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073: Ali and Dan Haney on Making Something from Nothing with Eggs and Vegetables

6/30/2016

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Photo courtesy of Franz G Photography
Ali and Dan Haney own Shenandoah Seasonal, two-and-a-half acres of vegetables and 400 laying hens in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. Now in their fifth year of running the farm, Ali and Dan sell their produce through three farmers markets and a modest CSA program.

Ali and Dan share their story, from their work as social workers in Cambodia to their struggles finding suitable land after moving back to Virginia. We dig into their salad production system, how they’ve developed an egg production system that really works, how Dan and Ali have made their investment decisions as the farm’s internal economics evolved, and the consequences of cutting off your dreadlocks.
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The Farmer to Farmer Podcast is generously supported by Vermont Compost Company.

Sponsors

Vermont Compost: 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.
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Audible: Discover the world of audio-books, and absorb yourself in the latest in business management texts, farming essays, or just a dramatic retelling of the Star Wars saga. Get a free audiobook download and a 30-day free trial at farmertofarmerpodcast.com/audible.

Quotes from the Show

We kept trying, we really wanted [farming on Dan’s family land] to work. Dan loves the farm he grew up on. It just didn't and so we had to move forward. (Ali)

It is just not possible to take care of someone else's property and have a profitable farm. (Ali)

What is really important [about the laying hens] is that they add value to our farm as well is that we are adding fertility to this really clay based soil. (Dan)

It was difficult to take on some debt, but we also felt like we had to, to make our business grow. (Ali)
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I started working at the finances and realized that we were living paycheck to paycheck and that I could get a part time job closer and help more on the farm and still live paycheck to paycheck. (Ali)

Show Links

Ali said that reading J.M. Fortier’s The Market Gardener changed her life, because it helped her understand how to systematize her production.

Dan said that the rotary plow from BCS brought tears to his eyes the day that they got it, because it was such a useful tool. (BCS America is a sponsor of the Farmer to Farmer Podcast)

Ali said the four-row precision seeder from Johnny’s was life-changing for her.

Dan’s favorite farm tool is the Quick Cut Greens Harvester.
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Ali mentioned that they purchase the majority of their seeds from High Mowing Organic Seeds.
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072: Jen Campbell on Raising Two Acres of Vegetables with Tractors, and a Family

6/23/2016

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Farmer to Farmer Podcast | Guest | Jen Campbell | Jen and Derek's Organic Farm

Jen Campbell raises two acres of vegetables on Canada’s Prince Edward Island at Jen and Derek’s Organic Farm. She sells about $80,000 of certified organic vegetables per year primarily through a 90-member CSA, as well as to a retail store and a wholesale distributor.

Jen has been farming on Prince Edward Island since 2006, and she tells the story of growing her farm from a part-time operation to a full-time income. We talk about how she made the leap to full-time farming, including the decision she and Derek made to have Jen focus on the farm while Derek works off the farm. Jen also provides an honest look at her experience of having twins early in her full-time farming career, how she managed that in the early years, and the decisions she made around childcare and schooling.

Prince Edward Island is potato country, and Jen and Derek’s Organic Farm is located in one corner of a conventional potato farm. Jen shares the social and cultural strategies she follows to maintain the integrity of her organic crops, and how she fits into the community of conventional potato growers on the island. We also touch on her participation in a winter CSA program, including how to harvest roots on a small scale and the economics of winter storage, tractor farming on two acres, and how she’s adapted the food safety practices of her conventional, large-scale neighbors to her own operation.

Jen’s the real deal – I hope you enjoy getting to know her. I know I did.

The Farmer to Farmer Podcast is generously supported by Vermont Compost Company.

Show Sponsors

Vermont Compost: 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.

FarmFan: Ever wish you could text a reminder to all of your customers? FarmFan does just that, increasing market turnout – and sales – week after week. Use this link for 25% off your six or twelve month subscription.

Quotes from the Show

I’m a bit of a control freak. We could put that into a positive or negative spin I guess.

I think the main reason I’ve been so successful and my members are so happy is because when they have questions, I’m there to talk to; or if they’ve got a problem, I’m the face that they see.

I worked full time and farmed for quite a few years before I left [that job]. It was small scale but I wanted to make sure that I enjoyed it.

It’s one thing to apprentice on a farm and have your boss tell you what to do, and it’s another thing to all of a sudden be responsible for all of these people’s vegetables.

