Hobby Farms Presents: Growing Good
80 episodes - English - Latest episode: 2 days ago - ★★★★★ - 26 ratingsHobby Farms Presents: Growing Good is a podcast with and about hobby farmers, small-scale farmers and sustainable farmers. More than that, it’s about the important work these folks are doing for themselves, their families and their communities on and off the farm. Each episode, host Lisa Munniksma sits down to chat with someone doing the good work to discuss how they started, what they're doing now, and what drives them to keep growing. (A presentation of Hobby Farms® magazine, an EG Media company.)
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Episodes
Episode 27: Mariel Gardner on urban farms, pollinator gardening and the “economy of decency”
April 06, 2022 09:00 - 27 minutes - 39.7 MBUrban farmer Mariel Gardner talks about 5th Element Farms (aka Apocalyptic Acres), where Dope Beets, Dope Rhymes is the motto for the vacant city lot they reclaimed as a space to grow food for their community. Their food access model is to feed the people as best they can with the hope that others will want to support them in this “economy of decency.” Listen in for tips for finding and reusing discarded items for your farm and for starting your own pollinator garden, in the city or the co...
Episode 26: Zoe Fuller chats about Alaskan farming, root cellars, indigenous foodways and more
March 23, 2022 09:00 - 31 minutes - 45.2 MBYoung farmer Zoe Fuller talks about the growing agriculture scene in Alaska, where US farming statistics are being turned on their heads. You’ll hear about small-scale farmers coming together in the Matanuska Valley and creating a community-based economy in Alaska. Hear also about indigenous foodways and salmon-safe farming practices to protect salmon sources and waterways. Learn about what it’s like to farm at Singing Nettle Farm in Southcentral Alaska’s short but productive growing seas...
Episode 25: Tyler Eshleman talks desert farming, raising goats, regenerative growing and more!
March 09, 2022 10:00 - 38 minutes - 54.9 MBAt Virsylvia Farm in the high desert of New Mexico, Tyler Eshleman and his wife raise goats for dairy and fiber; sheep for dairy, meat and fiber; alpacas for fiber; laying hens; and some vegetables. Hear about the realities of regenerative farming at 8,000 feet above sea level, from the challenging growing and land conditions to the cooperative workings of fellow farmers. Learn about Tyler’s innovative marketing means to get more local food into the hands of more people in his area: a year-r...
Episode 25: Tyler Eschleman talks desert farming, raising goats, regenerative growing and more!
March 09, 2022 10:00 - 38 minutes - 54.9 MBAt Virsylvia Farm in the high desert of New Mexico, Tyler Eschleman and his wife raise goats for dairy and fiber; sheep for dairy, meat and fiber; alpacas for fiber; laying hens; and some vegetables. Hear about the realities of regenerative farming at 8,000 feet above sea level, from the challenging growing and land conditions to the cooperative workings of fellow farmers. Learn about Tyler’s innovative marketing means to get more local food into the hands of more people in his area: a year-...
Episode 24: Missy Singer DuMars talks egg CSAs, on-farm dinners, fiber production and more!
February 16, 2022 10:00 - 43 minutes - 62.1 MBMissy Singer DuMars tells us about her 13-acre Crown Hill Farm, outside Buffalo, New York, from the Lake Erie sunset views to her sheep and market gardens. Learn about fiber production, the art of scaling up slowly, and how to choose the best varieties to grow and sell. Missy has been hosting dinners and events for a few years, and she tells us about the evolution of the events and why it’s important to connect people to the source of their food. Find out about Missy’s Women in Food podca...
Episode 23: Juliann Salinas on Women, Food & Ag Network, beekeeping, food systems and more
February 02, 2022 10:00 - 40 minutes - 58.1 MBFrom her .25-acre mini farm in New Mexico, Juliann Salinas talks all about beekeeping, the fragility of the local food system exposed by the pandemic, the Women, Food & Ag Network, and more. You’ll learn a quick history of WFAN’s 25 years, from environmental justice to racial justice, all focused on co-creating a just, equitable and ecological food and agricultural system that includes a place for strong women and nonbinary leadership. See where you fit in to the Growing Community Resilience...
