The Urban Farm Podcast with Greg Peterson

Latest Episodes:

242: Laura Kelly on Healthy Bones through Whole Foods Jun 01, 2017

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242: Laura Kelly on Healthy Bones through Whole Foods.

Combating nutritional deficiencies and fighting off diseases through whole and natural foods.

In this podcast: Sometimes it is fighting for the health of a family member that prompts an understanding which in turn helps many other people. In this conversation, Dr. Laura Kelly explains why she turned her attention to bone health, and what she found when looking for underlying causes to bone density loss. Then as she was not content to just helping others understand bone health, she determined to help people take action to help themselves.

Dr. Laura practices medicine based on principles of nature, using nutrients and natural medicines. This approach to primary care combines functional medicine, traditional Chinese medicine, and tools of Western medicine to build a complete picture of the body – and a plan for how to guide and assist in its return to health.

She consults with patients in multiple countries and is based in Topanga, California. Her first book is The Healthy Bones Nutrition Plan and Cookbook, Published by Chelsea Green which she co-wrote with her mother Helen Bryman Kelly.

Visit https://www.urbanfarm.org/2017/06/01/laura-kelly/ for show notes

241: Jared Gulliford on Millennial Farmers May 30, 2017

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241: Jared Gulliford on Millennial Farmers

Starting a farm from scratch as an urban-raised millennial.

IN THIS PODCAST: Being young and not having any land or farming experience did not stop Jared Gulliford from developing a plan and a dream to have his own farm. He shares his story about how he came to the decision to pursue a living as a farmer, where he got his training and experience, and how he transformed his family’s properties into a farm. Then once he got there he had to change the soil and he did this using elbow grease and old-fashioned techniques so that he would not have to use chemicals because he cares about what he sells.

At the age of 25, Jared moved back to the land he grew up on to start a farm. Gardening since he was a teen, he became interested in agriculture while at University. Now, he is striving to produce food to share with, and nourish, his community while teaching others along the way.

Taking advantage of an opportunity when his sister and her family bought the land next to their parents, he’s attempting the multi-generational farm dream in the middle of suburbia. On degraded soil and with ten thousand dollars, he started from the ground up. Although Jared is the only farmer at this point, he hopes friends and family will join as the project becomes further established.

Despite start-up expenses, infrastructure needs, vehicle repairs, and everything else; he survived, and the inaugural year of Earth First Farm was a success. He has a ½ acre market garden, and homestead quantities of livestock then he plans for the farm to evolve from a working venture to a place for education and reconnecting with nature.

Jared is also the curator at Dr. Jim Duke's Green Farmacy Garden in Fulton, Maryland; a sanctuary with over 300 species of native and non-native medicinal herbs.

Go to https://www.urbanfarm.org/2017/05/30/jared-gulliford/ for more information and links on this podcast and to find our other great guests.

240: Eve Sibley on Recording the Farm's Activities May 27, 2017

Show notes

240: Eve Sibley on Recording the Farm's Activities

Creating a history of the garden or farm to document what works best.

Eve is a creative who studied painting in school, but it was her passion for activism which led her into gardening and farming. In 2006, when she turned 30, she left New York City and moved to a farm to clarify where she wanted to focus her activism energy. She became interested in gardening as a solution to many of the world’s ails and immediately learned square foot gardening.

Eve has spent years setting up innovative gardens, mostly vertical, for different organizations in her travels through the USA, Costa Rica, and India. She came to believe internet technology could be utilized to help more people with their growing projects, and during her travels used her computer skills on attempts to find ways to connect and help gardeners around the world.

Through her gardening work, and by volunteering on various farms, Eve recently found a need for improved garden record-keeping and she set out to build an app for that. The FarmFollow app is available in app stores and this is the first real season it is in use.

In this podcast: We meet Eve Sibley who melded her determination to make a difference with a love of gardening to make an app that helps gardeners and farmers keep better records of their growing efforts. Eve explains how she got the idea to make an app for growers, and how to make use of the free online tool to keep track of the daily tasks that can make a difference in each year’s crop results.

Visit https://www.urbanfarm.org/2017/05/27/eve-sibley/ for show notes

239: Pam Freeman on Chicken Raising Realities May 25, 2017

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239: Pam Freeman on Chicken Raising Realities

Discussing the next level of raising your own chicks

In this podcast: Chicken expert and poultry advice columnist Pam Freeman shares some great tips on getting started with raising your own chicks. Her own adventure started with a little gift from the Easter Bunny, and now she helps others get comfortable with hens starting with the egg and raising chicks.

Pam is the editor of both the Backyard Poultry and Countryside magazines. After she received four Silver Laced Wyandotte chicks from the Easter Bunny, her flock quickly grew and Pam launched PamsBackyardChickens.com. In the years that followed, she hand-raised chicks, nursed chicks and chickens back to health, and experienced the entire lifecycle many times over.

