The Urban Farm Podcast with Greg Peterson

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Bonus 9: Seed Chat, September 2017 (324.5) Jan 20, 2018

Show notes

Bonus Episode 9: Seed Chat, September 2017

A chat with an expert on Seeds, Bill McDorman

In This Bonus Podcast: There is always a bounty of information available in conversations with Bill McDorman. This is the September 2017 episode with a Seed School Chat Class continuing the conversation on Seed Saving Principles, Intellectual Property rights, Seed Saving policy history, and so much more.

Bill McDorman is Executive Director of Rocky Mountain Seed Alliance, Ketchum, Idaho. He got his start in the bio-regional seed movement while in college in 1979 when he helped start Garden City Seeds. In 1984, Bill started Seeds Trust/High Altitude Gardens, a mail order seed company he ran successfully until it sold in 2013.

Go to https://www.urbanfarm.org/2018/01/20/bonus-episode-9/ for more show notes and links on this bonus podcast, and to find our other great guests.

324: Jessica Walliser on Container Gardening Jan 16, 2018

Show notes

Making the most of small spaces for gardens.

In This Podcast: Returning guest Jessica Walliser opens our eyes and minds to working in small spaces with container gardens. She worked hard to make a comprehensive book with important steps and key details for those who wish to make a container work for growing their vegetables, fruits and flowers too. And we get a few ideas for containers too.

Our Returning guest Horticulturist Jessica co-hosts The Organic Gardeners, an award-winning program on KDKA Radio in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and serves on the Editorial Advisory Board of The American Horticultural Society.

In addition. she is also the author of several gardening books including the Amazon best-seller Good Bug, Bad Bug: Who’s Who, What They Do, and How to Manage Them Organically, and her fourth book, Attracting Beneficial Bugs to the Garden: A Natural Approach to Pest Control, which was awarded the American Horticultural Society's 2014 Book Award.

Go to https://www.urbanfarm.org/2018/01/16/324-jessica-walliser/ for more information and links on this podcast, and to find our other great guests.

323: Kari Spencer on Farming in the City Jan 13, 2018

Show notes

Growing crops and raising livestock in urban spaces.

In This Podcast: Returning guest Kari Spencer talks about her first book City Farming, and shares about some of the key aspects of farming in a city space. She visited several farms to research other perspectives and methods and gathered all the data into this book. She also tells about how it is so jam packed with information that part of the book had to go digital. There are several great ideas to help urban farmers gain confidence and overcome some challenges.

Kari is a popular local gardening & homesteading speaker. As a Master Gardener and a Master Farmer, she enjoys sharing her passion for growing and raising food with others. In addition to teaching classes all over the city of Phoenix, she is the creator of Urban Farm U’s Growing Food the Basics & Backyard Livestock courses.

She and her family operate The Micro Farm Project, a small farm in North Phoenix, where gardens and livestock animals provide her family with fun and food. Her new book City Farming: How-To Guide to Growing Crops & Raising Livestock in Urban Spaces, by 5MPublishing has just been released.

Go to https://www.urbanfarm.org/2018/01/13/323-kari-spencer/ for more information and links on this podcast, and to find our other great guests.

322: Henry Rowlands on Pesticide Awareness and Testing Jan 09, 2018

Show notes

Checking for the presence of pesticide in our food.

In This Podcast:

A youth spent on an organic sheep farm, and early adulthood spent traveling as a journalist led Henry Rowlands to the development of Sustainable Pulse – a news source dedicated to informing on sustainable agriculture. He now leads up the Detox Project which helps increase awareness of pesticide exposure in our foods and our bodies, and is spreading the word about a testing process that can determine pesticide levels in foods or bodies. This is information that can be used to help determine the toxicity of chemicals in use today.

Henry was raised on a family-run, organic sheep farm in Wales. This led to his deep interest in issues related to sustainable agriculture, and he worked for a time as a news agency journalist in many countries across Europe. He eventually moved on to set up Sustainable Pulse, a global news source focusing on sustainable agriculture and food, with a readership of over 500,000 people per month from over 125 countries. He is also an adviser on sustainable agriculture to several governments in the European Union.

