May 21, 2024 • 26 mins
Meet Toni Farmer: gardener, Professor, Community Inspiration, Green Thumb Guru, and Women's Empowerment Leader! Based in Burlington County, Toni is on a mission to revolutionize our community's approach to food sustainability and the Future of Food. Listen in as we sit down with Toni to delve into her incredible journey, her passion for cultivating sustainable food practices, and her role in empowering women in the world of gardening and beyond.
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Dr. Brooke Mailhiot (00:01):
Welcome to Rowan College at Burlington
County's Baroness Podcast. I'mDr. Brook Mailhiot, program
chair and assistant professor ofour entertainment technologies
department. I'm the co chair ofthe Women's Advocacy Group, a
subcommittee of the President'sAdvisory Council on diversity,
equity and inclusion. Thismonthly series highlights women
(00:22):
in leadership while encouraginglisteners to build their skills,
connect with the community andvisualize the opportunities
available to women in variousprofessions. Tune in for a
female perspective on theBurlington County community. We
are here to listen to theseamazing women. And if you want
to hear from women who lead andinspire this podcast is for you.
(00:45):
Well, when I think of summerstarting, I think of farmers
markets, eating outside, biking,walking, and just getting back
in touch with nature. And when Ithink of all these things, I
think of Tony Farmer, and she'sjoining us here today she is a
professor at Rowan University inthe School of Earth and
Environmental Science where sheteaches the future of food.
(01:08):
She's a passionate gardener, andso much so you can hear her and
her many green thumbs onlineteaching everyone to grow their
own food. You may have seen heron Fox 29 Sharing gardening
tips. And with South Jerseymagazines. The goal is to become
a gardener which is going onthere season five, which is
launching this May. WelcomeTony, thank you for being here
(01:31):
with us today. Brooke, it's apleasure to be here. Thanks for
inviting me. Of course. Well, Iam in awe. I'm telling you, I'm
scrolling down my Instagram feedand all I see from your stuff is
this beautiful, glorious produceyour fabulous garden, your place
settings. It's like I want to godine in like France somewhere
(01:51):
outside and you just inspire mewhen I see this bowl of these
gorgeous i Yes, I use the wordgorgeous to describe vegetables.
Yes. They're amazing. And youinspire me. And I just want to
say how did this all like? Cometo be? I mean, I know your last
names farmer and all but
Unknown (02:10):
that came later. But tell me what inspired you to
become this gardening like Mavenor queen. I'm going to call you.
That's such a great question. Ithink if I had to trace it all
the way back, I was 19 yearsold. My mother had been a
gardener, but I was a typicalteenager. I was like that's my
mom's dumb thing, right? And shegave me a book by this woman. It
(02:31):
was an entertaining book,gardening and beautiful
entertaining. And I dog earedthis book. I went through this
and I made notes. And I think Iprobably still have it
somewhere. And it was written bythis woman. Maybe you've heard
of Martha Stewart. I think so.And she was a nobody, then no
one knew who she was when shepublished that first book. But I
(02:53):
saw early on I fell in love. Andshe really is kind of the goat I
think of teaching women like whycan't you do this, do this. Try
this. You can grow it you canbuild it. And she would say that
I'm sure if she was sittingright here. So from Martha, I
started trying things like maybeI could arrange flowers. Maybe I
could start a garden. And thenshe does beautiful things too.
(03:17):
So I've always been inspired bythat. So a garden for years and
years and years. And people tendto think of flowers and formal
spaces. You think of LongwoodGardens and beautiful spaces. Oh
yeah. And then you think of avegetable garden. And you're
like, those are ugly andfunctional. And there's probably
some pie pans and some, youknow, debated pages that have
(03:39):
Yeah, everything around rang.And I thought why can't it be
both? I'm going to do both. So Ibuilt with my own two hands
because I believe deeply infemale empowerment. I knew
people were going to come andsee this. And they were going to
ask me how I did it. And Ididn't want to say I hired some
guy to do this for me. Not thatthere's anything wrong with
that. But I thought if I buildthis myself, I have a chance to
(04:03):
show women you can do this too.It's not that hard. Sure. So I
built it took me several years.I still am working on it. I'm
still in the middle of it. Butas you know from my Instagram
feed, it's a stunning space.It's everything is edible.
Beautiful raised beds, beds inthe ground. There's tunnels you
can walk through, we built agarden Cottage, we have a
(04:23):
beautiful hen house, so we havefresh eggs. And then all summer
long I grow anything you cangrow in New Jersey. I grow it in
my backyard. Wow. I mean, thepictures in the space. And those
of you that don't follow Tony,Tony, tell our listeners where
they can follow you. Sure. SoI'm on Tony farmer's garden on
Instagram. And I'm Tony farmersGarden Club on Facebook, which I
(04:47):
highly recommend if you're anewbie, because what we do in
that space, there's about alittle over 3000 members in that
group and you q&a all day long.So gardening is a very hard
thing to learn out of a bookbecause it's in
Dr. Brooke Mailhiot (05:00):
The moment you walk into your backyard and
that tomato plant doesn't lookgood, or there's a bug you don't
recognize, nobody wants to go inan open up book or go online and
start searching. You want to asksomeone who knows need real
world experience? And we'recoming to you definitely, yeah.
So I say jump in here. It's allfree. Post your picture and your
question, and I'll answer it.And now I've attracted like,
(05:23):
probably have half a dozenmaster gardeners in the group to
just joyful, knowledgeablewomen. And they'll jump in and
enter a question. So if I'mbusy, you'll get within 24
hours, your garden question isanswered. That's amazing. And
also what I think is unique isyou've now connected almost what
started as like a hobby or adream of yours with this garden
(05:45):
into now teaching, not just thecommunity, but you're at the at
Rowan University, and you havethis amazing class called The
Future of Food. Tell us aboutthis class, because I want to go
back to school just to take thisclass. It's sounds fabulous. I
hear that all the time. I haveso many women who are like, I
(06:06):
want to take that college class.I'm like, Well, come on in.
