Speaker 1: My attitude about the world. The running out of food
Speaker 1: is no, it isn't. You just have to realize that
Speaker 1: Mother nature systems are incredibly productive and you just have
Speaker 1: to plug into them. Hi. Everyone, I'm Martha Stewart. Today.
Speaker 1: I'm so happy to have two fantastic men on the program.
Speaker 1: These men are gardeners. They are perhaps two of the
Speaker 1: finest gardeners in America. Jack Algier and Elliott Coleman are
Speaker 1: joining me. They are two of the best known advocates
Speaker 1: of sustainable organic farming in the United States. Both men
Speaker 1: have inspired and influenced the way I grow food here
Speaker 1: at my own farm. Elliott is joining me from Harborside, Maine,
Speaker 1: where he is a farmer and author, an agricultural researcher,
Speaker 1: and a proponent of organic farming. He is famous for
Speaker 1: developing a unique year round method of cultivating organic vegetables
Speaker 1: even during the winter time in Maine. Jack Algier is
Speaker 1: the director of agro Ecology at Stone Barns Center, where
Speaker 1: he works to train the next generation of young farmers.
Speaker 1: Something that we can all agree is vital. Jack is
Speaker 1: here with me in person, and we just returned from
Speaker 1: a tour of my gardens and greenhouses. Where do you think,
Speaker 1: Jack spectacular am I doing? Okay? You blew my mind.
Speaker 1: I've been here before and it is a gorgeous landscaping forest.
Speaker 1: So glad to see it. Thank you. Well. We're both
Speaker 1: experienced and passionate gardeners and farmers, and now, more than
Speaker 1: ever before, people are getting into their own backyards to garden.
Speaker 1: The pandemic certainly encouraged packyard gardening in a way that
Speaker 1: nothing has ever before. I don't even think Victory Garden
Speaker 1: was as prolific as this kind of COVID gardening has become. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's true. I think that's true. Everyone was
Speaker 1: stuck at home. I suppose that was the big difference.
Speaker 1: But what I wanted to get from both you today
Speaker 1: and from Elliott, and I think we could ask Elliott
Speaker 1: to join us now, if you don't mind Elliott's in Harborside, Maine.
Speaker 1: You have been such an inspiration to me, Elliott and
Speaker 1: you know that, and we we worked together on so
Speaker 1: many wonderful articles and stories. I'm just the simple farmer
Speaker 1: out here in the woods. Yeah, yeah, that's right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you have written at least four fantastic books for season harvest.
Speaker 1: I have one right here, and this is Organic Vegetables
Speaker 1: from your Home Garden all year long and the New
Speaker 1: Organic Grower, another fantastic book that we rely on for
Speaker 1: really good information. You have done a tremendous service to
Speaker 1: so many home gardeners and your tools. We are you
Speaker 1: still are you both collaborating on tools for Johnny's. We
Speaker 1: have been working quite a bit on different tools over
Speaker 1: the years, for sure. Yeah. Well those tools are in
Speaker 1: my headhouse in the greenhouse, and they are used by
Speaker 1: Ryan and Brian at the farm here and all the
Speaker 1: other guys. They fight over the tools because they are effective,
Speaker 1: they are sensible, and it's really great to have those tools,
Speaker 1: and and um you can get if if you're the listeners.
Speaker 1: Please note that Johnny's Seeds has a whole section of
Speaker 1: their catalog devoted to wonderful tools, many of which were
Speaker 1: designed by Elliott at first and then by both of you.
Speaker 1: Now right, I'm solely an advocate, but I've certainly uh
Speaker 1: had our hand in our work to to work on
Speaker 1: slow tools and designing small tools for for a good farm.
Speaker 1: So you call them slow tools, these are non mechanical
Speaker 1: tools pretty much, right, Yeah, for the hand for the handcraft, Yes,
Speaker 1: and since my favorite way to garden is by hand.
Speaker 1: Even though I've been learning how to use all the machinery,
Speaker 1: I can drive tractors now, Elliott, yep, I can I
Speaker 1: can hey the fields Elliott bail the hey. But but
Speaker 1: I do. I do like getting out there even without
Speaker 1: gloves onto my manicurist Dismay, and I can pick weeds
Speaker 1: for hours, and I get such a satisfaction out of
Speaker 1: doing that. What is it about farming that the next
Speaker 1: generation has to understand? What is it that's going on
Speaker 1: now that has to be either fixed or implemented, or
Speaker 1: repaired or just taught. So, Jack, what is the first
Speaker 1: thing we have to teach? Well, I think the first
Speaker 1: thing that teaches that no one needs to do this alone.
Speaker 1: That's never what it was like. You know. The reality
Speaker 1: is there's so much to learn from a community of
Speaker 1: people around you, whether whether starting a garden or a farm. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, there's so much of this spirit of do
Speaker 1: it yourself. Um. But it's the community that that enriches
Speaker 1: the whole thing, and there's so much to learn from
Speaker 1: each other. In many ways, gardening is this, and farming
Speaker 1: for that matter, is a little bit of a spectator sport.
Speaker 1: You know, people people watch and they pay attention and
Speaker 1: often learn more from the failures and the things that
Speaker 1: don't go right as we navigate that. And so I
Speaker 1: think people, uh, it's good to see what other people
Speaker 1: do and try those things and know that there's uh,
Speaker 1: there's never a truly perfect but there's also never a
Speaker 1: total failure, and there's so much to learn in that space.
Speaker 1: Without that, you can't have the longevity to really practice
Speaker 1: and be good at it, and you have to stay
Speaker 1: with it. Yeah, and what what do what do you say, Elliott?
Speaker 1: One of the most interesting things about farming and its
Speaker 1: connection to the world we live in is organic farming
Speaker 1: has shown that if you understand how the natural system
Speaker 1: works and work along with it, you're gonna have food.
