275. Flower and Vegetable CSA | Eastward Gardens | Larry and Michelle Lesher | Hardinsburg, Indiana
Full show notes coming soon!
How do we connect with you?
We were city kids, he was a professional skateboarder and neither of us had a background in farming.
There’s just the two of us but we do it for a living.
I think I found you on Floret. How big is your place?
I’m going into my 3rd season growing flowers. We’re going on selling vegetables etc on 3 years. I was a nurse with the dream I could leave my job.
took us a while
try to make it quick
We moved from Seattle to louisville so I could go to grad school
that’s when Larry started interning on a farm. He’s been farming ever since then.
I just joined full time in June I quit my job. That’s when I bumped up the flower production.
I can do more with it
a lot of flowers
we grow on 2 acres
our farm is 16 1/2 acres
We crop rotate
we only have, theres about 6 acres of workable we rotate it and do about 2 at a time.
We sell
- Vegetables
- fruit
- culinary herbs
- micro greens
We sell a lot of micro greens through the winter, we sell a lot of microgreens through the winter months.
Culinary herbs who do you sell those to and do you want to tell listeners the diffeence between culinary and medicinal?
we just specific culinary
herbs people cook with
- rosemary
- thyme
- sage
- sorrel
- parsley
- basil
Who do you sell to? A CSA?
- 20 week CSA
- 2 famers markets a week
- local health food store
small scale because there’s just the two of us
have
health food store we consistently
20 week CSA program
2 farmers market
May or June – Oct
- radishes
- turnips
- arugula
flower share this year for the first time
flower bouquets
in with vegetables
- ranunculus
- anemones
Start April
4-6 weeks once they start
more veggies I can say
definitely
- salad mix
- spinach
- first boxes
unique about our CSA
Organic Farm
dietician
newsletters in each box
recipes
items in the box
recipes
are all plant based recipes
nutritional value
how to store the crops
processing and preserving
website
under the CSA tab
6 years worth of newsletters there
that have recipes
work really hard on the newsletter
cook
sharing recipes
good cooked simply
lentils and rice
beans and rice dishes
white bean dish
good to add in
pesto
plant based pesto
doesn’t have cheese in it
have to add cheese
this
when you’re a farmer I don’t like to see anything go to waste
Pesto is a great one you can process and freeze
arugula have to blanch it
boil for 30 seconds
stop cooking process
- arugula
- basil and cilantro
- kale
- brocoli
- parsley
all those options are really taste
5 cloves of garlic
walnuts ~ healthy for your brain
pesto is a great way to do in the
store with parchment paper
ring and the lid store in the freezer
easy
great way to use up the foods
best on homemade bread
so the flowers are a total labor of love for me
I’ve wanted to grow flowers my whole life, never really have
year before I quit my job
he was hesitant at first
can’t really eat a flower for one
he didn’t see that we would have much of a market for them
if anything it will attract bees, be pretty
happiness to the farm
wanted to get bees
plan to do in the future
plotted out the field
wasn’t the best spot
drainage
space
come to find out the flowers are easier to grow then food
- zinnias
- sunflowers
our first go at it we actually did really well
Mennonite neighbors who do dahlias
gave us our first dahlia tubers
- sunflowers
- zinnias
- cosmos
sun friendly
started bringing bouquets to market
give one bouquet away at market to be thankful
when we started to do that,
it was amazing the reaction
people started crying
I’ve given a lot of tomatoes, but there’s something special about these flowers
he was really sold
the produce is nurturing and feeding our bodies and our health
nutritious
flowers are feeding people’s hearts
impact on him and I both
3rd flower season
tripped the amount of flowers
we added
- 1000 ranunculus
- 1000 amenones
we’re doing heirloom mums for fall planting
extensive season out on the back end of it
brings a lot of life
beautiful
attract a lot of people to the table
found customers
with the produce
come for the flowers buy the produce
incorporate for us with the flowers
personally
struggled with depression
when I’m out there harvesting
it’s interesting
one of the things that spoke to me with flower farming
as christians
we’re all individually made
very individual
god is life giving to us
I would go out
Sunday morning
pick em heavy
I think I’m not gonna have any flowers for Tuesday
I won’t have enough
harvest aggressively
zinnias pick
lower you harvest the stem
lower you do it
pick a lot
more they grow
sunflowers
celosia is not that way
zinnias
cosmos
more aggressive you harvest
more they grow
all these new flowers the next day!
