Just about every farmer will tell you that dealing with wildlife is a frustrating balancing act. While most people love wild animals and want to see them exist in healthy numbers on the landscape, farmers don’t necessarily want to see those animals enjoying their hard-earned agricultural crops. Yet, as the world becomes increasingly urbanized, more and more wildlife habitat is being taken away and turned into housing developments or converted into farmland. 

The future of healthy wildlife populations may partly depend on our ability to learn how to peacefully coexist with them in close quarters, and this is especially true with farming. Farmers can be immensely important allies for wildlife, with agricultural land creating vital havens of habitat. The question then becomes: How can farmers balance the need for wildlife to live on the landscape with the necessity of producing economically valuable crops? 

I’ve been a rural resident and a regenerative farmer for nearly two decades, currently operating an 81-acre farm in a remote corner of northeast Washington State. During that time, most of my energy has been devoted to learning how to peacefully coexist with wildlife both on and around my property. That is not to say that the path to peaceful coexistence has been smooth. What I can tell you is that it has been enlightening—and the health of my farm has been so much the better for it. 

A herd of deer grazing in a hay field. (Photo: Jillian Garrett)

While the farmer in me may have a difficult time admitting that creatures such as gophers possess anything other than evil intentions in their hearts, deep down I understand that they—along with the other wild animals—all have an important role to play in maintaining a balanced ecosystem. What is imperative to realize is just how much of that also translates to the overall health of the farm: Wildlife biodiversity is far more significant than many people (farmers included) appreciate. 

Most of us already have some understanding of the importance of biodiversity on our property, at least from the perspective of beneficial insects and songbirds. Over the years, I’ve enjoyed installing Audubon-approved nesting boxes around my gardens to increase the populations of swallows that visit each year. They have made an enormous dent in the number of mosquitoes and biting flies that plague me and my livestock during the summer. This is a simple solution for increasing bird biodiversity, but what about when it comes to the larger animals? 

Welcoming birds and bugs onto your land is easy in comparison with wildlife such as deer, elk or even predators such as coyotes. For help on this topic, I turned to my local Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife office, where I spoke to Reagan Harris, a wildlife conflict specialist who assists rural residents and farmers in learning how to coexist with wildlife on their property. 

According to Harris, hedgerows are one of the best ways to increase wildlife biodiversity and habitat as well as direct animal movements away from valuable crops. Hedgerows don’t have to take up a great deal of space either: They can be something as simple as a 20-foot-wide row of shrubs or trees that run along a fence line or a riparian area. Hedgerows can also greatly benefit farmers by serving as erosion control on stream banks or as windbreaks for fields. These hedgerows not only help to create important areas of food and cover for a wide range of birds and other animals, but they also maintain critical travel corridors that help wildlife to move from one section of habitat to another. 

Hedgerows around agricultural lands provide wildlife habitat and travel corridors while funneling animals away from crops. (Photo: Jillian Garrett)

On my own farm, I have incorporated large sections of hedgerows along creeks and strategic fence lines that surround my hay fields. These hedgerows mostly consist of native shrubs that grow well on my property_hawthorn, serviceberry, chokecherry, etc. Over the years, I have learned the real trick with hedgerows is to utilize plants that provide food as well as cover, ensuring that creatures such as deer are more occupied eating hawthorn berries and leaves than they are in my hay crops. I have observed the hedgerows on my farm providing food and habitat for a wide range of wildlife, from cottontail rabbits and ruffed grouse to black bears and mountain lions.

[RELATED: Old Hedgerows are New Again as More Farmers Embrace Benefits]

While hedgerows help direct the flow of wildlife traffic away from agricultural land, Harris still recommends that farmers fence off their most valuable crops whenever possible to prevent conflict. Fencing doesn’t need to be permanent, and there are many ways of utilizing temporary fencing during the growing season. The important part is to make any long-term fencing as wildlife friendly as possible, especially when enclosing large sections of land. 

A good place to start is to spend time observing wildlife movement patterns on a property before beginning fencing projects. According to the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks’s helpful guide on building fences with wildlife in mind (PDF), which I have often utilized in my own fencing projects, this helps prevent the closing off of important travel or seasonal migration corridors. That means that animals are less likely to jump over, damage or become entangled in fencing, which, in addition to preventing wildlife mortality, also saves landowners the hassle of costly and time-consuming fencing repairs. A quick and easy fencing solution that Harris recommends for farmers and rural landowners is called lay-down fencing, which is essentially a section of fence that can be laid on the ground when not in use. This allows wildlife to pass through a field when the area is not in production for crops or being used for livestock.  

Learning ways to direct animal traffic away from valuable crops is an important part of the solution for peaceful coexistence, but that doesn’t mean that farmers and wildlife can’t work together to create a mutually beneficial relationship. An easy way for farmers to do this is by allowing wildlife access to recently harvested or mowed fields. Hay (or grain) stubble provides excellent forage for wildlife, especially songbirds and gamebird populations, which, in turn, can help farmers by devouring insect pests that plague crops. 

One of the many ways I have learned to incorporate this on my own farm is by simply cutting my hay fields a little later in the season to provide crucial habitat and cover for wild turkey poults, helping to keep them safe from predators. Later in the season, once the hay fields are cut, these same turkeys provide welcome assistance in keeping the grasshopper population down (which is hugely beneficial to the health and aesthetics of my vegetable crops). In this way, the wild turkeys and I have figured out how to create a symbiotic relationship where we both come out winners. 

Even something as simple as putting up owl boxes to encourage the presence of owls, which, in turn, eat rodent pests, can be hugely beneficial to farmers and their crops. Owl boxes are something that I have started to incorporate on my own farm, and it has been very helpful in controlling the gophers that plague me every year. There has still been a bit of a learning curve though: At first, the owl boxes were not as successful in controlling gophers as I had first hoped. Then I realized that my outside greenhouse light, which automatically turned on at dusk, was negatively impacting the ability of the owls to hunt in the dark. Once I started keeping that bright light off at night, the gopher population began decreasing as the owls were better able to hunt in my gardens. As a result, I was able to enjoy the starry skies each evening as well as the peace that comes from knowing my pepper plants were being protected by these feathered farm friends. 

Owls are excellent farm friends for helping with rodent control. (Photo: Jillian Garrett)

Learning to live with wildlife also means learning to live with natural predators on the landscape, especially in rural areas where populations of creatures such as rodents and rabbits can be high. While smaller predators such as foxes and coyotes can be beneficial in helping to control everything from gophers to ground squirrels, they can also present a problem for farmers with livestock. Here, Harris recommends a good nighttime shelter to keep poultry and small livestock, such as sheep and goats, safe from predators. She also suggests using hot wire fencing for any livestock pastures, making sure that the fencing is offset from areas of brush or thick timber from which a predator might be able to ambush. 

I have implemented these suggestions on my own farm and, as a result, have been able to enjoy the perks of wild predators with minimal conflict. As a final suggestion for living with predators, Harris suggests incorporating livestock guardian dogs as another excellent option for mitigating conflict, helping to protect domestic animals while still allowing wild ones to exist on the landscape. 

At the end of the day, every farm is different, requiring customized and sometimes creative solutions for living with wildlife. What works for my farm may not work for yours, nor is every attempt to coexist with wildlife always successful. The important point here is the need to try, especially as vital habitat continues to vanish in the onslaught of increasing human populations and development. Farms are in a unique position to help, as well as reap some of the potential benefits, by providing substitute habitat and maintaining essential travel corridors for wild animals—making farmers important allies to the wild creatures that continue to call these places home.

