Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
On this episode, Nate is joined by Daniel Zetah, who practices regenerative agriculture on his family farm in Minnesota. Daniel shares his experiences in becoming aware of the global challenges we face and his journey back to his family farm, where he has been instrumental in naturally cultivating the land back to life again.
I am arguing here to consider opting out of the rat race, or even, if you’re a teenager, never climbing on that treadmill in the first place.
We evolved to experience this joy in eating nutritious food. And the peach exists merely to fill that need. We made it so… and now money stands in the way.
So as I was already grousing about the pantry, I decided to review my garden plan for next year… and found it woefully inadequate.
In short, keeping animals teaches you how to respect life. You respect it when you raise it, and you respect it if you take it, and you certainly do not look at food in the same way.
Nobody owns the land. Nobody has title to create scarcity in order to increase personal wealth. Nobody can take without giving back.
Hopefully I’ve convinced you to plant a fruit or nut tree or two in your yard. They can be tucked into a garden, only need pruning twice a year, and they give you pretty flowers, nice fall colors, and lots and lots of food.
That gardening works always takes me by surprise. I put these hard and cold and seemingly inert nuggets into dirt and, wondrously, plants happen.
We are at the mercy of our climate, which is as it should be. Nevertheless, we have ways to push our seasons a bit, and most take very little effort and are pretty cheap and easy to do.
So this is my pest control toolkit: rotation and companion interplanting. It works as well as the chemicals do, and in many ways it’s more reliable than the chemicals — because pests can adapt to the chemicals…
Let’s talk about the big question of the year: “How much do I grow to feed my family for the year?”
Vegetable gardens in this country are largely seen as a “summer thing”, and I believe this is because the crops people associate with vegetable gardens are mainly summer growing.
