August 15, 2025 • 49 mins
In the third episode of Food, Flowers, & Fun, Stesha Warren of Eliana's Garden talks about:
- Honeymoon tomatoes
- Time management
- Learning from mistakes
- Agroforestry practices
- Much, much more!
You will love this inspiring and informative farmer!
Connect with Stesha at:
- Webpage: https://www.elianasgarden.com/
- Facebook and Instagram: @ElianasGarden
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stesha-warren-b54947197/
Connect with K at:
- Website: https://www.penlightfarmers.com
- YouTube: @k.castrataro3466
- Facebook and Instagram: @penlightfarmers
- Podcast (audio): https://www.penlightfarmers.com/podcast
- Podcast (video): https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIVBn53rrIsTwS4ag6hH4DHnxG_Lxqt7x
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Does farming ever make you feellike you've got a leg in two or
three or four worlds? That'sjust one of the topics on our
third episode of Food, Flowers,and Fun, the show committed to
nurturing the women farmers whofeed our bodies and souls. This
episode is sponsored by PenLight for Farmers, which equips
farmers to recharge themselvesso they can recharge their
(00:21):
farms. I'm your host, KCastrataro, and today's guest is
Stesha Warren, agroforester andowner of Eliana's garden in
North Carolina.
(00:42):
If you're the woman who does itall, farm work, housework, book
work, homework, getting up atthe break of dawn. This is the
podcast for you.
How do
you get away from the cares ofthe day? Restock, rootstock,
feedstock, seed, stock, chatwith women around the world to
(01:04):
raise food, flowers and fun withyour host, K Castrataro, that's
me.
Welcome, Stesha, thank you soOh, I'm so glad to have you like
I am just so inspired by you. Sothere's a ton that I want to try
(01:25):
to talk about with you today,but if you could just start
maybe by the basics, like, whatdo you do explain this
agroforestry thing for those ofus who might not be as familiar
with it, and how did you getinvolved in it?
Okay, that is kind of a mouthful
story.
(01:45):
Okay, so, so my name is SteshaWarren. I am a native to North
Carolina, and I work for anorganization based out of
southwest Virginia calledAppalachian Sustainable
Development prior to startingworking for them in 2022 I guess
(02:06):
I'm in my third year now. Priorto working for them, my husband
and I have been farming since2009 when we got married, and so
I guess we're 16 years in nowwith farming, but with
agroforestry, we're closer to 10years then
Homeschooling education got you,got you into this whole farming
(02:26):
thing. Because, unlike those ofus who went to public schools
and we were stuck in brick wallsall day learning how to, you
know, parse out sentences youwere, you were in a greenhouse
learning, how did that go? So itgoes back a little bit earlier
than that. I started my earliestyears in just outside of Boone,
North Carolina, in the mountainsof western North Carolina, in a
(02:50):
very, very rural area. We hadlike, a 13 mile driveway. It
was, it was super, super rural.We our water was gravity fed off
a creek in the coming down themountainside. We grew a great
deal of our food. My parentswere hippies and homesteaders, I
guess you could say.
And after we ended up leavingthere when I was younger, my
(03:12):
parents ended up subsequentlyseparating, and my mother ended
up in Tennessee with me, whereshe had a greenhouse business.
She's a horticulture and ag,person herself, and so I fell in
love. Was she? What was shegrowing in the greenhouses?
Because in the greenhouses, wehad 13 bays, and this is where I
(03:33):
was homeschooled as well. So Iwas pulled out and homeschooled
in about three months into myninth grade year, and I spent
all of my time just about inthis greenhouse operation, and I
did not enjoy it as much backthen as I do now, because that
was work and I wanted to go havefun with my friends. But that's
how I ended up buying my firstcar. My a lot of my schooling
(03:54):
was wrapped up with plants, andso when I started coming close
to age, my mother was like, Allright, pick a crop. Grow it out.
Here's, you know, I think it waslike 500 or $1,000 something
like that. Here's here, here'sthe money to get started. You
are responsible for everything.Got gotta learn about the crops.
Got to figure out how to growthem, keep them alive, keep them
(04:16):
thriving. Figure out who tomarket them, to sell it, keep
all of your budgeting proper and
and gotta pay me back whenyou're done. And so I did that,
and I fell in love with
herbs, essentially. So I wasgrowing culinary, medicinal
(04:37):
herbs, and at that point intime, I think I was like 14 or
something. At 13 or 14, I endedup doing a correspondence
courses back before the internetwas huge, and then they had
paper correspondence and did a
an herbalism program with a UtahSchool of Natural Healing. I
don't even know if they stillexist or not, but in the in the
90s, they did,
(04:58):
yeah.
Yeah, I bought my first car withthat, with that project, and I
fell in love with it. Betweenthat, that project, growing
herbs that year, and my earlyroots, wandering around the
woods and western NorthCarolina, a combination of those
two really projected my my pathand the direction that it has
(05:22):
continued to go to go in sincethen, when I ended up going to
college, it took me a reallylong time to decide what I
wanted to do, but I ultimatelyended up settling on getting my
degree in agriculturaleducation, which and a with a
focus on curriculum developmentand agri science, and I few
(05:46):
years ago, I started working onmy masters in natural resources
with an emphasis on agroforestryfrom the University of Missouri.
But I ended up taking this job,and I did not have time because
I also homeschool my twochildren, who are now 10 and 12,
and we have a farm, and we havebacked off of our farming
(06:10):
significantly. It's used to, youknow, sanity, and I'm sure we'll
be talking about that, yeah, butyeah, yeah. So that's been my
husband and I, we startedfarming in in 2009 I mentioned
we started out doing we hadabout a 3000 square foot
greenhouse, or 2700
feet green square footgreenhouse. And then we farmed
(06:33):
about five acres of field cropsin traditional rows as well. But
what we specialized in was
open pollinated heirloomvarieties, and really just both
of us kind of nerd out onanything plant breeding and
anything that is of traditionalvalue. And anyway, so we took
(06:56):
that, I'm gonna, I'm gonna jumpin for a minute, because you
were talking about the plantbreeding and and you're a seed
saver as well, correct? So,yeah, this was originally
started out called being calledSeed Sowers, but yes, we are
avid seed savers as well. Okay,so, so do you how much of the
actual like breeding do you do?Not a huge amount right now, we
(07:21):
just tinker and play with it,with cross pollinations and
stuff like that and but we dotry to with certain crops, we
keep them separated enough sothat way we can save what we
hope to be true seeds, dependingupon what they are, so certain
things like like corn and melonsand whatnot, though, lots of
things will end up crossbreedingwith each other, But trying to
(07:41):
keep them separated. So we do,we do play around. Play around
with crossing tomato genetics alot. Is one of our favorites. I
would see people we get the nextyear. Have you had any, any
successes where you're like, oh,this was really good. Or or
experiences where you're like,Oh, we're never going to do that
again. Some good ones. We hadone that was given to us on our
(08:02):
honeymoon, actually, and andjust outside of top sell, not
top sell, it was Folly Beach.Folly Beach, South Carolina. And
we had a friend of the familygift us some determinant
tomatoes
that were came off of a Amishhomestead and in Pennsylvania
(08:24):
that they had brought down withthem. And they were the coolest
looking little tomatoes. And weended up crossing them with some
other paste. They were type ofpaste tomato. And we ended up
crossing them so that we thatwas super cool. Ended up with
stripes and pointy ends andstuff. I've got pictures
somewhere of them. Oh, wow.
You know, what a cool thing thatyou've got this, this whole
(08:47):
plant story, you know, where itstarted up in Pennsylvania, and
then it was kind of a weddingpresent. And, you know, just
what a, what a neat thing. Ilove that. Yeah, that one came
to us with that no name to it.It it was just one that had been
bred within that Amishcommunity. So we, we ended up
naming that one Amish honeymoon,because we got it on our on our
(09:07):
honeymoon. Nice, nice.
So, yeah, so we did kind of talkabout some of your diverse
agroforestry things. I look atyou as kind of the Renaissance
woman of agroforestry, becauseyou're, you're a producer. I
know, look at her. She's sohumble. You're a producer,
you're an educator, you're alsoan advocate, you know, because
(09:28):
you're involved in quite a fewdifferent coalitions. So talk a
little bit about that, becausewe are talking about this multi
pronged approach to farming,which I think a lot of us do,
where we have, we do have ourfeet in multiple worlds. And,
you know, eventually we'd liketo talk about how we how we
navigate that without, you know,losing our minds.
(09:53):
Yeah, so, oh gosh, where do Istart into that? So.
Uh,
yes. So I'm involved in ahandful of coalitions within the
agroforestry realm, and I'm justnot realizing I didn't get to
the whole agroforestry part ofour story when we started going
in that direction. And then Ineed to explain agroforestry as
(10:14):
well. But within theagroforestry community, we do
have a coalition, agroforestrycoalition, you should check out
their website and considerjoining. It's free to join, but
there is a
number of working groupsinvolved with agroforestry
coalition, and I am the dominantone that I interact with and
engage with is the technicalassistance and training working
(10:36):
group. But there are multipleother ones. There's a policy
one, there's a nursery one,
lots of different areas, so Iencourage everybody to check
that out. But there's also theAssociation for temperate
agroforestry, and I'm the vicechair of that. My term is up
this summer, so I'm trying todecide if I'm gonna stick around
for another term or not. I'mencouraged to, but time
(10:58):
management is part of why we'rehere, and I'm evaluating whether
or not that's going to be a goodchoice for me. But the the
Association for temperateagroforestry is amazing
organization as well. We're allvolunteer run,
and we just got a new websiteup. That's the agroforestry
association.org,
(11:19):
with lots of resources availablethere. There's also the arc X
exchange. Our arc exchange isthe and agroforestry exchange,
knowledge exchange, essentially.And then
on, sorry, somebody's calling.And we'll have all these links
down in the Okay, cool program,so everybody can check them out.
