272. Start Your Farm for the 21st Century Sustainable Farmer | Plant To Profit | Ellen Polishuk | Washington DC
I am delighted to introduce my amazing guest from Plant to Profit Farm Consulting Ellen Polishuk is here to share her amazing knowledge and story as well as her new book available on amazon or her website!
Start Your Farm: The Authoritative Guide to Becoming a Sustainable 21st Century Farmer
Listen to your first audio book for free by clicking on our audible affiliate link
Tell us a little about yourself you were telling me today in Washington DC you had snow today.
Yup! as you said, just the end of January having a little bit of snow
raised in the DC Suburbs
55 been here a long time
whole career has been in agriculture
vegetable gardener
part of a farm called Potomac Vegetable Farms
25 year career there growing and selling organically grown
- vegetables
- herbs
- cut flowers
Tell me about your first gardening experience?
It’s good story everybody has to start somewhere
easiest way to describe it I think I was just born loving plants, they were sort of my sort of pets
as a little child I would collect indoor plants in my room. I got a community garden plot when I was like 8
goes back quite a long time even though I grew up in a cul de sac, the most ideal suburban childhood but somehow
agriculture grabbed me
ended up getting a degree in horticulture in college
not growing up on a a farm.
Do you want to tell listeners what sustainable agriculture maybe means to you did you learn that in horticulture school?
As a young person when I first
15-16-17 years old, luckily I worked on farms, that were quote unquote, “organically”
started getting Organic Gardening magazine like everyone else,
keep up and see what other people were doing
sustainable ag
organic more specific and legally defined now
- bigger umbrella
- terminology
- organic
- biodynamic
- some conservation practices
- irregular
- no-till farmer might take part in
- fairly broad term
- specific
- legally
Do you want to tell listeners about your book?
so, the book is written
Forrest Pritchard
grass-based livestock grower
sells in the larger DC market area
our idea
how to grow things
how to grow animals
vegetables
technical aspects of farming
what
bugs are
What we felt was missing was a book that helped described the foundational thinking, that goes with the thinking involved with a farm business
Especially for people who are thinking about moving into a farming business
income generating
what things they might want to think about
personal temperaments
resources
help
think about the business and financial aspects
manage your energy and not burn out
how not to kill relationships when your pressing hard
That area of the business mind is probably the most striking thing
Like I said, I’ve been pouring through JM Fortier’s book. Trying to figure it all out and then he talks about 2 acres which is a lot more then our 1/3 acre. IDK why at this time in my life I’m obsessed with business podcasts which is so opposite when I was in college and you probably couldn’t even get me to go into the business building. But that’s part of my personality too when you talk about temperament. So what else do you see missing?
The biggest thing is the business mind missing in folks that have an impulse to be a grower
not the same thing
at all
need to have both of those combined
in order to run a business to pay the bills to
getting friendly with numbers
can you get friendly
sustainable ag
bring together this ecological balance and all the beauties most of us growers are attracted to
- being outside
- touching the sun
- watching the plants grow
- nurturing impulse
combine that ecological care
economic stability
having a reasonable head for numbers
how much is it costing us to grow things?
what does my price need to be so I can stay in business
We talk a lot about business mindset
- roi
- how to handle your money
- pretty specific aspects
that’s the main thing
some conversation in there
thinking about your temperament from other angles:
like whether or not you’re a perfectionists?
Perfectionists are not going to find themselves particularly acceptable if you are super detailed oriented, there are not many tasks where you will be recompensed in the market
88% perfect is pretty good
I’m gonna go with it
ability
temperament without withstand things never being done
constant work in process
never finished with anything
always
- growing
- learning
- more projects
- more weather
seasons
constant growing process
maybe difficult going to bed each night knowing there are lots of things that didn’t
I think this is so fitting, I look at this from a teaching perspective. There’s so many things about my personality that don’t fit a teacher like, repetition, having to do the same schedule exactly the same way every day at the same time. That’s a part of my temperament. I’m a very visual type or person and a visionary, and I’m always looking into the future and the pace of education changes at a snails pace. And then I’m not a perfectionist, I could never get an A no matter how much I studied but I usually got B+s which I thought was pretty good.
My big question is last summer we found a business that said they would take everything we would grow but I started looking at my kale etc and was thinking other people might not like my kale with little insect holes in it that don’t bother me.
we don’t specifically make any kind of quality standard
I’m happy to parse that out with you now.
And maybe down the line we’re gonna figure that out.
Let’s just say that probably at this moment in time there’s the most capacity for regular person or consumer to handle imperfection
movement and talked about on TV, written in the paper
less then perfect vegetables
more robust in Europe but coming into the US
more organized recognition
cosmetic standards usually has to do with this
pepper has this funny shape
doesn’t mean is it going to rot but more of a cosmetic standard
shape and color
doesn’t fit in the box with the other ones
positive awareness
- lets loosen that up
- let’s not throw those things away
- make sure somebody gets to eat them
good news aspects
When it comes to bugs I think there is 0 tolerance
people don’t like bugs at all
it freaks them out
there is no respite and no place to hide
exchange a product that has bugs in it.
