008 – Rant on Grass: “No more excuses: You’re Just One Seed Away!”

008 – Rant on Grass: “No more excuses: You’re Just One Seed Away!”

with host Linda Borghi

Linda was asking herself, “Why aren’t more people digging up some of their grass and growing food?  What’s stopping them?  What are the barriers?”   Learn the flipside of the most common barriers and how to do this without being overwhelmed. What is a small action step that you can take right now?  Listen to Linda’s practical advice, and make sure you join the community movement on Facebook where we share lots of information on farming yards, with videos, tips, and more.

This podcast is made possible by funding by our Patreon supporters.  

For extra free content or to become a patron please see us at https://www.patreon.com/FarmAYard

Links:

Music credit: “Insomnia” by John Sheehan.  Used with permission.

Farming Urban Yards is a Patriotic Action for Local Food Security.

“In our society, growing food yourself has become the most radical of acts.              It is truly the only effective protest,  one that can-and will-overturn the corporate powers that be. By the process of directly working in harmony with nature, we do the one thing most essential to change the world-we change ourselves!”

~ Jules Dervaes

Linda inspires and is inspired by people around the country, like a family in Pasadena California. In the middle of the big city, this family has been growing their own food and raising animals in the smallest front and backyard, using every inch of space. They have been doing this for decades.

I Love Jules quote!

Here is my paraphrase:  “When we personally work in harmony with nature, we are doing the single most essential thing to change the world by the fact that such an act transforms us first, then that becomes, in fact, the only way to change the world!”

After decades of living an urban homestead lifestyle, this family is finally not considered odd,  and people are flocking to their workshops and eager to learn the old fashion, sustainable skills of growing your own food, meat, eggs, how to can, freeze, ferment, dehydrate, knit, sew… etc.

They began just for their own self sufficiency.  Over time they started selling to local restaurants and markets.  Now they are a full on educational platform also!  They do it all on a very small residential urban lot in a big urban near to one of L.A.’s mega freeways. They even have goats and chickens!

Join the urban yard farming community movement at Farm-A-Yard https://www.facebook.com/groups/farmayard/

Jules’ message has always been that the Urban Homestead was a Path to Freedom.  He lead this family in this endeavor and just passed away in December 2016.  The family intends to carry on his legacy.

Kudos to this family who are willing to continue to share the wise ways of self reliance.

You can check them out at:

In Memory of Jules Dervaes (1947-2016)

 

 

003 – Save Our Soil

003 – Save Our Soil

with host Linda Borghi and Farm-A-Yard founder Evan Folds

Farm-A-Yard Podcast logo: orange sun with sunbeams rising over a mound of black dirt with 2 sprouts and a microphone in green coming up out of the soil.
Farm-A-Yard Podcast — It’s a movement… have ya heard?

Transform the way you think about the soil under your feet to seriously revolutionize your growing results.

Evan Folds, the “Soil Doctor” as we call him, does not give standard soil advice but shares proven methods that unleash soil regeneration.  Evan is a Farm-A-Yard co-founder, owner of Progressive Farms & manufacturer of the Microbe Maker compost tea system, and his passion about nurturing microbes, healing the Earth through carbon sequestering, producing nutrient dense food, advocating for personal agriculture, and healing people through vibrant local food economies will change your focus from the stem to the soil.

Through his consulting work, Evan has developed BioEnergetic Agriculture, which seeks to increase the life force of living systems through physical, mineral, biological, and energetic influence.

Favorite Quote

“…our food is not nourishing us to allow the expression of our humanity.”

1:00 – Linda introduces Evan Folds, owner of Progressive Farms and shares how they met.

5:50 – Evan Folds talks about regenerative agriculture and what biodynamic/BioEnergetic methods are all about.

This podcast is made possible by funding by our Patreon supporters.  For extra free content or to become a patron please see us at https://www.patreon.com/FarmAYard

Links:

Music credit: “Insomnia” by John Sheehan.  Used with permission.

We Are Just One Seed Away….

A single, unassuming, humble seed houses the most powerful, regenerative, reproductive, resilient, overcoming, prolific, generous life force energy on the planet and so much more….

We’re just one seed away…

It never fails….whenever I start planting, I see things change, like magic. After a short time of converting a new space into some food, I always see a organic, gradual shift in the energy of the space.  It gradually becomes so full of energetic vitality and creates an abundance of new relationships that thrive!

We’re just one seed away…

When we partner with the natural world, miracles happen.  The energy created in our space, when we plant a seed, begins to spread….

Gradually, persistently, intentionally, growing ’til it begins to transform us personally as we nurture the soil, the seed, then harvest and consume this nutrient dense food .  But it doesn’t stop there, we change, then a neighbor, then the neighborhood starts to change, then the city, then the region, the country and even the world.  

And all we have to do is be stewards of the seed and of our small plot!  The more personal, mindful plots planted like this, the greater the impact.  

We are just one seed away from growing our own personal transformation  and our own personal food security 🙂

Have you ever felt helpless to change a world that is hell bent on destruction?

We are just one seed away….from transforming the world. 

The Farm-A-Yard community is made up of folks who want to be connected, who care about how they show up in the world, because it matters.

They are changemakers, they aren’t afraid to take action and are not stopped by learning curves and set backs, but are stronger for it! (Reminds me of Linda!)  No matter how small the action, they know it matters as part of a powerful solution.

I love the story of the project that put a man on the moon.  When the janitor in the project was asked what he did there, he said, “I’m putting a man on the moon”.  He was part of the team and the team had one mission and their part in it was vital for the outcome.

