← The 1000 Hours Outside Podcast
The 1000 Hours Outside Podcast
1KHO 539: We Need So Many More Farmers | Sean Pessara, Mindful Farmer Arkansas
00:54:11
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- [00:00]
Jenny Ur
It's summer time to enjoy long days, lazy nights, and great food because Uber Eats has deals all summer long. So when hunger strikes, don't sweat it. Delicious deals are just a tap away on Uber Eats. Enjoy all your favorite grocery items delivered straight to you.
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Sean Pacera
Get ice cream, soda and snacks from.
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Jenny Ur
Your favorite stores like Wegmans and cvs.
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Sean Pacera
And make the most of every moment.
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Jenny Ur
Now that sounds like a good summer order. Now on Uber Eats terms apply. Product availability varies by region. See app for details. Welcome to the 1000 Hours Outside podcast. My name is Jenny Ur. I'm the founder of 1000 Hours Outside and I am so excited about today's guest. We are going to be talking about greenhouses and these high tunnels and all sorts of tools that you can use in the garden and things to amend your soil. We were at the same homestead festival with Rory and Rebecca Feek. Sean Pacera from Mindful Farmer, Arkansas. Welcome.
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Sean Pacera
Hey, thanks for having me, Jim.
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Jenny Ur
I'm so excited about this because one of the ways to get kids outside more and families outside more is to garden and to spend time with animals. If you have space and everyone has different situation, but you can always scale up and scale down. You can do things on your porch, you can do things out on your balcony. If you have a yard, you can use your yard to do things. And one of the things that really stuck out to me was we used to have these neighbors, this is years ago, and they got chickens. We lived in a place where you weren't supposed to get chickens. You know how that is sometimes, Sean, it was like not. It was against the rules, but she got them anyway. And she kept him in a run. And anyway, she told me one time because we would sometimes help if they were out of town. She said, it bookends my day. I have to get outside and I have to care for these chickens. Even if it's really cold. We're in Michigan, you know, even if it's rainy, I have to go care for these animals. And it automatically infuses this morning time outdoors and this nighttime outdoors evening. And I was like, oh, you know, when you're disconnected from the land, those are sometimes things that you don't. You aren't aware of. And now as a mom, we have a garden now. We don't do it every year, but we did do it this year. We try and do it and it, it's the same thing. Like you have to get out in water, you have to go care for those things. And it enhances your life so much. So I Would love for, Sean, for you to tell your story because this is new for you. You are encouraging families to move from being backyard farmers to being organic, backyard, you know, growers. You can tell people, but this is new. You are having a full time job doing something else. You just a few years ago.
- [02:21]
Sean Pacera
Yeah, yeah, that's right. So my, my background is environmental science. So I worked as an ecologist full time. We did residential plan restoration plans, worked with oil and gas, and then felt this calling to do more with actually being a better steward of the earth and seeing more life in place of just putting in houses and stuff like that. I want to see life flourish and be part of that and see that as like our responsibility and stewardship. And so as I researched that while I was in grad school and when I started my career, it really landed on sustainable agriculture and regenerative agriculture as a way to do that. My wife is a nutritionist and she was kind of arriving at the same conclusions as I was as an environmental scientist of like, how do we grow food sustainably, regeneratively, and actually do so in a way that promotes the environment and diversifies ecology? And so that became the new trajectory for our lives. We had kids in the process while we're like studying this and trying to move my career in that direction. Worked for a non profit for several years, ran an organic vegetable farm and did trainings for area farmers, things like that. And then four years ago, decided to strike out on my own and start Mindful Farmer in a way to help grow backyard gardeners into the next generation of organic farmers. Because for the whole thing to be sustainable, we need the next generation to move into that space. And one of the things that I saw is that a lot of these farmers are really struggling financially and with their time. They were spending so many hours on the farm. And I even saw some farmers, their relationships as a couple suffered and with the kids suffered because they were just so overwhelmed by the production that was happening on the farm. And so I think that was kind of a light bulb moment for me of like, okay, so how if we want to do this, and I want my kids to fall in love with it too, and it extends to home gardeners too. If you want your kids to fall in love with gardening, how do we do so in such a way that gets them excited about it, not only to be in awe of creation, but also to, like, enjoy the actual process and the work of it and to build them into good, you know, workers that value work and see the fruit of that it has to be a change in kind of our whole approach. And so that's really what was a big motivating factor for Mindful Farmer is how do we share things that I learned how to do farming techniques efficiently out of a need of profitability. How do we translate that to homesteaders and gardeners to where their garden is just they spend 90% of their time harvesting and not pulling weeds and fighting bugs. And because that's going to make the kids fall in love with it and want to keep doing it and show their kids how to do that. And so kind of two big ways that we do that is efficiency and systems. So that's like in our using our brains create good systems for how we design our gardens and farms and the techniques that we're using. But then there's also another big element where we're kind of a hands off approach. We're letting what we call an environmental science ecosystem services take place. And that's really just part of God's design for how ecosystems operate in which we have predator species of birds that help to control the insects. And so how do I just let nature kind of run its course in a beneficial way with what we're doing in the garden or on the homestead or in the farm. And so those are kind of the two like main pillars is the efficiency in the system but also leveraging the way that nature wants to natural, you know, help the productivity of the space if you just allowed it to be in balance and flourish.
