Episodios

  • Wholesome Meadow Farms
    Nov 3 2025
    Today I'm talking with Mimi at Wholesome Meadow Farms. www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead Muck Boots Calendars.Com If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Mimi at Wholesome Meadow Farms in Florida. Good morning, Mimi. How are you? Good morning. How are you? I'm good. How's the weather in Florida? It's nice. It's fall weather and it's not hot. It's really nice and cool. 00:27 So we're really excited about the new weather right now. I'm in Minnesota and it is as gray as it can possibly be and it is cold and they're saying rain today. Well, it is still sunshine in Florida. It's really nice at the farm with the nice cool weather coming in. It makes it much easier to work on the farm for sure. Oh, it always does. We love cool days in Minnesota in the summer because in the summer, 00:57 It can get as hot as it gets in Florida and it can be just as muggy as it gets in Florida. So I understand what you're saying. um So when you say it's cool, like how cool is it there? 70, 65 to 70 right now. Okay. Well, we have had frost every morning for the last three mornings. So my definition of cool is a little bit colder than yours. Yes. Yes. 01:23 But I'm not mad about it. Fall is my favorite season. So I am tickled that we in mid fall. It's been beautiful. All right. So tell me a little bit about yourself and wholesome whatever the heck it is. I forget the name because I've been sick. I'm sorry. Tell me about your place. No problem. started the place. I grew up in a farm back home and I really wanted to go back into the farm. We started uh a little homestead. 01:52 but the region in Vernon and it's about 11 acres and we have a few animals. have goats, we have a lot of chickens and we do have some pigs and we're growing, you know, steadily growing our flock and we're excited about it because it's pretty flat uh area. It has different, um we kind of parsing in our four areas region so we can move our flock. 02:22 around ah and then we also putting on a putting on one of the lot a house there so we're excited about that to be permanently at the farm and operating so it's uh that's overall uh the farm we also building a pond so that we can have our ducks and other you know animals being able to enjoy a pond as well. 02:50 Very nice. So what made you want to get into this? Because I grew up on a farm, I wanted to always go back to that root and being able to raise my own animals and being able to grow vegetables or food source in a natural way like it used to be, know, non-GMO, pasture-raised animals so that 03:19 we have that wholesomeness and then being able to have more of um a source of food that we love raising and being able to. uh 03:36 offer that same type of uh experience to other people too and enjoy a natural made food source. oh so I'm glad that you mentioned that because not everyone who has a homestead or a farm sells their products that they produce from the farm. But is that was that the plan when you started this? Yes and no. We also have uh some of our people, the people I know in community 04:06 They also expressed the want to have naturally, you know, a reliable food. So we started selling our uh products to some friends and family and then expanding now to the other market. So that's how it falls from, you know, being able to share the things that we oh 04:35 we raise and then trying to expand it to a bigger market right now. Okay. So that leads me to my next question. Do people come to your place to buy your produce and your other products or do you sell it like a farmer's market or are you looking to get into grocery stores? Some people do come at the farm to pick up the items. I also bring them to some farm swap. 05:03 and we're trying to also get them to farmers market. Okay, awesome. Awesome. So how long have you been doing it? About a year now. We've been doing the farm. We're in our second year going in. Okay, do you love it? Yes. Yes. 05:29 It's like, you know, it brings me back to my childhood where, you know, we do chores, we attend the land and we attend to the animals. So it's basically bringing back to our childhood. Yeah. And you're not the first person to tell me that. And the thing that comes up a lot on this podcast is memories and childhood and play. And I am not saying that homesteading is just playing. 05:59 because it's not, it's a lot of work. It's a lot of work, it's a lot of work. But the reward is to be able to say, I pour my, you know, all my energy into this and I'm able to have a food that I know where it came from. uh That's the reward. And then being able to just have ...
