Thriving The Future Podcast

Travis from Backyard Berry on Substack shares about his series "Building a Sustainable Nursery". His favorite trees: Pawpaws, Persimmons, and Pin Cherries (for the birds). We also talk about his series on "Homegrown National Park" . Everyone was talking about national parks being affected by Federal land sales a few weeks ago. Travis posted that "What if the largest national park in America wasn’t...

The seed displays are gone from the store. You can outdo the normies by planting a great Fall garden - even in the heat of July. It's July in Kansas, and next week we are going to break 100 for the first time this Summer. We have had a lot of rain. None of the stores have any plants left. Around here, all the seed displays disappear around 4th of July and everything goes on clearance. This year I...

How I turned my pasture of thorny Callery pears into an Asian pear orchard by bark grafting and cleft grating. Do a Google search on Callery pears and feel the hatred. Bradford pears, planted nearly everywhere, are usually grafted onto Callery pear rootstock. Callery pears are thorny pears that I have never seen growing any fruit. On my land they spread by suckers - literally everwhere. In this ep...

Sam Baker from Wrigglebrew and I talk about soil health, and what does nitrogen poisoning look like? My leaves turned brown, despite enough watering. Maybe I gave them too much nitrogen? Overuse of phosphorus causes plants to not be able to uptake zinc, magnesium, calcium. That's another reason why our food is mineral deficient. Wrigglebrew is even used by soy farmers to reduce their nitrogen load...

Jamon Mysliwiec joins me to share about TIAG - The Independent American Gardener , an online to in-real-life community, teaching permaculture and self-sufficiency through regenerative community. The goal is to move to a closed-loop economy, with communities producing surplus, leveraging home based small businesses, and creating a barter and trade network for the surplus. Jamon started Lulu's Garde...

As I get older, perennials have become more important in my garden. It is the first week of May, and this Spring I have not planted any new annuals, besides potatoes. But that doesn't mean that I do not have anything to eat. A couple of years ago I focused more and more corners of my garden and raised beds on perennials. I have bloody dock and other sorrel to add to salads. Bloody dock has a lemon...

Matt from FarmHopLife , Joseph the Homestead Padre from Smith Homestead , and Grant Payne from Christine Acres Farm join me on a community call to share our Spring plans. Matt is growing mini cactus Homestead Padre is growing Ayote squash which tastes like chocolate. He also shares his farmers market success with selling freeze dried herbs, teas, and candy. I am growing new types of chestnuts, and...

Perpend (David), who I started the podcast with, became an Orthodox monk and is now a Novice Monk at the Monastery of St. John in CA. As he was travelling from monastery to monastery throughout America, he occasionally was back in Kansas (the last time in September 2023). He would greet me, and others, with a greeting that he likely learned in his travels: Instead of saying, "Hi, how are you?", he...

Mike Thomas of the Catholic Land Movement joins me to talk about Catholic Land Movement news. We also share about our apple orchards and cider. The purpose of the Catholic Land Movement is "a rural resettlement of Catholics onto productive property which they own". This is a network of Catholics supporting one another to help people start homesteads, and to help make homesteads and small farms thr...

Roman Shapla, from Nature School Startup , joins me to discuss Nature Schools - where the outdoors is the classroom. Roman recently shared on Twitter how he has taught tracking class : showing kids animal tracks in the dirt teaches kids about pattern recognition, thinking through timelines, as well as problem solving in their surroundings ("if this track is here, where did it come from, where is i...

In this episode I cover an overview of the different types of chestnuts. And why do customers prefer hybrids over Chinese chestnuts? I share what named varieties that I am growing this year. And I give you tips to start your chestnut orchard, including soil pH and how/when to fertilize your chestnut trees. I forage buckets of chestnuts from local chestnut trees every Fall and store them in buckets...

Believe it or not, it's never been a better time to reinvent yourself than it is now. Sure, the job market looks bleak. Stories of downsizing nearly every day. But you can learn new skills, often for Free. John McCoy of John McCoy Writes tweeted a few weeks ago: "Friday reminder: you can just learn a skill for free off the internet and start selling your services and people will pay you. Nobody ca...