(11:42):
And so, yes, those are some ofthe coalitions that I'm involved
in, or I guess, the associationslash coalition when it comes to
agroforestry.
Yeah, with the, I guess, goingback to where, where we ended up
getting into agroforestry, webought the land that we're on
right now
(12:03):
back in 2014
2014 I think my son was too, andI might have been earlier than
that. Yeah, it was around thattime. Anyway, we knew that we
wanted to, oh, yeah, anothercoalition, the AFC, yeah, the
affc, she's an advocate.
(12:24):
No, no, no, the advocate forthese organizations. I love them
all so much, but the Appalachianforest Farmer Coalition
coalition, they started out asthe Appalachian beginning forest
Farmer Coalition, and when theywere hugely instrumental in our
path and learning and just theresources and being able to be
(12:48):
part of a community. I'veactually that there's a link I
can send to you that they theytook this, a short video of us
when we were just gettingstarted, many years ago. It's on
YouTube.
My daughter on my back, who'snow 10. She was a baby in that
video. But anyway, we Yeah, whenwe brought bought this property,
we started
plugging in botanicals that weknew we wanted to grow, and with
(13:13):
a lot of guidance from the affcor a bffc, at that point in
time,
and we kind of got to a pointwhere we didn't know what else
to do, like we had, you know,planted, and they had come up,
and we had planted other things,and they come up and like we
knew, we knew enough to get usto to there was plants in the
(13:33):
ground. What do we do now? Andso I reached out to my local
Cooperative Extension, and she'slike, huh, never been asked
that. I'm refer you to our statespecialist. And referred me to
the state specialist who, who'san amazing resource of, by far,
one of the greatest knowledgewealth when it comes to forest
farming and Appalachia. JanineDavis, um, but at that point in
(13:55):
time, she's like, Yeah, well,check with your county extension
agent and refer me back to mycounty extension because I felt
like a way out of my range forhere in the Piedmont, where I'm
growing, to really be growingthese things successfully. We've
got a microclimate here, so Ikind of ended up in this wallet.
Oh yeah, I reached out to soiland water conservation as well,
(14:18):
and they came out and walkedaround with me. They're like,
Oh, cool. Ginseng. And thentaking pictures of that, they
had never seen it before, andand they essentially told me the
only thing they could do for mewas, you know, help me burn my
forest with a controlled burn.And I was like, No, that's what
I don't want to Yeah.
So I kind of like, I think aboutthat right now and I'm like, Oh,
(14:42):
that's not what we wanted. Yeah,it was ended. That was kind of
my thought it that's not sayingthat controlled burns do not
have a proper place. Oh, ofcourse, amazing, very ancient
system of regrowth and, yeah,just so many good things that
can come from.
Yeah, this is your, this isyour, like, your farmland. It's
(15:03):
kind of like saying, Yeah, Iwasn't paved my cornfield,
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, prettymuch. That's the way it felt. So
that's when we ended up reallydiscovering the the Appalachian
beginning forest FarmerCoalition. You should check out
their website as well,especially if you're within our
region
and tapped into that communityand continued to plant and
(15:27):
propagate and tell everybody wecan about what we were doing and
try to stay safe at the sametime. Because, I mean, when you
go talking about these highvalue
crops, it's that's not somethingpeople are usually like, hey,
come look at them. Let me showyou exactly where they're at,
you know.
So we've this is this fineteetering of, you know, allowing
(15:50):
people in certain areas foreducational purposes and not but
we when my husband was about toleave his last well, he wasn't
planning on leaving at thatpoint in time when we moved out
here
about eight years ago, somethinglike that. Eight, nine years
ago, we ended up an amazingsituation where we were able to
(16:10):
lease a lot of land in Virginia,just across the state border,
and close to 300 acres, andcontinued to plug away at our
plantings and really, reallystarted getting into we were
already into wild mushrooms andforaging and whatnot.
(16:30):
Collectively, my husband and Ihave over 50 years experience
with foraging and been teachingthat for many, many years, but I
ended up getting a wild mushroomcertification from
mushroom mountain some yearsago, and then I ended up getting
a contract to be one of theirinstructors as well. So I still
contract through with mushroommountain to as one of their
(16:53):
instructors for the wildmushroom identification and
certification courses. And hereit will in most states. It
within our region, I thinkthere's seven or nine states
that we're certifying now
that you actually legally, youhave to have a that type of
certification to be able to sellto a restaurant or anywhere
(17:15):
where there's going to be publicconsumption. Well, that's a
that's not a bad idea. I mean, Iknow, yeah. I mean, people get
worried about certifications.And, you know, it's that, that
fine balance between, you know,food safety and regular
regulations, which, I mean, boy,we could have a, we could have a
whole three. Yeah, yeah, aboutthat, but it's, it's kind of
(17:37):
like, I look at it a little bitlike my daughter, who says, Oh,
I know what mushrooms are okayto eat. And I'm like, no, no,
you don't. And she's like, myfriend told me, No,
the stuff in the landscape,because your mother does not
know all of these. She she'llcome in and she'll tell me, Oh,
I was eating dandelions. I'mlike, Honey, just be careful
(18:00):
what you're eating. Like, pleasestop randomly eating. She's
like, dandelions are fine. I'mlike, Yes, dandelions are fine.
Not everything in our yard isfine. Yeah,
definitely have to there. Yougot to know what you're what
you're looking at, and the lifecycles of the plant, because
there are a lot of things thatat different stages within their
(18:23):
life cycle, may or may not bepoisonous,
work may or may not be safe forthe plants. Life itself, like
if, I mean, you don't want toanyway, I'm going to get get off
on a tangent. No, you're not offon anything. This is, I mean,
this is part of it. And I wouldimagine that foraging and
agroforestry are, are kind ofclosely connected, I mean,
(18:45):
intentionally, but withinagroforestry. So within
agroforestry here in the UnitedStates, there are five federally
recognized practices. There isforest farming, which we do,
forest farming, alley cropping,and are working on a
silvopasture and riparian bufferso but there's also windbreaks,
(19:06):
which go back in, back to theDust Bowl when they really
started becoming superimportant. But agroforestry as a
whole is practiced worldwide. Itis not a new, new set of
practices by any means, justbecause here in the United
States, we are just beginning toget the buzz words out, like
forest farming and agroforestry,where we're catching up with the
(19:29):
rest of Yeah,
but tropical climates inparticular have been,
have been very successful inreally fully integrating
agroforestry concepts into
a lot of their their foodproduction there, but on on a
different scale, temperateagroforestry within the European
areas or European regions are
(19:53):
they're so far ahead of us, it'snot even funny, like the world
agroforestry scene, but here inthe United States, um.
It does go back to indigenouspractices as well. So I think
it's important for people torealize that when it comes to
agroforestry here in the UnitedStates, again, none of this is
new. These are very ancient andold and indigenous concepts and
(20:14):
practices. We are just re,
re evaluating and tweaking themfor modern
society, I guess.
But yeah, I always giveacknowledgement to indigenous
roots when it comes toagroforestry practices. But
within many of us are practicingindigenous practices on
(20:36):
indigenous land too. So there'sthat acknowledgement as well.
So here, what I do is not inhere, like in Canada, in Canada
and Australia as as well. I havea lot of colleagues around
there, and they're really good,like, even on their emails,
they're, you know, acknowledgingthat they're living and working
on unseated territories. Andthey they say who's whose
(21:00):
territories they were. And Ithink that's a really beautiful
thing. So are you? Are you atall familiar with the natives
that you would would have beenin your area? So here on the
land that that we practice ouragroforestry practices with, we
are forest farming on nativeSara lands, the SARS ended up,
(21:23):
most of them ended up leavingthis area long, long time ago,
obviously, and the SARS don'ttechnically exist anymore. They
ended up going into the Lumbeeand the saponi and the Cherokee
nations,
or stayed here and were,
I guess, simulated, maybeassimilated, yeah. I hate to say
(21:45):
it like that, but, but I do havesorrow blood as well. My family
is is from here, and at somepoint in time, there was some of
those
connections and geneticexchanges made, I guess you
could say, yeah, so, but yes,and, and we started out with
(22:05):
seven and a half acres here,
and then my father ended upgetting the 10 acres across from
us. We're at the end of the dirtroad. My father ended up getting
the 10 acres across from us andsaying, you know, here's, here's
my contribution to the to thefamily farm, I guess. And then
my mother and my uncle went intogether and got an additional
37 acres at the end of the road.
(22:29):
I'm very sad that the 20 ofthat, 27 of that is getting
ready to be sold or gettingready to go on the market. So if
anybody wants to come be my
neighbor, basically be a pieceof property available. But
outside of that, we can walk tothe one of the most pristine
rivers in the triad and mayoRiver, which is surrounded by
(22:50):
over 2000 acres of state parkland as well.
So we're very fortunate that weare found ourselves in a place
that this is our forever home.When we look for property, we
had a specific set of criteriaall the way down to what
orientation the land needed tobe like. We knew we wanted to
(23:12):
have southeast exposure. We knewwe wanted to have a creek. I
wanted to find blood root. Weneeded to find yellow root. We
needed to find cohosh. We knewwe needed X amount of species as
indicators that we were at theright place, and we were able to
find all of that, plus plus some
my ex planted in my yardintentionally. And I gotta tell
(23:33):
you, I'm not, I'm not a fan ofyellow Roo. I think, I think
maybe it tends to be a littlebit invasive in my area, it kind
of takes away brew or root,yellow root, yellow root, or
talking yellow Roo. No roots, iswhat I was saying. And I think
we may be getting into differentcommon names for different
(23:56):
plants. Maybe no. I mean, thisis supposed to be, I mean, I'm
sure it's probably, but it's oneof those that just like, and,
yeah, I ended up, I ended upripping it out because I didn't
like it. So, so I would beinterested in your yellow root.
