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Welcome back to the Deep Seed Podcast.

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This week I am in quite a remote area of central Portugal to visit a couple known as the Farming Chefs.

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After both working as chefs in the Netherlands for a number of years,

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Philippe and Sophie decided to move to Italy where they started their own farm-to-table restaurant.

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They wanted to cook the best possible food and they knew that the key was quality ingredients.

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But they were struggling to find

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the quality they wanted so they decided to start growing their own vegetables and raise their own animals thus becoming the farming chefs.

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Eight years later having made a lot of mistakes and learned a lot from that first experience they decided to start a new chapter buying a five and a half hectare piece of land in Portugal in the region where Philip was originally from so going back to the roots and

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starting a new farm from scratch.

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That was about three years ago and this is the farm that I am visiting today.

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This episode was created in a video documentary format and I definitely recommend watching it on YouTube to better visualize everything we talk about.

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However,

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I adapted it in audio format to make sure that you can easily follow this conversation right here on streaming platforms.

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This episode was made in partnership with Soil Capital.

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I'm your host Raphael and this is the Deep Seat Podcast.

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Hello,

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we are the Farming Chefs.

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I'm Filip and this is my wife.

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I'm Sophie,

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very nice to meet you.

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So of course the question what do we do here on this farm?

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We are the Farming Chefs and so the name says it.

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We are both farmers and chefs.

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We come from the kitchen and in this latest venture of ours we operate in the space of what we would like to describe as edutainment where we try to educate in an entertaining fashion on our functioning regenerative farm which we use as a backdrop in order to teach people how to grow,

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cook,

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preserve.

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choose and consume nutrient-dense food from regenerative farms.

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All right,

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so we have a five and a half hectare farm.

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It's really wonderful because it has lots of different altitudes and little nooks and crannies,

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so lots of microclimates.

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Our productive side is the market garden,

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so we feed our local community with fresh veggies.

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And then we have other enterprises that are more in function of all the content creation and of the education,

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so that is basically our broilers and our laying hens,

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and then we have a small herd of sheep.

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We have a wonderful herb garden.

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What we are trying to do is to create a really resilient food system that will supply us mainly and of course the vegetable garden also our local community and then over time we progress into something even more productive.

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Our main objective is to regenerate the land and to create a really beautiful oasis for people to come and get inspired and learn about regenerative agriculture.

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Such a beautiful project,

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a beautiful dream.

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it's wonderful to live as well like it's a wonderful life again it's i think if people in urban areas would know how it is to live like this you guys were all coming here you know everybody was running to the countryside yes okay

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now that everyone has been introduced we can start the tour of the farm first up a place that is central and key to their system and operation here the market garden

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All right,

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so we're here in the market garden.

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This is Philippe's number one favorite place,

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I think,

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on the farm.

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Philippe is our master gardener.

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I also very much love it,

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by the way.

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I love standing here,

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especially in days like this when the sun is shining.

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We are growing fresh veg for our local community.

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We do that in a veggie box scheme.

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We have currently around 56 beds.

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We have another garden that we sometimes use,

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don't use.

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And we collaborate with some local farmers as well to add stuff in our boxes.

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But we mostly try to grow really fast turning crops in order to fill our boxes and people seem to love it because we're in a bit of a food desert I would say.

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In terms of you know locally sourced fresh available stuff it's not easy to find here especially not chemically free or regeneratively grown so our local community really appreciates us and we really enjoy growing for them.

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We really appreciate them too.

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We really appreciate them too.

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Love you guys.

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So yeah,

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we made the decision to mark a garden because when we set up our company,

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the Farming Chefs,

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we really knew that we had this skill and we were going to do it for the educational purposes.

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And then in our minds,

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it made sense if we're already going to be growing,

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we might as well also sell.

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And that is,

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you know,

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basically here what we're standing in the garden.

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On this farm,

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we have a more like we're limited by the amount of water we have on the farm.

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So I think like...

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if we had unlimited water,

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we would go probably a lot bigger still.

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But there's also,

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yes,

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only so many hours in a day and we've got already a lot of things going on.

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So also going bigger would mean more work.

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But I think,

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yeah,

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you asked me before as well,

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like,

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is this a lot of work?

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And

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I said sort of...

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semi-bragging like Philippe easily does this but I think that that's also really because of the techniques because what we're doing here is the classic no-dig market garden style so like J.M.

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Fortier,

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Charles Dowding,

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Richard Perkins there's many people that have inspired us to to grow like this and it's all about efficiency and using you know very minimal tools and intervention in a very efficient way and then you get to work a lot of land just with one man without any

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It's not even a lot of land,

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it's quite a short land,

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but it's highly productive land.

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So the turning is very fast.

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I think if you're going to measure it by kilos,

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we can produce much more kilos per square meter than any other big farm that you can imagine.

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All these small market gardens,

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they really crank the production up because that's what the economy brings after.

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It's like,

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don't get bigger land because you get more work.

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get smaller land and just intensely work it and yeah it works it's working what's the secret what's the process to getting your land so productive on a small good compost yeah good compost like having you know like we just said don't step on the beds we're sort of religious about that so having really nice loose soils um

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working on your fertility program we have our own compost set up

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We don't have a fully closed cycle,

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so we do actually still have to import some compost,

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but we hope to mitigate for that when we get a few more animals on the land.

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And just introducing a lot of microbiology.

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We have a compost tea set up.

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So we basically have a machine upstairs by the house.

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We pump our water from our sharkas up to the house,

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and there we inoculate it with all kinds of microbiology.

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We don't do that every time we irrigate,

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but we do that on a regular basis.

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And much TLC,

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tender love and care.

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Yeah,

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plans apparently also don't have a reactionary actions on the garden just take care of the problem before he exists so you will never have it like for example one of the most known things in no dig market garden is the weeding aspect of it just if you just pass

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your wire hose very early in the seasons when the weeds are very very tiny it takes you maybe half an hour to do all the garden and you will not have weeds but if you're going to wait until the weeds are big and and then you're going to weed it,

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it's going to take...

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a bunch of hours so just work it before it's happening this is sorry this is like a cue for me to start talking because this reminds me of the first farm that we had and we spent many times knees in the beginning when we didn't really know much about gardening yet and so i

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always like to joke like there will be no more kneading on our knees ever again and i think that no dick market gardening is really perfect for that because basically you do a lot of the work standing up

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And yeah,

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it just feels very efficient.

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Also,

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in terms of trying to make money growing veg,

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it's not easy.

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Like the margins are very low.

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So you have to be super efficient.

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And that's what we really like about this system.

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One thing I really like to do on the Deep Seed podcast is ask really basic questions.

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Because first of all,

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I think that going back to basics never hurts.

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But also,

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I want to make sure that those of you listening who are new to these topics can learn.

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these basic concepts so that as we get deeper and more technical into the conversations everyone can follow along so yeah the next question i asked was what do we mean by no dig or no-till farming do you want to take this you go you go so

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basically no-till is where you don't turn over the soil so you try to minimally interfere with your soil in order to respect all the microbiology that is living there so bacteria fungi your nematodes everything

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You just want a really thriving system where everything is alive and teeming with life.

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And basically when you till over your soil,

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you oftentimes are bringing certain organisms into earth layers where they actually don't belong.

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So there's not enough oxygen for them there or that's just not where they're supposed to thrive.

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There's not enough air,

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water or compaction in those things.

