Stay ConnectedDaily farm and garden talk. All about growing vegetables profitably and efficiently on small farms and in gardens.
Each episode focuses on one specific topic – growing practices, how-to, farming challenges and struggles, sales and marketing, soil preparation, weed management, farm startup, market selection, and work-life balance.
Hosted and produced by Diego Footer’s Modern Grower Podcast Network.
Copyright: © Modern Grower
Think about how much work you do on the farm now. How much of that work is actually being done efficiently and effectively?
Are you making the best use of your time by focusing on the 20% of the tasks that generate the most return?
Getting rid of crops can actually be a good thing. It allow you to work more efficiently and effectively by focusing on the task at hand instead of always trying to keep you head above water. It's very hard for any one person to do many things well, but each of us can do a few things really well. Crops are no different. And odds are you can grow a few crops a lot better than you can grow a lot of crops.
Take a look at your farm and the crops that you grow. Which crops generate 20% of your revenue? And how would your farm and life look if you just focused on those?
Get a copy of Curtis's new book via the show notes at permaculturevoices.com/tuf29
Learn practical tips to leverage this powerful and often misunderstood marketing tool.
This talk will teach you to focus on generating farm revenue while avoiding the popularity contest trap.
This talk was presented at PV1 in March 2014.
See the slides at permaculturevoices.com/b030.
Today's episode focuses on fear.
Fear is a very powerful motivator for humans. It's part of what keeps us alive. But it's also what holds us back.
It holds us back by taking over our mind. Stalling our actions because we are afraid of imaginary, un-quantifiable, or low odd outcomes.
There's a big difference between being scared in shark infested waters and being scared about the sea level rising and flooding global coast lines.
One could literally lead to death and other might not even happen.
Yet a lot of people are paralyzed by the state of planet.
Paralyzed by events that may or may not play our as predicted in their lifetime. And while these people remain paralyzed by fear over these future events, life goes by. And with it a lot of other things take place which should have a higher level of fear associated with them.
Let's dig into this concept a little bit and see if we try to rationalize all this fear.
Thanks for listening to this episode of Creative Destruction.
For notes related to this episode visit permaculturevoices.com/cd4.
How can you a lot mistakes and wasting valuable resources by overproducing a crop, and the inverse of that, not producing enough?
Good record keeping.
Records on the farm are extremely valuable. When you start to get a few years of records and can notice trends, those records become very valuable because the records are what dictates your future action.
Action that can save you work down the line and put the right amount of product in your walk in so you can sell it.
This type of planning directly translates to maximizing your farm income.
And it's not actually that hard to do. Don't over-complicate it. Start by keeping simple records and get into the habit of doing it, then expand and adapt your records as time goes on.
If you want to be successful as a farmer, then this is something that you need to do. It's one of the principals that has made Curtis as successful as he is.
Learn more at permaculturevoices.com/tuf28.
Is there a place for permaculture principles in a bio-intensive approach to successful ( and profitable) small-scale vegetable production?
For more than a decade Jean-Martin and his wife have been making a living farming on 1.5 acres of land. Last year they sold for more than $140 000 in sales (with a profit margin of around 45 %) by selling freshly harvested vegetables trough their 140 member CSA and seasonal market stands.
The secret of their success resides in the low-tech, high-yield methods of production they have developed at les Jardins de la Grelinette.
This talk was presented live at PV2 in March 2015.
View the slides at permaculturevoices.com/b29.
Joel Salatin speaks on successional farming - partnering the older generation with the next generation of farmers.
This is an excerpt of an interview that I conducted with Joel Salatin on May 22, 2013 in Big Bear Lake, CA.
Listen to another podcast with Joel at permaculturevoices.com/89
Can you accept in the beginning that what you are doing may not work?
Because, guess what, it might not.
But as long as you keep trying something will..
You just have to be willing to continue on until then. And if you are willing to accept that, then save yourself the time, money, and stress and quit now.
This path isn't for everyone and that's fine.
Regardless of what decision you make, just be content with you own decision.
Do yourself a favor and think about this long and hard, because it is a life changer. 20 years from now, do you want to look back and say you went for it, or regret not going for it.
Hopefully this show will lead you down the path of no regrets, and make your journey a little bit easier.
More about The Urban Farmer at permaculturevoices.com/tuf27
In this talk Greg Judy talk covers the steps used to find leased land and build a multi-species grazing operation from scratch.
Livestock can be a blessing or a curse. It's all in the management. With smart management livestock become a multiplier on the landscape. By using a variety of livestock to manage the forages it allows better utilization of plants. Harvesting much more solar energy through the wide selection of different plant leaves.
This is a message that Greg Judy has come to learn, live by, and not preach.
Greg's story is remarkable. He is someone that went from almost broke to financially successfully and paying off his farm and house in three years. He did it by grazing cattle on land that he didn't own, leased land.
This talk was presented live at PV1 in March 2014.
Greg will be speaking at PV3 in March 2016.
Learn more about Greg at permaculturevoices.com/b28.
Denis Hayes talks about a lifetime of work in environmentalism - the challenges, successes, the changing environmental problems, and how he has endured numerous political changes in Washington.
Denis was the organizer of the first Earth Day in 1970, headed the Solar Energy Research Institute under President Carter, and is now president of the Bullitt Foundation. In 1999 Time Magazine named him Hero of the Planet.
In this episode we go through his early life in a polluted Washington paper milling community to how he became an environmental activist. We also discuss the creation and organization of the first Earth Day in 1970 and how the scope of the environmental problems have changed since then.
Learn more about Denis at permaculturevoices.com/cd3.
Work to learn, not to earn...
Understand where you want to go, understand why you want to get into it, figure out a smart systematic way to get there, and work hard in the process.
And give yourself the forgiveness to make mistakes, but have the wherewithal to analyze those mistakes so you can adapt going forward.
That's what this episode is all about.
Taking the time to think long term and setting yourself up for long term success in the beginning.
Part of setting yourself up for success is knowing some of the common pitfalls, so you can avoid them.
In this episode we delve into more common reasons why many farmers struggle.
Learn more at permaculturevoices.com/tuf26
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