Episode 22: Bevin Cohen on home-pressed oils, intentional simplicity and small farming
January 19, 2022 10:00 - 36 minutes - 52.3 MBOn this episode of "Hobby Farms Presents: Growing Good," host Lisa Munniksma talks with herbalist, seed enthusiast and Hobby Farms contributor Bevin Cohen. Cohen and his family left city life some years ago to pursue simple living at their 3-acre Small House Farm—only to find his farming whims pulled him right back to the kind of profit-driven lifestyle he was trying to escape. Hear how Cohen left a marketing career for simpler endeavors in rural central Michigan. Learn about pressing your...
Episode 21: Sharon Stone on urban farming, gardening education and feeding the community
January 05, 2022 10:00 - 29 minutes - 41.6 MBListen in as Sharon Stone—an urban farmer at Two Sons Farm in Lexington, Kentucky, and coordinator of the Woodhill International Market—tells us about serving the community through gardening education and increasing access to farm-fresh food. Sharon is a retired teacher and has the most incredible community of people working alongside her to bring fresh food to the Woodhill neighborhood—with something like 32 countries represented in the local school—in a sliding-scale market. She also tells...
Episode 20: Rasheed Hislop talks vermicomposting, cooperative farming and more
December 22, 2021 10:00 - 43 minutes - 61.9 MBListen as Rasheed Hislop, a Master Composter, offers you his best tips for small-scale vermicomposting. Get your worm bins ready! Hear about how this Brooklyn-raised farmer’s grandparents, in the Hudson Valley and in Trinidad and Tobago, instilled in him an interest in food production by way of gardening, fishing and cooking from scratch. Rasheed talks about his work supporting farmers, first with urban farmers and community gardeners through NYC Parks GreenThumb and now with farmers in...
Episode 19: shiny Flanary on growing healing herbs, market farming and farmer training programs
December 08, 2021 10:00 - 47 minutes - 66.9 MBAlinee “shiny” Flanary shares with you her top three tips to improve your farmers market sales in this episode. She talks about what it was like to go from “zero to farmer” when she jumped into a farmer incubator program a few years ago. She now manages her own Scrapberry Farm as part of the Raceme Farm Collective, growing primarily herbs for medicine making. Hear about the microfarms and the individuals—including the strengths, skills and challenges they bring with them—comprising the co...
Episode 19: shiny Flannery on growing healing herbs, market farming and farmer training programs
December 08, 2021 10:00 - 47 minutes - 66.9 MBAlinee “shiny” Flannery shares with you her top three tips to improve your farmers market sales in this episode. She talks about what it was like to go from “zero to farmer” when she jumped into a farmer incubator program a few years ago. She now manages her own Scrapberry Farm as part of the Raceme Farm Collective, growing primarily herbs for medicine making. Hear about the microfarms and the individuals—including the strengths, skills and challenges they bring with them—comprising the c...
Episode 18: Michelle Howell
November 24, 2021 10:00 - 27 minutes - 38.9 MBFour-season farmer Michelle Howell works at the intersection of farming, health, art and equity. In this podcast episode, hear about how Michelle has woven these aspects together at her family’s diversified Need More Acres Farm in Scottsville, Kentucky. Michelle walks us through what a week looks like on the farm, beginning with their harvest day, working with 20 to 30 different produce items, year-round. Learn from their creative, community-centric marketing approach (some customers get ...
Episode 17: Celize Christy
November 10, 2021 10:00 - 43 minutes - 60.5 MBCelize Christy talks poultry keeping with Hobby Farms Presents: Growing Good host Lisa Munniksma. Listen in for her tips for homeopathic care for our home flocks and the secret to the brightest egg yolks. Hear about her work with poultry farmers in Uganda and Rwanda and her thinking on the intersection of livestock and livelihoods. Through her work with Practical Farmers of Iowa, Celize organizes farmer-mentorship, land-link and Spanish-language farmer education projects, and she tells us ...
