Dylan Strike has been the owner of Strike Farms in Bozeman, Montana, since 2014. In 2017, he increased production from four acres to fourteen in order to edge out national produce players in his local grocery stores. Strike Farms also markets through a CSA throughout the greater Bozeman region. We dig into the nuts and bolts behind the dramatic expansion at Strike Farms, including how Dylan financed the expansion and associated land purchase. Dylan gets real as he discusses the challenges of put...
Nov 23, 2017•1 hr 29 min
Corinna and Kurt Bench raise a little under ten acres of certified organic vegetables at Shared Legacy Farms in Elmore, Ohio. With 400 CSA shares and a 78% retention rate, Corrina and Kurt have created a values-based business on family land that is supporting them in their tenth year of business. We take a deep dive into how Corinna and Kurt create a connection with and market to their CSA members – a system that has resulted in them being 94% sold out seven months before their CSA program start...
Nov 16, 2017•1 hr 22 min
Marja Smets and Bo Varsano raise an intensive three-quarters of an acre of vegetables at Farragut Farm, located across a lot of water from Petersburg, Alaska. Selling vegetables for eight years in what may be the most remote and difficult-to-access vegetable farm in the country, Marja and Bo make a living moving their vegetables to market on a boat when the tide is high. We dig into the details of farm management when local amendments are the only real option, and when you get 120 inches of rain...
Nov 09, 2017•1 hr 31 min
Wendy and Asher Burkhart-Spiegel raise about twelve acres of vegetables at Common Thread CSA in Madison, New York, in the central part of the state. With twenty years of experience doing CSA, Wendy and Asher have continued to emphasize CSA in their current operation, with additional sales at farmers markets and to wholesale accounts. At Common Thread, Wendy and Asher maintain a community-focused vision for the farm. Prior to Common Thread, Wendy and Asher managed a non-profit CSA farm in Poughke...
Nov 02, 2017•1 hr 20 min
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 runnin...
Oct 26, 2017•1 hr 20 min
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 marketi...
Oct 19, 2017•1 hr 17 min
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 se...
Oct 12, 2017•1 hr 30 min
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 strategie...
Oct 05, 2017•1 hr 28 min
Kelly Kingsland and Russell Poe raise about an acre-and-a-half of produce at Affinity Farm in Moscow, Idaho. With sales to a farmers market, a small CSA, and restaurant and retail stores, Kelly and Russell have created a lean, smart, and profitable farm that has provided a “right livelihood” for sixteen years. We dig in to the values that have informed their decision-making and market development, including their decision to farm in a the small-but-progressive city of Moscow. Kelly and Russell t...
Sep 28, 2017•1 hr 32 min
Shawn Kuhn of Vitruvian Farms raises about five acres of vegetables with his business partner, Tommy Stauffer, in McFarland, Wisconsin, just outside of Madison. Vitruvian Farms raises a little bit of everything, and a lot of salad greens, so we dig into the ins and outs producing 1,200 pounds of salad greens a week, from bed shaping and weed control through harvest and delivery. Shawn shares the ways they have – and have not – mechanized their salad production, and how they make this intensive l...
Sep 21, 2017•1 hr 16 min
Sam Hitchcock Tilton studies weed control at Michigan State University, where he went to study after two years of pushing a wheel through clay soil on his own farm, and more years of working for other farmers. His graduate-student work on in-row weed control in vegetable crops has led him to explore the various elements that go into setting up for weed control success. Sam draws on his experience on farms, a visit to Europe to learn about and evaluate precision weed-control tools, and his work i...
Sep 14, 2017•1 hr 27 min
Ruth Chantry raises a little under four acres of vegetables, plus eggs, pork, and beef, with her husband Evrett Lunquist at Common Good Farm, just a little way outside of Lincoln, Nebraska. With sales to their 65-member CSA, farmers markets, and wholesale accounts, Ruth and Evrett make a full-time living on twenty acres of ground. Common Good Farm is certified organic and certified biodynamic. Ruth spells out the practical implications of biodynamic farming at Common Good Farm, how it fits into ...
