from kindergarten through 12th grade.
They really deeply know each other, for people in a bigger class you might have been able to walk away from people, because they irritated you, but in that environment, you’re forced to work it out and you are forced to develop social skills you wouldn’t have to develop. Does that make sense?
You start to see them from a loving sympathetic place because you really deeply know them there are not superficial relationships in the classroom. They have shared so much together. She talks so much about how she’s gonna miss all of them. Some more then others, it wasn’t like a whole blissful thing. So I was like thank goodness.
Do they have mandatory volunteer requirements, do they have scholarship opportunities? I didn’t know about any of these other things? I might have to fight that tablet one because I’m kind of a techy. They might be changing too.
It’s such a long discussion about tablets, it’s really about eye tracking and brain development. It’s not even about content. I didn’t learn how to use a computer until I was an adult because they weren’t developed so that you need to learn it is sort of a falsity. I’m not learning to program it.
Brain Research It’s about a cognitive dissonance that happens inside their body when they are watching action and movement on a screen when their body is still. Like it’s hard to put that together, usually if you see action you’re moving.
- running with somebody else
- catching moving their hands
in front of the screen you’re really still. It’s all about what happens in your brain. During the times in your child’s life when your brain is actively developing, you want to have it in the most fertile environment.
TV The Plug In Drug Before I even had kids book is out of date, this book is probably out of date.
The Plug-In Drug: Television, Computers, and Family Life that changed my life. Lots of compelling information!
So do you have a copy of the questions?
Do you have a garden? We have a yard, I plant things, and fertilize them and harvest things… I like to create the vision for THE space, appreciate gardening spaces that draw you out to do something. I like to have places where someone can sit and read, or my daughter can go out and journal or someone can go out and paint. Sometimes we actually take like a picnic blanket in the front yard, and I’ll lay on my stomach on my computer with the dog, so we’re communing with the plants.
I don’t know if I would call myself a gardener, I don’t have formal training… lifetime of it. I don’t have a gardening routine. Does that make sense?
TOTALLY! Very similar, routine is like the, almost like a 4 letter word in my dictionary and that has been a struggle as a teacher. It’s also funny Mike and I came up with these garden journal and I write my goals down, I’m much more likely to journal after, what did I accomplish.
I am going to flip New Years Resolutions on it’s head because when I look them down I am like non of these come true but that being said, I kicked my bucket list. I turned 51 today, it’s my birthday, but my big one I had since I was a little girl, so it’s not like I don’t keep goals.
Tell us a little about yourself. I grew up with a dad who was a gardener. So we were in the yard all the time and he paid me 50¢ an hour to weed which is now my least favorite thing to do in the garden. We grew radishes because they were easiest thing to grow and graduated to giant pumpkins!
I grew up and knew all the latin names for the plants more then the common names because that’s how my parents referred to them and I would just say them and people would say what?
I ended up with my husband working on the
west coast garden line with horticultural expert Bruce Asakawa.
Where people could call in for 2 hours on Sat and Sunday. My husband and I were not on the radio we were on the board, doing the mechanics of radio network broadcasting. So I had 4 hours of listening to an expert every weekend and then I spent
many more years
learning about gardening intentionally.
Gardening in the millennial age Now, here I am today, our company has evolved we have a gardening app that helps people garden in the millennial age
- super easy
- handhelds people
- don’t have to become a master gardener to have a successful planty life.
Let’s just go right into it because I’m sure listeners, I am curious what is it, are going to be interested and they are going to love your gorgeous website that is just streamlined and every picture just makes you just want to crawl right into it.
Make your plants SMART so we founded the millennial gardeners, there’s sort of this big blip of demographics. We found that they didn’t want to become gardeners like their grandparents. But they lead these lives that are maybe
- city based
- inside on balconies
- teeny plots of land
They really wanted information given to them, they are used to things being sort of immediate gratification.
We had this idea we developed an app like to travel (Follow Siri on Instagram here) and I love plants. I would be walking in my neighborhood, or foreign countries and I would see plants and I would want to know what it was. It’s super hard to do it on google.
So we developed this app!
You simply take a picture of something
- live people
- submit the photo through the app
- ask a question and they tell you what the plant is!
Initially the app was getting tons and tons of people downloading it but we found they weren’t sending in photos.
We found out that people wanted more specific information on care so we created the
Care Calendar care calendar, you send it in to the app, and the experts send you regionally care specific. Zip code specific. Eventually you will be able to get that info through the app and you’ll get notifications that say hey bring that ______________ in because it doesn’t like the frost tonight!
For now it basically tells you
this is the time you need to be deadheading or fertilizing because this is the plant you told us you have.
That gets more specific because now we have the barcode scanning function and we’ve partnered with * garden stores * plant manufacturers
and you can walk into a garden retailer,
- open the app
- scan the barcode
- all the plant info loads onto your phone
and load that into the care calendar. You don’t have to go through the process of taking pictures, you can still do that, we have the plant library but we are always looking to streamline.
Oh when you get care information, the Smart Plant App will also tell you what you need. If it says you need fertilizer, we tell you what kind of fertilizer you don’t have to
you have the option
if you want to click through and see where you can buy it but we’re trying to make it super easy for people to keep their plant alive.
This sounds too good to be true? And amazing! How long have you been working on it?
We launched the app 3 years ago, but you know how it is with technology it’s never great right out of the gate, there’s fixes and fixes.
Super Functionality This April we did a massive overall and now it’s as elegant as the website and super functional.
You can
- see videos
- look for plants according to the room they do well in
some plants like humidity and will do well in the bathroom
You can choose bathroom and say I should go get a Boston fern or whatever for your bathroom
Or for your balcony or bedroom.
Some plants put off more oxygen at night so those kinds of plants help you sleep Now you can get all that from the homescreen of the app it just keeps getting better and better and better!
And it’s free right? How does that work?
Just like all free things, there is a paid version as well. You know how if you download Words With Friends you can download for free, but you can get rid if you want to get rid of the ads you have to pay.
We don’t do that, but we do pay the live people who are looking at all your stuff all the time, so there is a cost and we have to make money.
free version that includes a certain amount, you get like 3 free ids and chats and you get one new free one every month, if you don’t want to have any new ids.
If you just want to barcode scan all your plants
You just put them in your care calendar
- free
- forever
let’s say you need a lot of things identified then you would get the paid version
What’s wrong with this plant? a lot of questions we don’t just identify plants like you can send in a picture of a sad yellowing plant or
What’s wrong with my ficus? An expert will look at it and say it looks like this kind of bug. That kind of interaction counts and you get 3 initially
- one a month
- if you need more of those you can buy the premium plan
- $30
No way! That’s amazing! People ask that all the time! You know cause you listened to 4 hours of garden questions a week! You obviously know, I just talked to a listener Angel Garbabino in episode 239 who was saying, she had this mildew and she couldn’t figure out what to do.
It’s available on both iTunes and Android.
I can’t remember how I found you, but the thing I fell in love with was the Book Club! I see you have Floret ‘s book and I’ve been thinking about starting a book club with Jean Martin Fortier’s Book Market Gardener: A successful Grower’s Handbook for Small Scale Organic Farming and the John Jeavon’s
How to Grow More Vegetables, Eighth Edition: (and Fruits, Nuts, Berries, Grains, and Other Crops) Than You Ever Thought Possible on Less Land Than You … (And Fruits, Nuts, Berries, Grains,)
...
Hey Listeners, Patti Armbrister filled in for me this summer and did this interview when I couldn’t make it so it’s little different.
Patti: Welcome to the Organic Gardener Podcast. How are you doing today? This is Patti Armbrister the guest host, I have not hosted before but I am doing it. We are sharing some time with Rohani.
So go ahead and introduce and tell us a little bit about yourself.
Rohani: I am Rohani Foulkes I am co founder of the Farmer’s Hand which is a primarily local, meaning Michigan Grown, Michigan Made Gourmet Market and take out counter called the Farmer’s Hand which is located in Detroit and State of Michigan.
Patti: Wow! Exciting! I am actually from Michigan! From a rural community between Detroit and Chicago out on farm I was raised. That’s fantastic in Michigan you can grow almost anything!
Rohani: That’s surprising to me, as I am obviously not native to the area. I am intrigued to find out that we have such a big agricultural industry here in Michigan
Patti: I think that and tourism are probably your top ones right?
Rohani: Yeah, I believe so. Yeah.
Patti: So where did you come from and how did you end up in Detroit?
Rohani: I am originally from Australia, and my business partner was born and raised in Detroit, we have been in multiple cities here in America, overseas also. My husband is originally from Detroit. I met my business partner here in Detroit at a time when we were both looking to open a very similarly thought out local market in the city of Detroit and yeah, that’s kind of what led us to the Farmer’s Hand and beginning that adventure together.
Patti: That’s great! I’ll bet that’s exciting working with someone with the same interests.
What part of the business do you prefer? Rohani: Clarify that questions there are so many parts to it.
Patti: Maybe through a day?
Rohani: For the market side of things, there’s also a restaurant we recently opened on the same block something new we do logistically day to day.
The market side of things on delivery days we get big flushes of beautiful local produce coming and it’s just great to interact with local farmers and see all that produce come in and then watch it walk out the door after its been harvested not so long ago with customers who are just supporting this ecosystem that exists here around the world in terms of eating local food and supporting local farmers.
Patti: I love to hang out with farmers really and find out what they’re doing and what they’re growing. That’s fantastic!
Then making the connection from the food to the consumer is just grand!
Can you tell me about your first garden? My personal first garden?
Oh Yes, I guess my first garden would have been back in Australia. My mother introduced me to gardening at a very young age, and I got into it later in life on a bigger, grander scale. I grew up in a very temperate climate back in Australia where you can grow things, pretty much year round and by things I mean most every thing year round like
- tropical fruit
- mangoes
- passion fruit
- bananas
- paw paw
My mom often had a paw paw tree in the garden
- lemon grass
- things that are going crazy now like
- finger limes
- kafir lime
- citrus
all different kinds of citrus, seeing that kind of food, I’ve always been interested in food.
I’m a chef as well by trade so seeing that cycle of food growing and harvested and prepared is really intriguing to me.
I later went on to have my own small gardens in homes that I have lived in over the years but then after moving to Michigan my husband and I owned a 10 acre farm for a short period. I farmed a small lot of that land for our own purposes and for sharing with friends and family.
We had a dozen chickens that we reared on the property and a couple of children who were very into that as well. Yeah! I have a bit of experience with farming along side the business as well.
Patti: I bet the kids loved it. Rohani: I think it’s very important to raise children preferable at a young age as to where our food comes from, what it looks like, how it grows. I think it can help to excite them at a young age and also to introduce and educate them about growing and how important it is to eat healthy food in the back yard
Sure and get them eating at young age and get them to enjoy it it becomes part of the life habit
Patti: Tell us about something that grew well this year. Rohani: It’s been a little bit, we opened a second business attached to the market, that is in its very very early days, also renovated and moved into a new home here in the city.
I am really learning about my soil number one and how the sun hits my garden during the course of a day and trying to get settled into my new house. I haven’t grown a huge amount this year.
In previous years I have always been addicted to tomatoes. I am always shocked at the poor quality of tomatoes here in Michigan during most part of the year, due to lack of access and local growing.
So throughout the course of the season here, I try to grow a lot of night shades particularly especially tomatoes
IDK if it’s an innate passion for them or excitement for them but I tend to grow them very well. Lots of success with them. I always have my soil tested through the Michigan State Extension program here in Michigan. I think that is probably pretty helpful as well.
Patti: So then do you use organic amendments for whatever needs amended? Rohani: I do, so I always wait for the results when they come back, they are a little tricky to read but there are always hotlines you can call into and yeah, I do my own composting. I have found compost tea to be incredibly beneficial to my garden over the years as long as you are keeping the right balance.
