I am so excited to tell you about this awesome Soil Health Summit that my past guest from episode 253 Steve Szudera put together with over 25 Expert Farmers and Gardeners talking about how to care for our soil!

We’ve spent the last 3 months interviewing top experts  all over the country!

Experts talking about

• Seeds adapted to area
• microbes –  within both our soil and our bodies
• edile landscapes

A lot of people coming together and sharing their experience not just for soil health but a lot of things that they have done around the country that all ties back to the soil!

They talk about how they maintained and restore soil health and keep their projects going!

Awesome! Well let’s give listeners some specifics! Because quite a few of the people that are going to be there have been guests on the show like Lee Reich and the Kombucha Mamma and Jacqueline Freeman the treatment free beekeeper and John Montgomery and his wife Anne Bikle!

Probably one of the highlights, I’m connected to productive agriculture

4 guys traveling the U.S. on a pretty massive scale! These guys have been 20-30 years of soil health on their farming and ranching operations. But in addition to that they do gardening on a massive scale!

14 acres market gardening at one time! That’s massive. Him and his wife did that, he talks about how they put that all together.

 Ray Archuleta  a soil extension person.

Dr....

Andrea Catherine is here from the Fearless Self-Love Podcast.

I’m gonna talk about 3 things

and what’s going on for me and my body has this desire to cleanse, but it’s just not the right time because it’s holidays! 

It’s frustrating every time I eat sugar my body’s like no and alcohol and I do it because it’s the holiday season!

talking about that and how to manage that

lots of squash

everything I can with acorn squash

very simple slice the acorn squash in half 

bake it to make it super soft

• beets
• onion
• chickpeas that I marinated in a soy sauce

made this filling basically

• added bacon and spinach to it
• the second time I added raisins as well

It was just a really hearty meal served in the squash half

really creative way to at the end of the CSA what do I do with it.

I wanted to share that

using a lot of cookbooks

my friend Lindsay-Jean’s, I interviewed her on the podcast her book is all about food waste recipes

I reached out to Mollie Katzen from the Moosewood 

Those are my favorite cookbooks! I do, what I made out of the Moosewood yesterday was this recipe for Chilean Squash that has peppers and corn and cheese and eggs and lots and lots of pumpkin! 

The other thing I get

I start this interview reading an article that Jason Stuck submitted to me to link on my website. I knew listeners would enjoy it and gain value from the article, but I also asked that someone from Growing Spaces come on the show and talk about their awesome Geodesic Dome Greenhouses.

Look forward to learning how to garden as I go, and learning from customers.

Well, I can relate to that, we have a lot in common that way.

So you guys are in Montana?

Yes, my show is great because I have awesome guests and they are interested in Green jobs and I call them green future growers, because they are interested in learning about 

they’re kind of visionaries and entrepreneurs who can make a green business as much as growing a green planet.

I think that fits right in with what we are trying to do here. We call them “agents of change” Where we highlighted some of these green businesses that are 

non-profits trying to build a sustainable feature

how they use the products.

More focused on them and how they use the dome. I think that fits in with some of your listeners.

I was curious how many listeners you have.

Well, I guess when it comes to podcasting, I guess it’s a bit difficult to really tell. I know my stats say that I get about 1500 downloads per episode. But how many actually subscribers I have? I don’t know where you get those stats?

But Google Analytics says I get 1000-1500 people going to my website each month, but then they seem to leave right away. Like 60 seconds and they’re gone.  I think they want more video then audio.

So last Christmas my husband and I put together this Free Garden Course last Christmas break and pounded out the first 6 lessons, but I’m kind of stuck on the other 6. But now I’m close. I did actually reach out on the phone and talk to my listeners and I have had several listeners on the show. Often they have more experience then I do, kind of like my husband who’s goal is to grow as much of our produce as he can. 

We are in the same process, we have

• a lot of words
• need more videos
• infographics

I was listening to a show on promoting your website the other day and he was big on infographics. I go back and forth on my show notes, it doesn’t take much more to do the typing while I am editing the audio. Which I like to do my own audio, I feel like that helps me it’s good for me to listen to the interviews multiple times so I can synthesize what my guests say with what we do here in the garden.

How long are they usually?

Well, my ideal is 35 minutes. But because I am on PRN.fm who needs a file of 53-58 minutes. My listeners like longer episodes because they like the content.

I’m the owner....

Welcome to the show today! I’m so excited because I have a guest who’s in the Facebook group and a listener and on the other side of the world who shares her passion for homesteading also known as Lifestyle Block.