The post I’m a Farmer Who’s Learned to Coexist with Wildlife. Here’s How You Can, Too. appeared first on Modern Farmer.

My whimsical project began when I was given an old pressure cooker, which I converted into a still with the addition of a meat thermometer and copper refrigerator line. I then collected a massive quantity of Hoary mountain mint, a tall, sprightly plant that grows along the roadsides near my Southern Appalachian home. This took a whole morning, notwithstanding the time spent talking with a neighbor who passed by; when I explained what I was doing with the prodigious quantity of plant matter I had collected, he regaled me with tales of moonshiners who had run their stills in the mountains. 

Unlike distilling liquor, distilling essential oil for personal use is legal. But like the moonshiners before me, I, too, was trying to capture lighting in a bottle. At the end of the hot summer’s day, my work had yielded a small jar of mint-infused water known as a hydrosol and just a few drops of essential oil. The scent was so refreshing that the process seemed worth it. 

I didn’t start out a perfume-ophile. I’d been put off of commercial offerings because the smell of Axe body spray and Victoria’s Secret perfume had floated down the halls of my high school more strongly than teenage hormones. But the purchase of a bottle of essential oil led to some incense sticks and, eventually, I found myself in the health and beauty aisle of my local co-op sniffing aromatherapy blends and solid perfumes. 

Finally, I ventured into professional perfumes. This selection provided complexity, depth and subtlety that the commercial offerings of my youth lacked. But, as I shopped, I encountered a quandary familiar to eaters: “How do I choose sustainably and ethically produced products?”

A selection of aromatics including yarrow, sassafras and sweet clover (left); pine resin and boughs (right). (Photos: Melissa Julia)

In essence, the debate about sustainability in perfume boils down to this: It takes a massive amount of material to produce essential oils, and the most prized materials are often threatened plants and animal products. On the flip side, synthetic chemical ingredients are often untested, derived from petroleum byproducts and can contain phthalates and PFAs, which many folks eschew due to health concerns. Companies are not required to provide ingredient labels, so making informed choices is especially difficult. 

To shed some light on this topic, I spoke with Dr. Anjanette DeCarlo, who serves as chief sustainability scientist at the Aromatic Plant Research Center, where she conducts field research and ecological supply chain analysis on aromatic species. Much of her work has centered around the chronically overharvested Frankincense tree, which grows in the Middle East, Africa and India. When ingredients are harvested from developing countries, environmental and labor abuses can be myriad. “There is a dominator mindset that is very neocolonial,” DeCarlo says  of the companies that work as middlemen to buy raw product from villagers. This story is not unique to aromatics. “You could substitute the word ‘Frankincense’ with ‘chocolate,’” she says, and the injustices would be the same. 

Part of the problem is overuse. “MLMs [multi-level marketing companies] like YoungLiving have mainstreamed essential oils,” says DeCarlo. The internet was also a major catalyst for the explosion of interest in perfume, according to Saskia Wilson-Brown, founder and executive director of the Institute for Art and Olfaction, a non-profit that serves to facilitate open access to scent and perfumery projects. The rise of celebrity branding and the fast-fashion mentality that has bled over into the perfume industry has also served to increase consumption. “There used to be the concept of the signature scent,” says Wilson-Brown, but now it’s been replaced with the concept of a “scent for every occasion,” which drives sales. 

While it’s tempting to think that overharvest and labor concerns can be avoided by using synthetic versions, it’s not that simple. Take musk, for example. This sensual and earthy fragrance used to be obtained from animals, chiefly the musk deer, which, as a result of overhunting, is now endangered. Today, it has been largely replaced by synthetic analogs. According to the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, an advocacy group aimed at making beauty products safe, these common chemicals may disrupt hormone systems and may be reproductive, development and organ system toxicants. The group notes that they are “highly bioaccumulative” and have been detected in drinking water, soil, breast milk, body fat and the cord blood of newborn babies. 

Greenwashing and misrepresentative labeling are also a problem. According to DeCarlo, “Sometimes, a company will have one part of their supply chain certified but apply those certification labels to all of their products.” Essential oil fraud is common, with synthetics being passed off as naturals. 

But before I started to despair that all essential oils and perfumes were off the table, these experts informed me that there are some great resources for those seeking sustainable scents. The Coalition of Sustainable Perfumery maintains an Endangered & Threatened Fragrant Species Red List for aromatic plants. The International Fragrance association, IFRA, provides info about safety and sustainability reports on its website. 

Additionally, there are some companies focusing on sustainable fragrance. Canadian company BoreASENS produces essential oils from cast-off branches left by foresters and uses a circular distillation system that allows for less carbon-intensive production. Camino Verde produces essential oils from rosewood and moena alcanfór. The oils are part of a regenerative agroforestry system in the Amazon made up of native trees, with the goal of regenerating forests and improving livelihoods for the company’s indigenous partners. A larger national company, Lush, is another leader in the sustainability space. 

The author and her canine companion. (Photos: Melissa Julia)

Using less, buying from small indie perfumers and as local as possible, asking companies questions about supply chains and their practices, doing your own research and being willing to pay a higher price for consciously made products are  all practices that can have an impact. Luckily, “some of the most interesting and beautiful perfumes come from small indie perfumers,” says Wilson-Brown. As the market for these handmade perfumes grows, there are opportunities for farmers who grow medicinal herbs, vegetables or even hemp to diversify by providing aromatic materials directly to perfumers or small suppliers. 

While these suggestions are helpful, finding ethical products is still a challenge. My personal strategy has been to explore the scents all around me. Growing sage to dry and bundle, placing boughs of cedar on the woodstove or just stopping to crush a handful of Queen Anne’s lace seedheads and inhaling deeply are sustainable ways to treat your senses. These moments help me celebrate the tapestry of the seasons as they play across the hills of my home. I find the ephemeral nature of the flora here enchanting—change is constant, and one plant germinates while another dies back. Just as we pickle garden bounty, make wine and lovely preserves to enjoy in the winter, we can use scent as a celebration of nature; a spray of my green walnut fragrance is so visceral and evocative, it’s like summer running a finger down my spine. 

While “take time to smell the roses” is a well-worn platitude, the aromas around us can surprise, intoxicate, uplift and nurture us, if only we take the time to notice them. Whether you are a perfume buyer or a fresh-cut grass-smeller, the extra bit of attention you give to sourcing your scents will make them all the sweeter.

The post In Search of Sustainable Fragrance appeared first on Modern Farmer.

We had grand plans to install a curated pollinator garden in the front and a vegetable garden with a managed meadow in the back. Since I started my career in the environmental sector, I have preached to anyone who looked in my direction about planting native plants. I boasted about how indigenous flowers would aid pollinators that suffer from habitat loss, store greenhouse gasses and create a buffer against drought and heavy rains. I knew that the US’s 40 million acres of lawns contribute to greenhouse gas emissions through consistent mowing and drink up to nine billion gallons of water daily. If I kept the non-native lawn, not only would I be going against my convictions, I would have to step down from my soapbox and admit to being a fraud. 

However, practicing is different from preaching. When we started the quest to revitalize our property, we did not know the extent that our soil was compacted and how climate change was affecting our new town. 

Crop plants growth is stunted from compacted soil.

When I was younger, I helped my mother with her vegetable garden. I found joy in the feeling of dirt in the creases of my hands and the flavors of homegrown produce that embedded in my memories. We had to fight clay each year, but we still produced a hefty bounty. I wanted to continue the tradition at my first house, and I had no worries when I noticed clay on my new property. However, my childhood garden bordered a wildflower-speckled knoll and the upstate New York wilderness. Now, I am in a suburb dominated by mowed lawns with low plant diversity.