Organic Supplements I will look to organic supplements if I feel my garden needs a little bit of a boost in the spring of the fall. Aside from that, I try to keep it to itself. I try not to fuss. Something my mother taught me many years ago, most people feel their gardens are imperfect if things don’t look well trimmed. A garden doesn’t necessarily need to look pretty to produce really beautiful fruit, fruits of your labor, it can look kind of scraggly and still do a good job so I try not to fuss too much.
Patti: I do regenerative agriculture in gardening so it can look rather natural after a while but the plants love it. Rohani: I think three’s something about being mentally grounded too lit’s not just pristine manicured gardening it’s looking a little bit wild and untouched, to me, it feels good, natural calming in a way.
Patti: You feel part of it What’s your favorite variety of tomato?
Rohani: Too hard to identify. Love green ones, chutney
I love paste tomatoes when they come in, that’s something I’ve learned here in Michigan!
the need to can and
- tomatoes
- when paste tomatoes come in, I can do canning and
- in season
- brandy-wines are always really lovely
- sun golds in salads and things like that
- my young daughter has become accustomed
- watch for heirloom variety of tomatoes
- increase of seed savings
- different types we have access to now with delivery and online shopping
different tomatoes has cropped up around the world
through access online shopping
we’ve always had access to
anything your want to do different or try new
Patti: Anything you want to try new next year? Do differently? first year in our new property
give ourself some time to figure out
how your garden wants to grow * and where things grow better * already had to move a couple of things * move things around our own property
I think next year I have a combination of raised beds and in the ground so I might do more raised gardening next year.
I’m finding some of my summer squash aren’t doing so good directly sown into the ground
I think it might help to be able to control with soil a little bit more
a IDK if tis soil as been taken care of needs a little bit of love in the years go come.
Do a little bit of composting and feed the soil up a bit so I can direct so in the years to come.
Which activity is your least favorite activity to do in the garden? In the garden? My least favorite activity? I find garden pretty therapeutic. Even if it’s the tedium of it
my least favorite thing to see is when fall is coming to an end and winter is coming and everything is starting to die, and I think the clean up in the spring can be difficult
- fall and the spring
- gardening moving to Michigan
- very bad
- doing regenerative gardening
- I’m in a dry climate
- somethings I leave to catch snow
- think up spring there’s not much left
What is your favorite activity to do in the garden? When spring hits its really fun to go out
I like to buy from my local farmers
its alway stop see what they started new this year
I like to flip through seed catalogs I hear e a number of them through each years, something to look forward to spring
secession plants that year
farmers market start off
its nice to see
in terms of things I can put tin ground
special moment to share with
being able to share that with someone else especially my kids
What is the best gardening advice you have ever received? really had to learn my environment
a lot of extension agents round country will provide in
soil testing
request a little packet
soil off from a bunch of places
not familiar with this growing landscape of the course of a decade I’e only been here for 5-6 years
soil and growing conditions
foundation to seeing you up successfully
A favorite tool that you like to use? If you had to move and could only take one tool with you what would it be. I would say in all honesty my hands
there are certainly tools for weeding
or killing the
tilling the ground?
twine dig up and dig out
use my hands as much as possible.
Me Too , I just love using my hands
I have worn gloves
I feel like I have more control for obvious
what was the main tool that you brought with you?
From Australia for gardening?
I didn’t bring and physical tools with me much because it went into a shipping container.
Books * gardening books and also journals, I keep a lot o f journals * rotations of garden needs etc * books
A favorite recipe you like to cook from the garden? I’ll stick with something tomatoes
given how much I love tomatoes
something along the lines of a panzenella salad
- olive oil
- garlic bread
- combo of tomatoes and a bit of salt
- any kind of herbs
many people stick tomatoes in the fridge
warm off the vine I don’t like to put tomatoes in the fridge
I believe they deteriorate the flavor of them and it tends to halt the ripening of them.
there is something to a fresh tomato vs a tomato that comes out of the fridge
I always keep them on my counter top, I think they taste a lot better
A favorite internet resource? there are a great deal of websites
IDK about favorite but I think my go to would beRareSeeds I find a lot of helpful info there
otherwise just searching generally for companion planting
I do a lot of companion planting but I forget so I do a lot of google research of what kinds of herbs are beneficial to different fruits and vegetables
RareSeeds to me
sourcing
general info
Patti: that’s good
I love companion planting as I let more stuff go to seed I start to let them decide what to do, I have some plants that move to a different location and I think oh I guess that’s where you need to be
I tend to do that often, better for a bit to kind of see what works best
A favorite reading material-book, mag, blog/website etc you can recommend? I think in terms of books
I have quite a number of books
not too long ago I was given
Carrots Love Tomatoes: Secrets of Companion Planting for Successful Gardening * interesting guide to companion planting * to be honest I tend to read cooking books more then gardening books * because of my background
Tuesday • September 4, 2018 and Certified Ayurvedic Health Counselor Andrea Catherine is here to share with us her new ingredient KAMUT® flour and a recipe for Pesto.
What’s cooking?
Retreat at Spirit Ranch at Home in Your Heart
Considering we have been connected since March it’s not that many episodes we put out because we’ve both been busy!
Our CSA is winding down, I think my last pick up is October 2nd
I got something I have never used before! That is a rare thing for me, usually I am like I know what to do with this, and I feel a sense of pride in knowing! Cause I know a lot of people don’t know what to do with what they get in their Farm Share.
We got KAMUT®, the grain, it’s a form of wheat. Idk if I am actually saying it right. The word itself is formed from the Egyptian for wheat, it’s a form of wheat. It’s a wheat berry. We got it ground up.
I’m thinking of using it to make
- scones
- pancakes
- bread
- soup
Time for warmer foods, last night we roasted a bunch of vegetables. I have been wanting to make homemade pizza! So I was thinking of making pizza dough in the next few weeks. So that is my homework, it’s my homework.
Can I say something. So I want to say KAMUT®is a registered trademark wheat that Bob Quinn grows over on the East Side. He is an international business, it’s grown organically, and people who have a gluten allergy, tend to be able to eat it, the allergy has to do with the way it’s processed and not the gluten itself.
And he is like the leader in the world for selling this and his biggest customers are pasta makers in Italy. He goes to Italy every year. I so want to write children’s book about him, I loved his interview and I have wanted to find out how we can grow that? So Brooke must be growing it in Whitefish?
I think she milled it.
Cool, homemade Pizza Dough, I have an awesome Pizza dough recipe I could share with you.
I’m gonna pull up her email, Yes he did trademark it, here’s her email: ~ This week the full and half shares will be receiving a bag of Kamut flour. KAMUT® khorasan wheat is an ancient wheat, guaranteed under the KAMUT® brand to be always grown certified organic, never hybridized or genetically modified and is prized for its nutrition, ease of digestibility, sweet nutty-buttery taste and firm texture. Compared to most modern wheat it has more protein, amino acids, vitamins and many minerals, especially selenium, zinc and magnesium.
Khorasan is a variety of wheat and thus has gluten. However, many people with sensitivities to modern wheat report being able to eat KAMUT® khorasan wheat with no difficulty. (see Gluten Intolerances below)
Most likely originating in Mesopotamia, legends exist of this grain being found in Egyptian tombs. However, there is no archeological evidence to substantiate this. Farmers in Turkey call the grain “Camel’s Tooth” because of its shape or the “Prophet’s Wheat”, referring to another legend that Noah brought the grain with him on the ark. ~
Gluten intolerances This is what I want to clarify, people who have celiac are still going to have a reaction, but people who have gluten intolerances, it’s a little different then an allergy. If they have a reaction that is not celiac they may be able to process it, just to be really clear.
I know Bob Quinn, has been posting on social media much more then he has and I think I just replayed that not long ago.
I look forward to looking it up!
That’s my homework ~ learning opportunity
I picked that up on a teaching podcast I found.
The kids that I am working with, are starting school. We check in a lot and ask
- what do you like?
- what are you looking forward to?
I check in to. And I’m thinking alot about * what does education mean * a lot of things I am learning * it is a different format
It feels more open.
I feel like I am learning a lot about teaching etc this summer. Also, I have been really engrossed with teaching and I created this webinar on teaching students with dyslexia this morning. So I am really just learning a ton about the brain science behind how to rewire a students brain etc.
Well I’m excited about what you’ve got going on. The possibility!
The other thing I did, I submitted a podcasting course to FVCC. It’s total imposter syndrome, I wrote tis class back in 2016 and I just submitted it yesterday. I didn’t change one thing. I had the forms from FVCC for 2 years, I suddenly had the confidence.
I’d be happy to help you, like doing a practice interview.
I’m glad you said that because practice interviews and recording are the basic steps and exactly what the class is all about.
What are you cooking this week? Well the last couple of weeks the things that are standing out!
The greens are so prolific! That was a delight! We’re shifting into root vegetables and I just don’t want the greens to get lost.
What greens are you getting? Basil Well, we just pulled all the basil out of the garden
where the kids where I’m working at
we access the central kitchen garden, for the Kalispell School District, at Kalispell Middle School.
I started to make pesto. We have to finish making this week
tasted basil
A lot of the kids had never heard of pesto. simple recipe
- pine nuts
- lemon juice
Pretty simple. But what a wonderful resource, when we can use these herbs that are so potent, have such strong flavors. The bitter taste of strong health benefits! Preserve it. I’m planning to freeze it!
In some kind of containers, you can freeze it in ice cube trays, pop it out you have a single serving of pesto for your pasta.
This is so timely because my BFF Dacia came up and I was like do you want this basil, take it all? She was like no way! I was like we could pull the plants out. It could freeze any time and I will just lose it. I have like 4-5 large plants.
She said don’t you want to make pesto, but I was like no, not really, because,
- Mike’s not going to eat it. I was thinking I could make it into gifts for people for Christmas and get Mike to can it.
- This was the thing I was gonna say, is that because it can be so strong and bitter, is the Health Food Store in town had a deli and they made this pesto mayo, that was so addicting. She took this natural mayo and put a tablespoon of pesto in and it was soooooo delicious. But what I usually do is just put a piece of fresh basil or fresh arugula on my sandwich. The kids might like that a little less potent.
When we talk about changing our diet, people struggle trying to replace things, they’re taking things out, but something that is easier is to just add something in. So maybe you have mayonnaise on your sandwich, and you can’t kick the mayo and that’s fine
adding something like pesto in that has that little bit of kick might aid in your digestive process, that might be more in tune with the digestive process.
Im one of those that can’t kick the mayo but at least if you put a little pesto and less mayo that might be healthier.
I’m excited to now make some pesto!
Freeze it!
Make the pizza dough with the Kamut pizza!
Click here If you want to find some great recipes for Kamut and learn more about it The Organic Gardener Podcast is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com
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Free Garden Course.com
Free Organic Garden Course
Remember you can get the 2018 Garden Journal and Data Keeper to record your garden goals in
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Tuesday • August 14, 2018 and Certified Ayurvedic Health Counselor Andrea Catherine is here to share with us her recipes for cooking corn skillet!
What’s cooking?
Retreat at Spirit Ranch at Home in Your Heart
Summer Corn Skillet Dish Happy Mid-to-Late Summer!
Lots of fires around us which is pretty heartbreaking.
It’s awful! But they actually mentioned climate this morning on Democracy Now! They were talking about on the news.
Glyphosate, yeah, they’re paying 289$ million
Let’s talk about some non-gmo food which is kind of fitting because the dish I want to talk about it corn based.
I love corn on the cob. And a friend of mine said you really are from the midwest
well, I like corn-on-the-cob, and I grew up being able to have it and now it’s so hard to find organic fresh corn!
I got some in my CSA this week, to make other then just grilling corn on the cob
The new owners of Swift Creek, do this amazing corn-on-the-cob at the farmer’s market.
It’s like $3 an ear of corn with all these spices and cheese!
