The Ruminant: Audio Candy for Farmers, Gardeners and Food Lovers

I stumbled across Craig LeHoullier's book, Epic tomatoes, by accident one day when I was trolling the internet looking for episode ideas. I bought his book on a whim, and am I ever glad I did. Many years ago, Craig fell in love with growing tomatoes, and then, specifically, heirloom tomatoes, and he eventually put everything he learned about tomato history, and the art and science of growing beautiful tomatoes, down on paper. I roared through the book. And then, impressed with what I read, I asked Craig to come on the show to talk about his passion. And, it is a passion. Craig figures he has five thousand tomato varieties in his collection, and that he's personally grown out more than 2000 of them. This episode: part one of our conversation, which focuses on heirloom history, and practical considerations for starting tomatoes in the nursery and pruning them in the field. Part two, which includes a best-of varietal list for commercial growers, comes out next week.

I recently had a chance to speak with Rochelle Eisen, who is an expert on all things organic in Canada. Rochelle has been an organic inspector, AKA organic verification officer, for years, and she's been involved in various levels of the organic farming certification bureaucracy throughout that time. Rochelle joined me to explain how the organic bureacratic machine works. Sounds boring, I know, but I think you'll really enjoy this if you've ever wondered how organic standards are formed or changed, or how you can influence them. If you're currently an organic farmer, or think you might be in future, or like to spout off about how the system is corrupt, or how the system is too expensive or too onerous, you should give this a listen. The topic may be a little bland, but Rochelle is the hotsauce that makes it enjoyable. A note to my american listeners that Rochelle and I focus on the Canadian organic system which she tells me is quite different than yours. I still think you'll find value here though. It may just make you want to go and learn more about the American system.

Guts is a Canadian feminist magazine that recently published a piece by Natalie Childs called The Fruits of Unpaid Labour. Natalie's article is a thoughtful consideration of the reality of low- and no-pay farm apprenticeships on many small-scale farms in Canada, and the implications for both the farmers and the apprentices involved. Natalie, who completed a farm apprenticeship a few summers back and now works on a farm in Quebec, is my guest for this episode, along with Robin Johnston and Bernard Soubrey, two young farmers based in Atlantic Canada who also went through the apprenticeship system and share Natalie's concerns about underpaid farm labour on some small-scale farms. 

This is the last episode of 2015; I'll be back with a new episode in early January.

Jay McCaman has spent many years observing  and cataloguing the weeds on his and his clients' farms, and over this time, by also observing the soil types, conditions, and nutrient levels of the countless fields he's worked with, Jay has come up with, well, sort of a grand unifying theory of weeds, and what they're telling us about our soil. Jay has written a few versions of his book on the topic, but the only one currently availble for sale is called, simply, When Weeds Talk. I spoke with Jay in November of 2015. This is our conversation

I recently read The Dorito Effect. It's one of the best I've read in the ag/food politics genre. It's about what happened when food scientists figured out how to manufacture thousands of flavours at the same time that the flavour and nutrition of real food began a steep decline. It turns out that the flavour and nutrition of food are intimately linked, and that when we figured out how to divorce the two, the consequences were, and continue to be, pretty negative.

In this episode I interview the author of The Dorito Effect, Mark Shatzker. It's a good one. 

This episode features submissions that came in from listeners after I asked you all what you do in Winter to make ends meet, if not farming. Your answers? Snow removal. Substitute teacher or para-teacher. Organic inspector. Animal technologist. Plus more! 

With thanks to Scott Humphries, who came up with the idea for this episode, I'm pretty sure.

This episode of the podcast features an interview with Arlene Throness, the coordinator of a rooftop farm operated by a Ryerson University Gardening club called Rye's Homegrown, out of Ryerson University in Toronto. The interview was recorded and edited by Ruminant Podcast collaborator Scott Humphries.

You need to see photos of this farm to believe it. This is no indoor hydroponic setup or series of pots and garden boxes. It's literally a quarter acre market garden on a roof. Arlene talks about the farm's history, as well as the challenges of growing CSA crops way, way up in the sky.

At Blue Fruit Farm in Minnesota, Jim Riddle and Joyce Ford grow a range of perrenial tree fruit and berries of the blue and nearly-blue kind. In our conversation, Jim Riddle talks about why he and Joyce switched to perennial crops from annual market veggies, considerations for establishing a farm like his, and how he and Joyce have approached their marketing. You can find out more at bluefruitfarm.com. More info about Jim's production practices can be found in the expanded show notes for this episode at http://theruminant.ca