In this episode, John Smajda talks about how checklists help with their special needs employees working on the farm. 

Make farming easier with the Paperpot Transplanter and Other Small Farm Equipment at https://www.paperpot.co/

Follow PaperpotCo on IG https://instagram.com/paperpotco

Podcasts by Diego Footer:
Microgreens: https://apple.co/2m1QXmW
Vegetable Farming: https://apple.co/2lCuv3m
Livestock Farming: https://apple.co/2m75EVG
Large Scale Farming: https://apple.co/2kxj39i

Small Farm Tools https://www.paperpot.co/

Homesteader Justin Rhodes of AbundantPermaculture.com takes on the question - I am thinking want to leave my job and start a homestead, what are my options for cash flowing it?

To learn more about Justin and see all of the ASK Justin episodes visit permaculturevoices.com/justin.

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Starting a new business can be daunting, especially when considering potential overhead and risk required. In this talk, Mark Oberle will discuss how he was able to utilize a contact from PV2 with Frank Golbeck of Golden Coast Mead to create a mutually beneficial arrangement and launch his own mead label while reducing startup cost and risk.

Learn more at permaculturevoices.com/a5

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Today's episode is a replay of Jack's presentation from PV3 in March 2016.

In that presentation he asked and explored the question, how do you take regenerative agriculture to the forward into the future, to the mainstream.

He presents an argument that's based on the idea that you can't drag anyone where you want them to go. You need to get them to want to get there.

Everyone might not agree on everything, and that's OK, because as Jack says, "let the politics end, where the soil begins."

Because we literally need both sides to do this. We need all hands on deck with everyone helping in their own way.

Hopefully this episode inspires you to do your part in what Jack explains isn't a revolution, but instead an insurrection.

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Farmer John Suscovich of Camps Road Farm and FarmMarketingSolutions.com gives his thoughts on growing hops (for beer) commercially.

To learn more about John and see all of the ASK John episodes visit permaculturevoices.com/john.

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What if you are already selling at farmers markets, but you don't have enough of a diversity of products to design a CSA around?

If that's the case one option might be create a collaborative CSA.

The collaborative CSA allows you to expand your crop variety with competing with other farms and without diluting down your efforts on your farm. You grow what you grow best in your context, and source everything else from other farmers who are better setup to grow those specific products. It creates a win/win situation for you and the other farmers. Everyone grows what they grow best, and in theory sales go up. It's also a win for the consumer because they now have concentrated access to more local products, without having to sourcing these producing individually from each farmer.

Aggregators, collaborative CSA's and food broker models, are these models perfect? No. But if they give you options. And if you are having issues moving product, then more options might be better than less options. You just need to look at everything and figure out which combination is the best fit for you and your market.

In today's show we'll look at some alternative market streams for selling your vegetables, so to help you start thinking outside the box, so you can sell more boxes, of vegetables.

It's currently May 2016.

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Farmer John Suscovich of Camps Road Farm and FarmMarketingSolutions.com talks about the Three Books Every Farmer Should Own live on stage at PV3.

The Three Books:
The E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber - http://amzn.to/20QPuZk
Holistic Management by Allan Savory - http://amzn.to/1Vrvg8V
The Lean Farm by Ben Hartman - http://amzn.to/20QPd8W

To learn more about John and see all of the ASK John episodes visit permaculturevoices.com/john

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Today I am talking to Dave Sewak about his new book Mycelial Mayhem.

Dave has spent his whole life around mushrooms. It all started when he was a young boy and tagged along with his grandfather on his mushroom foraging expeditions. Dave then went on to become a mushroom forage himself and has spent nearly 2 decades cultivating mushrooms as a hobby and as a business.

His book helps combine the technical knowledge with the business side of things give you a basic introduction into what the small scale mushroom business is all about.

As you will here, it's not a business for everyone, but it is a business that stacks nicely onto na already existing enterprise.