I realized quickly that I wasn’t going to be that woman who had her kids home at the farm. It just did not work with me.

I still feel a little guilty [about putting her kids in daycare] because I think people assume, they say, it must be nice that you work for yourself and you work at your farm, your kids must be so helpful, and I always think, where do you work? If you work at the bank, do you take your kids to work and how helpful do you think that would be?

I chose to farm with iron so that I wouldn’t have to be out there with a hoe, so that I would have more time for family.
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I don’t figure anybody’s paying me to weed. They’re paying me to harvest and to plant.

Show Links

Jen recommends the Garant Pro Series Action Hoe, which is a stirrup hoe that Canadian growers don’t have to ship across the border.
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One of Jen’s favorite crops is Osborne Seed Company’s Multi-Leaf lettuce, which is similar to Salanova in its growth habit.

Jen recently started using Farm Credit Canada’s accounting software, AgExpert Analyst, and she wishes she had done it sooner!

Photos from the Show

Jen sent some pictures of her row cover and drip tape winder.
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Here’s Jen rolling up the row cover:
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And here’s a picture of her drip tape organization with that roller setup:
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071: Nate Parks on Loss, Recovery, and Thriving on a Large-Scale Vegetable Farm

6/16/2016

3 Comments

 
Farmer to Farmer Podcast | Guest | Nate Park | Silverthorn Farm
Nate Parks raises twenty acres of vegetables at Silverthorn Farm in west-central Indiana, and sells his produce to restaurants, a custom-packed CSA program, and at an on-farm store.

We dig into the nuts and bolts of how Silverthorn Farm works, with particular attention to how Nate has used the scale of his operation to break into the restaurant market in Indianapolis. Nate also describes the system Silverthorn Farm uses to manage his unique on-line ordering system that allows members to pick what they want, when they want it. Nate also shines a light on the strategy he’s used to scale up and equip his farm, and how he’s leveraged employee involvement to do more with his farm than he could have done on his own – while creating a work environment with excellent retention.

Along the way, Nate shares the story of getting his start as a pumpkin farmer, losing everything in the housing crisis, and rebuilding the farm. It’s a touching and empowering story.


The Farmer to Farmer Podcast is generously supported by 
Vermont Compost Company.

Sponsors

Vermont Compost: 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.

Growing for Market: America’s most respected source for news and ideas about the business of growing and selling vegetables, fruits, cut flowers, plants, herbs, and other food products.

Quotes from the Show

I can’t do it all. There’s no way. All these different enterprises we run here, I need all these people.

A lot of the supply going into them was urban farmers or smaller farmers, where they’re going to focus on greens and micro-greens and that higher value stuff… but they use a lot of beets, they want potatoes. The one guy uses seven hundred pounds of heirloom tomatoes a week. You have to have some production to be able to supply that kind of demand.

I feel like the whole system is what makes me efficient, and I wasn’t able to get the benefit of the whole system until I was able to purchase it.

Timing is so critical [for weed control]. When it has to be done, you’ve got to get out there and get it accomplished.

It’s about having the correct pieces [of equipment] at the right time and the right people on that equipment to get it done.

The 75 members who didn’t come back say we are just way too expensive. The people who are in it say this is incredible, are you sure this is enough?

Show Links

Nate invested in a new ASA Lift roots harvester this year.

Here’s the Quick Cut Greens Harvester Nate and so many other growers use to harvest their salad greens.

​Silverthorn Farm uses Small Farm Central’s Member Assembler to manage their CSA custom ordering system. ​
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070: Janet Czarnecki on Giving and Taking with Customers, Employees, and Community

6/9/2016

1 Comment

 
Farmer to Farmer Podcast | Guest | Janet Czarnecki | Redwood Roots
Janet Czarnecki raises five acres of vegetables, flowers, and fruit at Redwood Roots Farm on the northern California coast, just outside of Arcata. Almost all of her produce is sold through her CSA, with the remainder sold through her on-farm farmstand.

Janet shares how she has developed a year-round CSA farm serving 160 shareholders in the summer with pickup on the farm, and a u-pick winter CSA program that has her customers out in the mud harvesting their own vegetables in the mild but rainy coastal climate. Her summer CSA also includes a u-pick component, and Janet gets into the details of how that works, as well.

