John Navazio manages the plant breeding program at Johnny’s Selected Seeds in Albion, Maine.

John takes us on a seedy tour of the early days of organic and local vegetable production, and his journey into the world of variety selection, horizontal disease resistance, participatory plant breeding, and why quality seed and quality varietal maintenance matters for every farmer.

We dig into the modern history of hybrids, why open-pollinated crops can be a competitive alternative,  and why some of your favorite hybrid varieties just up and disappear – as well as why some of your favorite open-pollinated varieties devolve over time, while others just get better.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Matt Herbruck has lived two farming lives: one in down east Maine, and another in northeast Ohio. After 21 years of farming, he currently owns and operates Birdsong Farm in Hiram Township, Ohio, with twelve acres of vegetables and cut flowers sold through four farmers markets and a small CSA.

Matt shares the story of moving his farm from Maine to Ohio, and we talk about the sometimes radical differences in the two markets, climates, and soils, and how Matt managed the transition from the coast to the middle of the country – as well as personal transitions that coincided with the move. Matt tells the story of breaking into markets in both locations, including how he has engaged with start-up farmers markets to create a winning situation for both the market and for his farm.

We dig into Matt’s tricks for setting up a great farmers market stand and produce display, managing greens and root crops through the hot Ohio summers, juggling the expectations of family and farming, and the ephemeral nature of seemingly permanent decisions and situations.

When Matt’s employee, Dave, recommended Matt for the show, I didn’t remember that Matt and I had known each other when we were both farming on the coast of Maine. But once I made the connection, I remembered his flat-bed truck and his infectious smile. And while the flat-bed truck is history, I enjoyed hearing his smile and the joy he has retained through all of the years and all of the challenges. I hope you’ll enjoy it, too.

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

Peter Seeley and his wife, Bernadette, began farming at Springdale Farm in 1988, at the dawn of the CSA movement in the Upper Midwest. Over 25 years, the farm has expanded to twenty acres and 800 CSA shares, plus thirteen greenhouses and five children, not far from Lake Michigan in Plymouth, Wisconsin.

Peter tells the story of Springdale Farm’s founding and growth, and how he and Bernadette navigated the challenges of the new CSA market, including the reasoning behind their decisions about core groups and distribution models that were different from most CSAs operating in 1988. We learn how Peter has met the challenges of farming in extremely rocky soils head on, including the strategies he’s developed for machinery and fertility to succeed in a challenging environment. And, Peter shares the farm’s strategies for managing four season production and storage, including the very low-tech way they got started.

Springdale Farm has worked hard from the start to provide an alternative to fossil fuels for powering the farm, and Peter shares what they’ve learned about outdoor wood boilers and electric tractors and carts.

Along the way, Peter consistently shares the passion he brings to his farm and his life. And he even brings Marx, Hegel, and Plato into the conversation.

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

Shawn Jadrnicek manages the Clemson Student Organic Farm at Clemson University. Six acres of produce serves a one hundred-share CSA, wholesale markets, and a farmers market, in addition to providing a home for graduate student research.

Shawn is also the author of the new book, The Bio-Integrated Farm, a twenty-first century manual for enhancing farms with practical, permaculture-based design elements. Shawn shares his experience with and insights into the creating optimum farm layouts, including road placement and bed structure, creating drainage patterns that enhance the farm’s biological functioning, and using ponds to increase light and heat in the greenhouse. We also dig into the Clemson Student Organic Farm’s other strategies for temperature management in the greenhouse, including supplementing greenhouse heat with external compost piles.

We also explore the Clemson Student Organic Farm’s strategies for weed control and soil health, including the use of crimped cover crop no-till and additional mulch materials to create season-long weed control, and cover cropping on raised beds. And Shawn shares how he has structured the CSA to function in a campus environment, managing customer needs as well as adapting to a high-turnover, low-work-hours student labor force. Plus, we get a great tutorial on gopher control.

I learned a lot from this interview, and enjoyed the ways that Shawn talks about big ideas and practical details. I hope you enjoy it, too!

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

Jeremy Mueller and his wife, Ashli, operate Excelsior Farm, just outside of Eugene, Oregon. Together they raise produce for restaurant sales, retail grocers, and a small CSA to make a modest living on less than two acres. Jeremy and Ashli are starting their fourth year at Excelsior with the recent birth of their daughter.

Jeremy shares the story of how he got started with Excelsior Farm, which is owned by the owner of Eugene’s Excelsior Restaurant. We get into how he has worked with the scale that’s available to him, using a small tractor to keep up with bed preparation and weed control. Jeremy and Ashli have a reputation for achieving excellent weed control and working efficiently, and Jeremy tells us about some of his favorite tools and adaptations for minimizing labor while maximizing production.

