Hobby Farms City

Check out a new episode of our podcast, "Hobby Farms Presents: Growing Good."⁠ ⁠ Texas farmer Keisha Johnson talks career transitions, skill sharing, poultry keeping and more. Hear about Keisha’s career transition from administration and logistics to farming, and her advice for how anyone can take pre-farming-career skills into farm life—”turning your lifestyle into your livelihood.” Keisha talks about growing vegetables in Texas’s hot, arid climate through summer and more mild winter weather, plus her volunteer-potato-growing experiment. (Listen in for her prediction for this winter’s weather!) Learn about Keisha’s White Broad Breasted turkey breeding—a rare thing for this breed to be able to naturally reproduce. She talks, too, about the realities of keeping poultry, including predator pressure. Hear also about the Texas Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association and their conference happening at the end of January 2024. Keisha talks about getting involved as a first-year board member and the new skill-sharing and job board they’re working on getting off the ground. At the very end, Keisha shares her favorite farm meal, sharing a beloved family recipe. ⁠ Listen on Apple, Google, iHeartRadio, Stitcher or your preferred platform, or check it out at hobbyfarms.com/growinggood. And don't forget to subscribe, rate and review—it really does help!

Check out a new episode of our podcast, "Hobby Farms Presents: Growing Good."⁠ Toronto orchardist Susan Poizner talks fruit-tree care, community orcharding and more with Hobby Farms Presents: Growing Good podcast host Lisa Munniksma.⁠ ⁠ Hear about the evolution of the Ben Nobleman Park Community Orchard in Toronto, now in its 15th year. Susan admits to knowing less than she should have about fruit-tree care when she undertook the development of a community orchard and shares her journey through an orcharding self-education. Hear, too, about the volunteers coming together to tend the park’s orchard, pollinator garden and other spaces, and how this community orchard has birthed others.⁠ ⁠ Susan shares her advice for getting started with a fruit tree so you can be set up for success from the start. (Hint: Some cultivars are disease resistant!) ⁠ Also get to know Susan’s books, Growing Urban Orchards and Grow Fruit Trees Fast, her online orcharding courses, and the monthly Urban Forestry Radio Show and Podcast. ⁠ ⁠ Listen on Apple, Google, iHeartRadio, Stitcher or your preferred platform, or check it out at hobbyfarms.com/growinggood. And don't forget to subscribe, rate and review—it really does help!

Check out a new episode of our podcast, "Hobby Farms Presents: Growing Good."⁠ ⁠ Reeba Daniel talks farm to school, land access, leadership in food systems and more on this episode of Hobby Farms Presents: Growing Good.⁠ Reeba talks about their business, Keep Growing Seeds, that allows them to create and manage school gardens, work with “learners” to grow and eat good food, and also examine culture and connection through food. They talk about the benefits and challenges of gardening and garden education in the Pacific Northwest climate of Portland, Oregon, and how they adjust their plans based on the weather. Reeba shares their dream for school gardens and garden education everywhere and why this could be important to all of us.⁠ Hear about Reeba’s own garden, growing and marketing culturally relevant crops from responsibly sourced seeds, and learning about the business side of farming from the Come Thru Market. They talk about the search for farmland, Black land loss and opportunities to create community partnerships for growing space. Learn about some of the value-added products Reeba creates—like vegan honey!—their R&AIRE botanical skincare line, Oregon’s cottage-food laws, and why value-added products are a smart business idea.⁠ Get to know the nonprofit Farmers Market Fund, which matches SNAP purchases at Oregon Farmers Markets. Reeba talks about their experience as a first-time board member—and podcast host Lisa Munniksma gives Reeba (and you!) a pep talk about why “we”—meaning everyday farmers and community members—are fully qualified to serve and actually must serve in leadership roles.⁠ Listen on Apple, Google, iHeartRadio, Stitcher or your preferred platform, or check it out at hobbyfarms.com/growinggood. And don't forget to subscribe, rate and review—it really does help!

