Hobby Farms Presents: Growing Good

Listen as farmer Anita Ashok Adalja lets us in on what it's like to grow okra in the Southwest, including how to "convince" neighbors to try a new-to-them vegetable.  Learn about the Not Our Farm farmworker visibility project, telling the story of and celebrating folks who are non-farm-owning and working on others' farms. Find out how to have your own story told and hear about the farmworkers guid...

Listen in as Sinéad Fortune, living in Scotland, explains how Brexit—Great Britain's exit from the European Union—has left farmers in the United Kingdom in a precarious place. Imagine not being able to purchase French cheese and Spanish olives … and the seeds and supplies you need to keep farming … because of this shift in political borders. Sinéad, the seed sovereignty program manager in the UK a...

You asked, and we found your answer! Everyone is looking for funding for farm projects, and this episode's guest explains the ins and outs of popular and less-known USDA and NRCS grant programs. Ariana Taylor-Stanley talks about her work with the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition and why that matters to each of us farming. Learn about "organizing"—but not the kind of organizing that your...

What's it like to go from knowing nothing about farming to traveling around the world as a consultant to farmers? In this episode, organic farmer and farm consultant Garth Kahl tells us how that path unfolded in his life, how he came to love working with livestock and why he still believes the USDA organic label is the best baseline standard for responsible farm production. Learn how to help get y...

Farmer, seed developer and activist Nate Kleinman talks with Growing Good host Lisa Munniksma about his work in the food system and advice for growing some unusual perennial crops. Hear about Experimental Farm Network's development of perennial staple crops to adapt to various growing conditions—and about how you as a citizen scientist farmer can take part in developing these seeds. Learn about se...

This episode's guest, Bonnetta Adeeb, calls herself "an extended mom" as the advisor for youth programs and farmer support programs. As the director of Steam Onward and the Ujamaa Cooperative Farming Alliance, she fosters the idea that anything you want to do in life, you can do through agriculture. Hear about how the youth in these programs are empowered to brainstorm (that's "brain barf") and pu...

Hear from Dig This! radio show host and book author Monica Clark about her work to dispel the myths surrounding food access. Monica speaks honestly about her experience of job loss and homelessness in Seattle and how growing her own food in a community garden sustained her during this time. Listen to an excerpt from Monica's book, "Mentor the Garden Mentor: A 12-Month Gardening Curriculum for Low-...

Listen in as farmer-chef-storytellers Amy Dawson and Mike Costello talk with host Lisa Munniksma about using food and farming to reverse the narratives we've all learned about stereotypes of Appalachia. Hear about Amy's realization that she should look at the ham her family kept in her childhood home (on top of their laundry dryer) with the same pride afforded to world-renowned Iberico hams hangin...

Show host Lisa Munniksma talks with SLAK Market Farm's Kenya Abraham, who just happens to be Lisa's raw milk herdshare owner in Lexington, Kentucky. Listen in to hear about the journey that took Kenya from urban entrepreneur in Ohio to farmer in Kentucky. Hear about her creative land lease and land sharing arrangements, the ins and outs of a raw milk and halal meat herdshare, how everyone in the f...

Show host Lisa Munniksma talks with Olga Tzogas, a forager, mushroom grower and educator in Rochester, New York. Olga's Smugtown Mushrooms has provided mushroom-cultivation supplies and education since 2014. Hear about the foraging trips Olga leads in her family's home country of Greece, learn of the downside to the current foraging craze, and get excited about the return of Olga's passion project...

Lisa Munniksma sits down with Maria Elena Rodriguez of Puerto Rico's Cosecha Caribe to talk about growing food in Puerto Rico, her craft Caribbean-inspired artisanal food products, and the community-based food work she does with El Departamento de la Comida and DAISA Enterprises. And make sure you stick around to hear her secret for harvesting coconuts!  Cosecha Caribe

Lisa Munniksma sits down with horticulturalist Jessica Walliser to talk about growing plants, appreciating bugs, writing (and editing) about gardening and more. As a writer, editor and co-founder of Savvy Gardening, Walliser is a leading voice in modern gardening, and she shares with us the chilling tale that led her to organic-only growing methods in this episode of "Hobby Farms Presents: Growing...

In our premiere episode of Hobby Farms Presents: Growing Good, host Lisa Munniksma sits down for a chat with Angela Wartes-Kahl of Oregon's Common Treasury Farm. As the co-founder of Fibrevolution, Wartes-Kahl has plenty of insight into growing fiber crops on the farm, as well as plant fiber uses (did you know you carry around linen in your wallet?). And as an inspector member of the International...