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Jenny Ur
And it really does aid in so much time outside, so much hands on experience. And from our own kids, like this isn't really what we were doing, Sean. We were more like, oh, we're going to go to the park or we're going to go to the playground. And when you incorporate the garden it just, it's an extra like a little bit of kick in the pants you're going to get out there and. And then you fall in love with it. And I think as, as I've gotten older as a mom and we're not doing like the playground thing as much anymore. It's a place that ensures that we are still getting outside as a family and getting all of these benefits from it. I mean it is so fun. I really could not have ever imagined how much I would have enjoyed it. And you really only get a certain amount of summers and Arkansas probably has a little bit of a longer growing season. But in Michigan it's like, man, you get one shot pretty much and then you know, you gotta dream about it till the next year. So one of the things that really intrigued me about what you do and people can find you at mind sinful farmer, AR on Instagram. And I'll make sure. I'll put the link. You have a ton of followers there and great content. And then your website, you sell tools, you do consulting, you have courses. So we're going to talk about some of those things, but we have never talked on the show about those greenhouses and the tunnels. Now you're going to be able to explain to us what the differences are, because I didn't know that there was a difference. But we got a small greenhouse a few years back. Very small. It's like made by the Amish, and it's got shelves in there. And in April is when we start our seeds and I'll put them in the greenhouse, and then you got to make sure it doesn't get too cold at night. It's a whole thing. But I really do like it. I like it because it's warm, you know, even in April, it's cold in Michigan still. You can. I'll take my book out there. You know, when you're growing these little seedlings. But I have two friends who got. I don't know if it's a greenhouse or the tunnel. They got those off of some sort of a grant. And I don't totally understand it, but from what I think I know is like, if you had carrots growing in there, you could still be harvesting them in that tunnel in the winter.
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Sean Pacera
Yep.
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Jenny Ur
Yeah. That's intriguing to me.
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Sean Pacera
Yeah. Yeah. So. So one of the things we've seen over the past couple of decades is we do have a shifting climate. And what it seems like is that our extremes are just kind of getting more extremes kind of on the tail end of the season. So winters can be colder, but then they can also be abnormally hot and storms can be abnormally strong. Or here in Arkansas, we're getting a huge influx of tornadoes and severe thunderstorms and stuff. So there's all these factors that already, as a gardener or as a farmer, you're having to deal with. And the beautiful thing about the high tunnel and the high tunnel is basically a covered space where you get the greenhouse effect in terms of it capturing the sun's heat and heating up the space so you can extend your season. And then a greenhouse is essentially the same, but you're actually like heating space, so you're adding heat. So a high tunnel is passive. You're just letting the sun and natural air ventilation Control the temperature. And then a greenhouse, you might have, like, fans and a heater to control it, but they could essentially look like the same structure with that. Like, you can, you know, for our flower farmers, they really love the high tunnels because in high wind events, they can lower the sides and keep the wind from knocking over the flowers. For our home gardeners, they really love the high tunnels because they can start a lot more of their plants early. They can have that space like you mentioned, like, walk out with a book and a cup of coffee and just sit with your plants. And there's snow on the ground outside, but you have green growing things inside the greenhouse. The high tunnel. I'm in a little makeshift high tunnel right now on one of the farms. There's actually some tomatoes we got. They got growing. So I'm out here sweating in the tunnel right now for this podcast. But so it's a very, like, useful space. Like, you can do podcasts in them as well. But for. Yeah, for home growers, like, what can make such a difference is it helps to not only extend your season. You can plant earlier, you can harvest later, but you can also overwinter things as well. So if you were going to grow things like carrots, even in Michigan, where normally the ground would freeze solid, you could have them inside the tunnel. And if they're full size going into winter, it's basically like you have a giant walk in cooler where all your cabbages and your carrots and your beets can all just stay in the ground, and you just harvest them as you need throughout the winter. So it, you know, keeps you from having to have some sort of big storage space. And it makes the. The ability to grow food year round for your family a lot more possible. So for us, like, we have, we have fresh carrots or carrots that we have dug and stored every single week of the year from our backyard garden. And beets and radishes and potatoes as well. Because we can, one, we have a long season, we can plant twice, but then we can keep stuff overwintered in the tunnel, or we can. I've, like, modified a deep freeze into a refrigerator. We can store them through the summertime inside the modified deep freeze. So we have, you know, carrots that we don't have to can or dry or process in any way. They're just fresh.
- [10:55]
Jenny Ur
I mean, this is really intriguing, especially considering in the winter and, you know, we got snow and all of these things. Like, if you had one of these high tunnels and you could send your kid out and you could say, go pick, you know, a dozen carrots and explain to me then how the cabbages work. Because obviously it makes. To me, it makes sense. If something's underground, though, like, even with the radish, I mean, those grow so fast. So do they just kind of. Do they just stop growing? Like, you would time it, you would look at the maturity, you know, whatever days to maturity, and you would put it so that it is fully grown? Basically, yeah. Tell me.
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Sean Pacera
Yeah, yeah. Reaches maturity before either your frost date or before the number of daylight hours drops below 10, which would be the case for you guys. For us, we still have long days, even in the winter. But once you get below 10 hours of daylight, usually plants will stop growing. They call it like a Persephone period, where they just like, we'll just wait till spring. And so cabbage naturally has that biennial lifestyle, so they. Or strategy for reproduction. So they form all those leaves to protect the inner point of growth so that in the spring all those leaves open and then it emerges as a flower the next year. So it's already wanting to live two seasons. So in a high tunnel. And if you're in Michigan or something, you may just have the high tunnel, have the sides down, and you might have an additional layer, like a blanket or frost cover inside to keep the cabbages from freezing. And then you just. They may even freeze solid a little bit. But then whenever they thaw back out, you can cut them and harvest them. And then the radishes we're growing are daikon radishes. So they're like one to two pound radishes. They're really sweet. They're not super hot. They store for nine months at a time. And they come in different colors. So you do like a green, a red, a purple. And then you can mix them together and they are great on fresh, like fresh on salads. Or we ferment them and then they're just delicious on salads. And we'll even like do some in like long spears and then like ferment them with dill. And so then it's like a crunchy dill pickle without cucumbers. So we can have like dill pickles in a way in. In the winter.
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Jenny Ur
Wow. I think when we started with the garden and like I said, I mean, I've dabbled in it and it's newer ish in my world, what it did was it opened my eyes to the fact that there's like so much else out there that I didn't have any idea existed. A radish that's one to two pounds and comes in different colors. What? I mean, I've never heard of that. That's incredible.
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Sean Pacera
Yeah.
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Jenny Ur
So, yeah, so then you're not going out there picking a little puny radish in the middle of January. You're going to go get this bigger thing and potatoes.