Unknown (06:11):
I love it so much. I can't express you how much I
love my students how much I loveteaching. I think this is a big
statement. I'm going to makecolleges broken to me right now,
in many ways. It is soincredibly expensive, it's hard
to extract the worth out of it.Sure two thirds of professors
are now adjuncts, which I don'thave a problem with that. I just
(06:32):
don't think most people realizethat most of your education is
coming from very poorly paidadjuncts, who are passionate
about what we do. But I want tomake sure I'm giving my students
every last penny of theireducation, my paid for my four
children to go to college. Andin some cases, I know they had
professors that were phoning itin, or just didn't care any
(06:53):
longer. And I am there presentfor my students every day. I
don't want them to learn thisstuff, spit it back out on an
exam, forget about it. I wantthem to own it understand it. I
want them to be able to answerquestions from other people. If
someone comes up to them andsays, Why are food prices so
high? Right now? I want them tohave an intelligent answer. And
not a meme. They saw someplaceso sure. I love them. And so the
(07:18):
food the future of food, what'sthe what was the concept behind
that? So we have, we've had acouple of revolutions in food.
The big one was the right afterthe World War Two ish. There was
a famous scientist named FritzHaber. During the war, he was he
worked for the Nazis, which iswhy he is not in most history
(07:39):
books. We're just learning abouthim a little bit. Now. He's
called the monster who fed theworld because his invention was
learning how to fix atmosphericnitrogen, which funded which
was how we ended up with bombsduring the war. And he was on
the side of our enemy. So not afan, right? Sure, of course. So
when the The discovery was madepublic, so during the course of
(08:02):
between World War One and WorldWar Two, we opened, I think it's
32 munitions, factories acrossthe United States fixing
atmospheric nitrogen to fund ourwar effort. When the war ended,
we're making all this nitrogen,we've got nothing to do with it.
No one wants to close factoriesdown. No politician wants pays
those jobs worse. What can we dowith it? Well, nitrogen is a
(08:24):
macro nutrient for agriculture.So we started dumping nitrogen,
synthetic chemical nitrogen allover the nation's farmland. What
crop Do you think responded thebest? I don't know what you're
going to tell me think aboutwhat is in everything that you
eat.
corn, corn is the answer. Cornis a heavy nitrogen feeder. It's
(08:45):
also shelf stable and does awhole bunch of other things.
It's very flexible. I'm like atomato, huge in New Jersey, it
is huge. In New Jersey, you canmake a million byproducts out of
it, you can put it on the shelf,and it will sit there. So we've
kind of gotten ourselves intothis mess. We are in the now in
the middle of a new revolution,where we're saying, Yeah, we fed
(09:05):
a lot of people. And that wasimportant. And we don't want to
stop that. But those syntheticfertilizers are damaging our
soil. And also just creating acycle of poor ecosystem, poor
soil health, we need to get backto regenerative practices. So
this class is how did we getinto this mess? What does it
mean to grow food? And what isthe future of food? How is
(09:26):
technology and AI and geneticmodification? How are these
tools going to be used so thatwe can keep eating into the
future? Well, so you'reempowering these young students
to kind of take everything inthe classroom and move it to
real world experiences. You'regiving them all these amazing
things to go out and hopefullychange. Right? Because
(09:49):
everything, everything ischanging. And I know you know,
we talked about what is going onin our world right now with
climate change. And it's crazyyeah.
So how is that affecting oursystem of gardening and our
food, fruits and vegetables inNew Jersey here? I worry that
(10:09):
our food system is very fragile,and it's in jeopardy and that
the average person doesn't knowit. And the reason you don't
know it is our new cycle is likea fire hydrant right now. And
there's only so much we cantake. And most people walk
around, they go to restaurants,or they go to Wegmans or
wherever and like there's foodeverywhere. So clearly, there's
not an issue, right? But I readthese articles deeply every
(10:31):
single day. And let me give yousome examples. Last year, pizza
up Georgia lost 90% of itspeaches. I'm going to do that
again. Yeah, last year, Georgialost 90% of its peaches due to a
late frost, that's climatechange related. We thought
climate change was going to belinear, it was going to be
predictable and was going to getwarmer and warmer. And what we
(10:53):
are realizing now is it'sactually creating a great deal
of unpredictability and gianttemperature swings. Even though
overall it is getting warmer.That means you might have a
peach tree wake up a littleearly, then you have a late
frost, all the blossoms getburned, the fruit drops, and
you've got nothing. Coffee is injeopardy right now. Our our
(11:16):
atmosphere and our ecosystem forgrowing coffee is very specific
requires temperature andaltitude. We cannot grow Arabica
beans any longer, which ismostly what we drink. They are
working on a new cultivars thatthey can grow in other
locations. Chocolate is injeopardy right now. I could go
on and on. And so we're seeing Imean, red meat is really in
(11:40):
jeopardy right now. So the Texaswildfires were probably probably
10s of 1000s of head of cattle.There's other areas of the world
that grow cattle where it's nottoo hot, or there's not enough
water. So cattle ranchers arecutting back at the same time
where the world is demandingmore red meat than ever. And
then paradoxically, red meatraising livestock contributes to
(12:03):
climate change when it's notdone properly.
Dr. Brooke Mailhiot (12:06):
So what are your hopes and wishes for us as
citizens to do about this issue?What would be some steps? If you
could wave a magic wand today?And have everybody do something
a change? What would that be?Boy?
Unknown (12:27):
Large scale, very large scale big picture is voting.
Okay, because the farm bill isthe piece of legislation that
dictates so much and it'sunderfunded. And I think, you
know, it's one more thing tocall your congressman and say
make sure this is well funded.It's protecting our food system.
But on a local level, I wouldsay two things. Grow a garden,
because you're then having somecontrol over your food system.