Yeah, I would. I will send yousome links. I'm tempted to try
to say the name of it, like theactual botanical name, but I
(24:19):
know,
so I will end up butchering it,um, but I know, yeah, yellow
root is, is commonly associated,that common name with so many
different species. I mean, justhere within my region, I've got,
I know that you that are nativethat are commonly called Yellow
root, but they're very differentspecies. Um, all the same. So
such a good education today. Ilove this.
(24:43):
But yeah, so
we do a lot of mushrooms ramps.We're not supposed to do ramps
in our region, but we do themsuccessfully. Ginseng, golden
seal, which is another name foryellow root, a different yellow
root than I was talking about.
Uh,
black and blue cohosh. The blackcohosh does a little bit better
(25:04):
here than the blue we at onepoint, we had nine different
species of mushrooms that wewere growing and
variety of other things. So Idon't know what do you want to
talk about?
Well, I'm also interested inyour alley cropping. So what do
you do with your orchard?Because I grew up on an apple
orchard and have always beenreally, really fascinated by
(25:28):
alley cropping, just because, Imean, we we have grass, but we
don't actually do, like croppingtype stuff, and my family likes
to keep it very well mowed. And,you know, there are lots of, you
know, cultural reasons, likecultural practices, reasons that
they do that, mice being one ofthem, but, but I'm curious as to
(25:49):
as to your, your alley croppingprocess. So tell us, yeah, yeah.
Let me so
alley cropping, just for anybodywho's not familiar with that,
alley cropping is essentiallydefined as strips or rows of
trees and or woody shrubs thathave an alleyway in between them
(26:10):
where crops are produced
that could go into all five ofthe practices. But while we're
talking about alley cropping, Ijust want to make sure that
people understand it's not justan orchard system, it is. Alley
cropping is a very integratedactually, all agroforestry
practices are integrated. Sowhen we started out, we did not
(26:30):
intend and plan on having thatalley cropping. If I could go
back and redo this, I would planfor this differently. But
there's always, you know,examples or opportunities to
learn, even from mistakes. Sowhen we, when we came out here
and we started plugging intrees, my husband was working
for a nursery in a neighboringcity, and got an amazing deal on
(26:54):
a bunch of stuff that wasgetting ready to be thrown away,
essentially needed to beliquidated. And we, we got an
amazing deal, and we came out,started planning that. Now I'm a
preface this by saying we livein a town called Stoneville
the county of Rockingham, so wedo a lot of turning up rocks in
(27:17):
this area. Pretty much anytimewe we go out into the field, we
are turning up rocks and stones,and that was no exception, and
it made it incredibly difficultto successfully like to plant
for success on a very, very redclay, rock infested hillside.
(27:37):
But some of them are stillsurviving, and at that point in
time, we did intend on justhaving an orchard.
And once we moved in here,however, many years ago, and I
was more familiar with theconcept of alley cropping, I was
like, man, we need to do somealley cropping in this. And so
we have been experimenting,trying to build the soil up for
quite a handful of years now.And then we've been doing the
(27:59):
alley cropping system about six,seven years now, and
we have done my husband isreally into to trying to figure
out how to do three sisters witha tractor, a three sisters
gardening, if you're familiarwith that. So he always ends up
identifying one of the paddocksthat he's going to end up doing
that. And last year in one ofthe paddocks, we
(28:20):
did not do a crop. We decided toraise a few hogs. And there was
our first time bringing the hogshome from the big farm.
But it was, it was good to havethem here, and anyway, but
letting them just do their dotheir thing in the soil, rip it
up, turn it over, we did go backand try to do a little bit of
cover cropping afterwards, afterwe called them and rebuilt,
(28:43):
they're so great for that. Like,I just want to interject that,
like, if, especially if you'reon small acreage or anything
like that. Like, bringing,bringing pigs in is really a
great, a great, they can reallyhelp transform. They turn the
soil over there. They're so fullof nutrition, with the their
poop and everything, and so it'sjust like they're amazing. They
(29:05):
really, I tell people that theirtillers on the front end and
fertilizers on the back end,absolutely,
pretty, pretty good that theythey will do them. And you
might, yeah, you might needgood,
yeah, yeah, for sure, the So, sowe've been working on trying to
build the soil in the alleywaysfor many years. I have had to go
(29:28):
back and do some replanting, andwe've got a little bit of
replanting, and we still need todo it in the rows. I've got
comfrey.
We also tried doing a handful oftea camellias in there, as far
as, like a an understory with atearing up the different levels
of production. So we'veexperimented with a few
different things within thoserows, as far as intercropping
(29:50):
goes. And then the alleyway istypically going to be just
annual vegetable production. Ias the trees are getting larger
and fuller, our alleyways aregetting.
Narrower and narrower. I doeventually see this as being
more of like a rotationalsilvopasture. I don't know if
it's going to end up lookinglike poultry will end up, but we
(30:11):
have run poultry through therein the past, but not in a
silvopasture type manner.They've been in more chicken
tractors working on amending thesoil and whatnot. So yeah, we're
looking at a how we can continueto learning and grow off of
that, that site,
yeah, yeah, yeah. So let's thankyou so much. I mean, I think
(30:33):
it's, I mean, where we could gowith this, you're growing a
million different crops, sothere's just, like, so many
exciting things that we could,we could talk about, I would
like to shift gears just alittle bit and talk more about
the how you are able to manageall of the things that you do.
You said something during ourpre screening call that said,
(30:56):
I asked if sometimes you wererunning on fumes, and you said,
fumes are very important things,as long as they don't catch
fire. Yeah,
so I love that quote and and I'mwondering if you can share some
of the things you do to actuallyput gas back in the tank and to
make sure that you don't go upin flames. Because,
(31:17):
see that, yeah, no, I think it'sa little bit of like a,
I don't know, since that someinternal combustion does still
arise,
and spontaneous combustion, but,yeah, fumes are important, but
it's not good to run on justthose for very long.
Later they burn out.
(31:38):
I think what one of the beforewe quit doing farmers market,
the balance was completely outof hand. And I really miss
market.
But I think trying to we wereworking six, seven days a week,
or, like, if we had Sunday justto try to do laundry and say hey
to each other, it passing by,that was kind of all we had.
(32:00):
And, you know, just one day as afamily day.
So it, for me, I think that wasone of the areas that we had to
address,
first off, to try to find somebalance. And we just, we stopped
market less than a year ago,when I took the job at ASD it,
it added a different level ofcomplexity to
(32:25):
our lives, where I like all butabandoned my husband. We were
both farming full time, thatthat was our life. It was 100%
the farm, farm, market, CSAs,those types of things. And then
when I took this job with ASD,and I had this other part of my
life that we were trying to do,and then we were trying to
homeschool and coordinate thattogether. And it just it became
(32:47):
very, very difficult. My husbanddid end up getting a off farm
job as well, and we ended upeliminating market, but I
thought that that was going tomake things super complicated
with both of us working. And
it actually helped a whole lot.But I guess that's some of the
things that just tell us why.Because I want to jump on that,
(33:09):
because a lot of people, like, Italked to a lot of farmers who,
like, there is kind of a stigmastill, I think for some farmers,
about how much of your time ormoney or whatever has to come
off the farm versus,
you know, off farm to beconsidered a real farmer, like,
you know, we talk what is a goodfarmer? And I'm trying to
(33:33):
challenge those old ways ofthinking and to say that, you
know, farming is more of a partof who we are, as opposed to,
like, how we do it and, and, youknow, relating it to days of the
week or dollars in the bank, or,you know, that kind of a thing,
just trying to really expandthat view a little bit. But I'm
(33:53):
curious as to how both of youworking off the farm, and I also
want to know how you managed tohome school while both of you
work off farm. How that actuallymade things easier for you and
for your farm life. So talk.Talk to me about that. So with
prior to me taking this job,when we were both just farming
(34:16):
full time, we were working sevendays a week, as does every
farmer, um, if I like, theplants don't wait. The livestock
doesn't wait. Everything's gotto eat and be watered, and, um,
fencing has to be repaired. Andyou know that just, there's
always something happening. Andsince, since we scaled back, I
guess if you want to put termson something, I would, I would
more say that we have scaledback from farming to
(34:39):
homesteading. And where thatline draws in people's
determination of that iscompletely subjective. Where my
mind goes into it is, we're nottrying to manage a farm off of
our farm anymore, like we justhave our spot now that we're
like, we're just trying to feedour family. We're not trying to
feed and.
(35:00):
Everybody anymore, and I thinkthat that's in my mind, that's
where that difference goes intolike we still have a farm, but
we are not farmers anymore. Weare homesteaders who have a
farm. Does that make sense? Butwe do still technically have a
farm. I mean, we still file aSchedule. F, the government has
(35:22):
all of their own determinationson $1,000 and not even income.
Actually, it's $1,000 of ofproduction. So, yeah, you know
that could go from anything fromfirewood to, you know, to be
like, I mean, it's, and itdoesn't take long to get to
(35:43):
$1,000
of production.
We start dealing with, withwithin the agroforestry world,
like forest farming is reallydifficult because it has really
long term crops. Like you maynot be harvesting something for
six to 10 years, you know.
So, like, what? Where that linegoes. But anyway, back to, like,
staying sane.