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So that kills it off.

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And it's actually...

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that microbiome that makes nutrients available to plant roots so if you constantly disturb that you're actually setting your system back and bringing up loads of weed seeds and stuff so yeah no till just means minimal disturbance really for the benefit of the soil health you just want to start this one like one bed yeah and you're starting from scratch what's the process

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So basically the first thing you want to do is clear your area and that means trying to get as much of the weeds and other plants because you know what's a weed what's not a weed a weed is just a plant that you don't want to grow there you need to get rid of that so the best way and most effective way is first the tarp and that means it's covering the ground so before that you might want to decompact that's maybe step number one depending on where you're going to start so if you're starting at a place where heavy machinery has passed many times you can check this by taking a stick and poking it down in the ground and if you

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start to feel compaction really you know very shallow or even if you you go lower and let's say 50 60 centimeters and you feel that there's a lot of compaction there because you can't push your stick through that means you have compaction down below and then you might want to take the intervention of just one time pulling through like a yoma plow or a ripper to take care of the compaction let's say so to basically to loosen it all up this means that plant roots will be able to grow deeper then

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you level it out because it's really nice to work in a level space then you tarp bit.

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with the tarping what you're doing is you're basically making all the weeds germinate and then die off again because they don't get sunlight once that has been done properly the timing of that depends a little bit on what you have growing if you have very invasive weeds and stuff you want to tarp for longer if not then you can do it for a little bit shorter but let's

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say like the best of the best one year is the perfect because you got all the seasons so you had the summer weeds coming.

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the winter weeds coming they both die and then you can start in the white clean sheet make sure that you can irrigate underneath because you also want to create some humidity so like you couldn't tarp just without irrigation in that scenario which is very long most people don't have a year so this this is like the long version then you can have the short version which the short version would be tarp as long however long you can tarp take the tarp off then

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you cover your area with carton like cardboard cardboard without let's

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ink and other types of treatments so as natural as you can find it and as thick as you can find it and then on top of that you layer your compost spaced at the space of your bed which ideally is like 75 centimeters then you have a path which is 40 centimeters this is for ergonomical stepping

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over and then i mean the higher you can go in terms of how thick you layer it the better we did about

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15 centimeters at the onset and then you fill your paths up with wood chips this is to promote fungal life but also because when it rains and stuff you get to really nicely walk in your paths and then you're more or less ready to go what you then first want to do still is inoculate your compost

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with a lot of microbiology so we irrigate it with a lot of very um i want to say like lively water water that had a lot of life in it just to kick start

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that process and then immediately plant as many plants in here as you can because you want to have living roots in the soil because they basically bring sugar via their roots into the system and that then jump starts that whole beautiful process so um what's the format that you sell those vegetables in can people pick or

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order individual vegetables to use the boxes how does it work it's a really good question because i feel like that's like a big thing in the market gardening world and also obviously

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Everything is super context related and our context is that we're in a very rural place,

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which is unfortunately not like the most rich area of Portugal.

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So you always work within the context.

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If you're closer to the city,

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then doing it by the kilo or by the bunch and everything is quite a good way to go about it.

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In our context,

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what we do is a weekly veggie box and people basically opt in because they like the idea that it's varied and that it's seasonal and that you get...

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you know you get to choose if you don't want to participate or not but you sort of agree with what is in the box um so we're a little bit less flexible like that that's also because of our setup and because we have you know our digital format as well so we want to provide our community with with food but at the same time also we don't want to over

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complicate and with our water situation this is like the best way to get good variety and a steady output

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without it being like,

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okay,

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everybody bought all the carrots and then some people don't have carrots because we're not huge,

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right?

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We're not a huge market garden that can basically provide everybody to have their specific choices,

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wishes,

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yeah,

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abide by,

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or I don't know how you would say that.

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But I also think that that is a key selling point because actually that's the feedback we get from a lot of people,

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which is that they like the surprise box and that they like to sort of be inspired by the ingredients.

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and then to cook with it.

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And I think we can get away with that much easier here in the countryside than maybe you would be in the city.

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That's just my,

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you know,

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sort of take on things.

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While we were recording this conversation,

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standing in the middle of the market garden,

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I noticed at the back that some of the beds were completely covered with cover crops.

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So we went to sit next to these beds,

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and I asked them to tell me more about these cover crops and how they integrate them into their rotation.

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Yeah,

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you asked me if we do anything specifically for the soil.

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And I thought you were talking about like,

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you know,

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like production crops,

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like cash crops.

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But

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I forgot to mention that we,

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of course,

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also cover crop.

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So we try to have living roots in the soil at all times and just to really enhance our soil biology by living plants.

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So we do that as often as we can.

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It's always a bit tricky because,

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of course,

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when you put a cover crop in,

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it's like you're in some way losing that productive time in the bed.

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But then what you get back is really incredible.

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and

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So we found that,

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you know,

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cover cropping with things like legumes or veg or rye and things are really beneficial for the soil and that yields afterwards really increase.

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So that's part of our cycle and it's always still a bit of a work in progress on how to rotate it well.

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00:15:28.418 --> 00:15:30.339
I don't think we're experts at that yet,

215
00:15:30.479 --> 00:15:34.041
but I think we're doing a good job at trying to.

216
00:15:34.222 --> 00:15:34.382
Well,

217
00:15:34.402 --> 00:15:36.303
we didn't do no soil analysis,

218
00:15:36.403 --> 00:15:39.985
but all the nitrogen fixes are the plants that you want to use as

219
00:15:40.345 --> 00:15:43.728
cover crops because they fixate your nitrogen on the soil.

220
00:15:44.188 --> 00:15:44.829
So that's,

221
00:15:45.369 --> 00:15:47.511
how do we know that when it's time,

222
00:15:47.831 --> 00:15:48.632
when it's flower,

223
00:15:48.932 --> 00:15:50.093
it's the best time for it.

224
00:15:50.253 --> 00:15:52.816
It's when it's at its highest as nitrogen.

225
00:15:53.856 --> 00:15:56.058
So it's when it has the flowers,

226
00:15:56.118 --> 00:15:56.559
it's time.

227
00:15:56.659 --> 00:15:58.280
You don't let the flowers become fruit.

228
00:15:58.320 --> 00:15:58.660
You just,

229
00:15:58.760 --> 00:15:59.321
on that time,

230
00:15:59.322 --> 00:16:02.343
you just cut the plant and you just,

231
00:16:03.064 --> 00:16:05.506
a lot of people turn it into the bed.

232
00:16:05.706 --> 00:16:08.048
What we are trying to do is just cutting it,

233
00:16:08.288 --> 00:16:08.889
laying down.

234
00:16:09.169 --> 00:16:12.672
and just put a thin layer of compost on top and leave it like that.

235
00:16:13.053 --> 00:16:13.313
Yeah.

236
00:16:13.314 --> 00:16:14.234
And yeah.

237
00:16:14.554 --> 00:16:15.995
This slowly decomposes,

238
00:16:16.015 --> 00:16:18.618
but I guess then you need to wait a little bit until you can plant your next bed.

239
00:16:18.619 --> 00:16:20.759
It's always a bit tricky on what you're going to plant in next.

