Blog Archives

142: Liz Graznak of Happy Hollow Farm on Getting Started, the First Five Years, and Learning from the Neighbors

10/26/2017

Today we’re digging back into the archives for one of my favorite interviews, our very first episode of the Farmer to Farmer Podcast, with my good friend Liz Graznak. This one was recorded in early October of 2014.

In 2014, Liz was farming a little over seven acres of ground in central Missouri, and selling her certified organic produce through a CSA, farmers market, and to restaurants and grocery stores. In her fifth year of running her farm, Liz reflects on the challenges and rewards of running a business, managing employees, and doing all of the other stuff that isn’t farming, but is absolutely integral to it.

We dig into some post-harvest handling, talk about winter production, and discuss how her two-year-old has changed life on her farm. Liz also shares her experience becoming part of her very conventional rural neighborhood.

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 the 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

I detest paying somebody to do something that I can either muscle my way through or figure out how to do it.

You have to be so organized. Otherwise, half your day's gonna be spent running errands to get something that you forgot to get when you were in town last.

The paperwork and the record keeping that being organic requires makes me a better farmer flat out, like, no questions asked. It's very, very, very important to me that for the first few months, I work side-by-side with my interns and whoever is here on the farm.

Show Links

Greenhorns: 50 Dispatches from the New Farmers' Movement

Rite in the Rain Tactical Notebook

High Tunnel Program with the NRCS

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 byCoolBot, allowing you to build an affordable walk-in cooler powered by a window air-conditioning unit. Save $20 on your CoolBot when you visitfarmertofarmerpodcast.com/coolbot. Additional funding for transcripts provided byNorth Central SARE, providing grants and education to advance innovations in Sustainable Agriculture.

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141: Brendan Davison of Good Water Farms on the Science, Art, and Spirituality of Growing Microgreens and Growing a Business

10/19/2017

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Brendan Davison grows microgreens in over 4,000 square feet of greenhouse space at Good Water Farms in Bridgehampton, New York. Started in 2011 in the driveway of Brendan’s house, Good Water Farms sells its greens to Whole Foods Markets and a long list of Hamptons and New York City restaurants.

Brendan shares his spiritual and practical path to building Good Water Farms. We dig into many of the details of what makes Good Water Farms a successful microgreens operation, including Brendan’s marketing approach and how he manages production throughout the year. And we take a deep dive into how Good Water Farms’ implementation of a HACCP plan for food safety increased the operation’s efficiency and improved employee competence and confidence.

Sponsors

Local Food Marketplace provides an integrated, scalable solution for farms and food hubs to process customer orders – including online ordering, harvesting, packing, delivery, invoicing and payment processing. Manage multiple product and price lists with ease. Maximize your sales by selling multiple product pack sizes out of the same inventory. LFM will help you reach more customers and save time in fulfilling your customer’s orders.

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.

Quotes from the Show

The way to enlightenment is to feed people and serve people.

We have three different people coming at random times to check on how we are growing, and growing the way that we say we are growing.

Transparency… is the key marketing element.

This isn’t Coca Cola, where you flip a switch and it all comes out exactly the same.

Show Links

Brendan worked with Nexus Greenhouse Systems to design a greenhouse for his microgreens production.

Brendan referenced a University of Maryland study that showed that microgreens contain four to 40 times the nutrients of their mature counterparts.

Good Water Farms also has a microgreens cookbook.

Transcript

We're still working on getting the transcript completed for this episode! Please check back shortly!

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140: Andy and Melissa Dunham of Grinnell Heritage Farm on Growing a Vegetable Farm in a Sea of Corn and Soybeans

10/12/2017

1 Comment

Andy and Melissa Dunham own and operate Grinnell Heritage Farm in Grinnell, Iowa. From corn-and-bean ground and no infrastructure when they started in 2006, Grinnell Heritage Farm has grown to twenty acres of vegetables, marketed through a 250-member CSA, natural foods stores, multiple farmers market, and a new on-farm pizza night that they started this year.

Andy and Melissa share how they worked with New Pioneer Food Co-op to develop their skills as market farmers and to learn how to better serve the wholesale marketplace. We also dig into their CSA model, employee management on Grinnell Heritage Farm, and how they’ve changed their CSA to respond to the needs of both customers and employees.

