Greenhorns Radio

Anastasia started her career as a seasonal agricultural worker at the age of 17 when a series of fateful events led her to the blueberry barrens of Downeast Maine. She raked berries every year for the next 8 years, and also did some apple picking, morel mushroom hunting, and tree-planting which eventually became her primary occupation. This lifestyle kept her on the road for the better part of 13 years and enabled her to become intimate with many parts of the country. She has been based out of Tucson, AZ (the city of her birth) for the past 10 years where her home has evolved into an urban, desert farm. Anastasia has just earned a degree in Rangeland Ecology and Management from the University of Arizona. She is looking forward to integrating her experiences and skills in ways that will help to produce food and other products from the land while sustaining and enhancing natural and cultural resources. This program was sponsored by White Oak Pastures.

“I think what I really loved about it [seasonal agriculture] was the bizarre social scene that grew around it… I also got really into the physical aspects of it… grueling, repetitive work out in the hot sun… But I don’t wanna paint a rosy picture of seasonal agricultural work because it’s not that way for many people.”

“The fact that we can make food from animal products without altering the land is really important to our food security.” — Anastasia Rabin on Greenhorn Radio

Tim is a Change Agent, Cultural Creative, and Nature-based Mentor. He currently serves as co-Director of Twin Eagles Wilderness School, an organization he co-Founded with his wife, Jeannine Tidwell, in Sandpoint, Idaho in 2005 as a vehicle to support his life’s work of facilitating Deep Nature Connection Mentoring and Cultural Restoration. Tim is a certified Wilderness First Responder, a graduate of the Kamana Naturalist Training Program, and a graduate of the Vermont Wilderness School’s five-year Apprenticeship Program. Since 1999, Tim has studied closely with a variety of nature-based mentors throughout the country including Tom Brown Jr., Jon Young, Mark Morey, Ingwe, Tony Ten Fingers, Gilbert Walking Bull, Paul Raphael, Jake Swamp and Barry Moses. Men’s Work, Permaculture, Primitive Skills, Holistic Rites of Passage for boys, healing the cultural rift between the White and Native cultures, Inner Tracking, the Spiritual Journey and Family are all deep, heart-centered commitments in his life. Find out more about Tim and Twin Eagles Wilderness School here. This program has been brought to you by Hearst Ranch.

“I work with youth and adults facilitating a deep connection to the natural world, and what emerges from that is deep connections between people, and a deep connection to self.”

“When we go about tracking animals, it’s a multi-sensory and multi-disciplinary experience that connects us archetypically to this really old part of ourselves.”

— Tim Corcoran on Greenhorn Radio

Reba Epler grew up on her family’s ranches and farm in Tie Siding and Hillsdale, Wyoming. They raise commercial cattle, sheep, hay, beans and sunflowers. She has always loved agriculture and aspires to continue to build upon what her family has worked for so many generations to build. She is also a lawyer specializing in agriculture issues and conflicts, estate planning, business planning and water law. Reba specializes in implementing succession plans for family farms and ranches to help older generations pass their land on to the people they choose and advocates for honesty and open lines of communication between farming generations.
This program has been brought to you by Hearst Ranch.

“I encourage farm and ranch kids to go to law school. It opens up a lot of opportunities for people; it’s incredible what doors it can open.” — Reba Epler on Greenhorn Radio

Wellspring Farm is owned and managed by farmer Mimi Arnstein (pronounced “Mi-mee”; rhymes with “Jimmy”). Mimi has been growing organically for CSA & wholesale markets for over 10 years. Despite the obvious pitfalls of pursuing a line of work in which one relies on nature, she feel grateful every day for the opportunity to grow food for her community and is thankful to her CSA members and community supporters for keeping her farm in active agriculture. Mimi’s favorite tools are large cheater bars, a mini sledgehammer, an Allis Chalmers G cultivating tractor, and a wood-fired hot tub at the end of a long day. She serves on the board of NOFA-VT and the Vermont Vegetable and Berry Growers Association. This episode has been brought to you by Fairway Market.

“Sustainability also includes what is sustainable to the farmers, the workers on the farm, and what’s sustainable financially.”

“We have to be really creative in finding new ways to get access to land in order to grow more food.”

—Mimi Arnstein on Greenhorn Radio

David and Melinda Rowley, along with their daughter Sorrel, are the farmers at Monkshood Nursery and Gardens. David attended Hadlow College in England studying commercial horticulture while Melinda attended Cornell University and studied horticulture. Together, they started a potted herb nursery in 2001. Two years later, they leased an 82 acre parcel of land in Stuyvesant, New York and began growing vegetables for farmers markets. Since then, they have erected three greenhouses to expand their
growing season. With the addition of a CSA, the garden keeps on growing. Tune in to hear David discuss the many facets of maintaining a greenhouse. This program has been brought to you by Cain Winery.