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Sean Pacera
Yeah, potatoes a little bit harder because you don't want the ground. They don't want the ground to freeze. But you'd be able to like probably do two crops of potatoes if you live up north. So you could do one round in spring and then plant one mid summer and it would go all the way till, you know, November or something like that. Where normally outside it would be freezing, you'd already get snow.
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Jenny Ur
Yeah.
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Sean Pacera
And you'd still have that crop of potatoes in the tunnel.
- [13:54]
Jenny Ur
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- [17:26]
Sean Pacera
It has more to do with how severe your winters are. And then kind of by coincidence, it also kind of equates to how many months of frost you have. So if you're in zone six, you generally have about six months of growing season. When they designed these hard plant hardiness zones, they didn't intend for that, but it's just a helpful coincidence that that's the case. So if you're in zone eight, you're growing seasons about eight months long. If you're in zone Four, you're growing seasons about four months long.
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Jenny Ur
Oh, I had no idea. Okay. Okay. So if you're in zone six, you have about a six month growing season. And zone seven, zone eight, it's approximately that. So as you go up the zones, then you're going to just have more time to plant into harvest.
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Sean Pacera
And that wasn't the intention when they did that initially. They were only like eight zones or something. But I've just like discovered that that's like a really helpful coincidence for understanding hardiness zones a lot easier. It's roughly the length of growing season that you have.
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Jenny Ur
Wow. So yeah, of course you want give me a higher number.
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Sean Pacera
Yeah, yeah. Right. So yeah. So essentially you'd be able to like get another month out of your garden. You put a high tunnel up and possibly two months.
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Jenny Ur
So this high tunnel thing is very enticing. And if someone has the property or the space to do it, there are these grant programs and I know people who have gotten them. So you kind of clear up and you can get these on your website and you can get a lot of help there on your website. It's mindful farmer arkansas.com and the greenhouse is like often unnecessary. You say like there's a lot of work to do the greenhouse, but the high tunnel can extend your growing season. Practical, affordable, simple to manage. Roll the sides up if it gets really hot. Can you talk about this grant program that people might be able to get one through?
- [19:05]
Sean Pacera
Yeah, for sure. So it's through the Natural Resource Conservation Service. And the program is called the equip, or Environmental Quality Incentives Program. Everything has to be along government acronym. Right. But what it is is it's the NRCS exists to help promote conservation practices on private land. So things like reducing erosion, increasing biodiversity or improving water and things like that. And so they cover programs or they cover conservation practices for landowners, things like cross fencing to promote rotational grazing waters to keep animals out of creeks so there's not all the erosion and then wells pollinator habitat. So you can actually get reimbursed to plant, you know, an acre of a butterfly garden. These programs, there's only so much dollars for them. And so it is kind of competitive to other growers in your area. The more conservation practices you can do, the better. But one of those practices is using a high tunnel. So it helps to basically concentrate for production and then protect that production from those weather extremes we talked about earlier. And so that's where it's, you know, a big incentive to producers, especially because land is so expensive. Expensive Most of the farmers that I know that are getting starting started are producing on like an acre or two. But the amount of production that they're getting out of an acre compared to if they were doing it with tractors is huge. And a big part of that is the high tunnel. It can easily double to quadruple. And if you're an expert, maybe octuple your level of production because you're not only growing year round, but also you can multi crop and you can trellis and you can put more plants in a smaller area. And so that cost share program, you apply for it through the nrcs, you need a farm number from the farm service agency, and then you typically apply by November, you find out in May, and then whether you get it, and then you'll go through a contract to like buy the high tunnel, install it, and they reimburse you a part of it. So they do it typically by square footage. So some of our customers, and I would say a lot of our customers are NRCS recipients or equip recipients, and they either get more than half of it and sometimes all of it, plus installation costs covered. And so it's really, really helpful for growers that are trying to scale. And so a lot of our customers are like, they've been backyard gardeners and they're trying to go to the farmer's market and this helps them kind of get to that next step, which is great because that's what we want to be about. We want to be about those gardeners becoming the next generation of farmers. And so this program really helps that occur. And so we're all about it. All of our tunnels are covered under that program across the nation. So we just sent tunnels to Virginia, California, everywhere. And even if you decide not to go that route for having it covered, like at the Homestead Festival, I talked about this in my talk, because your level of production is so much higher in a tunnel. It pays for itself. Year one, in our 30 foot wide by 96 foot tunnel, we can easily do $20,000 worth of heirloom tomatoes in just one planting. And that's only a three to four month season for us. And then we can follow that with two more crops. So it pays for itself really, really quickly, regardless of if you can get the cost share or not. The cost share just helps you grow faster as a, as a farmer. And we do all variety of sizes too. We have a backyard kit which is only 14ft wide by 18ft, and that's perfect for three beds that you could put in there of like Heirloom tomatoes down the middle. The cucumbers, like, I don't know if you can see because the background is blurred on the camera and I guess it's also a podcast. But the curved sides of the tunnel, I'll put netting and zip tight to the curved sides. And so the cucumbers will actually grow up the side of the tunnel and hang down where I can harvest them. So even in our small little backyard kits, the 14 by 18, which we ship all over, you can put a tremendous amount of food in that space. And the other cool thing too is like we'll try and figure out ways to maximize it. So we'll plant our tomatoes down the middle and then we'll put like green onions in between and lettuce and intercrop. And that way we're getting even more food out of the same amount of space. Because that is an investment. I mean, they're not cheap, but it's a long term investment that pays off really quickly. And so, yeah, that's kind of the breakdown of that program you can go to. If you just Google nrcs, eqip, you'll find your local agent. And that's usually the best place to start, is just to go talk to the local conservationist and say, hey, I'm interested in this program, interested in the high tunnel, you know, what do I need to do? And then at that point you can contact us and then we can walk you through that, those steps too. So, yeah, that's kind of the whole program in a nutshell. But it's been really great. There's like one region in particular of Arkansas that I did probably 12 installations of tunnels last year and all those people were taking stuff to the farmers market. So it was like over in the course of the year. I got to see 12 new farmers get started. And so that's really exciting because that's what we want to be about. We want to see more people growing for their communities. And so it's cool to see this little kind of remote community in Arkansas is all of a sudden to be a lot more food independent, which is really neat.