When people get connected and share the vision…things happen!

You’re just one seed away….

     

In my experience, one of the initial and most powerful, positive actions I can take, is to hold a seed in my hand and contemplate, be grateful and trust the transforming power of planting and nourishing a seed.

And do it over and over again.

At Farm-A-Yard we are pouring into this project and we are teaching not for the income, but for the outcome.  

We are confident that the seeds we are planting will be the most important work of our time and of our life.

Thank you for taking seriously the need to heal the soil, plant seed and grow food.  This incredible journey needs your action in whatever way that you can support, promote and mentor others.

We challenge you to begin creating your corner of paradise with nutrient dense food, beginning with one seed in your yard to produce the energy that transforms your neighborhood.  

This is the vision… it’s a movement, have you heard?

When I plant a seed, I am connecting myself as an active partner in my micro, eco-environment.  I become a steward and also a benefactor of its reward.

       

It’s in this relationship with the soil and the seed that we can learn and be trained in how to transform a toxic, chaotic world that desperately needs the order that only nature seems to know how to do well and how to sustain, when all odds are against it.

 Nature just knows how to overcome.

We’re just one seed away….

Oh, to be conscious, mindful and respectful of her ways.  Even when we have been unconscious, ignorant or even abusive, Nature is always ready to teach us, to convey the eternal wisdom of the Creator…to fold us into a very personal, enlightening experience.  Nature loves to partner!  That’s what Nature knows best!

Whether we deserve it or not!

Who doesn’t want to learn to be in a relationship like that!

We are just one seed away …

Can you help us seed the movement? https://www.patreon.com/FarmAYard

 

000 – Welcome to Farm-A-Yard

000 – Welcome to Farm-A-Yard

with co-founders Linda Borghi and Criss Ittermann

Farm-A-Yard Podcast logo: orange sun with sunbeams rising over a mound of black dirt with 2 sprouts and a microphone in green coming up out of the soil.
Farm-A-Yard Podcast — It’s a movement… have ya heard?

We are serious about turning the 48.5 million acres of lawn in America into food production!  Farm-A-Yard: It’s a movement… have ya heard?  Linda Borghi and Criss Ittermann, two of the co-founders of Farm-a-Yard, share about the birth of the Farm-A-yard movement as a response to the challenges of soil degradation and food insecurity issues facing our country and the world.

You’ll notice in this episode that Farm-A-Yard is all about solutions, sprinkled with plenty of laughter and gratitude to pave the way for sustainable, lasting change.

This podcast is made possible by funding by our Patreon supporters.  

For extra free content or to become a patron please see us at https://www.patreon.com/FarmAYard

Links:

Music credit: “Insomnia” by John Sheehan.  Used with permission.

The Magic Ingredient

(excerpted from Slow Food for the Cheap and Lazy: Eating well for the time & cost conscious, work-in-progress)

Any way you look at it, life as we know it is a miracle. Cooking food is a nurturing act. When we cook to feed someone (including ourselves), we’re providing a cornerstone of life, ensuring that someone can live another day — preferably in the best of health. Through food, we support the miracle of life; we keep the candle burning.

There is a miracle ingredient to food. Unfortunately, it’s an optional ingredient. We can sustain life without it, but the question is how much that miracle ingredient in our food can improve the quality of our life. The miracle ingredient in our food is love. Love, in its most pure, unadulterated, raw, non-GMO form, is as necessary on a daily basis as water, vitamin C or protein. When you add love to your food, it honestly will taste better. You don’t have to think about it. You just have to consider the act of preparing food as an act of love, and allow the love to unburden the act of cooking.

When we run out to eat, to grab a bite, to drive to a fast-food place, sometimes we lose focus on the love ingredient missing in our food. The more carelessly the food is thrown together, the more neglectfully the ingredients are chosen, the less nurturing the food is. When you go to a good restaurant with a chef who cares, who picks out the best produce and meats, the food is naturally healthier. When you go to a fast food restaurant where the preparers are underpaid, the food frozen and shipped thousands of miles and stored in freezers and warehouses, the quality shows in the lack of love in the food.

However, this can be remedied. When you shop with respect to your money as well as the quality of the items you put into your cart, you’re showing love to your family. When you pass by something you know will harm your family, and pick something fresh and amazing that you know they’ll enjoy just as much, you feel better about your food, better about yourself, and better about your relationship with those you are feeding.

It’s also getting easier and easier to get close to the source of our food. We can shop at a farmer’s market and look our farmer in the eyes and thank them for a job that is generally taken for granted. We can eat fruits picked this morning, and be eating our lettuce for 2 weeks before it gets to the age it would have been had we gotten it from the supermarket.

And we can go another step further and grow our food (or at least some of our food) ourselves. From a windowsill full of fresh basil to a yard teeming with tomatoes and squash — you can talk and sing to your plants and give love before the harvest. It doesn’t get any better than that. Gardening can become a family affair, getting everyone off the couch, out from behind a screen, and out into the sun for some loving vitamin D, talking and working together. Children eat more vegetables when they participate in planning out the harvest and growing them.

Healing your relationship with yourself and your food is an important part of loving yourself and others.

Criss is the “Ninja-SwissArmyKnife” techie and marketer on the Farm-A-Yard project. A trained wildcrafting herbalist, she loves cooking and watching cooking competitions. She also teaches about raising chickens, making herbal remedies, and so much more.