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    29 m
  • AQuack AndaCluck Farm
    Oct 31 2025
    Today I'm talking with Rebecca at AQuack AndaCluck Farm. www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead Muck Boots Calendars.Com If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Rebecca at a Quack and a Cluck farm in Illinois. Good morning, Rebecca. How are you? Good morning. Doing good. Good. Well, how's the weather there? Because it's been raining since last night here in Minnesota. Well, we didn't get rain until this morning and now it's drizzling and cold. 00:28 Yeah, and I hate to sound like a farmer, but we need the rain, so I guess it's okay. Yeah, we definitely do. Definitely. It's really dry. It's been dry. It's needed. um Okay, so the first question I have for you is how you came up with a quack and a cluck for the name. You know, honestly, 00:51 I sat and I thought about it for a very long time. And one thing that I did was, you know, kind of come up with some names and I Google search just to make sure, you know, nobody else had any of them. didn't want to, you know, take somebody else's name. And it just kind of hit me. I'm like, well, we got chickens and we got ducks. They make noises. There we go. And so I just, it just kind of came together. It worked out great. 01:20 I love it. And the only thing that's hard for me as the podcast host is that I have to make sure I pronounce cluck very carefully. Yeah. Yeah. There was another lady who had a name like yours and it was something it had clucking in it. And I I practiced for a whole day in my head and out loud saying clucking. So I didn't screw it up. uh Yeah. You know, and it 01:50 It only takes just a little bit of a tweak in there for it to sound like something completely different. Yeah. And that's the one word that I never ever say on the podcast because I don't want people to be alienated. So, right. So every time I find somebody with a name that ends in UCK, I'm like, OK, Mary Evelyn, be careful of how you say this word. Right. Yes. Very enunciate. Yes. So is that chicks that I hear in the background? It is. Yes. 02:20 um This is our first year of doing fall hatches. um I'm not so sure that I like doing it. uh Of course, it's partly because my chickens are like, no, we're out. So it's been kind of random on what's hatching and what we're able to hatch. Okay. 02:45 Well, it's a lovely sound. think that chick peeps are beautiful to hear. do not, I'm gonna step off to the side for a second. The peeps that they sell at Easter, I hate them. I don't like them. Every year I try one and I go, God, those are gross. But baby chicken peeps, the sound are just beautiful. So. Yes, I agree. And on that side note of yours, I do not like those peeps. 03:15 I want to like them and my son always ends up getting some because he loves them and he's like try again so I eat one and I'm like it's just straight sugar it's gross. They're cute they are cute I'll give them that it's just that texture is just I can't get past that. either I don't like them and my husband just laughs at me he's like you love marshmallows. 03:42 And I'm spoiled. I have had homemade marshmallows before. Homemade marshmallows are fantastic. And Peeps got nothing on them. No, no. And once you have the homemade marshmallows, you can't even look at it or even taste, you know, the store-bought marshmallows the same. They just don't taste the same to me. No, they absolutely do not. There is a place up in Duluth, I think it is. I interviewed the lady that owns it and she makes homemade marshmallows and she sent 04:12 I actually ordered some from her. had to try them. And she sent me a package and I opened them the day I got them and they were gone. There were like 12 in the bag. And I ate probably eight of them. I saved four. Two for my husband, two for my son. Because I'm a good mom and I am a good wife. I wish it was the same here. I make something like that and it doesn't even really have time to set up before the kids are reaching in and taking them out and eating them. 04:41 It's like same day they're gone. yeah, absolutely. OK, so let's let's bring it back in the line about homesteading. Tell me about yourself and what you do at a quack and a clog farm. Well, we we are trying to be a little bit more self-sufficient. um So we have lots of chickens, plenty of chickens. A lot of them, though, are also 05:11 ones that we're trying to preserve, trying to bring back, like the Pavlovaskan chicken breed. I have heard it pronounced, you know, a little bit different. So I may not be saying it right to everybody, but I've heard it both ways. The Sebastopol geese. We also have like Mandarin ducks and ...