(36:04):
So getting up in the morning,honestly and like I it, I get up
every morning at 530 in themorning, and I get up and I make
my bed once we're all out of it.
But like, just that simple actof just getting up and starting
my day clean, and is really justlike mentally puts me into a
(36:27):
good place the rest of the day,most mornings anyway, and I have
a really, really hard time likestopping my work day. I probably
would work until I collapsed ifI was allowed to, and that's
because I love what I do, but myhusband has been very good about
now's your stopping point? Likeword like you're off work now
(36:50):
you work at home. You work eventhough it's an off yeah. I just
wanted to let let our listenersknow that although it's an off
farm job, you are working onhome, yes, yes, yes. I'm in my
home office right now remote. Mychildren are in the next room
doing their schoolwork. So,
(37:11):
good job, kids.
They're pretty amazing.
But yeah, so like, I think it'spretty important just to have a
good way to initiate your daywhen it comes to either just
going into your day or goinginto your work day, just having
something that can that isconsistent, that can give you a
good outlook on life. It may beyour cup of coffee. It may be
(37:34):
watching the sunrise. For me,it's just like making my bed,
because I'm sitting in mybedroom most of the day,
working, and I'm it lookingaround, having a clean space
like it keeps me mentally clear,clearer, I don't say clear, but
clearer.
And
office, huh? Yeah, yeah. Well,that's, I think it's bad that my
(37:58):
office is, like, in my kitchen,living room area, you know,
like, I just, there are nowalls, there are no anything.
It's all open space and and yet,your bedroom is kind of worse,
because that's that's supposedto be the place that you can go
in there and get away, right?Well, and again, we have a
really small house, and it'sjust the three of us, but, like,
(38:18):
I sleep in a Murphy bed, in thewalls, in the living room. So
in, I guess, I guess, now thatI'm saying it like, well, maybe,
maybe it's not so differentafter all, but I find that
transition to be really hardwhen you're multi using your
space, because it is so easy.
And work like, can I just say,in my opinion, work is so much
(38:41):
more fulfilling in some waysthan housework and even
parenting, because I love mychildren and I want them to grow
to be amazing people. And it'swork, work. Work all the time,
and it never stops. Whereas,even if, if you've got when
you've got this other work, youknow, we're doing this podcast,
it's totally great, there willcome a time when, when we're
(39:02):
like, oh, time's up. We're gonnago and you close the podcast and
you have it, and it's there, andit's a product. It's like, oh,
look at that. I did this, youknow, I wrote an article today.
Oh, look at that. It's online.You can read it. And those other
jobs, they just, kind of, youjust keep doing them, like, is
the, is the laundry ever reallydone? Are the ever really
(39:25):
washed? Is the house ever reallyclean? And I think, I think that
that's actually, now that youbring that up, that that is
another strategy that I've had,like, when it comes to managing
my house with cleanliness andthe gardens and the animals and
all of that kind of stuff. Like,on a beautiful day, I don't, I
don't want to spend part of myday inside cleaning
(39:45):
and then go outside and work inmy garden track a bunch of mud
inside. So, like, one of thethings that I will make it a
deliberate decision, I'm goingto work outside today, and the
house can wait, you know. So, soI.
Have company coming over, like,we're going to be fed. It can
wait until tomorrow. Tomorrow Iwill focus on the house. And I
(40:07):
find that I do get much moreaccomplished if I just say I'm
going to focus on XYZ today,like, today is my outside day,
and what I've had to do with myscheduling is that's something
I'm still trying to work outright now, like homeschooling
and homeschooling and having apersonal business, even though
(40:28):
we have downsized significantlywithin our business and it's not
our sole means of incomeanymore, there still has to be
some, you know, financialmanagement has to happen there.
There. You know, how much like,do we have money to buy feed
for, you know, 70 birds. Do wereally need 70 birds anymore?
We're not doing market in hereanymore. So, like, you know,
(40:50):
having to figure all that kindof stuff out. But going from the
transition from my day job nowto transitioning to my personal
business, or transitioning tohomeschooling is really
difficult. Like, it really iskind of like you're saddling
life and trying to walk with afoot in two different areas,
(41:13):
especially when it comes to likethe children in particular, like
I get hyper focused on regionaland national
efforts that are being made andwith with my day job,
and working on these planning10,000 different things as far
as these workshops go. And Idon't know if I've explained the
(41:35):
day job or not, but anyway, um,
going from going from a businessmeeting to sixth grade math,
like, it's a huge transition,you know, or fourth grade
grammar, like, do you reallyremember that? And it's a shift
that has to happen. And goingfrom, you know, super business
(41:57):
oriented to playful mom again,and that transition doesn't
happen in the brain immediately.I mean, it's not an on off
switch. It's something that yougotta mentally manage and be
present in a moment andconstantly have to be
readjusting to so
I have found when with thefederal funding freezes has
affected the nonprofit that Iwork for a lot, and so my hours
(42:22):
have been reduced. My entireteam's hours have been reduced.
So I'm I'm working under adifferent time management than I
was before, and
I appreciate more time with myfamily. I miss making a little
bit more money, but that's okay.They keep those 70 birds you
might be marketing them,
but when, when I was still fulltime, like it was really
(42:47):
if it wasn't for my mother, likemy mother really helps out.
Well, at least at that point intime, she really helped out a
whole lot with Homeschool andbeing able to bounce the kids
back and forth and have feellike you had a teammate and a
partner in the education wasreally important, but I did try
to cram all my hours into, youknow, a few days. I'm very
(43:10):
fortunate in the month, myschedule is flexible. I know a
lot of people. You know, if it'snot nine to four or eight to
five or whatever it is, somebodyworks that's not nearly like I
can press pause on my work lifeand go into the next room and
check on my children or go makethem a nutritious lunch. But
so it is a constant balance andchallenge to try to find some
(43:34):
equilibrium between soccer andkids and fourth grade math and
all the things and workinglivestock and forest management
and all of that. So
there is no staying caught up,but there is a level of staying
sane through it, and not losingyour peace and not losing your
(43:56):
joy in what you're doing. And Idid find that when I was working
my farm full time, 100% of ourincome was coming out off of
our our efforts on our farm,that it really was kind of like
a stealing my joy and a lot ofaspects, because that, like it
(44:18):
was a constant level of stress.I mean, farming is so uncertain.
I mean, there's, it's dependentupon so many different factors
that people may or may not beaware of. But you're also
completely dependent on otherpeople to buy your stuff too,
you know, and not you know, yourun into a rainy day at market
and you know, like, is, was thatyour electric bill that just
(44:39):
went out? Like it's one ofthose. So it's nice not to have
that level of stress anymore.
So anybody who is wanting tojust farm like full time, keep
in consideration like it's notstable.
It is difficult to plan and tosave, and there's always
something that's going to begoing wrong not to do.
(45:00):
Discourage you, but it's areality. And I mean, I've got a
handful of other homeschoolingmothers that I know. I saw a
post on Facebook yesterday fromone of them that they're all
They're all homesteaders. Andshe was talking about, you know
what, one of the aspects of farmlife that people don't talk
about is some of the hardshipsthat you go through. And you
(45:21):
know, she had just lost a calfto one of her dairy cows, and it
was a stillbirth. It was herfirst one. And it's very sad,
and
it's, it's just things like thatthat people don't think about
stealing their joy,
because you have to navigatethat. I think that's there is
there is a lot of emotionalpressure on farmers.
(45:45):
And, I mean, the death of a calfis one of those things, because,
yes, you're facing life anddeath, death, life and death,
life, life and death. There yougo. I can talk every day,
and in in some respects, it'slike, well, that's just a part
of life, which is true. And it'salso hard, like you have to be
(46:07):
able to process all of that andkind of let it go and grieve it
and and then move on, as yousay, without losing your joy.
And that is something that youknow is really close to my heart
for farmers, and what I like isthat you seem to have really
looked at some of the prioritiesthat you want to have in your
life. You know, homeschoolingyour kids is one of them. Having
(46:30):
a little bit more economicsecurity seems to be one of
them, some more stability andstill keep that farming life
going still be producing asignificant amount of crops, it
sounds like so I I really lovethat, because I think a lot of
times farmers tend to get intoan all or nothing mindset, like
(46:53):
it's either full time or it'snot farming at all, or it's, you
know, we're either doing thiscrop or we're not farming at all
or all of this stuff, whereasthere, there is such a huge
range that we can create withinour farm lives that can meet so
many more of our goals as wewish to Hello.
(47:17):
Did you get tired of doinghomeschooling? I need help on
it.
You know what we are? We'regoing to ask your mom to give us
one piece of advice that shewishes every farmer had. Do, do
you think you know what? What?What advice would you give to a
farmer, your little farmer?What? What advice would you give
(47:40):
plant onions near your othercrops so that the the
animals don't eat them.
They don't like onions. Itotally love you. Okay.
And how old are you? 1110?
10. Yep. Okay. There you haveit, boys and girls. There you
(48:01):
are. You are amazing. I loveyou. So we're going to plant
onions. Okay, that's one thingwe need to do. Next to the
other. We're going to intercrop,intercrop our onions and and
what, what do you have for us?Stesha, don't let anything steal
your joy. And I don't know. Stayencouraged. Stay encouraged.
There's, I guess that's mybiggest thing right now. It's
(48:23):
just people stay encouraged,because we have such a loss of
farmers right now across ournation, like we're losing
farmland, we're losing farmers,and most farmers have to have
off job, off site jobs, so juststaying encouraged and keep
planting good seeds.
Oh, I just love that. Thank you.And, and if you do need more
(48:45):
encouragement, you know,definitely come out and check
out the pen light website,because that's what we try to
do, is to provide encouragementand and keep coming back to
food, flowers and fun, becausewe want, we want this to be a
place that encourages people andhelps them really, to to grow
into not just great farmers, butthe people that they want to be.
