Farm Small Farm Smart Daily

It's currently March 30, 2016. And over the past few months Curtis has literally been all around the world. I today's episode we'll look back at some of the places that he visited and what he took away from those visits. From the high tech innovation being done at Jean-Martin Fortier's Le Ferm de Catra Taaamp in Quebec to the low tech soil building techniques used by Jodi Roebuck to build soil in...

Farmer John Suscovich of Camps Road Farm and FarmMarketingSolutions.com answers the question, "What breeds of broilers do you raise?" To learn more about John and see all of the ASK John episodes visit permaculturevoices.com/john .   If you like the show, please support the show by making a contribution at permaculturevoices.com/ilikevoices

Not every business will work, but over the course of a career odds are, one idea will work.     If you want to be an entrepreneur, then it’s up to you to smartly continue on until you find it.  Because you can’t win the race, unless you finish the race.   But can you find that right idea?     Many of people don’t think that they can.     And it’s that defeating self talk that keeps many people fro...

Homesteader Justin Rhodes of AbundantPermaculture.com talks about how he feeds his 30 chickens for just $1.25 per day. To learn more about Justin and see all of the ASK Justin episodes visit permaculturevoices.com/justin .

If we go back to where we left of Season One of the show, it was December and there really wasn't any crop production happening on the land itself for Green City Acres. At that time some of the land was sitting fallow waiting for future planting in the spring, and some of the land was occupied by dormant crops that had been planted a few months earlier in the fall. Let's find out how much Curtis'...

Farmer John Suscovtich of Camps Road Farm and FarmMarketingSolutions.com answers the question, "Are pastured broilers profitable?" To learn more about John and see all of the ASK John episodes visit permaculturevoices.com/john .

A new phenomenon being developed by the US university systems is the Massive Open Online Course (MOOC). Through his work teaching Permaculture within the Oregon State University Horticulture program, Andrew Millison was given the opportunity to develop an Introduction to Permaculture course in the MOOC format. Freely available to anyone interested, this course is slated to run three times this yea...

We're back for another Season of The Urban Farmer with Curtis Stone. Season Two will kick off on Wednesday, April 6. Just like last year, I am going to follow farmer Curtis Stone on a journey through a full farm season, taking you behind the scenes to see what being a small scale farmer is really like.    This episode is a preview of what's to come. Stay tuned every Wednesday for a new The Urban F...

All of the guests for this episode are listeners of the show.  Listeners just like you.   A few months ago I asked for feedback on the first season of the show , and I received a ton of it. Today, I will share some of it with you. If you submitted feedback for the show and gave me the OK to read it, thank you, this episode is yours.   As humans I think we live in a guru culture.  A culture that pu...

Paul’s central premise is that habitats have immune systems, just like people, and mushroom forming fungi are the foundation of the foodwebs of land based organisms. Our close evolutionary relationship to fungi can be the basis for novel pairings that lead to greater sustainability and immune enhancement. As w​ e are now fully engaged in the 6th Major Extinction (“6 X”) on planet Earth, our biosph...

Today's episode is actually a rebroadcast of a presentation that Curtis gave in January in San Francisco. The presentation is called Farming in the City. In this presentation, Curtis will take you on a tour of his one third of an acre urban farm, where you will get an inside look at the day to day operations of the farm from vegetable production to sales. Curtis will show how he farms commercially...

If you're a farmer, what are your options for selling product? CSA's, farmers markets, on farm sales, grocery stores, and buying clubs. Buying clubs? It's one of the options that doesn't get talked about a lot. But it's the focus of this episode. In this episode I am talking with Sheri Salatin of Polyface Farms about Polyfaces Metropolitan Buying Clubs. In their words they describe buying clubs as...

This episode is the reading of the blog post, Soil Life Exploding At Judy Farms, written by Greg Judy. "2010 was our fourth complete year of Holistic High Density Planned Grazing on Judy farms. The last six months on Judy farms have been a real eye opener. We have seen some unique circumstances that have never been witnessed before on our farms. Some of the numbers and sights that we are seeing ar...