240
00:16:20.779 --> 00:16:22.981
So like if you can plant something right into it,

241
00:16:23.021 --> 00:16:23.902
something big like,

242
00:16:23.962 --> 00:16:24.223
you know,

243
00:16:24.224 --> 00:16:27.886
you could do pumpkin or cabbage or something like something that is quite sturdy,

244
00:16:27.966 --> 00:16:28.987
like one plant.

245
00:16:29.447 --> 00:16:29.707
Obviously,

246
00:16:29.768 --> 00:16:33.511
direct seeding then becomes very tricky because that's best done in super fine compost.

247
00:16:33.531 --> 00:16:35.533
So that's always a bit the way off.

248
00:16:36.121 --> 00:16:36.741
And no,

249
00:16:36.801 --> 00:16:39.002
we didn't do any soil analysis.

250
00:16:39.402 --> 00:16:39.863
Of course,

251
00:16:39.864 --> 00:16:41.023
if you get really into it,

252
00:16:41.024 --> 00:16:44.645
I'm very geeky about all the levels and the pHs and stuff,

253
00:16:44.685 --> 00:16:45.805
you can get really into it.

254
00:16:45.925 --> 00:16:47.266
That's not really the way we farm.

255
00:16:47.267 --> 00:16:53.969
We have quite a holistic sort of intuitive way of farming where we just observe the system and we see what works and doesn't work.

256
00:16:54.389 --> 00:16:56.890
And coming here to this new climate has been really interesting.

257
00:16:57.230 --> 00:16:59.871
But we always start a bit off with cover crops.

258
00:16:59.872 --> 00:16:59.951
So,

259
00:16:59.952 --> 00:17:00.271
for instance,

260
00:17:00.272 --> 00:17:01.672
this is the newest part of the garden.

261
00:17:01.872 --> 00:17:04.413
So before we start producing in here,

262
00:17:04.905 --> 00:17:22.199
we'll cover crop it then plant into it afterwards and then try to bring in one cover crop annually in each bed sometimes we have to be honest we like you know prolong the season a little longer just because we need a lot of production um but yeah we try to just find times

263
00:17:22.200 --> 00:17:30.305
in the year could be spring could be autumn could be winter like we can grow all year round here so we just find a moment in the year what's like the

264
00:17:30.801 --> 00:17:46.694
sort of biggest mistake you used to make as a market gardener that you've learned not to make anymore till i used to we used when we started farming we used to we wanted we started by doing organic but then in the conventional with the conventional methods and very

265
00:17:46.834 --> 00:17:58.744
soon in three months we just we said like this doesn't work like this you know our methods have to be different also just just being organic and using the conventional way it it doesn't like tilling and it doesn't

266
00:17:59.925 --> 00:18:00.886
It doesn't help nobody,

267
00:18:00.966 --> 00:18:01.746
it's not helping us,

268
00:18:01.786 --> 00:18:02.947
just creating more work,

269
00:18:02.948 --> 00:18:04.028
so it has to be more than that.

270
00:18:04.068 --> 00:18:06.769
So then we started looking for and we came to.

271
00:18:06.829 --> 00:18:11.392
We had a very big epiphany moment in this sense because we used to use the rotor plow,

272
00:18:11.412 --> 00:18:11.672
you know,

273
00:18:11.712 --> 00:18:13.814
just the walk after tractor.

274
00:18:14.194 --> 00:18:14.674
Rotortiller,

275
00:18:14.714 --> 00:18:14.854
yeah.

276
00:18:16.275 --> 00:18:17.856
And we just did a lot of weeding,

277
00:18:17.916 --> 00:18:19.737
we were farming in heavy clay,

278
00:18:19.837 --> 00:18:22.239
so also like the water management on the farm was terrible.

279
00:18:22.240 --> 00:18:23.600
We didn't have nice wooden paths,

280
00:18:23.601 --> 00:18:25.321
so when it got wet it got like really...

281
00:18:26.497 --> 00:18:37.005
hard to work and all the clay would stick to your boots and even working the machinery would be really difficult to find like exactly right time in the year and then we had a very big amount of

282
00:18:38.125 --> 00:18:38.546
What was it?

283
00:18:38.547 --> 00:18:38.886
What's that?

284
00:18:38.887 --> 00:18:39.466
It's not a cow.

285
00:18:39.506 --> 00:18:40.467
It's from the mozzarella.

286
00:18:40.827 --> 00:18:41.508
I'm forgetting it.

287
00:18:41.808 --> 00:18:46.311
The Buffalo manure So we had a friend that had an organic Buffalo farm and he just was like Oh,

288
00:18:46.351 --> 00:18:55.037
I can bring you a great amount of this Buffalo manure And then we let that decompose for a whole year and we used that as like a really heavy compost on

289
00:18:55.817 --> 00:19:20.857
some of the beds and then we accidentally sort of did this no dig yeah and then we stumbled upon it of course also online and that's when it changed and we just changed our complete perspective on it like oh we don't really want to be using the machines and we just really want to feed the soil life as before we were just thinking in terms of not using chemicals and being organic like wanting to respect the environment but not really understanding the fertility cycle well

290
00:19:21.509 --> 00:19:25.298
and not understanding that it was actually like the microbiology in the soil feeding the plants.

291
00:19:25.299 --> 00:19:28.585
So we very much had this naive that shows that we didn't have it back.

292
00:19:31.454 --> 00:19:36.498
and it was when we started composting and using less of the machinery.

293
00:19:36.859 --> 00:19:56.515
After the first year that we just had plowed everything like everybody does and everybody told us to do and that's the way you should have done but after we did it and plant the first plants on the beds we saw that with the first rainfalls everything went away because we were in the quite I don't know the percentage of the inclination but it was quite a steep slope so we

294
00:19:56.555 --> 00:20:00.518
found out very quickly that this cannot be like this because all the good soil ends up

295
00:20:00.778 --> 00:20:16.431
by the river on the bottom so that's the first change that we did was living pads that was one of the best things that we did there so here we do wheat chips because it's very hot uh but in italy we just had a living pad just grass around clover

296
00:20:16.831 --> 00:20:29.802
we just uh yeah and that would hold the whole garden nothing you could go in the winter in rainfall and you walk on top of that five ten centimeter clover and it would be like dry would be it was great and it hold the whole

297
00:20:30.246 --> 00:20:31.167
Garden in place,

298
00:20:31.207 --> 00:20:32.048
the soil in place.

299
00:20:32.528 --> 00:20:33.870
That was the first big change.

300
00:20:33.871 --> 00:20:34.470
And then it was like,

301
00:20:34.931 --> 00:20:36.693
why are we rototilling the beds then?

302
00:20:37.133 --> 00:20:38.535
We shouldn't rototill the beds too.

303
00:20:38.635 --> 00:20:39.536
So then we started,

304
00:20:39.556 --> 00:20:39.756
okay,

305
00:20:39.796 --> 00:20:41.798
let's instead of rototill the compost,

306
00:20:41.838 --> 00:20:44.381
we're going to lay up the compost on top.

307
00:20:44.841 --> 00:20:45.422
And that was it.

308
00:20:45.958 --> 00:20:46.979
never went back again.