(12:50):
And you're also learning a lotabout your food system and
educated consumer is an educatedcitizen, correct? Yeah. And then
I would also say if that's notyou, because not everybody wants
to garden and that's okay. Getto know your farmers in
Burlington County, find outtheir names, visit their farms
buy directly from them go to thefarmers market. Will it be more
(13:10):
expensive? Yes, it will be alittle bit more expensive, but
you are directly supporting theperson growing your food and
those relationships areimportant. They will thank you.
What is your favorite thing togrow? Oh, make me man. Um, I
think that's going to be a tiebetween raspberries which I'm
(13:30):
obsessed with. I loveraspberries. And I am like
a big promoter of a particularvariety out there anyone that
will stand still long enough.I'm like, I'll give you
seedlings. Like take this andgrow them in your backyard.
They're so great. And it's alsoa superfood and and then I would
say that's tied with the tomatobecause I'm a Jersey girl. And
anybody from Jersey I definitelyknow has to be a tomato fan.
(13:54):
That's where you start right foreveryone. I know. Right? So from
your own backyard, you've kindof cultivated this persona of
being the garden aficionado.You're helping out the
community. You helped up somenonprofit organizations like
Urban Promise with their garden.But now I know you've moved over
(14:15):
to helping our public schoolsystem and churches. Tell us how
you're helping those over 10years ago, I built a city wide
school garden program forMoorestown. We had garden beds
at every one of the schools. Ithink the only ones I didn't
personally build were at Bakerbut the rest of them I built
(14:37):
with my own two hands through anorganization called Live civilly
run by Kara bus in town here.And it was wonderful. Everyone
absolutely loved it. The kidslove it. And let me tell you the
research on the impact of kidswho take part in the school
garden is unbelievable. They eathealthier, they eat a wider
variety of vegetables, they'reless afraid to try things just
(14:58):
there's nothing bad. It's all
All good. The problem withschool gardens is, after I left
after five years, when theyturned it over to somebody else,
the whole program died. And someof the schools have even ripped
out the beds. I know it'sheartbreaking, because you have
to have I realized this now inhindsight, you have to have a
teacher or an administrator onthe inside, who is equally
(15:19):
passionate, because when I leftthe passion left, right, and
they've got enough on theirplate, they can't manage it. So
you just need a teacher, or youneed a nonprofit or a home and
school organization that says,we're going to house this. And
then volunteers can come and go,and it will stay running. So I
think school gardens are stillgoing to thrive. I think most
towns may come back at somepoint, I'm encouraging other
(15:41):
schools to do it. But that'swhere it's a, just a lesson
learned. And then last year,almost a year and a half ago, a
Presbyterian Church reached outand said, Hey, we've got seven
beautiful acres that wemaintain, and they're stunning.
And we're feeling a littleguilty about that. We could be
feeding the community, there's alot of people that need food,
they didn't finish the request,and I had my car keys. I'm like,
(16:03):
I'm coming over. You're like I'mthere. I'm your person I've
done. I'm on it. Yeah. And theywere fabulous. Because what you
lack most of the time in theseprograms is money, volunteers
and organization. And thischurch had all three, they were
like we're in. So we convertedabout a quarter of an acre to
raised beds, little fence. Theyhave a whole committee last
(16:26):
year, they spent hundreds ofpounds of fresh produce to the
food pantries in our area. Oh myGod, why isn't every church and
synagogue doing this? Right?Yeah, no, I mean, like you said,
we are in urgency with our foodsupply. And of course, I've been
to the grocery store recently,prices are out of control for
our food, and being able to goright in your backyard or to
(16:47):
your community, and have accessto that there are so many
communities that don't. And it'sjust unbelievable, but with your
teaching your knowledge. I mean,you're just the way you speak
about your passion. It's justamazing. And you're you're
moving even from gardens to Isaw recently, you're doing a
(17:09):
power tool class. Yeah, thatsort of grew out of gardening,
because everyone wanted to knowhow to build the raised beds. So
I made some videos. But then itturned out a lot of women don't
know how to use power tools. Andthen a lot of power tools are
also built for the physics ofthe male body, big upper arm
body strength, which we don'thave. But over time, I've
learned some tricks. And theinspiration came from a very odd
(17:33):
and sort of sad place. It camefrom divorce, not my own, but a
girlfriend of mine got adivorce. And we see this happen
all the time. Couples fall intovery traditional roles, even if
they don't mean to you mimicyour parents. Sure mom ends up
cooking, cleaning and groceryshopping dad takes the trash out
most of the lawn and fixeseverything. So I find a lot of
(17:54):
women who end up divorced andthey're like, I don't know how
to do any of this. I relied onmy husband to do this. He's not
here. Maybe he even took thepower tools in the divorce or
whatever, right? That happened.Or gone. No, she shed and now
they're faced with these reallyterrible choice when stuff needs
to get fixed. Either it doesn'tget fixed and house falls into
disrepair or I'm paying 1000s ofdollars to do something that
(18:15):
would have been cost me 15bucks. So I opened up community,
oh my gosh, we were packedwithin a couple of hours. I have
a waiting list as long as myarm. People want to bring their
daughters in there like my 10year old needs to know how to do
this. And they're joyful. Imean, we those women show up and
I get the the first thing Istart with is how to use the
power drill. And by the time I'mdone it is like Girl Power
(18:38):
Central. They're like, what canwe go fix? So I love it. I feel
like I'm visualizing everybodywearing like a Rosie the Riveter
like yeah, chart and holdinglike a DeWalt drill. Why not?
saws and let's go to town andlike build something. I love it.
And I love that you'reinspiring,
Dr. Brooke Mailhiot (18:58):
you know, young women and women to do you
know, things for themselves. AndI think that's something as a
female, not a lot of us, likeyou said about these gender
roles. Not a lot of us feelinternal that we can do that.