Check out a new episode of our podcast, "Hobby Farms Presents: Growing Good."⁠ Amy Glattly talks about gleaning, fermenting, sheep shearing and more in this episode of Hobby Farms Presents: Growing Good. Hear about the Lawrence, Kansas, food and farming scene. Amy talks about how they and fellow farmworkers started a totally volunteer-run gleaning program that donated 3,000 pounds of produce during its first season and involved multiple farmers, restaurants and food-access organizations. Learn about the incubator farm where Amy grows corn, medicinal herbs and garlic, plus their plans for developing their space there. Get to know Amy’s kitchen workings at Wild Alive Ferments, too, sourcing almost all of their produce locally. Learn about Amy’s entree into sheep shearing, from hosting a fundraiser to get them started to an honest assessment about gaining and losing clients. Take notes as Amy goes over what you need to know before your shearer comes to your farm. Finally, hear about Amy’s own podcast, Prairie Ramblings, exploring her favorite things that the prairies of Kansas have to offer, from native plant growers to kombucha. Listen on Apple, Google, iHeartRadio, Stitcher or your preferred platform, or check it out at hobbyfarms.com/growinggood. And don't forget to subscribe, rate and review—it really does help!

Check out a new episode of our podcast, "Hobby Farms Presents: Growing Good."⁠ .⁠ Chicken keeper, gardener and author Frank Hyman (@mushroomswithoutdying) talks about his gardens, chickens, books and more.⁠ .⁠ Hear about Frank’s books, "Hentopia: Create a Hassle-Free Habitat for Happy Chickens" and "How to Forage for Mushrooms Without Dying: An Absolute Beginner’s Guide." Hear about the design of Frank’s chicken pagoda—not just a coop—and some of the time-saving chicken-keeping projects in Frank’s book and his backyard. Learn about the origins of "How to Forage for Mushrooms Without Dying" and how Frank is advocating for all of us to let loose of our fear of fungus.⁠ .⁠ Get to know Frank’s unconventional vegetable garden-ornamental garden-“lawnlet”-chicken area. He shares some garden-design tips, including what Frank calls his No. 1 horticultural technique. Hear about Durham, North Carolina’s, zoning ordinances for lawns and chickens, too.⁠ .⁠ Listen on Apple, Google, iHeartRadio, Stitcher or your preferred platform, or check it out at hobbyfarms.com/growinggood. And don't forget to subscribe, rate and review—it really does help!

Ohio farmer Stephen Mackell talks with podcast host Lisa Munniksma about microgreens, actually sustainable (profitable!) small-scale farming and food access.⁠ Hear about how Stephen found his passion for farming through the magic of starting seeds. Learn about the Mission of Mary Cooperative Farm in Dayton, Ohio, where Stephen started out as a volunteer farm manager and went on to build their community programs for nine years. Stephen explains how the farm came to financially sustain itself with a two-tier CSA being grown on six empty housing lots and eight homemade caterpillar tunnels and greenhouses. He also talks about other food-access programs, including an after-school program that eventually led to food production for the school salad bar and a program to help 100 neighbors start their own gardens.⁠ ⁠ Get to know Stephen’s 1/2-acre Greentable Gardens in Xenia, Ohio, where he and one part-time employee serve a 90-member microgreens, salad and full-vegetable CSA. Learn how Stephen got his garden beds established from lawn to permanent raised beds, including the installation of drainage tiles. Stephen talks about his farming and business efficiencies—hint: microgreens are a year-round, stable source of income—and his farm’s niche as a USDA Certified Organic home-delivery CSA. Get Stephen’s advice for growing microgreens yourself, too.⁠ Hear about how Stephen, as a college student, was inspired to start a curbside-collection compost subscription company, which he then sold. It’s still in business today!⁠ Listen on Apple, Google, iHeartRadio, Stitcher or your preferred platform, or check it out at hobbyfarms.com/growinggood. And don't forget to subscribe, rate and review—it really does help!

