Hobby Farms Presents: Growing Good

Learn about Mike’s family’s farming heritage, which came to the US from Italy with his great-grandfather and how Mike grew up with a more diverse farm experience than most of us. Mike’s early start in farming served him well as he studied environmental science in college and went on to do agricultural research and vegetable, dairy sheep and livestock farming. 

Land access and farm business planning are the areas Mike became interested in early on. He talks about his and his wife’s journey through finding their own piece of property and how this affected his drive to help others trying to access land. Hear, too, about how Mike came to work with Land for Good and the University of Vermont Extension Farm Viability Program. You’ll definitely want to listen to the top business mistakes that small-scale farmers are making and Mike’s advice to fix those!

Hear about maple syrup experiences that Mike had as a kid that helped to form his fascination with sugaring: one in a sugar house and one at a pancake restaurant. He explains the process of sugaring, which started with Indigenous traditional knowledge. Listen to the sap-harvesting challenges presented from year to year as our weather becomes less predictable. Finally, Mike talks about three pieces of equipment that have made it possible for him to be a “part-time” sugarmaker and some grants that have helped with those purchases.

A note from Mike: Even though I am the main person running the operation, my wife and sons have always been a part of sugaring. In particular, they have always helped tap trees. And since the boys were in middle school, Margo and Elijah and Caleb have actually done most of the tapping. Elijah has even come home from college to help. Margo has also often joined me in the sugarhouse to help with boiling and bottling.

Links from this episode:

Land for Good

Entomologist and farmer Ron Bittner talks pollinators and soil health

This conversation with Ron Bittner will help you make the connection between crop pollination, water conservation and soil health in a way you probably haven’t before.

Learn about how Ron’s interest in insects—specifically the alfalfa leafcutting bee—has taken him around the US and all the way to Australia. 

Hear about the beginnings of Ron’s small vineyard, which he operates with his wife, daughter and a small crew and why this location in Caldwell, Idaho, is ideal for growing wine grapes. Ron also talks about his farm’s certifications: Salmon Safe, Bee Friendly Farming and LIVE.

Ron’s involvement with the nonprofit Pollinator Partnership and continued research on pollinator populations in his area keep him involved with some of the 4,000 native bees in the US. Let his passion for pollinators get you excited about how to attract and protect these creatures on your own property. 

Links from this episode:

Hobby Farms Presents: Growing Good podcast episode with Sara Wittenburg

Pollinator Partnership website

iNaturalist citizen science app

Cambodian agroecology educator Panha Suon talks with Hobby Farms Presents: Growing Good podcast host Lisa Munniksma about farming in Cambodia, from climate to crops and the challenges that farmers are facing there. Listen to how Panha became involved in agroecology and why he’s dedicated to educating others about the impact human activities have on the environment, particularly in a less-industrialized country like Cambodia.

Hear about Dassatek—meaning to awaken in Khmer—the project that Panha is developing to train Cambodian youth in agroecology. He talks about what motivates young people in his country and how he sees Dassatek appealing to them, including through an apprenticeship and a small seed fund to start their own agroecology project. Panha also talks about the social business enterprise model, as opposed to structuring Dassotek as a nonprofit or for-profit entity.

Learn about Panha’s 3-year homestead-building plan using natural building methods and how this suits Cambodia’s climate. He offers his advice for building your own earthen structure, focusing on using what you have on hand.

Listen to the very end to hear about Panha’s favorite traditional Cambodian farm meal!

Links from this episode:

Dassatek on Facebook

Dassatek on LinkedIn

Lewis Hughes, land steward and local-food distribution pro

Hear about Lewis Hughes’s journey into farming, from conventional pig and corn farms to international agricultural research to organic farming and cooperative farming. His vast experience in the farming world set him up to be able to work with small-scale farmers in distributing their products to wider markets.

Learn about the What Chefs Want (formerly called Creation Gardens) food distributor and its local-foods procurement arm, Local Food Connection. Lewis explains how a small-scale grower in Northeast Ohio might typically only be able to distribute their food to a farmers market or local food hub and how What Chefs Want can now help them sell throughout the Midwest and beyond. He talks about the grant funding (USDA Local Food Purchase Assistance, USDA Local Food for Schools and others) that has helped rapidly build capacity and infrastructure in the local food system and positively impact farmers and consumers.

Take Lewis’s best advice for how you, as a small-scale farmer, can make the step from selling at a farmers market to selling to a food hub, with the potential to bring your full-time-farming dream into reality.

Finally, Lewis talks about his new 13-acre property in Michigan and his plans to develop a “micro-farm” that relies on season extension and a focused crop plan.

Links from this episode:

Local Food Connection website

Hobby Farms Presents: Growing Good episode # 67 with Ben Hartman

Small-scale farmer and entrepreneur Nasuha Lenuh — nicknamed R — talks about the tree crops grown in her region, the southern part of Thailand. Hear about her family’s tree crops, from rubber to durian fruit, and how R has chosen her own path in developing Rganic Farm, including herbs, salad greens and edible flowers. R shares this journey, being honest about her family’s and community’s feelings about her attempt at growing crops that others just aren’t attempting in this area.