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Jenny Ur
Oh, it's incredible. It's incredible. And just from having the small greenhouse that we have, there is just that draw of going out to a warm space when it's really cold outside and being among living things. I mean, it makes a big difference. And you can have a huge one, a small one, just space to kind of move around. You could put a bench out there. This is a fantastic thing to know called a high tunnel. Also known as a hoop house, relies on passive solar heating. A plastic covering traps the heat, creates a microclimate for plants. Ventilation is managed through roll up sides or fans. But I want people to know that you have so much information about so many things. But high tunnels and greenhouses we've never talked about. So I appreciate you filling everybody in on that. And then it gets you outside. I don't know if people would count if, if you're outside, if you're in the high tunnel. But you know, I don't know, maybe if the sides are rolled up. But to be able to grow all those things and to grow them longer. Yeah, you talk about so many other things, but before we get into some of them, like drip irrigation. And you talk about the tarps, I don't even know how it's pronounced. Silage or silage tarps. And you have these different things that you sell, like the broad fork. And we have got one of the soil blocking tools which I want to talk about that, the drop seeders, all of these things. But before we get there, I am just curious, your learning process, your personal learning process. So obviously you are working, working in the environment before because you have this degree. But to make this major shift and to be speaking at these festivals and talking about all these things, how do you learn what motivates you?
- [25:33]
Sean Pacera
Yeah, yeah. So I, I struggle with, with reading, honestly. I have dyslexia, I have adhd. That's a hard thing for me to sit down and read a book. So when I first started getting into regenerative agriculture, I watched a lot of documentaries which kind of gave me the passion for it. Like, and that's pretty cool. I watched Food Inc. With Michael Poland and Joel Salatin was a big part of that. And then last year at the Homestead Festival, they were both there and got to meet them and like, they were the guys that inspired me while I was like working on my master's thesis and watching this documentary and being like, that's what I want to be doing. And now we're getting to do it, which is cool. But so I kind of got motivated by watching a lot of the videos. It was kind of the. But then the actual knowledge really came from like I would volunteer on farms in my area. So I'd get off work and I'd go, just ask like, hey, can I help you move pigs? Can I help? There were some regenerative farmers around us in Houston, Texas at the time. Can I help you Prune fruit trees? Can I help in the garden? And Just putting those hours in as an unpaid help just to learn was, like, invaluable. That really helped. And then a lot of it came from YouTube. Just watching lots of YouTube videos, and then also podcasts. Whenever I actually started farming, that was really, really helpful. There was. There was one called the oh, no. Beginning Beginning Farmer, Farmer to Farmer podcast. That's what it was. And it's. It's unfortunately not around the man who let it have passed, but it was such a great podcast for interviewing farmers across the country, doing things slightly different from one another. And then you just get to, like, kind of bring it all in and then synthesize it for what works best in my area, with my systems, with what I have. And that was really huge. That. That podcast was really helpful. And then having, like, a network, too, that's close to you. So books definitely help. Elliot Coleman is a grower in Maine, and he wrote the New Organic Gardener and the Winter Harvest Handbook. And those are great books for being able to. To grow year round and learn a lot of these organic techniques. But, yeah, just having, like, a network of other. Other farmers, even now, where our warehouse is, there's a farm right next to us, and we're buddies, and I'm just like, hey, what. What time do you. You know, when. When do you plant potatoes in the fall? And, like, you can just ask questions like, hey, I've got this pest I've never seen before. I'm gonna send you a picture. And, like, just learning from each other in community is really helpful. And none of us feel like we're in competition with each other. Like, it's not like, oh, if I teach him how I'm doing this tomato thing, then he'll get ahead of me because it's. There's so much room in this market for everybody, because so much of our produce just comes from one valley in California. That's kind of who we're trying to displace, honestly, and produce locally. And so there's so much room for so many. Like, we need so many more farmers, so it's not worth being competitive to us. And so having community has been huge. That's been the biggest learning point for sure. And then I read books when I can bring myself to do so, but that's a hard one for me.
- [28:37]
Jenny Ur
Well, what's interesting. What's interesting, Sean? Because I. I actually do read a lot. I like to read. But for me, when it comes to gardening in particular or farming, books have not been. You know, it's like, you have to actually do Stuff. I mean, Joel's books are good for philosophy and he does have a lot of practical things as well. But more so it's like you actually just have to do it. And the book that got me over the hump is a book called. I mean, this is going to sound so silly. It's called Roots, Shoots, Buckets and Boots. And it's a book about gardening with kids. And it has things like make a moon garden and make a garden of giants, you know, grow the largest pumpkin that you can. And that what that did was it enticed me to try and not be scared because I was reading all these how to books and then you're like, I don't even know what germination means and I don't know if I have the right tools. And that too much information, I think keeps you from doing it. It's the seeing it, it's the actually trying it that helps so much. I think that's brilliant. Volunteer on OTHER farms so a couple. What you really do a wonderful job doing, Sean, through your Instagram, through your website, is addressing the hurdles. So one hurdle would be that the growing season is short or that there's deer and there's all these pests or that we've been having weather too, big storms, lots of storms. So you start with the high tunnel. A couple of the other things that I was concerned about even still and, but more so at the beginning was you, you know, everybody's like, oh, it's so cheap, it's so cheap. But I didn't really feel like it was cheap. It's like, well, you have to have the soil and you have to start the seeds and what if they don't grow and you have to have all these things and you have a few tools that really make a lot of sense and also are long lasting. So one of those is called the soil blocker. So, you know, it's like normally you go to Lowe's or Home Depot and you're buying these like seed trays and you put them and they're expensive and you're going to try and start seeds and. And they've got a little mesh out thing and you plant your seeds and there's so much money. But the soil blocker is something that you could use basically in perpetuity. It comes in all sorts of different sizes and it looks like a little brownie. It makes like a little, you know, thing. Can you talk to people about what that is and why it is helpful?