And that's just a beautifulthing. So kudos to you a big
part of my belief system is fearis our biggest enemy. And not a
(19:22):
single woman that has shown upin my basement or my backyard to
do a workshop was incapable inany way. She simply feared it.
And having another woman say,Look, you just needed to hit
this button to reverse thedrill. And that's it. And she
goes, That's it. Yeah, that'sit. You just needed someone to
show you. Well, you just show ussome beautiful parties that you
(19:43):
have. Tell us. How do you startthe idea of the inspiration for
a theme? Or like a placesetting? Is it like are you
walking down in a flea market orlike, like somewhere and you see
Unknown (20:00):
You may be a plate or you see a vase or you see a
color like palette. Where do youget your inspiration to create
these glorious events andsettings that that that are
steward in inspired. I lovesetting a table. And I love
having people over to eat, Ilove serving them good food, and
(20:21):
I love the community. Andconnection that happens when you
do that. I've invited people Idon't even know to my home for
dinner. And then they leave asfriends and exciting. Yeah, so
it can come from any place.Sometimes it comes from the
flowers I'm growing in mybackyard. Often it becomes it
comes from seasonal produce,where I'm like, Oh, the
jalapenos are in, let's do aMexican themed, you know, yeah,
(20:43):
hearty. But I because I'm reallypassionate about sustainability,
I spend not a lot of timebecause I don't have time to
shop much. But
Dr. Brooke Mailhiot (20:51):
flea markets and goodwill and places
like that, where you can go buya box of crystal wine glasses
for $5, because someone elsedidn't like them, you're giving
them a new home. And what I sayto people that they might not
have thought of, they're like, Idon't want him to store all that
stuff I'm like, then don't throwthree dinner parties with it,
and then donate it back toGoodwill, it cost you five
(21:13):
bucks, you're giving someoneelse a chance to use it. It's
not taking up space in yourhouse. And it all has a story,
which is really interesting.It's like this historical
tradition, just kind of likewhen you're talking about like,
all the things that MarthaStewart has, she has these
amazing collections of pans anddishware and pottery and, you
know, everything. And it's sucha similar thing. Like there's
(21:34):
all these stories behind it. Andthen you're creating new
traditions and new stories andnew friends and new recipes. And
I mean, it's just it's such abeautiful cycle that you're
providing similar to the cycleof growth with your your
gardens. I think the love thatpeople feel when you go to
someone's house for dinner, andthey have put zero effort in.
(21:56):
Like, that's okay, right? I lovemy friends. And if someone's got
time to order pizza for me andpour a glass of wine, I'm
thrilled because it's about theperson. Sure. But isn't there
something special about showingup to someone's house and you
see, they have gone to so muchtrouble for you, there is a
place for you. That's beautiful.They asked if you were allergic
to anything, they served yourfavorite foods, there's music,
(22:18):
they ordered your favorite wine.That's a magical experience that
most of us don't get toexperience very often. And I
agree. And I love the samething. I love entertaining. I
love cooking. And you know, likeyou said about just going to
your backyard and being able topick something and then you
know, cooking it is justunbelievable. And I know that
(22:39):
something that you love? What'syour favorite thing to cook
with? And create? Is there afavorite salad or a side dish or
a main dish that you just youknow, every season there's a
certain vegetable that comes upin your garden and you're like,
I can't wait to make XYZ or youjudge the recipe a little bit
(23:00):
every time you make it. And it'sand it's always, you know,
turning and changing what whichone is that for you? Do you have
a favorite? I mean, I'll go backto the tomato because it's so
incredibly versatile, and welove it. And that flavor. You
can't get the rest of the year.Right, you're not get that
flavor from a grocery storetomato in January. So we eat at
the peak of flavor when italmost just the umami just
(23:23):
explodes in your mouth. So Icreated a recipe a couple years
ago that's been really popular.It's very decadent. It's tomato
pie, but it's got kind of acheesy cheese cake filling
instead of being sweet, savory,and then got tomatoes doused in
roasted garlic and olive oil andbasil is on top of it and you
(23:44):
cut it like a pie. And it'spretty darn good. Sounds good?
When am I come? When's my inviteare on the list? You're on the
list. I can't wait. Well, everytime we do a podcast, I go
through some of the wonderfulwords and sayings that my guests
have said, and I use them ashashtags. And then I'm going to
(24:07):
ask you what your personalhashtag is. So let's relive some
of these beautiful words you'veshared with us. Beautiful
entertaining, femaleempowerment, joyful knowledge
voting educated citizen, localfarmers, city wide gardener
passionate inspiration, goodfood, magical moments. That was
(24:30):
all from you. Wow. So if you hadone hashtag to live by, or
that's your personal tagline,what would that be for you?
Within the context of everythingwe've spoken, it would be feed
the community, hashtag feed thecommunity. And that's not just
food. We're feeding informationand knowledge and care and love
(24:53):
and food. So before we leavetoday, share with us again where
everybody can find you and alittle bit about
Unknown (25:00):
Your season five that's coming soon. So you can jump and
follow SJ media on Instagram,where I teach Marianne ldrd the
editor how to grow food. She's acomplete novice. She's
hilarious. She does not want totouch the dirt. So she's a great
foil for I would be, that wouldbe me starting out and then I
(25:21):
probably fall. But yes, Iunderstand. You can follow me on
Tony farmer's garden onInstagram for inspo if you're
interested in being invited tojoin us, for the women with
tools workshop, or come to oneof the dinner party or lunch
parties in my garden, all thatinformation is posted on
Facebook and Instagram. And thenI just found out I'm going to be
teaching at Penn in the fall. Sothat's pretty exciting.
(25:44):
Congrats. Yeah, I love it. Thankyou, Tony farmer for joining us
today. You have been an amazingguest. Thank you. It's been a
pleasure. Thanks for having me.Take care. Thanks. You've been
listening to the rcbc Baronesspodcast which highlights women
in leadership while encouraginglisteners to build their skills,
connect with the community andvisualize the opportunities
available to women in variousprofessions. For more
(26:04):
information about this podcastor other podcasts available on
the rcbc Podcast Network, visitrcbc.edu/podcast And be sure to
subscribe to the rcbc barenesspodcast available on all
streaming platforms.