R talks about her elevated raised beds, which she said go together like Legos so she can move them as the durian tree crops around them grow tall. She also talks about her experience as a woman farmer in Thailand and why this profession is important to her. 

Based on her experience of growing temperate-climate crops in a tropical climate, R explains a secret of her success: patience in soil building.

Hear about the Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative, hosted by the US State Department, which awarded R a fellowship that brought her to the US to study food systems (and then allowed the Hobby Farms Presents: Growing Good host Lisa Munniksma to visit Thailand through a reciprocal fellowship). R explains Kotatuera Basar Kita, the YSEALI project she’s working on now, to develop farmers and bring an American-style farmers market to her community in Yala, Thailand. R and Lisa also talk about what it’s been like to work together on this project both in the U.S. and in Thailand.

Links from this episode:

Rganic Farm on Facebook

Rganic Farm on Instagram

Military service members and veterans farming program and aeroponic gardening with Melissa Stewart

Listen to Melissa Stewart’s story about the West Virginia National Guard’s Patriot Guardens program — the only agricultural unit embedded in a National Guard unit — and how it grew from an educational program to what it has become in 7 years: an urban farm in Charleston, a flock of laying hens, farmers markets, an orchard on reclaimed coal-mine land in Central West Virginia, a robust beekeeping program, business and marketing support, a composting project, family programming, and mental-health services. All grant-funded, Patriot Guardens is ever-evolving.

Melissa talks about the ways this program is benefiting their military service people and veterans, with some seeing agriculture as a possible retirement plan, giving them an opportunity to continue to give back to their community after their military service. Hear about a success story of one participant who’s turned what he’s learned in the program into a thriving plant business. And Melissa gets emotional talking about why Patriot Guardens is important to her and the impact it has on their service members.

Melissa shares her story of her own home garden. As a greenhouse production grower before becoming an Extension agent (and now working with Patriot Guardens), Melissa has a ton of experience using a range of gardening techniques. Listen to the end for Melissa’s advice on getting starting with aeroponics at home.

Links

Patriot Guardens on Facebook

Patriot Guardens website

Flexibility in farming, connecting with the natural world, and the Organic Association of Kentucky with Jenny Howard Owen

In this episode of Hobby Farms Presents: Growing Good, listen to Jenny’s story of her love of farming rooted in childhood. You might identify with her vivid childhood memories of digging potatoes, setting off with the family dogs through the woods and fields, and living a life outdoors. She talks about being in the Peace Corps in Gabon as her first experience with environmental education and the start to her work in sharing the outdoors with others. During her time in Gabon, she learned about gardening in the tropics and started teaching the concepts of ecology through school gardens.

Hear about how, when Jenny left Kentucky after college, she had no interest in living in her home state again but has since come back to Kentucky and built a farm. Being flexible is the lesson here. Jenny talks about the time she spent as a market farmer when her son was young and how she’s transitioned their 8 acres to more of a homesteading space for the time being.

Jenny tells us about her work as a farmer educator with the Organic Association of Kentucky, a nonprofit promoting and supporting organic farmers in the state. An annual conference, regular farmer field days, assistance for farmers transitioning to organic certification, and consumer education are all part of OAK programming. Additionally, the organization hosts the Kentucky Farm Share Coalition, which arranges employer-sponsored CSA programs with local farmers.

Finally, Jenny offers advice for getting started on your own land, sharing what she wished she knew when she and her husband were setting up their farm 10 years ago. And we hear about why this work is important to Jenny.

Diggin It Farm on Facebook

Organic Association of Kentucky website

OAK conference

Kentucky Farm Share Coalition

Research on employee-sponsored organic CSA programs

The hazards of grants, letting vegetable plants go to seed and lessons in water rights with Robert Frew and Juan Carlos Arango 

Robert and Juan Carlos practice permaculture and a culture of sharing at Sobremesa Farm, just outside Bloomington, Indiana. In this episode, Robert talks about taking the time to observe the land before jumping into farming and waiting one more year before putting any pressure on selling anything from the land. Juan Carlos points out that neither of them knew much about farming but came into this work through their interest in nature and wildlife and, eventually, the relationships they built at a Bioneers Conference. That permaculture mimics nature made it a natural fit for their land-management philosophy. 

Hear about the steps they took to bring municipal water to a property that isn’t suited for a well but didn’t have a municipal-water meter. (Listeners: Most of us would have walked away from this property. You have to hear about their journey!) Robert also talks about how they collect and keep rainwater on the land, plus two springs that have come to the surface since they purchased the property. 

Juan Carlos talks about the concept of “volunteers”--particularly plant volunteers as a means to reduce dependence on off-farm seed resources. He also talks about the various animals they keep and the rolls each fills on the farm, plus some of the more untypical tropical crops they grow in greenhouses and the fields. You won’t find soursop, bananas or pittaya growing too many other places in the Midwest! 

Hear, too, about their fellowship with Midwest Grains, the milpas they’re experimenting with, and their interest in finding and learning from other small-scale grain growers in the region. 

