The Urban Farm Podcast with Greg Peterson

Adding some sweet and spice to life through delicious fruit jams.In This Podcast:A simple request to help fill a charity basket for cancer patients has turned into a small food-craft business for Jan McCarthy. Acting on the request of her son to help out a charity event, Jan made a few jars of jam.  Little did she realize how popular they would become, especially once she put her own special twist of adding hot peppers to some of her recipes. She tells about some of the steps she needed to go through to make her business legit, as well as some tips to making good jams.Jan worked in her parents’ bakery from age 12 until she was 32 when she went back to school to be a para legal which she has done for 30 years. Ready to put some of the high stress of the legal world behind her, she was willing to try something new so as a favor to her son she started making jams for community projects of the Joy Bus Diner. Now her specialty is making hot spicy jams.  Go to https://www.urbanfarm.org/2018/01/27/326-jan-mccarthy/ for more information and links on this podcast, and to find our other great guests.

Operating a small-scale diversified farm.In This Podcast:Growing up in an urban community in Chicago would not normally lead a person to choose a farming lifestyle, but during her college years several things led her to the agriculture career she has now. Liz Whitehurst tells us about the nudges that pushed her this direction as well as the amazing opportunity that came her way at the right time.  She also shares some useful tips that can help any new farmer who is working their own CSA program. We also hear about a heartwarming story of her five-year old customer who missed his peashoots!Liz is the owner/operator of Owl’s Nest Farm, small-scale diversified vegetable farm 15 miles outside Washington, DC.  Before starting her farm, she worked on a wide variety of farms and gardens as a grower and educator, including the Arcadia Center for Sustainable Agriculture and Angelic Organics Learning Center.Owl’s Nest Farm grows unique, delicious, nutritious, diverse vegetables, herbs, flowers and fruit on four acres. Liz was recently featured in a Washington Post article about how young farmers are changing the food system.Go to https://www.urbanfarm.org/2018/01/23/325-liz-whitehurst/ for more information and links on this podcast, and to find our other great guests.

Bonus Episode 9: Seed Chat, September 2017A chat with an expert on Seeds, Bill McDormanIn This Bonus Podcast: There is always a bounty of information available in conversations with Bill McDorman. This is the September 2017 episode with a Seed School Chat Class continuing the conversation on Seed Saving Principles, Intellectual Property rights, Seed Saving policy history, and so much more.Bill McDorman is Executive Director of Rocky Mountain Seed Alliance, Ketchum, Idaho. He got his start in the bio-regional seed movement while in college in 1979 when he helped start Garden City Seeds. In 1984, Bill started Seeds Trust/High Altitude Gardens, a mail order seed company he ran successfully until it sold in 2013.Go to https://www.urbanfarm.org/2018/01/20/bonus-episode-9/ for more show notes and links on this bonus podcast, and to find our other great guests.

Making the most of small spaces for gardens.In This Podcast: Returning guest Jessica Walliser opens our eyes and minds to working in small spaces with container gardens.  She worked hard to make a comprehensive book with important steps and key details for those who wish to make a container work for growing their vegetables, fruits and flowers too. And we get a few ideas for containers too.Our Returning guest Horticulturist Jessica co-hosts The Organic Gardeners, an award-winning program on KDKA Radio in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and serves on the Editorial Advisory Board of The American Horticultural Society.In addition. she is also the author of several gardening books including the Amazon best-seller Good Bug, Bad Bug: Who’s Who, What They Do, and How to Manage Them Organically, and her fourth book, Attracting Beneficial Bugs to the Garden: A Natural Approach to Pest Control, which was awarded the American Horticultural Society's 2014 Book Award.Go to https://www.urbanfarm.org/2018/01/16/324-jessica-walliser/ for more information and links on this podcast, and to find our other great guests.

Growing crops and raising livestock in urban spaces.In This Podcast: Returning guest Kari Spencer talks about her first book City Farming, and shares about some of the key aspects of farming in a city space.  She visited several farms to research other perspectives and methods and gathered all the data into this book. She also tells about how it is so jam packed with information that part of the book had to go digital.  There are several great ideas to help urban farmers gain confidence and overcome some challenges.Kari is a popular local gardening & homesteading speaker. As a Master Gardener and a Master Farmer, she enjoys sharing her passion for growing and raising food with others. In addition to teaching classes all over the city of Phoenix, she is the creator of Urban Farm U’s Growing Food the Basics & Backyard Livestock courses.She and her family operate The Micro Farm Project, a small farm in North Phoenix, where gardens and livestock animals provide her family with fun and food. Her new book City Farming: How-To Guide to Growing Crops & Raising Livestock in Urban Spaces, by 5MPublishing has just been released.Go to https://www.urbanfarm.org/2018/01/13/323-kari-spencer/ for more information and links on this podcast, and to find our other great guests.

Checking for the presence of pesticide in our food.In This Podcast:A youth spent on an organic sheep farm, and early adulthood spent traveling as a journalist led Henry Rowlands to the development of Sustainable Pulse – a news source dedicated to informing on sustainable agriculture. He now leads up the Detox Project which helps increase awareness of pesticide exposure in our foods and our bodies, and is spreading the word about a testing process that can determine pesticide levels in foods or bodies.  This is information that can be used to help determine the toxicity of chemicals in use today.Henry was raised on a family-run, organic sheep farm in Wales.  This led to his deep interest in issues related to sustainable agriculture, and he worked for a time as a news agency journalist in many countries across Europe.  He eventually moved on to set up Sustainable Pulse, a global news source focusing on sustainable agriculture and food, with a readership of over 500,000 people per month from over 125 countries.  He is also an adviser on sustainable agriculture to several governments in the European Union.Beyond their news platform, Sustainable Pulse is involved in several reference projects, all of which have the aim of educating the public on the problems surrounding the overuse of pesticides.  Henry is the Project Director for their program called The Detox Project, which has set up a unique pesticide testing platform for food and our bodies across America.Go to https://www.urbanfarm.org/2018/01/09/322-henry-rowlands/ for more information and links on this podcast, and to find our other great guests.