(49:07):
So thank you so much. Stesha and
Farmwork's calling; our show isall done. Goodbye, farewell, so
long, adieu. See you next week,same time, same place for Food,
Flowers and Fun. Go in peace.
Visit us @www.penlightfarmers.com
Does farming ever make you feellike you've got a leg in two or
three or four worlds? That'sjust one of the topics on our
third episode of Food, Flowers,and Fun, the show committed to
nurturing the women farmers whofeed our bodies and souls. This
episode is sponsored by PenLight for Farmers, which equips
farmers to recharge themselvesso they can recharge their
(00:21):
farms. I'm your host, KCastrataro, and today's guest is
Stesha Warren, agroforester andowner of Eliana's garden in
North Carolina.
(00:42):
If you're the woman who does itall, farm work, housework, book
work, homework, getting up atthe break of dawn. This is the
podcast for you.
How do
you get away from the cares ofthe day? Restock, rootstock,
feedstock, seed, stock, chatwith women around the world to
(01:04):
raise food, flowers and fun withyour host, K Castrataro, that's
me.
Welcome, Stesha, thank you soOh, I'm so glad to have you like
I am just so inspired by you. Sothere's a ton that I want to try
(01:25):
to talk about with you today,but if you could just start
maybe by the basics, like, whatdo you do explain this
agroforestry thing for those ofus who might not be as familiar
with it, and how did you getinvolved in it?
Okay, that is kind of a mouthful
story.
(01:45):
Okay, so, so my name is SteshaWarren. I am a native to North
Carolina, and I work for anorganization based out of
southwest Virginia calledAppalachian Sustainable
Development prior to startingworking for them in 2022 I guess
(02:06):
I'm in my third year now. Priorto working for them, my husband
and I have been farming since2009 when we got married, and so
I guess we're 16 years in nowwith farming, but with
agroforestry, we're closer to 10years then
Homeschooling education got you,got you into this whole farming
(02:26):
thing. Because, unlike those ofus who went to public schools
and we were stuck in brick wallsall day learning how to, you
know, parse out sentences youwere, you were in a greenhouse
learning, how did that go? So itgoes back a little bit earlier
than that. I started my earliestyears in just outside of Boone,
North Carolina, in the mountainsof western North Carolina, in a
(02:50):
very, very rural area. We hadlike, a 13 mile driveway. It
was, it was super, super rural.We our water was gravity fed off
a creek in the coming down themountainside. We grew a great
deal of our food. My parentswere hippies and homesteaders, I
guess you could say.
And after we ended up leavingthere when I was younger, my
(03:12):
parents ended up subsequentlyseparating, and my mother ended
up in Tennessee with me, whereshe had a greenhouse business.
She's a horticulture and ag,person herself, and so I fell in
love. Was she? What was shegrowing in the greenhouses?
Because in the greenhouses, wehad 13 bays, and this is where I
(03:33):
was homeschooled as well. So Iwas pulled out and homeschooled
in about three months into myninth grade year, and I spent
all of my time just about inthis greenhouse operation, and I
did not enjoy it as much backthen as I do now, because that
was work and I wanted to go havefun with my friends. But that's
how I ended up buying my firstcar. My a lot of my schooling
(03:54):
was wrapped up with plants, andso when I started coming close
to age, my mother was like, Allright, pick a crop. Grow it out.
Here's, you know, I think it waslike 500 or $1,000 something
like that. Here's here, here'sthe money to get started. You
are responsible for everything.Got gotta learn about the crops.
Got to figure out how to growthem, keep them alive, keep them
(04:16):
thriving. Figure out who tomarket them, to sell it, keep
all of your budgeting proper and
and gotta pay me back whenyou're done. And so I did that,
and I fell in love with
herbs, essentially. So I wasgrowing culinary, medicinal
(04:37):
herbs, and at that point intime, I think I was like 14 or
something. At 13 or 14, I endedup doing a correspondence
courses back before the internetwas huge, and then they had
paper correspondence and did a
an herbalism program with a UtahSchool of Natural Healing. I
don't even know if they stillexist or not, but in the in the
90s, they did,
(04:58):
yeah.
Yeah, I bought my first car withthat, with that project, and I
fell in love with it. Betweenthat, that project, growing
herbs that year, and my earlyroots, wandering around the
woods and western NorthCarolina, a combination of those
two really projected my my pathand the direction that it has
(05:22):
continued to go to go in sincethen, when I ended up going to
college, it took me a reallylong time to decide what I
wanted to do, but I ultimatelyended up settling on getting my
degree in agriculturaleducation, which and a with a
focus on curriculum developmentand agri science, and I few
(05:46):
years ago, I started working onmy masters in natural resources
with an emphasis on agroforestryfrom the University of Missouri.
But I ended up taking this job,and I did not have time because
I also homeschool my twochildren, who are now 10 and 12,
and we have a farm, and we havebacked off of our farming
(06:10):
significantly. It's used to, youknow, sanity, and I'm sure we'll
be talking about that, yeah, butyeah, yeah. So that's been my
husband and I, we startedfarming in in 2009 I mentioned
we started out doing we hadabout a 3000 square foot
greenhouse, or 2700
feet green square footgreenhouse. And then we farmed
(06:33):
about five acres of field cropsin traditional rows as well. But
what we specialized in was
open pollinated heirloomvarieties, and really just both
of us kind of nerd out onanything plant breeding and
anything that is of traditionalvalue. And anyway, so we took
(06:56):
that, I'm gonna, I'm gonna jumpin for a minute, because you
were talking about the plantbreeding and and you're a seed
saver as well, correct? So,yeah, this was originally
started out called being calledSeed Sowers, but yes, we are
avid seed savers as well. Okay,so, so do you how much of the
actual like breeding do you do?Not a huge amount right now, we
(07:21):
just tinker and play with it,with cross pollinations and
stuff like that and but we dotry to with certain crops, we
keep them separated enough sothat way we can save what we
hope to be true seeds, dependingupon what they are, so certain
things like like corn and melonsand whatnot, though, lots of
things will end up crossbreedingwith each other, But trying to
(07:41):
keep them separated. So we do,we do play around. Play around
with crossing tomato genetics alot. Is one of our favorites. I
would see people we get the nextyear. Have you had any, any
successes where you're like, oh,this was really good. Or or
experiences where you're like,Oh, we're never going to do that
again. Some good ones. We hadone that was given to us on our
(08:02):
honeymoon, actually, and andjust outside of top sell, not
top sell, it was Folly Beach.Folly Beach, South Carolina. And
we had a friend of the familygift us some determinant
tomatoes
that were came off of a Amishhomestead and in Pennsylvania
(08:24):
that they had brought down withthem. And they were the coolest
looking little tomatoes. And weended up crossing them with some
other paste. They were type ofpaste tomato. And we ended up
crossing them so that we thatwas super cool. Ended up with
stripes and pointy ends andstuff. I've got pictures
somewhere of them. Oh, wow.
You know, what a cool thing thatyou've got this, this whole
(08:47):
plant story, you know, where itstarted up in Pennsylvania, and
then it was kind of a weddingpresent. And, you know, just
what a, what a neat thing. Ilove that. Yeah, that one came
to us with that no name to it.It it was just one that had been
bred within that Amishcommunity. So we, we ended up
naming that one Amish honeymoon,because we got it on our on our
(09:07):
honeymoon. Nice, nice.
So, yeah, so we did kind of talkabout some of your diverse
agroforestry things. I look atyou as kind of the Renaissance
woman of agroforestry, becauseyou're, you're a producer. I
know, look at her. She's sohumble. You're a producer,
you're an educator, you're alsoan advocate, you know, because
(09:28):
you're involved in quite a fewdifferent coalitions. So talk a
little bit about that, becausewe are talking about this multi
pronged approach to farming,which I think a lot of us do,
where we have, we do have ourfeet in multiple worlds. And,
you know, eventually we'd liketo talk about how we how we
navigate that without, you know,losing our minds.
(09:53):
Yeah, so, oh gosh, where do Istart into that? So.
Uh,
yes. So I'm involved in ahandful of coalitions within the
agroforestry realm, and I'm justnot realizing I didn't get to
the whole agroforestry part ofour story when we started going
in that direction. And then Ineed to explain agroforestry as
(10:14):
well. But within theagroforestry community, we do
have a coalition, agroforestrycoalition, you should check out
their website and considerjoining. It's free to join, but
there is a
number of working groupsinvolved with agroforestry
coalition, and I am the dominantone that I interact with and
engage with is the technicalassistance and training working
(10:36):
group. But there are multipleother ones. There's a policy
one, there's a nursery one,
lots of different areas, so Iencourage everybody to check
that out. But there's also theAssociation for temperate
agroforestry, and I'm the vicechair of that. My term is up
this summer, so I'm trying todecide if I'm gonna stick around
for another term or not. I'mencouraged to, but time
(10:58):
management is part of why we'rehere, and I'm evaluating whether
or not that's going to be a goodchoice for me. But the the
Association for temperateagroforestry is amazing
organization as well. We're allvolunteer run,
and we just got a new websiteup. That's the agroforestry
association.org,
(11:19):
with lots of resources availablethere. There's also the arc X
exchange. Our arc exchange isthe and agroforestry exchange,
knowledge exchange, essentially.And then
on, sorry, somebody's calling.And we'll have all these links
down in the Okay, cool program,so everybody can check them out.
(11:42):
And so, yes, those are some ofthe coalitions that I'm involved
in, or I guess, the associationslash coalition when it comes to
agroforestry.