Speaker 1: That there's nothing complicated about it, that the mother nature
Speaker 1: wants us to be well fed. And the systems are
Speaker 1: so basic and straightforward to people who understand that the
Speaker 1: natural world is the most magnificent system ever set up,
Speaker 1: and we just need to figure out how to plug
Speaker 1: into it. There's a line in a wonderful old book
Speaker 1: from Liberty Hyde Bailey, who was a classic horticulturalist at
Speaker 1: the cornell and other places. And he's suggesting how you
Speaker 1: can learn about things and how to do this and
Speaker 1: was it very simple line He just said, go out
Speaker 1: in the backyard, look down and ask yourself, oh, why
Speaker 1: is that weed growing right there? He said, By the
Speaker 1: time you've answered that question, you've had a whole education
Speaker 1: in botany, horticulture and everything else. And so if you're
Speaker 1: a gardener and you want to grow a corner a
Speaker 1: plant or a tomato plant, you need to figure out
Speaker 1: how to create conditions that are as amenable for that
Speaker 1: plant as the conditions that the weed your feet naturally
Speaker 1: chose because they were perfect. That's good advice, very much.
Speaker 1: If we want to just start a garden in our backyard, Okay,
Speaker 1: we have a twelve by twelve foot piece of ground
Speaker 1: that is sunny, we can fence it and we can
Speaker 1: grow a few vegetables and some herbs. What's our first step, Jack, Well,
Speaker 1: the first thing, of course, you have to the grass
Speaker 1: is its own ecosystem, and you need to change that.
Speaker 1: Just removing that and getting to the bare soil and
Speaker 1: being able to enrich that space compost and preparation, any
Speaker 1: kind of um. The idea is to go from that
Speaker 1: ecosystem that grass the two a more excited environment for
Speaker 1: the vegetables. Actually, should we cut the grass out, like
Speaker 1: get a sod cutter and cut the grass off. I
Speaker 1: use a flat shovel and I and I basically use
Speaker 1: a like a sod cutter on a twelve foot patch.
Speaker 1: It's not very big, so it's just enough to get
Speaker 1: two inches just under the kind of shave that off
Speaker 1: and even roll it right off like a sad would
Speaker 1: come off, and that that way, you're not getting rid
Speaker 1: of all the top soil. You want as much of
Speaker 1: that top soil as possible, and you don't really want
Speaker 1: to destroy the soil. So that's why just cutting it
Speaker 1: off the top um, applying compost, apply compost, homemade compost
Speaker 1: or bought if you can. I mean, the reality is
Speaker 1: and a lot of preparation there is setting setting up
Speaker 1: a home garden. You can do it as simply as
Speaker 1: just opening up that ground. And you can if you're
Speaker 1: making composts to apply that on there. We like, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, manure composts, either cattle or horse manures type
Speaker 1: leaf composts that to me are just the vegetables love
Speaker 1: that rather than just leaf Now, how should you dig
Speaker 1: the garden? How deep you should should you dig that
Speaker 1: twelve foot square patch? Use a fork? Use of fork,
Speaker 1: There's always depends on how deep the top soil is,
Speaker 1: And of course you want as deep atop soil as
Speaker 1: you can for a good vegetable garden. So fork helps
Speaker 1: to break that up and allow the compost to fall in. Um.
Speaker 1: We we avoid using like really heavy rotor tailor type cultivation,
Speaker 1: but just enough so it's open and just make that
Speaker 1: top bed for the seeds. Know that the seeds need
Speaker 1: that really special top surface to be putting in. And uh, Elliott,
Speaker 1: do you have a different methode. Well, I'm gonna agree
Speaker 1: with Jack. It's just that after I take my flat
Speaker 1: spade and the go two inches on or the surface
Speaker 1: of that sod, I'm just going to turn it over.
Speaker 1: And by turning it over, I am going to prevent
Speaker 1: it from re growing. But the most fertile part of
Speaker 1: your lawn is the top two inches. And in the
Speaker 1: old days, when people wanted a good fertile type soil
Speaker 1: to mix into a greenhouse or to make a potting mix,
Speaker 1: they would use what they called loam, And loam was
Speaker 1: made or created by taking the top two or three
Speaker 1: inches off a fertile pasture, turning it upside down and
Speaker 1: letting it rot for a couple of years. Well, you
Speaker 1: don't need to do that, because if you turn the
Speaker 1: two inches, they're upside down, and then add to it
Speaker 1: the compost that Jack is recommending, you can almost grow
Speaker 1: in it directly and as far as deep. People today
Speaker 1: find all sorts of ways to loosen the underneath. But
Speaker 1: I remember a British gardener I ran in two years ago.
Speaker 1: He just took his spading fork, pushed it in and
Speaker 1: pulled back on the handle, and that just lifted and
Speaker 1: loosened the soil underneath. Did allow a way for a
Speaker 1: lot of the composts to fall down in there. And
Speaker 1: you know we were talking about the tools and tool
Speaker 1: design and stuff like that. Well, most of the tools
Speaker 1: I design is because when I'm working on something, I
Speaker 1: think I'm congenitally lazy, and the whole time I'm doing it,
Speaker 1: I'm trying to figure out there must be an easier
Speaker 1: way to do this. And so when I saw this
Speaker 1: old British gardener say no, you just pushed the fork
Speaker 1: in and pull back slightly on the handle. I thought, dang,
Speaker 1: that's genius, and that will keep old people like me
Speaker 1: gardening well into their dotage because it isn't that hard
Speaker 1: to do. That's that And what about year after year?
Speaker 1: What what do you do to keep your garden soil beautiful?
Speaker 1: Once you once you started this twelve by twelve foot patch,
Speaker 1: what do you do next year? Well, you want to
Speaker 1: cover it over winter. Studies of shelling that if you
Speaker 1: have plants growing there, you're going to get better growth
Speaker 1: next year. But you want to make sure you can
Speaker 1: get rid of those plants easily next spring. And you
Speaker 1: could do the same. You could skim that top two
Speaker 1: inches off and turn it over. And especially if you
Speaker 1: had some clover that you sad in uh September at
Speaker 1: the end of the gardening season, that would be a
Speaker 1: great deal because it would have extracted some nitrogen from
Speaker 1: the air to put there. And if you don't have
Speaker 1: things growing there, just spreads some hey on it, and
Speaker 1: that organic matter just sitting on top will keep the
Speaker 1: soil organisms happy and the soil organisms. This is the
Speaker 1: wonderful thing about what's going on out there. These are
Speaker 1: the guys who run the show. When I first started,
Speaker 1: the fact that impressed me more than anything else, was
Speaker 1: reading one of the early soil microbiologists who explained that
Speaker 1: there are a million live organisms in a teaspoon of
Speaker 1: fertile soil. That number is considered far too low today, yeah,
Speaker 1: because we can we can count better. But there is
Speaker 1: this whole biological world. And now as we're paying attention
Speaker 1: not just to the soil but to the human microbiome,
Speaker 1: we're finding out that there is a great companionship between
Speaker 1: the soil microbiome and the human microbiome and keeping people
Speaker 1: alive and healthy. So you just want to protect all
Speaker 1: those wonderful free workers that you have. And the nice
Speaker 1: thing about it, their favorite food is organic matter. So
Speaker 1: that's why when you're buying probiotics, they say you're taking antibiotics,
Speaker 1: and they tell you the doctor tells you to take probiotics.
