430. My 2025 Compost bin

Snake River Seed Coop and Earthly Delights Farm Internship Program Monday, Martin Luther King Day, January 21, 2019 You are going to love her blog Earthly Delights Farm, at but I invited her here because she runs the Snake River Seed Coop  so here’s Casey O’Leary. Tell us a little about yourself. I’m in Boise, ID I don’t own my own land but I farm on a  3 acre in the city. I farm on about acre and half and share with the landowner who runs a nursery and other farm projects. On our farm we grow about 100 varieties of seed crops for the Snake River Seed Coop   We also have a CSA program I have been doing for the last 15 years, spring and summer 18 week CSA 45 members going a different route, we’re just gonna do a fall CSA pickup. Just one big pickup in the fall of storage crops and instructions on how to store them. Also, spring garden box shares for people who have small urban gardens, we’re making  4×4 garden boxes of seeds and starts I just want to make sure I am understand, you are actually giving them a 4×4 garden bed with the lumber etc, or just the stuff that goes in them? No, we’re assuming they already have the boxes and the soil in those boxes It’s a pretty common thing for Urban gardeners to have some sort of  4×4 or 4×8 box just a way to maximize the amount of food they get out of it and use locally grown seeds Is this your first year offering that? Yes it’s the very first year It’s interesting, you had mentioned in starting market farms I’m in an interesting place because I’ve been running a CSA for 15 years I am getting to the place where I am burnt out In the past I have run this massive internship program that is really involved and a CSA with a lot of moving pieces and a serious commitment all season long. I’ve been wanting a bit of a break, us farmers can’t just take time off in the summer, but just not having to harvest for CSA every single week would feel really nice to...

2 Feb 20191h 5min

Free the Seeds! provides community-powered opportunities to build a sustainable and resilient future through real seeds, real food, and real skills. We look forward to you joining us for our 4th annual Free the Seeds! on March 2, 2019. This year’s fair will be held again in Kalispell at Flathead Valley Community College in the Arts & Technology Building. The fair will open with the seed swap and vendor booths at 9 am. The seed swap will run 9 am–noon. Workshops, booths, and kids’ activities will be held 10 am–3:30 pm, with a 45-minute break for lunch at 12:15 pm. Food will be available for purchase at the event all day. Ready for some inspiration? Check out our workshop videos from the 2017 fair. We look forward to seeing you in March 2019! Free the Seeds! is a program of Farm Hands – Nourish the Flathead, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, whose mission is to reconnect people to the sources of their food and those who produce it through education, outreach, and market support. 2018 Free the Seeds! Last year we handed out between 15-20,000 packets of seeds. Donated by local growers and seed companies. Volunteers who help clean and pack the seeds. Every year we have over 1000 people show up. The event is free at the local community college and there’s events upstairs and downstairs. It’s an incredible lively gathering and information. Resilient Communities Tweet ThisIt’s a great way to learn about growing food and what’s involved in having access to good healthy local food and why that’s important. One example there are folks who process herbs and teach how to make tinctures, and how to grow the herbs for oils, medicinal purposes. Workshops on Herbs ferment your food Sourdough how to raise chickens well taught by experts in the field all from the Valley So this is the 3rd? 4th? We started 4 years ago this is our 4th! Do you want to talk about what tips or tricks have made it successful as it keeps growing? The main thing is we didn’t limit to a sharing of seeds help people get access to quality food for their health and their families health So we made it about sharing seeds information skills inclusion of workshops The whole event is free! That’s important! We don’t sell anything so there are...

1 Feb 201913min

Happy Anniversary to you Green Future Growers. Thank you for letting me be your host of the I hope to finish up the updates to Free Garden Course and the workbook for you this day or this week at the latest! Free Garden Course.com  Free Organic Garden Course  Let’s get growing! This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Spotify Ad Analytics - https://www.spotify.com/us/legal/ad-analytics-privacy-policy/

