Working together with other small farms to provide farm goods to a local economy.

In This Podcast: Not having enough eggs to keep her farm stand stocked, Deb Kolaras reached out to a couple neighboring small farms to add their products to hers. What has developed is a successful honor based farm stand that neighbors shop to find their fresh produce, eggs and cheeses. Using her marketing background she is focusing a local economy to support small farmers.  

Trading her digital marketing agency in Boulder, Colorado, for a small farm in rural Virginia, Deb and her husband set out to expand their backyard hobby farming into a slightly larger and more sustainable homestead.  While restoring a 1907 farmhouse, they’re raising chickens & goats, and selling the food products at their roadside honor farm-stand.

Other local micro farms also sell produce and goods in Deb’s farm stand as she is working to help improve her local microeconomy by networking and supporting small farmers and producers in her county.

Her background is in business, but she’s always had a passion for making, building, re-purposing, and then harvesting the goods from those labors.

Go to https://www.urbanfarm.org/2017/08/15/274-deb-kolaras/ for more information and links on this podcast, and to find our other great guests.

Buzzing through some basics on bees, hives and honey.

In This Podcast:  Starting from a bucket list item on her boyfriend's wall, Hilary Kearney jumped into the world of beekeeping and found her passion.  She teaches us some basics about bees, beekeeping, and the honey that they produce.  She also shares some tips for new beekeepers including some highlights of introducing new queens to a hive.  If you've had an interest in beekeeping, this might just help you jump in too!

Hilary owns and operates Girl Next Door Honey, and is a full-time beekeeper in her home town of San Diego, California where she provides educational opportunities for hundreds of new beekeepers each year. She is the author of the blog Beekeeping Like A Girl and maintains a popular Instagram account with over 42,000 followers around the world who are inspired by her beekeeping exploits and unique business model.  When she’s not rescuing bee hives, teaching classes, photographing bees or managing one of her sixty colonies… she’s sleeping and dreaming of bees.  

Go to https://www.urbanfarm.org/2017/08/12/273-hilary-kearney/ for more information and links on this podcast, and to find our other great guests.

Motivating the necessary people to create and maintain a lasting grade school garden program.

In This Podcast:  A class project for her community college biology students to create a school garden at an elementary school challenged Lori Rose to move from the theoretical world to the epic one she has created for the local grade schools in her community. The tricky part was that she did not know how to garden at the time. She did not let that stop her, and it built into an amazing and EPIC new program at her college. Her lessons learned on how to make a school garden project that lasts are valuable indeed. 

Lori is a college instructor for biology, nutrition, herbal and wellness classes, as well as a board-certified nutrition professional & holistic nutrition consultant, registered herbalist, and holistic health coach.  She also created, developed, and instructs in, the Hill College Holistic Wellness Pathway program in Cleburne, Texas. 

Lori is a wife & mother, city class teacher, and passionate Zumba dancer!  She loves spreading love & light, and helping others feel great on the inside & out so they can live their dreams! When not doing all that, she is an organic gardener of vegetables, fruits, & medicinal herbs, at home and at the Hill College school garden.

Go to https://www.urbanfarm.org/2017/08/10/272-lori-rose/ for more information and links on this podcast, and to find our other great guests.

Learning the identity and uses for common plants growing wild in North America.

In This Podcast: Sharing her knowledge about wild herbs and plants is exactly what Brigitte Mars wants to do and she used modern technology to reach this goal. After an inspiring walk with a couple of Navy Seals, she focused on making a new mobile app specifically to help identify wild plants and educate on their uses and dangers if any.  She shares with us some common plant and what they are useful for along with a few suggestions on how to protect plants in your areas. 

Brigitte is an herbalist and nutritional consultant of Natural Health with almost fifty years of experience.  She is also the author of more than a dozen books and DVDs. However, today we are most interested in her mobile app for wild plant reference called iPlant.

She teaches Herbal Medicine at Naropa University, and The School of Health Mastery in Iceland and has taught at Esalen, Kripalu, the Arise Festival and Mayo Clinic.

Brigitte is the author of more than a dozen books and DVDs, including - The Home Reference to Holistic Health and Healing, The Country Almanac of Home Remedies, and her most recent book through Storey Publishing called Natural First Aid.

Go to https://www.urbanfarm.org/2017/08/08/271-brigitte-mars/ for more information and links on this podcast, and to find our other great guests.

Bonus Episode 4: Ask Jake and Greg. 

A July 2017 Q&A session with two experts on Gardening and Fruit Trees.

In This BONUS Podcast: Jake Mace the Vegan Athlete and Greg Peterson of The Urban Farm are both gardening educators offering classes, podcasts, and videos on a large variety of gardening topics. Every month they get together for a monthly gardening chat to discuss what is going on in their gardens and answer your questions.  This is the JULY 2017 Q&A episode with a variety of questions addressed from planning for planting, building healthy soil, and much more. 

Go to https://www.urbanfarm.org/2017/08/07/bonus-episode-4-ask-jake-and-greg/ for more information and links on this bonus podcast, and to find our other great guests.

Improving results in your garden through planning and record keeping.