Speaker 1: You're taking in three hundred thousand units of probiotics of
Speaker 1: something or other. Microwns right, very very high. Elliot was saying,
Speaker 1: the ground just needs to be always covered as best
Speaker 1: to can it, and in fact that's covered with plant
Speaker 1: material growing plants, you mean, or even just the decomposing plants.
Speaker 1: So instead of the hey going to the compost step
Speaker 1: is just gonna lie on your garden for the winter,
Speaker 1: and and you're gonna scoop off what didn't decompose in
Speaker 1: the spring throat on your compost seep, and the gardener
Speaker 1: is ready to go. So both of you became gardeners
Speaker 1: at a very young age. Jack seventeen years older. Eighteen
Speaker 1: years old, you had an eye opening ex curious tell
Speaker 1: us about that. Well, I was working in um. You know,
Speaker 1: we had a family farm in Rhode Island, and I
Speaker 1: was working at some greenhouses UM. And you know, I
Speaker 1: loved to work in these spaces, the big old redwood
Speaker 1: glass houses. Uh. Well, you know, old farm families that
Speaker 1: were there, and I was loving and learning more. I
Speaker 1: had grown up with organic production on our own farm,
Speaker 1: and once I got into do more work in these greenhouses,
Speaker 1: that was my first exposure to chemicals UM. And what
Speaker 1: was a real surprise to me was that a lot
Speaker 1: of the stories that that my mentors there, my teachers
Speaker 1: that were there, were telling me was that, well that
Speaker 1: there the ideas of organic are the old days, and
Speaker 1: actually the management going forward is going to require something
Speaker 1: really different because the consumer it wants something different. And
Speaker 1: I thought that that was a really surprising thing to
Speaker 1: hear them say like they were following a trend that
Speaker 1: was being set by people who really didn't know what
Speaker 1: the consequence was. And I thought, you know, will be
Speaker 1: good be to really direct this this idea here towards
Speaker 1: growing food and doing it naturally. And you know, fortunately,
Speaker 1: I would say a lot of that eye opening was
Speaker 1: that there were not a lot of people talking about
Speaker 1: how to grow, especially in greenhouses organically, which is a
Speaker 1: very rare thing. UM that it was really Elliott's new
Speaker 1: organic grower and learning about what he had done in methodology,
Speaker 1: and I thought, this was this is something that I
Speaker 1: can apply and it was so intuitive. I was able
Speaker 1: to really apply it multiple places through the years and
Speaker 1: and honestly it's been it's just evolved and grown and
Speaker 1: really valuable. And so you call yourself an agrow ecologist.
Speaker 1: What does that mean exactly? Well, it's a big word
Speaker 1: for farmer UM. What it really means is, you know,
Speaker 1: in the systems that we work in UM, they're not
Speaker 1: just about food production. You know, these these systems are
Speaker 1: about stewarding land and caring for our communities. There's a
Speaker 1: cology associated to it. So part of this is about
Speaker 1: not just food. Is that the food is this product
Speaker 1: of a very healthy, interactive work and kind of ecosystem
Speaker 1: that takes a lot of people besides just the grower.
Speaker 1: Now does does your kind of farming include animal farming?
Speaker 1: So do you need you need the animal waste from
Speaker 1: cows and horses and chickens to enrich your soil? Is
Speaker 1: it important? It is very important. It's very important to
Speaker 1: have animal manures in an annual space. So the idea
Speaker 1: is that everything is moving right. In fact, the more
Speaker 1: that I've been able to do this and test and try,
Speaker 1: because again a lot of this stuff takes confidence to
Speaker 1: try a new method, to try something different. But we're
Speaker 1: always in that place sort of always curious of trying
Speaker 1: something different. And there were some old methods that had
Speaker 1: been you know, in Europe and UK for for a
Speaker 1: long time where they were doing these lay herbal Le
Speaker 1: type rotations where it was pastures to vegetables to grains
Speaker 1: and you know a mix of all these systems. It
Speaker 1: seems very idealistic in some ways compared to what we
Speaker 1: have in place, but we had the opportunity to start
Speaker 1: doing it. And what I realized is that and maybe
Speaker 1: this even in your own backyard. Um, the garden in
Speaker 1: the same place all the time isn't really necessary. In fact,
Speaker 1: if you have the animals and you have the grains,
Speaker 1: that everything is doing a kind of service. So by
Speaker 1: essence that the animals need to be involved just for
Speaker 1: the sake of the manures, move them around. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: even if the garden is in the same place that
Speaker 1: there's good composting, so to say. Start Stone Barns, which
Speaker 1: was this beautiful rolling hill of cattle pastures. The first
Speaker 1: thing we did was build the compost system, build a greenhouse,
Speaker 1: and everything kind of expanded from that place. And I've
Speaker 1: been watching this development ever since it started. Um, David
Speaker 1: Rockefeller giving the giving the property over. It's just Stone
Speaker 1: Barns to build this amazing, amazing facility. And uh, Elliott,
Speaker 1: what was your job there? I know that you had
Speaker 1: an involvement early on with the Stone Barns. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: they weren't looking at what they could really do. I
Speaker 1: think their vision of greenhouses and stuff was limited because
Speaker 1: at the start they had a twenty by thirty ft
Speaker 1: greenhouse planned and they were gonna have a huge restaurant
Speaker 1: there and everything. So I suggested the half acre greenhouse
Speaker 1: that Jack has now And if you want to see
Speaker 1: how well organic greenhouse growing can happen, it's just need
Speaker 1: to go there and visit Jack's greenhouse. I keep wanting
Speaker 1: to go to all the universities that still have professors
Speaker 1: that say organic is impossible and take them by the
Speaker 1: scruff the neck and drag them over there and show
Speaker 1: them screen house, because it's absolutely magnificent and it it
Speaker 1: shows that the the wisdom of the past, which wasn't
Speaker 1: quite as constrained as a thinking was back in nineteen
Speaker 1: when I started in this game. Uh. I have a
Speaker 1: book on my shelf that's absolutely delightful. The title is
Speaker 1: Roman Farming and it was written by an old Latin professor,
Speaker 1: and you go through this thing. Oh yeah, green manures,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, cover crops, crop rotations, growing legumes, making composts.