Yeah, with the, I guess, goingback to where, where we ended up
getting into agroforestry, webought the land that we're on
right now
(12:03):
back in 2014
2014 I think my son was too, andI might have been earlier than
that. Yeah, it was around thattime. Anyway, we knew that we
wanted to, oh, yeah, anothercoalition, the AFC, yeah, the
affc, she's an advocate.
(12:24):
No, no, no, the advocate forthese organizations. I love them
all so much, but the Appalachianforest Farmer Coalition
coalition, they started out asthe Appalachian beginning forest
Farmer Coalition, and when theywere hugely instrumental in our
path and learning and just theresources and being able to be
(12:48):
part of a community. I'veactually that there's a link I
can send to you that they theytook this, a short video of us
when we were just gettingstarted, many years ago. It's on
YouTube.
My daughter on my back, who'snow 10. She was a baby in that
video. But anyway, we Yeah, whenwe brought bought this property,
we started
plugging in botanicals that weknew we wanted to grow, and with
(13:13):
a lot of guidance from the affcor a bffc, at that point in
time,
and we kind of got to a pointwhere we didn't know what else
to do, like we had, you know,planted, and they had come up,
and we had planted other things,and they come up and like we
knew, we knew enough to get usto to there was plants in the
(13:33):
ground. What do we do now? Andso I reached out to my local
Cooperative Extension, and she'slike, huh, never been asked
that. I'm refer you to our statespecialist. And referred me to
the state specialist who, who'san amazing resource of, by far,
one of the greatest knowledgewealth when it comes to forest
farming and Appalachia. JanineDavis, um, but at that point in
(13:55):
time, she's like, Yeah, well,check with your county extension
agent and refer me back to mycounty extension because I felt
like a way out of my range forhere in the Piedmont, where I'm
growing, to really be growingthese things successfully. We've
got a microclimate here, so Ikind of ended up in this wallet.
Oh yeah, I reached out to soiland water conservation as well,
(14:18):
and they came out and walkedaround with me. They're like,
Oh, cool. Ginseng. And thentaking pictures of that, they
had never seen it before, andand they essentially told me the
only thing they could do for mewas, you know, help me burn my
forest with a controlled burn.And I was like, No, that's what
I don't want to Yeah.
So I kind of like, I think aboutthat right now and I'm like, Oh,
(14:42):
that's not what we wanted. Yeah,it was ended. That was kind of
my thought it that's not sayingthat controlled burns do not
have a proper place. Oh, ofcourse, amazing, very ancient
system of regrowth and, yeah,just so many good things that
can come from.
Yeah, this is your, this isyour, like, your farmland. It's
(15:03):
kind of like saying, Yeah, Iwasn't paved my cornfield,
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, prettymuch. That's the way it felt. So
that's when we ended up reallydiscovering the the Appalachian
beginning forest FarmerCoalition. You should check out
their website as well,especially if you're within our
region
and tapped into that communityand continued to plant and
(15:27):
propagate and tell everybody wecan about what we were doing and
try to stay safe at the sametime. Because, I mean, when you
go talking about these highvalue
crops, it's that's not somethingpeople are usually like, hey,
come look at them. Let me showyou exactly where they're at,
you know.
So we've this is this fineteetering of, you know, allowing
(15:50):
people in certain areas foreducational purposes and not but
we when my husband was about toleave his last well, he wasn't
planning on leaving at thatpoint in time when we moved out
here
about eight years ago, somethinglike that. Eight, nine years
ago, we ended up an amazingsituation where we were able to
(16:10):
lease a lot of land in Virginia,just across the state border,
and close to 300 acres, andcontinued to plug away at our
plantings and really, reallystarted getting into we were
already into wild mushrooms andforaging and whatnot.
(16:30):
Collectively, my husband and Ihave over 50 years experience
with foraging and been teachingthat for many, many years, but I
ended up getting a wild mushroomcertification from
mushroom mountain some yearsago, and then I ended up getting
a contract to be one of theirinstructors as well. So I still
contract through with mushroommountain to as one of their
(16:53):
instructors for the wildmushroom identification and
certification courses. And hereit will in most states. It
within our region, I thinkthere's seven or nine states
that we're certifying now
that you actually legally, youhave to have a that type of
certification to be able to sellto a restaurant or anywhere
(17:15):
where there's going to be publicconsumption. Well, that's a
that's not a bad idea. I mean, Iknow, yeah. I mean, people get
worried about certifications.And, you know, it's that, that
fine balance between, you know,food safety and regular
regulations, which, I mean, boy,we could have a, we could have a
whole three. Yeah, yeah, aboutthat, but it's, it's kind of
(17:37):
like, I look at it a little bitlike my daughter, who says, Oh,
I know what mushrooms are okayto eat. And I'm like, no, no,
you don't. And she's like, myfriend told me, No,
the stuff in the landscape,because your mother does not
know all of these. She she'llcome in and she'll tell me, Oh,
I was eating dandelions. I'mlike, Honey, just be careful
(18:00):
what you're eating. Like, pleasestop randomly eating. She's
like, dandelions are fine. I'mlike, Yes, dandelions are fine.
Not everything in our yard isfine. Yeah,
definitely have to there. Yougot to know what you're what
you're looking at, and the lifecycles of the plant, because
there are a lot of things thatat different stages within their
(18:23):
life cycle, may or may not bepoisonous,
work may or may not be safe forthe plants. Life itself, like
if, I mean, you don't want toanyway, I'm going to get get off
on a tangent. No, you're not offon anything. This is, I mean,
this is part of it. And I wouldimagine that foraging and
agroforestry are, are kind ofclosely connected, I mean,
(18:45):
intentionally, but withinagroforestry. So within
agroforestry here in the UnitedStates, there are five federally
recognized practices. There isforest farming, which we do,
forest farming, alley cropping,and are working on a
silvopasture and riparian bufferso but there's also windbreaks,
(19:06):
which go back in, back to theDust Bowl when they really
started becoming superimportant. But agroforestry as a
whole is practiced worldwide. Itis not a new, new set of
practices by any means, justbecause here in the United
States, we are just beginning toget the buzz words out, like
forest farming and agroforestry,where we're catching up with the
(19:29):
rest of Yeah,
but tropical climates inparticular have been,
have been very successful inreally fully integrating
agroforestry concepts into
a lot of their their foodproduction there, but on on a
different scale, temperateagroforestry within the European
areas or European regions are
(19:53):
they're so far ahead of us, it'snot even funny, like the world
agroforestry scene, but here inthe United States, um.
It does go back to indigenouspractices as well. So I think
it's important for people torealize that when it comes to
agroforestry here in the UnitedStates, again, none of this is
new. These are very ancient andold and indigenous concepts and
(20:14):
practices. We are just re,
re evaluating and tweaking themfor modern
society, I guess.
But yeah, I always giveacknowledgement to indigenous
roots when it comes toagroforestry practices. But
within many of us are practicingindigenous practices on
(20:36):
indigenous land too. So there'sthat acknowledgement as well.
So here, what I do is not inhere, like in Canada, in Canada
and Australia as as well. I havea lot of colleagues around
there, and they're really good,like, even on their emails,
they're, you know, acknowledgingthat they're living and working
on unseated territories. Andthey they say who's whose
(21:00):
territories they were. And Ithink that's a really beautiful
thing. So are you? Are you atall familiar with the natives
that you would would have beenin your area? So here on the
land that that we practice ouragroforestry practices with, we
are forest farming on nativeSara lands, the SARS ended up,
(21:23):
most of them ended up leavingthis area long, long time ago,
obviously, and the SARS don'ttechnically exist anymore. They
ended up going into the Lumbeeand the saponi and the Cherokee
nations,
or stayed here and were,
I guess, simulated, maybeassimilated, yeah. I hate to say
(21:45):
it like that, but, but I do havesorrow blood as well. My family
is is from here, and at somepoint in time, there was some of
those
connections and geneticexchanges made, I guess you
could say, yeah, so, but yes,and, and we started out with
(22:05):
seven and a half acres here,
and then my father ended upgetting the 10 acres across from
us. We're at the end of the dirtroad. My father ended up getting
the 10 acres across from us andsaying, you know, here's, here's
my contribution to the to thefamily farm, I guess. And then
my mother and my uncle went intogether and got an additional
37 acres at the end of the road.
(22:29):
I'm very sad that the 20 ofthat, 27 of that is getting
ready to be sold or gettingready to go on the market. So if
anybody wants to come be my
neighbor, basically be a pieceof property available. But
outside of that, we can walk tothe one of the most pristine
rivers in the triad and mayoRiver, which is surrounded by
(22:50):
over 2000 acres of state parkland as well.
So we're very fortunate that weare found ourselves in a place
that this is our forever home.When we look for property, we
had a specific set of criteriaall the way down to what
orientation the land needed tobe like. We knew we wanted to
(23:12):
have southeast exposure. We knewwe wanted to have a creek. I
wanted to find blood root. Weneeded to find yellow root. We
needed to find cohosh. We knewwe needed X amount of species as
indicators that we were at theright place, and we were able to
find all of that, plus plus some
my ex planted in my yardintentionally. And I gotta tell
(23:33):
you, I'm not, I'm not a fan ofyellow Roo. I think, I think
maybe it tends to be a littlebit invasive in my area, it kind
of takes away brew or root,yellow root, yellow root, or
talking yellow Roo. No roots, iswhat I was saying. And I think
we may be getting into differentcommon names for different
(23:56):
plants. Maybe no. I mean, thisis supposed to be, I mean, I'm
sure it's probably, but it's oneof those that just like, and,
yeah, I ended up, I ended upripping it out because I didn't
like it. So, so I would beinterested in your yellow root.