Beyond their news platform, Sustainable Pulse is involved in several reference projects, all of which have the aim of educating the public on the problems surrounding the overuse of pesticides. Henry is the Project Director for their program called The Detox Project, which has set up a unique pesticide testing platform for food and our bodies across America.

Go to https://www.urbanfarm.org/2018/01/09/322-henry-rowlands/ for more information and links on this podcast, and to find our other great guests.

321: Adam Brock on Social Permaculture Jan 06, 2018

Show notes

Attuning our minds to social permaculture solutions.

In This Podcast:

When given the opportunity to make an abandon greenhouse become useful Adam Brock and a few friends created the GrowHaus. He has traveled many places focusing on the invisible structures of permaculture design and has crafted a course that teaches how to see the needs and make a difference in your community. He tells us how this came about and why he was encouraged to write a book on a topic that is not well known. Adam helps explain many permaculture concepts that are important but often left undeveloped when discussing the stages of design.

Adam is a facilitator, author, and designer working at the intersection of urban agriculture, sustainable business, and social change. As co-founder of The GrowHaus, Adam helped transform an abandoned half-acre greenhouse in Colorado's most polluted zip code into an award-winning hub for urban agriculture. The GrowHaus engages thousands of low-income residents per year, grows 1500 heads of lettuce per week, and has a million-dollar annual budget.

A certified permaculture designer since 2008, Adam is active in the local and national permaculture communities. In May 2017, Adam released his first book, Change Here Now: Permaculture Strategies for Personal and Community Transformation (North Atlantic Books). It is a “recipe book” of solutions for social change grounded in ecological principles.

Go to https://www.urbanfarm.org/2018/01/06/321-adam-brock/ for more information and links on this podcast, and to find our other great guests.

320: Shannon McCabe on Heirloom Seed Stories Jan 02, 2018

Show notes

Documenting the histories of seeds in Baker Creek Catalogs.

In This Podcast: Traveling the world to get the unique seeds and document their stories – a dream job for a writer and gardener like Shannon McCabe. She tells us a little more about how she got started working for Baker Creek Seeds and some of the perks of working for a visionary like Jere Gettle. She also shares about the upcoming Seed Expo in California in the Fall and the donation program for non-profits and school programs.

Shannon is a writer who found her passion melded beautifully with farming and growing heirloom vegetables when she landed the perfect job as the farm manager and catalog writer at Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company. She has traveled the world as a seed explorer for Baker Creek, from cycling the tulip fields in Netherlands in search of rare bulbs, to the remote jungle markets of the Peruvian Amazon in search of rare fruit.

Shannon co-writes the award winning Whole Seed Catalog, and dreamt up the Baker Creek children’s gardening book. She has enjoyed bringing the arcane heirloom vegetables of our past back to the foreground of the gardening discussion.

Shannon strives to make growing heirloom varieties approachable to every gardener, from the children who read her kids books, to the large scale organic farmer reading her variety descriptions in the catalog.

Go to https://www.urbanfarm.org/2018/01/02/320-shannon-mccabe/ for more information and links on this podcast, and to find our other great guests.

319: Melissa Caughey on How to Speak Chicken Dec 30, 2017

Show notes

Translating fowl language for urban farmers.

In This Podcast:

After moving all the way across the country, Melissa Caughey shares why she added chickens to her family. She tells about how, with her science and teaching background, she eventually started teaching people about chickens. Always learning, she discovered there is a fowl language that could be understood and started teaching others how to Speak Chicken. She coaches Greg through a few key calls that, once translated, will be obvious to anyone who keeps chickens.

Melissa is the author of How to Speak Chicken and A Kid’s Guide to Keeping Chickens published by our friends at Storey Publishing. She is a backyard chicken keeper, beekeeper, and gardener who writes the award-winning blog Tilly’s Nest. She writes for HGTV, DIY Network, and the magazines Grit, Chickens, Community Chickens, and Country Living. She also gives presentations on chicken keeping at events across the country. She lives on Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

Go to https://www.urbanfarm.org/2017/12/30/319-melissa-caughey/ for more information and links on this podcast, and to find our other great guests.