It’s so good and so simple! What I did is I take the corn on the cob and cut off the kernels
cook it slowly in a skillet
One of my favorite meals to cook in the summer when its not hot
yesterday was the perfect day
Everything from my CSA
- zucchini
- Hungarian hot wax peppers
- peppers
- onions
- garlic
- tomatoes
And some spices
- cumin
- corriander
- turmeric
- ginger
- salt and pepper
long slow
stirring process on a low to medium heat
carmelizes and gets so sweet
- add a little more olive oil
- vinegar
- Bragg’s amino acids
It’s kind of a meditative process, moving my arm in a stirring motion
- peaceful
- cooking slowly
not in the slow food tradition, not a two day process
attentive process
Added in a little bit of goat cheese
stirred in
all I really needed for my supper You could add something like black beans or roasted chicken
Really just these slow cooked veggies on the skillet and the corn adds this sweet carmely flavor
corn skillet
not corn bread and a stir fry
heartier element
As we shift towards fall we start to make heartier foods I was walking my dog in the alley behind my house, there’s a shed, and there were vines with 3 clusters of bright red flowers I thought here comes fall!
digestive systems are starting to shift
apples are gonna come in
We will start crave some of these foods that are more nourishing and grounding
There’s always change, we seem to only notice big seasonal changes. Things are always changing.
What does that indicate to us? How are we shifting now?
I used to have a recipe like that where I stuffed tomatoes with corn, that was delicious. I’m fascinated that someone said Corn-On-The-Cob was a midwest thing I thought everyone loved corn-on-the-cob. I thought it was a traditional thing as American as red, white and blue.
I love cutting the kernels off the cob and eating those strips. Yum! When do you do that?
I generally just boil my corn. And then cut them off whatever I’m putting away for the next day. We’ve finally had some food. I posted on Instagram we finally ate some of his potatoes. His poor grandson came up to have carrots and we didn’t have hardly any.
Have you ever overwintered carrots? That’s what I was thinking we should put some in now. He’s got big bales of hay he could put over them, so they would maybe take off in the spring.
Does he pickle them?
No, he just cans them, our three big veggies are potatoes, carrots and green beans. We don’t get near enough for tomatoes either. We eat a lot of grilled cheeses and tomato soup. I just can’t wait for rain. I’m so sick of breathing smoke. I actually got up to my walking spot yesterday and almost turned around.
My brother was here for 3 days, so respite for, Sunday it was clear, we went to Finger Lakes, and then we took him to the airport early on Monday morning and there was smoke from the Lake McDonald.
Praying Mantis Sends Us A Signal My call to action this week is everyone write to that Dylan Dreyer on GMA, who was talking about baseball players. This coach who got a moth in his ear and then this other player Erik Fedde gets this praying mantic on his shoulder and lets it crawl over. Then she says where are the pesticides? We need to do something.
I just freaked, it makes my blood boil.
Well what should we write?
Well, she just needs to correct it, she’s gonna stand in front of that big map of the fires burning all over our country and say things like we need to spray pesticides on a praying mantis? IDK my mom taught me they are to be treated with the respect of the most valuable creature in the garden.
I just want to sit with that, what is that praying mantic telling us? What message does he have for us?
Thanks Andrea!
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This episode was so great I couldn’t hold it to myself. Erik Ohlsen is here to share his passion and knowledge of permaculture design and how you can start your own business that makes a great profit! It’s completely RAW, no editing at all including our pre-chat but I think you will enjoy it as much as I did and it goes so well after the last two awesome shows with Lee Reich and Susan Harris. Hope you enjoy and please support our patreon campaign if you can. We need your help more then ever to keep the show up on the air.
Tell us a little about yourself. Erik Ohlsen director of the Permaculture Artisans designs * water harvesting systems * anything under the sun * doing this work since I was 19
Tell me about your first gardening experience? I have 2 answers for that
- Going out with my Grandma Marie
- My first gardening experience at 19 years old
Tell us about something that grew well this year. I’m looking at an Asian Pear, we are having an asian pear bumper crop, eating too many giving them away as fast as we can.
Is there something you would do different next year or want to try/new? One thing, a lot of what we do are perennial based, a lot of it, a new persimmon that is finally doing well this year.
Tell me about something that didn’t work so well this season. One of our big issues here are gophers.
Which activity is your least favorite activity to do in the garden? trapping gophers…
What is your favorite activity to do in the garden? what I would call chop and drop
What is the best gardening advice you have ever received? don’t over think it
avoid paralysis by analysis
I don’t think there is any better skill a gardener can learn
listen to the garden best skill to cultivate A favorite tool that you like to use? If you had to move and could only take one tool with you what would it be?
The Rogue hoe.
A favorite recipe you like to cook from the garden? OK, so my favorite on my moms side my mom is from Argentia, goes back generations in Argentina, grandfather was born in Italy, my mom perfected is our family:
Puttanesca Sauce
A favorite internet resource? Plants for a Future
A favorite book to reccommmend?
The Carbon Farming Solution: A Global Toolkit of Perennial Crops and Regenerative Agriculture Practices for Climate Change Mitigation and Food Security Final question- if there was one change you would like to see to create a greener world what would it be? For example is there a charity or organization your passionate about or a project you would like to see put into action. What do you feel is the most crucial issue facing our planet in regards to the environment either in your local area or on a national or global scale?
Global warming we are seeing the results both from an environmental and a social catastrophe
would be a huge WAKE UP call
How do we connect with you? Permaculture Skills Center.org
chat box you can click I get those messages
people can send me an email
erik@erikohlsen.com
check out the website
let us know if you have any questions or inspiration.
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The Ever Curious Gardener: Using a Little Natural Science for a Much Better Garden I grew up on Long Island, just got back from New York, but IDK if I have ever been there. I talked at a guy Aiden who is a manager at Young’s Farm and Larry Tse who runs a farm for Dig Inn which is also in the Hudson Valley. It is July 11, 2018 and I have a guest who’s books have been recommended a number of times on the show.
Tell us a little about yourself. I did not grow up in agriculture
a long time ago I was in college and grad school in Chemistry, then i dropped out of grad school in Chemistry and I moved to Vermont for a year to figure out what I was gonna do and I got really into reading about gardening. After a year of not doing much in VT I went to grad school in Ag at the U Wisconsin.
I dove into gardening intensively, I was learning a lot, because I didn’t know anything! I was learning a lot about soil science especially, because that’s what I was in grad school in and after few years I got a degree in horticulture too. Still gardening crazily.
access to a good agriculture library so I would read everything I could find besides doing it. I worked for the Soil Conservation Services which is now called the Natural Resource Conservation.
Went back to school and got my Doctorate in Horticulture with a specialty in fruit crops. I worked for Cornell for a while, when that job ended I went off on my own lecturing and writing and consulting.
The whole time I did garden like a maniac, I still do, it hasn’t lost it’s appeal. I still love it! One other addition when I moved to NY to work for Cornell so I planted 3/4 acre
fruit trees
The Farmden field another 2 acres south of my property. A little over 2 acres. Instead of planting 2 of each fruit tree I planted 20 so I could study them more. I renamed it a farmden, more then a garden a little less then a farm!
Tell me about your first gardening experience was that in Grad school? When I was very very young we had a house just north of NYC
We had a house with a small vegetable garden, it was planted by the swing set. I wasn’t that into the garden, I liked eating from the garden. I remember my father giving me this shovel and said, turn over the soil here. It was taller then me, I remember trying to put the shovel in the ground, it was like a rock, it was a stiff clay soil.
It’s tough when you have that kind of soil, Mike was just telling me the other day don’t dig there, don’t you see all those rocks.
Weedless Gardening The Hassle-Free All-Organic System a bold title the publisher made up, I always say it’s not Weedless, it’s Weed Less gardening, the main theme, that I practiced is
no till My garden soil has not been dug for many years
partially
studying soil science
goes back to trying to shovel in the ground when I was a little kid.
You did all this school, started writing, gardening the whole time, so I guess one big questions I have is that at school you don’t always learn the organic way, and how did you learn the No-Till thing?
Not in school, as a matter of fact, it was kind of mentioned disparagingly, if at all…
definitely didn’t each organic
sort of learning basic soil science
basic soil science isn’t organic or not organic, it’s just basic soil science and can be applied organically or not organically but I used it from the organic perspective
Now most of the land grant colleges have come around to noting the benefits of organic guarding learning the basics.
I like to learn from books and trying things out in the field.
I was trying things out reading a lot and gardening a lot
I feel lucky to have that opportunity to have access to all that literature and have a garden.
classroom access to have a classroom
could not live anywhere without a garden.
I think that’s perfect for my listeners because I think a lot of my listeners are like that , there are definitely new gardeners but may are master gardeners people who’s whole backyard is a garden, and they have been doing it a lot like you have. Do you want to tell us about something that grew well this year?
Let me say one more thing. A lot of people, I actually wrote a book that just came out this past spring.
The Ever Curious Gardener: Using a Little Natural Science for a Much Better Garden * relates to what I said previously * people don’t realized the awesomeness of the science that’s going on in the garden * making plants grow * stick a seed * what’s happening out there * get better results * garden * was quite good * just cause I learned what was going
If you have any tips for soil health because that is a total theme on my show.
TIPS galore on soil health start out studying soil
before I studied horticulture
hate to even throw out anything it goes to the landfill is to me disrespect for soil
The no-till thing is
care for the soil
not a religion like you are a bad person if you till your soil.
But if you manage a system where you don’t have to till the soil, it really does lead to healthier soil
increase soil organic matter * physical characteristics * nutritional characteristics * really increase soil’s organic matter.
When you till a soil
- fungi
- hype
- thin threads
When you till a toil it breaks them up worms obviously won’t like a soil that’s being tilled all the time
main things really important
building up organic matter as much as possible with * compost * manures * cover crops
I’m lucky because I’ve been over 30 years in same place * levels are super high * nice and soft * joy to work.
Well, I know listeners are probably wondering and I know we struggle here if we are building new beds, where do you come up with soil. I mean we never have enough compost. We’re constantly expanding. Now he has this thing I call the mini-farm that’s maybe a 1/4 acre, anytime he puts in new beds, we have 260′ of fence in our old garden.
I also think it’s so true it’s disrespectful to be throwing things out. Are you just talking about organic matter or turing in beat greens when you harvest the beets. This year he grew fava beans but as a cover crop but we harvested the beans. I keep reading about cover crops and you’re supposed to kill them before they flower.
yeah, that’s good.
my suggestion is don’t even turn it into the soil, because when you mix it in you are disrupting the fungi and worms and you are actually adding oxygen while turning up the organic matter.
ways to deal with cover crops so they are winter kill.
on a home garden scale that winter kills
oats
plant it
really likes cool weather, come dec, when January comes around the winter kills and then by spring the tops you can rake off and just plant
there’s a lot of research on big farm scales
crimpers that knock it down and sort of cut it up just into the surface.
Ok, cool, because I haven’t really heard about people using it on a big scale. Good to know.
Another No-Till Tip keep everything simple
It takes more time to complicate things, people come up with all sorts of things, it will probably alienate some readers, is compost tea
use it
some you can make
compost it rains, the compost goes into the soil.
separate and water it on my plants
great thing
not worth using
it does have some benefits sometimes and sometimes negative.
Tell us about something that grew well this year. I look at lot of commercial horticulture, I get these bulletins from Cornell about what pests are around and what sprays to put on things. IDK if it’s
- just luck?
- taking care of soil?
- time things?
Vegetables, I generally find them easy to grow I have very few pest problems
grow a bunch of different vegetables
something fails you have a lot of other things
very few pest problems I think a lot of my guests have said that healthy soil is key but I know that I have got the impressions that those of us that live in northern climates the less pests we have and also the majority of my guests have agreed that healthy soil leads to less pests.
semantic thing
plants are healthier you get less pests.
less health
what a healthy plant is, one way could be to define it as no pests.
And no disease?!
Yes, here in the NE
get a lot of pests and diseases
especially on fruit plants
common plants
generally things grow well
I try to grow plums here
Plums have a lot of pest problems I lot of years, I basically don’t get any plums. Maybe where you are you might have certain limitations for climate.
insects
you don’t have as many pests
dryer climate.