Episode 16: Pantaleon Florez Talks Incubator Farming, Food Systems Equity & Researching Corn
October 22, 2021 04:00 - 33 minutes - 47.7 MBThrough his Maseualkualli Farms in Lawrence, Kansas, Pantaleon Florez has big ideas for farming and food systems equity. Starting out at Common Ground Incubator Farm just before the COVID-19 pandemic began required Panta to be creative in his marketing outlets, shifting away from farmers markets and toward value-added items, restaurant sales and mutual aid food support. Learn about his research in growing corn using traditional Mexica indigenous methods from the 1500s (spoiler alert: it yiel...
Episode 15: Tara Rodríguez Besosa
October 08, 2021 04:00 - 40 minutes - 57.3 MBHow does a farming community recover after a disaster? By coming together. Tara Rodríguez Besosa talks about Puerto Rico’s agricultural and economic situation, including the role that the U.S. plays and, more importantly, the neighbors providing for one another in Puerto Rico’s food system. Hear how they started their own food journey when their mother left the city to become a farmer, then sold sprouts they grew in their city apartment at the farmers market, and then started big-picture ...
Episode 14: Nathan Harben
September 24, 2021 04:00 - 36 minutes - 50.8 MBNathan Harben is a farmer at Local Forage Farm in Glenora, British Columbia, a 2-acre homestead that grows ethically raised livestock, fruits and vegetables. He also works with the food recovery team of Cowichan Green Community, a non-profit organization that has focused on environmental sustainability in Vancouver Island's Cowichan Region since March 2004. Listen in as he talks about farming in extreme heat and meeting water needs during times of drought. Learn about local food security ...
Episode 13: Anita Ashok Adalja
September 10, 2021 04:00 - 29 minutes - 41.6 MBListen 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 guide that’s about to be released. Dig in to food safety for your small farm with advice from An...
Episode 12: Sinéad Fortune
August 20, 2021 04:00 - 29 minutes - 41.6 MBListen 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 and Ireland for The Gaia Foundation, talks about her work in training farmers and community garde...
Episode 11: Ariana Taylor-Stanley
August 06, 2021 04:00 - 38 minutes - 53.2 MBYou 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 tool shed desperately needs—and about how you as an individual can help to shape farm policy and...
Episode 10: Garth Kahl
July 23, 2021 04:00 - 33 minutes - 46.5 MBWhat’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 your organic inspection and other vital farm projects paid for with FSA and NRCS funds! Get Garth...
Episode 9: Nate Kleinman
July 09, 2021 04:00 - 32 minutes - 44.5 MBFarmer, 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 seed rematriation and the work of relationship building behind that effort. And find out how the C...
Episode 8: Bonnetta Adeeb
June 18, 2021 04:00 - 31 minutes - 43.8 MBThis 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 put into practice solutions to real-world problems and how one particular brain-barf session led t...
Episode 7: Monica Clark
June 04, 2021 04:00 - 31 minutes - 43.8 MBHear 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-Income/Ethnic/Marginalized Communities and the Organizations the Serve Them.” Monica also tel...
Episode 6: Amy Dawson and Mike Costello
May 21, 2021 04:00 - 35 minutes - 48.3 MBListen 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 hanging in homes, restaurants and storefronts across Spain. Amy and Mike talk about elevating Appalach...
Episode 5: Kenya Abraham
May 07, 2021 04:00 - 36 minutes - 50.1 MBShow 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 family plays a role on the farm, and the community at the heart of the work Kenya does. Kenya als...
Episode 4: Olga Tzogas
April 16, 2021 04:00 - 31 minutes - 42.8 MBShow 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 projects, the New Moon Mycology Summit and The Mycelium Underground. And near the end of the podcast, h...
Episode 03: Maria Elena Rodriguez
April 02, 2021 04:00 - 30 minutes - 42 MBLisa 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
Episode 3: Maria Elena Rodriguez
April 02, 2021 04:00 - 30 minutes - 42 MBLisa 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
Episode 2: Jessica Walliser
March 19, 2021 04:00 - 31 minutes - 42.8 MBLisa 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 Good." Make sure you stick around to hear her favorite from-the-garden meal! JessicaWalliser....
Episode 1: Angela Wartes-Kahl
March 04, 2021 17:11 - 34 minutes - 47.7 MBIn 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 Organic Inspectors Association, she sheds some light on what, exactly, is going on with organic...