Farm Small Farm Smart Daily

This episode is a special episode, it's a replay of another podcast, specifically someone else's podcast. The episode that you will hear today is an interview that Marianne West did with me on a subject I am very passionate about - being a dad. Marianne is going to talk to be about being a dad and how that first experience of being a dad dramatically shook up my life, and not just in a good way. M...

Today it's back to Kelowna and Green City Acres as Curtis and I take a look back at his experiences with inter-planting, planting multiple crops in the same space . It's something that he's done for a few years now, and something that he's doing again this year with his tomatoes. We first stated talking about this subject back in 2015 when we did an episode touching on the subject in Season One, t...

There's a lot to worry about out there in the world right now - climate change, GMOs, the financial system, debt, terrorism, disease, water insecurity, a fragile food system. What if you could insure yourself against some of these worries? And get that insurance through land, land as insurance.. It would be a way to take insurance back into our control and put the fragile dollars into an anti-frag...

Today I'm going to be talking to another small scale farming making a go of it as we go to Sebastopol, CA to talk to Caiti Hachmyer of Red H Farm. Caiti's a farmer who started out her farming career on the advocacy side of things.  She was living the Bay Area advocating for farmers and looking to play her part in changing hte food system.  But after a while she felt something was missing.  And she...

Today I'm going up to Vancouver to talk to Microgreen Farmer Chris Thoreau with the goal of focusing in on 10 base principles for growing high quality microgreens. Think 10 things that are critical to growing a good crop regardless of where you are growing them, when you are growing them or how you are growing them. These base principles help ensure that you get a successful crop that is free of d...

"Farming is as much about growing yourself as it is about growing vegetables." One of the big lessons shared in this episode with farmer Chris Gilbert from Bettendorf, Iowa. Welcome to world of Farming Small and Farming Smart. Today I'm going to be talking to another small scale farming making a go of it as we go to Bettendorf, Iowa to talk to farmer Chris Gilbert of Gilbert's Grapes Farm. Chris's...

Welcome to world of Farming Small and Farming Smart. Today I'm talking to another small scale farming making a go of it, as we go to Omaha, Nebraska to take a look at how farmer Taylor Rogers started his farm. It's an interesting story that takes Taylor from working behind the scenes in a restaurant kitchen to starting up a farm with no experience in a 3rd story apartment.  Being on the third floo...

Today is another episode where Curtis and I will be widening the scope, stepping back and zooming out from the tools and techniques and his 1/3 of an acre farm, to take a look at some of the macro issues surrounding agriculture. The focus today is on employees. Curtis will take about his thoughts on hiring employees, and what he looks for in employees. We'll also get into some of the complications...

When you start your farm business, one think that you need to think about is your business structure. Sole proprietorships and LLCs are common ways to go, but there are also other options, like co-operatives... That's how farmer Chris Thoreau of Food Pedalers structure his business, and that's the subject of today's show... Today I'm going up to Vancouver to talk to microgreen farmer Chris Thoreau...

Today I am talking with Dr. Ross Mars, author of The Permaculture Transition Manual. A book that covers a wide variety of practical topics including: permaculture design principles, soil building, nutrient-dense food growing, and greywater systems. In the book Ross also dispels a number of well accepted permaculture myths, such as comfrey being a dynamic accumulator.  I think we have all hear that...

This week I'll pick up where last week left off with market gardener Ray Tyler of Rosecreek Farms. While last week's episode was more inspiration, this week's more of the perspiration side of things as Ray talks about some of his production methods and big changes that he made turn go from grossing $35,000 in 2015 to $120,000 in 2016 on less land. Ray's going to go talk about some of the big chang...

Farming Against All Odds with Ray Tyler of Rosecreek Farms From laid off and in debt to grossing $120,000 on one acre. Today's show goes beyond Curtis and the urban farm, as we take a look at another small scale vegetable producer and their farm. We all know that running a business is hard. We all know that running a farm business is hard. But think everyone knows how hard it actually is.  How muc...