I am so curious to see, we had a plum tree that was covered in plums like crazy and right before harvest they died and now we have a plum tree that has finally grown an abundance o plums and I’m curious to see what happens?
Maybe you do have some of the diseases we have. I have a plum tree, one has nothing One is loaded and sometimes as they ripen, they get a fuzzy gray coating and they rot and dry up it’s called brown rot. It is common here in the east.
That one tree was young, only like 3 years old. This one, I want to say has been in there since 2012 and this is the first year it has put out any fruit at all, and it is just covered in plums.
tell you about one of my successes.
I have a small greenhouses,
20×20
Not that small …
Yes, I guess.
I get a lot of use out of it, minimally heat it so it doesn’t freeze
fresh salad stuff all winter
- fresh kale
- celery
In the spring I raise all the seedlings from my garden in the greenhouse in the summer. This is the best part I have four fig trees planted in the ground
I planted in 2001, they have trunks about 8” across. First of all, I have to control the growth because they can get big in a greenhouse.
A few years ago I started getting one pest scale insects
very hard to control, we used to try everything.
- toothbrush with alcohol
- spraying with oil
- try a whole bunch of different things
I grow figs outside in pots that I have to bring into my basement. Every year the scale insects would get the better of me and it was like an actually race fruits are they before they ripen or not. So I read about it and I find out there are some beneficial insects.
Actually they were mealy bugs
beneficial insects bought 2 different types
one in April and another...
Wednesday June 27, 2018. I’m thrilled to introduce this guest, I was visiting my mom in NY and I took this book out of her library and it was called
Beautiful No-Mow Yards: 50 Amazing Lawn Alternatives And the introduction is by Susan Harris Garden Blogger from the GardenRant Garden Blog! And she is here with me today and i know you are just going to love her.
I grew up gardening a bit with both grandmothers and mother
I wasn’t really obsessed until I got help
The pay off once I got a little help, the result looked so much better.
I have been a really intense gardener ever since!
I became very active in my local gardening club, I was writing in the newsletter. Someone said blogging was very easy so the very next day I started my very first blog, I started me in garden writing.
Shortly after Amy Stewart asked if I would like to partner?
Garden Rant The Tagline is Uprooting the gardening world pretty nervy
The mission was to have opinionated writing and be able to say what we wanted and not have to worry about advertising. That led to being paid to write for magazines. I’ve written for a lot of gardening companies in my area. It just kind of snow balled from there.
I call my audience green future growers, and I feel like they are like that are more then just gardeners, we’re trying to grow as much of our food as we can for a year so we can massively supplement our produce bill.
Green Future Growers I know a lot of my listeners have green businesses, either seed companies, or education or not always market farmers but some kind of healthy nutritious business that requires a blog and do you have any tips for making that easier or for starting to becoming a successful blog writer.
Oh gosh
Well back then in 2005 there were so few of us we all knew each other
the event they call the Gardener Blog Fling
They just celebrated their 10th year by returning to Austin. I would say just reading each others blogs and getting together in person we’ve become a pretty tight knit group. I don’t do much blog reading anymore. After 13 years of blogging just posting once a week which is just right, I’m glad I have a platform to post things.
Garden Blog Writing Resources * how to get blog reader * write specifically for the web * there’s much to know about it
jump in
published my first blog
moved to different platforms
find it so easy
enjoy digital photography
You can show them off in many places
Instagram still I like the blogging because it’s not just photos because there’s text. I miss the text, if there was just pictures in Instagram.
I notice similar things. I feel like when I’m on my phone my eyes get tired when there’s mostly just pictures. I like Facebook more because there’s more white space. I’m doing better with Instagram on my computer for looking and posting comments.
A little different tone
ranting quite a bit
Our least favorite home owner association rules that require you to have turf grass
Our least favorite chemical companies that does a lot of advertising that pushes people to have the perfect lawn!
We would often post about our favorite gardening shows on tv were gone!
I learned to garden largely by watching HGTV and watching
Paul James Gardening by the Yard out of Tulsa We had a lot to rant about at first.
You can’t keep repeating those same topics.
We’ve gotten a little political with the changes coming to environmental law. Typically you don’t here politics mentioned on garden blogs. Maybe if it’s plant related you occasionally go there.
We have stories. There are seven of us that are regularly blog there. Some are regular story tellers, some of our contributors. They know a lot more then I do about plants.
I might have to check that out more. I’m a pretty vocal activist, I love that about my podcast I can actually be me. I love that about my listeners who come to be guests and guests who become listeners.
That was the best thing about going to NY was meeting listeners and guests like Elizabeth Leonard and Aiden Finney at Young’s Farms.**
Tell me about your first gardening experience? I just remember that both my mother and grandmother had beautiful gardens. My mother would rather weed then anything. What it did for her.
Emotionally spending time in the garden. I did a lot with her, but as an adult I attempted to make my yard pretty, but I really needed a professional to really kick start it.
I have happy memories of Central Virginia, but I am from Des Moines. I grow pretty much the same plants. It has a pretty nice family history.
I love that not just like because I am a teacher but also because I took guitar lessons and it was like overnight I could play a million songs. It changed everything! So I’m a big proponent of getting help.
How did you learn how to garden organically? Joe Lamp’l he was talking about how people learn to garden with the TV shows gone, if you don’t have someone in real life one-on-one. The thing to find the very best Youtube videos that teach people to garden. If you can to find the ones that are high quality that are accurate, you can put the exact search terms in YouTube and get your answers very quickly.
That’s a great way to learn.
Myself, I’ve enjoyed as a professional, being a garden coach for people
in person teacher
go to someone’s yard
jump start
give them design ideas
plant suggestions for what to put in the ground. Especially pruning is a very intimidating garden job and hard to learn. When you’re hacking away at their overgrown forsythia.
one on one teaching I personally didn’t get much of them myself.
Paul James used to have this great gardening show who was very much an organic gardener and ornamentals!
I don’t grow food and I’m not a cook.
I learned so much about how to grow plants!
how to create a beautiful yard! A beautiful garden!
What would be like one tip on what would you give somebody on what they could do to give their yard? Is there a tip you can give? Well to get some professional help design help, but if you know someone who has a garden that you think is pretty, you could ask them to give you some tips.
It does’t have to be a professional set of eyes, just another set of eyes from someone who you know.
just an experiences
Visit gardens and garden tours!
That’s funny because when I was in NY I got my mom to finally put a new set of eyes on my Free Organic Gardener Course and she was helpful but it was like we never got past the first lesson.
Tell us about something that grew well this year. We moved to a town house
- front yard and back yard
- adopted 5 other gardens in my yard
- tools in the back of my car
- couldn’t stop
what’s growing well? really
especially in one of them fairly large one story office building and a budget would reimburse me whatever I bought!
To create a low maintenance garden that won’t need a lot of attention for me in a couple of years.
I think a great technique for a low maintenance garden. mainly shrubs
that won’t get too big
combination of ever green and flowering ones
grow quite quickly
My favorite shrub now that I am putting everywhere. IS called Ninebark. It is native in this part of this world. It grows fast and has purple foliage! So it really contrasts with another favorite of mine which
chartreuse
So you have all that color without having to rely on flowers color in the leaves
Some old evergreens I have incorporated.
Flowers are later in the year.
- daffodils
- black eyed Susan’s
- pockets of perennials in between
couple of years down the road
Well see down the road how much maintenance it really is good layer of mulch
perennial but mainly shrubs.
little drips and drabs of flowering
At my moms there was a house across the street that had black eyed Susans that looked so dainty etc.
Is there something you would do different next year or want to try/new? I would like to stop trying new things
stop creating new gardens
I need to cut back
to add nothing more, frankly
Just take care of what I got and stop adopting new gardens! I’m having a lot of fun teaching people in my community to garden. Working with the city crew with the way they maintain city gardens. That’s my focus now. Thinking about that more then what to change in my garden.
I like that too if you can give them some ideas. Especially after being at my moms, and the landscapers do everything. But her neighbor’s do have the little flags that say don’t walk your dog here for 24 hours and it’s strange because it smells so good but it does look strange that there’s not a ton of weeds growing everywhere. They do have a lot of shrubs.
I have to hold my tongue
they’re still putting in dozens of annuals that need irrigation in full sun and a lot of weeding!
They have been doing a lot of
Plant choices They are not preventing weeds so it’s a mess. Part of what we’re doing is just redesign, so that there’s just a lot less maintenance going forward. That’s the best we can do. It’s very gratifying. As we change some of the city landscapes we can use that as a teaching opportunity to show the residents what the changes are and why.
This is fascinating, I’ll bet listeners are thinking, maybe I should go talk to my town board or give a presentation. Why are they planting those annuals there? Even though guests talk about it a lot but I only think really about by my house, but I am already thinking about there are two places when you pull into Eureka where there are big signs with flowers so I am going to have to look and see what’s growing there. I love perennials.
I was going to ask have you seen that movie Dare to Be Wild? On Netflix about Mary Reynolds? She wins like the Chelsea Flower Show in England. My mom just stumbled upon it. It’s about this real woman. She’s like the first woman and they just made a movie about here. It’s all about Native Landscaping.
Shrubs like Nine bark, Oak leaf hydrangea and Spirea Ogon
Tell me about something that didn’t work so well this season. Salvia
Deer eating sedum
got a ground cover junipers
junipers do really well here and they are native
Giving up on salvias and tall sedum because of the deer.
Deer can be a challenge. The only that grows here they don’t eat is the peonies. Our place is kind of like a sanctuary because our neighbors are always shooting so the deer are all over so Mike has built nice fences.
Before we get to the root of things let’s thank our sponsors and affiliates!
~ Seed Voyage ~ Remember you can get the
Originally published on 2015/12/31 Christmas Eve! (with a replay the following December 29, 2016) I am replaying this episode because I have a guest coming up who talks about Jenny’s problem of dealing with fire ants. If you haven’t signed up for Jenny’s email I can tell you I love getting their updates it’s always so fun to watch their family grow!
On the Jenny Jack Sun Farm located one‐hour southwest of Atlanta in beautiful Pine Mountain, Georgia, Jenny and Chris Jackson, along with two apprentices, grow a generous variety of fruits, vegetables, herbs, and flowers on 5 acres running a successful CSA. Recently, heritage hogs have been added to the mix, including a rare breed called Red Wattle.
Tell us a little about yourself. My husband and I have been running the farm full time for 8 years now. We met at the University of Georgia. I studied horticulture and he was an education major. I was interested in the idea of farming in college but I wasn’t really exposed to small diverse farms until after I graduated. I knew I wanted to study plants and how they grow and how to grow them, but I didn’t have a clear path until we traveled after we graduated college. We went to Hawaii to work on different organic farms.
Did you go through the WWOOFer program?
Yes, a friend that had traveled extensively told us about WWOOF. That’s an acronym for Willing Workers on Organic Farms. You can do that pretty much anywhere in the world. We decided we wanted to go to Hawaii, but we knew it was expensive there to go as a tourist. By WWOOFing you can work in exchange for a place to stay and food. By that I mean in a tent.
Tent life as a WWOOFer But a tent’s probably ok for Hawaii?
Yes, it’s an ideal place to camp for several months, so we stayed there for 5 months working on 3 different farms. We didn’t get an in depth education because as a WWOOFer, you work about 25 hours a week, so that way you have time to explore the area your in. So it was a good introduction. When we came back to Georgia after Hawaii we found a longer term apprenticeship. That’s where we really started learning what we would apply at our farm.
Awesome! I think that’s great advice. I love to hear about experiences like that, I think it’s a good way to learn because One: it’s a lot of work so you can one learn how to be effective and efficient and two: also you can learn if you are ready to do all that work before you make a good commitment. I just had a guest who said you need to learn how to manage one acre effectively before you learn to manage 20. One of my very first guests Todd Ulizio did an apprenticeship and he recommended it because he said you have 0 risk but get all the knowledge.
