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
Michael Pollan joins me to talk about GMOs, organic food, the industrial agriculture, and his new book Cooked. Points we hit on:What will it take to ultimately get GMOs labelled in the US? And what affect will that labeling have. Rewarding farmers for embracing sustainable practices.Getting changes in agriculture from the grassroots, corporate and government level. Getting representation for eaters on the government agriculture committees which are currently dominated by lightly populated corn belt states.The importance of being able to demonstrate scientifically that we can do what we say we can do - relating to permaculture, sustainable agriculture.The importance of cooking your own food and the trickle down effects. If you are cooking your own food then you have the ability to shop from local farmers, farmers markets, and CSAs. Fast food supports industrial agriculture.10% of the food dollar goes to the farmer. The longer the food chain the less the farmer gets. Even the packaging manufacturers make more than the farmers.By diversifying as a farmer and having more than a single crop you are able to being more of a price maker than a price taker in the commodity system.
Show Notes: www.permaculturevoices.com/23
Joey Delia of EvokeHope.org joins me to recap the recent Darren Doherty Regrarian Open Consultancy, talk about the Dehesa system of Spain, and an upcoming PDC at the new PRI Tipuana Farm.Key Takeaways from this Episode:Don't focus on tactics. Slow down, observe and embrace a more passive approach to permaculture. Plant trees in the eroded gullies. Helps to control erosion while providing a valuable timber crop.
Use roads as catchment. Often times roads are permitable, water harvesting is not. Roads have a lot of surface area to harvest water. Use it to your advantage.Offset other systems off of the roads. This helps to create some order for systems like waterlines. If it is buried 5 feet off of the road then it will always be 5 feet off of the road.Consider using HDPE line instead of PVC. The fact that it is flexible might make things a lot easier. And it is probably a lot less toxic.Embrace the thistle, it is amazing.Read about the Dehesa system as a perennial ecosystem. So simple, yet so interconnected and productive.
Show Notes: www.permaculturevoices.com/22
Stefan Sebkowiak of Miracle Farms joins me to talk about the what's lacking in organic systems - biodiversity. And why organic is good, but creating a polyculture is a lot better.
Stefan started out his journey purchasing a conventional non-organic orchard. He worked on converting it over to organic and realized that something wasn't right, something was missing. The system was lacking the biodiversity that you see in nature.
So Stefan converted over his organic orchard into a permaculture, polyculture based system. He removed a lot of apple trees and replaced them with other fruit trees and support species. He added more diversity to the system giving him more products to sell, more wildlife, and ultimate a healthier, more resilient system.
A lot of commercial orchardists say that polyculture won't work. Stefan has show that on a tree by tree basis he is getting as much yield as a conventional orchard.
He is out there trying to prove that you gross $1.00 per square foot in a polyculture system that value adds from multiple yields - poultry, fruit, vegetables, herbs, etc.
"You can read a lot, but you need to go out and test things."
Show Notes: www.permaculturevoices.com/21
David Barmon of Fiddlehead Landscape Design joins me to talk about urban lumber. We discuss how we can start thinking about urban trees as not just a source of beauty, but as a valuable, sustainable resource. Most people don't really think about what happens to a tree in an urban setting. Most of the time it ends up as fireword, mulch, or goes to the landfill.David thinks that we could be sourcing 10-20% of our lumber from urban sources. This creates a lot of value for landowners, both private and public, in addition to adding all of the other benefits that trees bring to a landscape.Creating valuable lumber from urban trees sequesters carbon while providing a renewable resource.
Show Notes: www.permaculturevoices.com/20
Joel talks a lot about how young people can get into farming by establishing synergistic relationships with older farmers as he tries to dispel the big belief that you need land to farm. He touches on the farming business and how conventional farmers can start to transition to a perennial based agricultural system.Key Takeaways from this Episode:Convert a little bit of acres at a time, when converting a large amount of land from an annual based system to a perennial based system. Converting a corn, soybean operation over to grassfed beef. It would take a year to plant the grass, an d it would take another year to come into production. You could start grazing it the second year and 3 years out you would be making more money per acre than you would on corn and beans.Possibly sell some land to get yourself enough wiggle room to convert your farm over to a more regenerative agriculture system.Prune off enterprises that don't work. Maybe you can't figure them out. It doesn't fit your marketbase or your unfair advantage. Each enterprise has to carry its own weight.Beware of the enslavement of highly capitalized infrastructure. Too often that infrastructure controls the decision making process for right or wrong due to the amount of money invested into it.Use in place infrastructure to help transition to a perennial polyculture. That equipment is already in place. Make use of it.Take the Stephen Covey approach. Control your own sphere of influence.
This episode of the podcast is the audio from an interview that I did with Joel Salatin of Polyface Farm back on May 22, 2013 in Big Bear Lake, CA.
Show Notes: www.permaculturevoices.com/19
What do you do with 350,000 gallons of rainwater runoff that enters your property with a high velocity causing erosion?
One option is to harvest that water, slow it down, and take away the erosion by constructing some permaculture earthworks.
Alden Hough of the Sky Mountain Institute joins me to talk about some earthworks that were constructed on his 7 acre property last March during a Paul Wheaton earthworks workshop.He will also talk about some of the upcoming events at the 2013 Fall San Diego Permaculture Convergence that will expand these earthworks.