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    36 m
  • Momma Dragon's Homestead
    Oct 29 2025
    Today I'm talking with Susan at Momma Dragon's Homestead. www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead Muck Boots Calendars.Com If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Susan at Mama Dragon's Homestead in Maryland, of all places. Good morning, Susan, how are you? Good morning, I'm doing well. How are you? Well, let's be honest, you and I are both coming off of a two-week sickness. And if I sound rough, it's because I have had the most 00:26 ridiculously miserable head cold upper respiratory thing since two Tuesdays ago. And how long have you had it? It's been about the same. I'm on week three and doing so much better than I was before. My tonsils decided that they were going to get huge on me. So but it's something that my kids brought home for sure. Yeah, my kid went to see his girlfriend and she had been sick and I didn't know she'd been sick. 00:54 And I think he brought it home from her place. So I'm kind of mildly displeased with him, but I love him. And so I'm just like, eh, it could have been my husband bringing it home from work. can't find anybody to blame. I just have to be miserable. So if Susan sounds snorky or I sound snorky, that's why. And listener, if you are smart, 01:19 try to make sure you wash your hands and if you feel okay about it wear a mask when you go out in public because it is going around. Yeah it is. It's gross you do not want this. It has been so bad. Okay so first off I'm so happy that you're you're well enough to chat with me and second off why is it mama dragons homestead? um I really really love dragons. um 01:47 I was definitely uh kind of a horse girl growing up. But then like in middle school, was like, you know what? I'm going to just make these look like dragons now. dragons have just been something that I've loved for most of my life. And I'm an artist as well. So I draw a lot of dragons. uh I didn't want uh my homestead to be uh 02:17 a name that I already have online elsewhere or anything. I tried to make it kind of, well, I love dragons. So I'm a mama. Here's dragons. Mama dragon. Well, it's attention getting because I saw it on Facebook and I was like, hmm, what is this? Does she raise dragons? Do they exist? My kids, my kids are all grown. But if you had figured out a way to find dragon eggs, hatch them and raise dragons, they would have been all over that. Oh, if I 02:46 you'll be the first to know because I'm all about that. Yeah, the book that got my youngest hooked on reading was Aragon and he talked about dragon eggs incessantly for months after he read that book. I actually have read that one too. think I was um in middle school as well when I read that one. ah But my first uh big dragon series book was Anna Caffrey's Dragon Riders of Fern. Mine too. 03:14 love that series. Absolutely love it. Me too. And what I didn't know when I started, the first one I read, we're going to get into books for a minute, was The White Dragon because I didn't know there were other books before that one. And that's the one that got me sucked in. And then as a young adult, I learned that there were so many more. And then I think she's died now. think Emma Caffrey has passed. So there will be no more Pern books. And I'm kind of sad about it. 03:44 She did collaborate with her son. So her son has, they've got books that they've done together and some that he's done. So there's still some Anne McCaffrey magic out there. I may have to dig into it. I haven't read one in a long time. Okay. Well, anyone who's a reader and loves dragons and loves words, go find the Pern series because it is fabulous. So I don't want to get into books too much because I am a word nerd and a 04:12 book geek and we could spend two hours and that's not what this podcast is about. keep joking that I need to start a book podcast and I just don't have the time right now to invest in a second podcast. So maybe if I do do one in a year or so, I'll have to have you come back and we'll talk books. But what do you do at Mama Dragon's Homestead? What are you guys going on there? um So we just started out. This is 04:40 This is my first year homesteading and I literally took a nose dive into it. um And in February, me and my kids started planting our little garden. had pumpkins, corn, uh tomato, every tomato. planted way too many tomatoes. um Zucchini, we got that all going and I felt like really hopeful for it. I'm actually terrible at keeping any kind of plant thing alive. So the fact that uh 05:09 it was working was really exciting and encouraging for me. And then I was going to be getting into canning. um But on ...
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    37 m
  • Hens, Hooves & Honey Farms
    Oct 27 2025
    Today I'm talking with Paula at Hens, Hooves & Honey Farms. You can follow on Facebook as well. Sean's book - Exit Farming: Starving the Systems That Farm You www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead Muck Boots Calendars.Com If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Paula at Hens, Hoves, and Honey Farms in California. Good afternoon, Paula. How are you? Good afternoon. How are you? I'm good. It looks like it's sunny there. Oh, yeah. It's nice and warm down here today. Oh, well, I think it's not even 50 degrees in Minnesota where I am. 00:29 Oh, wow, that's cold already. Yeah, fall is on the way. It's really sunny though. So if you don't think about it too hard, it still looks like summertime outside. So tell me about yourself and what you guys do at your place. So my husband and I bought some land about 15 years ago. 00:54 It kind of started, my husband at the age of 32 was diagnosed with cancer and the cause of it from what the doctors could understand was more environmental causes. Basically the water, the food, all the stuff, all the toxins and everything. So we kind of decided that we wanted to grow our own food, just kind of live a healthier lifestyle, so to speak. 