Tell me about your first gardening experience? I was fortunate because I grew up in the garden, my parents had a big garden, although I didn’t fully appreciate it as I was younger or help as much as I probably should have, at least I had exposure.
took for granted that you could harvest it and eat it so fresh! Also we had a babysitter who was a serious gardener. When I wasn’t at home with my parents from the time I was a few months old, she had us in her garden just watching her as she tended her plants. So I feel really lucky that I was exposed to it my whole life basically.
What does organic gardening/earth friendly mean to you? Well basically, there’s so many toxins in our environment today, and a lot of them come from agriculture, so when I started learning about the health hazards of conventional fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, number 1 I didn’t want to expose myself, or my husband or my workers to that, but when you’re growing for other people you want to make sure it’s as healthy and safe as possible too. For me not only is it about how to care for the soil, but it’s about keeping myself and my husband and our customers as healthy as possible! Personally what I have learned about conventional fertilizers and chemicals I don’t think it’s possible to do it otherwise.
I agree, sometimes I think it’s crazy? How are we eating this stuff?
Who or what inspired you to start using organic techniques? Not my parents, they were just sort of, not old fashioned, but I guess mainstream gardeners. They used triple 13 or whatever conventional fertilizer people use on gardens. I do think its better to grow your own food, if that’s the only way you are going to do it, I think it’s better then not doing it at all. For them it was just a lack of knowledge about organic growing methods. So I wasn’t exposed organic growing ideas until college, I guess. It’s not something I was taught in horticulture. I was at UGA from 2000-2004. Shortly after I left that they started focusing on more organic gardening methods. So I didn’t learn about it in college but I did get interested in it as I read about the hazards of conventional farming just on my own. It was in Hawaii, when we were working on these organic farms I becomes aware the importance of growing organically.
I just talked with Anna Peach from the Squash and Awe blog in Hawaii!
Tell us about something that grew well on the farm this year. Growing Organic Tomatoes Our tomatoes were phenomenal this year! We have just recently put up a couple of hoop houses, that is like a green house except you grow in the ground, it’s basically a high tunnel of plastic over a growing field. This year we had our tomatoes growing in 2 of our hoop houses. And that made such a difference! By having the plastic over them we could get them in the ground earlier. By avoiding rainfall, we could manipulate the water, just as we need it which is so important especially cherry tomatoes will split in half. And it reduces foliar disease because the rain wasn’t splashing back up on the leaves, the plants were able to stay drier. So less cracking, less disease, longer season! We had a really great tomato crop! Awesome, those are great tips for listeners.
Georgia Climate In Georgia, I wouldn’t think that you’d have to worry about a longer season, but you do down there I guess? What’s your climate like?
We have a really great long growing season, but our frost-free date in the spring is April 15th. So in order to get stuff in earlier that’s frost sensitive, all the summer stuff tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, yeah the hoop house is the way to do it. Because we’re growing and marketing and vegetables for a living, the earlier that we can get these things in the better. Because people, our customers are highly anxious to start getting those first summer fruits in late spring.
Did you plant some outside too or just all of your tomatoes are in the hoop house?
This year we did a 3rd planting outside, because our first 2 plantings were inside so our hoop houses were full. We did a 3rd planting in August outside and we harvested those tomatoes up until our first frost around late November.
Is there something you would do different on your farm next year or want to try/new? Medicinal herbs and plants Something that I have really gotten interested in this year is medicinal herbs and plants. We have started into that, primarily we grow vegetables, we do have fruit, also chickens for eggs and the hogs. So obviously we’re very diverse, but I really have enjoyed opening another layer of diversification through these medicinal herbs. Our customers have really been interested in it as well. I think as people learn more about the healing powers of plants and herbs. These are the people shopping with us anyway for their fruits and vegetables. They’re very anxious to try these things. So I’m excited about doing more of those things and learning more for next season.
Do you want to tell us any medicinal herbs you planted this year?
Medicinal Herbs Give us some examples?
Comfrey is one non-edible, that’s probably the first thing I got started with. I had a customer who gave me a plant, she didn’t tell me a whole lot about it, but I attended an herbal class at Georgia Organics Conference, which is our local or state’s non-profit that educates folks on organic methods. I learned about the healing powers of comfrey making a salve with it. I guess I started that as a Christmas gift, the people gave me such great feedback, I decided to make it and sell it, here at our farm market. It sold really quickly, people were telling me that it was helping heal all sorts of skin conditions, with minor skin conditions, like rashes and minor cuts and bruises. Ginger and turmeric we grew as edibles for culinary use. Then I started looking into the medicinal qualities of both those plants. So we dried a lot for tea, I’ve just started making tincture with those as well.
One of my guests, Patti Armbrister talked about if there were 2 herbs to put in the ground was Comfrey and Borage I think because not only because of the healing, I want to say it’s because they bring in the pollinators.
Yes! The bees love the comfrey flowers, they’re so beautiful, similar to Borage in that they are bell shaped, when it blooms in the spring I notice the bees all over it.
Tell me about something that didn’t work so well on your farm this season. Well we have a lot of fire ant pressure here, it’s our number one pest each year they actually get worse! There’s only one thing that we’re aware of that you can use organically, its called spinosad. It’s very expensive, I did splurge on some, the ants eat certain seeds like beets, hard to tell with the seed underground, but when things don’t germinate we start looking at the soil and we see a ton of ants, and I have seen ants carrying off some seeds. Not only do they eat the seeds, once they germinate they eat the plants, they just chew at the stems before the plants can get started. What they are doing now is even on the mature plants, they will start feeding at the base of the stem and weaken the plant until it dies. So fire ants are a huge problem for us.
University Study I would love to participate in some university study for an alternative to see if there are alternatives to the spinosad, because number one it’s expensive, and number two you have to spray the mound or the ants, directly. We have tried the bait granules, whichI didn’t find them to be effective, but they are also expensive so I didn’t find test them any further. So that’s something we always struggle with, but they seem to be worse this year.
So I don’t know if this would help you, but there was a guy, Peter Jordan in Canada I interviewed that’s starting to produce these things called Seed Havens that are a white plastic tray type of thing and they work to get rid of crawling insects. He’s up in Canada, I’m not sure they are availab in the United States yet. I think it might be on a small scale for a home gardener, I don’t know if it would help you on a big scale but someday down the line maybe? They had a problem with crawling insects where he was.
I suppose they bite too.
Yeah and it’s painful.
Is there something that you find is easy to grow and is generally successful every-time. Yeah, a few things that seem to be relatively carefree for vegetables.
Garlic is one, we always have good luck with garlic. We save our seed each year, which I love being able to do that. We’re not really set up to save a lot of the seed on our farm, because we’re a small farm, so we’re focusing on production so we don’t have enough time to devote to it or isolation distance to keep the seed pure. For garlic you just save the bulbs and plant cloves from those bulbs for the next season. I love being able to save the seeds from the garlic. Because the fire ants don’t eat it, as of yet, deer don’t eat it, no major pests or diseases as of yet.
Sun chokes are one of my favorite crops because they are so carefree. Jerusalem artichokes, is the root of a sunflower. It’s edible, very delicious. It’s a very nutritious crop, because it’s native to this area, I believe it’s native to the whole eastern US. It’s very drought tolerant and just carefree!
They have those pretty little sunflowers.
Yeah! Which is great for bees when not a lot is blooming in late August/September. That’s a really nice time to have some pollen and nectar for the bees.
Something you would steer new gardeners away from that you find is typically challenging to grow in your climate. We have a big problem with squash vine bores, so for winter squashes we typically just grow varieties of the Machata species, butternut squash, some other examples are Long Island cheese, which is like a round pumpkin, it looks like a pumpkin even though its technically a winter squash. Pennsylvania Dutch which is a crookneck is another type. Seminole. These are all varieties in that Machata species. What happens with those is the stem of the plant gets woody really quickly so they are more resistant to the vine bore. I think, I hear home gardeners say they have trouble with pumpkins, and I think that is one reason, because of the vine bore down here. But also planting early is key for a lot of people here.
I think people think pumpkins fall, so they try to plant mid summer, but the pest pressure is too high, that’s when we have our hottest temps. So if you can plant those things earlier, harvest them late summer they will store until the fall.
Wow! You’re full of great information! Maybe I haven’t had a lot of people from the south so I think a lot of listeners will be excited to hear this episode.
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organifi.com use promo code OGP16 at checkout for a 15%discount! Which activity is your least favorite activity to do on the farm? I really don’t like dealing with row cover, so that is like a thin sheet to cover them up to protect them, either from frost or pests, I love the benefits that row cover provides, but it’s just something I don’t like dealing with. It’s usually windy on the day we decide to put it out and it’s flapping everywhere and I just really do not like it!
What is your favorite activity to do on the farm? So many things! I love harvesting especially things that are in the ground, like the sunchokes I was talking about earlier. Sweet potatoes, it’s like digging up a little treasure every time you find one! That’s probably one of my favorite things digging roots in the ground.
We have an on farm market at our farm every Wednesday April through December and I love dealing or interacting with our customers! They come to the farm to pick out their produce and so they can walk around and see the pigs and chickens and all the crops so I really love that aspect of our business too! Just having people on the farm, seeing where their their farmers grow the food! That’s one of the things I love about direct marketing.
Apprentices Did I see something on your website about helpers? It’s not just you and your husband for 5 acres right?
Yes, right. We take 2 apprentices each season, they’re seasonal, they start typically in February and work through November. This is different from the WOOFing apprenticeship that Chris and I did. With Woofing there’s typically no money exchanged. Usually its more people interested in traveling and it’s a different type of experience that are WWOOFing not necessarily seriously interested in agriculture as a career.
Tuesday August 7, 2018 and Certified Ayurvedic Health Counselor Andrea Catherine is here to share with us her recipes for cooking around the campfire!
Campfire Skillet CornBread and Zucchini Lasagna! What’s cooking?
Retreat at Spirit Ranch at Home in Your Heart
I actually want to talk about the things I cooked out at camp!
The two things that were the biggest hits with everyone!
Ravenwood Outdoor Learning Center run by Brett Holmquist!
You know him?!
He’s been a dear friend
I tried to take our kids there last year, but they fill up fast, you have to book it like now in September!
There were two overnight camps
- ages 10-12
- 13-16
kids
I am not with them when I am cooking.
Relationships between each other, themselves
- kids all sleep in tepees
- outside
- stayed in a camper
- last year I commuted
Both weeks I made both of these dishes I made a big pot of chili, but you can figure out how to make chili in the woods
But I made a Campfire Skillet Cornbread never made cornbread on a skillet before
turned out so well
huge hit
burners get pretty hot
temperature
flip the cornbread
was a little complicated
cook the cornbread
put a lid on it
freshoffthegrid.com
honey in it
jalapèno pepper
doubled it
gluten free
in addition to the cornmeal
turned out amazing!
- cornmeal
- flour
- baking powder
- salt
- milk/ powder milk (if you’re in the back country for a while – ratio 3 tablespoons of powder milk
olive oil
honey!
coconut oil or olive oil they recommend
propane fire
There is a fire ban in our area of Montana right now so you might have to do it over a propane stove as well.
I love this, I’ve made a lot of cornbread in a skillet, and I always put it in the oven, I am curious how you flipped it!
such a hit
cooked enough
burners were so hot
regulate the temp better
got a spatula
oil to clear the edges
I put a cookie sheet over the top to flip the whole thing and then slid it back into the skillet
I’m thinking what happened is I doubled the recipe.
I didn’t have the images in the woods
- thinner
- cooked through
- was not as thick
- thicker cornbread
If you follow the recipe it, I guess is will work just fine
I doubled everything … the ratios are great!
imagery
what I did was I printed the recipes cause I didn’t have wifi… I think I would have downloaded the pics and recipes… I go crazy because I find my ipad/phone is always closing and then I have to enter my password with my sticking fingers…
You can set your phone
- much better
- cooking for 20 people
- doing it in the hottest part of the day
- dinner was between 6 & 7 at night…
- muggy
- Michigan
- hot and dry
- lots of wasps and Yellowjackets
- balled faced hornets eating the yellow jackets
It was a definitely great place to be!