309
00:20:46.980 --> 00:21:03.328
And also I think that that's when we started getting into the whole idea of no dig and you know not plowing and of course you know there's a scale where that works really well and we've always been small to medium size like our last farm was much bigger than this in terms of production for gardening but we used to see where we lived

310
00:21:03.329 --> 00:21:12.754
in Italy was a lot of grain and a lot of sunflower production so every year like they plow it at least two times and when we then have rain all the streets are just like

311
00:21:12.834 --> 00:21:39.837
covered in topsoil so you just have this massive wash off and i feel like that really also changed our perspective on everything when we started learning about it and we started seeing like all the damage that was being done that before we were blind to it and it's sort of that that classic feeling of getting friends over and driving through beautiful green landscapes and everybody's like oh this is so beautiful and then you're sort of looking at it like this is so destructive you know like it's a road it was green and green and people thought oh so natural.

312
00:21:40.137 --> 00:21:40.317
Yeah,

313
00:21:40.537 --> 00:21:41.098
not natural.

314
00:21:41.398 --> 00:21:42.199
And I think like that's,

315
00:21:42.339 --> 00:21:42.479
yeah,

316
00:21:42.899 --> 00:21:46.321
I hope that we with the farming chefs also just spread that message,

317
00:21:46.341 --> 00:21:46.562
you know,

318
00:21:46.822 --> 00:21:51.265
the importance of topsoil and like to prevent erosion and to use,

319
00:21:51.305 --> 00:21:51.545
you know,

320
00:21:51.805 --> 00:21:53.366
to treat our land as this sacred,

321
00:21:54.147 --> 00:21:54.467
you know,

322
00:21:54.867 --> 00:22:06.235
resource that we have that is basically the source of all our food and that we should be really appreciative of it and let all that life flourish and not kill it off and have it washed away with every rainfall,

323
00:22:06.315 --> 00:22:06.716
with every,

324
00:22:06.816 --> 00:22:07.056
you know,

325
00:22:07.236 --> 00:22:08.637
blow away with every wind event.

326
00:22:10.078 --> 00:22:30.069
let's keep the soil in place one last question about this what's your favorite source of information and inspiration about market gardening here in portugal we have a whatsapp group with all market gardeners and it's an amazing community we were talking about this yesterday and it's one of the parts that i like more that we

327
00:22:30.089 --> 00:22:38.934
are very different from any other industry because we will share every information possible that we have with our colleagues and that's something very special

328
00:22:39.434 --> 00:23:03.147
in this area that's amazing i guess it's really important so it's a feel that you're very you people doing totally very important you're not alone yeah i think it's a very strong uh general sense like in terms of the energy that you get when you get a lot of people that are operating in this regenerative space that have a clear vision of you know basically improving the place that

329
00:23:03.187 --> 00:23:08.590
they're farming and leaving it better for the next generation i think you share a very strong common value.

330
00:23:08.990 --> 00:23:24.774
and i think everybody that works the natural system let's say knows that it's not always easy so it's good to to have this community of people and sharing sort of secrets and tips and tricks and like how how do you do this where do you buy that um

331
00:23:24.775 --> 00:23:36.578
you know what are what are your grand successes what are your grand fails and stuff and that's nice and that is true tulip saying i think that that is a special sort of energy that lives within this community which is really energizing

332
00:23:37.998 --> 00:23:38.118
So

333
00:23:38.518 --> 00:23:40.980
This closes our chapter on the market garden.

334
00:23:41.861 --> 00:23:43.983
We then walked over to another part of the farm,

335
00:23:44.324 --> 00:23:50.910
a beautiful meadow with big old olive trees and really lush grass full of diverse plant species and flowers.

336
00:23:52.395 --> 00:23:52.935
So yeah,

337
00:23:53.135 --> 00:23:58.860
we're sitting in our meadow and it's a beautiful moment to maybe discuss a little bit the animal integration that we do on the farm.

338
00:23:59.340 --> 00:24:11.751
We are very consciously trying to restore the soils here on this farm by using animals as a tool and so we have a small herd of sheep and we graze them rotationally on our farm in very small paddocks.

339
00:24:11.851 --> 00:24:20.158
We try to just very intensively graze them in order to fertilize the land and eat the grass and capture the carbon out of the air into the soil.

340
00:24:20.662 --> 00:24:43.960
via the root systems and then we also have behind us they're not beautiful to look at but they're the the chicken tractors so we do have a little production of broilers which are meat chickens and eggs egg producing chickens so laying hens they are more for our home consumption so they're very small herds but what we basically do is we graze them through the field in order to use them as fertilizers.

341
00:24:43.961 --> 00:24:45.261
That sounds weird.

342
00:24:45.981 --> 00:24:46.922
Pest controlers.

343
00:24:47.590 --> 00:24:51.894
In order to use them to fertilize the land and to increase our grass production,

344
00:24:51.994 --> 00:24:54.236
which then eventually will increase our meat production.

345
00:24:54.256 --> 00:25:03.204
So we very much like to think of it as that we're farming grass and then whatever gets to live on that grass brings us yields in terms of meat or eggs.

346
00:25:03.344 --> 00:25:05.206
And that's what we're trying to achieve here.

347
00:25:05.446 --> 00:25:06.867
It's a very basic setup.

348
00:25:06.887 --> 00:25:07.848
It is like a super,

349
00:25:08.588 --> 00:25:12.592
super low cost structure that just provides shade and shelter.

350
00:25:13.192 --> 00:25:14.654
And you just move them manually.

351
00:25:15.134 --> 00:25:38.844
onto a new piece every day until they hit about halfway through their life cycle when they get a bit bigger and then you do it twice a day and so what happens is that they you know have their feces basically quite intensively manure one area and then you move along and then that takes time to decompose and then when you see that the grass has recovered to the point that it was or a little bit higher than it was before ideally you bring back the animals on

352
00:25:38.845 --> 00:25:42.526
the cycle and we graze our sheep first then and then we bring on the chickens

353
00:25:43.018 --> 00:25:43.198
Okay,

354
00:25:43.278 --> 00:25:44.379
so how do they work together?

355
00:25:44.399 --> 00:25:46.299
So you say you first graze with the sheep?

356
00:25:46.740 --> 00:25:46.920
Yeah.

357
00:25:47.080 --> 00:25:48.300
You let it grow back first or?

358
00:25:48.960 --> 00:25:49.081
Well,

359
00:25:49.082 --> 00:25:49.201
no,

360
00:25:49.202 --> 00:25:51.902
you can basically do that quite intensely after each other.

361
00:25:52.022 --> 00:25:57.404
So because you can get the benefit of all the animals that eat the manure of the sheep,

362
00:25:57.884 --> 00:26:00.005
that can also be sort of a feed for your chickens.

363
00:26:00.045 --> 00:26:01.306
So if you've timed it correctly,

364
00:26:01.506 --> 00:26:02.506
it's even better with cows,

365
00:26:02.526 --> 00:26:03.526
but we don't have cows.

366
00:26:04.507 --> 00:26:05.687
But they're actually complementary.

367
00:26:06.028 --> 00:26:06.288
Yes,

368
00:26:06.289 --> 00:26:07.228
they are complementary.

369
00:26:07.229 --> 00:26:07.308
Yes,

370
00:26:07.309 --> 00:26:07.788
indeed.

371
00:26:08.008 --> 00:26:09.729
So you have to imagine that you have

372
00:26:10.169 --> 00:26:11.790
30, 40 centimeters of grass.

373
00:26:12.342 --> 00:26:16.403
And we will graze the sheep quite fast,

374
00:26:16.564 --> 00:26:17.464
one day basically,

375
00:26:17.544 --> 00:26:18.844
in a small space.