I know. It makes me laugh I remember when mike would enter the fair they would want everything to be the same size. Like 5 potatoes or 4 tomatoes on a vine all the same size.
I think that’s an interesting point that your making, its a good point that
there is a difference between feeding yourselves and your standards are going to be lower then what’s ok in the market place
in the market place there’s a big difference
At the farmer’s market you can get away with lots of imperfection, people sort of expect it
They’re standing there and they know what their weather is like
what their garden is
chard missing
get into the wholesale setting
sell to someone who’s going to resell
It’s interesting when we went to Young’s Farm, we were looking at the peach trees and he was saying that the peaches just weren’t ever good enough to sell, but they could sell peach pies. Like 5000 of them!
don’t have a lot of experience in the restaurant selling business
determine where ever piece was going to go
would send the worst looking stuff to a restaurant
gonna wash it and cutting it up and cook
perfect place
restaurants to taken up that mantle
thats our role to take
I’d like to spend some time talking about
What resources do you have to bear
When you talk about a farm organism?
Things cost money
building up a set of tools
infrastructure
things cost money
you need to have either time or money or both
what I find in my consulting business and teaching business
come across folks who have neither one
in a sense like this
someone writes to me
I’m on this family land
I got it for free
- I have no other job
- have to get money off this piece
They send me this soil test
soil is broken and it takes time for soil to heal
for free
money
not ready to create your amazing living right off the bat
You can heal and fix things
if you have time
3-5 years you can bring that soil alive doing good practices
or if you have a huge budget
bring 50 tons of compost
JM Fortier
liquid fertility
foliar sprays
buy microbial inoculants
I used to work for a printer he had a triangle on his wall:
I thought you were going to talk about tools, as far as labor how long it takes mike to weed his minifarm with his cultivator hoe. But I feel like you just dropped a ton of golden seeds about things I have never thought of.
I always tell people, go ahead and quit your day job, but get a night job. We delivered the paper that was helped me get my podcast off the ground. People always say to me you’ve been doing this for 4 years why aren’t you making money but it takes a long time to get an online business off the ground.I feel like I grow in leaps and bounds.
on target with what I am trying to talk about
closely related
said a different way
read books like JM Fortier’s book and say I’m gonna do that but then they don’t buy the 50 tons of compost.
think they are going to plant intensively and all these plants and their soil resource isn’t ready and they don’t get very good crops
be careful about following the advice or a book or something you have read
if you don’t understand how that person is building a whole system
some part is successful
JM Fortier style
you have to do do 50 tons of compost over and over and over again
that’s his system. If you want the results of his system you have to put it to work.
Not to say anything negative his book is amazing very inspiring.
That’s like I was looking for a job online customer service and I was reading people’s terms and conditions for refunds, and it was like can you prove you did this, this, and this.
I’m glad you brought that up, because that’s another thing
somehow people think that faming doesn’t require practice and it isn’t a profession especially people who aren’t even gardeners thinkanybody can do that
haven’t thought about it
highly encouraging working for someone else
- paid to observe
- paid to be helping
It’s crazy to think you could go from being a happy gardener in your backyard
when one you don’t know anything about business
many not know
- mareketing which is selling
- customer service
so much to learn, one must go slowly
learn from other people’s operations and mistakes, that’s the best way possible
But that only applies to a young person who’s loose and doesn’t have kids, a husband or wife, that needs to be in one stuck
It’s the preferred method to go work for 2-3 seasons
I think that works in so many situations, I tell my mom a lot I wish someone would have told me when I was young, I would love running when I was older but if someone would have taught me all the tricks and I always thought running meant running 5 miles in 30 minutes everyday but that’s the farthest thing from the truth.
So I imagine your book is about if you follow your steps in your book that helps people turn a profit
then launch your business
the glass ceiling with agriculture
not that a woman can’t move up to a board level but a glass ceiling on price
any kind of food business are bumping hard against this ceiling that Americans don’t value food we are cheapskates and how much we think food should take of our budget
There’s study after study that Americans spend less on food as a percentage of their income by a long shot and still complain about it
making a profit
make 10$ more then you spent there’s a profit but you can’t make a living on $10
Need to have enough profit to make a living and not have another job which isn’t easy to do when food is not a valuable commodity.
I hope someone out there that is righteous feisty I hope we can bust through that ceiling, how much food is worth.
I think alot of it is subsidies on processed food, etc. I can stand in the grocery store for like an hour debating back and forth should I spend this extra for organic buy this..? Now I’m blessed because my husband grows a lot of my food.