Welcome to Rowan College at Burlington
County's Baroness Podcast. I'mDr. Brook Mailhiot, program
chair and assistant professor ofour entertainment technologies
department. I'm the co chair ofthe Women's Advocacy Group, a
subcommittee of the President'sAdvisory Council on diversity,
equity and inclusion. Thismonthly series highlights women
(00:22):
in leadership while encouraginglisteners to build their skills,
connect with the community andvisualize the opportunities
available to women in variousprofessions. Tune in for a
female perspective on theBurlington County community. We
are here to listen to theseamazing women. And if you want
to hear from women who lead andinspire this podcast is for you.
(00:45):
Well, when I think of summerstarting, I think of farmers
markets, eating outside, biking,walking, and just getting back
in touch with nature. And when Ithink of all these things, I
think of Tony Farmer, and she'sjoining us here today she is a
professor at Rowan University inthe School of Earth and
Environmental Science where sheteaches the future of food.
(01:08):
She's a passionate gardener, andso much so you can hear her and
her many green thumbs onlineteaching everyone to grow their
own food. You may have seen heron Fox 29 Sharing gardening
tips. And with South Jerseymagazines. The goal is to become
a gardener which is going onthere season five, which is
launching this May. WelcomeTony, thank you for being here
(01:31):
with us today. Brooke, it's apleasure to be here. Thanks for
inviting me. Of course. Well, Iam in awe. I'm telling you, I'm
scrolling down my Instagram feedand all I see from your stuff is
this beautiful, glorious produceyour fabulous garden, your place
settings. It's like I want to godine in like France somewhere
(01:51):
outside and you just inspire mewhen I see this bowl of these
gorgeous i Yes, I use the wordgorgeous to describe vegetables.
Yes. They're amazing. And youinspire me. And I just want to
say how did this all like? Cometo be? I mean, I know your last
names farmer and all but
Unknown (02:10):
that came later. But tell me what inspired you to
become this gardening like Mavenor queen. I'm going to call you.
That's such a great question. Ithink if I had to trace it all
the way back, I was 19 yearsold. My mother had been a
gardener, but I was a typicalteenager. I was like that's my
mom's dumb thing, right? And shegave me a book by this woman. It
(02:31):
was an entertaining book,gardening and beautiful
entertaining. And I dog earedthis book. I went through this
and I made notes. And I think Iprobably still have it
somewhere. And it was written bythis woman. Maybe you've heard
of Martha Stewart. I think so.And she was a nobody, then no
one knew who she was when shepublished that first book. But I
(02:53):
saw early on I fell in love. Andshe really is kind of the goat I
think of teaching women like whycan't you do this, do this. Try
this. You can grow it you canbuild it. And she would say that
I'm sure if she was sittingright here. So from Martha, I
started trying things like maybeI could arrange flowers. Maybe I
could start a garden. And thenshe does beautiful things too.
(03:17):
So I've always been inspired bythat. So a garden for years and
years and years. And people tendto think of flowers and formal
spaces. You think of LongwoodGardens and beautiful spaces. Oh
yeah. And then you think of avegetable garden. And you're
like, those are ugly andfunctional. And there's probably
some pie pans and some, youknow, debated pages that have
(03:39):
Yeah, everything around rang.And I thought why can't it be
both? I'm going to do both. So Ibuilt with my own two hands
because I believe deeply infemale empowerment. I knew
people were going to come andsee this. And they were going to
ask me how I did it. And Ididn't want to say I hired some
guy to do this for me. Not thatthere's anything wrong with
that. But I thought if I buildthis myself, I have a chance to
(04:03):
show women you can do this too.It's not that hard. Sure. So I
built it took me several years.I still am working on it. I'm
still in the middle of it. Butas you know from my Instagram
feed, it's a stunning space.It's everything is edible.
Beautiful raised beds, beds inthe ground. There's tunnels you
can walk through, we built agarden Cottage, we have a
(04:23):
beautiful hen house, so we havefresh eggs. And then all summer
long I grow anything you cangrow in New Jersey. I grow it in
my backyard. Wow. I mean, thepictures in the space. And those
of you that don't follow Tony,Tony, tell our listeners where
they can follow you. Sure. SoI'm on Tony farmer's garden on
Instagram. And I'm Tony farmersGarden Club on Facebook, which I
(04:47):
highly recommend if you're anewbie, because what we do in
that space, there's about alittle over 3000 members in that
group and you q&a all day long.So gardening is a very hard
thing to learn out of a bookbecause it's in
Dr. Brooke Mailhiot (05:00):
The moment you walk into your backyard and
that tomato plant doesn't lookgood, or there's a bug you don't
recognize, nobody wants to go inan open up book or go online and
start searching. You want to asksomeone who knows need real
world experience? And we'recoming to you definitely, yeah.
So I say jump in here. It's allfree. Post your picture and your
question, and I'll answer it.And now I've attracted like,
(05:23):
probably have half a dozenmaster gardeners in the group to
just joyful, knowledgeablewomen. And they'll jump in and
enter a question. So if I'mbusy, you'll get within 24
hours, your garden question isanswered. That's amazing. And
also what I think is unique isyou've now connected almost what
started as like a hobby or adream of yours with this garden
(05:45):
into now teaching, not just thecommunity, but you're at the at
Rowan University, and you havethis amazing class called The
Future of Food. Tell us aboutthis class, because I want to go
back to school just to take thisclass. It's sounds fabulous. I
hear that all the time. I haveso many women who are like, I
(06:06):
want to take that college class.I'm like, Well, come on in.