We also learn how Andy and Melissa developed their farm infrastructure, created environmental enhancements to change the farm ecology and benefit the farm overall, organic weed control in asparagus, and how they’ve managed repeated pesticide drift incidents on their Central-Iowa farm.

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.

High Mowing Organic Seeds: The first independently owned, farm-based seed company proudly serving organic growers with a full line of 100% certified organic and Non-GMO Project verified vegetable, herb, flower and cover crop seeds. Professional quality seeds grown by organic farmers, for organic farmers. Purchase your seeds early and receive a 10% discount through our Community Supported Seeds program – visit highmowingseeds.com/save.

Quotes from the Show

[Andy] As a beginning farmer you end up getting rejected quite a lot and so you have to have a little bit of thick skin and expect to hear no sometimes, and that's all right.

[Andy] Getting that field heat out is so important and it's almost impossible to do without a walk-in cooler.

[Melissa] The easiest way isn't necessarily the most sustainable way.

[Andy] One of my favorite parts of this is seeing the wildlife come back to what used to be a corn and soybean field.

[Melissa] We've had several people call us over the last few years and they say, we've been drifted on. My first question is, do you have records of past yields and prices?

Show Links

Andy mentioned Grinnell Heritage Farm’s participation in PFI (Practical Farmers of Iowa) trials. Research results from PFI trials have a ton of useful information based on real, on-farm experience.

Driftwatch provides a way for pesticide applicators and specialty crop growers communicate about the location of sensitive and organic crops.

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 byCoolBot, allowing you to build an affordable walk-in cooler powered by a window air-conditioning unit. Save $20 on your CoolBot when you visitfarmertofarmerpodcast.com/coolbot. Additional funding for transcripts provided byNorth Central SARE, providing grants and education to advance innovations in Sustainable Agriculture.

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139: Dave Chapman of Long Wind Farm on Growing Greenhouse Tomatoes, Managing a Business, and the Fight to Keep the Soil in Organic

10/5/2017

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Dave Chapman got his start at Long Wind Farm in 1984 with a team of oxen, a diverse array of vegetables, and a roadside stand in East Thetford, Vermont. Today, he only grows tomatoes – and lots of them!

With 2.5 acres of greenhouses, Dave and his crew produce certified organic, soil-grown tomatoes all year ‘round. Dave digs in to the nuts and bolts of producing tomatoes in protected culture. He shares the details of his high-tech greenhouse system, Long Wind Farm’s fertility management strategies, and how Dave learned to get out of the way of his farm’s success while managing business and personal goals that were often in conflict with each other.

Dave also shares his views on the current state of the National Organic Program, organic hydroponics, and the organic livestock rules, and talks about the action being taken to try to change the situation.

Sponsors

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.

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.

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.

Quotes from the Show

I think a part of me wants to figure out how to make a living, but I also think there's another part of me that wants to be proud of my farm, and another part that wants to feel like the farm couldn't survive without my important contributions, and another part that wants people to like me. And the thing is, all these parts have different goals.

All the farmers I know are really overworked, and it's difficult to make a living, but that very thing of being overworked is part of what makes it difficult to make a living.

Who knows what would happen if I got hit by that truck tomorrow? Probably, we would discover I was good for something, but I don't think that the farm would stumble in the short run.

It's just a foundational management skill is to be able to have some control of the numbers to see what's happening. And not all those numbers have dollar signs on them.

It's much easier to sell the truth.

Show Links

Go to keepthesoilinorganic.org to find out about rallies in your area, submit comments about keeping the soil in organic, and to sign the petition that Dave will take to the next NOSB meeting.

Dave talked at length about Eliyahu Goldratt’s book, The Goal, a novel about how to make decisions for anything.

Transcript

The transcript for this episode is brought to you by Earth Tools, offering the most complete selection of walk-behind farming equipment and high-quality garden tools in North America; and by Rock 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 by CoolBot, allowing you to build an affordable walk-in cooler powered by a window air-conditioning unit. Save $20 on your CoolBot when you visit farmertofarmerpodcast.com/coolbot. Additional funding for transcripts provided by North Central SARE, providing grants and education to advance innovations in Sustainable Agriculture.

Download Episode

Download Transcript

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