Check out a new episode of our podcast, "Hobby Farms Presents: Growing Good."⁠ Kentucky farmer Jann Knappage talks with Hobby Farms Presents: Growing Good podcast host Lisa Munniksma about part-time farming, farmers markets, working behind the scenes in Extension, and food preservation.⁠ ⁠ Get to know Cooperative Extension’s Nutrition Education Program and the behind-the-scenes work that goes into bringing Extension programming to us as farmers and citizens. Jann explains the University of Kentucky’s Recovery Garden Toolkit, bringing gardening programs into substance-use recovery centers; Growing Your Own publications for homesteaders and home gardeners; the Farmers Market Toolkit for farmers markets wanting to reach customers purchasing food with SNAP; and the Cook Wild Kentucky program, promoting the heritage of hunting, fishing and foraging in the state. (You need to hear why Jann had a meeting in a Lowes parking lot in Eastern Kentucky!)⁠ Learn about how the Red River Gorge Farmers Market was born from Jann and her partner’s own dreams of building community and bolstering local farmers’ income. Now in their third season, the market runs two days a week with as many as 40 vendors and features various community programs. Jann gets honest about what it’s like to start and run a farmers market as a volunteer—the good and the less good.⁠ ⁠ Jann also talks about her and her partner’s Fox and Hen Farm and the journey they took through a series of rental properties—including one that involved growing in 5-gallon buckets and another that flooded—for 3 1/2 years until they found a place to call their own. And she shares her hack for getting through food preservation while managing a full-time job, young baby, farmers market and regular life.⁠ Listen to the end for Jann to convince you that you need to be eating beet greens—and to get a creative recipe for using them.⁠ Listen on Apple, Google, iHeartRadio, Stitcher or your preferred

Denà Brummer talks farming, gardening and building a life around food in this episode of Hobby Farms Presents: Growing Good.⁠ .⁠ Hear about Denà’s journey from reading the recipes in Seventeen magazine to throwing epic house parties that were all about the food to studying culinary arts and growing her own food. And now she teaches others about these things! Hear about her new On The Grow business, centered around educating folks about health, lifestyles and habits related to food, picking up where home economics and gardening classes left off. ⁠ Learn about the Garden of Hope community garden, which Denà manages for the City of Hope cancer center. She talks about the Garden of Hope community education programs, kid-powered farmers market, Produce for Patients food distribution and the upcoming Farmacy work-trade program.⁠ Denà tells us about the Multinational Exchange for Sustainable Agriculture nonprofit and its pay-what-you-can networking, international education and fellowship programs. She acts as an Agroecology Fellows Mentor, “breathing life into people’s dreams,” as she explains it. ⁠ Denà shares her personal philosophy behind producing and sharing food, no matter the scale. Hear also about her teaching in the Fundamentals of Food Communication class at the University of Southern California’s Annenburg School of Communication and Journalism.⁠ At the end, Denà shares her favorite food to cook for others. ⁠ Listen on Apple, Google, iHeartRadio, Stitcher or your preferred platform, or check it out at hobbyfarms.com/growinggood. And don't forget to subscribe, rate and review—it really does help!

Check out a new episode of our podcast, "Hobby Farms Presents: Growing Good."⁠ .⁠ St. Louis flower farmer Mimo Davis talks about growing flowers year-round, Black flower farmers, her work as vice president of the Association of Specialty Cut Flower Growers and more!⁠ .⁠ Listen to this episode of the Hobby Farms Presents: Growing Good podcast to hear about Mimo Davis’ journey from being a social worker for homeless adolescent males in New York City to becoming a flower farmer in rural Missouri in just eight weeks.⁠ .⁠ Mimo talks about what it’s like as an African American to farm flowers in rural Missouri and the dearth of Black flower farmers in the state. Hear about the transition Mimo made into the current iteration of her farming dream, Urban Buds City Grown Flowers, which she operates with Miranda Duschack, and learn everything about the farm, including the 1-acre property’s history as a flower farm since the 1800s—plus learn how Mimo manages to grow flowers year-round.⁠ .⁠ Also get to know the Association of Specialty Cut Flower Growers and how you can tap into the education and resources they offer to farmers.⁠ .⁠ Listen on Apple, Google, iHeartRadio, Stitcher or your preferred platform, or check it out at hobbyfarms.com/growinggood. And don't forget to subscribe, rate and review—it really does help!