Unknown (06:11):
I love it so much. I can't express you how much I
love my students how much I loveteaching. I think this is a big
statement. I'm going to makecolleges broken to me right now,
in many ways. It is soincredibly expensive, it's hard
to extract the worth out of it.Sure two thirds of professors
are now adjuncts, which I don'thave a problem with that. I just
(06:32):
don't think most people realizethat most of your education is
coming from very poorly paidadjuncts, who are passionate
about what we do. But I want tomake sure I'm giving my students
every last penny of theireducation, my paid for my four
children to go to college. Andin some cases, I know they had
professors that were phoning itin, or just didn't care any
(06:53):
longer. And I am there presentfor my students every day. I
don't want them to learn thisstuff, spit it back out on an
exam, forget about it. I wantthem to own it understand it. I
want them to be able to answerquestions from other people. If
someone comes up to them andsays, Why are food prices so
high? Right now? I want them tohave an intelligent answer. And
not a meme. They saw someplaceso sure. I love them. And so the
(07:18):
food the future of food, what'sthe what was the concept behind
that? So we have, we've had acouple of revolutions in food.
The big one was the right afterthe World War Two ish. There was
a famous scientist named FritzHaber. During the war, he was he
worked for the Nazis, which iswhy he is not in most history
(07:39):
books. We're just learning abouthim a little bit. Now. He's
called the monster who fed theworld because his invention was
learning how to fix atmosphericnitrogen, which funded which
was how we ended up with bombsduring the war. And he was on
the side of our enemy. So not afan, right? Sure, of course. So
when the The discovery was madepublic, so during the course of
(08:02):
between World War One and WorldWar Two, we opened, I think it's
32 munitions, factories acrossthe United States fixing
atmospheric nitrogen to fund ourwar effort. When the war ended,
we're making all this nitrogen,we've got nothing to do with it.
No one wants to close factoriesdown. No politician wants pays
those jobs worse. What can we dowith it? Well, nitrogen is a
(08:24):
macro nutrient for agriculture.So we started dumping nitrogen,
synthetic chemical nitrogen allover the nation's farmland. What
crop Do you think responded thebest? I don't know what you're
going to tell me think aboutwhat is in everything that you
eat.
corn, corn is the answer. Cornis a heavy nitrogen feeder. It's
(08:45):
also shelf stable and does awhole bunch of other things.
It's very flexible. I'm like atomato, huge in New Jersey, it
is huge. In New Jersey, you canmake a million byproducts out of
it, you can put it on the shelf,and it will sit there. So we've
kind of gotten ourselves intothis mess. We are in the now in
the middle of a new revolution,where we're saying, Yeah, we fed
(09:05):
a lot of people. And that wasimportant. And we don't want to
stop that. But those syntheticfertilizers are damaging our
soil. And also just creating acycle of poor ecosystem, poor
soil health, we need to get backto regenerative practices. So
this class is how did we getinto this mess? What does it
mean to grow food? And what isthe future of food? How is
(09:26):
technology and AI and geneticmodification? How are these
tools going to be used so thatwe can keep eating into the
future? Well, so you'reempowering these young students
to kind of take everything inthe classroom and move it to
real world experiences. You'regiving them all these amazing
things to go out and hopefullychange. Right? Because
(09:49):
everything, everything ischanging. And I know you know,
we talked about what is going onin our world right now with
climate change. And it's crazyyeah.
So how is that affecting oursystem of gardening and our
food, fruits and vegetables inNew Jersey here? I worry that
(10:09):
our food system is very fragile,and it's in jeopardy and that
the average person doesn't knowit. And the reason you don't
know it is our new cycle is likea fire hydrant right now. And
there's only so much we cantake. And most people walk
around, they go to restaurants,or they go to Wegmans or
wherever and like there's foodeverywhere. So clearly, there's
not an issue, right? But I readthese articles deeply every
(10:31):
single day. And let me give yousome examples. Last year, pizza
up Georgia lost 90% of itspeaches. I'm going to do that
again. Yeah, last year, Georgialost 90% of its peaches due to a
late frost, that's climatechange related. We thought
climate change was going to belinear, it was going to be
predictable and was going to getwarmer and warmer. And what we
(10:53):
are realizing now is it'sactually creating a great deal
of unpredictability and gianttemperature swings. Even though
overall it is getting warmer.That means you might have a
peach tree wake up a littleearly, then you have a late
frost, all the blossoms getburned, the fruit drops, and
you've got nothing. Coffee is injeopardy right now. Our our
(11:16):
atmosphere and our ecosystem forgrowing coffee is very specific
requires temperature andaltitude. We cannot grow Arabica
beans any longer, which ismostly what we drink. They are
working on a new cultivars thatthey can grow in other
locations. Chocolate is injeopardy right now. I could go
on and on. And so we're seeing Imean, red meat is really in
(11:40):
jeopardy right now. So the Texaswildfires were probably probably
10s of 1000s of head of cattle.There's other areas of the world
that grow cattle where it's nottoo hot, or there's not enough
water. So cattle ranchers arecutting back at the same time
where the world is demandingmore red meat than ever. And
then paradoxically, red meatraising livestock contributes to
(12:03):
climate change when it's notdone properly.
Dr. Brooke Mailhiot (12:06):
So what are your hopes and wishes for us as
citizens to do about this issue?What would be some steps? If you
could wave a magic wand today?And have everybody do something
a change? What would that be?Boy?
Unknown (12:27):
Large scale, very large scale big picture is voting.
Okay, because the farm bill isthe piece of legislation that
dictates so much and it'sunderfunded. And I think, you
know, it's one more thing tocall your congressman and say
make sure this is well funded.It's protecting our food system.
But on a local level, I wouldsay two things. Grow a garden,
because you're then having somecontrol over your food system.
(12:50):
And you're also learning a lotabout your food system and
educated consumer is an educatedcitizen, correct? Yeah. And then
I would also say if that's notyou, because not everybody wants
to garden and that's okay. Getto know your farmers in
Burlington County, find outtheir names, visit their farms
buy directly from them go to thefarmers market. Will it be more
(13:10):
expensive? Yes, it will be alittle bit more expensive, but
you are directly supporting theperson growing your food and
those relationships areimportant. They will thank you.