While my husband and I were prepping a plot of land for growing vegetables, it was rare to find roots that spanned more than two inches deep. We would pull up mats of sod to reveal clay that lacked deep-running shoots from nearby plants. The solid mass proved impenetrable to the new growth and my trowel—now bent at an obtuse angle from my efforts. The plants that did penetrate seemed to be struggling due to the lack of drainage and air pathways. 

Livestock, heavy machinery and hikers along mountain paths create compaction, not just lawns. However, lawns consist of just a few grass species whose roots mainly hit the same shallow soil level. With greater plant diversity and organic matter, networks of microbes can create ample water and airflow at different depths in the process. 

A meadow of native plants can promote healthy soil and draw in pollinators.

With our budget, the simplest way to grow native plants was to allow a managed regrowth in the backyard. We decided that the trick to successful naturalization without getting in trouble with a town council was to cut back non-native grass stems and remove harmful plant species such as round bittersweet. The outcome was a meadow of purple petals of self-heal, buttery flecks of common yellow wood sorrel and ivory dapples of chickweed. The medley in this section promotes a healthy food web and draws in pollinators that will assist the vegetable garden. Plants are only as good as the microbes supporting them, though.

To build sustainable soil structure with plenty of bacteria, fungi and protozoa, we made compost by processing kitchen scraps in a tumbler. The design makes it easy to add fodder and we got the added satisfaction of hearing materials tossing like a giant rain stick. When the compost is mature, we mix it with dirt when planting. It will take a couple of years to see a difference in the compaction. Our corn, cauliflower and cucumbers failed to reach their full potential in this first year of treatment. The efforts have already been worth it, though. By composting our food waste, my husband and I have made our trash less rancid and decreased our greenhouse gas emissions—a responsibility we do not take lightly in the wake of a hot winter. 

This February, our small town reached a high of 77 degrees Fahrenheit. The average high temperature for that month was 62 degrees Fahrenheit. Typically, it’s 45. Temperatures continued to stay high through the rest of the winter and spring. The warm climate activated late-spring flowers to bloom earlier than they should have. The misalignment of blooming and awakening wildlife means less pollination and less food for animals throughout the food chain. By late April, the inside of our greenhouse was regularly reaching nearly 100 degrees. 

It will take years to see a difference in the property’s soil compaction.

The sustained temperatures persuaded me that mid-April would be a safe time to put the plants into the ground. Then, the last week of April and the first week of May saw a slow-moving low-pressure system and below-freezing temperatures at night. My small town’s 2,014-foot elevation made it low enough for temperatures to rebound from the frost during the day, reaching the 50s. The mountain towns to the northeast, such as Snowshoe, experienced record-breaking snowfall, accumulating 15 inches of snow. My colleague’s children had snow days three weeks before summer vacation. Then, as if the cold spell was a fluke, temperatures rose to 80 degrees within the week.

The acute freeze turned the leaves on the peppers and the tomatoes dark brown and soft. A few still had one green leaf left. I managed to rescue these by propping them out of the soil and putting them back into the greenhouse in pots. However, these plants remained stunted and never grew more than a foot high. The native, non-crop species in the yard looked a little worse for wear for a day or so but were mostly left unscathed from the frost. While compacted soil is simple to overcome, climate change is not.

We are beginning to see how the battle between soil and plant durability against severe weather is taking place. Our yard is in the early stages of becoming more sustainable and resilient. We are assisting a network of life that is rebuilding soil structure and plant hardiness. As the property heals, it has a fighting chance against climate change. I am lucky I am an annual vegetable grower, so I do not rely on chilly winters like orchard growers do. I am instead part of the 41 percent of households who savor each fruit produced from the labor of our backyard gardens—knowing that the bounty of next year’s crop is still uncertain.

Jessica is a freelance writer and a youth environmental advocate for the state of West Virginia. When Jessica is not writing, birding, or hiking with her husband at New River Gorge National Park and Preserve, she is creating graphic art of America’s cryptid creatures.

The post We Bought a Home with a Sterile Suburban Yard. Our Journey To Bring Life Back is Just Beginning appeared first on Modern Farmer.

This especially applied if farmers weren’t wealthy beforehand, weren’t running their business like a hobby or didn’t have substantial side income. Nevertheless, these farms were honorably scraped together from nothing, their growers much like passionate artists in the field; their art: beautiful, healthy local food. But although they worked as hard and long as the founders of successful companies, making the same personal sacrifices, these farmers couldn’t seem to even earn a decent living off farm income alone. Still, they were driven—by something, if not for money.

My biggest takeaway from those years? “When I start my own farm, I will need to have off-farm income to live a balanced, happy life.” When I started Jupiter Ridge Farm in 2017, I did—and still do, like many traditional family farms. But why is it like this? Why is running a small-scale farm more like an expensive hobby? And what does this mean for the future of our food?

Ben Saunders started Wabi Sabi Farm near Des Moines, Iowa in 2013, drawing enough customers to live off diverse vegetable farm income for about 10 years. He said some communities can support local food farmers this way; that’s not the case with Iowa now.

“Single person, no student loans… I could live on very little,” says Saunders. Of his farm’s name, he says, “Wabi Sabi is a belief system recognizing the imperfect beauty in nature… the natural cycles of growth and decay.” Although principally operating as a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture), Saunders also worked with food pantries. “I didn’t care about having straight rows… I wanted to produce food for people.”

In early 2023, however, he closed his doors forever. Unpredictable weather and the changing local food scene plagued him. CSA memberships dropped as door-to-door meal prep companies boomed. Farmers markets became less about farmers and more like craft shows packed with food trucks. His personal life suffered; long hours meant little time for family, friends, relationships. “I had to get out,” he says. 

“I wanted to produce food for people,” says Ben Saunders of his time running Wabi Sabi Farm. (Photo courtesy of Ben Saunders)

He didn’t fully walk away from farming, in a sense. He now works full-time for a commercial greenhouse, still driven to grow—just for somebody else. Would his farm still be in operation if the business were more sustainable? “I had a feeling it could have been, yes.”

Increasingly, small farm businesses are becoming less profitable, data suggests, and must be run more like hobby farms. Some small farms are even classified as hobby farms by default (10 acres or less in some areas), may lose agricultural tax or property benefits and not be legally considered a farm, despite producing food for their local communities. Per the 2021 Ag Census, data also showed that, from 2011 to 2021, small farmers were increasingly likely to operate as high-risk businesses.

Although long a reality of farming life, more and more small farms are turning into businesses that need side income to survive. Even midsize and large family farms operators tend to have a more lucrative off-farm job or a spouse with side income. While many family farms may say this is just part of the lifestyle, it represents the diminishing value we assign to farm labor and the difficult math of small-scale farming.

Nevertheless, full-time farm life is attractive and paints an idyllic picture. The rewards are great: a connection with nature, eating healthy, an appealing countryside lifestyle. But lurking in the background can be endless worry, stress and financial strife when the farm is the farmer’s sole income stream. Some farmers I’ve spoken to amass debt they couldn’t pay back to stay open. Major repairs were unaffordable. There was no personal time— each step off farm could trigger massive anxiety. Summer vacation? Impossible. Personal lives and relationships? In jeopardy, or nonexistent.

