Ben Flanner raises over two acres of vegetables on two rooftop farms in New York. His Brooklyn Grange provides over 50,000 pounds of produce every year to restaurants, stores, farmers markets, and a 70-member CSA. We talk about the nuts and bolts of establishing a rooftop farming operation, the unique challenges of farming above the eleventh story, tools, distribution strategies, and how Brooklyn Grange has incorporated events hosting and outreach into its operation.
The Farmer to Farmer Podcast is generously supported by Vermont Compost Company.
Steve Tomlinson manages Great Road Farm just four miles from downtown Princeton, New Jersey. Making its home on 112 acres, Great Road Farm has over seven acres in vegetable production in close partnership with Agricola restaurant in Princeton. A graduate of Brooklyn’s Pratt Institute, Steve worked for artists Christo and Jeane Claude to build an expansive installation titled “The Gates” in Central Park, and managed a warehouse before starting over working on farms after the 2008 financial crash. We talk about how Steve leveraged his background outside of agriculture into managing Great Road Farm, the joys and challenges of working for a farm that is owned by a restaurateur, and the nuts and bolts of working with the chefs and restaurant to meet their needs and the farm’s.
The Farmer to Farmer Podcast is generously supported by Vermont Compost Company.
J.M. Fortier is the author of the award-winning book, The Market Gardener. At his farm in Quebec, J.M. and his wife raise 1 ½ acres of produce in permanent raised beds, grossing over $100,000 per acre. His biologically intensive farming practices have inspired readers around the world to imagine human-scale food systems, with a focus on intelligent farm design, appropriate technologies, and harnessing the power of soil biolog. We talk about how J.M. and his wife came to their farm in Quebec, how they developed their approach to farming, and get into the nitty gritty of farming practices at Les Jardin de la Grelinette, including the proper use of the broadfork, J.M.’s approach to record-keeping, minimum tillage, and where to find the best waves for surfing in Montreal.
The Farmer to Farmer Podcast is generously supported by Vermont Compost Company.
Karl Hammer is the founder and president of Vermont Compost Company. Vermont Compost collects food waste and manure in central Vermont, and adds it to grass, tree bark, and chickens on the farm to create a compost that serves as the basis for potting soils that have created raving fans all over the United States. Karl is a font of knowledge about all things soil, plant, and long-eared equine, and we tap into just a corner of that here with the history of Vermont Compost Company from Karl’s start as a young boy shoveling manure in Vershire, Vermont to its modern-day national distribution, with plenty of detours into soil, society, and the potential for great compost to catalyze the recapture of carbon on farmland.
The Farmer to Farmer Podcast is generously supported by Vermont Compost Company.
Clay Bottom Farm’s Ben Hartman is the author of The Lean Farm, a book on minimizing waste and increasing efficiency on the vegetable farm. He has farmed full time for the past ten years with his wife, Rachel, in Goshen, Indiana, where they’re both making a living on less than an acre of production, selling 90 percent of their produce within ten miles of the farm. Of course, we talk about applying the lean methodology on the modern market farm, including the basics of creating value, establishing pull with customers, and the 5S pillars of the lean cycle: sort, set in order, shine, standardize, and sustain the cycle. Plus, we get into some cool details about how Clay Bottom Farm keeps produce cold at CSA drop sites, how they design a CSA share, marketing and pricing strategies at farmer’s markets, and how a stupid little sticky note makes them thousands of dollars each year.
The Farmer to Farmer Podcast is generously supported by Vermont Compost Company.