376
00:26:19.224 --> 00:26:22.206
They will bring that grass like about 10 centimeters height,

377
00:26:22.226 --> 00:26:23.486
so quite short.

378
00:26:23.846 --> 00:26:25.247
And after that we put the chickens.

379
00:26:25.248 --> 00:26:30.228
So the chickens will start eating the larvae that are created or that are raised.

380
00:26:30.288 --> 00:26:31.489
A week after more or less,

381
00:26:31.569 --> 00:26:34.710
because you want to time it so that the poop that has been...

382
00:26:35.030 --> 00:27:00.797
deposited by the sheep will then have like some eggs and maggots and you know there's sort of life coming to digest the poop and then you can have the benefit of especially with your laying hands it's nice for the egg quality to get some really live insects in there protein and then they of course leave their manure and then you leave it to rest that's very important the resting time because if you don't time the resting time correctly you could actually be degrading your grassland but what you're trying to do obviously is to to

383
00:27:01.197 --> 00:27:03.398
grow it stronger and to have ever more

384
00:27:03.802 --> 00:27:23.654
producing grass so it's important to give the plant really the time to recoup the its growth underground which will reflect in the growth above ground and then once you see like it's basically come back to the stage where you've had it at its peak you know then it's ready to be grazed again if you come back before that you're making it harder on the plant to come

385
00:27:23.655 --> 00:27:31.198
up over grazing it okay in the only three years since you've been here have you seen a change in the in the landscape

386
00:27:31.338 --> 00:27:32.179
I want to say yes.

387
00:27:32.559 --> 00:27:32.739
Yes,

388
00:27:33.060 --> 00:27:37.143
we have and you can see even like the amount of species that we find on the square meter has changed.

389
00:27:37.524 --> 00:27:47.613
We're not successful on all parts of the land yet because it's very much the time where you need to you need to monitor very well to understand the impact that you have on different parts of your farm.

390
00:27:47.673 --> 00:27:52.557
Because for instance we have some areas that have bedrock quite shallow so there's not a lot of topsoil there.

391
00:27:52.858 --> 00:27:55.320
And then we have other places like where we're sitting right now.

392
00:27:56.156 --> 00:27:58.977
where we actually have much deeper soil profile,

393
00:27:59.257 --> 00:28:01.098
where we have bigger layers of topsoil.

394
00:28:01.498 --> 00:28:07.981
So this is an easier part to regenerate because there's already quite a lot of life in the soil and that cycle is already functioning.

395
00:28:08.321 --> 00:28:13.203
On some more degraded pieces it's trickier because we deal with extremely hot summers,

396
00:28:13.603 --> 00:28:15.344
so I feel like it always takes a hit.

397
00:28:15.524 --> 00:28:16.645
So biology in the ground,

398
00:28:16.685 --> 00:28:19.266
especially on those spots where there's very little topsoil,

399
00:28:19.666 --> 00:28:22.607
it's just such a shallow layer and with the very high temperatures,

400
00:28:23.007 --> 00:28:24.428
you always get a big dip.

401
00:28:24.868 --> 00:28:42.865
in life in the soil which you then need to basically mitigate for again with your animal intervention and timing that correctly can be a little challenging also because we are you know a lot of our setup is manual so it all it's all about timing and there's a lot of things that we're doing so sometimes I think we try to just

402
00:28:42.925 --> 00:28:50.672
right before the summer I think at around end of May that nothing else is growing we try to let the sheep go everywhere and trample a little bit the grass

403
00:28:51.036 --> 00:28:52.757
because there's always like a 60%

404
00:28:53.197 --> 00:28:55.237
trampling of grazing animals.

405
00:28:55.697 --> 00:29:05.160
And that is great in our case because the trampling creates a layer that is covering the ground for the three months of summer that are coming that are very intensive.

406
00:29:05.520 --> 00:29:08.341
So it's not that it stays humid,

407
00:29:08.561 --> 00:29:11.802
but it keeps the life longer at play.

408
00:29:11.862 --> 00:29:17.284
So if it was completely grazed it will dry out very soon and it would be completely dead and just stone and sand.

409
00:29:17.504 --> 00:29:20.506
but with the animals passing and the trampling,

410
00:29:21.207 --> 00:29:24.630
that grass just covers our soil for the summer.

411
00:29:26.071 --> 00:29:27.352
In the place where we are,

412
00:29:27.372 --> 00:29:30.014
it brings a small problem that is the fire dangerous,

413
00:29:30.034 --> 00:29:30.954
the fire hazards.

414
00:29:31.575 --> 00:29:34.557
So we could have floor fires,

415
00:29:34.577 --> 00:29:35.418
that's what they call here,

416
00:29:35.438 --> 00:29:36.178
a floor fire,

417
00:29:36.659 --> 00:29:41.242
but we believe that the moist under will keep us away from that.

418
00:29:41.923 --> 00:29:43.044
And we try to secure more.

419
00:29:43.045 --> 00:29:43.324
Righto.

420
00:29:44.145 --> 00:29:47.708
And we try to work in terms of the parameter of the farm.

421
00:29:47.868 --> 00:29:48.768
So we basically,

422
00:29:48.869 --> 00:29:49.129
you know,

423
00:29:49.209 --> 00:29:52.371
here legally you're supposed to cut down all your brim and stuff.

424
00:29:52.472 --> 00:29:55.454
These are all the pioneer plants that are actually helping to restore soil.

425
00:29:55.534 --> 00:29:57.496
So there's something very counterintuitive to that.

426
00:29:57.516 --> 00:29:58.977
If you're a regenerative farmer,

427
00:29:58.978 --> 00:30:03.841
you don't want to be taking away all your pioneers constantly because they're actually the ones that are going to kickstart,

428
00:30:03.981 --> 00:30:04.242
you know,

429
00:30:04.302 --> 00:30:06.183
that whole cycle of regeneration.

430
00:30:06.604 --> 00:30:08.585
So a lot of neighbors frown upon us because they're like,

431
00:30:08.605 --> 00:30:08.785
oh,

432
00:30:08.786 --> 00:30:09.926
you don't mow your land.

433
00:30:09.927 --> 00:30:10.987
You don't plow everything.

434
00:30:11.007 --> 00:30:11.207
You know,

435
00:30:11.208 --> 00:30:11.568
it's sort of...

436
00:30:12.288 --> 00:30:15.391
We're using methods here that aren't conventional in this setting.

437
00:30:15.891 --> 00:30:18.073
And that also,

438
00:30:18.233 --> 00:30:18.513
you know,

439
00:30:18.594 --> 00:30:19.354
some of them are,

440
00:30:20.515 --> 00:30:21.756
there have been many forest fires.

441
00:30:21.757 --> 00:30:23.598
So I also understand why people are doing that.

442
00:30:23.638 --> 00:30:26.520
But the way we mitigate for that is by trying to really secure a parameter.

443
00:30:27.101 --> 00:30:31.885
And then we are obviously banking on being able better than others in the area,

444
00:30:31.945 --> 00:30:38.190
maybe to capture a lot of the water in the soil and have much more resistance against forest fires.

445
00:30:38.850 --> 00:30:39.771
And yeah,

446
00:30:39.811 --> 00:30:39.931
well,

447
00:30:39.932 --> 00:30:40.832
we have water in many areas.