There’s
- oil
- nuts
- seeds
I just keeping thinking about this cauliflower I was excited to buy it was giant and gonna taste good but it was $8 and I there was no way I could afford that.
its an individual battle for each of us
what is it worth how much do I have
long way to go in our culture to raise the value of food in our minds
Do you have a system for helping people go from Plants to Profits?
big part of my teaching
a little bit in the book but in my teaching around the country
I work with a group out of Wisconsin
compass tools
spreadsheet
- vegetable growers
- livestock growers
veggie compass
The goal is for people figure out what does it cost them to grow each of their products
50-75 different crops that we grow
The kind of bookkeeping and record keeping to determine the cost does require some time and attention. That’s kind of my holy grail and what I teach
show what records to keep
ideas of how to keep records and show what’s possible with a healthy set of data from your own operation so you can find out which are my
20 top profitable crops
what are my worst crops
making a whole set of questions or designs
why do I loose money on these crops?
What’s wrong? what part of the equation is off?
- am I not growing it?
- yield is no good?
- price is not sustainable?
- I have a poor marketplace to sell this thing?
Not as much in the book because we don’t want to freak people out and nobody wants a book about record keeping
some other good
famer number rich business books
Julia shanks
The Farmer’s Office: Tools, Tips and Templates to Successfully Manage a Growing Farm Business
Fearless Farm Finances: Farm Financial Management Demystified
out of Wisconsin
Richard Wiswall’s The Organic Farmer’s Business Handbook
go super deep into spreadsheets and costs
We hope ours is filling in this other stuff that missing
can’t get it all in one places, you need a shelf
I have 2 of those and I’ll have to look into the Farm Finances
He’s the lender, the banker, helps you understand what the words mean that the bank is going to use with you.
So a lot of my guests have recommended going to the market first before starting out, would you recommend that? Where would you recommend someone start?
Well, it’s not a linear progression and the balls would be what is the natural inclination
a few balls in the air at the same time
What is the natural inclination of the land?
if you have already landed
rented or given a piece of land
the property has something to say about this
you can’t override the natural inclination of that land
have that ball in the air
Next you have to take into consideration your set of skills and temperaments
if the perfect thing for that land area is to grow sheep that’s not going to work?
and then there’s the marketplace
all these things affecting each other, back and forth and you have to hold them up in the air at the same time in order to come to an idea of a farm organism that will work
- That you want to be a part of
- that the land wants to support and
- the marketplace that will buy your products
So sort of a 3 way, I say!
It’s interesting, have you seen the Netflix movie about the girl who won the Chelsea Flower show in England and then she wrote this other book now called the Garden Awakening, Mary Reynolds is her name. I’ve been reading it this morning because it’s due back at teh library this morning.
The Garden Awakening: Designs to Nurture Our Land and Ourselves
She talks about the land in similar ways to you, even as far as including a little bit of fairuy magic but
- walking the boundaries
- letting the land heal and even talking to the land itself and asking it?
- she’s talks a lot about similar things
How do you learn that? What’s a clue that land’s meant for sheep. We wanted to get sheep and had a very sad experience.
Well I’m not talking about mystically about your example
I’m being very pragmatic
land has a lay to it
- what is the topography
- how up and down hilly
- how flat is it
- what elevation are you at
- how strong ar the winds
- what direction do they come from
- zone?
- how deep is the soil itself. If you took a shovel and dig how deep can you go before you hit a rock impediment?
deeper the 12 you probably don’t have to know
- what is this land suited for?
- is it covered with trees already?
Are you really gonna have the land cleared and trunks pushed out etc?
that’s what I mean
trying to say people have to access
There are professional people that can help with all of these things
extension agents
Natural Resource conservation service Professionals through USDA
They know how to read land
soil tests
help you get some of those perimeters lined up for any certain set of property
IF you are not landed
know that you want to be a carrot farmer
shop for land for land that will work it’s not gonna be hilly and shallow it’s gonna be flattish and deep! Does that make sense?
Yeah! Excellent!
Get to the root of things?
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Now Let’s Get to the Root of Things!
Which activity is your least favorite activity to do in the garden?
The thing I hate and avoid at almost all costs, it’s wearing a backpack sprayer! I don’t care what’s inside even if its full of yummy goodness inside like
full of microbe and compost tea
whatever I am
uninterested in wearing backpack sprayer
dragging hoses around
heavy water filled
greenhouse out in the garden
least favorite
Do you think any farm is going to have to have a backpack sprayer?
yeah!
anyone that is going to farm on any kind of scale
probably for insect control
- potatoes
- green beans
- bunch of crops that have a caterpillar pest
colorado potato beetle pest
There’s really good biological options but the only way is to spray it.
That’s interesting I was also reading Erin’s Benzenkien’s blog post about her favorite tools the other day and it was on her list of gotta have.