Check out a new episode of our podcast, "Hobby Farms Presents: Growing Good."⁠ ⁠ Farmers Marykate Glenn and Lindsey Melling join Hobby Farms Presents: Growing Good to talk cooperative farming, sliding-scale CSAs, handcrafted herbal products and more.⁠ ⁠ Hear about Marykate’s and Lindsey’s individual backgrounds, how they each became farmers, and how they came together for collaborative farming under the Mustard Seed Farm CSA umbrella. Learn how they farm individual pieces of rented land and share equipment, distribution systems, support and knowledge. Lindsey and Marykate talk about how they found three pieces of land they’re renting for their operation—pay attention if you’re working on your own access to land! ⁠ ⁠ Have your sliding-scale CSA questions answered with Marykate’s explanation of Mustard Seed Farm’s program—from whether customers intentionally pay a lower price to how the sliding-scale math works out—and what she’s learned with 10 years of working with sliding-scale models. ⁠ ⁠ Lindsey closes out the conversation telling us about how her Effloresce Herbals business began using a healing salve she started making with chickweed she weeded from her garden beds. Listen to the end to get Lindsey’s recipes for a violet simple syrup and a soothing plantain skin salve.⁠ ⁠ Listen on Apple, Google, iHeartRadio, Stitcher or your preferred platform, or check it out at hobbyfarms.com/growinggood. And don't forget to subscribe, rate and review—it really does help!

Check out a new episode of our podcast, "Hobby Farms Presents: Growing Good."⁠ ⁠ Rachael Harrop talks about agriculture in Isle of Man, the Manx Wildlife Trust, rare British sheep and more.⁠ ⁠ Get to know the Isle of Man, a Crown Dependency island in the Irish Sea, which is the only UNESCO Biosphere Nation in the world (but is more famous for its TT motorcycle road races). Hear about how Rachael started raising rare British Teeswater sheep, which she grazes in a community orchard in Patrick and keeps for their wool. Learn about her breeding program, how to select sheep for their fiber, and the challenges of maintaining a flock on a small island. Rachael also talks about her family’s fiber arts, Willing Heart Wool, their wood processing and natural dying.⁠ ⁠ Hear about the Manx Wildlife Trust and its partnership with the Isle of Man government to manage the Agri-Environment Scheme, enabling farmers to work better with wildlife. After just two years, 69 percent of farmland on the island is enrolled in the program—which is 49 percent of all land on the island! Forty-three initiatives put forth by the program, plus those suggested by farmers for their own land, offer farmers payments for farm-management projects that benefit conservation on the island. Rachael talks about some of the farm-management projects and some of the wildlife—including fungi!—being protected through the Agri-Environment Scheme.⁠ ⁠ Listen to the end to hear about Rachael’s hopes for the future of farming in Isle of Man and her favorite all-Manx—meaning from the Isle of Man—meal.⁠ Listen on Apple, Google, iHeartRadio, Stitcher or your preferred platform, or check it out at hobbyfarms.com/growinggood. And don't forget to subscribe, rate and review—it really does help!

Check out a new episode of our podcast, "Hobby Farms Presents: Growing Good."⁠ .⁠ Helga Garcia-Garza talks about the farmer opportunities offered by Agri-Cultura Network and La Cosecha CSA, dealing with crippling drought in the Southwest US, and cooperative organic farming.⁠ .⁠ Hear about how the community-led Agri-Cultura Network began in 2009 with just three small-scale farmers who wanted to build capacity, aggregate products for larger markets and work cooperatively. Helga talks about how the organization has grown into a coalition of 57 farms—the majority less than 3 acres in size—using a shared food-entrepreneur kitchen and other infrastructure, hosting a CSA with a food-access mission, selling to public schools and other institutions, participating in farmer training, partnering on nutrition-education programs, saving seeds, developing food policy and more.⁠ .⁠ Learn how acequia water rights govern what and how farmers can grow in New Mexico and what the critical drought looked like in 2022. Related to this, Helga talks about how the Agri-Cultura Network farmers realized they needed to be more serious about saving their own seeds and what exportation of agricultural products means for the land.⁠ .⁠ Listen through to the end for Helga’s breakdown of the financial value of each market for the Agri-Cultura Network and some of the wins the New Mexico Food and Ag Policy Council have recently seen.⁠ .⁠ Listen on Apple, Google, iHeartRadio, Stitcher or your preferred platform, or check it out at hobbyfarms.com/growinggood. And don't forget to subscribe, rate and review—it really does help!

