Learn How 25 Expert Farmers & Gardeners Built Their Business And How It Ties Back To Soil Health

Natural Pollinators & Their Future

Anywhere we go, every book blogpost or any other type of information we learn about how our natural pollinators are becoming more at risk, even more so on bees. Most of us for relaxation or entertainment will sit and watch a favorite television show, Netflix , Youtube etc.

For Jacqueline its watching bees, studying them, watching their traits and habits. She has made it part of her mission to spread the word about how devastating it would be without them. In addition to bees Jacqueline loves gardening and has adapted several systems for her area to grow in, one including cover crops breaking that monoculture cycle which the bees love too.

Organic Awareness & Guidelines

Alexis has been with organic consumer’s organization for the past 13 years. She shared a lot that has happened over those years and more. Alexis shares on this call the areas which she works in today on a daily basis. She is one very busy lady not only working on the regulation side of safe food but in many other areas too.

During this call, I developed a whole new respect for the work that they do, and all I can say is that I am thankful they have their hand on the regulations to help keep our food safe.

Water…Some People’s Waste and Others’ Commodity

In most areas of the country, we run our showers to take a bath, wash our clothes and never give a second thought to the water usage or lack of supply of it to perform these tasks. But the story is somewhat different in areas such as San Diego California.

Brook has developed systems for the capture of not only rain water but also grey water to use this water to grow food. She speaks with gardening clubs, community organizations, schools, businesses and at reginal events to spread the message. Ironic as it may seem, a city surrounded by water, and the need to capture grey water.

From Software Company to Permaculture

From Alaska and now to living near the eastern shore of Maine, with a cabin in the backyard with windows that overlook his permaculture operation and garden, Chris has co-founded an software company called Lifter LMS and when not on training calls with it he is out the door and working with his hands in the dirt. Hopefully not with tillage, we may have to work on that one with him a bit.

What Chris does have is the complete system in place and has been practicing building soil with the 5^th principle in place with even a chicken tractor. Lots of exciting info on this call.

A True No Till Pioneer

A truly amazing story of “just don’t give up” because things may look different tomorrow. That’s the story of Dave, coming home after the world war, soon being in a property dispute with family, losing ground and starting over. Dave never had the luxury of internet info for soil health help, but Ohio state university was there and he used everything bit of info he could find from them.

Dave and his wife operated a large market farm all on no till to help pay the bills so to speak, then when they were able to purchase more ground they expanded the production farm. Today Dave has a very busy schedule goggling between hats of being a farmer, running a seed business primary for cover crops, and being on a team with the soil health academy and traveling the globe teaching soil health and how he overcame the high production costs and use very little outside inputs for his production farm to thrive.

Soil Geology & Microbes Both Soil & Body

Dave, an expert in soil geology and soil health, teaches as a university instructor, traveled for 6 months learning from other soil conservation areas, visited with several research facility and the extension people within those farms to learn more about current conditions and some of the quickest methods that were being utilized to restore and maintain soil health.

Anne is an expert in human biology including the microbial side of our digestive systems, they both have a story about a gravel pit that became their garden to grow abundant food. Get all the details on this call packed with information.

Homesteading 101

Deborah and her family left the suburbs of Chicago, signed a contact on some land and began the journey of homesteading. After showing people for somewhere around 7 years of things like how to make soap, she started writing about her journey.

Lots of insights on this call, even a greeting from one of their geese, and that just indicates that not only does she just talk about it but is in the trenches working with it every day and refining the homestead process.

Recipe to a Complete System

Allen is a soil health doctor, meaning everything that is conducted on their farm/ranch setting is geared towards the effect created within the soil. Allen has a large market farm where they garden for not only profit but focus on the nutrient density of produce.

He has been around long enough to talk about the soil degradation over the years since his beginnings. He is also part of the team that makes up the soil health academy traveling globally teaching soil health, and at the time of this call he was fresh back from Chico California, when the Camp Fire had already devastated Paradise CA, and he talked about the two hour drive from their arrival to Chico, and not seeing one bit of cover on the soil, and yet lots of vegetable crops come from that area that are in stores. We have a lot of work to do.

A Journey Through Raised Beds

Amie is a mother, wife, instructor and a leader in many ways, especially when it comes to the square foot gardening foundation. Working close with Mel Bartholomew, the founder of square foot gardening, even though Mel is gone the foundation continues to move forward, Amie was able to take her passion of food health and teach the importance of nutrients from food and coupled it with her passion to garden.  

