Dirt Rich Episode 13: Planting Minnesota Garlic
Jerry Ford and Sunny Ruthchild are longtime friends in Minnesota garlic and organic farming. Sunny runs Merryweather Gardens near Walnut Grove, raising garlic, poultry, vegetables, and pigs who are happy to be the clean-up crew for her orchard. Jerry raises replacement dairy heifers, grass-fed beef, and garlic with his family at Living Song Farm near…
Read MoreDirt Rich Episode 59: Enchanted Meadows – In Transition
Chad Crowley firmly believes that for those who want to get into dairy or farming in general, grazing is the way to go. That route has certainly gone well for him. He was told many times that he couldn’t find success in farming because he didn’t grow up on one, but today he and his…
Read MoreDirt Rich Episode 36: Growing Grazing Dairy Farmers
Angie Walter, the SFA/DGA Central Minnesota Education Coordinator, and her husband Nate run an organic dairy in Central Minnesota, and are also masters in the Dairy Grazing Apprenticeship program. Today’s episode features them in conversation with their first apprentice, Ryan Heinen, who now manages a dairy in Waukesha, Wisconsin. His passion for ecology and restoration…
Read MoreDirt Rich Episode 19: Family Dairies & Apprenticeships
My hope for dairy in the future…is trying to keep these small family farms alive.” Angie Walter runs an organic, grazing dairy farm with her family in central Minnesota. The family of four raises 100 Norwegian Red, Red Holstein, and Guernsey crosses on 370 acres. Angie is also the Central Minnesota Education Coordinator for the…
Read MoreDirt Rich Episode 17: Wintering Cattle Roundtable
Winter can be the most expensive time to own a cow in the Midwest. As the season changes, five of our staff who also raise beef and dairy cows gathered to share the ways that they’ve found to reduce the cost (and labor) of wintering cattle on their unique operations. All five live in different…
Read MoreDirt Rich Episode 9: “Silvopasture in Minnesota”
Silvopasture: “the intentional integration of trees, forage, and livestock into one intensively managed system.” New Dirt Rich voices Jared Luhman and Tyler Carlson give an intro to silvopasture practices, covering a little history, how silvopasture looks today, and the economic and biological benefits these systems can provide to Minnesota farmers. Stay tuned for next week’s…
Read MoreDirt Rich Episode 4: La Vie en Rows
Growing in a covered space seems to be a trend for many local vegetable growers and there is good reason in our northern climate. To help measure the soil health both inside and outside of a caterpillar tunnel, farmers can use a soil health report card with four easy soil health tests. SFA Crow River Chapter…
Read MoreDirt Rich Episode 6: Harvesting Minnesota Garlic
Garlic harvest is upon us! This specialty crop is growing as a premium product in Minnesota markets and pantries. Today we chat with Jerry Ford, a seasoned garlic grower who fell into it in 2002 and hasn’t stopped since. He walks us through his harvest and post-harvest processes, shares the conservation history of the fourth-generation…
Read MoreDirt Rich Episode 2: A Culture of Soil Health
Theresa calls up Troy to learn more about the NRCS’s role in soil health work in Minnesota, how he sees livestock fitting into the picture, and how he wound up moving here from Texas. From a standpoint of land resiliency and the pandemic at large, Troy makes it clear that “we’ve always got to be…
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