In This Podcast: Putting a brand new edible landscape together for homeowners and even apartment communities in the Seattle area is just another work day for Colin McCrate, and he loves it.  So, after several years and many gardens built & maintained, he has learned a thing or two about how to improve the production of vegetables.  He helps explain some of that here and shares a few of his tips and techniques. 

Colin has been growing food organically for the past 15 years.  He worked on a variety of small farms in the Midwest before moving to the west coast in 2003 to teach garden-based environmental education.  He quickly realized that Washington is the most beautiful state in the Union, and has been farming, teaching and designing landscapes there ever since.  He founded the Seattle Urban Farm Company in January of 2007 and still looks forward to planting potatoes every spring.  

Colin is the author of two books High-Yield Vegetable Gardening published by Storey Publishing and Food Grown Right, In Your Backyard.

Go to https://www.urbanfarm.org/2017/08/05/270-colin-mccrate/ for more information and links on this podcast, and to find our other great guests.

Spreading Education and support about an oft dismissed, yet devastating disease.

In This Podcast: There is a disease spreading across the United States and other countries, unchecked and in many cases dismissed or ignored, at great physical, emotional and financial cost.  Sarah Schlichte Sanchez was infected in a state that supposedly did not have Lyme disease, so getting answers and help was almost impossible.  Now she spends much of her time helping others who need support and information about this ruthless illness. She shares her story here.

Sarah contracted Lyme Disease as a teenager, however it took 17 years of pain and suffering before she received an accurate diagnosis.  Since starting treatment at the age of 37, she has devoted her time to help others cope with the daily struggles of living with a chronic illness.  She is an author, speaker, and entrepreneur, and together with her husband Aaron, produces a regular podcast called LymeVoice. 

Go to https://www.urbanfarm.org/2017/08/03/269-sarah-sanchez/ for more information and links on this podcast, and to find our other great guests.

Assisting urban and rural farmers negotiate the maze of promotion and marketing.

In This Podcast: When agriculture is a serious passion, then one way or another your path will probably lead you to a place like a state farm bureau.  Julie Murphree cares so much about helping farmers find ways to succeed that she wrote a book and tries to personally deliver them when she visits farms in her state. Her years of experience and her network of agriculture resources help her bring a bounty of ideas to new or struggling farmers, as well as to those who are ready to move up to the next level.

Julie previously ran her own public relations & marketing firm supporting clients in the agriculture and technology industries before joining the Arizona Farm Bureau as the Outreach Director. She works with farmers and ranchers throughout the state to advance the importance of agriculture as a food security issue for our state and the nation.

Julie is a native of Arizona, grew up on a cotton and alfalfa farm in Pinal County where she was in production agriculture with her parents until 2005. She is the author of two books, Fresh Air and A Farmer's Guide to Marketing the Direct-Market Farm published by the AZ Farm Bureau.

Go to https://www.urbanfarm.org/2017/08/01/268-julie-murphree/ for more information and links on this podcast, and to find our other great guests.

Addressing the impact water scarcity will have on food resources on a national level.

In This Podcast: Filmmaker and environmental planner Jim Thebaut has been working hard to educate others about serious issues involving the water-food nexus which can have a major impact on national security.  Although his upcoming film is regionally based, the consequences can have tremendous reach.  His message can be applied to any area and needs to be considered by all policy makers as they are faced with decisions that have lasting impacts.

Jim is a former Regional Environmental Planner and was responsible for numerous Environmental Impact Statements, and Planning Studies in Washington, Idaho, Oregon and Alaska. He is currently president and CEO of The Chronicles Group, a not-for-profit corporation focusing on educating the public through media about profound issues that affect both human and ecological systems

He has written, produced and directed an array of prominent, socially significant productions, including “The Iceman Tapes,” A&E’s “Bad Cops,” and “Execution at Midnight.”

His environmentally focused pieces include “Running Dry” a documentary regarding the worsening global humanitarian water crisis, along with its follow up “The American Southwest: Are We Running Dry?”, and “Beyond the Brink” a film on how food shortages like the one in California's San Joaquin Valley will lead to a National Security Threat (to be released Fall 2017).  

Go to https://www.urbanfarm.org/2017/07/29/267-jim-thebaut/ for more information on this podcast, and to find our other great guests.

266: Jonathan Pereira on What is Beyond Sustainable. 

Creating a circular economy system with cooperating businesses for shared benefits.

In This Podcast: Cooperating business that work together to succeed as they reduce the waste stream at the same time. While this might sound unrealistic, this concept is succeeding through a project in Chicago, and Jonathan Pereira tells us more about how it came about.  Plant Chicago is working to help bring the concept of circular economy into practice anywhere they can through education and inspiration. 

Jonathan holds a BS in Geology and a Masters in Science Education, and has worked as an informal science educator for over 15 years before joining the non-profit organization Plant Chicago.  

He has developed numerous innovative programs including Greencorps Youth Program in Chicago, and Greentrack at Manhattan Comprehensive Night-and-Day High School in New York.  

In 2012, he was nominated with his students from Global High School for the Zayed Future Energy Prize.

As Executive Director, Jonathan is working to bring the circular economy to life inside Plant Chicago and outward to the neighborhood. He sees a future where businesses work together to ensure both the economy and the environment are thriving.

Go to https://www.urbanfarm.org/2017/07/27/266-jonathan-pereira/ for more information and links on this podcast, and to find our other great guests.