448
00:30:40.932 --> 00:30:58.883
areas of our farms if there would be a problem we could you know hopefully take care of it very quickly before we move on to the next part of this farm visit let me take just a really short break to tell you about the official partner of the deep seed podcast and that's soil capital one

449
00:30:58.903 --> 00:31:07.168
of the biggest levers to enable farmers to transition towards regenerative agriculture is financial incentives and that's essentially what soil capital does

450
00:31:07.884 --> 00:31:12.685
They financially reward farmers who improve things like soil health and biodiversity.

451
00:31:13.806 --> 00:31:14.766
They're an amazing company.

452
00:31:15.006 --> 00:31:19.107
I love what they're doing and I'm super proud to be partnering with them for the podcast.

453
00:31:21.448 --> 00:31:21.568
So,

454
00:31:21.708 --> 00:31:21.928
Filip,

455
00:31:21.988 --> 00:31:23.668
could you explain what you're doing here?

456
00:31:24.288 --> 00:31:27.329
So we're using this natural resource that we have here.

457
00:31:28.129 --> 00:31:32.311
And it's this kind of water trifoli.

458
00:31:32.851 --> 00:31:34.651
I don't know exactly the name of this plant,

459
00:31:36.152 --> 00:31:36.712
but...

460
00:31:39.540 --> 00:31:40.380
This plant is 40%

461
00:31:40.781 --> 00:31:44.102
protein of its own weight and it grows

462
00:31:45.162 --> 00:31:47.283
75% of its size daily.

463
00:31:48.004 --> 00:31:52.805
So it's something that you can come here every day and the next day you always have the same thing.

464
00:31:53.986 --> 00:31:54.946
And this is chicken,

465
00:31:54.986 --> 00:31:56.587
we use this as chicken feed right now.

466
00:31:57.447 --> 00:31:58.988
But it can be used at any feed,

467
00:31:59.028 --> 00:31:59.528
chicken feed,

468
00:31:59.628 --> 00:32:00.088
pig feed,

469
00:32:00.769 --> 00:32:01.249
sheep feed.

470
00:32:02.109 --> 00:32:08.652
And we use this just so we minimize the amount of bought feed that we have to give to the chickens.

471
00:32:09.444 --> 00:32:26.451
and it's a nice natural resource that we have here at the farm so uh so it just produces fresh protein protein every day of course this has to be a fresh water source so there's a source of water under this well it's not just a well from the top that

472
00:32:26.452 --> 00:32:35.935
the water comes from the top there's a source there that makes that these wells can produce this uh this plant this aquatic plant that it's a great resource

473
00:32:38.257 --> 00:32:39.644
Do you know the name of that plant?

474
00:32:39.825 --> 00:32:40.509
I don't know the name,

475
00:32:40.529 --> 00:32:41.937
but I can check for you upstairs.

476
00:32:41.977 --> 00:32:42.219
Okay.

477
00:32:43.992 --> 00:32:44.472
I've seen an

478
00:32:45.513 --> 00:32:51.235
American guy using this to feed their pigs and they made an analysis to the meat.

479
00:32:52.075 --> 00:32:59.158
And the analysis from the lab came out that those pigs had a certain amount of omega-3 in the meat.

480
00:32:59.859 --> 00:33:02.860
That's very rare because omega-3 you find it in fish.

481
00:33:03.580 --> 00:33:05.621
But with feeding this to the animals,

482
00:33:05.681 --> 00:33:07.522
they just get that intake of it.

483
00:33:08.342 --> 00:33:09.603
And yeah,

484
00:33:10.283 --> 00:33:10.983
you spare money,

485
00:33:11.083 --> 00:33:12.184
you get healthy animals.

486
00:33:13.324 --> 00:33:16.308
And it takes very little time of your day to do this.

487
00:33:17.650 --> 00:33:18.731
Not even five minutes.

488
00:33:18.931 --> 00:33:21.955
And we have here around a kilo of this thing.

489
00:33:22.436 --> 00:33:24.038
So probably we have around

490
00:33:24.559 --> 00:33:26.902
300 to 400 grams of protein here.

491
00:33:27.142 --> 00:33:28.323
Free protein for chickens.

492
00:33:29.365 --> 00:33:30.005
Let's go give them.

493
00:33:32.688 --> 00:33:37.650
So we're at the orchard and at the orchard we let the layers run through.

494
00:33:38.270 --> 00:33:53.394
We have everything by rows so we would let the every three days I'll move the net with around 25 layers and we have a little chicken tractor that has no bottom that allows that the poo falls down directly to the floor every time.

495
00:33:54.074 --> 00:33:59.896
So what we do is we move that car between the rows of the trees and we try to park the car.

496
00:34:00.236 --> 00:34:01.557
right next to every tree,

497
00:34:01.777 --> 00:34:04.999
so every night there's a discharge of chicken poo,

498
00:34:05.059 --> 00:34:06.960
chicken manure into that tree,

499
00:34:07.120 --> 00:34:08.040
and so we're trying to...

500
00:34:08.700 --> 00:34:12.162
every tree gets one day of discharge and we run this,

501
00:34:12.803 --> 00:34:14.744
all these rows let's say it,

502
00:34:14.844 --> 00:34:19.486
and these rows are about 90 days time to come back to the same place where we were,

503
00:34:20.187 --> 00:34:22.748
so you can see it's beautiful green

504
00:34:23.632 --> 00:34:24.833
The chickens were here before,

505
00:34:24.973 --> 00:34:26.214
you can see it's a little bit bare,

506
00:34:26.655 --> 00:34:29.437
but you can see the result behind you,

507
00:34:29.457 --> 00:34:30.659
that's amazing.

508
00:34:30.959 --> 00:34:31.079
Yeah,

509
00:34:31.139 --> 00:34:37.085
so you're using the chicken manure as fertilizer for your young trees that you're growing here in this orchard.

510
00:34:37.565 --> 00:34:37.765
Yes,

511
00:34:38.466 --> 00:34:44.251
and another thing that the chickens also do very good is the trampling from the grasses,

512
00:34:44.792 --> 00:34:48.856
and because we're in central Portugal it's very dry Very hot.

513
00:34:49.436 --> 00:35:13.551
and the part of the trembling becomes very important because you're just covering your soil with grasses and the chickens do that like amazing they will scratch a few spots but they will trample a lot and basically it's a protection layer for for the soil awesome and you're gonna be moving the chickens now let's move the net let's move the chickens and uh right it's a easy easy job let's go so

514
00:35:13.552 --> 00:35:15.072
how many chickens do you have and

515
00:35:15.892 --> 00:35:17.153
25 right now.

516
00:35:18.054 --> 00:35:20.515
And so how many square meters do you have per chicken?

517
00:35:20.516 --> 00:35:23.858
Is there some kind of like calculation that you need to follow?

518
00:35:24.598 --> 00:35:25.239
Square meters?

519
00:35:25.619 --> 00:35:25.739
No,

520
00:35:25.899 --> 00:35:26.500
it's...

521
00:35:28.461 --> 00:35:34.586
You have to see how much impact are the chickens creating into the soil.

522
00:35:34.686 --> 00:35:37.668
So you could have a hundred chickens in this space,

523
00:35:38.208 --> 00:35:40.390
but you would have to move it three times a day,

524
00:35:40.450 --> 00:35:41.030
for example.

525
00:35:41.611 --> 00:35:43.052
So we have 25 chickens.