What’s clear though is that some farmers, even when not making ends meet, can’t stop. Growing food for your local community can be an itch that needs scratching. I can attest to this, and so can Jordan Scheibel, who started his small diverse vegetable business Middle Way Farm in central Iowa back in 2013. He, too, announced he was closing in 2023— but not forever.

“Despite the burnout, despite the lack of profitability… it’s quite personal,” he says of taking a year’s hiatus to reopen in 2024. Lack of family time and financial struggles were present, but these weren’t at the heart of the problem. 

Jordan Scheibel experienced burnout while operating his diverse vegetable farm. (Photos courtesy of Jordan Scheibel)

In 2020, Middle Way Farm scaled up rapidly to meet the pandemic local food boom. His passion for growing tapped this urgency to meet demand— but threatened his farming endurance capacity altogether, and thus the business’s long-term future. “I was well aware, on some level, of all of these problems the whole time,” he adds. “I was working too much, and I didn’t think it was ever going to improve… Really, for me, until I decided to step back, [the impulse to farm] was what was pushing me.”

A 2017 Guardian article described an ‘agrarian imperative theory’ whereby farmers have a strong urge to supply essentials for human life, such as food, and to hold on to their land at all costs. “When farmers can’t fulfill this instinctual purpose, they feel despair,” the article reads. “Thus, within the theory lies an important paradox: The drive that makes a farmer successful is the same that exacerbates failure”— economic failure. And it’s not the fault of the farmer. Our food economy is built on farm life amnesia: The lifestyle is romanticized, but the real labor (and those willing to do it) is hidden from view. The farming lifestyle is admired, marketed, monetized—while local food farmers, especially small-scale operators, and agricultural labor are pushed deeper into the shadows.

Small and family farm numbers are dropping, and even the most dedicated growers are run ragged by the economic reality. From 2012 to 2017, the US lost almost 54,000 small family farms. All this is ironic: Urbanites may be longing for “farm life” since the pandemic, but consumers largely don’t go out of their way to support farmers directly—whether due to the high prices some small farmers must set, issues of convenience or other factors—and thus support this lifestyle they admire. Buying direct from full-time small local farmers helps whenever possible, whether at farmers markets or through CSA memberships. If you run a food-related business or institution such as a restaurant, grocer or university kitchen, sourcing directly from farmers can be especially impactful.

(Photos courtesy of Adrian White)

Scheibel also mentions pressure from similar yet bigger, more profit-focused farms, to scale up. Only, these farms closed before his. “They were profitable,” says Scheibel. “But they were never satisfied…They felt they were putting in the amount of work where they deserved to earn a lot more than that. Because most people who put in that amount of work would be CEOs.” 

Wealthy, business-minded people are getting drawn to agriculture–Bill Gates, Thomas Peterrfy, Dan Barber, to name a few; an interest to become the farmer, rather than support the farmer, is on the rise. This could be good, although the prospect of small, local food farming getting “gentrified” into hobby farms (by the people who can afford it) looms in my head. But I do know that farming demands something beyond business acumen to be successful. 

Long-term, sustainable, small-scale farm businesses don’t survive if there isn’t passion there, that drive and “farmer’s impulse” no money could make up for. “Being able to paint on a landscape… and every year you get to re-make that… it’s extremely satisfying,” says Scheibel. “But, yeah… that’s an impulse. That’s separate from running the business.” And that’s not to say wealthy would-be farmers can’t hear the farm call, get the itch.

Maybe we’re evolved to be farmers; maybe it’s in our DNA. But if you feel called to enter the local food marketplace, be prepared to collaborate— not compete—with farmers from all backgrounds to improve the local food market and survivability rates of others like you. Because we are an endangered species. And we can’t afford to shove each other out of what tiny natural habitat we have left.

“[Farming] has to exist,” says Scheibel. “Because it’s needed. It’s absolutely necessary. But to actually do it on a scale… where you feel connected and integrated into what you’re doing… is not ‘profitable.’ And that’s where we’re at.”

The post Small-Scale Farming Shouldn’t Just Be a Hobby. So Why Is It So Hard to Make a Living?  appeared first on Modern Farmer.

My partner, John, and I were traveling in the early days of a long-planned speaking tour as the concern and confusion regarding the crisis reached its first fevered pitch. Tour events disappeared in front of us wholesale. But my first thought upon hearing about the California lockdown orders was not “How do we get home?” or “How do we keep from getting sick?” or “How do I stem the ebbing of my work and income?” As gardeners, our first thought was “We need to order seeds.” 

We were not, apparently, the only gardeners to have this instinctive thought. When I got online the day after the lockdown orders, before being able to get on a flight home, “Out of Stock” and “Back-ordered” popped up on our computer screens over and over again from our favorite organic seed sellers: Redwood Seeds, Peaceful Valley Seed, Territorial Seed, Fedco Seeds, Hudson Valley Seed, Seed Savers Exchange, Southern Exposure Seed Exchange, Kitazawa Seed, Johnny’s Selected Seeds, Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds. As a gardener, to feel a sense of scarcity in the seed supply was an alarm bell ringing—and ringing loudly in my mammalian brain, triggering survival anxieties and a determined instinct to engage with my own survival. Our collective survival. 

As gardeners, our first thought was “We need to order seeds.” 

Seed is important: Botanists know this, ecologists know this, farmers and horticulturists know this and most gardeners have a pretty good basic understanding. 

But, if many of our (human) species are overwhelmingly “plant blind,” even more of us are stunningly seed stupid—many of us are not sure exactly how they work, how they’ve evolved, how they are being handled at legislative, commercial or, perhaps most importantly, cultural levels, and why this matters. 

Jennifer Jewell.

In the midst of climate crisis, a precipitous rate of biodiversity loss in our world, a global pandemic, attendant financial chaos, global social-justice reckoning and now the most globally reverberating war in the last 50-plus years, we as humans, and in the United States as an industrialized society, are being offered an intense short course in what we need most in this world, what is in fact essential to our lives: Community, family, health, dignity, clean water, clean air, access to some open space and sufficient food are all unquestionably on this list of essentials. Foundational to clean water, clean air, and sufficient food are … plants. 

Foundational to the vast majority of plants on our planet are their seeds: the smallest form of, the very essence of, these plants. 

In this bizarre moment of colliding urgencies for life as we have known it, we are collectively being offered an opportunity to remember and really understand the essential importance and power of seed in our world: for food, for medicine, for utility, for the vast interconnected web we include in the concept of biodiversity and planetary health, for beauty and for culture, whatever that might mean to us. 

This recognition of the importance of seed on micro and macro levels did not just happen in March of 2020 with the COVID-19 pandemic in full form, with increasing climate extremes of the last several years or with the Russian invasion of Ukraine disrupting geopolitical stability and global food security and health. On the contrary, the stewards of the “seed world,” that dedicated sector of our independent plant-engaged world, have been sounding the alarm and preparing the soil for a likewise global seed-literacy and seed-protection revolution of sorts for many years. 

The seed world is rich with scientists, spiritualists, growers, activists and protestors who have been keeping seed alive, accessible, shared and safe. These seed stewards have been preparing for the battle ahead as seed (its integrity, its diversity and our open access to it) has become increasingly threatened. These seed keepers have been declaring loudly to all who would listen why we should join in the work to know and care for seeds ourselves as one of the most proactive steps we can take to rebuilding our human food systems, our social systems and the global ecosystems of biodiversity on which we all depend. 

Since the 1980s, when the first GMO seed patent was issued, and the 1990s, when reporting began in earnest about seed supply strategically (and stealthily) being consolidated into the holdings of large agribusiness-chemical corporations, the smaller seed sowers, growers, banks and knowers have been recording and responding. Their strategic, heartfelt, ground-level actions—documenting, saving, sharing and protecting seed—protect us all.