- [30:43]
Sean Pacera
Yeah, yeah. So that's part of like A big philosophy of mindful farmer is we want to make tools that work for everybody, do lots of things, and last a really long time, even at the expense of, like, I. I told a friend recently that I was like, I'm probably not a good business owner because I want to. My goal is to have, like, the smallest catalog possible. I don't want to sell lots of stuff. I want to sell as few things.
- [31:06]
Jenny Ur
Yeah, it's right. It's a small catalog, and the things I sell are going to last them for 15 years. So you're losing the repeat customer. I mean, same with the big, high tunnel. That is interesting.
- [31:16]
Sean Pacera
Yep. And I'm fine.
- [31:18]
Jenny Ur
But if you're, if you're hoping to expand the footprint, like, that's the goal. The goal is more farmers. More farmers, more farmers. Then hopefully you just keep getting more customers. But that's. That's the hardest part about business, usually.
- [31:28]
Sean Pacera
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I'm okay with that. I don't want to sell things that are disposable. And that's what I tell people. Like with our broad forks, our, you know, cultivators. They're not the cheapest bindings, but they're handmade and they're going to last. Like, my goal is for you to pass it down to your kids. And so that's. That's what I want to be about.
- [31:46]
Jenny Ur
Okay, tell me I'm not the only one who has opened the fridge at 5:47pm had multiple kids yelling they're starving and realize the only thing I've got ready to go is string cheese. I get it. Meal time can feel like a full contact sport when you've got little ones. Someone's always boycotting a certain vegetable. Someone else wants a second dinner, and I'm just trying to make sure everyone else actually eats. That's why I seriously love Nurture Life. Nurture Life is a meal delivery service made for parents like us, who want to serve healthy, balanced meals when life gets a little busy, but without the tears and the stress. Their meals are made fresh every week. They're fully cooked, and they're ready in no time. And the best part, My kids actually eat them. No bribes, no negotiations. Last night, they devoured the chicken, meatballs, and mashed sweet potatoes, and I may or may not have eaten half the Mac and cheese myself. It's that good. Nurture Life meals are crafted by registered dietitians. They're allergy friendly, and they offer over 50 options, including snacks and smoothies. So head to nurturelife.com 1000hours55 and use code 1000hours55 for 55 off your first order plus free shipping. That's right. 55 off plus free shipping. Once again, that's nurturelife.com 1000hours55and make sure you use my promo code 1000hours55. The McDonald's Snack Wrap is back.
- [33:02]
Sean Pacera
You brought it back. Ranch snack wrap. Spicy snack wrap. You broke the Internet for a snack.
- [33:10]
Jenny Ur
Snack wrap is back. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Checking off the boxes on your to do list is a great feeling. And when it comes to checking off coverage, a State Farm agent can help you choose an option that's right for you. Whether you prefer talking in person on the phone or using the award winning app, it's nice knowing you have help finding coverage that best fits your needs. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.
- [33:42]
Sean Pacera
And on the soil blockers, they know that that's the same approach is that it's, it's galvanized steel. It's going to last for years and years. I sold my first one from 15 years ago that we use in our home garden so I can attest to how long that they last. And what it does is it compresses the potting soil into a little, almost like a little brick and you wind up getting a healthier plant. I'm actually going to pull one out right here. I got one happens to be sitting beside me. So it's like a little cube and the plant's grown right at the top. And so what's cool is it, it prunes the roots on the side to where you get a healthier transplant. And then you can also pick up those little bricks and move them around and transplant them a lot easier. You can spread them apart from each other, whereas like a typical cell tray, the tomatoes will kind of compete for light and they'll get really tall and leggy. So now I can scoop my plants apart. So there's a lot of benefits for it. But then for me it's like I just love not having the plastic. And I can make this one time investment in these metal soil blockers. And then I don't have plastic to throw away every few years and to buy again and again. And I even have, I'm putting plans on my website of like how I'm building my trays that soil blocks go on and I just build them out of cedar fence boards for less than $3 a piece and they'll last for a decade. And so, and then when I'm done with It I can just use the wood in the fire and recycle the screws, and it'll last forever, you know, and so that's what I want to be about and not selling the plastic stuff. And so the soil blockers are a big part of that. So not only is it healthier plants, but it's also better for the environment with less plastic.
- [35:16]
Jenny Ur
Yeah, it makes me feel less panicked. Like if I want to start a bunch of seeds and I would have to go and buy these kids kits from Lowe's or Home Depot, that's a lot of money. But you get the soil blocker. Now we have one that's got four spaces, but you have ones that you could do a whole bunch more. And you just put it down in the dirt, and you pick it up, and then you push it, and out comes these four little blocks. And then you put your seeds in, and you put your stuff on top. And yet you. Then when you go to put it in the ground, you just drop it in. You know, you dig your little hole and drop it in, and there it is. And it's already growing, and it is wonderful. Wonderful. So that's one of the things you have that's really helpful. Another one is this. Okay, the watch. I don't have this. And I was like, oh, this seems like it would be really helpful. A drop cedar. S E E D E R Drop cedar.
- [35:56]
Sean Pacera
Drop cedar. So this is my own design. I've got a patent on it. There's drop cedars that are out there, but I was. I invented one with a magnetic spring that allows you to, like, quickly interchange the plates on them. And it also makes it a lot more affordable. So they are still, I'd say, like a pricier item for the home gardener. I invented it whenever I was running the market garden, and we're starting a thousand heads of lettuce every single week of the year. And so I had to be able to seed a thousand seeds at a time really quickly. And so I've been in this contraption that allows you to shake it. One seed falls into every hole on this plate. And whenever you click it together, the holes on the two plates align, and it drops one seed perfectly on the top of every soil block. And so this next year, we're going to expand the. The drop cedars. And we'll have them for conventional trays. If you just want to stick with your trays, we'll have them for paper pot, which is a. Is a kind of unique system out of Japan that a lot of Market gardeners use, we'll have them for the soil blockers. And so those are, those are more for, like, you're going to do hundreds of seeds at a time. But that's, that's one of the things that I solve. Like, okay, I don't want to just overload people with tools because there can be the tendency of, you know, you get this catalog from some other supplier and you're like, oh, I've got to get all this stuff to get started. And I don't want to be about that. So I want to just have the most efficient things. And so this was one of the things that I saw as a, as a professional farmer or market gardener that was like a real time suck and having to, like, find, you know, labor to help you seed lettuces and be like, hey, I need a thousand of these seeded. You know, don't double seed them, don't overseed them, don't miss any. You know, it took all the variability out of it to where I know that every single time, there's one seed in every single hole. They're all at the same depth. So someone who's relatively untrained can do a ton of really accurate work really quickly. And so that's an encompassing of kind of that, that tool and what motivated me designing it.