Speaker 1: It's all there. It's all been known since the dawn
Speaker 1: of agriculture. And you know you have to say, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: it must have been. How did people feed themselves for
Speaker 1: all those years? Because there are naturals something like that
Speaker 1: that work. Strangely enough, regardless, these principles are so simple,
Speaker 1: they're they're just nature principles. That can be applied to
Speaker 1: our relationship in the landscape just productively. But the greenhouse systems,
Speaker 1: for some reason or another, which is completely avoided bringing
Speaker 1: that kind of methodology into the space, into the into
Speaker 1: covered spaces. Yeah, because the covered space seems to want
Speaker 1: to just be like sanitized, and and that's couldn't be
Speaker 1: farther from the truth. Is biologically rich and healthy because
Speaker 1: of it. Yeah. Now, Martha, the greenhouse that I recommended
Speaker 1: to the Barns, which is the one that I I built,
Speaker 1: is called an open top greenhouse, and it has all
Speaker 1: sorts of little roofs across it and they open to
Speaker 1: the point that they opened completely, so if you wanted
Speaker 1: to let it rain in there, you can have all
Speaker 1: of those things open completely and let it rain. And
Speaker 1: what that gets you is much more natural conditions. And
Speaker 1: we have done that here in a simpler way because
Speaker 1: we have plastic greenhouses, but we've made them movable so
Speaker 1: we can move them like a big sled off of
Speaker 1: where they've been sitting for a year and and to
Speaker 1: another spot. And that was an idea that started in
Speaker 1: Europe about eighteen ninety because prior to them, in order
Speaker 1: to keep their greenhouses functioning well. The greenhouse growers would
Speaker 1: have a huge crew of employees taking out eighteen inches
Speaker 1: of soil which bovels at wheelbarrows and putting it another
Speaker 1: field outside, and they were renewing the soil for an
Speaker 1: awful lot of work. And one of them, obviously as
Speaker 1: naturally lazy as I am, said, well, gee, why don't
Speaker 1: we just moved the greenhouse. And so back in eighteen
Speaker 1: ninety the first movable greenhouses, these were ass houses. They
Speaker 1: sat on railroad wheels on railroad rails, and you could
Speaker 1: actually move a hundred by forty ft glass greenhouse that way.
Speaker 1: But they quickly found out that this was the most
Speaker 1: in the easiest way to sort of re naturalize an
Speaker 1: area that you have de naturalized by putting a cover
Speaker 1: over it. So the the greenhouse that Jack has does
Speaker 1: that by having a top that opens completely so the
Speaker 1: real sun and and the real rain and everything, and
Speaker 1: treat it as if we were outside. I did something.
Speaker 1: I did something along those lines. I don't have a
Speaker 1: greenhouse that moves, but my vegetable greenhouse was an in
Speaker 1: ground greenhouse, sort of modeled on your instructions, Elliott. So
Speaker 1: I put in the foundation of the of the greenhouse
Speaker 1: was was filled with really really good soil, all my
Speaker 1: composted best soil, eight ft deep. And then we started
Speaker 1: to plant in that, and then uh so years what
Speaker 1: years went by? And then I decided, well, I was
Speaker 1: getting a lot of weeds and things, and I decided, well,
Speaker 1: I'm going to now do raised beds. And I got
Speaker 1: I made raised beds you saw them, um, and filled
Speaker 1: them with a new, brand new, organic, beautifully made composts,
Speaker 1: and we have had such amazing vegetables now again because
Speaker 1: of this rejuvenation. So I'm thinking now maybe in three years,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna build a second maybe six inches higher
Speaker 1: on top of those boxes and feel more stuff in there.
Speaker 1: Does that sound like a good idea? That there are
Speaker 1: a lot of old studies that have found that the
Speaker 1: deeper your top soil, the better plants grow. So deep
Speaker 1: and the top soil you're doing exact And guess what
Speaker 1: I grew this year? A seventeen pound Swiss chart. I
Speaker 1: have a picture of it. I waited it was seventeen
Speaker 1: pounds with with the one little you know root, but
Speaker 1: the root wasn't so big compared to the plants itself.
Speaker 1: Seventeen pounds and it was absolutely edible. A white a
Speaker 1: white Ford hooks was charred. Oh, I'm quite sure it
Speaker 1: was a little just because it got extra large, didn't
Speaker 1: mean it was going to be tough or anything. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was delicious. So I think that. I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: so I'm so pleased with myself. You know, when something
Speaker 1: like that happens to a gardener, you just get so happy.
Speaker 1: And my carrots are so nice and long and straight.
Speaker 1: I think it's because of the new raised beds. You know,
Speaker 1: they're not meeting anything any little little hard soil under there.
Speaker 1: They're just just growing right in that beautiful compost. So
Speaker 1: we were I'm having fun with my in the ground
Speaker 1: in the box uh covered covered garden. One of the
Speaker 1: things that we've been doing for years in there is
Speaker 1: that when you keep adding compost, maybe just to to
Speaker 1: offer this too, that minimal amounts of composts each time
Speaker 1: is really valuable because what you're doing is just feeding
Speaker 1: the soil. Right. I think this is this idea that
Speaker 1: you need to add more for the sake of the plants.