Pam is also the resident "Ask the Expert" columnist for Backyard Poultry magazine and continues to write regular posts about chicken keeping and homesteading. In her spare time, Pam loves to hunt for antiques, bolster her life list as a life-long bird watcher, plus tend her herb and perennial gardens that are set up to encourage local wildlife such as bees, butterflies and birds. Her latest book is Backyard Chickens: Beyond the Basics.

Go to https://www.urbanfarm.org/2017/05/25/pam-freeman/ for more information and to find our other great guests.

238: Mimi Arnold on Farm-to-Table, Resort Hotel Style May 23, 2017

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238: Mimi Arnold on Farm-to-Table, Resort Hotel Style

Building food and garden resources for an ocean-front, secluded ranch hotel.

In this podcast: We hear from Mimi Arnold, the gardener who is helping initiate a farm-to-table program at one of California’s beautiful coastal hotels. She explains how she has been working with the owners and the chef to help design and provide the resource gardens on the property. She is dedicated to preserving the environment and loves helping the Inn and its guests connect with nature as much as she can!

Mimi is a visual artist and garden designer. After receiving her bachelors in Fine Art at UCLA's School of Art and Architecture, her ongoing interest in botanicals and green spaces fully surfaced; thus, she merged her artistic background with her love in all that is green and headed into the garden design industry. For over two years, Mimi worked for two specialty gardening companies in San Francisco, and contributed to projects for Google and Restoration Hardware.

Currently, she is located on California's Mendocino coast where she works as the head ornamental & edible gardener for the Inn at Newport Ranch, as well as the ranch’s florist. Here, she is involved with developing a farm-to-table food service for the inn, botanical styling throughout the interior, and providing weekly fresh florals-whether grown on site or foraged from the 2,700 acres of redwood forest.

Food, flowers, and foliage, - the source matters; she’s doing her best to keep things local and maintain a mindful and sustainable practice.

Go to https://www.urbanfarm.org/2017/05/23/mimi-arnold/ for more information

237: Scottie Jones on Farm Stays May 20, 2017

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237: Scottie Jones on Farm Stays

Experiencing farm life at the source, a few days at a time

In this podcast: Moving to a farm gave Scottie Jones and her husband a new chapter in her life. Yet that story changed completely when she decided to open her farm to guests and realized there was no association or group available to help organize farms as a vacation resource. She tells us about how she decided to fix this and how she made FarmStayUS happen.

Scottie is a woman of many talents. She has an MA in Medieval Archaeology Plus an MBA. She worked at Arizona State University for 11 years, was the Arizona franchisee for The Body Shop, and later Director of Retail and Host Services at The Phoenix Zoo.

Currently she is a sheep farmer at Leaping Lamb Farm in Oregon, a farm stay host, and the founder of FarmStay U.S. - a national travel site for farm and ranch vacations. Building on the success of her own farm stay, she has made it her mission, via FarmStayUS.com, to raise awareness of the 1000+ working farms and ranches in the U.S. that offer overnight accommodations. For travelers, it's about experiencing farm life at the source, not just at the farmer’s market.

Her feeling: it’s all about real food, real farmers, and living the lifestyle that built this nation - if only for a weekend.

Go to https://www.urbanfarm.org/2017/05/20/scottie-jones/ for more information on this podcast and to find our other great guests.

236: Roza Ferdowsmakan on Sourcing Food in the Digital Age May 18, 2017

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236: Roza Ferdowsmakan on Sourcing Food in the Digital Age.

Helping foodies find chefs, and chefs find local farms, all through their phones.

In this podcast: We are excited to share this conversation with Roza Ferdowsmakan, someone who cares about building up the local food economy as much as we do. Roza decided she could make a difference in her community by connecting foodies, culinary talents, and local farms through a specially design app. It is with her new app that she hopes to give people culinary awakenings like the one she had as a young teenager.

Roza wants to change the way people connect with food, with their communities, and with the earth. As a tech company founder, she has created a community-driven, farm-to-table mobile app called bites., set to be released in beta to the metro-Phoenix community in July.

bites. is a marketplace app for foodies of all socio-economic levels to connect with and reserve personal chef services offered by homemaker cooks, culinary students, and professional personal chefs. These participating chefs are encouraged to source ingredients from local farms.

These farms, whether they identify themselves as urban, micro, organic, co-op, family-owned, or simply small farms are encouraged to participate and gain visibility by visiting the bites. website and creating a farm profile prior to the July 1st beta release date so that their profiles will be up and running when the app goes live.

Roza also just started a Phoenix area local meetup called "grassroots", intended to engage foodies, local culinary talent, local farms, and sustainability supporters in community events centered around sustainability and education, all part of the ethos behind the bites movement. Beyond "grassroots", she is working to co-organize and resurrect TEDx Phoenix for the local community.

