Building a living green mulch.

In This Podcast: After a long career in retail, Katie Fiore knew it was time for a change. Part of her future vision was a backyard full of fruits and vegetables. The other part was a flexible, fulfilling lifestyle educating others. Katie discusses changing her life direction at 37 years old, how and why she is growing sweet potatoes, how her travels inspire her garden, and her advice to other novice gardeners wanting to start their own.

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Katie is an Arizona native who spent most of her life thinking she had a brown thumb. Five years ago, her first successful attempt at growing food was herbs grown in wine barrels. Since then she has become an Urban Farm junkie. In Spring 2018 she planted 15 fruit trees and bushes in the backyard and has started adding a few raised beds to her garden. 

A career change this past year has given her the time to pursue a healthier, lower stress life with her new husband Mark, follow her dreams of blogging about all her adventures, and nurturing her backyard food forest. After the Great American Seed Up, she is not only growing squash, herbs, and peas from seed, but she’s also harvesting seeds and building her personal seed library.

Go to www.urbanfarm.org/sweetpotatoes for more information and links on this podcast, and to find our other great guests.

425: Katie Fiore on Sweet Potatoes and Fruit Trees

Empowering people globally to build food security while using very little land.

In This Podcast: Today on the podcast, we continue our visit with John Jeavons. Part one of this two-part podcast discussed John’s journey into Biologically Intensive Gardening, crop planning strategies, and watering strategies. Today in Part Two we delve into his successes, failures, advice for future farmers, plant personalities, and some of the crops he believes everyone should grow for a nutritionally balanced diet.

John has been the Director of the Ecology Action Mini-Farming Program since 1972 and is the author of How to Grow More Vegetables a book on BIOINTENSIVE Sustainable Mini-Farming in use in over 150 countries in virtually all climates and soils. John advises on projects in countries such as Mexico, Kenya, Russia and India, as well as all corners of the United States.

Ecology Action has been a non-profit since 1971 and currently has two research and demonstration sites in California. Their mission to teach people worldwide to better feed themselves while building and preserving the soil and conserving resources through the GROW BIOINTENSIVE closed-loop small scale agricultural system.

Go to https://www.urbanfarm.org/2019/02/19/424-john-jeavons/ for more information and links on this podcast, and to find our other great guests.

423: John Jeavons on Biologically Intensive Gardening & Farming (Part 2)

Empowering people globally to build food security while using very little land.

In This Podcast: Biologically Intensive Gardening allows farmers to grow more food, with less water, in a sustainable way. In this podcast, we speak with John Jeavons who has been a Bio Intensive pioneer for over 50 years. An Arizona native, his books have made an impact on our own Greg Peterson. He enthusiastically shares his journey, discoveries, and tools to create your own Bio Intensive Garden.

John has been the Director of the Ecology Action Mini-Farming Program since 1972 and is the author of How to Grow More Vegetables a book on BIOINTENSIVE Sustainable Mini-Farming in use in over 150 countries in virtually all climates and soils. John advises on projects in countries such as Mexico, Kenya, Russia and India, as well as all corners of the United States.

Ecology Action has been a non-profit since 1971 and currently has two research and demonstration sites in California. Their mission to teach people worldwide to better feed themselves while building and preserving the soil and conserving resources through the GROW BIOINTENSIVE closed-loop small scale agricultural system.

Go to https://www.urbanfarm.org/2019/02/16/423-john-jeavons/ for more information and links on this podcast, and to find our other great guests.

423: John Jeavons on Biologically Intensive Gardening & Farming (Part 1)

Gathering gurus to help gardens grow.

In This Podcast: Growing up gardening side-by-side with her parents helped Stacey Murphy have a solid connection with food. She lost this connection when she went to college and began working as an engineer and architect. Whe she was living in a studio apartment in Brooklyn this disconnection was healed as she realized how little fresh food was in her diet and neighborhood so she started growing food in her tiny apartment and began working with a network of urban farmers. Fast forward to now as Stacey works online with gardeners in her Garden Freedom series and with people from 169 countries who all share the same concerns about their food.