29 Jan 201911min

Andrea Catherine introduced me to Lindsay Jean Hard who wrote Cooking with Scraps: Turn Your Peels, Cores, Rinds, and Stems into Delicious Meals something I’m super passionate about and learning about. She blogs at this place called Food52, which I love reading and I get their emails it’s always exciting! I was just reading somewhere about broccoli stems were even more nutritious then the florets maybe we’re gonna learn more about nutrition too! Well, i don’t necessarily have a nutrition background but there is a lot to be said as far as nutrients and great things in the peels and things that we tend to discard a lot! There’s benefits to not throwing our scraps away!  Oh year I was loving he sugar peels looked awesome because I’m always trying to get more fruit and fiber in my diet and I think there’s a lot of fiber in the peel right? Tell us a little about yourself. My path to where I am now has been an interesting one Like you said I got my masters in Urban Planning here at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. I worked for our local downtown development authority for a couple of years, so that was a solid 2 years to put masters to good use. Then my husband and I moved to Japan.  The intersection of cooking and writing. We joined a CSA when we were there where we would walk down the street to the local grocery store and pick up a box of vegetables. CSA learning process every week walking into the store to ask what is in my box That’s where I first started thinking about cooking with scraps because I knew these farmers taking this time and energy to grow. putting it all to great use friends of ours from college told us they were going to start Real Time Farms.com resource to find farmers near them and learn about their growing practices and connect with restaurants and see where those restaurants were sourcing their ingredients from It was a really exciting time to be working for a start up We were acquired by Food52.com It’s a food and lifestyle website. I worked for them for 6 years community management <span...

25 Jan 201953min

Today, I’m excited to introduce my guest from Tara Austen Weaver who’s written a book about growing Growing Berries and Fruit Trees in the Pacific Northwest: How to Grow Abundant, Organic Fruit in Your Backyard I know that you are going to love this because it’s got lots of great tips for anyone living anywhere not just in the Northwest and I’m super excited because last summer I was visiting Nola’s yard last summer because her blueberries were amazing and I am bound and determined to grow some this year! And there’s just so much to learn so welcome to the show! Tell us a little about yourself. My mom had a giant organic garden! I guess I’m sort of a second generation gardener I actually grew up not really liking to garden I liked playing and running around but weeding seemed like drudgery to me! I have all these very visceral memories of just being out in the garden and sunshine, my mom would pop cherry tomatoes into our mouths when we were kids, because we just picked it in the sunshine! fruit that was warm from a tree So I have all these really positive memories of being in a garden but not doing any work! I was living in San Francisco in my late 20s, early 30s I started coming back around to the idea of gardening I remember one year for my birthday I got the idea to build these window boxes ~ I had gotten into cooking. I wanted to grow herbs. It is so irritating to buy a whole bunch of parsley when you just need a sprig. I lugged these boxes home and I’m dangling out this window and holding this heavy drill and I got them put up and filled them with soil and nestled my tiny little herbs and was so so pleased!  Then within a week or two, I noticed the sage leaves had this kind of white stuff on it. I was concerned and I lived on the foggy side of the city and thought oh my is this is fungus or blight on my herbs and when I went to investigate I discovered it was pigeon poop and I realized I wasn’t gonna be a gardener in the city.  It wasn’t till I moved to Seattle about 10 years ago that everything fell into place, Seattle has such a giant gardening community!  Everyone here it seems even if they just grow beautiful yards edible ones and everyone is out working and tending vegetables I got bitten by the gardening bug quickly used up all of the area didn’t have much of a yard I got a community garden plot started studying permaculture Eventually my mother moved up to Seattle and bought a house on half an acre! For the last 9 years we have been collaborating The Neglected Orchard there were 9 fruit trees on the property but they were engulfed in blackberries <p...

