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081: Stephanie Spock of Rolling Hills Farm on Mushrooms, Vegetables, and a Market-Style CSA

8/25/2016

Stephanie Spock raises two acres of vegetables and a whole lot of mushrooms at Rolling Hills Farm in Lambertville, New Jersey. She and her partner, John Squicciarino, gross about $165,000 with sales to a 200-member CSA, two farmers markets, and a smattering of wholesale accounts.

Stephanie digs into the inner workings of Rolling Hills’ mushroom operation, including the challenges and rewards of integrating that into a vegetable farm. We discuss some barriers to achieving profitability in the mushroom business, how they converted an old barn into a production facility, and the fickle business of mushroom grow kits.

We also discuss the ways they’ve modified the popular permanent-bed system to fit the needs of their operation and the heavy clay soil they farm on.
The Rolling Hills Farm CSA distributes vegetables through a market-style pickup and a points system, and Stephanie shares the nuts and bolts of how that works, from distribution through crop planning.
Stephanie also shares some details about their land rental situation, and how she and John work to keep the relationship with their landlords positive and mutually rewarding. And we learn about how Stephanie has managed Lyme Disease as a young farmer.

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

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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, lightweight 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

Where we farm, there are so many farms that we wanted to have something that other people weren’t necessarily growing.

In the middle of the growing season when things get crazy, sometimes it’s hard to have the time to put towards the mushrooms.

We grow less of things that people don’t really care about, like kohlrabi.

Not everyone necessarily wants a CSA where you go and do u-pick for an hour.

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Rolling Hills Farm transplants Salanova lettuces for their salad mix.

Stephanie recommends Why Can't I Get Better? Solving the Mystery of Lyme and Chronic Disease for anybody suspecting or suffering from Lyme disease.

Stephanie’s favorite pepper is the bright orange frying pepper, Oranos.

Omnivore’s Dilemma, by Michael Pollan, is the book that made Stephanie feel passionate about farming.

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080: Don Lareau of Zephyros Farm and Garden on Growing and Designing Organic Flowers in Cowboy Country for Resort Communities

8/18/2016

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Don Lareau raises about four acres of certified organic flowers at Zephyros Farm and Garden in Paonia, Colorado (in addition to an acre of vegetables, plus fruit trees and pasture). He and his wife, Daphne Yannakakis, emphasize quality flowers and exquisite design to cater to florists and farmers markets in the resort communities of Telluride and Aspen.

Don digs into how Zephyros gets excellent visual quality and shelf-life without the preservatives that most flower growers use, as well as how they market their certified organic flowers. Don shares some tips and techniques for maximizing sales to florists, as well as the nuts and bolts of how they set up and run their farmers market stand to generate a buzz that really helps them move their blooms.

We get into the challenges and advantages of producing flowers in the desert western slope of the Colorado Rockies.

Don and Daphne have a strong emphasis on design, and Don describes the ways they have worked to maximize the results they get from their design work, from training employees in the art of flower design to the business structures and marketing processes they’ve implemented.

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

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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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Quotes from the Show

It takes a unique couple to want to bring their friends and family onto a working farm for a wedding.

We love the farmer’s markets but it’s a lot of work for the same amount of money that we can get by doing a day’s worth of deliveries to the florists and designers.

You smell a red rose and you give it to your girlfriend and she sniffs it up and that’s not really loving.

We do get calls, brides want certified organic flowers for their wedding cake, that sort of thing. We’re a little further away from people saying, I want organic flowers because that way I know that someone in Ecuador isn’t spraying nasty stuff on the planet.

We put on a show at the farmer's market because we charge a premium.

We don’t just charge forty dollars for a bouquet because it’s a bunch of flowers plopped together… it’s a real design and it’s done with really high quality flowers.

Anyone can take a bunch of flowers and flop them together if you’ve got a little sense of color and style, but to do it really well and do it quickly so that you can put out one a hundred-plus bouquets in day, it takes some skill, so it’s definitely something that we pay for.

The challenge of having set an expectation of a certain level of design in our product is that it’s not like you can just hire someone like you can with vegetables because they can put a tomato on a scale or count up how many bunches of beets you bought and add it up and tell you what it costs.