Excerpted with permission from What We Sow: On the Personal, Ecological, and Cultural Significance of Seeds (Timber Press, 2023)

The post Why Seeds Matter appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Wasps are an incredibly diverse species, spanning from yellowjackets to velvet ants (despite the name, they are wasps), which provide countless ecological services—including protection for agriculture via pest prevention and pollination. As wasps are predators, they hunt prey, such as flies, caterpillars and spiders. Wasps, both the ones that live and work together (social wasps) and the ones that live and work on their own (solitary wasps) are constantly working in ways that benefit the environment and humanity as a whole, maintaining an important ecological balance.

Solitary wasps, as they specialize on one specific organism, are being introduced to farms as a method of biological pest control and to great success. Some states have begun to integrate wasps into their farming procedures and recommendations. In Oregon, for example, a parasitic wasp that preys upon a highly damaging fruit fly has been released by Oregon State University to assist with control of the pest, protecting one of Oregon’s most profitable crops, blueberries, which brings in approximately $183 million per year.

Wasps … are constantly working in ways that benefit the environment and humanity as a whole, maintaining an important ecological balance.

Parasitic wasps, a division of solitary wasps, have specific insects they parasitize, including notorious pests such as tomato worms and aphids. The wasps lay their eggs inside the host, often paralyzing them with venom and viruses. Their eggs will grow and eventually hatch out of the host, killing it. Social wasps such as hornets, paper wasps and yellowjackets also provide pest control on a large scale. In the United Kingdom, social wasps were estimated to capture 14 million kilograms (30,864,717 pounds) of prey. Wasps of all species and sizes play a vital and often unrecognized role in the ecosystem.

About 75 percent of the crops we grow depend to some extent on pollination. And wasps, like bees, are pollinators. While their most commonly recognized pollination role lies in commercial fig production and orchid pollination, many other wasp species are also pollinators. Pollen wasps, which feed only on nectar and pollen, are key pollinators in their range around the world. Social wasps are generalist pollinators, bringing pollen with them as they fly from flower to flower. In certain cases, both yellowjackets and paper wasps have been found to outperform honey bees in pollen transfers. Other solitary wasps, such as the European beewolf and hairy flower wasp, have more hair than a typical wasp, transferring a lot of pollen between various plants. 

Wasps, like bees, are pollinators. (Photo courtesy of Anna Lovat)

And yet, despite all this, they aren’t exactly popular creatures, and sometimes advocating for them seems like yelling into a void. (Well, a void that likes to yell back.) Most are confused as to why a hated insect could be loved, especially by a teen, and a girl at that. When this happens, I like to go back to the beginning. 

You see, my epic love story—the one we all have, the one that fundamentally changes our lives, the one that shifts how we see the world—began out of spite. In my love story, there’s no boy meets girl or girl meets girl. Instead, I met a wasp.

In the summer of 2021, I was 15 years old and had secured a paid internship at the University of Minnesota’s bee lab. We’d meet via Zoom, discuss pollinators and learn about the natural world around us. I saw the word “paid” and was immediately on board. It seemed like an easy way to spend a summer and, best of all, I was going to make some money out of it. 

Once a week, we got together and learned about pollinators and the threats they face to their health. We spent evenings learning about different types of grass and soil, roadside pollination and the dependence of humans on the often unnoticed work of insects. Throughout the summer, wasps had been mentioned sporadically, as they are important pollinators but not nearly as well known as bees. Like clockwork, every time wasps were brought up, several of the boys in my group would describe their hatred of wasps, calling them “the devil’s spawn,” “nature’s mistake” and so on. Perhaps I had heard myself described similarly one too many times because I was filled with peevish determination to prove those boys wrong—to find something within wasps that was beneficial, that would make people care. 

The only problem was that I didn’t know anything about wasps. I’d seen a couple of them but from a safe distance. I began to furiously devote myself to learning everything I could about wasps. I read Wikipedia articles, research papers, kids’ books, biology textbooks, books on the classifications of Hymenoptera—anything and everything I could get my hands on, which turned out to be not much. Insects are a group with poor publicity and public response, and within that, most of the research and funding is given to the prettier insects. Wasps, known for their warning colors and stings, don’t quite fit that bill.

“When I say I love wasps, I truly do mean wasps.” (Photo courtesy of Anna Lovat)

The day I fell in love for the first time is the same day to which I credit my first kiss. Sitting on my porch in the sticky Minnesota summer, I was reading a children’s book about frightening insects. Absorbed in the illustrations of paper wasps, I at first did not notice the one that alighted upon my palm. She began to crawl across my hands and then up my arm and, gradually, as I, at first terrified, began to calm, she alighted on my face and began to explore, nibbling my lips with her mouth. It is hard to explain what I felt in those moments—certainly fear but also a keen sense of wonder. Here was this magnificent creature, vastly misunderstood and greatly feared, and yet she had been gentle with me. How could I look at her and not love her? 

When I first began talking to people about wasps, I found myself frequently alone. I was standing on my soapbox and trying to convince people that what they thought they knew was wrong. It didn’t help that I was a woman, and thus, every time I spoke, I was challenged. Online, where I tried my best to keep my comments polite and informative, I was called names, and once, memorably, I was told I’d be “lit on fire, along with all the wasp nests.” I was dismayed. You see, I had (perhaps naively) believed that when I showed up (so excited!) ready to teach and learn along with others, I would be welcomed with open arms. And for a long time, I didn’t find that. Yet, my love for wasps persisted. 

Throughout the years since, where I have found hatred thrown in my face, I have also experienced the kindness of strangers. I have taught children how to hold wasps and bees alike, in some small way showing them the power of questioning what you are taught. None of them have been stung. I have met older women who watched me leaning into bushes, often holding a net and asking me what in the world I was doing. 

I have learned to look for people who, like me, have been pushed to the side for their oddities and those who have been boxed into categories simply because of how they were born. 

Wasps have taught me to open my heart, and I am a better person for it.

Born and raised in Saint Paul, Minnesota, Anna (@annalouise014) spends her days poking various insects and doing her math homework. She is also the designated spider relocator of her family.

The post In Defense of Wasps  appeared first on Modern Farmer.

I never set out to be a farmer. At 27, I was living with my co-parent and one-year-old child on 10 acres of land in rural Oregon. I had dreams of a little homestead operation to feed my family—a garden and maybe a few chickens for eggs. However, when I began my medical gender transition, everything I knew about family completely changed. 

Photography by author.

I grew up in a small conservative town about two hours from where I live now. My parents divorced when I was six years old, and I spent a lot of that time at my cousins’ farm where we ran wild through pasture and forest, daring each other to touch hotwire and finding portals in the branches of yew trees. I told my cousins in the privacy of those woods that sometimes I dreamt about being a boy, and when we played Oregon Trail with their Radio Flyer red wagon, I could be whatever I wanted. 

After the divorce, I traveled from house to house with my mom and her various boyfriends. For a couple of years, my mom was married to a man named Tim who lived on 40 acres of farmland. I made friends with the neighbor kids, and they asked if I was interested in joining their 4H club. Together, we raised sheep, pigs and chickens. We gave our animals silly names like Lightbulb and Tofurkey, and we desperately copied the way other kids at the county fair displayed the feathers and feet of their chickens to judges. 