That would be one of my biggest pointers
pick them low
there will be some branching flowers
don’t pick it low
cut off those buds that are branching
stem for the bouquet
more aggressive you are with the depth of cutting
first buds
bushed out a lot more
other little tip I would say
old videos
this year to last year
only going into my third year
did in mason jars
cumbersome getting to
predominately f
now I need to add
where are they
45 min drive
right outside Louisville KY
have a CSA pickup
Jasper ID
drop spots
what I have discovered
wrapping bouquets in paper
I think they look better
sticker with our logo on it
we just get
what’s the paper called
forget the name of it
something you can buy at Lowes
you can fit a lot more bouquets in a van
jars are cumbersome
masking paper
tan paper you can pick up at lows
wrap the bouquets
rubberband
customers like it better to
farmer’s market
where are they going to put
he’s the backbone
he’s been farming for 12 years
when we met he was a professional skate
Tell us a little about yourself.
We, Larry & Michelle Lesher, are going into our 13th season farming. Larry was a professional skateboarder before farming and Michelle was a student. Both of us grew up in Louisville KY as city kids…never really planted any food of our own to grow. Michelle pursued a nursing degree at University of Louisville and realized she did not want to become a medicine dispensary and decided to get her masters degree in nutrition to empower people to heal themselves and prevent disease with diet and lifestyle. She was accepted into Basty Universities Masters in Science and Nutrition program and that was when we made the move to Seattle area in 2006. Larry decided before moving there that he wanted to learn more about growing food and had already been avoiding GMOs and eating organically for years. He understood the importance of knowing what happens to your food from the beginning to the end of the growth process. And this is how it all began.
Tell me about your first gardening experience?
Yeah, probably I grew up in the city
we really
when I went and interned in Seattle
one experience
owned a body piercing shop in Reno Nevada
total mess
planted sunflowers
at home
I saw the packet
that would be neat to see what they do
see them sprouting
they’re actually growing
always been into nature and hiking and being in the woods
sort of marvelous thing
totally unprepared for this experience
planting these 400 foot rows
planting everything!
broccoli
head lettuce
chicories
transplanting
this is like
I had no idea what I was doing
3 of us
2 planting
by the end of the day I thought I was gonna day,
Michelle’s like what happened
I worked all day
about to die
are you gonna be able to do this
I’m the chattily strong person
the first week
$25/day
got those muscles into shape
ever since then
first time I went to farmer’s market
this was the moment I knew there was nothing else I could do anymore
lettuce
literally got goosebumps
ever since then this is all
hard worker
couldn’t find
that thing that was his purpose
In 2006 Larry interned on a farm in Carnation WA outside of Seattle. It was here that he realized the impact and responsibility that growing food for people really has. The concept of stewardship and the exchange of service between plants, farmers and the community.
never understood the bible
eastward and eden
the first gardener was god
a lot of people don’t think about this
adam
who’s job was to tend to the garden
commune with god
amazing experience
think about the concept of god into eden
he planted a garden
interesting thing to go out
all the object lessons
how we were created
parables in the scriptures
many parables are
rudimentary concepts of life
when your think about
business side side of
education
garden can be personally
pr
microbial life is important for the plant taking up the nutrients
beautiful cycle for w
created from the ground from the dirt
plant needs from the dirt to be healthy
we need as humans
Larry done a lot of researching and studying
my mom would have all these ferns
I was in graduate school
How did you learn how to garden organically?
