The Growing Revolution - Smart PotCast

This week, we spoke with Bart Eller, founder of Paonia Soil Company. They have been making growing mediums and soil amendments since 2012 in Paonia, CO, which is on the Western Slope of the Rocky Mountains.

Bart is a serial entrepreneur, but hopefully Paonia Soil Co is the last company that Bart starts up. In this interview he speaks about his background prior to Paonia Soil and the family upbringing that brought him to try and save the world, one farm at a time. They have a unique process of creating their "super soil" which makes it have an abundance of biodiversity of beneficial bacteria and fungi. Their process is especially beneficial for preserving beneficial fungi that otherwise dies off in other production processes.

Bart is also a large fan of Smart Pot containers and raised beds, and has had many custom Smart Pot raised beds designed for his own, and his customer's needs. Besides being sensitive to the needs of Mother Earth, Bart is a fun laid back guy and tries to inject humor into his company, and their products at all times.

This was a really fun interview to do, and Bart is exactly the type of person that we love to interview. If more people had his outlook on business, agriculture and life in general, this world would be a much better place. We greatly appreciate his support over the years and his sparing of time to join us for the podcast interview.

This week on The Growing Revolution, we interviewed Maygan Clark. She is based in the Cincinatti Ohio area, and is a passionate gardener, beekeeper and small business advocate. Her main job is in advising businesses on workplace safety training but when she isn't doing that, she is in her own garden, consulting with others on building and maintaining their own gardens and apiaries (bee house) and building The Growmunity, which is a local networking group for entrepreneurs and small businesses.

For being in her 20's, she's done more than some people do in a lifetime. We've loved seeing her gardening posts over the last few years, as she is a huge fan of Cali Kim, and Smart Pots, and it was really enjoyable to get to know her more and learn how she's building up the karma points for herself and those who she's networking with. We greatly appreciate Maygan taking some time from her busy schedule to speak with us.

More great interviews are coming! Please subscribe to our podcast and share with your friends who love hearing inspiring stories.

This week on The Growing Revolution Smart PotCast, we spoke with Jahasiel Torres, Manager of Orange County Farm Supply, in Orange CA. They have been serving the City of Orange and the surrounding communities for 75 years, and JT has been the manager for the last 10. They are currently owned by the Roy family and it is truly a family business with many of them occupying various positions in the company over the years.  

The focus of their garden center has always been on customer service and being knowledgeable about the products that they sell, so their customers have great success and come back for more. They also have occasional events where they will bring in some of the vendors that they carry to further educate their customers. Jahasiel had an interesting path to becoming store manager, and it's inspiring to hear that hard work, ultimately pays off. His wife, Cindy, is with their three daughters pretty much full time, but she has also become a huge gardener, and Smart Pot fan. She's done a great job at incorporating her kids into gardening, passing on the knowledge and cultivating their passion for plants.

Please like this episode and share with your friends. We've got more passionate gardening guests coming in future interviews. Stay tuned!

This week on The Growing Revolution we spoke with Valin Bodie of Environmental Soil Solutions. He is a trained Soil Scientist with a degree from Oral Roberts University. His passion for agriculture comes from his family upbringing in the Bahamas where he was taught the importance of regenerative gardening. 

He talks about his educational and professional journeys in the world of soccer, where he played against national teams from USA, Brazil and more. His professional journey in agriculture had him starting out working for someone else until they got mad at him for doing research and trying to come up with a better soil product. This was the push that he needed to start up his own company, Environmental Soil Solutions where he will do testing, analysis and sourcing of amendments and soil mediums for customers in Oklahoma and beyond.

Valin is a very down to earth guy, and we need more folks with his mindset in the agricultural industry. Please like this episode and subscribe to our podcast for more great interviews.

In this week's installment of The Growing Revolution, we got to sit down with Kris Whitten, AKA, Horti Kris. He is a longtime veteran of the hydroponic industry since it's early inception.