Speaker 1: Like you did, you added a whole bunch more to
Speaker 1: start it fresh. In our system, we are actually continually
Speaker 1: adding slightly less all the time, because because there's so
Speaker 1: much release, if you put a lot on sometimes you'll
Speaker 1: end up a level. I was told that don't plant
Speaker 1: your lettuces right away in the new composts, plant hardier plants.
Speaker 1: I planted that switch chart which is not which is
Speaker 1: a hardy vegetable that grew so well, and the lettuces.
Speaker 1: Let other things grow first and then start your more
Speaker 1: tender vegetables, and that worked. To that point, mellow compost,
Speaker 1: like old aged compost, is really good to apply in
Speaker 1: those ways. First of all, just because you are just
Speaker 1: feeding the soil. You're not you don't try to like
Speaker 1: we feed the plants heavily with it. But to your point,
Speaker 1: diversity and rotation in these spaces is really important because
Speaker 1: when we grow the same plant over and over again,
Speaker 1: it just draws the same thing. So changing that and
Speaker 1: the other thing that we've been doing in this space.
Speaker 1: Elliot's this idea. Part of it is that protecting from
Speaker 1: the extreme of nature rather than just trying to grow
Speaker 1: hot winter, because allowing it to get cold in the winter,
Speaker 1: um and some of our houses completely frozen and others
Speaker 1: just at that cold temperature, everything flourishes in that way,
Speaker 1: and it's really low energy, which is the other thing
Speaker 1: greenhouses can be very nowadays, and greenhouses are going to
Speaker 1: continue to be more and more valuable, especially these types
Speaker 1: of on soil type extension houses, because the reality is
Speaker 1: climate change with stronger storm cells and that sort of thing.
Speaker 1: These houses are are actually giving us alternate options instead
Speaker 1: of just total exposure. So we're going to get into
Speaker 1: a little bit of territory now that I've been studying
Speaker 1: lot of and that that's the c e A, the
Speaker 1: controlled environment agriculture. Uh, these gigantic greenhouses that are appearing
Speaker 1: all over Europe, in the Middle East, Dubai has acres
Speaker 1: and acres and acres underglass. Russia has thousands of acres underglass,
Speaker 1: growing everything all winter long. Um, some of its hydroponics,
Speaker 1: some of it's in the ground. What do you think
Speaker 1: about this? Are they using too many chemicals or how
Speaker 1: do you compare that to the kind of in ground
Speaker 1: growing that you're talking about. Well, if you want to
Speaker 1: see really good in ground growing, as I just mentioned,
Speaker 1: what endo Jack's greenhouse that is an excellent soil that
Speaker 1: start with, and they are adding just the right amount
Speaker 1: of compost every year and they're also running a crop rotation,
Speaker 1: so if you can't change the soil, changing the crop
Speaker 1: and having a different stimulating effect on the soil micro organisms.
Speaker 1: I have been Dutch greenhouses that it just blew my mind.
Speaker 1: You're driving along the highway and for miles you can
Speaker 1: see nothing but glass houses. That it was. It's become
Speaker 1: such an incredible industry there, and the produce is wonderful.
Speaker 1: The ones that especially that are growing in in real soil.
Speaker 1: The ones that aren't growing in soil. I was never
Speaker 1: as impressed by the flavor and quality of what came out,
Speaker 1: but that would be that after almost sixty years of
Speaker 1: being an organic farmer, I my test buds have been prejudiced, right,
Speaker 1: But what do you think In America there are a
Speaker 1: lot of young companies growing um growing in greenhouses hydroponically.
Speaker 1: Do you think that they will succeed using nine less water,
Speaker 1: many of them recycled rainwater waters. Border is a big
Speaker 1: focus on on in these greenhouses because of because of
Speaker 1: the shortages that California is experiencing now Mexico is experiencing.
Speaker 1: What do you think about all of that? They less
Speaker 1: water figure is always bandied about, but my water costs
Speaker 1: me nothing. It falls out of the sky and uh,
Speaker 1: and I don't have to put energy into moving what
Speaker 1: water I do use around unless obviously it's a it's
Speaker 1: a very dry year. But the energy input to grow
Speaker 1: in those huge greenhouses, and especially where they want to
Speaker 1: grow all winter when there isn't enough sunlight and they
Speaker 1: have artificial lighting LEDs are using. Yeah, that makes me
Speaker 1: a little Uh. There's a professor at Cornell Dixon to
Speaker 1: Spooner who was one of the early people, uh pushing
Speaker 1: the idea of uh these huge plant greenhouses, who I
Speaker 1: believe wrote an article eventually said where he said he
Speaker 1: never thought they could recover the energy that was used
Speaker 1: in excess of what it would have been necessary to
Speaker 1: grow the crops out of doors. So if we are
Speaker 1: looking at using less energy, some of those systems are
Speaker 1: probably not the direction to to go in. Many of
Speaker 1: them are using solar panels. Many of them are you know,
Speaker 1: trying to create their own energy. Right, even with solar panels,
Speaker 1: it turned out it didn't work. So I've always been
Speaker 1: interested in in simple, no energy systems. And so we
Speaker 1: grow and harvest as late into the fall as we can.
Speaker 1: A lot of root crops that we store for the water,
Speaker 1: and we store them in a roots seller, and root
Speaker 1: crops the happiest place for them to be is in
Speaker 1: a dark, cool, moist uh area. And that's what you
Speaker 1: get for free by digging a hole in the ground
Speaker 1: and putting walls on a roof over it. And so
Speaker 1: this is costing absolutely nothing, and it cools down by
Speaker 1: we opened the vents and with the cool air in
Speaker 1: in the fall. I mean that the idea to me
Speaker 1: of where we should be looking in agriculture is for
Speaker 1: systems that work with what the natural forces are giving
Speaker 1: us and try and enhance what they do. And all
Speaker 1: of our carrots and beets and cabbage and Ruda vegas
Speaker 1: and all those we sell them every week, all water
Speaker 1: from this uh hole in the ground that on its
Speaker 1: own is maintaining ideal conditions, and that isn't we invented. Obviously.