Stacey is a garden geek, growing food since 1979, and her superpower is packing, literally, tons of food into tight spaces. She has helped thousands of new gardeners from six continents grow vegetables and herbs in small spaces, enjoy fresh, affordable vegetables, and live a healthy, happy life.

She does this by walking eager growers through her holistic garden system, showing what to grow, when and where Stacey offers an online education series with experts talking about different elements of growing food. This year she has organized the Garden Freedom Series with 13 days of jam-packed gardening know-how to help get herb and vegetable gardens started.

Go to https://www.urbanfarm.org/2019/02/12/422_stacey_murphy/ for more information and links on this podcast, and to find our other great guests.

422: Stacey Murphy on Setting Goals for Growing

Making good use of rain water in the community.

In This Podcast: 

As Ricardo Aguirre was about to become a father, he took stock of his life. Would he continue to work as a civil engineer as he had for 15 years or would he do something that would have a positive effect on the earth? Which one would he be proud to tell his son about? The answer was to bring about more creative and natural approaches to improve conventional engineering. He tells us more about water management and holistic planned grazing to help avoid negative land management issues.

Ricardo is the founding member of Holistic Engineering and Land Management, Inc. (HELM) and is focused on creating innovative approaches to improve conventional engineering. He works to integrate natural processes into large scale engineering projects with his primary professional focus to implement functional design strategies to achieve multiple synergistic objectives. 

Ricardo has a profound interest in reversing desertification through water harvesting and increasing soil organic matter. This can have a measurable benefit to reduce flooding, improve both storm-water and soil quality, conserve water, provide passive irrigation for vegetation, and reduce the heat island effect. Ricardo’s project experience includes infrastructure improvements for communities that have been adversely impacted by storm-water.  

Visit https://www.urbanfarm.org/2019/02/09/421_ricardo_aguirre/ for show notes and links.

Ricardo Aguirre on Water Harvesting & Land Management

Changing the way we eat one month at a time.

In This Podcast: 

Food revolutionary and visionary Ocean Robbins shares a healthy eating program that can work for anyone in just 31 days.  Breaking down his plan into four sections, he helps simplify the process.  He also discusses some of the major factors that lead to unhealthy eating, and offers some ideas on how to get people you care about engaged in a healthy eating discussion.

Ocean is the CEO, Co-founder and Co-host of the Food Revolution Network, and the co-host of the annual Food Revolution Summit.  He has facilitated more than 50 week-long gatherings and 100 day-long workshops for leaders worldwide on a variety of health related topics, Plus he is already prepping for the next Food Revolution Summit taking place in April 2019.

Ocean is the co-author of Choices for Our Future and Voices of the Food Revolution, and the author of The Power of Partnership. His next book coming out this month is titled 31-Day Food Revolution: Heal Your Body, Feel Great, and Transform Your World.

Visit https://www.urbanfarm.org/2019/02/05/420-ocean-robbins/ for show notes and links.

This contest period has expired.

Ocean Robbins on The 31 Day Food Revolution

Bonus Episode 24: Seed Saving Class January, 2019. 

A chat with a seed expert on wild crop relatives, biodiversity and more

In This Bonus Podcast: 

There is always a bounty of information available in conversations with Bill McDorman. This is the January 2019 episode of a Seed Saving Class - Listen and learn about the importance of wild crop relatives and biodiversity, the February 2019 Seed Summit, and so much more.

 Join the class! Register anytime for the next event. Register Here for the Seed Saving Class with Live Q&A

Bill McDorman is Executive Director of Rocky Mountain Seed Alliance, Ketchum, Idaho. He got his start in the bio-regional seed movement while in college in 1979 when he helped start Garden City Seeds. In 1984, Bill started Seeds Trust/High Altitude Gardens, a mail order seed company he ran successfully until it sold in 2013.

Go to https://www.urbanfarm.org/2019/02/02/bonus24/ for more information and links on this bonus podcast, and to find our other great guests.