So, I’m in New Zealand for start in the north island in a place called Wanganui which is on the west coast of the North Island. It’s about 1/2 way down in a pretty good climate. You can grow pretty much anything here!

We’re about 20 minutes out of town of about 40k people. An average size town here in New Zealand.

We have 2 hectacres about 5 acres

• 4 1/2 acres of pastureland
• 1/2 acre around the garden which is pretty much food
• few roses and things but

mainly food

We moved here in May 2017, so we’ve been here just over a year and a half and made huge strides. Doing things slowly isn’t really my style so we decided to jump in gunboats and all!

We made the decision to change our lifestyle dramatically on the back of the US elections

a lot of people in America might be surprised to know that New Zealanders followed that election really closely. Aside from us being really horrified, we decided that you know, individuals have to take a move to really counteract some of the nonsense that’s going on in the world.

So we decided we would move and make this a place for ourselves for our family and friends. It was a really big jump but we did it!

Well this is so fascinating and you know I’m very interested in politics.

I’ve lived lots of different places, but my very first gardening memory, when I was about 6, my parents moved from the lower part of the north island up here to Wanganui, that was back in the early 70s. Wanganui is really coastal, so there is a lot of land on sand dunes.

nothing grows in this sand other then

• coach grass, this gnarly tough grass
• June grasses
• box thorn

But your making things grow?

Well, my mother bless her tried to put in a garden, but didn’t really know about putting extra organic material, because my memory was she would try to plant things and they wouldn’t grow. I remember watching the water disappear, I remember being out there and watch her trying to water the garden and her just really having no success at all.

Then when I was twelve

Jim Swanson shares his journey of raising llamas at the Fantasy Land Ranch in Bigfork, MT and raising vegetables in a Montana rain forest climate. Living near the famous Flathead Cherry Orchards on the East Side of Flathead Lake, Jim turns hard work and initiative into a successful life living in Montana’s beautiful outdoors.

Bigfork (elevation 2900’) is like a rain forrest. We get double the rainfall in Kalispell, same with snowfall, they’ll get a couple of inches in town and we’ll end up with a foot out of the deal. The confluence of the Columbia range runs up there behind me and then there’s the beginning of the Swan Range and where those two ranges meet, is what makes it’s own little weather system there.

The lake has a lot to do with it, the extra moisture in the air helps with the greenery and ability to grow fruit. Born in Whitefish grew up in Eureka.

My memory with my first gardening experiences was with Mom, always had a garden, real nice flower gardens and vegetables. My introduction and she was totally organic herself, so that was the only kind of garden we ever really knew.

Just pretty much making your own soil. Not adding any artificial nutrients or anything like that.

Just knowing how she did it. She mixed her own own soil. Using cow manure mixed it horse manure and with sawdust. Started with the llama dung down here at Fantasy Land. Have 6 females now, no males, a few years back had a grizzly bear come in and get our baby up and coming male, and then our oldest male, poor Benny he succumbed to old age. don’t have a breeding program anymore.

Just on a whim, the mountain trader will get you every time. Reading there were 11 llamas for sale, make an offer. Had all this property – just a little over 5 acres. A buddy of mine’s dad had an orchard on the lake, and ended up with a whole bunch of old wire for helping fence a cherry orchard. Once my property was fenced I was just looking for something to raise, so in the middle of one of the winters (1996) over 10 feet of snow in the yard here, renting a bobcat to keep the road open and it had started in early Nov and snowed feet at a time, and it was just after Thanksgiving, we got a huge snowstorm and then at Christmas time we bought the llamas.

Fantasy Land Llamas.

From my mom, helping her in the garden watching her mixing her soil. As soon as I had the llamas, creating as much dung as they do, the males can crap in the same spot as

Benny had a couple different spots, always in the rock pile, the females, would just crap where they were eating, so they started keeping their dung in the same pile, and that makes it so easy to clean up, and I have a big spot where I keep it.

Tomato crop. Peppers all different kinds, have a little bit of hot house on our front porch covered with clear plastic. They all did real good. Wasn’t a real phenomenal year for squash, but still ended up with a couple of 100 lb., still have a few spaghetti, and butternuts. Squash generally does real well too.

Mainly the soil, using the composted llama dung, when I do my beds I just take and add more of the raw dung in and mix that up a bit and then put some of the compost too as well. Grow right in the ground in prepared beds.

Got a couple of different Costco structures -10‘ wide x 20’ long, and I just leave the weed mat down, cause I don’t have time for weeding. It’s just amazing. Used to just use black plastic, anything to keep the light off of the other seeds.