I ran a juice bar in
Wild Oats
Louisville
firmly developed that’s how ag should be
great idea
often times turns out to be different then your theory
grocery store to buy food because it has a label on it
become concerned
because of processed food on shelf
really felt compelled that I needed to be probably growing my own food
thought that ought to be
when I start farming
organic
no synthetics
kind of
after 12 years I’ve learned a lot more
in agriculture
that teaches you a lot of the nuances
what organic really is
sometimes some of the things we learn can be quite disturbing
food are processed
a cereal
whole process way outside of normal
learn how
wet pressurized heat
slurry the grain
push it through a mold
cutter
pressed through
shape or number
letter it might be
deconstructs it on a cellular level
becomes what I would call an anti food
reconstruct itself
eat it
has the ability to take nourishment from you
don’t think about how things are made
don’t think we realize the things we are using
what is it grown on
don’t think about it
grown on sugars
where they are coming from
beet sugars
corn syrup sugars
GMO plants
using products somewhere in their processing to make them nothing else
funding GMO companies
monsanto
syngenta
products
organic seeds
cell fusion
cut out the mitochondria
fuse those together
male sterility
shooting for
use those to create f1 hybrid seeds
those seeds can be labeled
organic
quite complicated
complex thing
we’re really unaware of
I feel like I responsible
liaison
where I buy seeds
which seeds I buy
which biologicals I choose to use
process of making compost
if you buy an organic compost
you can use almost any material
it comes out
organic certified
a lot of that stuff can have GMO organicans
chicken manure
chicken capo
feeding non organic feed
GMO feed
hormones
raising those chickens
compost it pelletize it
learned a lot of the things as I learned about what is going into the raising of our food
difficult to find
clean source of manure
blood meal
bone meal
feather meal
we decided we were going to figure it out
try to work thought all the different challenges
one of the things I learned
peanut meal
that sounds like a pretty straight forward source
organic peanut meal
sourced out of south america
grown conventual
remnant
press the peanuts for peanut oil
compost it
now it’s called organic
no
golden peanut
down in Georgia
peanut flour
is about 8 dollars the pound
out of date
can’t sell it as a food grade
peanut
organically grown peanut in Texas
organic process
organic peanuts so
for me it was important
I told you my first experience
I felt
it became really important to me that this lady was trusting me to feed her family
what do I want to eat
something
what’s that mean to me
I want to meet that standard
when we came into farming
the next year I started a farm
the gentleman who owned some land
wanted to work together
are we gonna certify organic
a lot of things going on with the certification
the dairy side of it was
don’t want to name any names
dairy
not following standards
maintaining their certifications
at least a 3rd party option available
opted to try to support that 3rd party
If things started to go awry in the federal organic certification program
big fight to have sludge
3rd party certification process if something
wouldn’t
decision base don our
relationship with them we have maintained
different farms I’ve had the pleasure
always done
indiana
moved here from the west
considered the
done both
looked into doing it it was gonna be like $1100
Most things did well. However, given the genetic potential of plants we have not even come close to reaching half the possibility of what it could or should be. With that said our head
lettuce did well… we planted it in an area that had landscape fabric the year before which decreased the weed pressure and allowed for better management.
Tell us about something that grew well this year.
We farmed in s Dakota for aobut 4 years as well at a lifestyle center
We had really good soils there
When we showed up here in the early spring
When I transplanted them out they literally turned purple
We were low in
- potassium
- phosphorous
Framing element helps the plant to grow
when we first moved here we did a basic soil analysis
We worked 2 farms successfully, we grow food well, we know this.