Graham Towerton of Permaculture Canada joins me to share about his Michigan farm and his permaculture plans for this year. He is growing heritage raspberry and asparagus in permaculture with strawberries as the herb layer. Also Olive Leaf Arugula that is essentially perennial. We also share about chestnuts and our other tree plans for this year. In the last 10 years Graham has transformed his farm...

A former colleague of mine posted a Remote job that got 500 applicants. I will share some tips with you on How to Find a Job in This Tough Economy. You Must Know Someone on the Inside When there are 500 applicants, they are either using AI or a HR-level1 person to filter through the submitted resumes based on keywords and skills. Even if you are a rockstar, your resume is being looked at by someon...

Our reality is choked out by thoughts, static, noise, and by the "cares of this life". (not to mention the electronic noise of being "always on", "always connected". The other night I went to Vespers service at church. Vespers is my favorite service. The candles, the dim lights, the hymns, the "Now that we have come to the setting of the sun." It recognizes a cycle in the day and in life. It is mu...

This year has been the best of times and the worst of times. Okay, maybe not the worst. (after all, I am still employed). But this is the dichotomy (or is it a contradiction?): It is performance review time at work. It will be another "Meets Expectations". But my Goals and accomplishments in real life were off the charts! This year I: - Built 4 web sites/side businesses - Got my Permaculture Desig...

How Do You Use AI? Most people use it as a search engine. Some people use it write blog posts or customer emails. Some for analysis. But some assign it a role to do the analysis, like "evaluate this as an executive of XYZ company" or a hiring manager. My son-in-law, Eric Niday, uses AI for all of the above. Talking with him about his experiences with it was interesting, so I decided to have him on...

Jason Snyder of Doomer Optimism shares stories of how his family in NC weathered Hurricane Helene and what he is doing to regeneratively recover from the aftermath. Resiliency through community and culture. "Biblical flood? Plant trees, cultivate gardens, raise livestock." Episode website: https://ThrivingtheFuture.com/hurricane Sponsors: Thriving Food Forest Design - We can create an edible foods...

Next week is the election. Once again it is being billed as the "most important election in our lifetime!". And four years from now they will tell us the same thing. If every election is the same way, then maybe they are not as consequential as they say that they are. In Oct-27's homily/sermon, my pastor, Father Nikolai Meyers talked about the election (starts at 1:30:00, if it is not cued already...

It's been almost a year since Grant and I shared about How to Propagate your own Trees, Plants, and Flowers for Free, and Sell the Extras as a Side Hustle (recently as a Flashback episode on Oct-11. What has changed with our nursery businesses in the last year? I started my food forest design business and have my first paid design client. We share about becoming an "expert". Finding your niche: yo...

What are you doing to put your garden to bed for the winter time? Maybe you are luck and your growing season is still in swing. We are nearing the first frost date. It has been too hot and dry for my Fall greens to germinate so I will need to start them in the greenhouse, where they can grow until Jan or Feb. How do you clean up your garden beds? For Milpa beds, I chop and drop the beans and other...

This flashback episode with Grant Payne has tips that you can also use on your homestead to save and propagate trees and plants, with enough abundance to sell the extras. Create your own nursery side hustle, Propagation - from cuttings - elderberry, mulberry, figs, berries, and discarded trims from nursery plants. Flowers, mums, and bulbs Obtaining seeds and plants Where to sell - FB, Craigslist,...

What are you doing to increase your self reliance and self sufficiency? Jack Spirko's definitions: Self Sufficiency – The percentage of your needs met by your own systems Self Reliance – The duration in time you can live well without systems of support (or to live well with YOUR systems of support) Let's face it - the 2024 election is not going to go well. The side that loses is not going to accep...

Lindsay Brandon, CEO and Permaculture Consultant at Permaculture Canada joins me to share about Armagarden , her new project to integrate community design into the permaculture design. We discuss Armagarden and how it contrasts with the usual permaculture design. From the website: What is Armagarden? Armagarden was born from the desire to get back to the land and live a lifestyle that is connected...

With tough times, more people are looking for homestead property, or to add gardens, fruit and nut trees, and chickens to their existing suburban property to be more self sufficient. Kerry Brown of Strong Roots Resources joins me to share tips to find your homestead property: Look for off-market properties. Properties are selling before they show up in Zillow or MLS. Contact your network of folks,...