Go to https://www.urbanfarm.org/2017/05/18/roza-ferdowsmakan/ for more information on this podcast and to find our other great guests.

235: Colin Walker on Keys to Growing Nutrient-Rich Food May 16, 2017

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235: Colin Walker on Keys to Growing Nutrient-rich Food

Connecting important ecology-centered concepts for producing nutrient dense food.

IN THIS PODCAST: Previous guest Colin Walker goes further into ecology-centered concepts and describes the key points he has developed to focus on growing better foods. He has taken years of experience, research, and study and compiled it into six key focal points that will help any gardener or farmer produce healthier, more nutrient rich foods.

Colin grew up in a rural community near Auckland, New Zealand, and learned the basics of growing by helping his grandfather maintain a small flower market garden. Initially, he went to college to study economics, however after some course changes, he turned to interests a little closer to his roots. He got involved in and has had leadership roles in several areas of natural agriculture including establishing the Permaculture Institute of New Zealand, taking on advisory and advocacy roles for seed preservation with independent & government organizations, and even served as a national coordinator of a National Organic Advisory Programme.

Colin’s concentrations have been on permaculture, ecology centered design, seed preservation, conservation of traditional/heirloom food plants, garden education and most recently investigating (from an ecology perspective) the essential elements needed to guarantee that the food we grow is actually nutrient-rich.

Go to https://www.urbanfarm.org/2017/05/16/colin-walker-nutrient-rich/ for more information and to hear from our other great guests.

234: Ruth and Grace Pepler on Agritourism May 13, 2017

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234: Ruth & Grace Pepler on Agritourism

Experiencing life on the farm as a vacation destination

IN THIS PODCAST: We meet two very special ladies in the mother-daughter team with Ruth and Grace Pepler who are helping us understand the concepts of Agritourism and Guest Farms. Ruth is inspiring with her story of transforming their small homestead into a very active community building resource and agriculture education resource in the guise of something akin to a bed and breakfast vacation spot. Her daughter Grace is a delight as she shares her knowledge and passion of teaching kids of all backgrounds the joys of farm life

Ruth has been a registered nurse, private chef, and caterer, and has taught cooking classes, managed a farm, and homeschooled her daughter. She and her husband Thomas started their homestead near the Buffalo National River in Arkansas ten years ago. Shortly after moving there, they bought the adjoining property and opened Dogwood Hills Bed & Breakfast; Which they call a “guest farm” offering their guests a chance to experience life on the farm in a relaxing atmosphere.

At sixteen, and having grown up on the homestead, her daughter Grace has taken a lead role in the daily functioning, guest relations, and marketing of Dogwood Hills Guest Farm. She is a wonderful agri-tourism ambassador speaking about Dogwood Hills and how it functions, with everyone from the local & county 4H, county chambers, multiple tourism conferences and she even did a personal tour for the Arkansas Secretary of Agriculture.

Since opening they’ve added many more cows, goats and chickens, a fodder room of hydroponically grown barley, a “high tunnel” hoop house, a visitor friendly milking room, and they are currently adding a new certified kitchen. With a complete farm to table operation, Dogwood Hills Guest Farm helps people from all over the world experience life on a family-owned dairy farm.

Go to https://www.urbanfarm.org/2017/05/13/ruth-and-grace-pepler/ for more information, photos and links on this podcast and to find our other great guests.

233: Colin Walker on Gardening with Ecology at its Heart May 11, 2017

Show notes

233: Colin Walker on Gardening with Ecology at its Heart

Focusing on a larger picture to understand how to effectively grow a good garden.

In this podcast: Part one of two with Colin Walker, a long-time gardener and educator from New Zealand, who helps explain a gardening concept that brings the world into focus while looking at the garden bed. The decades of experience and know-how are evident in this conversation about how an ecology-centered viewpoint is so important to successful gardening.

Colin grew up in a rural community near Auckland, New Zealand, learning the basics of growing by helping his grandfather maintain a small flower market garden. Much later, he helped to establish the Permaculture Institute of New Zealand. In the 1980s and 90s, he spent time in the US, Australia, Ireland, and England. Returning home, he learned about the principles of ecology-centered design from Dennis Scott, an innovative designer, landscape architect, and resource management consultant

Colin’s focus then turned to the conservation of traditional/heirloom food plants in New Zealand. He spent 16 years supporting local and national seed preservation initiatives by practical "growing out" hundreds of seed lines, managing research projects, running internship programmes, and taking on advisory and advocacy roles for this issue with independent & government organizations.

In 2010, he returned to Northland to create a long-term home for him, his wife, and five sons. With six years of research and experimentation completed, investigating from an ecology perspective the essential elements needed (and how to practically work with them!) to guarantee that the food we grow is actually nutrient-rich, Colin’s ready to share results!

Go to https://www.urbanfarm.org/2017/05/11/colin-walker-ecology/ for more information and links on this podcast and to find our other great guests.

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