01:23 Um, so we got some land and we started small with cattle and pigs and then just slowly over the years, um, we've just kind of expanded things and that's kind of how we got started. How long ago was this? About 15 years ago. And how's your husband now? He's great. He is cancer free and has been, I mean, since it went away about 01:52 14 years ago. Awesome. So whatever you guys did helped. Yes, hopefully. It never comes back. Good. It looks like you have a lot going on. So do you grow produce? Do you grow animals? Do you grow both? Well, right now we grow animals. We have some fruit trees and stuff growing that we've been slowly planting over the years to just kind of get everything ready. uh 02:20 We don't actually live on that farm that we are starting, but we literally make the drive every single weekend. We live in Southern California and we bought up in Northern California. Oh, okay. We have a foreman that lives on the property and he takes care of the animals during the week. then usually Jeff and I try to make a three or a four day weekend trip out of it. And we drive up and down. 02:49 and help take care of the animals, make sure everything's up to date, make sure they have their food, their pens are secured, run all the errands, and then we get to play with them and have some fun. So it's like work and vacation mixed together? Yes. Okay, what kind of animals do you have there? So right now we have mini Hereford cows, and then we have our pigs. 03:18 which we have uh Magna-Listas. ah And then we have about 40 chickens. And we've got what else? Oh, we have a lot of Nigerian goats that we um have started breeding about two years ago. We kind of dabbled into the goat world. We've always just done the pigs, the chickens and the cows and up by our property. We have a lot of poison oak, which my husband is highly allergic to. oh 03:48 We decided to bring in some goats to help try to clear it and then we just kind of fell in love with the breed and we slowly grown them over the last two years. So um now we breed them and sell them. 04:06 Okay. So I was going to ask you if the animals earn their keep. The goats do. Oh yes, the goats do and the, uh, the cattle do as well. So we kind of run them through a cycle. We have, let the grass kind of grow back. We let the cows go through and graze first, and then we'll kind of run the goats behind them to pick up cause cows are kind of a little bit more picky about what they eat. Yeah. And so the goats will go behind them and kind of get what they didn't get. And then. 04:35 We'll send the pigs through afterwards and they pretty much take everything down to the dirt. And do you let the chickens go out there too or is that a whole different thing? We do have them out right now. uh We're training our, we got some rescue puppies. We have two great Pyrenees, they're not puppies actually, that we got. And one of them we rescued uh from a guy on Craigslist. 05:02 who was getting rid of her for free because she was killing his chickens. uh And we're like, that's okay, we don't need her for chickens, we needed her for the goats. ah So she's done a phenomenal job with the goats, but she doesn't like the chickens. So we have a huge run area where they're kind of fenced off so she can't get to them. And then we have another great Pyrenees named Clyde that we rescued about six months ago. 05:32 uh And we're working with him to make him be with the ...
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    13 m
  • Burrow & Bloom
    Oct 22 2025
    Today I'm talking with Lulu at Burrow & Bloom. You can follow on Facebook as well. Sean's book - Exit Farming: Starving the Systems That Farm You www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead Muck Boots Calendars.Com If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Lulu at Burrow and Bloom in Bismarck, North Dakota. Good morning, Lulu. How are you? I'm good. How are you? I'm good. How's the weather there? Really cloudy, really humid over here. 00:25 Oh, well, it's really nippy here in Minnesota this morning for the first time in over a week. Thank God. It's been very, very hot this past week. Yeah, we should be getting some good weather this weekend though. So I'm excited about that. I'm really happy for you. It's supposed to rain here this weekend and that's okay too, because we could use it. And that sounds really funny coming out of my face because, you know, I didn't grow up as a homesteader. 00:53 And so every time I say we need the rain, I sound like a farmer. totally understand. So tell me a little bit about yourself and what you do, Lulu. So my name is Lulu and I'm the owner of Furrow and Bloom. And I started a micro farmstead um in little North Dakota. What we kind of do is like we grow 01:23 vegetables. um We raise rabbits. That was how we started on a fourth of an acre. And um we recently started to reach out to the community and provide some of our products. And there was a demand for a refillery store. So we started kind of taking on the responsibility of that. So we're just kind of growing and taking orders like that. Awesome. 01:52 And I know that you actually produce almost everything that you put out in the world. And so how in the world do you have time for all of that? So I have to really sit down and make time for it. I work as an administrative assistant for a neuropathic doctor here in town. So that takes up a majority of my time, obviously. 02:19 Um, but then I do have a passion for baking. That's kind of how I got into the whole homesteading life. And I learned how to make sourdough probably about four or five years ago now. Um, so because I enjoy it so much, I make time for it. It started off just with me baking breads for our family. But then I started gifting it out. People started to really want it. And now. 02:48 I um sell that as part of our farmstead. 02:54 Okay. And what else do you make and sell? So I actually sell ravioli. So when it comes to food, it's bread and raviolis. um That's mainly what I put out and jams. And I try to source all the things here in town as much as I can. And also just like use the community as a, um I guess like a support system. Cause a lot of stuff we actually get 03:23 donated or we go and pick up when people no longer need something or just want to get rid of it. So we do use a lot of things like that oh to make our products. Okay, so here's my big question for you. In Minnesota, we have a lot of regulations on how we can do things like you're doing. 