While I loved the communal aspect of 4H and was even OK with raising animals for meat, it became increasingly hard to mask my queerness among the small-town conservative parents and children I interacted with through the club. Eventually, I told everyone in my life that I was queer and was immediately shut out from the community; my closest friend’s mom was concerned that I would “turn” her daughters gay. 

I spent the majority of my late teens and early twenties living in cars and cheap studio apartments, chasing dirtbag dreams in the mountains and eating gas station burritos as a luxurious meal. Eventually, those dreams led to me being pregnant and living in a barn on a family friend’s land. We paid $500 in rent and helped maintain the property. I started a small garden that didn’t grow much more than tomatoes and snow peas. It felt like a step toward something bigger than myself, but I wasn’t sure how to contextualize it. I knew that there was no other way I was willing to raise a child than on land with forest nearby to roam, an aspect of my own childhood that I cherish immensely. 

My co-parent started helping the neighbor maintain her property as well, and when that neighbor decided to move back to the city, she referred us to her landlord and we were able to rent a three-bedroom farmhouse on 10 acres for $1,500 a month. As someone who had grown up in poverty, it felt like being handed an incomprehensible gift. 

Two months after we moved in, I started my medical gender transition. Once I was living my life fully out as a trans masculine person, everything I valued started to shift. I started living in my own body. It made me love and care for my kid more than ever before, and my co-parent and I realized we needed to rethink the dynamics of our family. For us, this meant that they would move out to live and work in the city and I would stay on the farm. 

I was able to find roommates to move in to help with rent, both of whom are trans and queer. I started expanding my own relationships through polyamory and realized the importance for me of dating other trans people. 

Photography by author.

As I started to see this community coming together out in the country, I realized that it could be possible to provide food for other trans people. I had spent so much of my life diminishing my own goals, thinking that I was always dreaming big and could never really execute those ideas. When I had my own space to daydream about what I could create, I started thinking through the steps to getting there and soon realized I had the capacity and support to dive in. 

The initial goal was to create a small-scale, biodynamic farm that focused on utilizing animals in the garden. As I started to learn more, I found that raising rabbits for meat was a highly economical and easy way to produce meat on a small scale. I bought chickens and ducks from a queer friend who runs a small chick business for eggs, and before I realized it, I had a full operation on my hands. My friends and I came up with a name—Phototaxis Farming Project—that encapsulated the trans and moth-like experience of aiming beyond the light. We started a GoFundMe to help with initial farm costs, and I was amazed how many people were excited to see this project happening. 

Since then, my goal has evolved and gotten even more specific. I want to feed other trans people, especially those who (like many of us) have faced food insecurity their entire lives. Trans people are three times as likely to go hungry than cis people, and that statistic only increases for trans people of color. With government food subsidy programs such as WIC (Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children) and Food Stamps, there are restrictions on what kind of food benefits can be used for—often limited to mass-produced generic brands that are more packed with filler ingredients than actual, nutritious food. 

Many farmers markets have programs where you can exchange food stamps for tokens to use with selected vendors, but even farmers markets are inaccessible to many people with disabilities (a significant intersection for trans people), families to take care of, weekend jobs and feeling unsafe in the predominantly white, wealthy spaces where farmers markets tend to be. My mission is to provide free and accessible food for the trans community. If this project continues to expand, I see a future where we can offer collective housing and work opportunities for trans people as well. 

Producing and preparing food can be central to building community, and it’s been the driver of our trans community. When we processed our first ducks, we shared the meal with queer and trans friends who were there to help with preparing the farm for spring. I made duck soup—most of us had never even eaten duck before—and we were all overjoyed with trying something new on the same land on which it was raised. 

A few weeks ago, we processed the first litter of meat rabbits. My partner Lamby and I were unsure how it would feel, after having processed the ducks together and still feeling the emotional toll of taking the life of an animal. I asked my friends who run a small rabbitry in Portland if they would be willing to come out and help us. The experience ended up being pure magic. To learn such a specific skill from other trans farmers and to be in the presence of people with the same goals of radicalizing farming felt like the work of our trans ancestors bringing us together. This week we are learning how to process the pelts from another trans farmer, and this weekend, we will be celebrating trans joy and sharing our first harvest with as many trans people as we can fit on the property. 

It’s hard out there to be trans, especially with the increase in trans violence and anti-trans legislation. We are actively having our bodily autonomy and sovereignty taken from us. But farming is inherently radical, and to be able to bring something so essential such as high-quality, fresh, loved and cared for food to this community feels like something I have to do. 

I never set out to be a farmer, but farming has opened the door to creating a community where I do belong. Yesterday, I walked through the farm with chickens following at my heels and fresh eggs in my hands. I ran and the chickens ran with me, I danced in the anticipation of the rain. The project, this land and this community I have had a part in building has brought me to a place of joy that I didn’t know could exist—and that’s just it: This passion project makes me want to exist. 

The post In Becoming a Farmer, I Found Community and Unearthed My Trans Joy  appeared first on Modern Farmer.

It seems to be a perpetual topic of conversation within my group of about 15 neighbors: where to place the nut orchard. Some want to see the orchard planted on the best soils, in a tidy block. Others feel strongly that we should re-establish native grasses on those verdant areas and that we can put the nut trees along marginal lands. 

We go back and forth, back and forth for more than a year. For many farms, this would perhaps be a quick decision; the nuts are going here, now let’s be done with it. But this isn’t a typical farm. This is the Agroforestry Co-op of Northeast Missouri (AFCO). With more than a dozen members, we work to discuss issues fully, unclouded by our individual wants. If one member (an investor of material, financial or labor resources) decides a proposal is not taking into consideration a shared value, such as economic access or ecological rigor, we will discuss it until it is resolved. It takes some time, but, ultimately, it can lead to better decisions.

The author on his land.

It wasn’t always my intention to farm in a group. But as a first-generation farmer and millennial, land access has been a challenge. When offered the opportunity to raise organic and pastured livestock by our community land trust, I accepted the responsibilities of stewardship of this clay-rich slope in Northeast Missouri. This hillside wears the scars of over-cultivation, overgrazing, compaction and erosion, with its west face battered by gullywasher storms and relentless, soil-shifting gales. 

Agriculture has not always been such a lonely activity. From historical subsistence farming to the feudal practice of managing commons, and all the way up to modern examples of worker-owned co-operatives such as Humble Hands Harvest, Diggers’ Mirth Collective Farm and perpetual purpose trusts such as Perennial Promise Grower’s Coop, growing food has long been performed as an essentially co-operative endeavor. Still, I toiled alone for more than a decade, determined to tackle this undertaking myself. 

This agrarian life often feels like a struggle for control with land, climate, pests and economies. It has led me to places of deep stubbornness, sometimes outright unwillingness to accept the help I need. That old stereotype of the tenacious, independent farmer has proven true—unfortunately, for my own well-being at times. 

Chickens on the pasture. Photography by Benjamin Brownlow.

But the pandemic was the tipping point. I tried to navigate the perfect storm of supply chain bottlenecks, increased feed and fuel costs and the lack of access to approved meat processors for my grass-fed hogs. It became obvious then that I, or we rather, could better serve ourselves, our community and our relationship with land through collective farming. 

I’ve always been drawn to tree crops and silvopasture, and I’ve experimented with small plantings on my pastures for years. On a whim, I applied to the University of Missouri’s Agroforestry Academy in 2022 and proposed an agroforestry co-op as my final project. When I returned from the academy, I hosted a meeting and invited my neighbors and friends. After putting out snacks and refreshments, a crucial part to any co-operative undertaking, I presented my idea to the group. Thus the seeds of the AFCO were sowed last June. 