Check out a new episode of our podcast, "Hobby Farms Presents: Growing Good."⁠ On this episode of Hobby Farms Presents: Growing Good, Nathan Harkleroad, Program Director at Agriculture and Land Based Training Association, talks with us about his path to farming, the value of agricultural work, helping people get their own farms going and more. ⁠ A San Diego kid and product of Southern California’s surfing scene, Harkleroad had no plans for a career in farming growing up. (He didn’t even have 4-H in his urban community.) But opportunities to work on farms abroad in Panama and Scotland planted the seeds for agricultural work in his life. He found work on a university farm upon his return to California, learning the full gamut of farming knowledge to pursue a career in agriculture. Working alongside other farm workers, he heard the hopes and dreams of fellow farm workers to start their own farms. Today, he works as an educator and program director with Agriculture and Land Based Training Association, a role that involves, in part, helping aspiring farmers learn the skills to own and operate their own farms.⁠ Hear Nathan discuss the importance of training and empowering populations that want to do the hard work of farming. Listen in as he talks about cover cropping, which he describes as his favorite type of farming for the value it brings to soil. Learn his favorite farm meal, which he, as a food lover, describes as “ironic,” and hear his recommendation for a hearty farm-fresh meal option. Also, peppers!⁠ Listen on Apple, Google, iHeartRadio, Stitcher or your preferred platform, or check it out at hobbyfarms.com/growinggood. And don't forget to subscribe, rate and review—it really does help!

Check out a new episode of our podcast, "Hobby Farms Presents: Growing Good."⁠ .⁠ New York urban farmer Maya Marie talks about building your relationship to land, her Deep Routes educational project, irrigation and more.⁠ .⁠ Hear about how various family members, educational settings and even Sesame Street have contributed to Maya’s life path. She talks about farming Afro-Indigenous crops at East New York Farms, including trying her hand at growing rice and keeping the pollinators in mind. Maya gets into what she sees as the current challenges of growing food for urban and rural farmers and how to be flexible, and then she gives her best advice for finding places to garden when you don’t own your own space.⁠ .⁠ Learn about Maya’s Deep Routes educational project to connect people with Afro-Indigenous agricultural and culinary traditions and uplift these stories and foodways. She also covers her work in teaching with Farm School NYC. Keep listening to hear about Maya talk about her favorite topic to teach and one that most of us could learn more about: irrigation.⁠ .⁠ Listen on Apple, Google, iHeartRadio, Stitcher or your preferred platform, or check it out at hobbyfarms.com/growinggood. And don't forget to subscribe, rate and review—it really does help!

Check out a new episode of our podcast, "Hobby Farms Presents: Growing Good."⁠ .⁠ In our 50th episode of Hobby Farms Presents: Growing Good, Maseualkualli Farms’ Pantaleon Florez pays the podcast another visit to update listeners on what he’s been up to since episode 16. Listen as the Lawrence, Kansas, farmer and food-systems thinker shares changes to the priorities he’s working toward and much more.⁠ .⁠ Listen in as Panta discusses the important work he’s doing with the local Farm2School and Work-based Learning programs as an experiential learning specialist with Lawrence County Schools. In addition to bringing locally grown food into school cafeterias, the Farm2School program seeks to make garden education systemic within the education system and already has 22 school gardens up and going in the Kansas county.⁠ .⁠ Hear what Panta means when he talks about “the death of the farm” (spoiler alert: He’s not quitting farming) and how traditional beliefs led him to pivot his approach to agriculture. And as a new father, Panta talks about how the arrival of a child into his busy life prompted him to move toward a seed breeding program and other initiatives.⁠ .⁠ Panta shares his struggles with permanency, experience with no-till techniques, his favorite fruits to grow and much more.⁠ .⁠ Listen on Apple, Google, iHeartRadio, Stitcher or your preferred platform, or check it out at hobbyfarms.com/growinggood. And don't forget to subscribe, rate and review—it really does help!