03:46 And in our case, we can't really do pop-ups at businesses unless there's more than three people who are going to be involved, three businesses, three pop-up businesses at the business. Is that how it is for you or can you just like get hold of a business and say, can I use your parking lot for five hours? Yeah. So the laws, the cottage laws specifically here in North Dakota and Bismarck kind of changed over the years when I first started out. 04:14 Um, cottage bakers were not allowed to bake at all. Like there was no cottage food, um, really allowed without getting permits and pulling all the right licenses. It has now kind of become, I guess, more accessible because there's such a big farm life and like rancher life, um, in the area. And a lot of them. 04:42 don't want to pay, you know, extra licensing because they already have their permits and do all these other things. So a lot of people kind of banded together and the cottage law did change. Before you were only allowed to like bake in an inspected kitchen apart from your home. Now it's a little bit different. You're able to actually bake in your home. You don't need a whole separate kitchen to do that. So the laws definitely have changed over the years. I feel like they're more forgiving. ah When it comes to selling, 05:11 I personally reach out to businesses and I set up. I don't have other vendors with me. That's never been like something that's been an issue here. As long as you have like the owner's approval, you can basically set up anywhere. And a lot of the town is really friendly. So if I was to ever reach out to anyone in the area, I think they would let me set up. 05:37 ...
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    26 m
  • Carlton Hill Farm
    Oct 20 2025
    Today I'm talking with Sean at Carlton Hill Farm. You can follow on Facebook as well. Sean's book - Exit Farming: Starving the Systems That Farm You www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead Muck Boots Calendars.Com If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Sean at Carlton Hill Farm in North Carolina, is that right? West Virginia. West Virginia. I'm in Minnesota. I am a Yankee. It is all the same to me. Sorry about that. No problem at all. Good morning, Sean. How are you? I'm doing well. Good morning to you as well. How are you? 00:28 I'm good. I'm going to start this off by saying I have a head cold. So if there's sniffles in the recording, it's me and I'm sorry. How is the weather in uh West Virginia? It's honestly pretty good. It was pretty dry and hot there for a while. we last week, I think we got like an inch and a half of rain one day and weather's weather's starting to cool down in the mornings and everything. Everything's starting to feel like normal fall again. How's the weather up there? 00:54 It's a little nippy. I think it's maybe 60 degrees and it's breezy and bright and sunny. Oh, wow. Yeah, we've had a couple cool mornings dipped down into the high 30s. I actually had to start a fire the other morning. So it was it's it we've had some brisk ones, but overall, it's pretty nice. Yeah, even if I wanted to start a fire right now, I can't. Our furnace is dead and we have a wood boiler, wood burning boiler that hooks into our furnace with a blower. 01:23 And so right now it's about 65 degrees in my house and probably will be for a couple more days, but then we're getting it fixed. Oh nice, well that's good. And just in time for the cool season. Oh, of course, of course. That's what always happens. If the furnace is going to go out, it's going to be in the fall. And if the AC is going to go out, it's going to be in the spring. Yep, that's exactly right. 01:46 Yeah, exactly. Because Murphy is an optimist and God love Murphy. I have bad things to say about Murphy, so we're not going to go there. All right. So tell me a little bit about yourself and what you do. Yeah. So ah I'm an author and farmer from West Virginia. I farm a one acre property with my wife. We farm rabbits and chicken and chickens and quail. um Prior to that, I spent 12 years working for the federal government and uh 02:14 we bought this property, started farming on it to feed ourselves first and then we sell anything that's left over to the community and then we also have some giving initiatives where we give back, whether it be farm products or uh pantry items uh to the people that need it most in our community. Fantastic. So are you strictly rabbit, chicken and quail or do you have a garden too? 02:41 We do have a garden. So we grow a lot of produce, we grow a lot of fruit. We use all of our rabbit manure as the only fertilizer for all of our crops and everything. So the rabbit manure is kind of where life begins for everything. It feeds everything that feeds us, including the rabbits. And it's kind of a closed system. But yeah, we also grow wildflowers and um any sales of things like wildflowers. 03:07 A portion of those proceeds go to purchase pantry items that stock are giving initiative, which is called Farm for Better. 03:15 Awesome does farm for better have uh a website or a Facebook page or anything? Yeah, so it's it's just part of our normal website, which is CarltonHillsFarm.com slash farm for better Okay, cool because I'm sure that people want to go check it out because they're gonna be like poor Where can I find stuff about that? um Okay, so tell me tell me how you got in this because I looked at your website and you're about page and there's a story there So tell me the story 03:41 There is a story there. So um I worked in the federal government for about 12 years and my wife worked a high pressure director role in the private sector for about just as long. And we got to the point where we felt like we were part of all these extractive relationships. The job took more than it gave. The families took more than they gave. And so we just felt like we were being consumed bit by bit by bit. And so when we looked at our lives, 04:11 We decided that we didn't want to be in debt. We didn't want to have mortgages. We didn't want to owe anybody anything. And that included our time, our emotion, and whatever that may be. So we took steps to start growing and raising our own food so we could step away from those systems and kind of build our own system on the margins of the one that failed us. 04:33 Okay, and how has that gone for you? mean, are you guys okay? ...