Sep 07, 2017•1 hr 16 min
Barb and Dave Perkins raise 30 acres of vegetables at Vermont Valley Community Farm in Blue Mounds, Wisconsin, where they’ve farmed since 1994. Packing 850 CSA boxes each week, Barb and Dave work hard to keep their CSA community active in the farm with festivals, community days, and worker shares. We take a deep dive into how their worker share program functions, and how it fits into their overall labor strategy – a strategy that includes two adult children in management positions on the farm. B...
Aug 31, 2017•1 hr 35 min
Jeff and Elise Higley of Oshala Farm in southwest Oregon’s Applegate Valley raise 37 acres of medicinal and culinary herbs for the wholesale herb market, as well as for direct- and value-added production. Jeff and Elise provide insights into their business model for working with medicinal herbs, and how they went about getting the business established. We discuss how they balance labor needs, infrastructure utilization, and production cycle for over 70 annual, perennial, and biennial crops, and ...
Aug 24, 2017•1 hr 27 min
Laura Davis farms about two-and-a-quarter acres of vegetables at Long Life Farm in suburban Hopkinton, Massachusetts, with her husband, Donald Sutherland. Laura started farming after she was laid off from her 30-year career in the medical device business, and she and Donald farm full time, selling their produce to a CSA and two farmers markets. Laura was attracted for farming through a passion for soil science, and has put a lot of effort into re-mineralizing her soils. We discuss her approach t...
Aug 17, 2017•1 hr 17 min
Anne Cure has farmed at Cure Organic Farm with her husband, Paul, since 2005. Six miles east of Boulder, Colorado, Cure Organic Farm’s 15 acres of vegetables, 85 pigs, and eggs from 300 laying hens are sold through a CSA, restaurants, farmers markets, and an on-farm store. Anne tells the story of how she and Paul started as full-time farmers with four acres of vegetables, and how they gained expertise and built infrastructure as they expanded their vegetable production and the diversity of their...
Aug 10, 2017•1 hr 26 min
Chad Wasserman owns and operates Chad’s Organics in Hilo, Hawaii, on the west side of Hawaii’s Big Island. After farming up to an acre outdoors, Chad recently moved his entire farm indoors, focusing on 5,000 square feet of production under plastic to provide himself with a living from the herbs and vegetables that he markets to stores, restaurants, and a very small CSA. With over eighty inches of rain each year and no frost – or even cool weather! – to kill off or slow down pests and diseases, H...
Aug 03, 2017•1 hr 36 min
Chris Jagger is the owner and operator of Blue Fox Farm, an organic vegetable farm in the Applegate Valley of southern Oregon. He is also the owner and head consultant for Blue Fox Agricultural Services, a full-service agricultural supply and consultation company focusing on ecological solutions for the modern farmer. Both his farm and his agricultural services use living soils as a foundation to scale farming operations efficiently and profitably. We discuss the changes Chris has seen in the or...
Jul 27, 2017•1 hr 21 min
John Stoddard and Lindsay Allen work together at Higher Ground Farm, a rooftop farming operation with two locations in Boston. John is the founder of the business and operator of the site at the Boston Design Center, and Lindsay runs the new site at the Boston Medical Center. Higher Ground sells to restaurants and direct to consumers, and provides produce the Boston Medical Center cafeteria, patient food service, and a preventative food pantry. We dig into the fundamentals of rooftop farming, in...
Jul 20, 2017•1 hr 20 min
Brendan Grant raises six acres of vegetables plus laying hens, Highland cattle, and a hundred acres of hay with his wife, Marcelle Paulin, at Sleepy G Farm, just east of Thunder Bay, Ontario, on the north shore of Lake Superior. The only certified organic farm for 500 miles around in Canada, Sleepy G’s produce is marketed through a 150-member CSA, grocery stores, a farmers market, and a small on-farm store. Brendan shares his techniques for bringing new land into production, and delves into the ...
Jul 13, 2017•1 hr 28 min
Ray Tyler raises about an acre of salad greens at Rose Creek Farms in Selmer, Tennessee, about two hours east of Memphis and three hours west of Nashville. He farms with his wife, Ashley, and his five children, as well as employees. Produce is sold at farmers market, through a CSA, and to grocery stores in Memphis. Ray tells the story of his farm from its start as a mixed vegetable and livestock operation in 2010 to its current focus on specialty salad greens, baby root vegetables, and tomatoes ...
