This week we hear from Joshua Hughes, who is the Fresh Moves Logistics Coordinator for the Fresh Moves Mobile Market, one of the many programs of the non-profit Urban Growers Collective in Chicago. Host Katie Kulla talks with Joshua about the UGC and their work in general, but more specifically about how the organization is working to “close the food access gap.” Expanding access to food is something we’ve talked about before on this podcast and it’s something that motivates many farmers and...

Growers have long used deposits from ancient seas as a source of micronutrients- and over 50 years ago, Dr. Maynard Murray started researching the use of minerals- naturally dried and derived from mineral-rich seawater- as a source of micronutrients. Today on the podcast we talk with Chief Mineral Officer Michael Sileck about how Sea-90 Ocean Minerals continues the work of Dr. Murray today, through their naturally-dried, unprocessed and unrefined soil amendments.

REKO rings gained popularity during the pandemic as a way to keep selling direct to the public when markets were shut down. One of the obstacles to more widespread adoption of the REKO system- reliance on closed Facebook groups to communicate with customers- has been eliminated by Tyler Taggart and REKO Hub. They have developed software to facilitate REKO rings without using Facebook, plus the software is free for producers to use. Instead of charging producers, a small fee is charged to...

This week we talk with Hannah Rose Weber and Nate Lada, two of the owners at Green Things Farm Collective in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Green Things is a majority women-owned farm business that has evolved out of several businesses. Nate and his wife Jill first started Green Things farm in 2011 at a local farm incubator program. Then they purchased 64 acres where the farm is now settled. In 2020, Green Things joined with Ann Arbor Seed Company and the Land Loom to expand production, share...

We step back and look at the big picture in this wide-ranging conversation with Jean-Martin Fortier, talking about the systemic barriers to local food and farmers and strategies to overcome them. We also talk about Jean-Martin’s many projects, including the recently-released Heirloom farm planning software, and his forthcoming podcast.

On this week’s pod we talk with Brian Campbell and Crystine Goldberg. They own Uprising Seeds, the Certified Organic, farm-based seed business in Bellingham, WA. Brian and Crystine started as fresh market growers in 2004, growing specialty produce for local restaurants, food coops, and farmers markets. During that time they also started one of the country's first food-stamp based CSA programs.

Erin Benzakein pioneered connecting with people who want to support local farms through social media. In this podcast we talk about how to use your own story to connect with potential customers. Read more in an article she wrote for Growing for Market Magazine called “Become the face of your farm,” linked in the show notes. We also talk about the years of work that went into breeding the first round of seeds for Floret Originals that were released this winter, including dahlias, celosia and...

Fish fertilizer is one of the oldest natural fertilizers out there. On this week’s podcast, hear how it’s made, and what sets hydrolyzed fish fertilizer apart from fish emulsion. Ann Molloy of Neptune’s Harvest in Gloucester, Massachusetts, tells us how her dad realized waste from the fishing industry that was being thrown away could be made into natural fertilizer.

Grafting tomatoes onto vigorous, disease-resistant rootstocks is one of the biggest advancements in tomato production ever. We’ve been getting lots of questions about grafting and rootstocks lately, so we leapt at the opportunity to get some answers straight from the horse’s mouth, so to speak, by interviewing Martijn van Stee of Enza Zaden seeds about what makes tomato rootstocks so vigorous and disease resistant. Martijn has worked on breeding rootstocks for years, and we really enjoyed...

Don Tipping stewards over 700 open-pollinated varieties of seeds at Siskiyou Seeds in Oregon, and we discuss the importance of having a bioregionally adapted seed system, and how farmers can get involved in their regional seed system in this week’s podcast. We also talk about Don’s North Star vs. his mission, and how farmers can clarify their goals by understanding the difference between the two.

Ultracrosses and tropical perennials grown as annuals are just two of the many innovative breeding strategies being used by Chris Smith and the Utopian Seed Project to help make local food systems more resilient in the face of climate change. Based in western North Carolina, they are pioneering unusual breeding strategies that can be used by farmers and breeders anywhere to help develop varieties that can adapt to our changing climate.

