Greg gets a chance to talk to Perrine, a delightful French organic farmer and permaculture enthusiast and hear how she transformed her life by ditching her career as a lawyer to start a self-sufficient, organic farm without any gasoline driven engines at all. Now, she and her husband are examples to others on how to successfully farm the old-fashioned way.
Longtime farmer Josh talks with Greg to explain his concept of making small farms the most productive and his background really helps give him an edge for understanding and explaining this to our listeners. It is clear he is driven to help others understand what he learned about making small farms work.
Fellow permaculturist and gardener Cricket Aldridge joins Greg in the studio to talk about her urban farm and how much she loves everything about it. She tells about some of her favorite aspects and what she’s able to grow or make from her harvests, from canning to mead making and many other things besides.
Editor’s note: Our friends at PartnerSelect and Ghergich & Co teamed up to make this infographic all about CSAs. View it below to learn more about what they are, why they are important, and how to make the most of your CSA!
By Anne-Marie Miller. About twice a year I make a trip to my favorite horse barn to pick up a load of well-composted horse manure for my garden. When I say “pick up” that makes it sound so easy.
Greg talks to a former lawyer Robin Kelson who now runs The Good Seed Company. She shares her story about the unexpected transition in her life leading her to her work around seeds. One of the big events in her new life is an epic community event focused on seed saving and sharing. She also explains why the company is using seeds from backyard growers.
Greg has found an east coast twin when he talks to a fruit tree farmer named Michael Phillips who has been growing apple trees in New Hampshire with a care that works for the health of the trees and the ecosystem in which they live. Michael grows and sells fruit trees and he focuses a lot of offering tree growing education as well. He shares his main points of growing healthy fruit trees and explains why some of the steps are so beneficial to trees.
Maximizing functions from landscape elements to save time, energy and money. Greg meets Shawn who explains a key permaculture concept of having multiple functions from one element. Shawn tells how he has designed many projects focusing on elements that have at least seven functions each. With his experience, he has brought together several examples in his new book and so he shares some ideas in this interview.
Being green is all about having less of a negative impact on the planet and here Greg chats with Quita who has fully adopted a new lifestyle and loves helping others find their way into it as well. Quita tells how she got the courage to start gardening, and how that gave her confidence to try new ways to become self-sufficient even while living in a major city. Her encouraging attitude and caring nature helps as she spreads the word about little steps people can take in their own lives.
Greg talks to Brian Smith, a transplant to Arizona who needed to improve his gardening results and found out about biochar. Brian explains the process that was used over 2000 years ago, to transform burned wood into a long lasting organic super buffet with nutrients galore. He tells how he was so interested in the results that he took his research to the point that he can now make his own biochar in his backyard.