- [37:54]
Jenny Ur
And so that is the thing. I mean, you only sell like six or seven things. These are the things. I mean, you also sell. We're going to talk about it, but you sell things that you can add to your soil, soil amendments. But in terms of the tools, I mean, it's like five or six things. So the drop seeder, like, when you start off, John, you're just like, I have no idea what I'm doing. I don't really understand what are other people doing? So when we plant, like, mostly I just do flowers. That's what I learned from this. Sharon Lovejoy all of my other stuff doesn't really work out super well, and pumpkins have been a little easier, or watermelons, but also not. And, you know, so it's more, I really, at this point, it's more for fun and also, like, I have to keep doing it so that I can learn, because that's the only way that you can learn. But when I started to plant, and I'm probably going to sound like, I mean, I'm such an amateur, it's so easy to plant a watermelon seed or a sunflower seed, right? They're big, they're easy. But then all of a sudden, and I would. I didn't know this. I'm like, oh, I got a pack of carrot seeds. And I'm like, these are the smallest things I've ever seen in my life. You just. They dump. They all dump out. You know, you. You go to train, and they're just everywhere. So this drop cedar would help with that?
- [39:05]
Sean Pacera
None. It's mostly for, like, when you're doing the transplant. So it wouldn't help so much with carrots in the field.
- [39:10]
Jenny Ur
But, like, does it separate those little ones from each other? Like, when you're like, it puts one in each spot. But otherwise, what are you supposed to do? Like, what are you supposed to do with those really teeny seeds?
- [39:21]
Sean Pacera
Yeah, you can do like, wet toothpick and like, pick up each little one, you know? And so with the drop seeder, I even made one plate that fits snapdragon seeds, which are only a millimeter wide. Like, they're tiny. Tiny. They're smaller than carrot seeds. And so having to do that by hand is really, really tedious. And so now you can just really quick shake it and seed 35 snapdragon seeds at a time. There's things you can do to, like, avoid spending extra money on a tool until you. You reach that level of need. And, and that's. I'm all for that. Like, a lot of times at, like, the homesteading conferences, I don't even bring the drop seeders because I don't want to talk someone into something that they don't need yet. And so usually those are for, like, our market gardeners. And so I never want to, like, push something more than what's someone's at a place to. To utilize. So I'm all about, like, hey, you know, don't run out and buy that. You know, why don't you do this until you get a couple years under your belt and then you can invest in that and that'll make a big difference. And that's kind of like where the. The broad fork, our finesse and our brute, which is our medium and heavy duty broad forks and our razor cultivator came from, is like, I wanted to basically figure out, how could I if someone was like, I've got a thousand square feet, which is what our backyard garden is. It's a thousand square feet. And. And our goal is to grow 2,000 pounds of vegetables out of that thousand square feet this year. So that's the goal I'm setting for myself. And that's like, most of the vegetables our family is going to use. What is the Minimum, I can get by with doing that. And so at a minimum, I use our homestead bundle, which is our soil amendments that cover a thousand square feet for the season, and then our razor cultivator to manage weeds and our broad fork to loosen the soil and help with planting and harvesting. And like that's it. That's all I use in my home garden. So I don't have raised beds. I don't have like other specialized tools. I use the soil blockers to get started. And we've got a potting mix too. And I only use two bags of potting mix for the whole thousand square feet garden. So I'm trying to like, how do I get all the garden investment for the year? Under 200 bucks to grow $4,000 plus worth of food. And so that's what I'm trying to like dial in. And that's what we kind of, that's what I've been able to put together with our current offering. We go to broad fork finesse. The, the bundle of soil amendments and the potting soil is you could spend less than 200 bucks a year and easily grow thousands of dollars worth of food. Wow. And so that was kind of the, the thinking of, of those designs is, yeah, how do I get rid of the pitchfork and the, the spade and the hoe and the stirrup hoe and just combine it all into one tool that never breaks? And that was, that was the motivating factor day. And I, I feel like we're, we're accomplishing that and I'm, I'm living that out in our backyard garden to where we've got the soil dialed in, the weeds are under control. I spend very, very minimal time in our garden. So then whenever I ask, hey, kids kind of come out in the garden, they're excited because I'm not going to be like, hey, pull Bermuda grass for two hours. I'm going to be like, hey, it's time to harvest the carrots. Let's dig up 100 pounds of carrots together. And they're like, they're just pumped. And so it makes that time in the garden with the kids really enjoyable. And they're able to spend a lot more time outside than getting like burnout by really remedial, monotonous kind of soul draining tasks like just pulling grass or something like that.