Jul 06, 2017•1 hr 35 min
Less than one percent of the people farming in Minnesota are Latino, and Eduardo Rivera is one of them. His operation, Sin Fronteras Farm & Food, specializes in producing fresh, healthy, Latino food for restaurants, grocery stores, and a 40-member CSA marketed to the Latino community in Minnesota’s Twin Cities. Eduardo started farming with his infant daughter on his back on a quarter acre of rented ground near Stillwater. The farm has grown to three acres of production, still on rented groun...
Jun 29, 2017•1 hr 17 min
Chris Field farms fourteen acres of ground with his partner, Jessi Okamoto, at Campo Rosso Farm in Gilbertsville, Pennsylvania. Camp Rosso Farm is what happens when two New York foodies decide to start a farm. Chis and Jessi grow a wide variety of very high quality Italian chicories – radicchios, endives, and more – as the cornerstone of their operation, and market through New York City’s Union Square Green Market and wholesale to restaurants in New York City. We dig into how Chris and Jessi lea...
Jun 22, 2017•1 hr 23 min
In this episode, we revisit Jess and Brian Powers at Working Hands Farm, eighteen months after they were first on the show on Episode 040. Since the fall of 2015, Working Hands Farm has gone through some significant changes and phenomenal growth on their property in Hillsboro, Oregon, just outside of Portland on the north end of the Willamette Valley. Jess and Brian have gone from raising four acres of vegetables in 2015 to eight acres now, and have expanded their on-farm CSA to cover 48 weeks o...
Jun 15, 2017•1 hr 38 min
Danny Percich raises vegetables at Full Plate Farm in Ridgefield, Washington, for a ninety-member winter-only CSA. With three acres of mostly-outdoors production, Danny has decided to focus on an underserved niche in the marketplace, enabling him to make a living on a small acreage. We get muddy discussing the challenges of winter production in a climate where it rains all winter. Danny gives us the low-down on how they manage deer predation and vole populations, as well as how he dresses to sta...
Jun 08, 2017•1 hr 28 min
Melanie and Kevin Cunningham own and operate Shakefork Community Farm in Humboldt County, California, where they raise five acres of vegetables and a diversity of livestock, including broilers, egg-layers, pigs, and sheep.. And they do it with oxen – as well as with four-wheeled and two-wheeled tractors. Since their start in 2008, the farm has evolved from an emphasis on small grains to a focus on vegetables and livestock, which they sell through their 120-member CSA and three farmers markets. W...
Jun 01, 2017•1 hr 14 min
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, ...
May 25, 2017•1 hr 18 min
Father and son team Jeff and Zach Hawkins raise two acres of vegetables, 20 acres of grain, and a variety of livestock on 60 additional acres of pasture at the J.L. Hawkins Family Farm outside of North Manchester, Indiana. About half of their sales go through a CSA, with the remained going through farmers markets and local restaurants, as well as an on-farm pizza night. Jeff shares the story of how the farm was started by his grandparents in the mid-1950s, and how he came back and then changed t...
May 18, 2017•1 hr 25 min
Danya Tietelbaum is the co-founder and co-owner of Queen’s Greens, 35 acres of fields and greenhouses in the heart of the Pioneer Valley in Massachusetts. Queen’s Greens’ specialty is what they call “boutique wholesale”, supplying restaurants, retailers, local universities, and regional distributors, with certified organic greens, herbs, and a small selection of other vegetables. Danya digs into why they’ve limited their crop mix and marketing outlets, and the implications that’s had for their b...
May 11, 2017•1 hr 18 min
Jason Weston is a co-owner of Joe’s Gardens in Bellingham, Washington, a five-acre urban farm started in the 1890s. One of the last of the original truck farms in the Bellingham area, Joe’s Gardens sells almost all of its produce retail on site. Jason has become well-known for his innovations with the Planet Junior two-wheeled cultivating tractors that he uses for weed control on his farm, and he provides an introductory tutorial into their features and uses, and how they changed everything for ...
May 04, 2017•1 hr 23 min