Learn more at www.permaculturevoices.com/151 There had always been that group of design-centric permaculturalists focused on the process, not the techniques. The Toby Hemenways and Larry Santoyos of the world, the Darren Dohertys and the Ben Falks, The Richard Perkins, and my guest today, Rob Avis. They are all just a small sample of a larger subset that's focused on permaculture a design process,...

Support the show at www.permaculturevoices.com/support Valuable and necessary to the success of hte changing landscape of agriculture... or an abused form of cheap labor that helps some farms appear more profitable than they really are... That's what we are talking about today on The Urban Farmer with Curtis Stone With the 2017 season underway, we'll be widening the scope.  Not only going beyond C...

Today I will be talking with someone who likely inspired many of you to get into farming, to consider farming, or to farm better, not bigger. I'll be talking to market gardener, Jean-Martin Fortier.   We'll start out talking about his days before he farmed and how he figured out exactly who Jean-Martin Fortier was and what he was about.  And we'll end up in the fields talking about something that...

A compilation of stories from peers, friends, and students paying tribute to Toby Hemenway who passed away on December 20, 2016. Learn more about Toby at www.permaculturevoices.com/150 Support the show at www.permaculturevoices.com/support Background Music: Voyage by LEMMiNO https://soundcloud.com/lemmino Creative Commons — Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported— CC BY-SA 3.0 http://creativecommons.o...

Ben Watson, a senior editor at Chelsea Green, joins me to talk about his work with Toby Hemenway on the first edition of Gaia's Garden back in 2000 and how much of an influence that book had on the permaculture movement and the future of books in this space. Learn more at www.permaculturevoices.com/149 Support the show at www.permaculturevoices.com/support

Liberation Permaculture by Toby Hemenway. This episode is the rebroadcast of Toby talk from PV2 in March 2015. Permaculture offers more than a path to a sustainable and just food system. It can move entire segments of our society off the radar screens of state oppressors and help return equality, abundance, and justice to people while restoring healthy ecosystems. This talk will tell you how. Here...

Today, let's take a look at permaculture.  Let's go beyond the land, and beyond food to take a look at a concept that Toby is calling liberation permaculture. "Permaculture offers more than a path to a sustainable and just food system. It can move entire segments of our society off the radar screens of state oppressors and help return equality, abundance, and justice to people while restoring heal...

Backing Away from the Energy Cliff: A Permaculturist's Guide to Thinking About Energy.    Fossil fuels are the underpinning of our civilization, and our desperate attempts to keep cheap oil flowing runs the risk of collapsing ecosystems and cultures. This lecture uses a permacultural approach to evaluate energy sources and to design possible energy futures.    Presented by Toby Hemenway at PV1 in...

Ten thousand years of agriculture has devastated every ecosystem it has come in contact with. Horticultural societies point toward a solution, and permaculture can help us design a way to overcome agriculture's deficiencies, preserve many of the best features of our culture, and create a horticultural society that has a good chance of proving sustainable. This lecture shows how we got into this me...

Toby Hemenway joins me to talk permaculture - how permaculture has changed and how we can work more permaculture into our lives. Key Takeaways: It really benefits anyone in almost any field to be able to think in whole systems. Someone who embraces permaculture can do a lot more than teach and design property. Apply permaculture techniques and principles to what you do. Find good mentors. Many peo...

Today's  episode is the first episode in a week long series dedicated to the late Toby Hemenway.   It's the first presentation in a series of episodes which Toby called his civilization series.   It's titled How Permaculture Can Save Humanity and the Earth, but Not Civilization.   Learn more at www.permaculturevoices.com/143   Support the show at permaculturevoices.com/support .

2016 has been an interesting year for me.   It's been one of transition and growth and change. It's been a year that's ended a long career in one world and kick started a new career going out on my own. It's been a year of loss losing pioneers like Toby Hemenway, Gene Logsdon, and Bill Mollison;  and it's been a year of addition as a beautiful daughter entered my life. I have a grown a lot and cha...

Mycologist and author Peter McCoy of RadicalMycology.com takes on the question - I'm wondering if you have any information about inoculating trees to grow truffles. I have read that hazelnuts are sometimes used in truffle production and, while there are nurseries that sell (large quantities of) inoculated trees, I can't find any information about doing it yourself. It seems like the method is to i...