You just have to be confident when you say, “This is twenty-five dollars’ worth of sunflowers.”

People don’t really want to pay a farmer to do design. They think of a farmer as a good way to get cheap flowers.

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Zephyros Farm and Garden uses Farm Runners to move some of their produce from their agricultural valley up into the resort communities.

Don works very closely with the Association of Specialty Cut Flower Growers, which he says is the best $200 you can spend if you are even thinking about growing flowers.

Specialty Cut Flowers, by Allen Armitage, is a basic text to provide a background on a wide spectrum of crops and varieties.

Slow Money provided a zero interest loan to Zephyros Farm and Garden to purchase a refrigerated delivery truck, which has improved their ability to make sales to florists.

Zephyros Farm uses horizontal trellis on crucial crops.

Zephyros has been using 30% shade cloth; as those wear out, they are replacing the traditional shade cloths with Aluminet.

Zephyros Farm and Garden is selling certified organic dahlia tubers online, available on their website.

Don is president of the board of directors at the Organic Farming Research Foundation, where he’s served on the board for six years.

Don’s favorite tool is his ARS snips (I can attest to the value of these snips, which were a key herb and flower harvest tool at my Rock Spring Farm).

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079: Daniel Allen of Allenbrooke Farms on Keeping Things Simple and Efficient with Extensive Production and a Free-Choice CSA

8/10/2016

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Daniel Allen raises fifteen acres of vegetables at Allenbrooke Farms, just outside of Nashville, Tennessee. He and his wife, Stephanie, market all of their produce to 367 families through their free-choice, market-style CSA.

While many farmers are intensely focused on maximized dollars per acre, Daniel has taken a perpendicular approach, grossing just $200,000 on Allenbrooke’s fifteen acres of vegetable production – but he does that with no season extension, and just one hired hand.

Daniel digs into the details of production and distribution at Allenbrooke Farms, and how the free-choice distribution system enables them to maximize efficiency and minimize complexity in the production side of the operation. We get into the details of their rapid harvest system, simple-but-effective production systems, weed management, and how Daniel keeps his mind and body in condition during the production- and off-seasons.

He also shares the colorful history of his farming operation, where he and Stephanie jumped in with both feet and sold their car to pay for seeds in 2011, their first year in production. And we hear just a little about Daniel’s career as a high-fashion model in New York City before coming back to the family 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

I quit my job in the summer and Stephanie quit hers in December and we sold a little car we had for seed money.

[Raising vegetables for a hundred CSA members our first year] was definitely a learning experience. We didn’t even know what we didn’t know.

[Stephanie] does all of the logistics, the emails, all of the communication with the customers, which is a lot. That’s more than a full-time job.

We communicate with our customers: It’s a farm. For y’all to be able to choose whatever you want and do it this way, you’re going to have to sacrifice having perfectly clean zucchinis.

[The free-choice CSA model] takes a lot of labor out. We don’t have to pack all the boxes, and bunch everything and wash everything and count everything.

I’m a firm believer that there’s people around you that need what you’ve got.

We try to be really hands on and be there and see the people, because it’s a relationship. That’s what a CSA should be, it’s a relationship between this community of people and me and my wife that are farming and feeding them. We need to be there and they need to see us and we need to see them. It shouldn’t be a faceless entity.

I’ve found that as a time saver, if I just have it set up one way, I grow everything that same way, and I don’t have to be changing cultivators around and knives around or setting up the two-row or the three-row or this and that.

I don’t really see the point of super weeding a crop of lettuce that I’m going to harvest in a week.

The main part is keeping yourself healthy and strong enough to do [the majority of the production work on the farm]. I’ll spend four or five months in the off-season resting, eating well, and going to the gym doing a strength program to train for the next season.

A lot of people farm their animals they’re really interested in the percentage of protein feeds to make their animals grow a certain way, but they neglect to do that for themselves.

I’d rather be pulling foods out than pulling weeds.

It’s easier for me to do twelve acres this way than it would be for me to do an acre another way.

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Allenbrooke Farms’ Instagram feed has some pictures of the orange buckets they use for harvest.

