Tag: urban farmer

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005 – Biodigesting Close to Home

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005 – Biodigesting Close to Home

with host Linda Borghi and guest Maria Blon

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?

Maria Blon is a speaker, author and teacher who launched the “HEART in Haiti School” after the hurricane in 2010. Gardens and Moringa trees are grown at the school to teach the children how to grow and feed themselves. This oasis includes a biodigester. There is no garbage pick up in Haiti. Now with the biodigester to process all their garbage, they also generate energy for the school.

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

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

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004 – Evolution of Organic Standards & America’s Urban Farming Movement

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004 – Evolution of Organic Standards & America’s Urban Farming Movement

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?

with host Linda Borghi and guest Liana Hoodes

Liana is an expert in America’s food history and the importance of being an advocate for  organic standards. We all need to take personal responsibility for the sustainability and safety of our food supply. Learn from the Cuban crisis and their shift to urban farming for their survival. America’s urban farming movement is vital for food security.

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

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Liana Hoodes’ Bio

Liana Hoodes has worked since 1994 on a wide range of organic and sustainable agriculture policy issues, and is currently  Policy Advisor to the Northeast Organic Farming Association – New York, and the National Organic Coalition where she was the Executive Director from 2003 until 2015.  She has worked extensively on Farm Bills, annual appropriations, as well as on the implementation of the Organic Foods Production Act at the USDA National Organic Program and on organic standards at the National Organic Standards Board. She currently works on a variety of federal, state and local policy issues to support and advance organic and sustainable food and agriculture.

Liana  was the organic policy coordinator for the National Campaign for Sustainable Agriculture from 1994 through 2006, where she was the facilitator of the successful effort (led by many organizations) to garner hundreds of thousands of comments to repeal and re-write the first organic regulation.  

Prior to that she was the founding Director of Orange Environment,  a local environmental advocacy organization in Orange County, NY, and also worked for a  law firm specializing in civil rights and environmental law.  In 2001 Liana co-founded the Pine Bush Farmers Market  to support agriculture in the Pine Bush region, as well as to promote downtown economic development in the hamlet.

Liana grows organic food and  lives with her family in Ulster County, New York.

 

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

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Do you have the courage to walk out your door and rip up your lawn? Make a plan!

Just because you are on this website is evidence enough that you’ve got what it takes to grow you’re own food.

It’s a smart brave move on your part to take control of your food and where it comes from.  To know that it’s safe and truly nutritious.

Join the ranks of the grassroots garden renegades that are popping up everywhere!  When we grow food, we are making an impact on our health, the community, the environment and helping to localize our food system for food security. AND yard farming can be a real income generator.

If you are serious about growing food, this is the place!  It pays to get started learning everything you can so that you can have the success you’re looking for sooner than later.

WARNING….once you get started you’ll be hooked.

Record numbers of people are growing food in pots in the window, on the patio, plots in the backyard, front yard, curb sites, public parks, schools, businesses…food can grow almost anywhere!

Where do you want to grow?

Here’s what you need first:  Make a Plan and Get Organized

  • Evaluate your life and what time you can make available for the project.
  • Plan for the size garden you can realistically manage.
  • Assess your growing space options.  Make sure you consider:
    • Do you have permission to use the space? Short or Long Term?
    • Does the area have at least 6-8 hrs. of sunlight daily? Make a sun map (google “sun mapping”)
    • Does it have a safe, convenient  water source?
    • Will it need fencing to minimized wild life distrubance?
    • Get a calendar to use just for the garden to schedule your plan.
    • Get a folder or large manila envelope so you can attach receipts for all your garden seed, tools, investments. You can record and date each oneon the outside of the envelope.  Data is important and will help you get the most from your garden adventure with less waste and cost.  Attach pages that keep track of garden notes, like: Garden map plan, yields, pest problems, budget…

    Equipped with the right information you can get to your goal much faster than most.  This planning can help you save money too!

    We’re with you every step of the way, so get on the Farm-A-Yard email list so that you don’t miss the announcement of our next FREE course. (check your spam folder too to make sure out emails are not getting lost!)

    Click Here to Subscribe

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Grow Your Own Herbs for Merry Mulled Wine

Winter…. I love to get cozy and gather friends around the kitchen table and go through seed catalogs together.   Sweet and spicy mulled wine is the ultimate adult beverage to share, that warms from the inside out!

During this dark and cold season, the herbs that I previously harvested are nature’s medicine cabinet and there are so many ways to employ them.

Urban farmers would do well to cultivate a healthy patch of herbs for teas, medicinal tinctures and/or herb bundles for soups and an array of culinary applications…many of which could be income producing as well.

So, mulled wine fills the house with the aroma of cinnamon, cloves and other delightful spices and helps us celebrate tradition and nurture family and friends!

Merry Mulled Wine

Serves: about 11 cups

Ingredients

  • 8 black peppercorns
  • 6 whole cloves
  • 3 pinches of nutmeg powder
  • 3 pinches of cardamom powder
  • 2 cinnamon sticks
  • 1 teaspoon anise seeds
  • 1 teaspoon fennel seeds
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 1 bottle red wine (French is the best!)
  • 6 cups 100% fresh pressed sweet organic apple cider
  • 1 cup brandy
  • 1 cup local honey or whole, organic cane sugar
  • 2 oranges

Instructions

  1. Bundle the whole spices in a round cut out of cheesecloth that has been gathered and tied with cotton twine. Place it in a stainless steel or ceramic stock pot. Pour in the wine, cider and brandy and stir in the honey or sugar. Slice one orange and drop it into the pot along with the bay leaves.
  2. Warm over low heat at least 1 hour. DO NOT allow the wine to boil or you’ll cook out the alcohol.
  3. Ladel into mugs, garnish with sliced orange and serve warm.