24: Don Abbott on Urban Farming while Renting

24: Don Abbott on Urban Farming while Renting

Today on the Urban Farm Podcast, we are joined by Don Abbott, also known as The Snarky Gardener, as he shares his experience growing food while being a renter.

The Snarky Gardener (aka Don Abbott) is a gardener, blogger, author, educator, speaker, reluctant activist, and permaculture practitioner from Kent Ohio. Professionally he’s a software developer but spends his spare time producing food at Snarky Acres, his rented .91 acre urban farm. His blog – thesnarkygardener.com – assists others with growing food in Northeastern Ohio and beyond. He is also the founder of the Kent Ohio chapter of Food Not Lawns. In Spring 2015, he received his Permaculture Design Certification from Cleveland Ohio based Green Triangle. Please like him on Facebook as he likes to be liked.
He became the Snarky Gardener, living in a rental property, when he had been a gardener for just a short time, but he had been snarky and sarcastic his whole life. 🙂
Don is now blogging for Mother Earth News, and his first post was about Gardening While Renting.
Don teaches beginning gardening and seed saving. He has a seed library and puts together putty packages. He lives at Snarky Acres.

At time stamp 11:03 [New word]: Hugelkultur: the ultimate raised garden beds filled with rotten wood. This makes for raised garden beds loaded with organic material, nutrients, air pockets for the roots of what you plant, etc. As the years pass, the deep soil of your raised garden bed becomes incredibly rich and loaded with soil life. As the wood shrinks, it makes more tiny air pockets – so your hugelkultur becomes sort of self tilling. The first few years, the composting process will slightly warm your soil giving you a slightly longer growing season.

New Project:
Don is writing a book! He is 60% done and will be published in the spring. He will join us when he publishes his book.

Where to find Don:

TheSnarkyGardener.com
Kent Food Not Lawns
Facebook: The Snarky Gardener