Daniel uses ahori hori tool for a harvest knife.

Daniel referenced Farmer to Farmer Podcast episode 013 with Bob Cannard as an inspiration for his approach to weed management.

Allenbrooke Farms uses Mighty Grow composted chicken manure when fertility needs exceed what’s provided by compost and cover crops.

Daniel’s favorite tractor is the John Deere 5065e

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078: Conor Crickmore of Neversink Farm on Stripping Down the Farm to Make It Easy - or as easy as possible

8/4/2016

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Conor Crickmore grosses a little over $350,000 on just over one-and-a-half acres in Claryville, New York, with his wife, Kate. Marketing through farmers markets and restaurant sales, Neversink Farm has developed a reputation for meticulous, thoughtful, and simple production.

Conor shares the history of Neversink Farm, including how he simplified production and marketing and increased his income at the same time. We discuss how he and Kate found the time to make decisions and improvements in the hectic and critical early years, and the whys behind the choices and investments they made.

We dig into the details of Neversink’s no-tractor production system, and why they’ve eschewed tillage, plastic, and more. Conor tells us the details about how they’ve made everything from weed control and irrigation to harvest and washing the produce easier, and how they relay that information to their employees.

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

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Quotes from the Show

We used to do farmer markets locally, but we continued to outgrow them. Instead of adding more and more farmers markets, we just worked on getting bigger and better farmers markets.

Because it was so difficult, we wanted to streamline everything and make things as simple as possible. To do that, we needed to grow fast, we needed to make investments… We had this feeling we were never going to be good enough, so we were pushing ourselves to solve every single problem on the farm just to make the farm more productive.

Creating a simple farm was the best thing we could have done to be able to [manage having twins].

We really thought we’d have to move to four or five acres to earn enough money, and that never happened.

Production went up and we had to focus on infrastructure rather than expanding acreage.

We were able to make really quick decisions if something wasn’t working… we would cut it out pretty quickly.

The more I get out of the field and manage the farm, I can look at every single process and try to fix it.

The improvements we made when we were in the field were different… we had to throw a lot of them out and change things up very quickly once we started having more and more workers.

I’m not committed to any system.

Whatever the procedure is, I want it to be as clear and simple as possible.

I need every square foot to produce. You’re going to have things that didn’t work, but you have to move on, pull it out, and plant something else.

We decided early on that we weren’t going to try to convince people to eat things that they don’t want to eat.

I know that I’m not going to do something if it’s a little bit harder… For me to invest in digging and putting in a hydrant just for that section is worth it, because it’s going to get watered better. That’s not just true for workers, it’s true for me, too.

While the system is changing, we try to look for answers that are permanent. And I don’t mind ripping them out if there’s a better permanent solution.

Our philosophy is always a permanent solution to a problem rather than a temporary one.

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Conor uses a concrete roller tamp to firm his seedbeds and provide good seed-to-soil contact. This is one that he can carry around easily.

Conor uses the Tilther from Johnny’s Selected Seeds all over his farm.

Neversink Farm’s bunch washer gives them reliable, consistent results, even though it may occasionally be slower than washing by hand.

Conor prefers the four-row pinpoint seeder as a more reliable and less expensive option than the six-row seeder.

Conor likes the spinning wheel hoes from Johnny’s for cleaning out the pathways in his fields.

We talked a lot about the Paper Pot Transplanter, a cool tool imported by John Hendrickson at Small Farm Works.

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081: Stephanie Spock of Rolling Hills Farm on Mushrooms, Vegetables, and a Market-Style CSA

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Quotes from the Show

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080: Don Lareau of Zephyros Farm and Garden on Growing and Designing Organic Flowers in Cowboy Country for Resort Communities

Sponsors

Quotes from the Show

Show Links

079: Daniel Allen of Allenbrooke Farms on Keeping Things Simple and Efficient with Extensive Production and a Free-Choice CSA

Sponsors

Quotes from the Show

Show Links

078: Conor Crickmore of Neversink Farm on Stripping Down the Farm to Make It Easy - or as easy as possible

Sponsors

Quotes from the Show

Show Links

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