Jim Gerritsen of Wood Prairie farm is a legend not only for his over four decades of organic farming, but for his activism. As the founder and president of The Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association (OSGATA), a national non-profit membership organization committed to protecting, promoting, and developing the organic seed trade and its growers, he was part of the group that sued Monsanto in 2011 challenging the validity of Monsanto's transgenic/GMO patents and seeking court protection for...

On this week’s podcast, we draw on Lisa’s years of flower farming experience to talk not just about growing flowers, but the business and practical tips needed to grow a profitable flower business. Lisa’s new book, The Cut Flower Handbook, is full of information on the growing side, and in our interview we talk about how to put it all together to sustain the passion with a profitable business. We discuss workhorse flower crops, when to harvest, how to ensure the best vase life, and the...

Angela and Paul Neufeld have been farming vegetables and flowers in Surrey, British Columbia, Canada, for 18 years. As Kingfisher Farm Market, they have been committed to regenerative, sustainable farming practices from the beginning. They’ve been slowly building up their farm business on land they share with other families. In a recent newsletter, Angela shared that in 2014 they made $977.50. Fast forward to 2023 and they made their main livelihood off the farm.

Guillaume Lambert is one of the founders of Orisha, a company that is democratizing greenhouse systems control through software that growers can manage from a smartphone or computer. By bringing the cost down and increasing the precision, Orisha is making high-level greenhouse control accessible to smaller growers. In this interview, we discuss how systems including temperature, irrigation, fans, roll-up sides and more can be automated.

Today we hear from Cole Mazariegos-Anastassiou, who is a co-owner-operator of Brisa Ranch along with his wife Veronica and their friend Cristóbal Cruz Hernández. They started Brisa Ranch in 2018 and now grow about 40 different organic crops on 30 acres in Pescadero, California, which is 45 miles from the Bay Area. The sell 90% of their produce directly to businesses and institutions throughout Northern California. They were named California New Farmers of the Year by CAFF (the Community...

Rebecca owns Moonshot Farm, a specialty cut flower farm in East Windsor, NJ. She and her husband Mark started the farm in 2019 with big goals of providing sustainably grown flowers year-round — literally 52 weeks of the year. They thought their goals were so lofty that it informed their farm’s name — they are trying to “shoot the moon,” as they say. However, it must be working, because they do in fact grow flowers year-round, including in a geothermal greenhouse, for retail markets in and...

The path from accountant to farmer is not the most commonly taken one, so hear how Keshaun Joseph came to reconsider the corporate life and start Mount Liamuiga Farm in Colorado on this week’s podcast. The first year of the farm included a car accident, negotiating water rights, and hungry packs of rabbits, all of which made this self-described “recovering perfectionist” slow down, ground himself, and build resilience and plan for the next year. Keshaun and host Katie Kulla discuss his family...

Hear how Zoe Bradbury DeSurra of Valley Flora Farm balances four different farming enterprises between herself, her sister and her mom on one farm. The farm started in an unorthodox way- with a property trade- and overcame a healthy sense of skepticism about whether its rural Oregon location could support a vegetable farm at all, to become the multi-enterprise, matriarchal farm, where everything from the coolers to the draft horses run on solar power today.

Dr. Surendra Dara brings over 25 years of experience to his work as an Oregon State University professor and director of NWREC, the North Willamette Research and Extension Center in Aurora, Oregon. In this podcast, we talk about integrated pest management (IPM) tactics growers can use to keep pests and diseases in check without getting to the point of spraying, even if the sprays are organic. We discuss controls as diverse as physical barriers, irrigation, nutrient management, biostimulants,...

No one gets into flower farming because they love business analytics, however if you don’t know how to make sense of your business and make a profit, you’re not going to stay in business for very long. Luckily we’ve got Lennie Larkin of B-Side Farm to help us cut through the clutter and tell us how to plan to make a profit in our own flower farm businesses. She’s on the pod this week, telling us about her new book, Flower Farming for Profit, which will be out in January.

One perennial problem for market farmers is how to make local food and flowers available to customers every day, without having to spend seven days a week standing behind a table or giving up most of the value to a wholesaler. The farm stop is the most innovative answer to this problem we’ve heard of in years, and Kathy Sample & Bill Brinkerhoff of Argus Farm Stop are on the pod this week to tell us about it.