On this call, Amie indicated to me some changes she has made in her own gardening practices to the soil as a result of student becoming a little bit of the teacher.

Soil Stewardship & Diversity

From humble beginnings to now over 177 airline flights to spread the word and teach soil health. Gabe was fresh back from a local soil health event in North Dakota at the time of this call. He talks about some of the farmers he reconnected with and how they have applied the principles he teaches and the improvement to their operations.

In 2018 Gabe had 17 different types of crops on their farm/ranch and he indicates every one of them showed a profit. A complete turnaround from where he started back in the 90s not even being able to afford baler twine because of drought and storms 4 years in a row. I addition to being part of the team traveling globally teaching soil health, Gabe is also a very sought after speaker at workshops around the country simply because he has followed the principles, applied them and now benefiting from them.

Edible Gardens Instead of Lawns

Justin has put together a process where restaurants retirement homes and many other types of businesses can utilize an edible garden in their space out front instead of having lawn grass. Justin and his company does it all from seeding to harvesting for the facility.

At the time of this call, he was stretched across 16 states and growing, with Minnesota being one of his latest projects where they have that thing called hard winters. Justin also has his system to teach others to make a business out of his process.

Benefits of Kombucha Tea

The need for natural remedies for gut and digestive health are on the rise more than ever given the quality and additives that have been in our food source the past years. Many more reasons to drink kombucha tea on Hannah’s website, and what healthy drink do we have these days with so many benefits and actually tastes good and enjoyable.

Plus, learn from the expert, just listening to Hannah on this call I could immediately feel her passion not only about the product Kombucha SCOBY but more about how we need to turn around so to speak some of the patterns that have developed from what’s in the food we have consumed for a long period of time.

Pesticide Awareness & Careers

The topic of this call, you guessed it, Glyphosate. Henry goes into the details about the testing that has been done not only recently as a result of the lawsuit in July of 2018 against Monsanto, but over the years to find the so called “leaks” of where it could be possibly be coming from, areas that are often overlooked.

Henry’s phone has been ringing off the hook since July, but it is important that we know more about the facts of all pesticides and possibly why the name organic may be getting to be just a statement in marketing to draw the right audience instead of its original intention.

Podcasting & Gardening

Jackie is the podcaster, and her husband Mike is the gardener, together they make up a team to organic garden and then podcast to share information. Jackie indicated to me before the call they have reached over 1500 subscribers to the podcast and growing.

Jackie and her husband Mike live in North West Montana in a wooded area, surrounded by towering pines, which sometimes can make outdoor gardening a real challenge coupled with mountainous weather changes and various elements.

Agriculture in the 6th Largest City

And really to mention Agriculture smack dab in the middle of the big city, urban in a town or even a city, but Greg has been working with several areas of small agriculture since the late 90’s, and talks about it as being more of a testing grounds for ideas that he comes up with, but at the same time ideas that relate back to a natural environment and not ideas that come from garden centers and big box home improvement centers.

Then within the last 3 plus years has developed an amazing podcast  of sharing info with experts all over the country. On this call Greg gets into some of the fundamental systems that he has found with in his area to build upon to restore and maintain soil health, not only for gardening purposes but for fruit trees and other plants.

What I love about the style and systems from Greg is that he comes from more of the city style of life, but yet was open to learning from the best, went home and tried what he learned and found a way of improving upon it for his growing environment and is now sharing it big time.

The Forest Garden Greenhouse

Jerome is the leader in high altitude forest gardening and near net-zero greenhouse design for over 30 years. He is truly the expert in green house design not to mention the new revolutionary “Climate Battery” design for near –net-zero heating and cooling. Jerome farms at 7200 ft. on a southern exposure steep, rocky hillside in the central Rocky Mountains in Colorado. It was absolutely amazing to me growing banana’s certain types of nut trees and more at 7200 ft.

On the call, I asked Jerome to give us his expertise for those who are looking to choose a location to market farm. Now not everyone is going to choose a Mountain, but choosing a site is more about a few essentials rather than just wanting to live in a certain space because emotional desire.    

Another Use For Produce

A long time homesteader and fermenter In southern Oregon since 1999, grows produce and a frequent attendee at Mother Earth show’s and has a very busy travel schedule teaching her process. Through the process of those years Kirsten really feels the impact that the world is coming forward in realization that we really need these foods. Our foods from the past were full of life meaning nutrients and microbes.