- [42:38]
Jenny Ur
Yeah. Yeah. Wow. I love that. I love that that's a part of it is what are the legacies that we're passing on in terms of how it's approached? Is it approached as something That's a total pain. Or is it something that's really enjoyable and pulling things up from the soil? Oh, my goodness. I mean, you can't even really believe we have got. So, I mean, I don't know if I need this drop cedar because we're not doing. Going to market. But, like, we have got this. Okay. So we have this, like. It's like a fire ring, I guess. Basically, it's like a metal ring. We live in a spot where things are really mangy and overgrown. And this is a good thing. I think it. I think it means that we have good soil because stuff grows. And, like, the grasses will be, like, up to your waist by the time it's the spring. So stuff grows well, but then also there's a lot of weeds. And so we're still trying to figure out all our stuff. But anyway, so we got these rings, and we're like, well, we're going to plant in those rings, like the carrots and the radishes and the beets. And anyway, I'm like, the seeds are so small, so they just go everywhere and there's just. I don't know. I don't know. I didn't thin them. You just go out and you see the red poking up, and you get to pull out, and it doesn't even look like a radish because they're all too bunched in together. But it is incredible. It's incredible to pull something out of the ground and see it poking out there. But, I mean, anybody loves it. So to have the view of, like, look, we're going to try and make this into a system that the kids really enjoy, that they love it. We're going to really highlight the parts of it that are so fun so that it becomes a multigenerational thing. Is wonderful. Okay, so. So it's wonderful. You're taking your kids out there. You're not spraying anything. And we've had. For people listening, we've had a little bit of technical issues, which is great because that means that Sean is actually out on a farm doing incredible things. And. And so I'm going to be splicing a little bit together. But he was talking about how when you're not spraying, then your kids can come and they can eat right out of that garden. And in fact, they're getting all those microbes Dr. Josh Axe talks about that. Eat dirt. I mean, that's the whole book. So you pull up. Well, meaning we'll pull up the radish, and you. You just kind of pull on it with your hands. And you know that there's some of that soil still on there and it's really good for your gut. Microbe. One of the things that I learned about from your website that I really need to learn more about is this sillage or silage, I don't know how you say it, a tarp. Because over the winter, then in the spring, I mean, we just have so many weeds. So you put that down to kind of get things ready.
- [44:55]
Sean Pacera
Yeah, yeah. So it's called a silage tarp. And they use them up north actually for like covering silage for dairy cows, things like that. So feed them through the winter and we use them down here to smother grass. If you put down clear plastic on the grass in the summertime, you get a greenhouse that gets to 150 degrees under there and it kills all the grass really quickly. You can also use the silage charp, which is white on one side and black on the other side, to like, you're blocking out the sun, to smother those weeds. The cool thing about it being black on one side and white on the other side is you can use it strategically to either keep the soil really hot and like kill all the weeds and grasses, perennial grasses, or you can flip it to the white side and actually keep it cool and humid. And so for us down here in Arkansas, we'll put the black side up like in the spring to help kill all the emerging weeds and grasses. And then that way our summer is pretty wheat free. In the summertime, like in August is when we have to plant carrots. But it's still over 100 degrees when we're planting carrots and beets and cabbages and stuff like that. So we can put the salad chart up on top of it for five days. And when we peel it off, the carrots are just starting to emerge. And it helps hold in all that moisture so we don't have to worry about the soil drying out or being 100 degrees. The carrots think it gets closer to fall because they're cool and humid. It's a really great tool in the toolkit. We also use it. In my backyard garden, I grew what's called hairy vetch. It's a legume. It adds nitrogen to your soil. I grew it all winter long, and then in the spring I threw the black right, this is starting to flower black tarp on top of it for three days. And it killed the vetch and then left a thick, like, mulch. And then I went back And I opened up the mulch with my hands and I planted my tomatoes directly into it. And I didn't weed it all. All season the legumes, added the nitrogen I needed for the tomatoes, and then provided a mulch to help keep the weeds at bay. And so that was another example how to use silage chart to kill a cover crop and make sure it's not going to become a weed itself, but feed the soil while I plant my plants into it. We have honestly the best price on silage tarps in the country. On our large sizes, we can ship them to any state in the lower 48, and those are 40 foot by 100 foot. And then we even have like backyard sizes that are 20 foot by 20 foot for little backyard gardens and those ship free nationwide. And so try and really meet people at any level that they're at, whether it's a backyard garden or you've got multiple acres of vegetables. Wow. And so that's, that's kind of a big like reoccurring thing. If you follow us on, on social media, as you'll see how we're trying to take market garden techniques, organic market gardeners, and then kind of shift them to backyard gardeners.
- [47:46]
Jenny Ur
I mean, that just makes so much make sense because people talk about that all the time. Put down a cover crop, it's going to help with your soil and it's going to add things to your soil. But then you're like, well, what the heck do I do with the COVID crop once it's grown in? So I mean, yes, these are, this all makes sense. So you say the tarp is designed to last for over 10 years with proper care. Whether you're revitalizing a garden bed. This is where we're at, preparing a hard space, controlling invasive weeds, invasive weeds, or helping carrots germinate in peak summer. This tarp is an essential addition to your toolkit. I mean, those are the types of things where you're like, I didn't even know what, what do people do? You, you know, how did they deal with. In our area, we've got so many weeds and they're so just strong and they come in so quick. So that's so helpful. You also have these soil amendments, azomite, feather meal, worm castings, and you can make worm casting tea, worm compost, tea. So all of the information is on your website as well as there's a couple really cool free downloads. There's a seed starting chart template and garden planning guide and self evaluation. What do I want to Grow. How much time can I dedicate? How do I want to use my garden? What would be my five year plan? I loved that, John. It's like, well, what could I learn this year? All right, well, what am I going to learn next year? And really, what a beautiful thing. There's always something new to learn. And in this day and age it's like we want to know everything now. But I think that's a beauty of life. You try something and then it gives way to something else and you learn and you add on. Next year you talk about fall crops on the website, pest management, black soldier fly larvae and how to raise them. I've never even heard of that, but that was a fantastic thing to learn about. Here's what you wrote. They can process nearly any type of food scrap, even meat and dairy, and they reduce food waste volume up to 80%, leaving behind nutrient rich residue for your garden beds. Incredible. Incredible. These are all sorts of things I didn't even know about. Can we wrap it up with you talk about you do this as having kingdom purpose. Can you elaborate on that?