Check out a new episode of our podcast, "Hobby Farms Presents: Growing Good."⁠ .⁠ Indigenous urban farmer and herbalist Angela Kingsawan talks about gardening in Milwaukee, translating ancient knowledge into modern reality, connecting health care with healthy foods, and more.⁠ .⁠ Learn about Angela’s early introduction to land stewardship and multicultural approach to herbalism and food production. She tells us about her long-term plan for Yenepa Herbals as a local tea company using vacant lots around her house. Also hear about all of the plants—wild and cultivated—that thrive in Milwaukee’s zone 5 growing climate.⁠ .⁠ Hear about Angela’s work as artist in residence at Lynden Sculpture Garden and her plant walks and education programs. Angela offers some tips for how to use the plants she finds on those walks, following her belief that a plant “is only invasive if you don’t know what to do with it.” She talks about her line of wearable art using natural dyeing and fabrics. You will want to hear Angela’s funny story about how she grew saffron kind of by accident!⁠ .⁠ Get excited about the work that Angela is doing with Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield to contract Hmong farmers to grow culturally significant produce for their clients who use Medicaid for their healthcare. Listen until the end to hear what Angela is most excited about related to food and farming in her area.⁠ .⁠ Listen on Apple, Google, iHeartRadio, Stitcher or your preferred platform, or check it out at hobbyfarms.com/growinggood. And don't forget to subscribe, rate and review—it really does help!

Check out a new episode of our podcast, "Hobby Farms Presents: Growing Good."⁠ .⁠ Denzel Mitchell talks about urban farming in Baltimore, bringing up new farmers, the heirloom Baltimore Fish pepper, and more.⁠ .⁠ Hear about how food and farming have been part of Denzel’s whole life, from his extended family’s 600-acre homestead in Oklahoma to his college English professor’s homestead. His experience running farms in Baltimore—the city and the county—helped to prepare him for his current role of co-executive director of Farm Alliance of Baltimore.⁠ .⁠ You’ll learn about Farm Alliance of Baltimore’s many programs, including a cooperative farmers market, food assistance doubling, mobile cooking demonstrations, technical assistance, soil testing and nutrient management research, compost coaching, and—the newest and largest program—the Black Butterfly Urban Farm Academy. Two years in, 20 farmers have trained in a 9-month intensive with mentorship, coursework, field days at urban and peri-urban farms, and work days at the teaching and demonstration farm with the intention of getting into their own farming business. Hear about an exciting, brand-new aspect of this program, a 7-acre teaching and demonstration farm that will allow the organization to offer farm-business incubator space for academy graduates.⁠ .⁠ Have you heard of the Baltimore Fish pepper? Listen to Denzel’s history of this heirloom, how he started growing it, and how you can grow it, too.⁠ .⁠ Denzel talks about his natural inclination toward being a connector and educator and how this has helped him in his farming journey and has served his vision of seeing more people farming.⁠ .⁠ Follow along with Denzel as he talks about what it looks like for small-scale farmers to truly have support from their customers and communities, and how farmers can come out and ask for that support.⁠ .⁠ Listen on Apple, Google, iHeartRadio, Stitcher or your preferred platform, or