His road began shortly after leaving Virginia, where he landed in Huntington Beach, California, and thus began his journey with growing cannabis. Besides being a grower, Kris is an inventor having come up with the first FlipBox on the market for running multiple rooms off of the same ballasts. Later, he solved the problem of dust and contaminants from air-cooled lighting systems with the DustShroom. His story of how those two products came about is entertaining and inspirational.

He also talks about how the Heavy T Grow Show came about, his role on the show and some great stories from the glory days of the hydroponics industry.

This was a very entertaining episode to record, so we hope that you all enjoy watching.

In this week's episode of The Growing Revolution, we welcome back gardening influencer, author, and Smart Pot super fan, CaliKim. We talked about her recommendations on how to easily set up a super productive backyard garden, even for folks who don't have huge yards. CaliKim's yard seems much larger than it actually is, because she has maximized space, especially growing vertically.

We cover topics such as garden placement, what to plant, when to plant, and more!

We always appreciate Kim's gardening knowledge and for her making the time to join us again on the podcast.

Please like this episode and subscribe to our channel for more great podcasts.

This week our guest is Brandon Rust, who is a cannabis agronomist and consultant, as well as owner of Bokashi Earthworks. He sells organic biostimulants and microbial inoculants to improve soil health and quality.

We talked about his background growing up in the San Diego area, his move to Oklahoma, his passion for organic chemistry and so much more.

Brandon also touches on the recent adult use initiative for Oklahoma, why it failed, and why that isn't necessarily a bad thing.

We have worked quite a bit with him lately in supplying his customers with Smart Pot raised beds and sleeves (bottomless pots).

Please like this episode, and subscribe to our channel for more great interviews.

On this week's episode of The Growing Revolution, we got to speak with Sean and Allison McManus, who are a husband and wife team of gardening authors, influencers, and inventors. We met them over a year ago because they found us online and thought that a Smart Pot might be a great container to grow their dahlia flowers in. They were right!

Their passion is in ornamental flowers of all types, growing in ground, and in containers of all types. They are long time gardeners and have been answering gardening questions for decades. Sean's background is in agriculture science at Washington State University, but before that, he grew up on his family's rhododendron farm. Allison's specialty is in teaching/education, so together they have a lot of gardening knowledge and the ability to convey it in an easy-to-understand manner.

Their invention of the Little Dibby and Dibby XL are super cool and the story behind that is inspiring for any entrepreneur. They had some of the best energy out of any of our previous 48 podcast guests, and we really appreciate their time in joining us.

Be sure to subscribe to our channel for more great interviews.

We are excited for this week's episode of The Growing Revolution, where we got to speak with one of our favorite recurring guests, Milo Shammas, Founder and CEO of Dr. Earth Organics. He blazed the trail for organic gardeners in the USA decades ago, so who would be a better source to help us understand fertilizer labels, what they mean, and what they might be leaving out.

Some of the topics that we cover:

What are some other important elements to have in your fertilizer besides NPK?

What "NPK Numbers" should gardeners be looking for on their labels?

What should organic gardeners look for in pest and disease control products?

And much more!

Milo has so much passion for organic gardening, and once he gets on a roll with a certain topic it's like an eruption of information. He really cares about Mother Nature, People and Plants, and it shows. We greatly appreciate his time in joining us for our podcast, and his advocacy of environmental stewardship in general.

Please like and share this podcast with anyone who might be interested in furthering their organic gardening knowledge.

For the latest episode of The Growing Revolution, we interviewed Will Bowden and Adam Rollinger from Grasshopper Farms in Michigan. They are on year three of growing in full sun, outdoors for the Michigan marketplace. They are focusing on growing the highest quality cannabis possible, and less focused on yield, although they do quite well in that department, also.

Will focused on building a team of veteran, outdoor growers who have a passion for the plant, work well as a team and have a long term plan of steady, sustainable growth. They grow in 100 gallon Smart Pots, and a great example of who we like to promote to others as a company doing things the right way.

Please like this episode and subscribe to our channel for more great episodes featuring the best growers and retailers in the USA and beyond!