526
00:35:43.748 --> 00:35:44.068
in the

527
00:35:44.529 --> 00:36:08.042
50 meter fence and normally it's three days time for each pet okay you look at the floor you see how trample it is how how does it look like okay so you move them every three days and because you figured out that this is the right amount of time for this amount of chickens yeah yeah yeah so the car moves three times inside the same pen

528
00:36:08.342 --> 00:36:12.364
so it starts there tomorrow we'll be here and After tomorrow we'll be there.

529
00:36:13.336 --> 00:36:16.137
And then the day after we move the net and he goes to the next one.

530
00:36:16.257 --> 00:36:20.979
So the car walks slowly inside the pen itself.

531
00:36:25.361 --> 00:36:27.962
So it has also to do how is your floor,

532
00:36:28.022 --> 00:36:29.343
how is your fauna,

533
00:36:29.523 --> 00:36:30.883
let's say on the on the ground,

534
00:36:31.224 --> 00:36:33.384
because if it's already quite bare,

535
00:36:33.505 --> 00:36:35.465
you don't want to let the chickens so long in it.

536
00:36:35.505 --> 00:36:37.786
So when it's like this nice and height,

537
00:36:37.826 --> 00:36:39.327
like as a good height,

538
00:36:39.647 --> 00:36:40.908
the three days are perfect.

539
00:36:42.536 --> 00:37:05.366
and the chickens are happy they have fresh food yeah you can look at them you taste the eggs so yeah yeah the eggs are delicious you can see good with the by the feathers of the chickens you know they're not being packed so there's very low stress into these chickens that's one a sign of stress is like chickens packing on chickens and then you start to see like chickens with the back

540
00:37:05.506 --> 00:37:10.268
completely clean like no feathers that's a very big sign of stress in the

541
00:37:11.248 --> 00:37:35.548
in the pack of these chickens but you can see here there's like yeah they're just they're just very healthy they're just very very how does the system benefit both the landscape and the chickens well the chickens you can see you know they give you eggs that's the plus of what we're doing here what's more important here for us is actually the soil itself and we can see we've been here for three years.

542
00:37:36.120 --> 00:37:39.182
And we can see this pasture that just has layers on it.

543
00:37:39.183 --> 00:37:41.363
It doesn't have broilers or it doesn't have sheep on it.

544
00:37:41.423 --> 00:37:42.364
It's just layers.

545
00:37:42.884 --> 00:37:48.387
And I think layers are one of the animals in the farm that have a greater impact to your soil.

546
00:37:48.968 --> 00:37:50.849
Because they just trample a lot.

547
00:37:50.889 --> 00:37:51.729
A lot of people say,

548
00:37:51.789 --> 00:37:52.009
oh,

549
00:37:52.189 --> 00:37:53.110
it's a waste of your...

550
00:37:53.994 --> 00:38:10.608
beautiful grass but it's not a waste because it will come to you eventually again into the fruits into the fruit trees into the fauna that you have here so yeah they're a very important part of the of our system the layers so

551
00:38:10.609 --> 00:38:16.833
you just moved them here to this new patch like minutes ago and they seem so excited they're running around it's like a

552
00:38:17.554 --> 00:38:33.741
you know easter egg chasing hunting yeah that thing right it's because they're they're hunting for fresh insects and all fresh things you can see that i put the food there yeah but just a few have quite interest on it all the rest they just go like oh my god this is a new paradise look at this yeah

553
00:38:33.981 --> 00:38:44.766
so my favorite food is is what like uh bugs bugs bugs bugs yeah chickens are like small t-rexes they are very aggressive and very

554
00:38:45.026 --> 00:39:00.730
powerful you know like if this animal would be a little bit bigger would be man would be a problem for us a problem for humanity uh and they are fiercely they will scratch and eat all animals are you flies you see them sometimes jumping to catch like butterflies

555
00:39:00.731 --> 00:39:13.994
or stuff like this so yeah animals that's where they source their amount of protein so no i think normally a chicken would eat around 150 grams of feed a day

556
00:39:15.374 --> 00:39:17.316
We give around 70,

557
00:39:17.576 --> 00:39:17.876
60,

558
00:39:17.956 --> 00:39:24.641
70 grams because the rest comes from here and also with the supercharged grass from the well.

559
00:39:25.401 --> 00:39:27.442
We don't need to give more and they lay perfectly.

560
00:39:27.503 --> 00:39:28.563
They lay around 80%

561
00:39:28.984 --> 00:39:30.184
of the number that they are.

562
00:39:33.086 --> 00:39:35.908
How long ago did you plant your trees here in this area?

563
00:39:36.308 --> 00:39:36.809
Two years ago.

564
00:39:37.169 --> 00:39:37.649
Two years ago?

565
00:39:37.650 --> 00:39:38.330
Two years ago.

566
00:39:38.810 --> 00:39:42.052
Like you can see they're already quite big and healthy.

567
00:39:42.312 --> 00:39:42.933
Yeah,

568
00:39:43.113 --> 00:39:44.314
and they've already been attacked.

569
00:39:45.282 --> 00:40:01.991
by sheep more than once so it was a little a small setback uh that's why we also decided okay let's not put cheap here anymore for the first few years just have the layers so let the tree grow without no uh attack sheep attack because

570
00:40:02.251 --> 00:40:05.433
it's devastating for me and for the trees itself okay

571
00:40:07.986 --> 00:40:11.429
So after Philip finished moving and feeding the chickens,

572
00:40:12.009 --> 00:40:14.471
we went back to the main house to meet again with Sophie.

573
00:40:15.452 --> 00:40:16.733
Surrounding the side of the house,

574
00:40:16.793 --> 00:40:18.014
there is a beautiful,

575
00:40:18.134 --> 00:40:18.414
lush,

576
00:40:18.714 --> 00:40:20.235
vibrant herb garden.

577
00:40:21.116 --> 00:40:24.318
We sat there with Sophie to talk about this herb garden.

578
00:40:25.499 --> 00:40:28.481
So we're sitting now in your beautiful herb garden.

579
00:40:28.782 --> 00:40:30.783
It's just surrounding the house.

580
00:40:30.943 --> 00:40:31.764
It's beautiful.

581
00:40:31.804 --> 00:40:33.425
It's full of colors,

582
00:40:33.645 --> 00:40:34.466
of smells.

583
00:40:35.122 --> 00:40:37.763
And it's really something that I wanted to talk about with you.

584
00:40:37.764 --> 00:40:40.884
So maybe you could give us an overview of what's going on here.

585
00:40:41.624 --> 00:40:41.984
Indeed,

586
00:40:42.004 --> 00:40:45.365
this is like a little sanctuary that is embracing the house.

587
00:40:45.366 --> 00:40:47.866
And that's how we designed it,

588
00:40:47.886 --> 00:40:48.646
how we built it.

589
00:40:48.726 --> 00:40:50.706
And it's an oasis of plants.

590
00:40:50.726 --> 00:40:52.567
There's so much diversity in this garden.

591
00:40:53.087 --> 00:40:54.167
And it brings me,

592
00:40:54.667 --> 00:40:55.088
of course,

593
00:40:55.148 --> 00:40:57.828
lots of delicious culinary herbs and some medicinal.

594
00:40:58.168 --> 00:40:59.809
But it also just brings me lots of joy.

595
00:40:59.969 --> 00:41:02.950
So I always like showing this garden when people come and visit.