We also delve into the challenges of getting started in the already crowded local foods scene of Eugene, including evolving choices about markets and product configuration that have helped them to grow their business.

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

Laura Frerichs owns and operates Loon Organics with her husband, Adam Cullip, in Hutchinson, Minnesota. Loon Organics grosses $200,000 on 8 acres of produce and 10,000 square feet of high tunnels, providing for a CSA, local retailers, farm-to-table restaurants, and the Mill City Farmers Market in Minneapolis.  Six employees keep the farm humming and beautiful.

Laura and Adam started farming at their current location in 2009, after several years incubating at Gardens of Eagan in Farmington, Minnesota, and several years before that of working on farms of different scales around the country and the world. Laura shares her experience as an incubatee, including the investment and business growth strategies Loon Organics used to provide a running start once they landed on their own place.

Laura also shares her experience farming with children, and how that prompted her and Adam to invest in improving their quality of life by improving their utilization of employees. We dig into some of the practical aspects of employee delegation at all levels. We also talk marketing, electric tractors, post-harvest handling, and growing broccoli all year.

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

Rachel Armstrong founded the nonprofit Farm Commons, a legal resource for sustainability-minded farmers, in 2012. And Cassie Noltnerwyss owns Crossroads Community Farm in Cross Plains, Wisconsin. And they’ve both joined me for this episode to talk about the legal side of employees and other workers on the farm.

Rachel started her career working on farms and in community gardens before she transitioned into doing nonprofit and advocacy work for sustainable agriculture. She decided to go to law school when she realized that the resources didn’t exist to answer the kinds of questions small-scale and local growers were asking. Today, Farm Commons offers a variety of legal resources for farmers, from land use and business transfer to employment and contract law.

Cassie owns Crossroads Community Farm with her husband, Mike. They raise about 20 acres of vegetables, sold through a CSA, farmers market, and wholesale to grocery and restaurants in nearby Madison. Now in their twelfth year of business, Crossroads has up to ten full-time employees at the peak of the season. While Cassie doesn’t have any formal business or law training, she had learned a lot along the way as the business has developed and grown.

Together, Rachel and Cassie dig into the nitty-gritty parts of the legal side of having employees on the farm. We take a look at contractors versus employees, managing volunteers, workers compensation, minimum wage, overtime, navigating federal and state laws, payroll taxes, unemployment insurance, and more.

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

Brenton Johnson started growing vegetables in his backyard in Austin, and then his front yard, and then he started selling them, and then he moved to a larger acreage, and then to an even larger acreage at his current location fifteen miles east of Austin, Texas. Johnson’s Backyard Garden is a little bit bigger now, with 150 acres of vegetables and over 100 employees – and all of this since he first started selling vegetables in 2006.

Brenton shares the hows and whys of growing Johnson’s Backyard Garden, and we take a look at the organization behind his custom-box CSA, farmers market sales, and crop management, as well as irrigation and the use of storage facilities to extend the season into the hot Texas summer. Johnson’s Backyard Garden also has a reputation as a marketing powerhouse, and we get into how Brenton has built the JBG brand.

We also discuss Brenton’s approach to the entrepreneurial aspects of farming, and how Brenton has managed the fast pace of change in his business.

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

Eliot Coleman raises about an acre-and-a-half of vegetables in Harborside, Maine, with his wife, Barbara Damrosch. With over 40 years of experience in all aspects of organic farming, Eliot is widely recognized as a pioneer in the world of organic market farming, especially when it comes to producing crops year-round in the northern tier of the United States. He is the author of the bible of organic market farming, The New Organic Grower, as well as the Winter Harvest Handbook.

Eliot shares his farming history in this episode, including the ways that farming in Maine has influenced his approach to farming, and how trying to make Maine soil resemble Iowa soils has led him to develop the skills of observation that have served him so well in the development of his farm. Along the way, we get into picking rocks, marketing, plant-positive pest control, and Eliot’s views on organic hydroponics.

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

Mike Bollinger raises about three acres of outdoor vegetables and a half acre under cover just inside the city limits of the small town of Decorah, Iowa, with his wife, Katie Prochaska. River Root Farm serves grocery stores and restaurants in its local market in Decorah, as well as in surrounding small cities and Minnesota’s Twin Cities. Enterprises at River Root Farm range from microgreens and transplants to fresh herbs and four-season salad greens.