And like all businesses it's not always as easy or fun as it sounds on the surface.

In today's show we'll will address these points and discuss some of the considerations to take into account if you want to start a mushroom business. We will also talk about integrating mushrooms into a garden setting, or a market garden setting. Could you add integrate mushrooms into that system and actually get productive results?

It's an interesting concept that may prove to be a worthwhile experiment for you.

Learn more at permaculturevoices.com/128

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Homesteader Justin Rhodes of AbundantPermaculture.com talks what he wish knew before becoming a homesteader.

To learn more about Justin and see all of the ASK Justin episodes visit permaculturevoices.com/justin.

Support the show at permaculturevoices.com/support.

Learn more at permaculturevoices.com/127

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Today, nearly two years after our first episode (permaculturevoices.com/63), I am picking up the conversation with Akiva.

We cover a lot of subjects which we didn't cover in the previous episode including:

Selling to wholesalers, selling trees online, shipping trees, and dealing with state regulations.

In addition to the practical tips and techniques, you'll also get an update on how Akiva evolved as an entrepreneur...

Because a lot has changed in the last few years for Akiva.

In 2014 nursery sales were 50% Akiva's income, this year in 2016 Akiva expects all of his income to from his on site nursery.

He no longer works away from home as a landscape.  He's a full time nursery man, and business owner.

It's an awesome story of a small business, that just started on the side...

Business continues to grow for Akiva and it's still a business that's literally rooted in loose, nutrient rich soil.  Akiva's small nursery business grows over 1000 trees on a half an acre.  Thousands of trees plant tightly together in loose, friable soil.  Very tight spacings that force trees to grow tall and straight in competition with their neighbors resulting in a lot of nursery stock that can be sold in the first year.

How many people out there have some extra space where they could grow a few hundred trees?  Trees to use in the development of your own property or to sell.  If you sold each tree for $5 or $10, then we are talking about some significant money given the amount of space it takes.   

It is simple, but it does take time, it is hard work.  We aren’t talking about any sort of gimmicks here.  It is about putting time, work, and care in to nurse these trees along to the point where you can sell them.

One other point to take note of.  When we first talked back in 2014, Akiva was growing around 1000 tree's on half an acre.  Things have changed and he's now scaled up to 10,000 trees on an acre.

That's a lot of trees, on not a lot of land.  But Akiva's making a go of it enjoying every step of the way.

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Most of the tomatoes that Curtis grows fall into the cherry and saladette category - the smaller tomatoes.  These types of tomatoes offer several advantages - they are pretty vigorous, they have a relatively short DTM, and because chef's like them.  And when much of your sales are for restaurants, you grow what they want to buy.

Over the years Curtis has evolved his system for tomato culture.  And he now looks at them as a bit of a bonus crop given the way that he grows them.

Many home gardeners dedicate full rows to tomatoes and give the plants wide spacing’s.  

Curtis does the opposite.  He interplants his tomatoes; dedicating most of his bed space to another crop, while squeezing his tomatoes into the out 2 edges of each bed.  

This strategy works for several reasons.  It takes advantage of more of the soil strata.  The tomatoes are planted deep, so their roots occupy the deeper layers of soil.  While the main greens crops in the beds have shallow root systems.  So while the plants are planted in the same space competition is minimized.  Another reason why the competition is minimized is that the tomatoes occupy more of the vertical space.  If you time the plants strategically during the year plant growth and sun angles allow you to get more plants in the same space with no shading.

Overall, inter-planting has been huge for Curtis's farm.  It's what's allowed him to hundreds of pounds of greens and hundreds of pounds of tomato, in same relative space.  

Not a bad bonus yield in a situation where most farmers would simply leave the tomatoes out.  

Look around your garden at the extra space and think about that next time you plant your tomatoes.

It's currently May 4, 2016.

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To learn more about the PV3 audio visit: permaculturevoices.com/pv3audio.