Teaching how to garden with limited space.

In This Podcast: 

Struggling with their children’s multiple food allergies convinced Nicky Schauder and her husband Dave to go organic. Dealing with the expense of all this organic food impelled them to start growing it themselves. Thus began their adventure with permaculture and gardening in small spaces. They’ve incorporated many techniques, which they call multipliers, to increase their yield, from 3-dimensional gardening to low tunnel gardening. Among the many bonuses of this lifestyle is the improved health of their children. Nicky and Dave now offer classes to help families just like theirs reap the same benefits. 

Nicky and her husband Dave are passionate about helping suburban families grow their own food.  Together, they run Permaculture Gardens a web portal to help you grow abundantly!

In 2017, Permaculture Gardens won the grand prize at the Green Festivals in Washington DC for “Most Innovative Sustainable Brand.” Their work has been featured in the Huffington Post, Permaculture Research Institute - Australia and Green America.org.  They also volunteer at their local Title 1 school and started a permaculture garden after-school program for the elementary kids there.

Visit https://www.urbanfarm.org/2019/01/29/419_nicky-schauder/ for show notes and links.

Nicky Schauder on Growing Food in Small Spaces

Promoting ecological diversity and preserving the health of our planet.

In This Podcast: 

With a passion for growing in her genes, Kat Granger joined a horticulture group, became a Master Gardener, and went to seed school to learn all she could about her subject. Speaking to groups about her vegetables led to selling those vegetable seeds to her interested audience members. This eventually led to her seed business, Seeds of IMBOLC. Kat sees how a disconnection with the earth has led to so many problems with people’s health and well-being and works tirelessly to help reconnect people with nature with her authentically organic seeds. 

Kat is a Master Gardener and creator of Seeds of IMBOLC, in Fergus, Ontario, Canada where she grows heirloom organic seeds and plants and is a grower for a larger organic seed group. 

She has been featured on the TV show “Let’s Get Growing”, and in OMAFRA produce videos, spoken at Canada Blooms, the Pollination Guelph Symposium, and at Seedy Saturdays. She is an instructor with the Upper Grand District School District, hosts a monthly newsletter “Home on the Grange”, and enjoys sparking gardening addictions. 

Kat is a member of Seeds of Diversity, Seed Savers Exchange, and the Ontario Biodynamic Society – plus a graduate of Seed School Online.

Go to https://www.urbanfarm.org/2019/01/26/418-kat-granger/ for more information and links on this podcast, and to find our other great guests.

Kat Granger on Starting a Small Seed Business.

 Farming with an eye on the future.

In This Podcast:  

As a child Michael Foley visited a Montana ranch and dreamed of being a gentleman farmer one day.  His path however, took him into academia. After being estranged from the land for several years he eventually found his way back to farming. Today Michael, along with his wife and daughter, farm on their micro-farm, often trading goods with neighbors. He believes that farmers need to think of more than profitability when analyzing the bottom line.  Providing for themselves and their neighbors and building networks among themselves in order to help one another should also be priorities. Michael is very proud of his work with the School of Adaptive Agriculture and delights in helping to populate the farm scene in his area with young people from this farm training program. 

After twenty years in academia, Michael became a farmer. He started in southern Maryland, then moved to Willits, California, where he, his wife, and oldest daughter operate Green Uprising Farm.  He is a co-founder, board member, and teacher at the School of Adaptive Agriculture (formerly known as the Grange Farm School), a farmer training and education program.  

Michael has helped create and manage a community kitchen and small farmers group, manage the local farmers market, and has served as both vice president of the Mendocino County Farmers Market Association & president of Little Lake Grange.  And with all that, he found time to write Farming for the Long Haul Published by our friends at Chelsea Green.

Go to https://www.urbanfarm.org/2019/01/22/417-michael-foley/ for more information and links on this podcast, and to find our other great guests.

The contest period of this episode has expired. 

Michael Foley on Building a Viable Small Farm Economy