The cornbread was a hit! I actually looked up this ribbon zucchini lasagna thing
I made it differently so I might not even share that recipe, I’ll tell you what I did
Making zucchini into ribbons doesn’t work but I
sliced the zucchini 1/4 inch think a lot of zucchini for 20 people
We had this big cast iron griddle
Where I was able to cook the zucchini which you could do in a cast iron skillet.
I cooked it with
- olive oil
- oregano
- basil
- salt and pepper
- chicken thighs
- tomato sauce
canned tomato sauce
Added herbs and spices
2nd time I made this I added diced sautéd beets, I used little beets beautiful almost pink maroon color!
- fresh herbs
- dried herbs
several kinds of cheeses
- ricotta
- mozzarella
- parmesan
- cottage
- harder cheeses are going to keep better in the woods. We had big coolers with ice!
freeze water bottles
serve it
big bowl
didn’t have any lasagna trays so it wasn’t gonna be perfect anyway
put the zucchini layers on bottom
- chicken
- cheese
- sauce
So the kids didn’t have to dig all the way to the bottom to get lots of the good stuff!
3 times those for layers
It was a big hit! People loved it * chicken * cheese
no noodles in it!
second time
We served it with garlic toast
I rubbed a fresh clove of garlic run it across the bread!
I love this because I told you I’m doing a unit on camping! So cool Camp Food! And Carb free! People keep suggesting carb free!
carbohydrates in all the vegetables
gluten free all the kids loved it!
no complaints!
Pretty easy, really just keep track of all the easy pieces
do you peel the dukes
it’s zucchini season!
bring your zukes to the woods and cook them up!
Mike did say I could pick one. Now what did you do you put beets in? Did you cook them first?
Just diced before you cook them. They cook quicker, they have smaller surface area then it will cook quicker if it’s smaller. Same with the chicken.
I made beets last night, trying to get Mike to eat them, I think he tasted one tiny golden beet! I can’t resist them.
I love them! I hope people enjoy
nothing like a warm meal at the end of a long day if you’re working your body hiking
playing
whatever you’re doing in the woods it’s good to nourish yourself!
I hope these recipes are supportive
What about breakfast and lunch? lunches were all like pb & j
We also had lunchmeat and cheese and they made their own sandwiches. Easy they packed at the end of breakfast
- pancakes
- bacon eggs
- veggie scrambles
- potatoes hashbrowns and oatmeal!
It was all good! I love to cook for people!
It served me to serve others!
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Connect with Patti Amazing Arbrister on Facebook at her Agrarian Food Web Page!
I’ve been wanting to see some podcasts on you know the organic gardeners when we talk about soil health and composting and the principals of cover crops
they just turn their lights off and don’t want ot talk because they are doing organic gardening and
every single farmer
including your household vegetable gardeners
they’re doing production organics
they’re on a fast pace to destroying their soils and don’t know it
finally on fb yesterday, the day before
one of my friends, she is a leader in organic gardening, she made a video on the same topic,
when I started hearing about soil health she didn’t think they were talking about her, when she realized the principles are about her
they have this mindset
they are above and beyond soil health
they are some of the ones the fastest
What are they doing? To ruin their soil.
These are the principles for regenerative farming or gardening 1. Minimum disturbance to low disturbance * boar bottom plow * shovel * chisel * roto tillers
use a broad fork
a real shallow device
That’s minimum disturbance 2. Keep the soil covered 24/7 365 other then the day you are going to pull the weed mulch
soil should be covered
so when you look at it you should either see
dead organic matter
wood mulch/chips that you’ve added or you should
see live plants
never see bare ground
next rule or principal
- Plant diversity more plant diversity
Companion planting
farming solar rays of sunlight that is coming to the earth
as those plants do photosynthesis then they are dropping root exudates ~ they leak them out of their root system for the
soil food web Uses those sugar and carbohydrate
Then they deliver to the plant something the plant needed. They do this with signals depending on the root exudates.
Let’s say it’s a corn plant, it needs nitrogen. And next to it is a, tomato and a tomato needs calcium.
sending different signals
biology brings back different
nitrogen is getting created by protozoa, then eating the fungi then pooing it out
form of the bacteria fungi, attached to the roots
The plant couldn’t use it until it went through the stomach of the protozoa and it poops it out. Kind of like a seed….
so it could sprout
nutrients become available to the plant. The more plants and species of plants in that group the more sugars there is in the soil life and more diversity of the nutrients cycling around in the soil.
too good a job
too much calcium
sending the signal
tomato
- the corn
- peas
- beans
need it and it’s available to them too. So it’s like a sharing event taking place.
So the more diversity there is the healthier
Next rule or principle is to 4. keep a living root in the soil as many days out of the year meaning if we’re gonna take out a crop
just got done with the spring
spinach or arugula
bed is empty now,
as soon it is done I chop them down and they become part of the leaf litter
the next succession of plant
pepper into that spot
For the biology of the soil, there is always a living root there, always giving off root exudates. This exchange is always going and can go year round if we have a perennial plants in the system!
This is awesome!
There is another thing that happens with the root structures
A carrot is obviously a taproot, it has a singular taproot can break up hardpan
radish can break up the hardpan.
The hardpan is created by us
- walking on the ground
- driving an implement
- tractor in the farm gound
- train as it is going by my house
the train is 200 yards from my house, making the ground bounce and causing compaction
taproot breaks that compaction layer up
softer soil
worms will feed off that decaying root
make channels
just the tap root looks like it is just the tap root but it has a long long skinny root, but it’s several feet on the ground, then the worm able to go down the channel and burrow. Let’s say next to the plant is a carrot
fibrous
thousands of roots in a mat
hairroot
next to the carrot
root system is called biological tilling
- softening the soil
- ammending
and making it better from the soil from their root system.
carbon
decomposing
Some of the carbon is getting stored into the soil
versus one type of crop, if we are having a field of corn, we have one type of root in the soil
those are the principles
think about the principles
You’re an organic farmer who just prepared the seed bed
roto-tilled the bed.
dead organic matter
deep as your tines will go 4-5-6 inches deep
bottom half 6-inches deep
roots have to break thorough that in order to have a system of any kind going on
so they come down
root turns on the direct
across the hard pan turns on a angle because it is looking for nutrients and water but it can’t grow through it so they are fighting for the nutrients and water.
So what does someone who has a large acreage like 2 acres or 10 acres without a tractor?
You would use a tractor and then plant a cover crop. But you’re gonna cut it down or a roller.
lays it into a mat
then they go in with a no till drill, that has a disc, two little discs
opens a furrow
that drops seed in
roller that goes over that that has a way to pack it down.
seed soil compact
no-til planter
This is awesome! This is what a lot of Liz Carlisle’s book The Lentil Undergound is about right? If we know these are best practices why aren’t we doing it? and I was talking to Megan Cain the other day and she was saying she tries to put something in the same day she takes it out so she doesn’t have bare soil. That’s good advice for me because I am the worst at getting my seeds in the ground!
there’s another thing they call inner seeding
we could inner seed
- peas
- beans
- clover
In between the corn, so they are growing the whole time the corn is growing. We may not harvest them, like the clover, but we could harvest the beans or peas, we might be walking on some beans or peas
a lot of the inner cropping
the inner crop is just to help with fixing the nitrogen and keeping the roots cool
So you have a cooler soil, where it’s not getting dried out by the wind but not super cool
soil biology, creates some heat, so that soil temperature might not be major difference but it’s better then dry air exposed
baked
soil life
exposed tilled soil
if they are there they’re dormant, not doing anything
They have to have moisture
not over a 100º
doing their thing
Anytime we have exposed soil on the surface that’s expose to the air and wind
wind demonstration traveling before some soil erosion
- white t-shirt
- plastic mat
- pan of top soil
- leaf blower to generate the wind with
With a mph reader
They said everybody start watching the t-shirt, it’s already running at 2-3 mph think we haven’t seen anything it, but you look down and the dirts all over the t-shirt….
so tiny
already moving
can’t see them by the human eye
if we can’t see we don’t conceive it, that it’s already happening. He had it go up to 20 mph, you could see the soil rolling and bumping, rolling and
on top of this little mph
20mph is a little wind. The other day we had in eastern Montana 90mph
you can’t even just stand, you’re just left with rocks
soil exposed
mulch
is on top of this soil
And it would also help like in the forests where they fires are burning to hold in the soil there too.
So those are the main principles are those five things
They have tried all the principals separate from each other, they do work to a certain extent, but if you put all five of them together
You get incredible responses! You can turn soil that is almost on the verge of decertification and turn it into healthy soil in three years!
We can start whenever the person can wrap their head around starting
once we decide it doesn’t matter what time of year. Let’s say it’s fall,
You would normally go in and pull your tomatoes
I would never pull the root out of the ground, I might cut the plant off, but let it do it’s natural thing and let it catch snow and it will slowly break down into the system
as long as it isn’t diseased, if it’s diseased take it out.
first thing is
I try to catch people in the fall
you should maybe leave that. Once you recognize these principals it will save a lot of labor and time! And wonder we haven’t done it all this way all the time?
I never thought about that before, if you leave it there, what do you do in the spring?
That’s nature’s way is already starting to decompose it
We have the most decomposing going on right underneath the snow
decomposing already taking place with the moisture of the snow, it will be already breaking down
In the spring we hope you have some mulch left, a system in the spring…
A worm can take a whole leaf, and pull it down their den 3 foot deep. So a lot of that stuff is just going to disappear. You get into this.
I have a friend I her into this started this 3 years ago
third year of white dutch clover in the walkways
Already she is like I need to get more mulch
leaves in the fall. I told her in the future you want to be thinking about growing a cover crops to put in for the mulch.
- green living
- grass seed plants
- all winter
In certain areas, you would be able to cut it, and use that as a straw mulch. It will be green when you cut it and it will turn into something that looks like straw.
I was going to ask you about the clover. I guess I was just thinking is the bees like the clover. You also posted the pictures of her garden right?
put it
turns into
She has it between all of her beds, she mows it when it gets 4 inches tall,mows it late evening when the bees have already left
She mows the walkways and lets the leaf littler from the clipping go into the beds
- feeding the plants
- plant is stressed from the cutting
- releases nitrogen into the soil
- double dose of nitrogen every time she mows it.
they all tie together
100s if not 1000s of ways it could looks
Welcome to the Organic Gardener Podcast today it’s Friday, July 27, 2018! Kara is a listener and a farmer and a gardener and a ROCKSTAR MILLENNIAL! here to share her farming and gardening journey raising pigs and eating healthy.
Kara Kosloski Raspberries
Tell us a little about yourself. I’m from Michigan, that’s where I lived till now. I work in marketing
I worked at Fair State University in Marketing. It’s my full time day job
I have married for 10 years. My husband and I like doing anything outdoors.
- hunting
- farming
I’m big into holistic health, all in general * exercise * spirituality * gardening * anything I can eat!
So we connected in the Facebook group, and my big question is how did you find the Facebook Group, it never occurred to me that there are people in groups that don’t listen to the host’s podcast. So do you listen to the podcast?
So, I have an hour commute to work, 2 hours a day I’m driving.
I discovered podcasts, to just pass the time, and I said what am I into?
I’m into gardening! That’s what I listen to, I started doing a search, I started listening and that’s how I found your Facebook group because you must have mentioned it on the podcast.
I just love podcasting because of that! And I’m so glad you’re here and you probably know how I start the show!
Tell me about your first gardening experience? So, my previous job I worked at the YMCA. We had just started a community garden though a grant! I had always been interested in gardening. I never gardened as a kid so I joined the committee as a liaison through business hoping I could learn some more about
I started with a 10 x 20 plot. What they did for the gardeners is they split halfway organic/non-organic. So I thought how do you keep the organic side, the good from the other side?
That’s how the Rodale’s Farm Test Trial started about 40 years ago. I’ve been doing lots of experiments this year, I just started some fall brocolli plants, putting some seeds indoors and some outside.