In this presentation Taylor Walker covers perennial vegetable gardening in the subtropics and tropics.

Forget growing most of your traditional “grocery store vegetables” many of these will not tolerate the intense rains, humidity, heat, and pest pressure of the tropics and subtropics.   

Given that this presentation focus on more resilient perennial vegetables.  Taylor will talk about growing, propagating, selling, and using highly nutritious and versatile crops selected from subtropical locations around the world including Cassava, Yams, Moringa, Sweet Potato, Jackfruit, Longevity Spinach, Tumeric, and many more.

To see the slides for the presentation and watch this presentation visit, permaculturevoices.com/b36

If you enjoyed this presentation from PV3, and you want more content just like it, you can purchase all of the audio from PV3 for only $99 bucks.

To learn more about the PV3 audio visit: permaculturevoices.com/pv3audio.

Learn more in the show notes at permaculturevoices.com/126.

What do you do as a farmer, when you are trapped in an agricultural system that values quantity not quality?  

A system where you literally get paid for now much you produce, irrespective of how nutrient dense it is or how sustainable it is.  

And how do you as a farmer work within that system if you don't agree with it.  

It's not easy, and there's going to be a lot of give and take.  At the end of the day as a farmer you need to make money, and that may mean putting some of your ideology behind you to make that money.  As we have heard on this show many times before chasing perfection may chase you right out of the farming business.  There needs to be a balance there between your vision of the agricultural future, and what the market will bear.  But balancing those out isn't always easy and it can be challenge.  

In today’s episode we’ll find out how Chris Kerston balanced those sides out.

Chris is now and employee of the Savory Institute, but before that he was a full time farmer.  For 6 years Chris co-managed a 2,000 acre diversified farm based on holistic grazing and permaculture in the Sacramento Valley. The farm is comprised of old growth olive orchards, heirloom stonefruits and citrus groves, and also raises grassfed cattle, sheep, goats, and pasture-raised chickens for both meat and eggs.

Chris knows his stuff on the land and he knows what goes into being a farmer and producing food.  But he also knows a lot about the current state of the agriculture movement.  Through his role as the Savory Institutes Marketing and Communication Director he travels the world with Allan Savory in addition to visiting tons of farms.  This has given him a wide ranging perspective on the agriculture space; something that we'll play off in today's episode.  

We'll talk about the differences between farming and ranching and why if you are worried about the big oil, you should really be worried about big grain.  We'll discuss the validity of organics, and is it economic.

And since Chris was a farmer we'll talk some farming..

This isn't just all macro ideas about the food space and the agriculture space.

Chris talks a lot farming nuts and bolts - pastured poultry in orchards, selling meat, advantages for selling wholes and halves versus cuts, and a whole lot more.  There is a lot in this one, enjoy it.

Learn more in the show notes at permaculturevoices.com/126

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Homesteader Justin Rhodes of AbundantPermaculture.com talks about what you should feed your new baby chicks.

To learn more about Justin and see all of the ASK Justin episodes visit permaculturevoices.com/justin.

Greens are big business for Curtis' farm.  Both in terms of volume of product, and dollars generated for that product.

His customer base, which is mainly made of restaurants, buys a lot of greens.  And they pay good money for them.  But like many things on the farm there is a seasonality that goes along with restaurants and the products that Curtis sells to restaurants.

Typically spring is a slower time of year for restaurant sales, and thereby farm sales.  Things just aren't as busy.  

But this year is a bit of an anomaly, because Curtis's revenue is way up for the season.   

That increase in revenue can be attributed to a couple things.  First, he has picked up a few new wholesale customers outside of restaurants, and second, he is selling all of his customers more high value product, specifically greens.

More demand, means more production, so Curtis' production of greens on the farm is way up this year.  

But it's not just as simple as planting more beds of greens.  There's a lot of nuance involved...

When the beds were planted, how far apart the successions are, when do you harvest whole beds versus halves.