Mike and Katie have worked hard to adapt to the marketplace in rural Northeast Iowa as they slowly laid the groundwork for their farm. They’ve found ways of making a living on the farm that didn’t put them into direct competition with an already crowded market farming scene in Northeast Iowa. We dig into how they’ve gone about testing markets and products to limit risk and maximize potential as they grew the business to a point where they could make the leap into both farming full time.

We dive deep into the details of how they’ve made the logistics work for co-shipping and cross-docking their product by adapting to the distribution system around them., discuss some of the finer points of producing transplants for sale to grocery stores and other retailers, and look at how River Root Farm harvests and handles their microgreens.

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

47th Avenue Farm’s Laura Masterson started her farm on a double lot in a residential neighborhood of Portland, Oregon, twenty years ago. The farm expanded to many different plots of land, then consolidated; now, Laura farms about 20 acres of vegetables on land on two main parcels in the Portland  suburbs, providing a year-round CSA to over 200 families and produce to restaurants in the Portland Metro area.

Laura’s commitment to the triple bottom line is apparent as we talk about Laura’s work in government and with non-profit organizations, her plantings of beneficial insect habitat on her farm, her weed control strategies, and record-keeping’s roll on her farm for making management decisions.

47th Avenue Farm was one of the first in the Portland area to move away from the internship labor model to providing full-time, year-round employment opportunities, and Laura goes in depth with how she has worked with her farm manager to create an open and encouraging work environment.

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

Curtis Stone raises $100,000 of vegetable on just a third of an acre at Green City Acres in Kelowna, British Columbia. He’s also the author of The Urban Farmer, an excellent text on growing food for profit on leased and borrowed land. Curtis came out of a career as a musician and tree planter to start his urban farming venture, and he’s adapted the lessons he learned on the road and in the mountains to his farming career.

Oh, and he actually shrunk his farm in order to make more money! By focusing on the Pareto Principle – also known as the 80-20 rule – Curtis puts his attention on the right customers, the right crops, and the right techniques to maximize the output and the profits from his tiny acreage.

Curtis shares his tips for controlling weeds before you plant a crop, capturing and organizing information effectively, marketing at farmers markets and to restaurants, and how to structure your farm to better serve yourself and your markets.

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

Dru Rivers began farming in 1983 with her partner, Paul Muller, in Northern California’s Capay Valley. Since that time, Full Belly Farm has grown to over 200 acres of vegetables, with still more acreage devoted to flowers, animals, fruits, nuts, and even grains. They’ve recently ventured into value-added products, as well. All of this is marketed to farmers markets, CSA customers, and wholesale customers in the Bay Area, Davis, and Sacramento.

Full Belly Farm has also grown in the number of people – and not just their intern program or their employees, although we dig into how Full Belly has created a renowned and very successful internship program and an environment that fosters fantastic employee retention. Full Belly’s ownership has also grown, with an early partnership with Judith Redmond and Andrew Brait, as well as a more recent expansion to include some of Dru and Paul’s children. Dru shares about why their partnership has worked, the return of all four of her children to the farm, managing a wide diversity of enterprises, and the renowned Hoes Down Harvest Festival.

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

Emily Oakley owns and operates Three Springs Farm in Oaks, Oklahoma, with her husband, Mike Appel. Since 2003, they’ve sold their organic vegetables through a CSA and at a farmers market. They’ve chosen to keep their farm small, not just in acres but also in overall production, substituting tractors and equipment for labor on their three acres of vegetable production where they gross about $80,000 per year, with a net of well over half of that.

We talk about their choice to limit their acres, their work hours, and their growing season, and get into the way that their farm changed when their child was born three years ago.

With its unpredictable weather and biblical pest outbreaks, Emily says that if you can farm in Oklahoma, you can farm anywhere, so we also dig into how Three Springs Farm manages uncertainty and risk both in the field and in its business management processes.

Emily was also recently appointed to the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB), and she shares her perspective on organic certification and community service.

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

Jane Hawley Stevens raises certified organic medicinal herbs on her farm in North Freedom, Wisconsin, and turns them into creams, lip balms, and salves  that are sold nationwide. With about five acres in production, Four Elements Herbals produces a wide variety of annual and perennial medicinals in the Baraboo Bluffs of Wisconsin.

We dig into medicinal herb production and post-harvest handling, meeting FDA regulations for processing and for selling herbal products, and how Jane has grown the Four Elements Herbal brand in the market place.

Four Elements Herbals recently used a Value-Added Producer Grant to support the expansion of their product line, which in turn drove significant growth in the business overall. Jane shares her experiences managing growth and moving into a national market, as well as how she has passed the field production torch to a new generation and the ways that her job has changed as her business has grown.