What is your favorite thing togrow? Oh, make me man. Um, I
think that's going to be a tiebetween raspberries which I'm
(13:30):
obsessed with. I loveraspberries. And I am like
a big promoter of a particularvariety out there anyone that
will stand still long enough.I'm like, I'll give you
seedlings. Like take this andgrow them in your backyard.
They're so great. And it's alsoa superfood and and then I would
say that's tied with the tomatobecause I'm a Jersey girl. And
anybody from Jersey I definitelyknow has to be a tomato fan.
(13:54):
That's where you start right foreveryone. I know. Right? So from
your own backyard, you've kindof cultivated this persona of
being the garden aficionado.You're helping out the
community. You helped up somenonprofit organizations like
Urban Promise with their garden.But now I know you've moved over
(14:15):
to helping our public schoolsystem and churches. Tell us how
you're helping those over 10years ago, I built a city wide
school garden program forMoorestown. We had garden beds
at every one of the schools. Ithink the only ones I didn't
personally build were at Bakerbut the rest of them I built
(14:37):
with my own two hands through anorganization called Live civilly
run by Kara bus in town here.And it was wonderful. Everyone
absolutely loved it. The kidslove it. And let me tell you the
research on the impact of kidswho take part in the school
garden is unbelievable. They eathealthier, they eat a wider
variety of vegetables, they'reless afraid to try things just
(14:58):
there's nothing bad. It's all
All good. The problem withschool gardens is, after I left
after five years, when theyturned it over to somebody else,
the whole program died. And someof the schools have even ripped
out the beds. I know it'sheartbreaking, because you have
to have I realized this now inhindsight, you have to have a
teacher or an administrator onthe inside, who is equally
(15:19):
passionate, because when I leftthe passion left, right, and
they've got enough on theirplate, they can't manage it. So
you just need a teacher, or youneed a nonprofit or a home and
school organization that says,we're going to house this. And
then volunteers can come and go,and it will stay running. So I
think school gardens are stillgoing to thrive. I think most
towns may come back at somepoint, I'm encouraging other
(15:41):
schools to do it. But that'swhere it's a, just a lesson
learned. And then last year,almost a year and a half ago, a
Presbyterian Church reached outand said, Hey, we've got seven
beautiful acres that wemaintain, and they're stunning.
And we're feeling a littleguilty about that. We could be
feeding the community, there's alot of people that need food,
they didn't finish the request,and I had my car keys. I'm like,
(16:03):
I'm coming over. You're like I'mthere. I'm your person I've
done. I'm on it. Yeah. And theywere fabulous. Because what you
lack most of the time in theseprograms is money, volunteers
and organization. And thischurch had all three, they were
like we're in. So we convertedabout a quarter of an acre to
raised beds, little fence. Theyhave a whole committee last
(16:26):
year, they spent hundreds ofpounds of fresh produce to the
food pantries in our area. Oh myGod, why isn't every church and
synagogue doing this? Right?Yeah, no, I mean, like you said,
we are in urgency with our foodsupply. And of course, I've been
to the grocery store recently,prices are out of control for
our food, and being able to goright in your backyard or to
(16:47):
your community, and have accessto that there are so many
communities that don't. And it'sjust unbelievable, but with your
teaching your knowledge. I mean,you're just the way you speak
about your passion. It's justamazing. And you're you're
moving even from gardens to Isaw recently, you're doing a
(17:09):
power tool class. Yeah, thatsort of grew out of gardening,
because everyone wanted to knowhow to build the raised beds. So
I made some videos. But then itturned out a lot of women don't
know how to use power tools. Andthen a lot of power tools are
also built for the physics ofthe male body, big upper arm
body strength, which we don'thave. But over time, I've
learned some tricks. And theinspiration came from a very odd
(17:33):
and sort of sad place. It camefrom divorce, not my own, but a
girlfriend of mine got adivorce. And we see this happen
all the time. Couples fall intovery traditional roles, even if
they don't mean to you mimicyour parents. Sure mom ends up
cooking, cleaning and groceryshopping dad takes the trash out
most of the lawn and fixeseverything. So I find a lot of
(17:54):
women who end up divorced andthey're like, I don't know how
to do any of this. I relied onmy husband to do this. He's not
here. Maybe he even took thepower tools in the divorce or
whatever, right? That happened.Or gone. No, she shed and now
they're faced with these reallyterrible choice when stuff needs
to get fixed. Either it doesn'tget fixed and house falls into
disrepair or I'm paying 1000s ofdollars to do something that
(18:15):
would have been cost me 15bucks. So I opened up community,
oh my gosh, we were packedwithin a couple of hours. I have
a waiting list as long as myarm. People want to bring their
daughters in there like my 10year old needs to know how to do
this. And they're joyful. Imean, we those women show up and
I get the the first thing Istart with is how to use the
power drill. And by the time I'mdone it is like Girl Power
(18:38):
Central. They're like, what canwe go fix? So I love it. I feel
like I'm visualizing everybodywearing like a Rosie the Riveter
like yeah, chart and holdinglike a DeWalt drill. Why not?
saws and let's go to town andlike build something. I love it.
And I love that you'reinspiring,
Dr. Brooke Mailhiot (18:58):
you know, young women and women to do you
know, things for themselves. AndI think that's something as a
female, not a lot of us, likeyou said about these gender
roles. Not a lot of us feelinternal that we can do that.
And that's just a beautifulthing. So kudos to you a big
part of my belief system is fearis our biggest enemy. And not a
(19:22):
single woman that has shown upin my basement or my backyard to
do a workshop was incapable inany way. She simply feared it.