Speaker 1: Root sellers have been around forever, but it has always
Speaker 1: appealed to me as a simple technology that we need
Speaker 1: to uh investigate more thoroughly. Well just to say that
Speaker 1: there is some pretty incredible technology that's being learned in
Speaker 1: those kind of environments. My personal feeling here is that
Speaker 1: we need to spend more time on the on the soil,
Speaker 1: and we have, we have a lot more to learn
Speaker 1: about what Elliots just saying that. The reality is it
Speaker 1: needs to be complementary. If there's new technology that's coming on,
Speaker 1: there's lots of ways for that to be actually supporting
Speaker 1: the local farm and regional food and farming that's happening
Speaker 1: in those spaces. I don't see it as a full
Speaker 1: replacement for sure. And in fact, maybe the one thing
Speaker 1: that I've heard is that looking at places like sealing
Speaker 1: this valley where we're sending you know, tens of thousands
Speaker 1: of pounds of let us across the country to us
Speaker 1: here for a place to be able to do that
Speaker 1: in a in an environment here, I can see the
Speaker 1: short term value of food security and all these things
Speaker 1: that they're talking about. But again, the huge amount of
Speaker 1: energy I think is overlooked, how simple what Elliott's talking
Speaker 1: about is, and how it's how easy really it is
Speaker 1: with enough support for us to produce more like we've
Speaker 1: been doing, and that is really important. Well, the food
Speaker 1: production in America has encountered a lot of problems. We
Speaker 1: are a nation of meat eaters. We are a nation
Speaker 1: of people eating maybe a lot of the wrong food.
Speaker 1: So many of us are searching for organics in the
Speaker 1: grocery stores. Are the things that are labeled organic? Organic?
Speaker 1: What should we suggest to everyone and what do you
Speaker 1: think the consumer really should be offered in the grocery stores.
Speaker 1: There's a wonderful old Italian saying, what you don't pay
Speaker 1: for at the food market, you pay for it the doctor.
Speaker 1: And I've always thought since that came from hundreds of
Speaker 1: years ago, it is a concept that people have realized
Speaker 1: that even if exceptional food does cost more, and we're
Speaker 1: not talking about fancy wines or something, We're just talking
Speaker 1: about food that has been carefully grown so it contains
Speaker 1: everything that food is supposed to contain, which means that
Speaker 1: the grower has been paying attention to creating an ideal soil.
Speaker 1: And the trouble with what was put in as the
Speaker 1: regulations for U. S d A Organic is that they
Speaker 1: focused on what you shouldn't do. Okay, you shouldn't use
Speaker 1: these chemical fertilizers, you shouldn't use these chemical pesticides. But
Speaker 1: and I was told this by someone who understands how
Speaker 1: you write rules in Washington, that that was the only
Speaker 1: way they could do it because there was no way
Speaker 1: that type of rules that lawyers write could be specific
Speaker 1: enough on the positive things that the grower is supposed
Speaker 1: to be doing to make the soil absolutely perfect to
Speaker 1: make the most nutricious vegetables. And so that's what you're
Speaker 1: small growers are focusing on. All these delightful young people
Speaker 1: we meet a lot of them, some of them work
Speaker 1: for us, who have gotten inspired by the idea that
Speaker 1: food that should be grown to be as nutritious as possible,
Speaker 1: and they're the ones turning out a wonderful food today,
Speaker 1: and very often that isn't available in the supermarket, but
Speaker 1: it's available at farmers markets and farm stands on farm. Well, Elliott,
Speaker 1: what you said about your farmers being inspired, that's that's
Speaker 1: the important thing here. So few people are being inspired
Speaker 1: because they are not in contact, which is another thing
Speaker 1: that that part of this whole thing comes from this
Speaker 1: desire and sort of comp compelled senses to want to
Speaker 1: eat that and too to know where it's coming from.
Speaker 1: I mean, so few of us have the privilege of
Speaker 1: actually being able to have access to gardens, and the
Speaker 1: less farms there are and the less people are involved
Speaker 1: in like good artisan food and good farming locally, the
Speaker 1: less opportunity for all of us to get that connection.
Speaker 1: So even if it's not like we should, you know,
Speaker 1: don't feel bad if you can't buy all organic product,
Speaker 1: but I know that you're you can visit places and
Speaker 1: you can connect to food and farming in your local area,
Speaker 1: because that's that's what will change the grocery store and
Speaker 1: that's what will change are eating habits. It's it's very simple.
Speaker 1: We don't connect enough to our food and there are
Speaker 1: not enough people in our local towns and communities that
Speaker 1: have have been empowered to celebrate that with us. And
Speaker 1: when we're inspired as as I certainly wasn't as Elliott was,
Speaker 1: as all of the farmers that have worked with us
Speaker 1: over all these years, and the chefs and the florists
Speaker 1: and the leather makers, and when they when they start
Speaker 1: to catch on to what's going on, um, so does
Speaker 1: the rest of the community. And an access becomes available
Speaker 1: when it's getting shipped in and who knows where it
Speaker 1: came from and we're just looking for that time, how
Speaker 1: many weeks ago tomatoes picked. There's too many questions, too
Speaker 1: many questions to actually have answers too, So the local
Speaker 1: food system is transparent, it's traceable, and it's actually beautiful. Yes,
Speaker 1: but again it's hard for people who are working in
Speaker 1: an all has to find the farmer's market, um and
Speaker 1: find time to go to the farmers market. Farmers markets
Speaker 1: are once a week in most neighborhoods. That's not enough time.
Speaker 1: It's hard for farmers to find those guys in the
Speaker 1: office I went to. I was up in Maine this
Speaker 1: weekend at my my house in Seal Harbor. I went
Speaker 1: to the farmer's market in Bar Harbor. And I love
Speaker 1: going to that market. I love seeing what is being
Speaker 1: grown locally. I have so much fun on on a
Speaker 1: first name basis with all the farmers and and it's
Speaker 1: so nice to see the activity there. I think if
Speaker 1: everybody could experience that and start shopping that way, as
Speaker 1: you suggest, it might be very very good for for
Speaker 1: our health first of all, of course, and also for
Speaker 1: our environment. Uh. Teaching kids where things come from is
Speaker 1: another way teaching agriculture and school would be a very
Speaker 1: good initiative. You know we I I learned how to sew,
Speaker 1: and I learned how to draw architecture. I knew how
Speaker 1: I learned automotive techniques in school, but I didn't learn gardening.