when we first got here
ph was good, all the basic stuff looked good
Probably honeslty didn’t know how to feed a soil test
it dawned on me it was probably the theme for everyone was farming
Most people probably don’t know how to read a soil test and make applications based on recommendations
largely they’re getting recommendations for how to grow a plant but not
soil imbalances
- corn
- vegetable garden
generally amount of nitrogen, phosphorous etc you need to let that plant grow
what I became
when my plants didn’t grow
got a learning curve
soil analysis
what benefits they had to the plants
why we were having this problem
really big learning curve
not that I think soil analysis is the end all be all but it should be a tool in our tool box
after that I
we had low organic matter
1.5 organic matter
if you know anything about biology
if you are not on a 2 you are basically on a starvation diet
you have your biology on the
find yourself in a real dilemma we found ourselves in this dilemma and it really pushed me to learn how to actually farm or garden
before I was a hard worker
did basic principle
periodically
- shotgun approach it
- know the generals and apply them liberally ~ as you feel you need them
take to people
sounds like a difficiency in this so you add a little boron mostly just winging it
most gardeners
tens to be where they come from
this is much more complex
sol biology
chemistry
complex subject
i often relate it to if you were a mayor and had a city divide by a river, you needed to get commerce from one side to the other, families live on both sides, you need to
build a bridge
would you want someone to build it that doesn’t know basic physics?
One of the most important things we do in life is to eat, but we don’t necessarily expect farmers to know how to do it the same way
I felt I probably need to be a lot more educated and thoughtful about my practices
We decided to be veganic
Based on some of those principles I was telling you earlier. there’s a lot more going on in the ground and in the process to nourish the ground to nourish then we realize
don’t want to discourage anyone but I have found it one of the most rewarding things
to actually learn something
if you are going to eat nutritional yeast you ought to know what growing medium they are growing on
If you are going to use a biological to your soil you should probably know what that biological was grown on
empowers you to make wise decisions
can seem scary at first not a lot of choices out there but I think that is what drives innovation
better
generally
I think a lot of organic farmers do something better then what is happening currently
I think a lot of it is we want to eat healthy organic food”
I think the dilen
ask a lot of questions of what
they might not realize they are using something that isn’t ideal
people who are smarter
actually come to solutions
gentleman in our area
he grows compost for a lack of a better way to say it
growing compost from chicken manure
chickens for eggs and meat
make this compost
started making
food soil web
started doing aerobic compost
vegetative composting
found in his area
in kentucky
fields that had been taken out of production put back into
send analysis
biological
what is going on with his compost
highest
vegetative compost
he was growing a vegetative based
- 80 acres into hemp
- compost that was all vegetable
- biological inoculant
- vegetable based compost
- no applications on those fields
best numbers is from the hemp
native grasses
manure
diversity
specific biologicals
nitrogen fixers
mine phosphate and potassium
random shot of
diversity
other thing is you want tom make good numbers
biology
help you
mine from the soil
something else to consider
biological
both can survive in both
some are good
some are bad
a lot that we don’t know
we know very little about biology
amount out there
really don’t know much
utilize these chemical reactions
soluabilizing
quite a bit
capitalize on the things we know
fungal highly
fungi
which families
work with which families of plants
all these things are important
chemical structure
good air exchange
have this
movement
how we can
gas exchange
proprietor blend
head lettuce
We have really struggled to grow head lettuce
A couple of years ago we had a good head but it was just inconsistent
this year
Very nice head lettuce
excited to have it in the CSA boxes and on the Market table
we grow unique varieties
oak leaf
Wild Garden Seed
based out of Oregon
Franls’ been doing this a long time I know of him, and talked to him on the pohone on occasion
Very talented seed grower
He does development of seeds that
rescued a lot of varieites
Samantha it is a red oak leaf
just one of the most spectacular lettuces that I tasted
- frilly
- spine like a romaine on the back
- crunchy
- soft lettuces at the same time
hickory
bitter bite to it
real course
runs the gamet of tectures and coloration
- sweetness
- nice lettuce
at the Market we always have the same experience
They say what’s your favorite lettuce and I say Samantha
I’ve never seen
they’ll try it
almost invariable
They’ll come back and say do you have more of that
introduce those types of things
when I was on that farm for the first time
can you go pull a row of pullalosa radichio
He says can you go harvest that?
