Growing Farms Podcast

The Growing Farms Podcast was started to share my journey into agriculture. Like most journeys this one has been made more enjoyable by sharing it with others. One of the people I share my agriculture experiences with is my good friend and business partner Scott. In this every other week podcast series we talk about the kind of things that come up when one friend lives in the City and the other in...

Losing your sh** is not an easy thing to talk about. No one is really proud of not being able to keep it together under pressure, yet as small business owners it is something we all go through. While I do not feel comfortable being this open and vulnerable (yeah, even me) I think that it is an important topic to merit a few episodes about the different elements of why burnout happens. I am bringin...

This was a tough podcast episode for me to publish. I have been dealing with burn out lately and that has lead to depression. I am definitely not the only person to have run a small business and have experienced this. There are high highs and low lows when it comes to small business management and farming is perhaps worse than most. I wanted to share this story, as vunerable as it makes me feel be...

Is social media all it's cracked up to be? It is still working for some and yet, not for others. I speak with one farmer in this podcast episode who is gaining some attention through his efforts in Social Media. I have found that in particular I have been unhappy with Facebook as a platform. You have to pay to get people to like your page, then, if you have a post that is popular or you want peopl...

Imagine that you built a business that relied on someone else doing their job well in order to properly satisfy and impress your customers. Sounds like a lot of small businesses right? Now imagine that you lost that important connection and you are suddenly up a creek without a paddle. There are people in this world more brave than I am who are willing to take a seriously leap of faith and take co...

Does it feel like sometimes you want to just not have a plan? If you don't have a plan then nothing can go wrong, right? Let me tell you, it is that time spent planning that helps you figure out what is going to wrong and how you will be able to handle it when things take a turn. Without my planning time and the time spent researching and organizing I would be a total wreck right now. My farm plan...

This month brings a combo post like you've never seen before. The Farm Finance Challenge and the Growing Farms Podcast have landed on the same day. In honor of such an event one of the participating farmers in the FFC is the interview on the podcast this week. Some of the farmers in the FFC are farming full time, others are homesteading or farming part time. Dan Berube of Berube Farm came on the s...

It is not the small farm's place to count on the grain elevator to set the prices. It is our job to go out, market out products in new and creative ways, and hustle in a way that sees out small businesses succeed (hopefully). This is a topic that I've covered in previous podcasts but since I am currently and constantly refining it, I feel it needs revisiting. I also have a guest on the show who is...

Information, like matter, cannot be created or destroyed, just changed. Even the most creative works are just the imaginative reworkings of some artists mind. All of our thoughts are distillations of our life experiences. Knowing that, how would you feel if you knew you had the chance to influence the thought patterns of others with your work in sustainable agriculture. I know how I'd feel, pretty...

 "The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry." Isn't that the truth? 2015 has gotten off to a rocky start but things are really starting to look up. Even with three feet of snow outside I can already see signs of Spring. Birds are starting to sing in the morning, maple sap is slowly slowly starting to run, and my order for baby chickens just went out. It has really been a weird past couple...

Farm marketing is really funny in that is can be very easy, or it can take a significant amount of effort. Today's podcast showcases a good example of both. My guests today Patti & Rick from Breakwind Farm are a good example of choosing the right farm location as well as some really successful branding centered around humor. Camps Road Farm, my farm, is a good example of poor farm location and I'l...

What if you could save more money every year just by managing your farm a little better and taking care of your land? What if the strategy that made the most ecological sense made the most financial sense as well? Well, turns out people have been doing it for years! We're talking stockpile grazing. Where basically instead of cutting hay you are leaving the grass on pasture and letting the cows gra...

When it comes to owning and operating a farm business there is a lot of talk about scale. Are you big enough? Are you too big? What is right, what is wrong? There is only one right answer, whatever works best for you is what works best for you. I operate at a large small scale. I mean that I only have 52 acres and at the same time I can't believe I have 52 acres, it's insane. It is not 10,000 acre...

We live in an increasingly digital age and as farmers we have a lot of options for how to market our farm online. Where do we focus? Where do we spend our time? At the end of the day, where do we make the investment? Today's podcast is not about registering on places like LocalHarvest.org   or similar sites where we can get a posting that people can find. It is about actively engaging our customer...

2014 was a great year for Farm Marketing Solutions and for Camps Road Farm. On farm we expanded in a few areas, built a lot of infrastructure, and learned a lot about our land and what it is capable of. Online I made a lot of great progress as well. I am constantly listening to hear when farmers are struggling with something or if someone needs some advice or to hear a story about life on the farm...

Hindsight is always 20/20. Looking back on 2014 there are a number of things that I would do or manage differently on the farm. There are little things, like how we raise our chickens, or bigger picture stuff like how we communicate as a team to work more efficiently. With the year coming to a close, it is about time I start thinking about the lessons that I learned this year, and how I am going t...

There are SO many topics to cover when to comes to farming. Each topic reflects on something that the average farmer has to deal with as he or she runs their operation. Today's podcast episode covers it all. The mindset to focus on today is that of the big picture. It is very easy to get caught up in the minutia of each farming task. Exactly what tool to use, exactly how to grow something, or most...

It takes a long time to figure out what your farm is and what it is going to be. Even if you think you have an idea of exactly what you want to do on your farm that vision is bound to change. Today's podcast talks to this theme with Forrest Prit. Just like Forrest I am trying, experimenting, documenting, and learning different ways to enjoy my farm while making it profitable. With such an unconven...

Starting a farm anywhere can be an uphill battle. The thing you have to focus is is that you are (hopefully) doing it with good intentions, and you have to want to live your passions. If you focus on those two things the rest will fall into place. If you want to start a farm at a College or University you may be in luck. We live in a time where more and more people are open to and interested in sm...

The are SO many farming operations to choose from when starting a farm . The one I chose to start with, and that has become the cornerstone of my farming operation is pastured poultry. That specifically means in this instance raising chickens on pasture with the intention of selling them for meat. When raising meat chickens there are a number of factors that you have to take into account when you...

Having people come visit your farm can simultaneously be very stressful and the most fun you've had all year. With how much transparency is playing a part in small farm marketing these days, on farm events are a great way to get your customers (or potential customers) involved in the farm. This farm podcast is about our first annual Hop Harvest Festival at Camps Road Farm. What we did to plan it,...

The hiring of farm workers can be a really tricky process. How do you know you're going to hire the right person? What's the process like if you've never done it before? That's what we're talking about (and more) in today's podcast episode. I have had several changes with staff on farm lately. People moving on, moving up, moving sideways, moving West. I need to fill some spots to ensure that all t...

It will never cease to amaze me the amount of things that farmers will take on in a season. There are many factors that play into how that happens, but at the end of the day it is how you deal with it that defines you. One of the biggest factors that plays into crushing responsibility: This factor is often over-looked. That factor is your own decisions in the winter that lead to insanity in the su...

Every farmers' journey through life will be as uniquely theirs as their farm will be. Today's podcast episode shares a great story of how a vegetable farm was started in Missouri not just by one woman, but by a community of people working to support that one woman. I found out very early on that it is not the individual that succeeds, but the group. I could not be where I am today, and I know I co...

"The riches are in the niches." Or so I've been told. The problem is often that there is a lot of consumer educating involved with introducing a niche product onto the market. What do you do when no one knows how to use what you have to offer, but you know it's going to be a good business? One of the answers that I have found is to try everything. And I mean everything to get the information in fr...