Check out a new episode of our podcast, "Hobby Farms Presents: Growing Good." . In this episode, shepherd and Diné fiber artist Roy Kady talks about the importance and traditions of the Navajo-Churro sheep breed, flock management, fiber arts and more. . Recorded on Winter Solstice (in the Northern hemisphere), Roy explains the importance of solstice in Diné lifeways. Learn about the Slow Food USA Navajo-Churro Sheep Presidium, a group created to support and promote endangered foodways—in this case, this rare breed of sheep. Roy tells us what it means to have just 5,000 registered Navajo-Churro sheep and the breed’s their meat, fiber and hardiness characteristics that make them great sheep for a small farm. (Did you know that when managed on range, these sheep can seek out and forage the plants with the properties they need to keep them healthy?) . Hear about Roy’s own flock; what he means when he says, “they manage us”; and the seasonal and rotational grazing methods used in his community. Roy explains how responsible grazing improves the soil. He also offers his advice for breeding and culling sheep to maintain and improve a healthy flock. . Roy tells a story about his family’s history in fiber arts and his own work with wool, from weaving to felting to dying with natural dyes, as well as incorporating nontraditional fibers. Listen until the end to hear about Diné creation stories of the Navajo-Churro sheep and a quick excerpt from a Diné sheep song. . Listen on Apple, Google, iHeartRadio, Stitcher or your preferred platform, or check it out at hobbyfarms.com/growinggood. And don't forget to subscribe, rate and review—it really does help!

Hobby Farms Presents: Growing Good (Ep. 44, Dr. Mehmet Öztan)

Check out a new episode of our podcast, Hobby Farms Presents: Growing Good! In this episode Dr. Mehmet Öztan talks seed justice, selecting seeds for saving, the Seedy Talks speaker series, and his work as an underrepresented minoritized farmer in West Virginia. Hear about how Dr. Öztan went from receiving a PhD in civil engineering to starting Two Seeds in a Pod heirloom seed company with his wife, Dr. Amy Thompson, all because he wanted to recreate the flavors he remembered from his childhood in Turkey. He shares the challenges of tracking down seeds and histories of vegetable and herb varieties whose stories are largely passed down by oral tradition. Listen—with horror—to Dr. Öztan’s story about that time he got a call that a cow was loose in his garden on leased land and appreciate other complexities of growing and maintaining rare and culturally significant seeds. Get Dr. Öztan’s advice for selecting the plants from which you want to save seeds and understand what it takes to get a variety ready for commercial availability. Go behind the scenes in the seed industry, from Dr. Öztan’s take on how your seed purchases shape the seed industry to navigating seed importation and accessing USDA germplasm seed banks, plus the problematic nature of seed expeditions. Listen on Apple, Google, iHeartRadio, Stitcher or your preferred platform, or check it out at hobbyfarms.com/growinggood. And don't forget to subscribe, rate and review—it really does help!

Hobby Farms Presents: Growing Good (Ep. 43, Reingard Rieger)

Check out a new episode of our podcast, Hobby Farms Presents: Growing Good! Master Composter Reingard Rieger, Ph.D., breaks down composting, urban gardening and Seattle Public Utilities’ Master Composter Sustainability Program managed by Tilth Alliance in this episode of Hobby Farms Presents: Growing Good. Learn about Seattle Public Utilities’ Master Composter Sustainability Program (managed by Tilth Alliance), which trains 30 to 35 volunteers each year to go into the community and educate others about composting, soil health, recycling, stormwater management and more. From mandatory food-waste composting to mandatory recycling, Seattle’s sustainability programs have had a big payoff: From 2004-2019, the tonnage of compostable material going to the landfill was reduced by 40 percent, even while the city’s population grew by 30 percent. Get Reingard’s professional advice to start or improve your own composting or, as she says, “farming the microbes.” Hear about vermiculture (worm composting) basics, worms’ preferred vegan diet and the science behind how we get worm castings. And learn about food-digester worm bins, which are easy to build and use in your own garden. Reingard shares her experience in building a 10,000-square-foot backyard garden and a front-yard rain garden in Seattle and talks about her family’s farming background in Austria, too. Listen on Apple, Google, iHeartRadio, Stitcher or your preferred platform, or check it out at hobbyfarms.com/growinggood. And don't forget to subscribe, rate and review—it really does help!