Yeah, I would. I will send yousome links. I'm tempted to try
to say the name of it, like theactual botanical name, but I
(24:19):
know,
so I will end up butchering it,um, but I know, yeah, yellow
root is, is commonly associated,that common name with so many
different species. I mean, justhere within my region, I've got,
I know that you that are nativethat are commonly called Yellow
root, but they're very differentspecies. Um, all the same. So
such a good education today. Ilove this.
(24:43):
But yeah, so
we do a lot of mushrooms ramps.We're not supposed to do ramps
in our region, but we do themsuccessfully. Ginseng, golden
seal, which is another name foryellow root, a different yellow
root than I was talking about.
Uh,
black and blue cohosh. The blackcohosh does a little bit better
(25:04):
here than the blue we at onepoint, we had nine different
species of mushrooms that wewere growing and
variety of other things. So Idon't know what do you want to
talk about?
Well, I'm also interested inyour alley cropping. So what do
you do with your orchard?Because I grew up on an apple
orchard and have always beenreally, really fascinated by
(25:28):
alley cropping, just because, Imean, we we have grass, but we
don't actually do, like croppingtype stuff, and my family likes
to keep it very well mowed. And,you know, there are lots of, you
know, cultural reasons, likecultural practices, reasons that
they do that, mice being one ofthem, but, but I'm curious as to
(25:49):
as to your, your alley croppingprocess. So tell us, yeah, yeah.
Let me so
alley cropping, just for anybodywho's not familiar with that,
alley cropping is essentiallydefined as strips or rows of
trees and or woody shrubs thathave an alleyway in between them
(26:10):
where crops are produced
that could go into all five ofthe practices. But while we're
talking about alley cropping, Ijust want to make sure that
people understand it's not justan orchard system, it is. Alley
cropping is a very integratedactually, all agroforestry
practices are integrated. Sowhen we started out, we did not
(26:30):
intend and plan on having thatalley cropping. If I could go
back and redo this, I would planfor this differently. But
there's always, you know,examples or opportunities to
learn, even from mistakes. Sowhen we, when we came out here
and we started plugging intrees, my husband was working
for a nursery in a neighboringcity, and got an amazing deal on
(26:54):
a bunch of stuff that wasgetting ready to be thrown away,
essentially needed to beliquidated. And we, we got an
amazing deal, and we came out,started planning that. Now I'm a
preface this by saying we livein a town called Stoneville
the county of Rockingham, so wedo a lot of turning up rocks in
(27:17):
this area. Pretty much anytimewe we go out into the field, we
are turning up rocks and stones,and that was no exception, and
it made it incredibly difficultto successfully like to plant
for success on a very, very redclay, rock infested hillside.
(27:37):
But some of them are stillsurviving, and at that point in
time, we did intend on justhaving an orchard.
And once we moved in here,however, many years ago, and I
was more familiar with theconcept of alley cropping, I was
like, man, we need to do somealley cropping in this. And so
we have been experimenting,trying to build the soil up for
quite a handful of years now.And then we've been doing the
(27:59):
alley cropping system about six,seven years now, and
we have done my husband isreally into to trying to figure
out how to do three sisters witha tractor, a three sisters
gardening, if you're familiarwith that. So he always ends up
identifying one of the paddocksthat he's going to end up doing
that. And last year in one ofthe paddocks, we
(28:20):
did not do a crop. We decided toraise a few hogs. And there was
our first time bringing the hogshome from the big farm.
But it was, it was good to havethem here, and anyway, but
letting them just do their dotheir thing in the soil, rip it
up, turn it over, we did go backand try to do a little bit of
cover cropping afterwards, afterwe called them and rebuilt,
(28:43):
they're so great for that. Like,I just want to interject that,
like, if, especially if you'reon small acreage or anything
like that. Like, bringing,bringing pigs in is really a
great, a great, they can reallyhelp transform. They turn the
soil over there. They're so fullof nutrition, with the their
poop and everything, and so it'sjust like they're amazing. They
(29:05):
really, I tell people that theirtillers on the front end and
fertilizers on the back end,absolutely,
pretty, pretty good that theythey will do them. And you
might, yeah, you might needgood,
yeah, yeah, for sure, the So, sowe've been working on trying to
build the soil in the alleywaysfor many years. I have had to go
(29:28):
back and do some replanting, andwe've got a little bit of
replanting, and we still need todo it in the rows. I've got
comfrey.
We also tried doing a handful oftea camellias in there, as far
as, like a an understory with atearing up the different levels
of production. So we'veexperimented with a few
different things within thoserows, as far as intercropping
(29:50):
goes. And then the alleyway istypically going to be just
annual vegetable production. Ias the trees are getting larger
and fuller, our alleyways aregetting.
Narrower and narrower. I doeventually see this as being
more of like a rotationalsilvopasture. I don't know if
it's going to end up lookinglike poultry will end up, but we
(30:11):
have run poultry through therein the past, but not in a
silvopasture type manner.They've been in more chicken
tractors working on amending thesoil and whatnot. So yeah, we're
looking at a how we can continueto learning and grow off of
that, that site,
yeah, yeah, yeah. So let's thankyou so much. I mean, I think
(30:33):
it's, I mean, where we could gowith this, you're growing a
million different crops, sothere's just, like, so many
exciting things that we could,we could talk about, I would
like to shift gears just alittle bit and talk more about
the how you are able to manageall of the things that you do.
You said something during ourpre screening call that said,
(30:56):
I asked if sometimes you wererunning on fumes, and you said,
fumes are very important things,as long as they don't catch
fire. Yeah,
so I love that quote and and I'mwondering if you can share some
of the things you do to actuallyput gas back in the tank and to
make sure that you don't go upin flames. Because,
(31:17):
see that, yeah, no, I think it'sa little bit of like a,
I don't know, since that someinternal combustion does still
arise,
and spontaneous combustion, but,yeah, fumes are important, but
it's not good to run on justthose for very long.
Later they burn out.
(31:38):
I think what one of the beforewe quit doing farmers market,
the balance was completely outof hand. And I really miss
market.
But I think trying to we wereworking six, seven days a week,
or, like, if we had Sunday justto try to do laundry and say hey
to each other, it passing by,that was kind of all we had.
(32:00):
And, you know, just one day as afamily day.
So it, for me, I think that wasone of the areas that we had to
address,
first off, to try to find somebalance. And we just, we stopped
market less than a year ago,when I took the job at ASD it,
it added a different level ofcomplexity to
(32:25):
our lives, where I like all butabandoned my husband. We were
both farming full time, thatthat was our life. It was 100%
the farm, farm, market, CSAs,those types of things. And then
when I took this job with ASD,and I had this other part of my
life that we were trying to do,and then we were trying to
homeschool and coordinate thattogether. And it just it became
(32:47):
very, very difficult. My husbanddid end up getting a off farm
job as well, and we ended upeliminating market, but I
thought that that was going tomake things super complicated
with both of us working. And
it actually helped a whole lot.But I guess that's some of the
things that just tell us why.Because I want to jump on that,
(33:09):
because a lot of people, like, Italked to a lot of farmers who,
like, there is kind of a stigmastill, I think for some farmers,
about how much of your time ormoney or whatever has to come
off the farm versus,
you know, off farm to beconsidered a real farmer, like,
you know, we talk what is a goodfarmer? And I'm trying to
(33:33):
challenge those old ways ofthinking and to say that, you
know, farming is more of a partof who we are, as opposed to,
like, how we do it and, and, youknow, relating it to days of the
week or dollars in the bank, or,you know, that kind of a thing,
just trying to really expandthat view a little bit. But I'm
(33:53):
curious as to how both of youworking off the farm, and I also
want to know how you managed tohome school while both of you
work off farm. How that actuallymade things easier for you and
for your farm life. So talk.Talk to me about that. So with
prior to me taking this job,when we were both just farming
(34:16):
full time, we were working sevendays a week, as does every
farmer, um, if I like, theplants don't wait. The livestock
doesn't wait. Everything's gotto eat and be watered, and, um,
fencing has to be repaired. Andyou know that just, there's
always something happening. Andsince, since we scaled back, I
guess if you want to put termson something, I would, I would
more say that we have scaledback from farming to
(34:39):
homesteading. And where thatline draws in people's
determination of that iscompletely subjective. Where my
mind goes into it is, we're nottrying to manage a farm off of
our farm anymore, like we justhave our spot now that we're
like, we're just trying to feedour family. We're not trying to
feed and.
(35:00):
Everybody anymore, and I thinkthat that's in my mind, that's
where that difference goes intolike we still have a farm, but
we are not farmers anymore. Weare homesteaders who have a
farm. Does that make sense? Butwe do still technically have a
farm. I mean, we still file aSchedule. F, the government has
(35:22):
all of their own determinationson $1,000 and not even income.
Actually, it's $1,000 of ofproduction. So, yeah, you know
that could go from anything fromfirewood to, you know, to be
like, I mean, it's, and itdoesn't take long to get to
(35:43):
$1,000
of production.
We start dealing with, withwithin the agroforestry world,
like forest farming is reallydifficult because it has really
long term crops. Like you maynot be harvesting something for
six to 10 years, you know.
So, like, what? Where that linegoes. But anyway, back to, like,
staying sane.
(36:04):
So getting up in the morning,honestly and like I it, I get up
every morning at 530 in themorning, and I get up and I make
my bed once we're all out of it.