I now share the risk, labor and rewards of a life spent growing food and making dirt with about a dozen and a half neighbors, and I can move away from the physically exhausting and emotionally depleting work of raising, pasturing, killing and selling animals to a more collectivized and sustainable act of providing food and stewardship.

As a co-op, we have a few unique features that have worked well for us. We operate within a community land trust, a model that removes land from the speculative market and makes it available to like-minded ecosystem stewards and sustainability practitioners. We currently co-manage about 10 acres of land, and we’re integrating our agroforestry project throughout the rest of the land trust’s 280 acres. There are dozens of acres set aside for mushroom logs, timber stand improvement and habitat health. I also graze livestock through several pastures, which we are working to integrate with tree crops. 

We have formed a relationship with a non-profit, The Center for Sustainable & Cooperative by Culture, in order to begin a grassroots fundraising campaign and connect with potential donors. We are all trained in nonviolent communication and shared decision-making, so that the tensions that sometimes arise when we have competing visions can be directed to helpful and healthy conversations. But the most important bit has been to share a common vision. 

In our first year of work, AFCO has been a project both complex in its scope and fairly straightforward in its practice. Making good group decisions requires a common vision. We stand behind supporting local food sovereignty, restoring vulnerable ecosystems, creating land access and economic opportunities for underprivileged people and demonstrating alternatives to mainstream agriculture in our region. Any proposal for a project of the co-op is held up against these values. We are currently fairly informal in structure, so far as the IRS is concerned, and operate with full-member consensus decision-making instead of a board of directors.

Co-op members work to put guards on trees. Photography by Benjamin Brownlow.

This year is all about proof of concept. Can we pick out 100 trees we want, agree on where they belong and effectively put the right end in the ground? Yes. Can we engage in some prescribed woodland management and start a mushroom and biochar operation at community scale? Absolutely. How about pulling together the funds for planting a five-acre Chinese Chestnut orchard? Hopefully, because I have already put in the order for seedlings. 

While there are “all hands on deck” field work days, we still engage in a division of labor. Folks who are less able to get out in the field can sit in a shaded area and assemble tree guards, or they can manage spreadsheets or work on grants or organize the logistical end-of-work parties. There is room for autonomy; while our larger proposals go through the process of consensus, individuals are empowered to make many day-to-day decisions, such as which cultivar of mushroom spawn to order or how to space and arrange plantings. We hope that AFCO can attract people with a dream to engage in agroforestry by offering land access, infrastructure, a budget and collectivized marketing and distribution of crops. We even hope to attract annual crop growers to plant between our contoured lanes of trees. It has been clear to each of us that AFCO exists to create future economic opportunities for folks we haven’t even met yet.

I understand going it alone. Co-operation is almost unnatural in our current culture, but that old stereotypical independent streak we sometimes take on as farmers is a bad bet in the face of such uncertain odds. 

When we discuss a project, we agree to core principles on which to base our decisions and determine whether a proposal is justified within our broader goals. This is how we finally, after a year of working through it, managed to land on a parcel of land for our nut orchard that takes into account ecology and economy. It wasn’t a location that anybody felt excited about at first; yet, over time, it became apparent that the current plot achieves two goals satisfactorily instead of merely one goal perfectly. Much of farming seems to be about compromise; now we can get planting, together. 

The post Farming by Committee: How We Organize Our Agroforestry Co-op appeared first on Modern Farmer.

I’ve been a seed catalog enthusiast for as long as I can remember. As a child growing up on Cape Breton Island along Canada’s east coast, it felt luxurious that a company would send you a thick, glossy catalog (for free!) and I treasured my time poring over the colorful pages. The cheerful plant names, such as “Easter Egg Radishes” and “Candy Cane Peppers,” were intoxicating and heartening. I’ve kept up my catalog devotion ever since. 

I track my ideas in a gardening notebook that I’ve had for nearly twenty years (compete with grid paper to plan out my plots, row by row). When I’m feeling ambitious, I break out my online spreadsheets. Catalog pages get torn up and pasted in my notebook and I send photos to friends asking for their opinion. Sure, last year’s rose bushes didn’t make it and there’s serious evidence that I’m destined to never grow potatoes. I’m in a never-ending battle with rabbits, Japanese beetles and a family of voles obsessed with my strawberry patch. My weeding skills are abysmal. But the catalog doesn’t know any of that. 

I’m not alone in my passion; for catalog devotees, the planning matters as much as the planting. “I wish I had room to grow all the things [I see in the catalog]. I get inspired to try new varieties each season,” says Tracy Noble-Botting, a home gardener in Ottawa, ON. Even for home gardeners in warmer climates, such as Gray Chapman, in Atlanta, GA, catalogs still offer a respite from a dreary winter. “Flipping through a thick catalog of heirloom flowers and veggies is a lovely antidote [to the gray weather],” Chapman writes in an email. “It’s not just the obvious pleasure of seeing all that color, either; it’s imagining all the possibilities in my own garden and getting excited about the promise of what could be.” 

For Samantha Nobel-Black, a writer, chicken-keeper and home gardener in Piedmont, CA, seed catalogs are nearly recipe books, in a less structured format. That inspiration brings delicious results. “Seed catalogs inspire me to cook with things I would never have tasted otherwise, like unusual heirloom peppers or rare Asian greens I can’t buy at the market. They open up a new world of culinary exploration and possibility.”

For home gardeners, nothing’s cozier than a winter night dedicated to vigorous garden planning. Emily Tregunno, co-owner of Halifax Seed, knows how hobby gardeners feel. “On a stormy, winter day, there is nothing quite like making a hot cup of coffee or tea and flipping through pages of garden seed varieties dreaming of what rewards you would like to reap from your garden next season,” Tregunno said via email. 

She notes that gardening is a tactile hobby and enthusiasts love getting their hands dirty as they nurture plants through to the harvest season. Perhaps there’s a link between our love of flipping pages and our yen for scratching in the soil. No wonder we can’t resist writing all over the catalogs as soon as they arrive. Alex Chesney, a farmer with Thames River Melons in Inverkip, ON, looks forward to sharing some quality garden planning time with her family each winter. “The process of circling new varietals, adding in sticky notes, turning down corners of pages and passing them back and forth to show a new discovery—it’s a ritual that we look forward to every winter.” 

Chesney says there’s a practical side to the process as well. The information presented in seed catalogs helps her plan springtime operations, as “the characteristics of different varieties—things like number of growing days, drought tolerance, disease and pest concerns—are very reliable.”

John Barrett, director of sales, marketing and development for Veseys Seeds Ltd in York, PEI, keeps that in mind when designing catalogs. He notes that, for example, a two-page spread can showcase 14 different varieties of carrots, easily allowing the customer to compare prices, maturity dates and growing conditions. While my own gardening efforts are amateurish compared to Chesney’s operations, I love that the catalogs speak to me as much as they do the pros. The engaging, encouraging format makes me feel that I’m as much a part of the gardening community as anyone else. It’s reassuring that gardeners of all levels need help like me. 

Megy Karydes, a Chicago urban gardener, says seed catalogs are a tremendous resource for those who are tackling new projects.“[There is] great information on how to grow the seed, when to transplant, how to store your harvest of a particular crop. Want to grow eggplants? It shows a great visual with more than a dozen varieties by size, shape, color and more so you can choose which one you want to grow.”

While many companies have phased out catalogs, there is a sense of heritage in the tomes. Tregunno says that catalogs have remained a constant over the decades she’s been in business. “To be able to look back to catalogs from the 1920s and through the wartime years helps us to not lose touch of our own history.” 