I would love to go if you tell me what that is
explain to me
IDK if I had ever had it before
Never knew they even existed
salad mixes
Can I back that up and ask a couple of questions?
How big is it now?
How do you mix your compost in? Are you doing no till practices or what are your practices you are following?
so how many acres what do you think of all this no till?
right now
1 3/4 acre
shrink
I use a tractor
In the fields we use a particular implement
I have always been
soil structure
biology
fungal hifi in soils
use a spader
mechanical double dig basically shovels that shovel the ground that deep
very large crumb structure
I talked to a guy at Young’s Farm that’s what they use too
Celli Spader from Celli italy
5 feet wide
right on our bed system
try to be gentle on the soil
- permanent beds system
- walk paths are wheels of tractors
- try to never drive in our beds
careful about
if we are
working cover crops
whole section whole acre
try to maintain driving on the same bed systems
I say we farm an acre and half we have 6 acres
in working very high rotation
We have a lot of that land in cover crops
rotate around in those cover crops
A lot of soil building measures going on while we’re doing the farming
primary tillage is the Celli Spader
till to create a seed bed
somewhere around 2 inches
give or take
shallow weed bed
to do as little damage to the soil as possible
in our greenhouses
Johnny’s sells a little tilther
- mineral
- compost
puts down by hand
mix it up as whatever we need and spread it by hand with 5 gallon buckets
just bought a handy drop shredder this last fall adn so we’re gonna see if we can speed that process up a little bit
drop shredder to apply those things in the future
Now it’s just the 2 of you?
Practical working model for a couple we are very keen on education
part of our mission to educate people to be able to do this so we do have people come out to help us do that
I do have 2 times a year where we do farm dinners
different family members
4 course meal using farm fresh ingredients
- community
- families
- children
- come out to farm
Basically it’s just Me and Michelle that run the farm
Let’s go to
We make sure to take one day of rest
no work on Saturday is our Sabbath and that helps us to recoup
traditional Sabbath from Friday night to sat night ~ is our day of rest
That’s important
Is there something you would do different next year or want to try/new?
We actually got a backhoe
Michelle: Next year we are adding fruit trees!
so many issues with our soil
handle on that
take on the challenge
21 fruit trees coming to be planted this spring!
My goal on a smaller scale to plant more fruit to plant things that are gonna be successful, blueberries, raspberries.
We’re also were gonna try to run some underground irrigation
many hours moving drip tape
to save a lot of time
- tape
- hoses
- connectors all around the field
underground irrigations
bought a backhoe to try to put some systems in place that are time saving
you mentioned it’s a lot of work for 2 people
I think a big part of making it work is to find very effective systems
so you are able to save your labor and focus on the things that are most important in the farming process
I was telling Michelle, our backhoe is broke. What are you going to do? Mike is digging a kind of pond like in Jean Martin Fortier’s Market Gardener book
clay
the backhoe has a couple of purposes
when we plant trees
gamma white
3 foot by 3 foot hole
mineralization process as we layer it back together
It will help me plant the trees easier then me digging that hole
Use it to put the ditches for the underground irrigation
tile drainage, we had some irrigation problems, we put tile drainage and it was great for helping the water moving laterally
sandstone
has to move laterally
add some tile drain
oxygen back into the ground as rapidly as possible
Help us out
What does irrigation mean? Like putting those wobblies in?
what we’ll do run a line out to the field and we will have more pressure we’ll have spigots every 100 feet
when we attach the irrigation
mow
- hoes running from the wash station
- manage the weeds all the hoses
Makes it EASIER !!! connected out there
winter farming
if you want to irrigate during the winter months have to drain the hoses again so you don’t have to worry about them that the are gonna freeze and burst
Tell me about something that didn’t work so well this season.
we have struggled with beets
keeping them weeded
as you’ve mentioned there’s just two of us struggle
with them
one of the reasons
in a wet spot one year
roots seemed to rot
didn’t have a very good chance
tile drain
to mitigate
we have acquired some new tools
finger weeders
Alice charmers G-tractor
walk behind finger weeders
Have you seen those?
