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138: Kelly Kingsland and Russell Poe of Affinity Farm on Growing Small, Self-Awareness, and Giving Good Weight

9/28/2017

Kelly Kingsland and Russell Poe raise about an acre-and-a-half of produce at Affinity Farm in Moscow, Idaho. With sales to a farmers market, a small CSA, and restaurant and retail stores, Kelly and Russell have created a lean, smart, and profitable farm that has provided a “right livelihood” for sixteen years.

We dig in to the values that have informed their decision-making and market development, including their decision to farm in a the small-but-progressive city of Moscow. Kelly and Russell talk about how they’ve developed a CSA model that really works for them as farmers, their efforts to foster an active market farming community, and their recent diversification into seed production – and how all of that ties back to a philosophy of giving good weight to their customers and community.

Sponsors

Vermont Compost Company: Founded by organic crop growing professionals committed to meeting the need for high-quality composts and compost-based, living soil mixes for certified organic plant production.

BCS America: BCS two-wheel tractors are versatile, maneuverable in tight spaces, light-weight for less compaction, and easy to maintain and repair on farm. Gear-driven and built to last for decades of dependable service on your farm or market garden.

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Quotes from the Show

[Russell] I think we can say we're making a comfortable living, we're happy with it. And to me that's more the point that we as farmers need to be concerned with is what do we need and how do we figure out how to get that.

[Kelly] Flowers were the crop that kicked our ass twice.

[Russell] It felt great to just decide to quit [growing flowers] and realize that we get to decide and we don't have to please everyone.

[Kelly] We had a couple of rules on the farm when we started and one was no working with headlamps, and one was no fighting.

[Kelly] Even if those young farmers take some of our market share, their mission is our mission - we're on the same team.

[Russell] The more open we can be, the more open other people are willing to be. And we all benefit.

Show Links

Affinity Farm uses the BCS 853 two-wheel tractor, which seems to be one of the most popular among market farmers.

We talked about phacelia as a cover crop.

Kelly told us that her metal-wheeled Valley Oak Wheel Hoe is one of her favorite tools.

Transcript

The transcript for this episode is brought to you byEarth Tools, offering the most complete selection of walk-behind farming equipment and high-quality garden tools in North America; and byRock Dust Local, the first company in North America specializing in local sourcing and delivery of the BEST rock dusts and biochar for organic farming. And byLocal Food Marketplace, providing an integrated, scalable solution for farms and food hubs to process customer orders – including online ordering, harvesting, packing, delivery, invoicing and payment processing. Additional funding for transcripts provided byNorth Central SARE, providing grants and education to advance innovations in Sustainable Agriculture.

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137: Shawn Kuhn of Vitruvian Farms on Growing Salad Greens, Selling to Restaurants, and Expanding into Retail Sales

9/21/2017

3 Comments

Shawn Kuhn of Vitruvian Farms raises about five acres of vegetables with his business partner, Tommy Stauffer, in McFarland, Wisconsin, just outside of Madison.

Vitruvian Farms raises a little bit of everything, and a lot of salad greens, so we dig into the ins and outs producing 1,200 pounds of salad greens a week, from bed shaping and weed control through harvest and delivery. Shawn shares the ways they have – and have not – mechanized their salad production, and how they make this intensive level of production work on a small scale. We also look at the key success factors for their other main crops, oyster mushrooms, tomatoes, and microgreens.

Most of Vitruvian Farms’ produce is sold through 45 restaurants in Madison, and Shawn shares how they got started in that marketplace and how they maintain those relationships. We dig into what quality really means when selling to restaurants, and how Vitruvian Farms gets top-notch produce to demanding chefs in a crowded marketplace.

Sponsors

Vermont Compost Company: Founded by organic crop growing professionals committed to meeting the need for high-quality composts and compost-based, living soil mixes for certified organic plant production.

BCS America: BCS two-wheel tractors are versatile, maneuverable in tight spaces, light-weight for less compaction, and easy to maintain and repair on farm. Gear-driven and built to last for decades of dependable service on your farm or market garden.