318: Jessica Walliser on Attracting Beneficial Bugs Dec 26, 2017

Show notes

Recognizing the connections between insects and plant life.

In This Podcast:

Several years into running a landscaping company, a few key employees opened Jessica Walliser's eyes to the importance of avoiding pesticides. Taking the time to educate herself, she converted to a whole new mindset and is now an avid teacher about natural pest control. She tells us about the predator-prey cycle and why we need to stay out of the process as much as possible, and shares a few tips on how to help the population of beneficial bugs grow in your space. We hear descriptions of several types of insects and bugs that are part of healthy ecosystems in gardens and farms.

Jessica earned her degree in Horticulturist from Penn State University and co-hosts “The Organic Gardeners”, an award-winning program on KDKA Radio in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and serves on the Editorial Advisory Board of The American Horticultural Society. She is a regular contributor to Fine Gardening, Urban Farm, and Hobby Farms magazines, and her two weekly gardening columns for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review have been enjoyed by readers for over ten years. Jessica also blogs weekly for both SavvyGardening.com and HobbyFarms.com.

She is also the author of several gardening books including the Amazon best-seller Good Bug, Bad Bug: Who’s Who, What They Do, and How to Manage Them Organically (St Lins Press), and Attracting Beneficial Bugs to the Garden: A Natural Approach to Pest Control (Timber Press), which was awarded the American Horticultural Society's 2014 Book Award.

Go to https://www.urbanfarm.org/2017/12/26/318-jessica-walliser/ for more information and links on this podcast, and to find our other great guests.

317: Mary Tiedeman on Soil Formation Dec 23, 2017

Show notes

Breaking down some factors in the science of studying soil.

In This Podcast: It was not her first thought when she went college, but after an inspiring study abroad trip, Mary found her passion in the science of studying soil. She tells us how this life path change occurred, and how she not only found a topic she could literally dig into, but also a society that she would enjoy and now represents through her blog articles. She also tells us more about the factors involved in the formation of soil and how to keep it healthy in our raised bed gardens.

Mary is a soil scientist and Agro-ecology PhD student at Florida International University in Miami. Originally from Iowa, she received her B.S. and M.S. degrees in Environmental Science and Agronomy at Iowa State University. Her master’s research was on ants and the ways they influence prairie soil formation.

Her passion for soils has taken her across the globe, from the Alaskan to, tropical rainforests –and many places in between - all in hopes to better understand soil functioning in different ecosystems. When not chipping away at her dissertation, Mary is a volunteer blogger for Soils Matter, a blog run by the Soil Science Society of America which is working to share soils information with broad audiences.

Go to https://www.urbanfarm.org/2017/12/23/317-mary-tiedeman/ for more information and links on this podcast, and to find our other great guests.

316: Chiara and Travis Bolton on Solar Honey Dec 19, 2017

Show notes

Stacking beekeeping businesses with alternative energy for everyone's benefit.

In This Podcast: Chiara and Travis Bolton are not just any regular beekeepers, they are also changemakers in that they have devised an innovative way to help several aspects of their local community in environmentally friendly and the area of sustainable energy. They realized they could stack the functions of beekeeping with the land intensive areas of solar panels for mutual benefit and provide a product that was healthy, local, and in demand. Then they decided to expand this concept to help others do the same thing and have set up a business just to help in this process.

Chiara and Travis are beekeepers in Minnesota. In their business, Bolton Bees they sell Minnesota-Hardy bees adapted to survive Minnesota's harsh northern climate and distinct location specific honey.

They have been featured in National Geographic, Martha Stewart, Smithsonian Magazine, and Modern Farmer for their innovative partnerships with solar developers. They formed a public benefit corporation called “The Solar Honey Company” and have trademarked the term. They are a mission-based company promoting the stacking of multiple benefits to farmland including clean solar energy, pollinator-friendly habitat, and local beekeeping.

Go to https://www.urbanfarm.org/2017/12/19/316-chiara-and-travis-bolton/ for more information and links on this podcast, and to find our other great guests.

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