What is your favorite activity to do in the garden?
Oh, I love planting I love harvesting most crops
some things that are a pain in the next
- carrots
- beets
- peppers
- basil
So many good smells!
beautiful
so rewarding to see the fruits and vegetable of your labor!
?You know your passion comes through so intensely there! You can tell you really love it! I find that is like dreaded labor to me. Do you have any harvesting techniques to make it easier?
No, I don’t
picking beans is a hard, that’s one of the harder slower sports
on a commercial scale that’s definitely a limiting factor how many people you can get on the grown especially bush beans.
now as an avid home gardeners
plenty of growing season
haven’t had a problem
when I was a full time grower
having good knees
right down on your knees
pick those beans right in front of you
which part of your knees
back
commercial scale a lot of time on my knees
not a lot of tricks
home gardener
really high raised beds
onerous
earth come up
preparing yourself before you go out
maximum mobility
stretching before you go to bed
counteract what’s done during the day
wise strategy
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.
as a farmer my favorite tool was s machine called a spading
love equipment
implements
spading machine
it’s how your gonna work up the ground
till
special tillage tool
works really really well
I would take that for sure
As a home gardener now is a good hand hoe
I like the ones from Johnny’s
triangle shaped piece of metal on the end of a good handle
transplant
mix things up
do a little
Excellent I think Aidan at Young’s Farm told me he liked the spader tractor attachment too!
A favorite recipe you like to cook from the garden?
omgosh!
I love to cook everything
million things
- pesto
- tomato sauce
- canning any kind of toast
- okra pickles
- dilly beans
- sauerkraut
don’t have a favorite
A favorite internet resource?
omgoodness! There’s certainly a whole pack now of kind of young whippersnapper
urban grower people
Conner
He has a company in the field consultants
lessons on it – I know are really popular
young up and new up and coming farmers watching youtube videos
just surprising given someone my age
what did we have
Organic Gardening Magazine
talking to live people
boy people can sit at home get a great education
big conference goer
favorite things is to hear a speaker
live interaction
I love old time
sitting
A favorite reading material-book, mag, blog/website etc you can recommend?
Start Your Farm: The Authoritative Guide to Becoming a Sustainable 21st Century Farmer
I certainly love the book but I spent a lot of time with those words already so I’m reading it anymore
2 books
point towards valuable resources in farming
made by our governed
SARE
cover cropping book
Managing Cover Crops Profitably
growing cover crops profitably
$22
Building Soils for Better Crops
best soils book written for a person not in a college course
written for regular lay person
tremendous resources that everyone should have on their shelf
Final question-
If there was one change you would like to see to create a greener world what would it be? For example is there a charity or organization your passionate about or a project you would like to see put into action. What do you feel is the most crucial issue facing our planet in regards to the environment either in your local area or on a national or global scale?
Obviously I have lots of feelings for plastic bags all over the world
industry should have to take responsibility for their product through it’s life
its on the radar
I think we should make it illegal to have more then 250 chickens in any one given area
Modern chicken houses should be illegal
I live here by the Chesapeake Bay watershed
Chesapeake Bay is ruined by chicken farming
it’s not ok to put 100,000 chickens in one building and the only way they can be grown is on small scale Joel Salitin style
on little tiny houses that are pulled across
they eat pasture
we could make a change like that
ripple effect would be huge!
- soil health
- water shed
It’s not ok with us anymore
it’s not good for the chickens, for us, the land or the water
Let’s just say we can’t do it anymore!
now that’s radical!
That’s radical but it’s doable!
except for the politics
To decentralize chicken farming so that it can be a commodity and decentralized
all that pollution is such a big problem that would make a big difference.
My friend Mary that I interviewed is in NJ but she also talked about the Chesapeake Bay
But chicken farming.
Definitely something near and dear to my heart. I do think it’s doable. We have our chickens for the manure, the eggs are just bonus. Once you get to know them and have them you get to love them.
It’s something we could do. I love the way you put it, we could make it illegal and some day we would think what were we ever thinking?
Start Your Farm: The Authoritative Guide to Becoming a Sustainable 21st Century Farmer
Listen to your first audio book for free by clicking on our audible affiliate link
How do we connect with you?
I have a website for my teaching website one on one consulting
Plant to Profit Farm Consulting
That’s where the action is
You can get my email and watch some videos
videos of classes that I’ve taught
photographs
I write articles for Growing for Market Magazine
super publication
I finally got us a subscription to Growing for Market 2 days ago, I’ve wanted to do that for a long time!
On my website
conferences
all around the country
- Kentucky
- Oregon
- Tennessee
- Pennsylvania
on the website there’s the schedule if you want to spend an hour or so or even the next on is a daylong at the penn sustainable ag conference
start your farm
full of people lot in common
starting a new farm business
next Tuesday
Lancaster, PA
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