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120: Polly Shyka and Prentice Grassi of Villageside Farm on Five Acres, Cover Crops, and Building Human Skills to Support Their Farm and Family

5/25/2017

2 Comments

 
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Polly Shyka and Prentice Grassi raise five acres of vegetables and five acres of cover crops, plus broiler chickens, egg layers, and beef cattle, at Villageside Farm in Freedom, Maine. Polly and Prentice have been involved in farming for twenty years, and have been farming their land since 2001. Making a living for both of them on $200,000 in sales, they have worked hard to build a farm business that is an asset to their community.

We talk about the challenges of farming at the five-acre scale, and dig into the nuts and bolts of how they manage their vegetables in a three-years-on, three-years-off rotation with perennial cover crops. Polly and Prentice dish out plenty of details about how they manage the livestock and vegetable production together, and about the equipment and tools they use to manage their five acres of produce.


​Polly and Prentice also dig into the numbers that drive their farm, and the hard work they’ve put in to balancing life and business. They share their strategies and philosophy for making the most of their interactions with customers, children, employees, and each other, and how they have worked to develop the human skills that support their farm and their family.

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Quotes from the Show

[Prentice] There's an irony there because if we were to say, "Jeez, there's a lot of demand for eggs and let's scale up, and what can we do to scale up and make this more efficient?" Inevitably that quality, I think, would suffer.

[Polly] [The smaller enterprises are] all small puzzle pieces and they are all relics I would say of our scaling up process, and so of course that's where we're looking to simplify our life.

[Polly] We dropped the CSA because the details in the week were feeling really oppressive to us.


[Polly] It's a lot of hard work keeping those boundaries and being on the same page with those boundaries,
with each other, with our crew, with our children.


[Polly] That's the hard work is looking at the various layers of the relationships that happen in any small business and just trying to gently identify the challenges and then gently address those challenges with skills and practices and boundaries that are appropriate.


[Polly] You're a lot more free to do the work that you really want to do, if you're not constantly regurgitating and trying to figure out some interaction that didn't go very well.


[Prentice] It's not satisfying all the time for sure, but on the margin do the ends justify the means, and I think we're always looking at that.

Show Links

As one of their smaller enterprises, Villageside Farm raises trees for Fedco Trees. 

Prentice mentioned the book I was part of, Fearless Farm Finances. 

Polly mentioned Seth Godin’s short blog about Skills vs. talents - its worth the few moments it will take you to read it.

Polly also suggested Pema Chodron and Brene Brown as resources for the hard work of developing human skills.

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. Additional funding for transcripts provided by North Central SARE, providing grants and education to advance innovations in Sustainable Agriculture.
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2 Comments
Lori link
6/15/2017 08:58:23 am

Thank you SO MUCH for the discussion about "human skills", communication and relationships. They truly DO make or break an operation. We are just starting our first year farming and grappling with these issues. We need our relationship and family life to come first.

Like Chris says, we just don't seem to have language to talk about these issues in the farming community.

Reply
Missy
5/10/2020 02:07:47 pm

Happy mother's day . I took Horticulture+ Nutrition . Farms . I been CAREGIVER for KIDs .+ -ELDER . I can help out on farm . In exchange for using a small piece of land I don't have to stay in your house I have my own camper home I am very independent the problem is that they sold all of the land around me and I have only a few days before they demolish it I hope you have a big heart God bless you I am over 45 but I'm very healthy I just wanted to tell you I'm mature and I've already raised my son he is going to college he does landscaping in roofing so he will patch up my home and do whatever I am very independent I even wanted to get solar energy panels for it but they won't let me keep it where it is I'm good with horses and good with kids and I also am an artist I have run a business before I know how to boost up business and I'm good at sales many of the mothers that I have helped before always wanted me to buy my own home and they even said I would be great to run a daycare but I think helping out one family at a farm would be great you would never see me I wouldn't be in the way I would stay in my camper home but I could be there in a pinch if you need a hand so please let me know eventually I would like to buy a small slice of land but I only need about a thousand feet are you about 25 minutes north of wells I may be trying to get a ride up tomorrow afternoon I can bring my resume unlimited on the power hear everything's packed up in the whole home is ready to go . Thanks for your help . God bless you 603-219-3801 please text me before you call in case I don't have reception. peace4everyone96@gmail.com save it please email me that way it won't go to spam I hope they don't demolish my home if you don't need help don't worry about paying me what I mean is I'm willing to work something out where I could do some work in exchange for land I don't do drugs I don't smoke I love people and helping animals and kids so I hope I hear back from you God bless you thanks

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