We encourage microbes in the soil and Kirsten and her Husband are encouraging to bring it back into our diets.

An In-depth View of The Life From a Farm 

Laurie likes to refer to the fact that she “Walks the Talk” so to speak. From gardening to everything that they practice on their homestead, she has been performing for some 10 years now and enjoys sharing it with those who were not raised on a farm.

Laurie also refers to the fact that being surrounded by dairy farms it has been a bit of a struggle with certain elements from that. Find out how she overcame them and today even thrives as a result.

A Journey to 15% Organic Matter Levels

Most of us start out with pretty low organic matter levels, some even 3 to 4 and work hard to bring it up. Lee is located somewhat in the northern New York state area, and has forest that pretty much surrounds his location. The unique part I found of Lee’s story is that over 30 years ago, somewhere around 37 to be exact he began the process of gardening, now referred to as his “farmden”.

In most areas of the country back that long ago, they basically wore the soil out and moved on or are spending massive amounts on costly soil amendments. Lee has been no till gardening the same spot for 36 yrs. He tilled it the first year then switched to no till, it’s living proof of how utilizing the principles of soil health, the soil just keeps improving.

Kids…The Future of Producing Nutrient Rich Food

Leila approaches schools to teach gardening to kids within the school system. She lives in northeast Canada where they have several obstacles one including a cold climate to hinder the subject when she talks with a school from her area. She has refined a system to overcome those obstacles and many more and is now teaching others with her courses how to duplicate this process in their own schools.

Just being on the call with her, you can feel her passion for working with children and this project.

Growing Plants For Food & Medicinal

From Pre Med to switching majors in college to bio environmental science which included a lot of soil science.  Lori is now teaching the only holistic program that exists at a community college and loves what she does. She teaches nutrition, herbalism, wellness coaching from a clinical setting, from all this it incorporates permaculture gardening and growing your own medicinal edible plants.

Lori believes that we are all interconnected through the soil. Lori has 15 years of experience to share with you on this topic.

Seeds, Homesteading & Quality of Life

If there was an award for a family who is involved the most within a community it would be awarded to the Brim family.

With everything else they do within their community, they have a thriving seed business that reaches out to several other states around the country, they homestead and live off the land with food production to livestock, Randy indicated that Terri is able to cook with most everything from their own garden and you never know what is going to end up on your plate at the dinner table, but she is a very good cook and it is always a good meal. Besides all that they market farm, and still have family time. Their future plans are to really hone in on more of the soil health practices. I look forward to working with them.

A Lifelong Story of Teaching & Soil Health

To be able to watch Ray in action when he is in the field, or sitting having lunch with somebody or even just walking down the dirt road, the story is pretty much the same. I am willing to bet that when this man sleeps, Ray dreams soil health. Just walking next to, sitting next to the conversation you will be able to pick out some nuggets that can apply to yourself and what you are doing.

Ray was on my farm two summers ago, when a sample of soil was lifted to view, Ray was down on all four checking it out, muttering words that I had no idea of, then looked over at me with a nod and said good job. Ray is part of the team traveling globally teaching soil health. Rays favorite phrase “Soil and Roots are One”

Seeds…Our Future Growing Is In The Seed

Bill is well known for his knowledge in seeds and seed saving. On this call Bill goes into great detail about heritage seed and why it is so important to have seed adapted to your growing area.

Bill explains a lot of differences about the process of common grown seed and why in a lot of case it is not suited for all areas. I learned a tremendous amount from Bill just being with him for the time of the interview and am very excited to work further with him I his quest to help others with seeds. His p[assion for the topic of seed is truly amazing.

The Journey Through Time & Soil

From mapping out the strategic working plan of 8000 acre ranches and farms to the small organic garden, Butch Tindell is about as down to earth literally as they come. A short visit you will learn about a man that has been involved with the struggles that producers face with the production side of cattle ranching and farming, and yet he can bring it all full circle back to a simplistic style to go out and homestead garden to produce for a family all the way to scale up to a market farm.

Butch and myself share alike with a lot of the same views and concerns where production farms & ranches have headed in the monoculture practices and fear that market farms are heading with the focus on production rather than nutrient density. At the end of the day, the soil will dictate the outcome.