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    28 m
  • Sproutside the Box
    Oct 17 2025
    Today I'm talking with Deborah at Sproutside the Box. You can follow on Facebook as well. www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead Muck Boots Calendars.Com If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Deborah at Sproutside the Box in North Carolina. Good morning, Deborah. How are you? Good morning. I'm great. How are you? How's the weather in North Carolina today? Actually, it's cooler than it has been. It's been staying right around 86. 00:27 And we're getting a cold front on Northeastern. So it's a little bit cooler today, probably mid seventies, but the sun's out. So no, actually it's not supposed to start raining until I think late Friday into Saturday. And then Saturday is supposed to be, you know, pretty heavy rain. oh My daughter lives in Florida and she's on the Miami side. So I think she's probably going to be okay. 00:57 but if she was on the other side, she'd probably be getting rain right now. Okay, so tell me a little bit about yourself and Sproutside the Box. Well, my sister and I started the business um back in February and our initial thought was to purchase a farm and tower farm. So we purchased a tower and started growing aeroponically and 01:26 It was just amazing the vegetables that the tower produces. so then I thought, well, you know, it only had like 28 ports. So unless you purchase a quantity, you really wouldn't have anything em much to say for like a business or a farm stand. And so at that point, we decided we needed something a little bit. 01:54 faster with a faster turnaround time and we came upon a website for microgreens through Donnie DeLillo for Donnie Greens microgreens. Anyway, so we took that class and we began growing microgreens and it's evolved rapidly. um We deliver to homes, we do home subscriptions and 02:24 So we deliver in a 30 mile radius and we also have, we've branched out into salads. And so now we have a big clientele for our salads and it's just expanding from there. Right now we're actually looking for land so that we can put a tower farm and the microgreens with a barn dominium on one spot. So that's where we're at today. 02:54 So much fun. Okay, so I have questions. The tower garden is the thing where it's a bunch of tubes and they have holes in them and you put a thing in and it has dirt and then you put those seeds in the dirt. Is that how that works? No. Okay, tell me. With this one it has a base that holds the water with a pump and it has one tube with 03:23 seven pots and each pot has four openings. So in our case, when we first got the tower, we didn't know how to grow seedlings. And so we purchased the seedlings with the tower. And it came in one package one day, we put it together in a matter of 20 minutes, maybe tops. And we have the seedlings in there in the pump going, you know, within 03:52 a couple hours and you add nutrients to it and then it's on a timer. So it waters itself. You don't have to do anything. that's pretty neat. What kind of space footprint does it take up? Like how tall, how wide? um It's probably, I would say six feet tall with everything. We also have a caster, um like a little 04:21 bench that it sits on so that we can roll it around if we need to change positions for a better sun. And then it's probably about maybe two and a half feet around. So it doesn't take up much space. And you can have one in the house, they have a smaller version that goes in the house. But ours was out on our deck. And so we just grew from February to April. 04:51 We just watched it grow. We went out and sat down and watched it grow. We were growing microgreens in the meantime in the house, but not outside. Do you buy your towers exclusively from one company? Actually, we only have the one tower right now, oh but we did buy that from uh Tower Gardens. They were out of Asheville, North Carolina. 05:20 and they're very, very nice people. They have a greenhouse that ah services two five-star restaurants and a golf course. And so they have a huge farm. ah And that's really what I was looking to do. ah But microgreens were a faster turnaround time with pretty decent profit margin. 05:48 Yeah, microgreens are like a 10 day turnaround, right? Yeah, some of them are even seven days, three days germination, four days to five days under the lights. So anywhere from seven to 10 days, depending on what you're growing. 06:03 Okay, that's what I thought. The reason I'm asking is we're looking at starting some of our own in our heated greenhouse in Minnesota. And we're no competition for you because you're in North Carolina and we're in Minnesota. I don't know if ...