But like, just that simple actof just getting up and starting
my day clean, and is really justlike mentally puts me into a
(36:27):
good place the rest of the day,most mornings anyway, and I have
a really, really hard time likestopping my work day. I probably
would work until I collapsed ifI was allowed to, and that's
because I love what I do, but myhusband has been very good about
now's your stopping point? Likeword like you're off work now
(36:50):
you work at home. You work eventhough it's an off yeah. I just
wanted to let let our listenersknow that although it's an off
farm job, you are working onhome, yes, yes, yes. I'm in my
home office right now remote. Mychildren are in the next room
doing their schoolwork. So,
(37:11):
good job, kids.
They're pretty amazing.
But yeah, so like, I think it'spretty important just to have a
good way to initiate your daywhen it comes to either just
going into your day or goinginto your work day, just having
something that can that isconsistent, that can give you a
good outlook on life. It may beyour cup of coffee. It may be
(37:34):
watching the sunrise. For me,it's just like making my bed,
because I'm sitting in mybedroom most of the day,
working, and I'm it lookingaround, having a clean space
like it keeps me mentally clear,clearer, I don't say clear, but
clearer.
And
office, huh? Yeah, yeah. Well,that's, I think it's bad that my
(37:58):
office is, like, in my kitchen,living room area, you know,
like, I just, there are nowalls, there are no anything.
It's all open space and and yet,your bedroom is kind of worse,
because that's that's supposedto be the place that you can go
in there and get away, right?Well, and again, we have a
really small house, and it'sjust the three of us, but, like,
(38:18):
I sleep in a Murphy bed, in thewalls, in the living room. So
in, I guess, I guess, now thatI'm saying it like, well, maybe,
maybe it's not so differentafter all, but I find that
transition to be really hardwhen you're multi using your
space, because it is so easy.
And work like, can I just say,in my opinion, work is so much
(38:41):
more fulfilling in some waysthan housework and even
parenting, because I love mychildren and I want them to grow
to be amazing people. And it'swork, work. Work all the time,
and it never stops. Whereas,even if, if you've got when
you've got this other work, youknow, we're doing this podcast,
it's totally great, there willcome a time when, when we're
(39:02):
like, oh, time's up. We're gonnago and you close the podcast and
you have it, and it's there, andit's a product. It's like, oh,
look at that. I did this, youknow, I wrote an article today.
Oh, look at that. It's online.You can read it. And those other
jobs, they just, kind of, youjust keep doing them, like, is
the, is the laundry ever reallydone? Are the ever really
(39:25):
washed? Is the house ever reallyclean? And I think, I think that
that's actually, now that youbring that up, that that is
another strategy that I've had,like, when it comes to managing
my house with cleanliness andthe gardens and the animals and
all of that kind of stuff. Like,on a beautiful day, I don't, I
don't want to spend part of myday inside cleaning
(39:45):
and then go outside and work inmy garden track a bunch of mud
inside. So, like, one of thethings that I will make it a
deliberate decision, I'm goingto work outside today, and the
house can wait, you know. So, soI.
Have company coming over, like,we're going to be fed. It can
wait until tomorrow. Tomorrow Iwill focus on the house. And I
(40:07):
find that I do get much moreaccomplished if I just say I'm
going to focus on XYZ today,like, today is my outside day,
and what I've had to do with myscheduling is that's something
I'm still trying to work outright now, like homeschooling
and homeschooling and having apersonal business, even though
(40:28):
we have downsized significantlywithin our business and it's not
our sole means of incomeanymore, there still has to be
some, you know, financialmanagement has to happen there.
There. You know, how much like,do we have money to buy feed
for, you know, 70 birds. Do wereally need 70 birds anymore?
We're not doing market in hereanymore. So, like, you know,
(40:50):
having to figure all that kindof stuff out. But going from the
transition from my day job nowto transitioning to my personal
business, or transitioning tohomeschooling is really
difficult. Like, it really iskind of like you're saddling
life and trying to walk with afoot in two different areas,
(41:13):
especially when it comes to likethe children in particular, like
I get hyper focused on regionaland national
efforts that are being made andwith with my day job,
and working on these planning10,000 different things as far
as these workshops go. And Idon't know if I've explained the
(41:35):
day job or not, but anyway, um,
going from going from a businessmeeting to sixth grade math,
like, it's a huge transition,you know, or fourth grade
grammar, like, do you reallyremember that? And it's a shift
that has to happen. And goingfrom, you know, super business
(41:57):
oriented to playful mom again,and that transition doesn't
happen in the brain immediately.I mean, it's not an on off
switch. It's something that yougotta mentally manage and be
present in a moment andconstantly have to be
readjusting to so
I have found when with thefederal funding freezes has
affected the nonprofit that Iwork for a lot, and so my hours
(42:22):
have been reduced. My entireteam's hours have been reduced.
So I'm I'm working under adifferent time management than I
was before, and
I appreciate more time with myfamily. I miss making a little
bit more money, but that's okay.They keep those 70 birds you
might be marketing them,
but when, when I was still fulltime, like it was really
(42:47):
if it wasn't for my mother, likemy mother really helps out.
Well, at least at that point intime, she really helped out a
whole lot with Homeschool andbeing able to bounce the kids
back and forth and have feellike you had a teammate and a
partner in the education wasreally important, but I did try
to cram all my hours into, youknow, a few days. I'm very
(43:10):
fortunate in the month, myschedule is flexible. I know a
lot of people. You know, if it'snot nine to four or eight to
five or whatever it is, somebodyworks that's not nearly like I
can press pause on my work lifeand go into the next room and
check on my children or go makethem a nutritious lunch. But
so it is a constant balance andchallenge to try to find some
(43:34):
equilibrium between soccer andkids and fourth grade math and
all the things and workinglivestock and forest management
and all of that. So
there is no staying caught up,but there is a level of staying
sane through it, and not losingyour peace and not losing your
(43:56):
joy in what you're doing. And Idid find that when I was working
my farm full time, 100% of ourincome was coming out off of
our our efforts on our farm,that it really was kind of like
a stealing my joy and a lot ofaspects, because that, like it
(44:18):
was a constant level of stress.I mean, farming is so uncertain.
I mean, there's, it's dependentupon so many different factors
that people may or may not beaware of. But you're also
completely dependent on otherpeople to buy your stuff too,
you know, and not you know, yourun into a rainy day at market
and you know, like, is, was thatyour electric bill that just
(44:39):
went out? Like it's one ofthose. So it's nice not to have
that level of stress anymore.
So anybody who is wanting tojust farm like full time, keep
in consideration like it's notstable.
It is difficult to plan and tosave, and there's always
something that's going to begoing wrong not to do.
(45:00):
Discourage you, but it's areality. And I mean, I've got a
handful of other homeschoolingmothers that I know. I saw a
post on Facebook yesterday fromone of them that they're all
They're all homesteaders. Andshe was talking about, you know
what, one of the aspects of farmlife that people don't talk
about is some of the hardshipsthat you go through. And you
(45:21):
know, she had just lost a calfto one of her dairy cows, and it
was a stillbirth. It was herfirst one. And it's very sad,
and
it's, it's just things like thatthat people don't think about
stealing their joy,
because you have to navigatethat. I think that's there is
there is a lot of emotionalpressure on farmers.
(45:45):
And, I mean, the death of a calfis one of those things, because,
yes, you're facing life anddeath, death, life and death,
life, life and death. There yougo. I can talk every day,
and in in some respects, it'slike, well, that's just a part
of life, which is true. And it'salso hard, like you have to be
(46:07):
able to process all of that andkind of let it go and grieve it
and and then move on, as yousay, without losing your joy.
And that is something that youknow is really close to my heart
for farmers, and what I like isthat you seem to have really
looked at some of the prioritiesthat you want to have in your
life. You know, homeschoolingyour kids is one of them. Having
(46:30):
a little bit more economicsecurity seems to be one of
them, some more stability andstill keep that farming life
going still be producing asignificant amount of crops, it
sounds like so I I really lovethat, because I think a lot of
times farmers tend to get intoan all or nothing mindset, like
(46:53):
it's either full time or it'snot farming at all, or it's, you
know, we're either doing thiscrop or we're not farming at all
or all of this stuff, whereasthere, there is such a huge
range that we can create withinour farm lives that can meet so
many more of our goals as wewish to Hello.
(47:17):
Did you get tired of doinghomeschooling? I need help on
it.
You know what we are? We'regoing to ask your mom to give us
one piece of advice that shewishes every farmer had. Do, do
you think you know what? What?What advice would you give to a
farmer, your little farmer?What? What advice would you give
(47:40):
plant onions near your othercrops so that the the
animals don't eat them.
They don't like onions. Itotally love you. Okay.
And how old are you? 1110?
10. Yep. Okay. There you haveit, boys and girls. There you
(48:01):
are. You are amazing. I loveyou. So we're going to plant
onions. Okay, that's one thingwe need to do. Next to the
other. We're going to intercrop,intercrop our onions and and
what, what do you have for us?Stesha, don't let anything steal
your joy. And I don't know. Stayencouraged. Stay encouraged.
There's, I guess that's mybiggest thing right now. It's
(48:23):
just people stay encouraged,because we have such a loss of
farmers right now across ournation, like we're losing
farmland, we're losing farmers,and most farmers have to have
off job, off site jobs, so juststaying encouraged and keep
planting good seeds.
Oh, I just love that. Thank you.And, and if you do need more
(48:45):
encouragement, you know,definitely come out and check
out the pen light website,because that's what we try to
do, is to provide encouragementand and keep coming back to
food, flowers and fun, becausewe want, we want this to be a
place that encourages people andhelps them really, to to grow
into not just great farmers, butthe people that they want to be.
(49:07):
So thank you so much. Stesha and
Farmwork's calling; our show isall done. Goodbye, farewell, so
long, adieu. See you next week,same time, same place for Food,
Flowers and Fun. Go in peace.
Visit us @www.penlightfarmers.com
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