We also learn the meaning of the word, “garble.”

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

Erich Schultz owns and operates Steadfast Farm, a certified organic farm in the heart of a suburban community on the outskirts of Phoenix, Arizona. With 3 acres of vegetables, over six acres of orchard, and a passel of livestock, Steadfast Farm is the neighborhood amenity in the Agritopia development – an alternative to the golf courses and swimming pools that often anchor suburban developments.

Steadfast Farm sells produce through restaurants in the neighborhood and around Phoenix, through a farmstand, at farmers markets, and through a CSA.

Farming in suburbia comes with its own challenges, as does farming in the desert Southwest, and Erich fills us on the ways he has made the most of both. We discuss how he’s leveraged his neighborhood for marketing, how he manages irrigation, the evolution of Steadfast Farm’s livestock rotation, and how he has moved away from the intensive mechanization he started with.

We also get into the details of the arrangement Erich has with the developers and owners of the farmland, and how the neighborhood has managed some of the complications of having an urban farm.

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

Patrice Gros farms on just a half an acre of beds in northern Arkansas without ever tilling the soil. And while it sounds like gardening, he’s definitely farming, grossing $80,000 a year from the crops he grows. Founded in 2006, Foundation Farm builds on ten years of experimentation with various methods for growing organic vegetables, and markets produce through farmers markets, retail stores, and a small CSA.

It’s worth noting that Patrice keeps a pretty sharp pencil, and rakes in a 70% profit margin doing all of his farming in just three mornings a week with a small crew. And I do want to emphasize, the no-till farming that Patrice does isn’t just an occasional no-till crop here and there. He doesn’t own a tractor or a tiller, and doesn’t even use a broadfork on his soils.

We dig in to – or rake in to – the details of how he manages his system, from scheduling and weed control to fertility management. Along the way, we explore how Patrice has planned his farming operation around his family’s needs, how he evaluates crop profitability, and his efforts to balance productivity and quality of life with his employees.

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

At Bluebird Gardens in Fergus Falls, Minnesota, Mark Boen farms 320 acres with his wife, Diane, and a crew of ten employees. Starting with six acres in 1978 selling produce at a farmstand, they grew Bluebird Gardens to over 2,000 CSA members and 80 drop sites in far northwestern Minnesota and the Fargo/Moorhead metro

Mark is an enthusiastic farmer, and his zeal for the craft shows when he shares how he has transitioned the farm to include a year-on, year-off rotation of cover crops and vegetables. We get into the nuts and bolts of the Bluebird Gardens cover crop system, including the challenges, planning techniques, and the tools he’s using to establish and manage the cover crops.

Bluebird gardens is also in the midst of a marketing transition, and we delve into the changes Mark is making to make his food accessible to a wider swath of the population than just the customers who are able to make CSA work for their lifestyle. Plans include marketing Bluebird Gardens produce in local grocery stores and increasing agritourism opportunities.

We also get into some of the harvest mechanization Mark has used to manage so many vegetables with a small staff, as well as irrigation and crop planning.

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

John Biernbaum is a professor in the Department of Horticulture at Michigan State University. He has spent most of his career working with farmers to develop practical solutions to the challenges faced by small-scale organic farmers, with research into high tunnels, compost production, organic transplants, intensive vegetable production, and organic soil management.

We dig into the economics and practicalities of worm compost, including methods for low-input, low-energy worm composting through the winter. And we take a look at how farmers can do a better job of transplant production by optimizing the greenhouse environment and developing a transplant production action plan.

I’ve worked with John in a variety of capacities for about fifteen years now, and I am always impressed with the practical, farmer-focused approach he takes to research and teaching.

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

Dan Brisebois was a founding member of Tourne-Sol Cooperative Farm, begun in 2004. Located just outside of Montreal, Quebec, Tourne-Sol is an employee-owned cooperative with five members, engaged in about seven acres of vegetable and vegetable seed production.

Dan provides an eye-opening discussion of his experience as part of a cooperative farming venture, including their use of Holistic Management to guide decision-making with regards to both profitability and quality of life. We dig into some of the logistical details of how the Tourne-Sol farmers plan their business and divide responsibilities, as well as how they make operational decisions together and how they assign leadership responsibilities. And, Dan lets us in on the ways that being part of a co-op allows them to work less than many of the farmers  they know, both day-to-day and seasonally.

Dan manages garlic and seed production at Tourne Sol, and we discuss the details of seed selection and processing, as well as the planning and cropping adjustments that seed production requires. We also spend some time discussing crop planning on the vegetable farm, as Dan is a co-author of Crop Planning for Organic Vegetable Growers.

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