CoolBot: Build your own walk-in cooler with a window air conditioner and a CoolBot controller. Save on upfront costs, monthly electricity bills, and expensive visits from refrigeration technicians. Controllers, complete cooling systems, and turnkey walk-in coolers available atStoreItCold.com. Mention the code FTF to double your CoolBot warranty at no charge. StoreItCold.com

Quotes from the Show

We wanted to do something that felt right and had some meaning behind it. I think you could argue organic farming can be that.

[Starting the business with a focus on restaurant sales] pushed our quality to a really high level because we always thought we had to have the best stuff because we were sending it to these fancy restaurants and these chefs.

I learned that when you show up, as long as it’s not during rush hours, with a bunch of free samples, the chef is normally happy to see you.

I take it upon myself to say, if something’s repeatedly not being done correctly, how can we design a better system or give better directions or create a better work culture so that those things happen.

Show Links

Vitruvian Farms uses a bed shaper from Buckeye Tractor to make raised beds for salad greens.

The Six-Row Seeder from Johnny’s Selected Seeds lets Vitruvian Farms seed the solid beds of greens that set them up for mechanical salad greens harvest.

Vitruvian Farms started the mechanization of their salad harvester with the Quick Cut Harvester from Farmer’s Friend.

The HarvestStar baby leaf harvester from Sutton Ag allows Shawn to harvest salad greens from an upright position.

Vitruvian Farms uses Entrust for flea beetle control.

Sustane 5-2-4 provides an organic slow-release nitrogen fertilizer that Vitruvian Farms uses to keep their salad beds humming along.

Transcript

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136: Sam Hitchcock Tilton of Michigan State University on Steps to Mechanical Weed Control Success

9/14/2017

1 Comment

Sam Hitchcock Tilton studies weed control at Michigan State University, where he went to study after two years of pushing a wheel through clay soil on his own farm, and more years of working for other farmers. His graduate-student work on in-row weed control in vegetable crops has led him to explore the various elements that go into setting up for weed control success.

Sam draws on his experience on farms, a visit to Europe to learn about and evaluate precision weed-control tools, and his work in his experimental plots to provide insight into more than just the cool tools that make weed control work. We look at the foundations of mechanical weed control, starting with soil preparation and seeding the crop through blind cultivation, flame weeding, tool carriers, and selecting the right tools for between-row and in-row weed control.

Sponsors

Vermont Compost Company: Founded by organic crop growing professionals committed to meeting the need for high-quality composts and compost-based, living soil mixes for certified organic plant production.

BCS America: BCS two-wheel tractors are versatile, maneuverable in tight spaces, light-weight for less compaction, and easy to maintain and repair on farm. Gear-driven and built to last for decades of dependable service on your farm or market garden.

CoolBot: Build your own walk-in cooler with a window air conditioner and a CoolBot controller. Save on upfront costs, monthly electricity bills, and expensive visits from refrigeration technicians. Controllers, complete cooling systems, and turnkey walk-in coolers available atStoreItCold.com. Mention the code FTF to double your CoolBot warranty at no charge. StoreItCold.coma

Quotes from the Show

These tools aren't magic and you need to set yourself up for success.

You might have the right tool, but if you're not giving yourself enough time to use it right and using in the correct manner on the right tractor at the right speed, you can’t expect it to work well.

I can't just pop these tools in the field and expect them to work. I need to have a perfect seedbed. I need to have healthy plants. I need to have that size differential and to really concentrate on those basics.

Show Links

Just a quick note because we have to do it: these links are provided for informational purposes only, and are not a recommendation or endorsement by Sam Hitchcock Tilton!
Sam and I mentioned several previous guests on the Farmer to Farmer Podcast:

While the tool itself is not available for sale in the US, you can buyplans for the four-wheeled wheel hoe that Sam and I discussed.

Sutton Ag supplies finger weeders, sweeps, and other weeding tools.

Kult-Kress is another source for finger weeders and other cultivation elements.