Joey Delia of Evoke Hope and Tipuana Farm also joins the conversation to talk about the plant systems that were put in place after the earthworks construction.
During the workshop last March we constructed a pond and a long swale to capture the 350,000 gallons of storm water that were running off of the road onto Alden's property, causing a lot of erosion in the process.
The dam was constructed at the highest part of the property allowing Alden to gravity feed the water down-slope and zig zag the water across and down the property through a series of swales decreasing its erosive qualities and hydrating the landscape in the process.
The earthworks have turned the problem (high velocity, high volume water) into a solution; providing water to grow native habit and food in a winter rainfall area, where water isn't cheap.
Show Notes: www.permaculturevoices.com/18
Rebecca Krossnoski of Nature Delivered Farm joins me to talk about her passion for pigs. Rebecca left her job as a construction estimator 6 years ago to start pasture raising pigs. She realized that her old job wasn't going to be there forever so she began the transition into the farming business while she was still working at her old job. She had no prior farming experience when she embarked on the venture, learning along the way from her grandfather's notes, other farmers, and books, then building on that book knowledge with real world trial and error.Rebecca is another example of someone who decided to follow her passion and make a go of farming with no prior farming experience. She could have easily made excuses about why it wouldn't work or what her disadvantages were, but she didn't focus on that, she focused on the positive and made it happen. She put her heart and soul into her pigs, did her research, and worked her ass off. Like any new business there were some troubles and mistakes made along the way, but in the end she was successful.Today Rebecca pasture raises her pigs in central Florida. She rotates pigs through 1/2 to 1 1/2 acre parcels. The pigs spend 3 to 4 weeks in each parcel.Rebecca's advice for anyone who interested in raising pigs. Start with a couple of barrows (a castrated male before puberty) and raise them. See how you like living with pigs. Then process the pigs, and see if you can actually do it. After this you should know if pigs are for you.
Show Notes: www.permaculturevoices.com/17
Darren Doherty of Heenan Doherty and Regrarians joins me from Australia to fill in some of the gaps surrounding Keyline design.While the whole Keyline design system is complex and way beyond the scope of this podcast.This episode should give you a brief introduction into what Keyline is, where it can be used, and what it can accomplish. Like all other design systems Keyline isn't the be all, end all, it is another tool in the tool box help design a regenerative landscape.For those that want to learn more check out Darren's work, some of it below, and P.A. Yeomans books. Darren recommends The Keyline Plan and The Challenge of Landscape.Keyline design is a foundation of technique and planning using a scale of permanence. It's focus is on reacting to a climate of an environment, a site, and then using the landscape's shape to maximize the possibility of a sustainable, regenerative environment.Show Notes: www.permaculturevoices.com/16
Joel Salatin of Polyface Farm joins me to talk about his new book Fields of Farmers which focuses on the next generation of farmers.How young people can work with existing farmers to transition into farming. He talks about young people can do today to take advantage of the huge opportunity that is out there. Topics range from leasing land to forming synergistic, non-competitive enterprises on existing farms. The whole key is that you have to start. Movement creates movement.Joel touches on the cultural stereotype against farming. So many people get "forced" into a job that they hate to satisfy their parents only to do that career for a few years and realize that they hate it.All along that person only wanted to do something with their hands. So why not encourage the youth to follow those passions and pursue them with all of their skills and talents.
This episode also has a very heavy entrepreneurial component. Hopefully it will motivate some people to get out there, stop thinking about farming, and actually start farming.Key Takeaways from this Episode:Invest in hydration. Get water into the landscape.
You don't have to own land to farm. Look for land to lease. Look to add another enterprise onto an existing farm. Focus on mobile infrastructure.
Insource carbon instead of outsource carbon. So many farmers start out bringing in fertilizer at the beginning.Start building up your soils at the beginning to lower your long term input costs.
Grow what you like to eat. You may have to eat through your inventory.
Be willing to do whatever it takes to make it work. That might mean putting in a lot of hours, making a lot of sacrifices, cutting expenses, and taking some odds jobs.
Make use of what you have first. Don't buy anything. So many people want to run out and buy things when they first start out. Access what you have, use that, and only buy what you absolutely need.
Better to become 80% self reliant that get analysis paralysis and not doing anything while trying to become 100% self reliant.
Doing something is better than doing nothing.
Stack multiple enterprises on a single land base whenever possible. Show Notes: www.permaculturevoices.com/15
John Backes of Circle B Ranch joins me to talk about raising pastured hogs on 90 acres in Missouri. John didn't come from a farming background. He transitioned into farming in 2009 with his wife Marina after leaving a career in mechanical contracting. They set out to produce high quality food while focusing on the welfare and humane treatment of their hogs.Key Takeaways from this Episode:-Be steadfast with pricing. Stay away from brokers, sale barns, and commodity pricing.-Stresses the importance of educating and connecting with the customer base. That involves a lot of marketing your own product through tools like social media.
-Pick a spouse that is a good compliment to your skills as a farm. It’s a team effort.
-Stress affects meat quality. So try to minimize the animal’s stress.
-Maintain good relationships with the hogs. Keep them calm because ultimately they are big and you want them working with you.Visit www.permaculturevoices.com/14 for show notes.
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