- [49:38]
Sean Pacera
Yeah, yeah. So I grew up in love with nature and learning about nature and that's why I said ecology and environmental science and also grew up in a church. Really made my own in college and it was a little bit of like an odd experience because I had a couple professors in particular that were like, you're a scientist, what are you doing in a church kind of thing. And some that were not some found a lot of harmony in that, which is kind of where I've landed. And then I had other people in the church that were like, what's the point of studying the world? It's just going to burn up anyways. Kind of, kind of attitude, which is kind of like a nihilistic attitude. And so I, I was able to find some really great mentors that helped me find harmony between those two things. And even Francis Bacon wrote that God wrote two scriptures, so to speak, the Bible and the natural world. It communicates a lot about who he is and his character as we study. So a lot of the, you know, founding scientists were like priests and things like that. They were captivated by the beauty, complexity of creation. So all that's kind of given up a background to like, what motivates us is that we want to help people experience God and the peace of God through living in harmony with his creation and according to that intended order. And then also help make Earth look a little more like heaven every day. That's what we talk about. My family, it's like, that's our family mission. What are we doing today to make Earth look a little bit more like heaven every day? And it happens in healthy bodies. When our bodies to be healthy, we want healthy relationships with our family, our friends in our community, and we want a healthy relationship with God's creation. He made these. It's a beautiful, good thing. And so how do we steward that well? And when we are stewarding it well, too, we see just like things thrive, communities thrive. Whenever we're farming well, when we farm really poorly and we do it selfishly to extract things for our own benefit without considering his creation, in our communities, we lose topsoil and we overspray pesticides, and we do all these things that hurt us in the long run. And so for me, the kingdom purpose of that is like, how do we. Yeah. How do we farm in such a way to where we're healthy on every essential level? So that's. That's really our kingdom purpose is we want to farm the way God intends it for making Earth look a little more like heaven every day.
- [52:08]
Jenny Ur
I love that, Sean. I've already just learned so much from this small kind of touch point that we've had since the Homestead Festival. I'm so thankful. I really think this is one of the big keys to getting kids outside more. Because when you are growing things and when you're caring for things, it motivates you to go out. Some days you don't feel like it, but once you're out there, it does a lot. And then it draws a lot of life to the area. That's another thing I didn't realize. It was like, oh, goodness. All of a sudden, I see a praying mantis, I see a frog like this. All I see these butterflies. This life was not here. I see these finches until I planted these things. And then it all comes. And so it becomes a very engaging environment for a family and. And especially for children. So this is wonderful, what you're doing. Mindful Farmer, Arkansas, huge Instagram, lots of things to look at. Mindfulfarmeransas.com if you want to get some of these tools. $200 of an investment, it's going to get you thousands dollars of produce for your family garden. It is wonderful. You can go to market, join the farmer. I don't know, join the farmer community. There's, you know, the tsunami. That's what Joel calls it, this homestead tsunami. This huge growth of people wanting to have better food. There's always going to be enough to sell because people want to eat good food, and it tastes better, so much better when it comes from the farm and it's local. We always end our show with the same question. What is a favorite memory from your childhood that was outside?
- [53:24]
Sean Pacera
Oh, one of my favorite ones that probably even motivated me to get started in environmental science and learn about ecology was I grew up way down on the coast south of Houston, surrounded by wildlife refuges. We have three big wildlife refuges around our town. And so our elementary school trips were going out to the wildlife refuges, and we'd go through the estuaries with, like, a seine, gather up all the fish and the crabs and the shrimp. And so that memory is still sticking in my head of me being in fourth grade and walk, wading through the water and, like, catching little baby redfish. And we'd lay them out and, like, you know, figure out what. What was what, you know, what. What species there were. And listening to the wildlife refuge workers, a biologist, talk about, you know, the importance of these things, how they're monitoring for them and the health of them. And I remember that as an elementary school kid, and then actually in college, I even got an internship and got to work at that. Those same wildlife refuges. And so that was, I think, a big, like, moment for me of just being like, this is so beautiful and complex and. And also felt like I kind of found a home in a way. I feel more myself when I'm, like, out in nature than when I'm in a city. I drove through New York City one time, and I don't know that I'll go back. It was not my environment, but when I'm just outside in the woods, I just. It's. It's such. It's. That's my place. That's what I was made for. So that's a memory that really stands out. And then if you can do anything like that, you know, with the kids, we got to take the kids when we went back home to visit to those wildlife refuges and see the alligators in the ponds, and. And they really loved it, too. And so that's. I'm trying to pass that on to them, but that one really stands out.
- [55:12]
Jenny Ur
And it just goes to show the power of exposure. I mean, obviously, that's a. You know, you don't go there for 15 days of the school year. You usually go once if it's a field trip, or once or twice a year, and you go to this place and the power of just that simple exposure, and it relates to this the same thing the power of exposure to young people when you are trying to incorporate them into hands on living with the earth and growing their own food and being involved in the harvest and the fun parts and trying to make it a little bit easier, make it more, make more sense. So, Sean, what you're doing is so wonderful. Thank you. Thank you for coming on. Thank you for explaining all of this and then sharing all this incredible knowledge. And I know it's going to inspire so many already for me, giving me ideas of new things that I can try that will make things easier. I really appreciate it.
- [55:56]
Sean Pacera
Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. I really enjoyed our conversation. And I love what you're doing, too. I love what you're doing. My wife and I were like, just jumping into it after we saw you at the home, the festival, where it's like, did you know about her? I didn't. Oh, my gosh. And we're just. We're soaking all in. So thank you for what you're doing.
- [56:13]
Jenny Ur
That's so cool. You don't need to know about it, though. That's the thing. I mean, that your kids are getting outside. I mean, that's the whole point of it. Like, you've made your lifestyle style around that. And so that's. That's the wonderful part. It can be more seamless if you have those things going on because you're sort of naturally going with the seasons and in and out. So, Sean, this is fantastic. Thank you so, so much. I know it will help so many awesome.
- [56:33]
Sean Pacera
Well, thanks for having me. This is probably. You are such an excellent podcast interviewer. Like, this is the. My favorite conversation I've had. So I really appreciate. You ask great questions and you're so engaging. So thank you for having me and just for what you're doing. I love it. Thanks, Jenny.