15 Jan 201957min

Today, I’m excited to introduce my guest from Tara Austen Weaver who’s written a book about growing Growing Berries and Fruit Trees in the Pacific Northwest: How to Grow Abundant, Organic Fruit in Your Backyard I know that you are going to love this because it’s got lots of great tips for anyone living anywhere not just in the Northwest and I’m super excited because last summer I was visiting Nola’s yard last summer because her blueberries were amazing and I am bound and determined to grow some this year! And there’s just so much to learn so welcome to the show! To read the full shownotes click here. Tell us a little about yourself. My mom had a giant organic garden! It wasn’t till I moved to Seattle about 10 years ago that everything fell into place, Seattle has such a giant gardening community!  Everyone here it seems even if they just grow beautiful yards edible ones and everyone is out working and tending vegetables I got bitten by the gardening bug quickly used up all of the area didn’t have much of a yard I got a community garden plot started studying permaculture Eventually my mother moved up to Seattle and bought a house on half an acre! Tell us about something that grew well this year. I’m coming off not a fantastic garden year, because I moved this spring! I wasn’t thinking it through thinking I could move and garden and that didn’t really happen! Perennial gardening is growing obsession I have a busy life and in the summer I also like to go hiking. I am really really interested in those things that don’t need as much help and tending as lettuce and peas do those twelve blueberry bushes were fine and asked nothing of me!  master recipes I have developed over the years this jam crisp you can make with any fruit the other thing people don’t realize commercial growers grow certain varieties because they stand up to transport that will stand up on the shelf. There are a lot of amazing varieties that don’t get grown commercially because they are just too fragile. My favorite strawberry variety is called Shushkan not grown commercially They really need to be processed within 24 hours They have the most amazing flavor Is there something you would do different...

15 Jan 201957min

I just want you to get  a copy of Orchard House: How a Neglected Garden Taught One Family to Grow I interviewed Tara Austin Weaver and hope to release the full version of my interview today, but in the mean time, I think you should go to your library or local book store and pick up a copy of her inspiring and delightful memoire. You can order her amazing book Growing Berries and Fruit Trees in the Pacific Northwest: How to Grow Abundant, Organic Fruit in Your Backyard   on amazon in advance and while you’re waiting for it to come I recommend you read Orchard House: I guarantee it will inspire you to grow some food, grow some berries, and love your family! It brought back so many memories for me of growing up with mother (and then marrying a man) who never stood still out in the garden. Something always needed (needs) pruned, pulled, weeded or tendered. Her dedication to creating an oasis for her nieces to enjoy and her relationship with her family will probably bring back memories of growing up and sharing time together around food. A delightful read from start to finish, nothing better on a cool winter day when you can’t get outside yourself! Growing Berries and Fruit Trees in the Pacific Northwest: How to Grow Abundant, Organic Fruit in Your Backyard   So don’t forget order her new book and read the memoire and leave her a review on Amazon so more people will be inspired as well! The Organic Gardener Podcast is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com and don’t forget if you need help getting started check out our new  Free Garden Course.com  Free Organic Garden Course  Remember you can get the  2018 Garden Journal and Data Keeper to record your garden goals in our<img class="alignnone wp-image-54193 aligncenter"...

15 Jan 20196min

I’m so excited because is gonna energize us and it’s Sunday January 6th and I just talked with Lindsey Jean Hard yesterday who wrote the book Cooking With Scraps! Cooking with Scraps: Turn Your Peels, Cores, Rinds, and Stems into Delicious Meals Hi everyone! I’m glad you got a chance to talk to Lindsay Jean and I interviewed her and it was really valuable. I have the cookbook in hand! Today, I want to share what I am up to in this transition the holidays I’ve been making things like polenta And craving cooling herbs mint cilantro coconut! Shredded coconut and coconut milk recognizing my body’s wanting to cool off from the inflammatory foods of the holidays! IDK if anyone is experiencing that. I can totally relate except in a different sense. I was really good during the holidays, it’s more of an after the holidays problem. I went home, had a great  holiday with my family! I hadn’t been the four of us, my parents and my brother and I, and especially with my brother and I and just thankful to soak up all of that love! And maybe a little more gluten and sugar then I normally eat my body was really feeling that for a while I got home still wanted nourishing foods I had this cornmeal from Wicked Good Farm polenta! Last night we had friends over, and so I put a whole chicken in a crock pot chicken had been with tomatoes onions peppers put that over polenta! We also made polenta fries! I’m happy to tell how to make those things using organic cornmeal and having something different then just flour is really nice! I feel like I get that nourishment without getting inundated with sweet things! How do you make polenta fries? I just saw something on Facebook about vegan quinoa nuggets! There was a restaurant in Ann Arbor that had really good polenta fries! I think it was Grizzly Peak Brewing Company. Make polenta like you would 1 cup fine to medium cornmeal to 4 cups of water you can...

14 Jan 201917min