Logical considerations, but not always the simplest to wrap your head around.

That’s what we will be focusing on in today's episode.

It's currently April 26, 2016.

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Liberation Permaculture by Toby Hemenway.

This episode is the rebroadcast of Toby talk from PV2 in March 2015.

Permaculture offers more than a path to a sustainable and just food system. It can move entire segments of our society off the radar screens of state oppressors and help return equality, abundance, and justice to people while restoring healthy ecosystems. This talk will tell you how.

Here's a hint on how that's possible. If you can't measure it, you can't tax it.

Enjoy it, I hope it gets you thinking.

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What would the 2000 sq.ft. farm, let's call it a micro-farm, look like?

How could you best utilize that space and take many of the techniques that Curtis uses on his current 1/2 acre urban farm, to make the micro-farm generate some decent cash flow.

How much could you make on a micro-farm of just 2000 square feet?

Really it depends on what you are growing and who you are selling it to. But grossing 20,000 on that 2000 square feet isn't crazy talk. And even half that, $10,000, is a realistic target to shoot for.

When you think about that, that's a pretty lucrative given the space involved. I think most people can get access to 2000 sq.ft.  That's essentially fits well within your average American lawn.

The 2000 square foot micro-farm has a lot of things going for it.  It's manageable, yet scaleable. It's big enough to matter to start you thinking and implementing a lot of these systems, yet it's not over whelming. It makes a great transition plot for someone looking to transition into farming or just get their feed wet.

Given that today will be a case study looking at the 2000 sw ft micro farm.

We'll break down what this farm might look like. How you would want to manage it. What types of crops you would want to focus on, and put some a basic framework in place that you can build off of.

As, you see, you can do a lot with 2000 square feet, and it might not be that small after all.

It's currently April 19, 2016.

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Farmer John Suscovich of Camps Road Farm andFarmMarketingSolutions.com answers the question, "How quicklyshould you scale up a pastured poultry operation?"

To learn more about John and see all of the ASK John episodes visitpermaculturevoices.com/john.

As you will hear from my guest today Paul Greive of Primal Pastures "One of the most important things about marketing is not convincing people your product is X, it's about finding people who actually want X."
 
That’s the route that Primal Pastures has gone.  They don’t sell a cheap product.  They have positioned themselves as the premium product.   And that means they don’t try to compete in on price.  And they don’t worry about the non-believers or the price discriminant buyers. Because no amount of convincing is going to make that buyer pay up.  They already have a price point set in their mind, and the mind is a very hard thing to change as a marketing.
 
Therefore Primal Pasture’s sole job as marketers is to try to find and sell to the believers.  The customers who value their product for what it is and are willing to pay for it.  
 
Over time they have learned that "It's a really sustainable model when you can start focusing on the customer and then you can figure out what products meet their needs and what your skills are to make those products.”  It’s a key distinction that they have made for their brand, Primal Pastures and one that they have stuck too.
 
Branding and marketing are just one of the topics that Paul Greive of Primal Pastures and I talk about today.
 
In addition to that you will also learn about how to prepare for a transition from full time job to full time farmer, how to overcome early obstacles in farm startup and Paul tackles the question - is pastured poultry a good business?

View the show notes at permaculturevoices.com/124.

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Homesteader Justin Rhodes of AbundantPermaculture.com talks about what type of electric fence and charger he uses on his homestead.

To learn more about Justin and see all of the ASK Justin episodes visit permaculturevoices.com/justin.

Support the show at permaculturevoices.com/support.

Big isn't always better. More just for the sake of having more is pointless.

Just because you have access to more land doesn't mean you need to take it.

If you are getting bigger then you better have a reason why you are getting bigger...

If you are thinking about expanding stop and ask why? Does it fit within the overall plan that you have for your business, your farm, and your life?

If not, then don't do it.

Learn more at permaculturevoices.com/tuf30