And having another woman say,Look, you just needed to hit
this button to reverse thedrill. And that's it. And she
goes, That's it. Yeah, that'sit. You just needed someone to
show you. Well, you just show ussome beautiful parties that you
(19:43):
have. Tell us. How do you startthe idea of the inspiration for
a theme? Or like a placesetting? Is it like are you
walking down in a flea market orlike, like somewhere and you see
Unknown (20:00):
You may be a plate or you see a vase or you see a
color like palette. Where do youget your inspiration to create
these glorious events andsettings that that that are
steward in inspired. I lovesetting a table. And I love
having people over to eat, Ilove serving them good food, and
(20:21):
I love the community. Andconnection that happens when you
do that. I've invited people Idon't even know to my home for
dinner. And then they leave asfriends and exciting. Yeah, so
it can come from any place.Sometimes it comes from the
flowers I'm growing in mybackyard. Often it becomes it
comes from seasonal produce,where I'm like, Oh, the
jalapenos are in, let's do aMexican themed, you know, yeah,
(20:43):
hearty. But I because I'm reallypassionate about sustainability,
I spend not a lot of timebecause I don't have time to
shop much. But
Dr. Brooke Mailhiot (20:51):
flea markets and goodwill and places
like that, where you can go buya box of crystal wine glasses
for $5, because someone elsedidn't like them, you're giving
them a new home. And what I sayto people that they might not
have thought of, they're like, Idon't want him to store all that
stuff I'm like, then don't throwthree dinner parties with it,
and then donate it back toGoodwill, it cost you five
(21:13):
bucks, you're giving someoneelse a chance to use it. It's
not taking up space in yourhouse. And it all has a story,
which is really interesting.It's like this historical
tradition, just kind of likewhen you're talking about like,
all the things that MarthaStewart has, she has these
amazing collections of pans anddishware and pottery and, you
know, everything. And it's sucha similar thing. Like there's
(21:34):
all these stories behind it. Andthen you're creating new
traditions and new stories andnew friends and new recipes. And
I mean, it's just it's such abeautiful cycle that you're
providing similar to the cycleof growth with your your
gardens. I think the love thatpeople feel when you go to
someone's house for dinner, andthey have put zero effort in.
(21:56):
Like, that's okay, right? I lovemy friends. And if someone's got
time to order pizza for me andpour a glass of wine, I'm
thrilled because it's about theperson. Sure. But isn't there
something special about showingup to someone's house and you
see, they have gone to so muchtrouble for you, there is a
place for you. That's beautiful.They asked if you were allergic
to anything, they served yourfavorite foods, there's music,
(22:18):
they ordered your favorite wine.That's a magical experience that
most of us don't get toexperience very often. And I
agree. And I love the samething. I love entertaining. I
love cooking. And you know, likeyou said about just going to
your backyard and being able topick something and then you
know, cooking it is justunbelievable. And I know that
(22:39):
something that you love? What'syour favorite thing to cook
with? And create? Is there afavorite salad or a side dish or
a main dish that you just youknow, every season there's a
certain vegetable that comes upin your garden and you're like,
I can't wait to make XYZ or youjudge the recipe a little bit
(23:00):
every time you make it. And it'sand it's always, you know,
turning and changing what whichone is that for you? Do you have
a favorite? I mean, I'll go backto the tomato because it's so
incredibly versatile, and welove it. And that flavor. You
can't get the rest of the year.Right, you're not get that
flavor from a grocery storetomato in January. So we eat at
the peak of flavor when italmost just the umami just
(23:23):
explodes in your mouth. So Icreated a recipe a couple years
ago that's been really popular.It's very decadent. It's tomato
pie, but it's got kind of acheesy cheese cake filling
instead of being sweet, savory,and then got tomatoes doused in
roasted garlic and olive oil andbasil is on top of it and you
(23:44):
cut it like a pie. And it'spretty darn good. Sounds good?
When am I come? When's my inviteare on the list? You're on the
list. I can't wait. Well, everytime we do a podcast, I go
through some of the wonderfulwords and sayings that my guests
have said, and I use them ashashtags. And then I'm going to
(24:07):
ask you what your personalhashtag is. So let's relive some
of these beautiful words you'veshared with us. Beautiful
entertaining, femaleempowerment, joyful knowledge
voting educated citizen, localfarmers, city wide gardener
passionate inspiration, goodfood, magical moments. That was
(24:30):
all from you. Wow. So if you hadone hashtag to live by, or
that's your personal tagline,what would that be for you?
Within the context of everythingwe've spoken, it would be feed
the community, hashtag feed thecommunity. And that's not just
food. We're feeding informationand knowledge and care and love
(24:53):
and food. So before we leavetoday, share with us again where
everybody can find you and alittle bit about
Unknown (25:00):
Your season five that's coming soon. So you can jump and
follow SJ media on Instagram,where I teach Marianne ldrd the
editor how to grow food. She's acomplete novice. She's
hilarious. She does not want totouch the dirt. So she's a great
foil for I would be, that wouldbe me starting out and then I
(25:21):
probably fall. But yes, Iunderstand. You can follow me on
Tony farmer's garden onInstagram for inspo if you're
interested in being invited tojoin us, for the women with
tools workshop, or come to oneof the dinner party or lunch
parties in my garden, all thatinformation is posted on
Facebook and Instagram. And thenI just found out I'm going to be
teaching at Penn in the fall. Sothat's pretty exciting.
(25:44):
Congrats. Yeah, I love it. Thankyou, Tony farmer for joining us
today. You have been an amazingguest. Thank you. It's been a
pleasure. Thanks for having me.Take care. Thanks. You've been
listening to the rcbc Baronesspodcast which highlights women
in leadership while encouraginglisteners to build their skills,
connect with the community andvisualize the opportunities
available to women in variousprofessions. For more
(26:04):
information about this podcastor other podcasts available on
the rcbc Podcast Network, visitrcbc.edu/podcast And be sure to
subscribe to the rcbc barenesspodcast available on all
streaming platforms.
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