Janet puts significant effort into creating reciprocal relationships with her customers, her employees, and her community. We discuss how she has worked with her CSA members to finance the farm and infrastructure, how she uses a structured give-and-take with her employees to encourage them to engage in the farm, and how she manages a significant engagement with her local community through food banks and community education.

We also discuss how she manages a completely off-the-grid operation, her minimally mechanized production systems, and how she co-exists with the symphylans on her farm.

The Farmer to Farmer Podcast is generously supported by Vermont Compost Company.

Sponsors

Vermont Compost: 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.

Quotes from the Show

We started the flower garden as a u-pick because people weren’t going into the field. I really wanted them to have interaction with the plants and the shareholders and the whole nature aspect of it.

Now on a share day I look out and everywhere I look in the field there’s people walking around and picking and enjoying the field and being up close and personal with the plants.

It’s a very peaceful place here at the farm, and you can see people let down. Their shoulders go down, they relax, they talk slower, they walk slower.

It’s a very strong, mutually beneficial relationship, and I think that lends itself to good shareholder retention.

That’s how I’ve been able  to do these things: I partner with people, I don’t try to do it myself.
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I like to buy really nice things, and then I keep them kept up.

Show Links

Janet buys most of her seeds from Johnny’s Selected Seeds and Osborne Seed Company. She noted that Osborne Seed Company, which has been a sponsor of the Farmer to Farmer Podcast, has a great selection of varieties for overwintering.

The last book Janet read was The Lean Farm by Ben Hartman.

Janet wrote me after the interview to tell me that her favorite book on management is Managing Ourselves by Ari Weinzweig.
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069: Allen Philo on Using Cover Crops and Calories to Put Your Soil to Work for You

6/2/2016

1 Comment

 
Farmer to Farmer Podcast | Guest | Allen Philo
Allen Philo is the specialty crops consultant for Midwestern BioAg, a biological fertilizer company in Blue Mounds, Wisconsin, where he works with fruit and vegetable growers around the country to help them develop approaches to optimizing soil conditions for plant growth. He also runs a pasture-based livestock farm north of Dodgeville, Wisconsin.
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Allen was one of the first guests on the Farmer to Farmer Podcast, and I’ve had request after request to bring him back.

Allen digs into cover cropping, from the biology and theory behind it to the nuts and bolts about how to make it work on the farm. We discuss how cover crops work to get sugar-rich calories into the soil to feed the microbes, and how you can use cover crops to create microclimates to break down crop residues. Allen shares nuts-and-bolts details how he and his clients have used cover crops to disrupt pest cycles, reduce pest and disease pressure through rapid biological cycling, and control annual and perennial weeds.

We also discuss the tools and techniques that Allen recommends for managing cover crops, from establishing a strong stand to managing the resulting mass of vegetation. Cover crop selection, practical approaches to cover crop blends, and using cover crops to manage the pre-harvest interval for manure applications are also on the table.
​

The Farmer to Farmer Podcast is generously supported by Vermont Compost Company.

Sponsors

Vermont Compost: 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.

FarmFan: Ever wish you could text a reminder to all of your customers? FarmFan does just that, increasing market turnout – and sales – week after week. Use this link for 25% off your six or twelve month subscription.

Quotes from the Show

All complex systems run off of calorie inputs.

Plants are constantly pumping sugars into the soil in order to feed microbes.

When we grow a crop, especially a crop that we haven’t bred to produce a really big fruit, those pump a lot more sugar down into the soil, and that sugar and those calories are going to feed those microbes.

About ten percent of the total sugars made by a plant are pushed out into the soil environment.

What makes [good soil structure] is microbes in the soil actually gluing that soil together to make houses for themselves.

We aren’t the first creatures to engineer the environment for our benefit. Microbes have been doing this for much longer than we have.
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A little bit more diversity out there never hurts. Different things growing above ground does feed different things growing below ground.

Show Links

Allen was one of the first people I interviewed for the Farmer to Farmer Podcast, way back in episode 003.

Allen is the specialty crops consultant for Midwestern BioAg, a biological farming inputs supply company in Wisconsin.

Managing Cover Crops Profitably has seeding rates for single varieties and combinations.

Crop Rotation on Organic Farms has some very useful charts describing important disease and insect cross-over vectors to help you plan your cover crop (and other) rotations. ​
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