No, we’re not on that kind of scale yet.
fingers that go in and sweep
some of those tools are gonna be quite useful for us
The beets we struggle with
the other thing we thought about is transplanting
Well when he was on my show he talked about transplanting those beets
there’s manpower in that transplanting
do you mulch after you get the beets out?
black landscape
greenhouse
- peppers
- beets and things like that we’ve never really done a natural mulch
been for the amount of land we’re doing finding a source of mulch we’re comfortalbe with?
can sometimes get tree trimmings they do them in your yard
use those a little bit but a lot of times if you are putting those directly in the bed
some permanent no till system
turn it into the ground it takes nitrogen to break down that wood product so I have been weary to put that into the beds.
Which activity is your least favorite activity to do in the garden?
harvesting
great cause the contrast is harvesting is my favorite. It works out fine
I was wondering because the difrference between harvesting a little salad lettuce and harvesting mike’s minifarm
quite monotonous
twist tie
hoeing
my least favorite is to move the irrigation around
can’t stand it when he’s like go move that irrigation pipe
no not me!
i don’t like doing it!
I like harvesting and weeding, there’s so many great things you can think about while listening to the birds
What is your favorite activity to do in the garden?
I really like weeding
think about
listen to the birds
I can’t hardly garden without a podcast in my ears but on the pllus side I’ve spent more time in my garden in the last 4 years then the other 21
What is the best gardening advice you have ever received?
it seems cliche
bigger is not always better
first time I learned that
summer squash
will grow to be
yellow crookneck or something like that
seeds get tough
flesh
spongy
nasty
like you said if you get it when it’s less then 8 inches long
modern
recently
a lot of people grow their farms and they get more and more land in produciton
you become mechanized and become detached
become a manager of people
then farming
lose the essence of it
touch the stuff
put my hands in the ground
get it down smaller
manage that smaller space better
get higher quality
for me I’d like to see more people
- gardening
- farming
- experience for themselves
more people have doing it less you need to produce
unpractical for someone who wants to make a living at it but
someone who wants to make a living
lesson book
some experience putting their hands in the dirt
way of life
too
we want it to be
living the agrarian
lot cheaper
A favorite tool that you like to use? If you had to move and could only take one tool with you what would it be.
yeah I get made fun of always have my harvest
smaller harvest knife
people aren’t used to seeing
practical thing
harvest knife the thing I use most
flower clippers
priceless
different in quality of clip
Felco
probably
harvest knife was actually mine
she stole it from me
no i didn’t it
wheel hoe
saves me a lot of time
therapeutic thing for me
economically
what’s a wheel hoe
basically a stirrup hoe
wheel and 2 handles
allows you do what a hoe would do with 2 hands
5 inches
make quick work of hoeing with them
get what
A favorite recipe you like to cook from the garden?
4
A favorite internet resource?
they’ll know
the guy is
such a wealth of information
so grounded
in my opinion
grounded thoughtful
scientifically grounded
solid to me
helped me understand
agriculture
biological side of agriculture
far beyond
dug out on my own
actually I would say, I have learned a lot from floret
don’t
good videos
good youtube
soaking
detailed oriented
incorporating poppies snapdragons
first time
seeded them into trays in beginning of January
ready to go out into a greenhouse
earlier
more cold
A favorite reading material-book, mag, blog/website etc you can recommend?
I have to say my favorite book is probably the bible
Larry would say the same
we don’t have a lot of
second
true education
by a lady named ellen g white
agriculture and education should be fundamentally
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Free Garden Course.com
Free Organic Garden Course
Remember you can get the 2018 Garden Journal and Data Keeper to record your garden goals in our
You can download the first 30 days here while you’re waiting for it to come in the mail.
We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!
If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.