Since it was my first experience
It went relatively well for a first garden I had trouble keeping up with the weeds!
learning experience for me
- how do I plant?
- how do I maintain things?
so exciting to see things grow
the next year my husband and I
15 acres at home
scouted out our spot.
The best spot we had
We tilled up about a 40x 40 ‘ section
It’s more then enough for me
That’s what I’ve been using for years now
What makes you say it may have not been the best spot? So, as things have been growing we realized there are a couple of sections that don’t grow real well and we realized we are right in between 4 giant walnut trees.
Is it because of shade or do walnut trees put off something?
Yes, it’s poisonous to any kind of plants that grow around it
can’t grow by the root, I think as the trees got bigger, the roots expanded in sections
We started to look for a new spot, the spot where we had the pigs last year, we are hoping would be a lot of nutrient rich soil in there, and we planted some rye as a cover crop so hopefully, it will be a good garden spot next year.
I love this, because so many people have talked about volunteering being essential to their success… Robin Kelson, Angel Garbarino, and Vicki Henderson, all listeners said they learned so much from working with others.
How did you learn how to garden organically? I did learn a little bit from the other gardeners there because it was a community plot there was maybe 20 plots available, so there were a lot of other gardeners so that was part of the fun
you weren’t alone * look at what was growing * how they set up trellises * what kind of watering system they have
the experience there
I’m a big research
read, research and then just go for it!
Tell us about something that grew well this year. My style is to plant as much variety as possible, which may be overwhelming to some people. I would say I have at least 40 or 50 different things in my garden
- 5 different peppers
- tomatoes varieties
- herbs
Amaranth I have a patch of amaranth, red that is so beautiful! Taller then me and it just produces these purple burst of fluff!
It’s a beautiful dark purple, it adds a lot to the visual aspect of the space!
peppers are doing really well, I’m also doing some
interplanting * dill * marigolds * tomatoes
So I haven’t had any horn worm problems.
Nice! I think that is why mike doesn’t have horn worm problems either he always plants lots of marigolds. Am I remembering right that amaranth makes a good cover crop? I think it was in my interview with Jes Pearce.
You could probably plant it as a cover crop. I just planted a little spot last year, I think, and then it came up again this year on it’s own. So I just left it and weeded it, but I have 6-8 big tall stalks, not a lot. I tried to harvest last year, but I think the birds go there.
What do you do with amaranth? Is it a grain like quoina?
It’s a grain, most of the time. I’ll use it in baking breads or you can toast it in a salute pan.
Just one more question? I have never gotten it to grow, I have tried a few times now.
amaranth
I started them inside, when I first started them, inside under a florescent bulb, they sprout just fine, I guess they transplant well, I just through them in the garden.
I’ve spent more time this year in the garden. I planted my first cover crop this year, buckwheat and it’s finally growing and about to harvest, or kill, or whatever you do with it!
Is there something you would do different next year or want to try/new? So we have a whole bunch of manure that is from the pigs we want to spread
we kind of do it every year, but I’ve always been hesitant to add a lot
We are going to do that this year and try to build the soil up
We have never done soil.
How to Grow More Vegetables, Eighth Edition: (and Fruits, Nuts, Berries, Grains, and Other Crops) Than You Ever Thought Possible on Less Land Than You … (And Fruits, Nuts, Berries, Grains,)
Speaking of Jes Pearce. is I just took out John Jeavon’s book from the library and I thought how is it we have never bought this book, it has a great chart of soil test results or what grows best where. A lot of market farmer’s talk about that is just essential for production.
Anastasia Cole Plakias from Farm on the Roof also talked about their grad student talked about the importance of soil testing.
Tell me about something that didn’t work so well this season. Not everything always grows like it’s supposed
the dry hot weather
there are a lot of farmer’s in our area who are suffering crop production is really low
where we are at, we have pretty soil is sandy where we are at, we are limited to what we can grow.
Corn doesn’t grow really well, but we do a lot of christmas trees
hay farmers don’t think they are gonna get a crop, not enough water this year!
Things haven’t grown. It’s been unusually hot, we’ve had a couple of months of 80-90º which is very uncommon in Northern Michigan.
I’m gonna talk to Patti Armbrister, who is doing a lot of research with dry irrigation and how they are mitigating a lack of water and doing resilliencing in farm land, even one farmer growing
irrigation is get something set up in my tiny garden this year
I visited a local CSA, is kind of my alternative to volunteering, just get to talk to other gardeners. This CSA is great!“`
land planted with vegetables
50some shares
they have a really cool irrigation system
soft flexible plastic hose
tried to find it online, but I wasn’t as successful as I thought, that is something I would like to do next year, because I would like to have that set up
I’ve spent so much time watering.
ME TOO!
I also talked to Lee reich, who talked about using irrigation would save so much water is a great thing to do about saving our planet. And also Richard Wiswall talks about how tripling your water can help with your production.
Let’s take a minute to thank our sponsors and affiliate links
The Good Seed Company
Helping you build resiliency in your community!
~ Seed Voyage ~ Now Let’s Get to the Root of Things! Which activity is your least favorite activity to do in the garden? I would say that probably maintaining the fence which is pretty much weeding. Weed whacking is my least favorite thing to do! That gets back to my goals, so I get some raised beds going.
less fence and weed maintenance * weeding * also * maintaining the fence
hardly ever weed whack of the fence
just fenced in the whole garden
I guess I am wondering what fence, around the garden or to keep the pigs out?
To keep the whole garden protected. Our garden is quite a ways from the house, we can’t see it
- deer
- rabbits
It sounds like a pretty big area, 40×40.
What is your favorite activity to do in the garden? My favorite activity i would say is planning the garden. I really enjoy just trying to figure out which plants grow well beside other plants and rotating my crops.
Reading about how to plant them and then designing things.
I don’t have a lot of design aspect in my garden.
I have a teepee for my beans
plant stuff in small little sections and create visual shapes in the garden
I think that is my favorite part
planting! Putting those seeds in the ground and waiting to see them come up.
I don’t know if that is my least favorite because it takes forever! I think I like starts, transplanting plants, I got some black-eyed Susans and lavender that just put in and there was instant color.
also, Mike and I created that journal, I’m much better about saying this is what we did do, not as much as what we should do. We put like 15 things on our list, and only completed maybe one of them. Last year, I wrote a list of accomplishments instead of creating new years resolutions.
What is the best gardening advice you have ever received? So that was a stumper questions!
I couldn’t think of anything really specific
Some advice to say more general in farming in life
We learned to farm pigs from a friend of ours who had done it his whole life
He ‘s just lovable friendly, he’d give the shirt your back if you needed it, kind of guy!
anyway
his motto is if you treat them well, they’ll treat you well
That’s how I’ve always approached farming
- applies to gardening
- applies to life
treat your...
June 14, 2018
I’m so excited to introduce this guest from the Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Group a listener and a fan!
Tell us a little about yourself. To start off I am the beginner gardener like all other gardens. This is really my first year gardening. About 3-4 years ago we bought a home in Idaho, we were living in CA
The house sat on a farm plot, it was 2 1/2 acres just weeds, when we first moved in we rented it out and then we just moved in officially about 2 years ago.
just one tree
landscaping
this last year took a gardening class trying to grow my own food.
Are you a rockstar millennial? I figure 1980-1995.
I just learned I am on the cusp, born in 1983.
So you did some landscaping and took a gardening class, and I love that you came on today, because the lessons you have learned are going to be relevant and fresher in your head. And also landscaping is a question people have been asking me about a lot this summer, how to have an organic lawn.
Tell me about your first gardening experience? I watched my boyfriend, we lived in California, I didn’t know, it was easy to grow things.
we had a small apartment, and he had a whole bunch of pots and he grew tomatoes, that grew so tall and I was just like gardening was so easy so when we got to Idaho, I thought I’m going to grow a garden!
This is my first intro to growing food
Growing up dad always had me out there weeding
always learn
growing taking care of the garden. This is pretty much my first experience.
How did you learn how to garden organically? My boyfriend is always in the organic
I’m kind of book nerdish
as soon as I decided
ten books I just went through
different audible books
Lab Girl not specifically gardening
female scientist talks about plants in general and how they communicate
listening to books about gardening and trees
bought a lot of books
learning the details from a class I took on how to garden Judy Allen
not specific on organic gardening but on the principals you learned
kickstarted my garden this spring
Tell us about something that grew well this year. I’ve got a 10 x 3 plot. I’ve got a lot of lettuce, carrots, beets
The lettuce is up and it’s doing really well
I never thought I would grow that much and have enough for salads every night.
- variety of arugula
- red fire lettuce
I kind of cheated I got Cosmic Apple starters
a little bit of cheating
I tried to grow seeds inside this spirng and they didn’t go very well
- I ended up getting lettuce starters
- beets
- carrots
- onions
- horseradish
- cilantro
- peas – sugar snap
- garlic
As a teacher, there’s no cheating! You’re not taking a test right? There’s no reason to worry about cheating! In Idaho, we had a really late winter, Mike’s had a really hard time germinating lettuce this winter, he’s finally getting everything in. (FYI we’re talking on June 14, 2018) To me you’re doing amazing because are you not a higher elevation then we are?
We’re Teton valley microclimates base of the east side of the Tetons
5-6000 feet. It get’s cold but I’m told it gets less cold here, then some places that are closer to the river in the valley
last week we had we had 2 frosts, we had to cover things and teh whole bit.
Last week we were worried we would have a frost and we’ve been getting firewood all week, and I always say there’s like a couple of weeks in July where we don’t have to worry but we can get a frost anytime!
Tell me about something that didn’t work so well this season? I got really jazzed up! I took this garden class in February, March
There’s a topic we talked about growing seeds
in Idaho you have to do that inside with lights to some extent
- I read the packages
- did all the research
I’m kind of nerdy like that, and I converted a room that wasn’t supposed to be for gardening. All morning and night, turning lights on
no idea why why I had no success in seeds? I have been thinking about doing another batch if it’s not too late?
It’s not too late! If you want to put a fall garden in you want to start seeds in July. One thing that Mike does that helps peppers that like a hotter climate, is he makes like these little mini terrarium/greenhouse things. Starting from seeds is not easy!
I feel like there’s a combination mystery, I don’t understand why this one is doing well and that one’s not doing well. I think you need a lot of time to see what works and experiment. We live in a core foam house I think we just don’t get airflow.
What’s a core foam house?
Think if you had a house built of big foam blocks, covered with plywood
6 inches thick these huge panels of foam
thick foam
it’s great for insulation but it’s really poor for circulation
no way for house to breathe
if you’re cooking
notice with seeds they just struggled from mildew
I had a rosemary I brought in this winter that had
- mildew on it
- experiment soil
Want to hear the tip my friend Nola gave me for growing a rosemary plant. She’s an amazing master gardener. I had a really nice plant at school last year but it died.
Difficult seeds. I grew difficult things too. * rosemary * thyme
I was trying to grow all these herbs from seeds, but I guess they are harder to grow
maybe better to sew outside
seed thing * it’s expensive * I got the heating pads and lights.
If you drove by my house at night you would be like what is going on there?
Still trying to figure it out!
That’s good to know, I have struggled for years to get herbs started like lavender. On the flip side, basil and oregano, they grow like crazy for me.
Another great resource for growing herbs is one of my favorite blogs The Empress of Dirt. She has a pdf to help you on how to grow herbs indoors here.
Let’s take a minute to thank our sponsors and affiliate links
Seed Voyage
The Good Seed Company
Now Let’s Get to the Root of Things! Which activity is your least favorite activity to do in the garden? I would say my least favorite is also my favorite weeding which is weeding!
I work at home and so during my lunch break or if I am having a frustrating day
I can just zone out with an audible book or podcast, put it on for 60 minutes
relaxing experience working in the garden.
how many weeds we have
2 1/2 acres of weeds
If I could sell dandelions
what kind of grasses I have a lot of weeds!