From CSA to an on-farm market, Sobremesa Farm attempts to connect their customers with how their food is grown. Robert talks about getting grant money to expand production via mini production contracts for a local food pantry in 2023. He gets real about the growing pains for farms as small as theirs when engaging with grants. 

Finally, Juan Carlos talks about their approach to educating their customers and school groups, as well as multicultural farming workshops they host on the farm. Hear, too, about the fertility methods they’ve used to supercharge the soil organic matter on their farm.  

If you’re curious about the name Sobremesa Farm, listen to the very end to hear Juan Carlos’s explanation of the Latin American concept of sobremesa. 

Note from the host: 

One thing we did not get to talk about in this episode was Sobremesa Farm’s feature during the 2023 Farm Aid benefit concert. Be sure to watch the video, linked below.  

Links from this episode 

Sobremesa Farm website 

Sobremesa Farm Instagram 

The ABC of Organic Agriculture, Chromatography and Sustainable Livestock Management workshop with Jairo Restrepo, September 3-6, 2024 

Farm Aid video 

Sara Wittenberg on Pollinators and How to Build a Pollinator Garden

Pollinator Week is June 17-23, 2024. Without pollinators, we wouldn’t have food, making pollinators an essential link in the food system. You, as a gardener or farmer, have a role to play here. Gardener and biologist Sara Wittenberg talks with podcast host Lisa Munniksma about how and why we should be caring for our pollinators, including how to build a pollinator garden.

Learn about the Pollinator Partnership nonprofit and the work they’re doing to protect pollinators and prevent habitat loss, from educating gardeners and farmers to working on policies and supplying research grants. Sara may surprise you as she reveals who all of our pollinators are—not only honey bees, for sure! 

More than 85% of U.S. households have outdoor living space, and Sara points out that even container gardens planted with pollinator habitat can make a difference! Hear about various pollinator initiatives happening in Arkansas and beyond that you can become involved in: the Project Wingspan effort to make native ecotype seeds more available to land stewards, NRCS programs to connect biologists with landowners for free advice and potential funding assistance, and all that the Pollinator Partnership offers. Sara explains the Bee Friendly Gardening program that she manages, which includes helping people learn how to build a pollinator garden. You can join the program to help them reach their goal of 1,000 Bee Friendly Gardeners by the end of 2024!

Sara lets us in on a new program—the first time she’s mentioned it to the public—the Bee Friendly Gardening badge system. Harkening back to your scout days, you can earn up to six badges to show your pollinator prowess.

For listeners growing on a commercial level, Bee Friendly Farming is an actual certification program that allows Bee Friendly Farmers to use the logo on their packaging.

Keep listening to learn about Sara’s own native-plant garden in her suburban Arkansas backyard. Milkweed, asters, black-eyed Susans, phlox and more turn her small outdoor space into a palette of colors throughout the seasons.

Keep listening for Sara’s best advice for how to build a pollinator garden on your own land, backyard or balcony. (Hint: The Pollinator Partnership’s garden recipe cards can help get you started.)

Links from this episode:

Bee Friendly Gardening website

Pollinator Partnership website

Native plants in your region

Pattie Baker talks about WWOOFing — traveling to work on farms — gardening and finding hope.

Hear about how 9/11 spurred Pattie on to start gardening, from zero interest to a need to plant a seed in the name of hope. She tells her story about how she went from growing food for her family to now traveling to learn about farming and to share her knowledge with others.

In 2008, the city Pattie lived in became the newest city in the US: Dunwoody, Georgia. From here, Pattie started following this burgeoning city’s development and was quickly named the Sustainability Commission Chairperson to help pursue Atlanta’s Green Community Certification, which included developing a community garden. (It’s now the largest volunteer-run community garden in Georgia!) 

Pattie tells us about growing nearly $2,500 worth of vegetables per year from her suburban property. She talks about having witnessed the loss of the majority of her pollinators over the past 10 years and what she’s doing to educate others about this. With her daughters now out of the household, Pattie decided it was time to travel, and at 56 years old was scheduled to go to Uganda with the Peace Corps. COVID changed those plans — you have to hear about the drama of this situation — and left Pattie with a new travel plan.

If you’ve never planned to leave your garden behind for two years, Pattie talks about this process and then reversing the process when she realized she wasn’t going to Uganda after all.

Listen to Pattie’s tales of traveling around the U.S. for five months in 2023, working on farms and riding bus, bike and train. She explains the WWOOF concept — sometimes called Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms or Working Worldwide on Organic Farms — and how this educational exchange operates. Pattie talks about her $20 per day budget, traveling 10,000 car-free in the U.S.. Her book, Round America with a Duck, outlines all of this in a colorful and engaging way.

If WWOOFing has ever interested you, Pattie offers her advice for valuing your time and expertise while outlining your goals to get the best experience. She talks, too, about preparing yourself for a WWOOFing experience, whether you’re 60 years old (like her) or a college-age explorer.

Links from this episode:

Round America with a Duck website

Round America with a Duck on Instagram

All of Pattie Baker’s books

WWOOF USA