Most importantly, catalogs are a way to communicate with customers. Barrett reports that 83% of Veseys’ orders come in through the internet. The days of using the old-fashioned order sheet are mostly gone. However, the majority of his customers who are ordering online are using the printed catalog to organize and compile their orders and simply go online for the final step. Barrett tracks the success of Veseys’ catalog program using methods such as monitoring customer feedback and implementing catalog-exclusive discount codes.

“At the height of winter, the catalog offers the promise of spring,” says Barrett. As I examine the gorgeous photos of tomatoes, pansies and asters, I know it doesn’t matter how many seedlings are alive come June or how many zucchinis I harvest in August. I know that there’s plenty of beauty amid the bleak winter and that inspiration is just a catalog away.”

The post Why I Keep Coming Back to Seed Catalogs appeared first on Modern Farmer.

So when my husband and I absconded to the suburbs of Chicago during the pandemic, I was excited to finally have space to do things right and make up for my non-recycling sins by not just recycling but composting, too. I knew that compost is good for gardening—and had grand plans for my new backyard. Why not keep my food waste from landfills and improve my garden all at the same time? 

What I didn’t know was just how impactful this decision could be for the environment. “Most people don’t realize that food waste in landfills is a huge contributor to climate change,” says Rhonda Sherman, Extension Solid Waste specialist at NC State University, who literally wrote the book on vermicomposting. (In fact, 8%-10% of global greenhouse gas emissions are associated with food waste.) “When food waste is in an airless environment, it breaks down very slowly and releases methane. It actually makes landfills themselves—which are the number three human activity that is causing climate change—more toxic.” 

More than 50% of municipal garbage put onto your curb—as part of the 167 million tons of trash sent to landfills each year—is actually compostable, according to the EPA. Think of what we could accomplish by actually composting some of that trash. And it’s not that difficult to get started.

RELATED: The Visionaries Running a Worm Farm In Prison

If you’ve never composted before or you live in a town that doesn’t collect your food scraps, there are two main ways to do it at home. The most common is called thermophilic composting, a process by which microbes and enzymes break down food scraps into organic matter. The process produces heat, which is why you’ll often see outdoor compost piles steaming. Because of the heat production and anaerobic microbes, you can’t really have a thermophilic compost pile indoors. Then there’s vermicomposting, Rhonda Sherman’s specialty, which uses worms to digest food scraps and produce castings (essentially worm manure that makes for a nitrogen-rich soil amendment). 

While both methods do create compost and keep food from landfills, the actual product is very different. A cubic yard of regular compost sells for up to $35. Vermicompost? $200 to $1,200 per cubic yard. That’s because the plant growth hormones and humic and fulvic acids in vermicompost create more growth, a higher yield and better root development. They can also help suppress diseases and pests. Plus, the microorganisms keep the smell at bay, so you can even vermicompost indoors. 

What ultimately drew me to vermicomposting was discovering the Subpod, a vermicompost bin that is set inside a garden bed. Since it’s mostly underground and surrounded by soil, the worms are protected from harsh winters and direct sunlight. Plus, it has filters, which allow air to circulate through and help the aerobic (non-stinky) microbes work faster. With holes along the sides for worms to move from the bin to the bed and back again, the Subpod also promises to create not just healthy vermicompost but a healthier environment for plants and flowers inside the bed itself. As a food writer, the idea of a lush garden brimming with produce was enough motivation to pay the some $200 for the setup. 

A promotional photo of the Subpod. (Image via Subpod)

Getting everything together was simple. But I was not prepared for the “vermi” part of this compost. When the box of red wiggler worms arrived at my doorstep, I picked it up like it was a grenade without the pin and dumped the squirming worms into the bottom of the bin. I was full of fear and regret, but was determined to not have wasted the money I had invested in my bid for self-improvement. 

Once the worms were settled in with their bedding (damp newspaper strips), I began adding food scraps from our countertop collection bin every week or so. Since worms breathe through their skin, they need an environment that’s about 60%-80% moisture: that’s why if I have a particularly juicy feeding, I add some sort of dried carbon, like bits of cardboard, newspaper, dried leaves or even sawdust. If you have the right balance of carbon (all this dried stuff) and nitrogen (food stuff), the worms will eat and reproduce happily. Aside from feeding, the Subpod team also recommends that you aerate the mixture to make sure the worms are getting enough oxygen. 

Despite my initial squirminess with my worms, I quickly got into the flow of feeding, aerating and reaping the benefits—and discovered whole communities of other vermicomposters, too. 

There’s Sandra Birrell, a PhD in Cooperative Education, who is also a volunteer accessibility garden mentor on Vancouver Island. She manages the four in-ground worm bins in her garden, two tiered stacking outdoor worm farms, an outdoor worm farm made from a converted children’s sandbox (pictured) and a temporary indoor worm bin all from her mobility scooter—and is expecting to produce about 70 gallons of worm castings this year. “Choosing the right container is important, not only in terms of what’s best for the worms but also the best for me,” she says. “Worm castings are heavy, so I make sure to use lightweight containers. Ones with built-in grips or handles are best so you can move it around with just one arm if you need to.” From there, it’s simple for her to maintain the bins, feed the worms and harvest the castings from a seated position. Her top tip? Blend your food scraps in a food processor, then keep the mixture in plastic bags in the freezer to give your worms a “mixed buffet” whenever it’s time to feed them. 

Sandra Birrell’s worm sandbox. (Photo courtesy of Sandra Birrell)

For Myles Stubblefield, a veteran managing PTSD, worm farming is a cathartic experience that helps him manage stress. He’s the founder and self-described “Benevolent King of Worms” of Worm Works in Buffalo, New York, an urban worm farm and composting service that collects food scraps from nearby restaurants, residential spots and Highmark Stadium (home of the Buffalo Bills). With the scraps, he makes healthy vermicompost, then sells it online and runs workshops for locals interested in the process. It’s the silent chores that come along with composting—such as moving and aerating the thousands of pounds of compost and food scraps by hand—that make Myles jump out of bed at 4 a.m. every day without even setting an alarm. It’s a “cleansing meditation,” he says, one that quiets his brain and makes him grateful for each day.

Sandra and Myles aren’t the only ones. Rhonda tells me that tens of thousands of people around the world practice vermicomposting. In fact, people from 124 countries have reached out to her to learn how to get started. She says that you don’t even need an expensive setup like the Subpod. She even has a whole YouTube video on how to set up a simple vermicompost bin. All you need is a bin with a top, which you can buy at any Walmart, Target or hardware store. You can leave it outdoors or keep it inside. All of your steps will be the same: Add your worms and some damp worm bedding, add your food scraps and wait.

The author with a handful of composted food waste. (Photo: Ariel Kanter)

Two years since dropping the Subpod into my garden bed, my worms are going strong. Whenever I open the bin, I am astounded by what these tiny little marvels can accomplish.

I’m going away this weekend and need to feed them before I leave. I’ve got two buckets on my counter full of carrot fronds, banana peels, coffee grounds, egg shells and squash skins. It’s gotten a little icky and juicy by now, but that’s okay. The worms don’t mind. 

The worms, which were once horrifying to me, are sort of like my pets now. Over the past two years, they’ve processed hundreds of buckets of food waste and truly made my garden bountiful. And they continue to create miracles: Last summer, a cantaloupe seed sprouted in the compost, I plucked it out, planted it and grew another cantaloupe. It was delicious.

The post How I Went from a Non-Recycler to a Vermicompost Queen appeared first on Modern Farmer.