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  • Cottage Foodie Con - THE Conference For Cottage Food Producers!
    Oct 15 2025
    Today I'm talking with Matt Rosen at Cottage Foodie Con. You can follow on Facebook as well. "CottageFoodieCon will be an annual premier event dedicated to supporting and empowering small-scale food entrepreneurs operating under cottage food laws. This conference serves as a vital hub for cottage food producers, policymakers, educators, and industry professionals to connect, learn, and grow. Through a combination of keynote speeches, workshops, networking opportunities, and an exhibitor trade show. The conference will foster business development, regulatory compliance, and innovation in the cottage food sector." Use Promo Code: CFCON25 and get 25% OFF (expires 10/31/25) www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead Muck Boots Calendars.Com If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Matt at The Cottage Foodie in Eden Prairie, Minnesota. Good morning, Matt, how are you? I'm doing fantastic, Mary. How are you? Good. See what I did there? I didn't say your last name. Do you want to explain it really quick? Yeah. So I question my family. 00:26 Lineage so whether or not they are pronouncing our last name correctly because it's spelled just like Rosen R O S E N But it's actually pronounced rosine like there should be a Z in there or maybe two E's uh So yeah, so it's uh I respond to both Okay. Hey you probably works to does people or hey cookie guy. That's what seems to be uh Most popular here over the last five or so years since I started my college food business, so 00:56 Yeah. And uh your business is sergeant shortbread and it's really hard to screw that up. So the spelling is a little tricky. A lot of people mix up the spelling of sergeant. went with the, uh of course, spending 23 years in the military. went with the military version of sergeant, not the S A R G E N T that some people want to spell it. But, uh, so it's easy to pronounce, hard to spell. Yeah. I grew up thinking the English language was super simple. 01:26 And then I looked at other languages and went, no, we're just as messy as everybody else's languages. So, has been on my show twice, I think already. And he came back to chat with me this morning about the fact that he has spearheaded the Cottage Food Econ that's coming up in April of 2026. So tell me what you got going on, Matt. 01:52 Yeah, so it's a cottage food conference designed specifically for cottage foodies uh or cottage food entrepreneurs. And the premise behind it is like the classes and the sessions and everything about this conference is geared towards uh the business side of running a cottage food business. 02:15 A lot of people ask me like, can you have a cottage food conference? Every state, how can it be national? Every state is different and all these products. I'm like, easy. I'm just going to teach you the business side of running a cottage food business. And I'm not going to teach you how to make sourdough. You probably already know how to do that. And I'm not going to teach you about the laws in Tennessee. You should already know those because you're a cottage food producer in Tennessee. If you're not from Tennessee, you could care less what the laws are in Tennessee. 02:44 So yeah, so that's the premise behind uh the conference is that it's designed to help cottage food entrepreneurs with the business side of running a cottage food business. things like one of the classes is food photography using your iPhone. As we all know as cottage food entrepreneurs, we don't have enormous budgets to hire somebody to take professional pictures. So just starting out, we'll teach you how to do 03:13 great pictures and it's taught by a photographer. oh So she's going to teach us how to take, you know, she used the lighting and the angles and ah things like that. So it's going to be a hands-on workshop. So people are going to get to take picture. It might not be their exact product of what they're taking a picture of, but it's going to give them the idea of like what the angle should be and um whether you want direct lighting or maybe you want to pull a shade. If it's really sunny out, you might want to pull the shade so it's not quite as bright. So 03:42 Yeah, teaching things like that social media. We've got a few classes on social media uh One of them how to win at social media without being an influencer. So Yeah, and it's we have speakers coming in from gosh all over the country from California, Missouri, Colorado, Florida Pennsylvania Wisconsin and of course right here in the great state of Minnesota Fantastic so I have lots of questions the first one 04:11 The first one is what are the dates in April for this? It's April ...
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