Speaker 1: But I didn't learn gardening. And now wouldn't it be
Speaker 1: great if there were a gardening course in you know,
Speaker 1: a required course in grammar school. Certainly whenever there's kids
Speaker 1: were For many many years at Stone Barns we had
Speaker 1: tens of thousands of kids from schools coming and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, getting questions like who put this carrot in
Speaker 1: the ground, you know, really not knowing, and how quickly
Speaker 1: somebody who has really has no idea how natural it is,
Speaker 1: because it is really it doesn't take You don't have
Speaker 1: to buy all of your food from the farmer's market
Speaker 1: tomorrow and totally change your life, although if you can.
Speaker 1: But the reality is even just going and visiting helps
Speaker 1: change the frame of mind, which is that's the shift
Speaker 1: that needs to happen. Well. Alice Waters has been very
Speaker 1: instrumental in teaching us how to grow things and enjoy
Speaker 1: the organic um. Many people on the West Coast or
Speaker 1: trying to do that. You have R. S. Elliott has
Speaker 1: have spearheaded the whole movement here on the East Coast.
Speaker 1: It's very important for us to pay attention main organic
Speaker 1: farmers and Growers Association. That's a very fantastic group working
Speaker 1: hard too. And what's what what groups around here jack
Speaker 1: in and around uh New York City. Well, there's there
Speaker 1: are lots of community gardens across New York City that
Speaker 1: are doing incredible things. Some of the some of our
Speaker 1: friends in the South Bronx and Brooklyn are doing huge
Speaker 1: amounts of work and big gardens down there. Um, down
Speaker 1: even in Battery Park. It's a beautiful garden we worked
Speaker 1: with down there. And so there are places there there's growing.
Speaker 1: I see. There are other organizations uh no FA in
Speaker 1: all the states in the Northeast, with the exception of MAFKA,
Speaker 1: UM you know that have great resource lists of where
Speaker 1: the farms are and where that's happening. If you're you know,
Speaker 1: Connecticut Grown and all these groups, you know there is
Speaker 1: a strong community of farmers, small farmers in local community
Speaker 1: and local artisans that are out there. Um. But again,
Speaker 1: one farmers market a week doesn't satisfy that, and it
Speaker 1: doesn't we were all kind of contributing to either that
Speaker 1: happening or not happening. Right. How were you introduced to
Speaker 1: farming and organic farming originally? Elliott? What made you go
Speaker 1: in this amazing direction that you've really devoted your life. Ship. Well,
Speaker 1: two of the same people who at one point or
Speaker 1: another inspired you, Uh, Scott and Helen Nearing wrote a
Speaker 1: book and Living the Good Life Hippies looking for the
Speaker 1: Best Wife. Right, we were that, right, Yeah. I was
Speaker 1: fascinated by that book and and I came and met
Speaker 1: them and we became friends. And a couple of years later,
Speaker 1: when I decided I was going to do this for real. Uh,
Speaker 1: we stopped by and they sold us. Uh. The land
Speaker 1: were on for what they paid for twenty years before,
Speaker 1: because they took pity on a young couple who had
Speaker 1: enough didn't have enough money to really buy land. And
Speaker 1: it made it that much more of an adventure because
Speaker 1: it was all covered with spruce and fir forest. So
Speaker 1: we had to cut down a lot of trees and
Speaker 1: roll out a lot of rocks. But and this is
Speaker 1: an important story, what we started with was that very
Speaker 1: sandy soil covered with trees and rocks with a pH
Speaker 1: four point three. And we've been able to turn that
Speaker 1: surely by adding organic matter into the unbelievably productive farm
Speaker 1: we have at the moment. So my attitude about the
Speaker 1: world running out of food is No, it isn't. You
Speaker 1: just have to realize that Mother Nature's systems are incredibly
Speaker 1: productive and you just have to plug into them. And
Speaker 1: organic matter and compost or two of the the most
Speaker 1: important inputs. Well, I'm very glad that you're so optimistic.
Speaker 1: I hope that you're right. I hope that we can
Speaker 1: return more more to nature and and uh and get
Speaker 1: more incredibly nutritious food growing all over the world. I mean,
Speaker 1: it is so important for us. And yes, I love
Speaker 1: that book, Living the Good Life. I even wrote a
Speaker 1: sequel to it, called Living the Good Long Life. I
Speaker 1: don't know if I ever sent you a copy of that, Elliott,
Speaker 1: But you're you're doing a good job of living the
Speaker 1: good long life. Uh. What good food helps, and loving
Speaker 1: the work you're doing helps. Since that's what you're doing
Speaker 1: all day, every day, it's important that you enjoy it.
Speaker 1: And so your daughter is running the farm now, she
Speaker 1: has a taken over management. She's doing a wonderful job
Speaker 1: of it. Uh. And she had her own farm and
Speaker 1: in Colorado for a number of years before she moved
Speaker 1: back east. And and then she worked as a consultant
Speaker 1: with people like Wigmans and remal greenhouses and is keeping
Speaker 1: the farm incredibly productive? That is such such good news. Well,
Speaker 1: we have so many really serious problems facing us as
Speaker 1: a nation, as a world. We have climate change which
Speaker 1: is very evident. But what are your words of advice
Speaker 1: to all of us, Jack, What what can we do
Speaker 1: like right now to start helping solve these problems. Well,
Speaker 1: just to first, the thing to know is that everybody
Speaker 1: is a contributor to this planet. I mean, we are all.
Speaker 1: We all have an opportunity to do something, and you
Speaker 1: should really take that to heart because it's not just
Speaker 1: the producers. It's not just chefs making food for you.
Speaker 1: Your choice matters every single day, and you can help
Speaker 1: direct that from a farm perspective. It's also probably valuable
Speaker 1: to remember that farms are not just producing food. They're
Speaker 1: the farmers. The people that are on that land are
Speaker 1: caring for that land. And if you want to do
Speaker 1: something for the planet, let's care for the land. Let's
Speaker 1: care for the planet. And so are kind of stewardship work.