“If you choose to spray in the greenhouse, of course you’re going to eliminate the pests, but you’re also going to eliminate the predators of the pests.” —David Rowley on Greenhorn Radio

On this episode of Greenhorn Radio, Severine interviews Michael Meier from the Brooklyn Grange Farm in Long Island City, Queens. Michael is a south Florida citrus country native who was introduced to farming as a youngster spending summers at his grandparents’ farmstead in the North Carolina Smokies. He moved to New York City in 2005 and quickly became a part of the local food scene there. He spent a few years working in the ad industry and honing urban homesteading techniques to grow food on the side, before taking an apprenticeship position in 2011 at Brooklyn Grange, a one-acre rooftop farm in NYC. As farm manager with Brooklyn Grange this season, Michael is learning what it takes to run a quickly expanding farm business and is working towards a lifetime career in agriculture, whether on city rooftops or in the country like normal folks. Tune in to hear Michael talk about the Grange’s role in the urban farming landscape, and how it serves as a model for a for-profit farm that can help feed the city. Hear about some of the factors that make Brooklyn Grange different from a traditional rural agricultural farm. This episode was brought to you by Hearst Ranch.

“The point of our farm isn’t to try to provide every last vegetable or leafy green people need in the city, but to help create a business model for a sustainable urban agriculture that works and can generate jobs and revenue… Looking at the environmental benefits and the educational and social impact that we have, it’s a constellation of things, but we are a farm and our main priority is producing food… We’re hoping that by constantly testing, working, and spurring innovation in this space that we’ll help grow an industry.” —Michael Meier on Greenhorn Radio

This week on Greenhorn Radio, Severine talks with Amy McMillin. Amy grew up on the front range of Colorado and spent five years learning sustainable grass-based farming in Vermont. She has been back in Colorado for a few years now, and runs a raw milk dairy as part of a diversified farming project in Buena Vista called the Cottonwood Creek Dairy. While not weighing beans and bagging beans at the Buena Vista Roastery, you can find her out grazing her cows and promoting local food production around the valley. This program has been brought to you by Fairway Market.

“If there are any women out there questioning [whether to start a farm], I say do it. Start your farm and do what you love because that’s what’s most important.” —Amy McMillin on Greenhorn Radio

This week on Greenhorn Radio, Severine talks with Dan McManus of Common Hands Farm in Hudson, NY. Dan has lived much of his life around biodynamic communities, both from his early years in South Australia, and moving to New York working and apprenticing on numerous farms. Dan began to realize for himself, after desiring a more direct connection to what nourishes himself and others, that there is no art more beautiful or important right now than growing food and designing effective and low impact systems of living from and supplying healthy, organic vegetables. Dan studied regenerative community design at Goddard College in Vermont, has managed a community garden project in low-income areas of Detroit, and has focused his masonry skills by working on transformational social sculpture with mentor and teacher Johannes Matthiessen throughout the world. He has
also studied tracking and primitive skills in Vermont and holds a
certificate in Permaculture Design. Through his studies and interests in
associative economics, social-threefolding and peer-lead learning models, Dan seeks to continue learning through farming and working with
others. This program was sponsored by White Oak Pastures.

“The work that people are doing with food culture- and just documenting what is going on is amazing. And these resources are what have really kept us going…the amount of stuff going on in the community is what really makes it possible to be a starting farmer today.” — Dan McManus on Greenhorn Radio

This week on Greenhorn Radio, our hostess Severine von Tscharner Fleming interviews Jacob Cowgill of Prairie Heritage Farm outside of Conrad, Montana. Prairie Heritage Farm is in the tradition of old-time Montana farms that existed decades ago: diversified, small-scale, and locally-based. Listen in as Jacob discusses the challenges of starting a farm with a full-time job and a family, selling in a small direct market, and some of the upcoming grain ventures of Prairie Heritage Farm. This program was sponsored by Hearst Ranch.

“When the winter hit, we started thinking about the next season and how we were going to make it work. We made the nonsensical decision that I would quit my full-time job with benefits.” —Jacob Cowgill on Greenhorn Radio

“It’s really amazing to see whats going on elsewhere, and see that we’re part of something larger going on in the U.S.”–Jacob Cowgill on Greenhorn Radio

Ben is a full-time and part-time organic farmer. By day he works as the Organic Farm Manager for the University of Kentucky’s Organic Farming Research and Education Farm, a job he has held for the previous five years. The university farm is home to a 80-member CSA, grant-funded research, and extension and education efforts relating to organic vegetable production in Kentucky. By night he operates his own (leased) farm in Fayette County, Kentucky where he grows organic sweet potatoes, cabbage, winter squash, and watermelons on 10 acres.

“What’s been so great about having the farm is because it has created a visual component to the organic agriculture program [at the University of Kentucky].”

“I’ve found this movement of young farmers is very inclusive. There’s a lot of passion.”

— Ben Abell on Greenhorn Radio