The Buddingh Basket Weeder and Finger Weeder are some of the original ground-driven weed control tools,
first developed in the 1950s. Quick reminder – order these well in advance of when you need them!

Bezzerides Brothers provides torsion weeders, spring hoes, Spyder Weeders, and a variety of other weeding tools.

We briefly mentioned the Williams Tool System, a rear-mounted cultivator that combines a blind cultivator with knives and sweeps.

Sam is working with European associates to import parallel linkages and other weeding tools so that farmers do not need to scour craigslist for sixty year old equipment – at progressweedingtools.com .

Sam provided a couple additional resources:

A good basic article on mechanical cultivation, including Dr. Charles Mohler’s Principles of Mechanical Weeding.
A comprehensive resource on organic weed control by Dr. Charles Merfield, including a description of tools and tailoring your tillage and field work to attach your problem weeds; and
A great article on creating stale seed beds, also, by Charles Merfield.
Sam talked about the upcoming Midwest Mechanical Weed Control Field Day, on Tuesday, September 26, 2017.
And if you can’t make it to the field day, you’ll find videos from the field day and more at the MSU Mechanical Weed Control YouTube channel.

Transcript

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135: Ruth Chantry of Common Good Farm on Biodynamic Farming, CSA, and Integrating Livestock and Vegetables on a Nebraska Farm

9/7/2017

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Ruth Chantry raises a little under four acres of vegetables, plus eggs, pork, and beef, with her husband Evrett Lunquist at Common Good Farm, just a little way outside of Lincoln, Nebraska. With sales to their 65-member CSA, farmers markets, and wholesale accounts, Ruth and Evrett make a full-time living on twenty acres of ground.

Common Good Farm is certified organic and certified biodynamic. Ruth spells out the practical implications of biodynamic farming at Common Good Farm, how it fits into their marketing, and how she and Evrett make the biodynamic farming prescriptions work for them.

We also discuss the practical steps Common Good Farm has taken to integrate their livestock into their vegetable operation to help control weeds and insect pests, as well as the challenges of operating vegetables and livestock as significant parts of the farming operation. And we dig into the nuts and bolts of the egg operation, from feed supplies to washing and delivering the eggs.

Sponsors

Vermont Compost Company: Founded by organic crop growing professionals committed to meeting the need for high-quality composts and compost-based, living soil mixes for certified organic plant production.

BCS America: BCS two-wheel tractors are versatile, maneuverable in tight spaces, light-weight for less compaction, and easy to maintain and repair on farm. Gear-driven and built to last for decades of dependable service on your farm or market garden.

Farmers Web: Making it simple for farms, farm cooperatives, and local food artisans to streamline working with wholesale buyers. Lessening the administrative work that comes with each order helps producers create a more successful relationship with their buyers and can help them work with more buyers overall.

Quotes from the Show

Just as a practical matter, it’s hard to imagine doing veg without chickens because the chickens eat so many grasshoppers.

I think you don’t necessarily get to choose what you have to change and when you have to change it.

Show Links

Common Good Farm is Certified Biodynamic byDemeter Association.

Ruth and Evrett were able to use a program Nebraska Investment Finance Authority (NIFA) to purchase their farm.

Transcript

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138: Kelly Kingsland and Russell Poe of Affinity Farm on Growing Small, Self-Awareness, and Giving Good Weight

Sponsors

Quotes from the Show

Show Links

Transcript

137: Shawn Kuhn of Vitruvian Farms on Growing Salad Greens, Selling to Restaurants, and Expanding into Retail Sales

Sponsors

Quotes from the Show

Show Links

Transcript

136: Sam Hitchcock Tilton of Michigan State University on Steps to Mechanical Weed Control Success

Sponsors

Quotes from the Show

Show Links

Transcript

135: Ruth Chantry of Common Good Farm on Biodynamic Farming, CSA, and Integrating Livestock and Vegetables on a Nebraska Farm

Sponsors

Quotes from the Show

Show Links

Transcript

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