Thursday, Dec 27, 2018. I have an old friend from HS on the line, who is a little bit new to gardening, but has had some early success as a neighborhood gardener and a teacher as well!

I’m an elementary school teacher for 21 years on Long Island.

I’ve always been a renter, love to rent!  I always say, I’m the best renter you could ever have! Then at 47 bought a house with my husband and my daughter. When we bought the house in our price range, we had to look really hard to make sure there were no structural problems.

• workshop
• shed
• shop

skimming things in our price range. We weren’t looking, I thought funny in an ad,

• landscaping
• old growth plants

I thought that was a funny thing to put in.

Bought our house dec 31st

never looked outside until the spring when my daughter went to kick a ball, and it landed in some kind of thorn bush and that’s how I got into gardening because we had to do land clearing first!

I never expected to be doing land clearing in my forties! Shock!

You were telling me a bit about it! Like you were joking about your husband getting a chain saw and you had to have 6 guys come in with machetes! Like this isn’t just a little project!

Yes, there was an invasive vine that was killing trees

It was so thick, some of the roots were thick as a leg

very deep into the ground

I had some friends come over who said things from

you will never get rid of it

to it will cost  $35k

To get rid and I sometimes think that was the best thing they could have said to us was you’ll never get rid of it! Because my husband’s an irishman and we took it on as a challenge

It took about 3 years to get all of it

our neighbors were infected too!

and we worked together

bundle it

take it to the garbage collectors

It wasn’t easy to do! But we did it! However, once you clear land, then you have these big spaces and you have to put something in them, so then I had to figure out what plants to buy. It was a big project!

And you have such a lovely tiered garden, when I was here in June we got to come over for your solstice party, it’s just gorgeous!

my husband did it

Do you want to grow a garden full of healthy vegetables but feel you don’t have time? Do you struggle to get all the weeds pulled and watering done in the heat of summer when your friends are all headed to the lake? Are you tired of paying the high cost of organic vegetables in the store but struggle to grow your own?

Well, our 2018 Garden Goals Challenge will help you find success in your garden journey!

So, if you follow me you probably know that I created a Free Garden Course also known as Free Organic Garden Course over Christmas break!

2018GardenGoalsChallenge

For the first 8 days of 2018 I’m going to walk you through the steps of planning your garden goals so you are growing awesome nutrient dense vegetables with the least amount of work and time. Now I’m not gonna fool you and say it’s all gonna be easy but I will say it will be worth it. 

You can  download the first 30 days here   while you’re waiting for it to come in the mail. 

I’m so excited I have a listener on the line who is going to share a ton of golden seeds! I talked to her before from Florida and she is going to share with us about her Sustainability Project!

My grandparents owned a 100 acre wheat farm on the prairie in rural Dufresne, Manitoba. My family lived off the land, they grew their food seasonally in a 1 acre vegetable garden. After the local community collectively brought in the fall harvest, they would busily preserve and can their produce for storage in their root cellar.

These people were a hardy bunch, they managed to survive the brutually harsh winters with minimal resources using a wood burning stove for heat, crude electric and no running water or indoor plumbing. They kept and cared for livestock and only took what they needed to survive, my ancestors practiced “The Tragedy of the Commons” method.  That’s how they managed to raise a family of 8 in rural Manitoba.

And Manitoba is where people go to see the polar bears right?

Yes Churchill Manitoba is where the polar bears are.

Then you went to the opposite end of the continent practically to Florida.

Yes I did I got hired to work for Disney at the Epcot Center back in the early 80s and that’s where I met my husband two weeks later and we’ve been here ever since!

That’s so romantic! I always wanted to work for Disney, I tried to get a job or get into art school at the California Institute of Arts in LA.

Well, they must have liked me! I managed to beat out 64 other people fro the job! So yay for me!

And you worked there for a long time right?

Yes 35 years!

We used to visit the farm in the summer time every two years, however my mom! When my mother moved to the big city of Toronto, Ontario, she became a backyard farmer and composter carrying on her family farming tradition. I began helping my mother garden as a young child, she taught me valuable lessons in planting, harvesting and food preservation skills. All these years later I’ve been utilizing this and it’s been working out fantastic for me. Luckily for me, both my parents were award winning gardeners so pulling weeds or fresh carrots comes naturally.

So then is it challenging down in Florida? Do you have to learn different practices to grow in that climate?

Well, gardening is pretty much the same wherever you go. IT’s just the conditions and the climate. In Florida there is a sandy soil, where my parents lived it was a deep rich soil. You have to plant things things that grow...