Taylor Walker from Green Dreams Florida joins me. In this episode we talk being a designer, propagating and selling plants, and we get into specific plant species. Some of these are zone specific; some are more universal, like Mulberry. Towards the end of the episode Taylor goes in depth about 5 not so common plant species that make up a nice permaculture plant guild. He’s growing these plants in...

Today is Part 2 of an interview with farmer John Suscovich of Farm Marketing Solutions . You can listen to Part 1 of the interview here. Part Two was recorded a year after Part 1, and was recorded in February 2016. So you will get two perspectives from the same person, separated by a lot time and experiences. You hear about what John learned about life and farming over the course of year and how h...

Today is part one of an interview with farmer John Suscovich.   And today's episode was recorded one year ago in February 2015.  And Part Two was recorded in February 2016. So you will get two perspectives from the same person, separated by a lot time and experiences. You hear about what John learned about life and farming over the course of year and how his farm evolved based on what he's learned...

In this episode Curtis and I dissect an article that was published on Alternet on January 1, 2016 by farmer Jaclyn Moyer.   An article titled.... What Nobody Told Me About Small Farming: I Can’t Make a Living - People say we're "rich in other ways," but that doesn't fix the ugly fact that most farms are unsustainable This one is a good one and we cover a lot of business basics such as... Who is yo...

Neal Spackman is regreening a portion of the desert that gets 3 inches of rain a year on average, but lately they aren’t even meeting the average. Greening the site by using true cost water accounting, meaning that they only use the equivalent of water that falls onto the site to establish the vegetation. With minimal rainfall, no pre-existing plant life and 100 plus degree summer temperatures, it...

Marty McDonald will be one of the speakers at PV3 in March 2016. Learn more about PV3 at permaculturevoices.com/pv3 . The latest trend in marketing is story marking.  Telling your story in a way that unique, honest, and in a way that resonates with your target market.   But not all stories are created equal.  And not all stories should be told by anyone.  Because a good story told poorly is in aff...

Be very cautious about how much you are imposing on the landscape.  That's something that Darren talked about on this podcast before.  Because it's a big problem out there within the permaculture space.  People doing work on the land because they want to do the work, not because the context of the land justifies that work. It's a mistake that most of us have made.  And it's a mistake that Darren D...

Curtis Stone is the owner of Green City Acres, a multi-locational urban farm based out of Kelowna, BC, Canada. In 2014 his farm generated $75,000 in gross sales on 1/3 of an acre, spread over 5 small plots of land that consist of front yards and vacant lots. In this lecture, he will share with you his 10 essentials to profitable urban farming that will help you work less, and make more money at th...

At the end of the day, month, year, decade or your life, the amount of #shityougotdone isn’t going to matter.  It’s the Quality of Life you’ve reached and maintained. It’s the relationships with your family and friends, the connection you have to your clients and land, the feeling you get when you go to sleep that matters. It’s the amount of personal work you’ve done to pull yourself out of negati...

"They weren't just buying the product; they were buying the whole package." That's how Chris Thoreau was able to go to a farmer's market selling one crop.  Just one.  Sunflower shoots.  He was able to go to market with just one crop because he was selling a product that had a great story.  It was a product that was produced hyper-locally and one that was delivered to market via pedal power on a bi...

Scott Hebert started farming in June 2015 when his family business shut down. At that time he didn’t have anything to fall back on. But he had always had an interest in farming, and within a few days of getting the income shock warning his wheels had been put in motion and he was putting a plan into place to transition into a career as a farmer. He contacted Curtis to visit his farm, so he could s...

Erik Ohlsen will be one of the speakers at PV3 in March 2016. Learn more about PV3 at permaculturevoices.com/pv3 . My guest today Erik Ohlsen took a risk when he started his business. And it's a risk that paid off because he has grown that business into a design firm that grosses over $1M a year. But his business, Permaculture Artisans, is one that started small. It started with a $15 an hour job...