Speaker 1: Like I said, it's it's part just for the ecology
Speaker 1: of things, it's part just for making sure that people
Speaker 1: have access. But we have to change the attitude from
Speaker 1: factory farming to more responsible farming right well, factory farming
Speaker 1: has has wrote on the coattails of non renewable resources
Speaker 1: and all kinds of input driven systems and all sorts
Speaker 1: of things that had not been calculated, and we hadn't
Speaker 1: calculated the damage done to both the ecosystems themselves in
Speaker 1: the planet, but also our societies. So we're not including
Speaker 1: everyone right now, and we're not actually protecting the place
Speaker 1: that is going to provide for us in the future.
Speaker 1: So that's why farmers are so valuable, and that's why
Speaker 1: you need them in your community, and you need artisans
Speaker 1: and all of the other stacks of people that help.
Speaker 1: And so when you support your local baker, that's that's
Speaker 1: choosing the right philosophy around how they bake. Or you're
Speaker 1: going to your farmer's market, or you're buying pickles from
Speaker 1: this person, you're buying root vegetables, or you're actually showing
Speaker 1: up at the farmer's market in the rain. Any of
Speaker 1: those on horseback. I on horseback, I mean, you know, well,
Speaker 1: I take sacks along with me and hang them on
Speaker 1: the saddle. I guess we can't be too I mean,
Speaker 1: even if it's impossible. Even if the change that we're
Speaker 1: asking for is impossible, we should be driven to try
Speaker 1: to make it better and encourage one's children to plant
Speaker 1: and to grow uh, and go one's grandchildren. My granddaughter
Speaker 1: Jude has basil plants on her little terrorists in New
Speaker 1: York City. She's picking her lettuce. She had four climbing
Speaker 1: bean plants. She was so proud. They germinated and grew
Speaker 1: really fast. I showed her how to put strings and
Speaker 1: tie them around the railing so that the beans would
Speaker 1: grow up. Uh, And she's so proud of herself. And
Speaker 1: I think we have to teach our all children the
Speaker 1: the validity of growing one's own food and teach them
Speaker 1: how to grow. It's just important. There is no garden
Speaker 1: too small. First of all, like just growing a basil
Speaker 1: plant in your window is enough to have a feeling.
Speaker 1: But the other thing is that a farmlike Elliott's or
Speaker 1: a farmlike ours, where the footprints small comparatively to what
Speaker 1: you're talking about for a massive scale, but we're feeding
Speaker 1: a lot of people. And if there are more and
Speaker 1: more spreading, if that spreads and people are asking for
Speaker 1: that in our communities and recognizing why it's so good
Speaker 1: for the soil, Why it's so good for the carbon,
Speaker 1: why it's so good for water and bio diversity, um
Speaker 1: and protected places. People will have more access to that
Speaker 1: kind of land and that kind of food, and health
Speaker 1: gets health. That's the idea. And Elliot, what's your what's
Speaker 1: your secret for living the good long life? Enjoying what
Speaker 1: you do? My favorite story was when I learned we
Speaker 1: we grow the best tasting carrots anybody ever eight by
Speaker 1: planting them just after the middle of August and then
Speaker 1: sliding a greenhouse over them and leaving him in the
Speaker 1: ground and harvesting him November through February. And these are
Speaker 1: sold in our local markets as candy carrots. And by
Speaker 1: staying in the cold ground over winter, this is an
Speaker 1: unheeded greenhouse, they just get sweeter and sweeter. And my
Speaker 1: wife was delivering at the local food co op early
Speaker 1: one morning a load of our vegetables, including carrots, and
Speaker 1: the produce manager, when he saw her pull up, came
Speaker 1: out and said, Oh, I'm so glad you're here early.
Speaker 1: There's a man waiting in the parking lot and we're
Speaker 1: out of your carrots. I hope you brought ut them.
Speaker 1: His daughter refuses to go to school without one of
Speaker 1: your carrots in her lunch box. And I found out
Speaker 1: that our carrots had become the trading item of choice
Speaker 1: in local grade school lunch boxes. Now we became very
Speaker 1: popular with the parents because we had little Johnny a
Speaker 1: little Mary eating vegetables. But it was just a case
Speaker 1: of focusing on growing the most flavorful, tender version of
Speaker 1: whatever we were after. And to develop case budzs like
Speaker 1: that early on in your children is such a such
Speaker 1: a gift and uh and and to be able to
Speaker 1: satisfy them is such a such a treasure. Really, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's not a chore, right, it's not a chore. That's
Speaker 1: part of this is that to show how much you
Speaker 1: have to love what you grow and love what you eat,
Speaker 1: enjoy it, and and that if we future looks like that,
Speaker 1: we're in good shape. Well. I hope all of you
Speaker 1: listening have gotten some words of wisdom from these two
Speaker 1: great gardeners. I hope that you, if you haven't already,
Speaker 1: start a garden, grow delicious, delicious things for you and
Speaker 1: your family and experience the great joy of gardening. I
Speaker 1: have found that I have become more and more of
Speaker 1: a gardener and less and less of anything else since. Uh,
Speaker 1: with the gardening, I just that's all I want to
Speaker 1: do is garden. I want to grow, grow, grow, and
Speaker 1: it's uh. And and give away. I love giving everything
Speaker 1: I grow away. It's so it's so pleasurable. So thank
Speaker 1: you so much Elliot for taking the time out of
Speaker 1: your busy farming day. And Jack, I know you have
Speaker 1: to get back to those huge greenhouses and uh and
Speaker 1: cut some lettuces for dinner at the Stone Barns restaurant
Speaker 1: for tonight. Right. That's it's still still a lot of
Speaker 1: light we do eight o'clock is still it's still light
Speaker 1: out at eight o'clock. It's still light at eight o'clock. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But if anyone who's listening to this podcast us, please
Speaker 1: come visit us at Stone Barns and keep your ear
Speaker 1: out for our upcoming podcast and and uh and you
Speaker 1: will love what you learn at either the beautiful farm
Speaker 1: of Elliott Coleman up in Harborside, Maine, or at the
Speaker 1: Stone Barns complex right in Pocantico, New York. Fantastic. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much, Thank you, Martha. Thanks Martha,