It’s been a struggle to keep true to
- soil conservation
- organic practices
So you’re actually pulling the dandelions
last year
for getting landscaping
cardboard mulching, I laid down a bunch of cardboard. Like the crazy woman going to the recycling center, you know it’s bad when you pull in and their likethe cardboard lady is here!
I would spend time ripping off the tape
- top soil
- compost
- mixed it together 4 inches on top of that
I got kentucky blue grass
water as much
don’t want to be a slave to water! now I have that grass
weeds that have blown in
dandelions
so easy to pull out
trying to keep on top of that and actually have some grass around the house.
So do you wish you would have put some clover into it to have some mixed in?
I think I would have gone goat fescue which I had never heard of but I heard from local gardeners. clumping fescues
I didn’t think they did well in cold climates. I read things that contradicted themselves all the time. But I’ve heard from people around here that have it, it’s awesome!
grows very tall
clumping not your average
not your average turf grass.
It doesn’t need watering and mowing
- stays green!
- Slow growing
- starts late!
started their plot
With Kentucky Blue Grass, I’ve been battling weeds because it grows so slowly
- a lot of watering
- dry
- windy
- not super hot
UV
What’s fescue? if I was gonna try to explain it, I wouldn’t give it justice. I even called seed centers and ask them all sorts of questions, and I learned people who don’t practice organic gardening are gonna have different perspectives because they’re ok with using herbicides to keep their turf looking the way they want it. I’ve learned a lot
the best thing I can say, is find the organic gardeners in your area and ask them what they’re doing? In hindsight that’s what I should have done.
You should start a podcast, or video, I think you would do well, you have that curiosity. And your willingness to share and your mistakes! This is awesome!
So weeding is your favorite activity to do in the garden?
yeah because it’s relaxing to me,
I listen to podcasts, or audible. It’s really easy to pull the weeds because of the mulch.
I can’t remember the name, It’s like a sickle, it has a blade and it cuts down the tops of the weeds
go out there it’s a good work out for 30 minutes
for thirty minutes
salsify
I’ve learned when it blooms, to mitigate it’s spread tops of before it goes to seed!
I always think it’s best to get the dandelions before they go to seed. Of course there are always ones that bloomed and they pick them and then they blow those…?
What is the best gardening advice you have ever received? I have a tendency to go all in
- patience is a big one
- I read all this stuff and I want to go for it and do it all at once
- having patience
- taking it easy
focus on one area – I’m trying to conquer landscaping and vegetables at the same time can be overwhelming at times
So I don’t appreciate it, just feel like there’s a lot of work that needs to be done
what do you want to do really well
learning
everything
Judy Allen gave me that advice after meeting me at a dinner party. She said, just so you know you’re trying to do everything and I was like it’s not that much and then after spring came!
I
replay of my original interview with Leslie August 18, 2016
Leslie Fowler is a master gardener who has been growing food organically for her family for over 30 years. Today she shares her successes, failures, challenges and valuable tips for gardeners to learn from. Tell us a little about yourself. I’ve lived in this valley for 34 years, I have 3 kids and 4 grandkids. I have an acre of land on a beautiful lake. I have a 30 x50 organic garden. And a pretty large orchard there’s like 17 trees, maybe it seems big because it’s just me here, so that seems like a lot for one person!
That’s a pretty substantial size!
They’re fully producing. We’ve had the orchard in for like 20 years now.
What kind of trees?
Primarily apple, different varieties. I do have a pear tree. We had some cherries and some plums one thing or another happened and they just didn’t survive.
We did plant a peach tree one time, people around here were like you can’t grow peaches around here. It was an Alberta Peach, we planted it, babied it, every fall we wrapped insulation around the trunk, and protected it, and finally on it’s 8th year, first year it produced, it was loaded with fruit … Unfortunately there were four main branches, they were so loaded down with fruit, it started to split in the trunk. As soon as we noticed we propped each branch up with a 2×4 and try to support the trunk and we had a wonderful harvest but unfortunately we lost it.
I also have numerous * flower beds * raspberry patch * root cellar to store my crops
I work at a therapeutic therapeutic boarding school and I teach horticulture there!
That’s a grat thing for them to learn, It’s so beautiful out there. So I’m a little bit curious does it make a difference being by the lake.
Well comparatively to town, town will often get a frost about 3 weeks before I do,
I tend to have about a month long
Is that because of the lake or is boarding that because your north of town?
IDK, I’m only five miles from town, we are kind of down from town, we’re down, we’re kind of down in the hole, Im not sure if it’s cause of the lake, ponderosa dry area… of course with Montana I’ve seen it snow in July so you never know.
I know right? It’s interesting I’m actually working around the corner form you at the Wilderness Club this summer and just you know after living here for 25 years almost, you know we’re south of town and up against the mountains to see the different views out there, the views are breathtaking, it’s a little bit of a different summer climate and the different microclimates around here amaze me, we’re like the opposite of you because we’ere south of town, we’re like 3 weeks behind town.
Tell me about your first gardening experience? Actually I grew up in LA, in the suburbs of LA, we did in the residential area where I lived there were a lot of orange and lemon groves unfortunately they’re not there anymore but I remember as a kid being fascinated by those trees I would go make little forts and play in there. My real first gardening experience was with my great grandmother.
She gardened her whole life so that was when I was introduced to it. I was pretty young … I just adored her… I remember growing the pumpkins, all those fun things kids like to grow and carrots…. I quickly realized her food always tasted better… So that sparked my interest … in my teen years, I didn’t garden a lot.
I actually went to high school in Colorado. I went to an alternative school there. We had a green house and a garden. Our cafeteria was called “Munchies Central” … you could take a class and get a Home EC credit and feed the school. They would have you create your own menus. You’d go out to the garden and see what was ready. Try to create a menu around that, that’s So that’s when I first got exposed to organic foods and eating more healthy! And I loved it!
I was just gonna say a couple of things… one I was in LA this spring… in Venice Beach and I was so amazed at how good it smelled it was like walking around in this perfume bottle, it was just incredible the gardens I had no idea. And then that’s cool that you went to an alternative high school where they let you cook and had organic foods. So how did you end up in Montana?
Well, that’s kind of a funny story, a group of friends in high school and I decided we wanted to live off the land, so we wanted to move to Alaska and try to do that, we wanted to go as far North as possible. A large part of the group went ahead of time, and I ended up back in California. And a good friend of mine was like, “You need to come up here!” So I ended up going up there, we were there for about a year, and quickly realized it’s realyl hard to do that up there,
- land is expensive
- there’s a lot of tundra
it was just difficult to do. In the meantime the group stared breaking up a little, and ended up with just 2 couples, and we decided we’re gonna head down to the lower 48 and so the first town we come to when we cross the boarder that’s where were gonna end up and so when we rolled into Eureka, I was like I could live there …
So you kind of told us how you learned to garden but is that how you garden organically?
So then when we moved here, we bought 40 acres up above Fortine…. it made more sense to us, we were so aware of the planet and we wanted to build it up and not poison it. In my opinion you could get the same if not better results in my opinion by adding organic matter it was sort of a no brainer.
Did you have books and things? Back then, it was a little bit of everything …. back then we read a lot of books … my favorite was just to talk about the old timers got a lot of good tips from them. I lot of it was just from trial and error, experience, I did take the Master Gardener course through MSU, later in my life but I honestly feel like I learned the most from talking to others and from trial & error.
I know what I was gonna say earlier is that you were talking about your grandmother introducing you to food… If your kids or grandkids are showing some resistance…. or not showing any enthusiasm, just kind of ignore it, and just share your passion and they tend to take it in. Our kids are here this weekend, picking the apples in the trees and stuff!
I have all grandsons, so I’ll say let;s go out in the garden and look for worms, I have a little bug box and a net, and I’ll be like oh look at this carrot is ready, and we inevitably we end up doing things out resistance there which is really fun!
I like that. I knew you’d drop golden seeds, because that would be totally me, like let’s go garden, or lets go pull weeds, or let’s go help Grandpa! That would be a better way to do it.
Tell us about something that grew well this year. The weeds!!! Have grown the best!
I just did a snap chat of Mike this morning saying Man the weeds have exploded overnight!
I got things in pretty late!
We did too!
Because I garden for my job, it’s hard to garden for 8 hours and come home and be inspired to do the same thing….so things are doing well, I just got a late start.
Yep, Mike’s kind of trying a different thing, more for a fall crop. Something that would be over in the spring, we just picked the first head of broccoli the other day. It seemed like that we had an early spring and then things got away from us.
It’s doing really well, my orchard … my apple trees are just loaded with apples…. I actually had to thin them a little bit …
Do you have anything to tell listeners or tips?
Orchard Tips That was kind of my husbands’ baby, he did more of the orchard, I learned a lot from him… that was more of his passion. Just if you’re gonna put in an orchard
- make sure it’s a good soil
- a little bit of a slope a little drainage
- amend each hole as you plant the tree
- put it in a place with pretty good soil
- research with how to plant
- stake the trees down to support them
A lot of people around think you lose trees over the winter because of the cold, but you * need to soak them down really well in the fall
if I’m anticipating a frost in 2-3 weeks I … * put soakers and sprinklers and soak over night and move it over and over and over * water on the drip line not at the base of the tree * fertilizer same time, because it encourages the roots to reach outward
So is the drip line, IDK what that means, like the end of the branches?
the drip line is the canopy of the tree. amend big the tree is, how far the branches go out, imagine if it starts to rain, it’s gonna drip off However ends. And that’s where you want to water and fertilize.
So should you have a hole in the ground, where it’s bare dirt? I know it’s supposed to hav a those circle of bare dirt, amend it go all the way out to the drip line?
No, I don’t think that’s necessary.
Just get that grass wet?
My understanding is around here you can get a lot of voles and pocket mice in the grass in the winter and chew on the roots and stuff. So if you keep it bare around there it protects it from critters…
Tree Pruning Other then that pruning of course it’s beter to
- do it while the tree is dormant
- close to spring… dormant all winter.
You wouldn’t want to go out in Dec … This year we did it really early, I had some friends came out and helped me prune and we did it in February, early spring, pruned while their dormant.
My orchard is organic so if I do need to spray I * use neem oil * honey bees
want to do that
I think my orchard do really well, should because people have honey bees close by, whenever it’s blooming, once the blooms drop off and the fruit sets that’s should when when want to spray. But I didn’t spray this year and I didn’t seem to have any worms that I can tell so far.
That’s interesting I was just gonna say, what are you spraying for anyway?
Usually worms. if you keep your orchard really healthy…
Let me reverse that, if you don’t keep your orchard healthy and if your trees don’t get any kind of distress, if you don’t
- water enough
- fertilize enough
- prune them properly
they get into distress and they actually send out a pheromone that attracts insects… If you keep them healthy you don’t need to spray.
Well that’s great because I know my listeners are really into trees. Russ you from Simply Trees in Utah, was my guest in episode 26 and again this spring in episode 130 is always in my most downloaded episodes. He says the same thing
If you keep your orchard healthy and fruit trees healthy that’s the best thing you can do!
So that’s perfect there there because because there there there there there and giving us some actionable tips we can take, lots of first hand knowledge!
Is there something you would do different next year or want to try/new? I because try something new every year, I feel like that’s how you learn, So something the Native Americans used to do, one thing you do one year
used to catch fish, put them under your corn
had a bunch of sunfish in there and I brought them up to the actually gardening planted a corn I put a sun fish under each one
You’re just a because natural scientist…
when I experiment I find it intriguing
I did that and I didn’t notice any difference, and I thought that’s natural….
But the next year
I put broccoli there
I was getting these huge heads of broccoli
dinner size plates
that’s where I put the fish…
That’s a great tip, especially interesting is my Broccoli thing so Mike planted a lot of favorite broccoli this year, because last year I was just whining if I had a garden I’d plant like all broccoli.
Usually I do crop rotation corn is a heavy feeder and so is broccoli, I’m not sure why I put it because, it was probably just the layout of the garden.
Because I do...