City farmers are an often misunderstood breed. Have you ever found yourself wanting to talk chicken manure with a non-gardening/non-animal-keeping friend and been met with a blank stare—or even worse, an “Ewww, gross! Change of subject please!”? Yeah, we’ve all been there. That’s why Diego Footer, owner of Permaculture Voices, started “The Urban Farmer” podcast, putting voice to a movement that’s growing across the continent.
Each week on the show, Footer touches base with Curtis Stone, a sustainable urban farmer at Green City Acres in Kelowna, British Columbia, who grew more than 50,000 pounds of produce on less than a 1/2 acre plot in 2012. Geared toward city growers who want to take their backyard gardens to the next level, the pair will delve into the realities, joys and hardships of starting an urban-farming business and, to put it in their words, “nerd out on topics like stale seed beds.”
The brand-new series picks up in early spring, when Stone is struggling with exhaustion as he starts up farming after a four-month winter break. (Can you relate?) The show will unfold along with the growing season, so it’s hard to say what all is in store for listeners, but the idea is to track Stone’s quality of life and energy overtime, giving a touch of reality to what often can be an ideological concept of growing food in the city. Of course, Stone will be sharing tidbits of knowledge from his own experience as a 100-percent organic and natural-methods farmer to help budding urban farmers along in their journeys.
Episode 1 wastes no time in digging into the grit of things, as Stone shares his five “hacks” for success and profit in micro-farming and dishes about his current winter-production experiments. Take note, this show isn’t for the garden enthusiast with a few tomato plants on the deck—the farm talk gets real very fast. What may be long-winded technical talk for some, will leave others scribbling down info that will help their businesses grow—literally.
Catch the weekly episodes will be released every Wednesday, so head over to Permaculture Voices to check them out or find them as part of the Permaculture Voices Podcast on your favorite podcast app.