Attuning our minds to social permaculture solutions.In This Podcast:When given the opportunity to make an abandon greenhouse become useful Adam Brock and a few friends created the GrowHaus.  He has traveled many places focusing on the invisible structures of permaculture design and has crafted a course that teaches how to see the needs and make a difference in your community. He tells us how this came about and why he was encouraged to write a book on a topic that is not well known. Adam helps explain many permaculture concepts that are important but often left undeveloped when discussing the stages of design.    Adam is a facilitator, author, and designer working at the intersection of urban agriculture, sustainable business, and social change. As co-founder of The GrowHaus, Adam helped transform an abandoned half-acre greenhouse in Colorado's most polluted zip code into an award-winning hub for urban agriculture. The GrowHaus engages thousands of low-income residents per year, grows 1500 heads of lettuce per week, and has a million-dollar annual budget.A certified permaculture designer since 2008, Adam is active in the local and national permaculture communities. In May 2017, Adam released his first book, Change Here Now: Permaculture Strategies for Personal and Community Transformation (North Atlantic Books). It is a “recipe book” of solutions for social change grounded in ecological principles.Go to https://www.urbanfarm.org/2018/01/06/321-adam-brock/ for more information and links on this podcast, and to find our other great guests.

Documenting the histories of seeds in Baker Creek Catalogs.In This Podcast: Traveling the world to get the unique seeds and document their stories – a dream job for a writer and gardener like Shannon McCabe.  She tells us a little more about how she got started working for Baker Creek Seeds and some of the perks of working for a visionary like Jere Gettle. She also shares about the upcoming Seed Expo in California in the Fall and the donation program for non-profits and school programs.Shannon is a writer who found her passion melded beautifully with farming and growing heirloom vegetables when she landed the perfect job as the farm manager and catalog writer at Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company.  She has traveled the world as a seed explorer for Baker Creek, from cycling the tulip fields in Netherlands in search of rare bulbs, to the remote jungle markets of the Peruvian Amazon in search of rare fruit.Shannon co-writes the award winning Whole Seed Catalog, and dreamt up the Baker Creek children’s gardening book. She has enjoyed bringing the arcane heirloom vegetables of our past back to the foreground of the gardening discussion.Shannon strives to make growing heirloom varieties approachable to every gardener, from the children who read her kids books, to the large scale organic farmer reading her variety descriptions in the catalog.Go to https://www.urbanfarm.org/2018/01/02/320-shannon-mccabe/ for more information and links on this podcast, and to find our other great guests.

Translating fowl language for urban farmers.In This Podcast:After moving all the way across the country, Melissa Caughey shares why she added chickens to her family.  She tells about how, with her science and teaching background, she eventually started teaching people about chickens. Always learning, she discovered there is a fowl language that could be understood and started teaching others how to Speak Chicken. She coaches Greg through a few key calls that, once translated, will be obvious to anyone who keeps chickens.Melissa is the author of How to Speak Chicken and A Kid’s Guide to Keeping Chickens published by our friends at Storey Publishing. She is a backyard chicken keeper, beekeeper, and gardener who writes the award-winning blog Tilly’s Nest. She writes for HGTV, DIY Network, and the magazines Grit, Chickens, Community Chickens, and Country Living. She also gives presentations on chicken keeping at events across the country. She lives on Cape Cod, Massachusetts.Go to https://www.urbanfarm.org/2017/12/30/319-melissa-caughey/ for more information and links on this podcast, and to find our other great guests.

Recognizing the connections between insects and plant life.In This Podcast:Several years into running a landscaping company, a few key employees opened Jessica Walliser's eyes to the importance of avoiding pesticides. Taking the time to educate herself, she converted to a whole new mindset and is now an avid teacher about natural pest control. She tells us about the predator-prey cycle and why we need to stay out of the process as much as possible, and shares a few tips on how to help the population of beneficial bugs grow in your space. We hear descriptions of several types of insects and bugs that are part of healthy ecosystems in gardens and farms.Jessica earned her degree in Horticulturist from Penn State University and co-hosts “The Organic Gardeners”, an award-winning program on KDKA Radio in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and serves on the Editorial Advisory Board of The American Horticultural Society. She is a regular contributor to Fine Gardening, Urban Farm, and Hobby Farms magazines, and her two weekly gardening columns for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review have been enjoyed by readers for over ten years. Jessica also blogs weekly for both SavvyGardening.com and HobbyFarms.com.She is also the author of several gardening books including the Amazon best-seller Good Bug, Bad Bug: Who’s Who, What They Do, and How to Manage Them Organically (St Lins Press), and Attracting Beneficial Bugs to the Garden: A Natural Approach to Pest Control (Timber Press), which was awarded the American Horticultural Society's 2014 Book Award.Go to https://www.urbanfarm.org/2017/12/26/318-jessica-walliser/ for more information and links on this podcast, and to find our other great guests.