596
00:41:04.790 --> 00:41:08.291
It's a place where pollinators come to thrive,

597
00:41:08.331 --> 00:41:10.832
where we come to harvest for the kitchen.

598
00:41:11.372 --> 00:41:21.495
And I think it's just a really great testament to how well plants thrive when they are planted together and when they are competing and working together.

599
00:41:21.915 --> 00:41:27.677
And sort of that beautiful synergy between some struggle and aid and everything is just flourishing here.

600
00:41:29.577 --> 00:41:31.858
We were talking earlier a little bit about how this...

601
00:41:32.438 --> 00:41:36.361
garden came to be if I was seeding it from seed or if I was doing it from cuttings.

602
00:41:36.742 --> 00:41:38.083
And I was telling you this story about,

603
00:41:38.483 --> 00:41:38.743
you know,

604
00:41:38.763 --> 00:41:41.546
the vigor of life and how strong plants actually are,

605
00:41:41.886 --> 00:41:46.950
which is in a testament to Philippe's mother who showed me some very unconventional planting techniques.

606
00:41:47.490 --> 00:41:54.296
So most of the plants here that are able to propagate from cuttings were brought to me by

607
00:41:54.696 --> 00:42:00.601
Philippe's mom or I harvested them here in the area and we just mob planted,

608
00:42:00.741 --> 00:42:01.222
seeded.

609
00:42:02.526 --> 00:42:05.648
did everything here and everything just took.

610
00:42:05.968 --> 00:42:08.009
And that was done in a very rough manner.

611
00:42:08.049 --> 00:42:12.351
So before I was much more careful in the way I planted things and transplanted things.

612
00:42:12.771 --> 00:42:14.171
But I found out that you can be really,

613
00:42:14.591 --> 00:42:14.852
you know,

614
00:42:14.992 --> 00:42:16.132
quite harsh with them.

615
00:42:16.432 --> 00:42:19.513
And the life force is just so strong that things grow.

616
00:42:19.654 --> 00:42:24.716
And I think that that is just another great testament to nature's force and life force.

617
00:42:25.076 --> 00:42:25.196
Yeah.

618
00:42:26.096 --> 00:42:28.477
How many different plants would you say you have here in this garden?

619
00:42:28.677 --> 00:42:29.998
You know that I've never counted them.

620
00:42:31.106 --> 00:42:32.607
but I would say definitely over a

621
00:42:33.428 --> 00:42:34.970
100, 150 maybe.

622
00:42:35.350 --> 00:42:37.072
And a lot of them are culinary,

623
00:42:37.152 --> 00:42:39.554
but also there's quite some ornamentals here.

624
00:42:39.994 --> 00:42:41.676
I never used to grow any ornamentals.

625
00:42:41.736 --> 00:42:43.598
I was very much in the mindset of productivity.

626
00:42:44.478 --> 00:42:45.519
And as I get older,

627
00:42:45.639 --> 00:42:52.065
I think there's much to be said for beauty and surrounding yourself with beautiful things because they're also very good for the spirit.

628
00:42:53.267 --> 00:42:53.647
Some of them,

629
00:42:53.667 --> 00:42:56.650
I don't even know the name because Philippe's mom brought them.

630
00:42:57.692 --> 00:43:01.003
But many of them of course are also culinary and edible flowers,

631
00:43:01.645 --> 00:43:02.207
delicious,

632
00:43:02.368 --> 00:43:02.949
fragrant,

633
00:43:03.271 --> 00:43:04.053
aromatics.

634
00:43:05.008 --> 00:43:30.549
a very wide variety indeed i will count them now after you ask me this question yeah okay so yeah you said that a lot of it you've found from local areas where you found some herbs and plants that you were interested in you just took some cuttings and then just yeah came back put them in the ground yeah and let them grow i think that's a really great thing to do because uh first of all if you're doing it in your local area the chances that the thing will thrive is you know are very big and

635
00:43:30.669 --> 00:43:34.412
also i found that most people that like gardening and that have very nice gardens

636
00:43:34.852 --> 00:43:36.553
they're really into this idea of sharing.

637
00:43:37.053 --> 00:43:38.174
So for instance,

638
00:43:38.194 --> 00:43:39.535
if people come here for a course,

639
00:43:39.635 --> 00:43:43.557
I always have them leave with a bag of whatever they want from the herb garden.

640
00:43:43.637 --> 00:43:47.459
People can just pick and choose and whatever will survive after propagation.

641
00:43:47.800 --> 00:43:52.082
We just dig out a bit or break off some branches because things regrow really fast.

642
00:43:52.162 --> 00:43:57.565
It's a great way to start a herb garden is you don't need a lot of money and you don't need to buy everything in a garden center.

643
00:43:57.585 --> 00:44:00.267
You just need to go somewhere that somebody is already doing it.

644
00:44:00.827 --> 00:44:02.428
Just smile at that person and be like.

645
00:44:02.708 --> 00:44:19.001
do you want to share some of your plants with me and most people that like planting they will so i think that's just a nice community has anyone ever said no to that no nobody has ever said no to that i think that with a good smile and you know some enthusiasm most people will happily

646
00:44:19.061 --> 00:44:27.428
share with you it's uh it's a lot cooler than collecting pokemons isn't it like yeah it's it's really a fun way also to keep your eyes

647
00:44:28.108 --> 00:44:31.791
open when you're walking around or when you're visiting someone else's garden and be like,

648
00:44:31.831 --> 00:44:31.971
oh,

649
00:44:32.091 --> 00:44:36.194
that's a very nice herb that I would love to add or a flower or something.

650
00:44:36.214 --> 00:44:36.814
Definitely.

651
00:44:37.335 --> 00:44:37.795
And totally.

652
00:44:37.835 --> 00:44:41.178
And also what's really nice is if you're a bit like towards the end of summer,

653
00:44:41.198 --> 00:44:47.642
a lot of things obviously are already in seed and sometimes you'll walk past something and it'll just look weird,

654
00:44:47.662 --> 00:44:49.544
but you won't know what the flower looks like yet.

655
00:44:49.904 --> 00:44:52.766
And then you'll collect the seed and then it's sort of like a surprise.

656
00:44:53.627 --> 00:44:55.288
I have lots of envelopes of seeds that

657
00:44:55.668 --> 00:44:57.789
I don't remember where I took them or what they are.

658
00:44:57.949 --> 00:45:00.931
And then it's sort of like this wonderful surprise.

659
00:45:00.932 --> 00:45:01.691
You just look at it and think,

660
00:45:01.812 --> 00:45:02.532
shall we try this?

661
00:45:02.612 --> 00:45:02.772
Yes,

662
00:45:03.312 --> 00:45:03.953
let's put it there.

663
00:45:03.993 --> 00:45:06.514
And the only thing I wouldn't do that with is if it's really strong,

664
00:45:06.594 --> 00:45:08.175
big climbers that get very woody,

665
00:45:08.555 --> 00:45:11.457
because just popping those anywhere wouldn't work out.

666
00:45:11.777 --> 00:45:12.918
But most annual plants,

667
00:45:12.938 --> 00:45:13.738
especially flowers,

668
00:45:13.739 --> 00:45:18.721
are really great because it's sort of like a surprise waiting for you to happen in a few months'

669
00:45:18.741 --> 00:45:18.981
time.

670
00:45:18.982 --> 00:45:20.222
And you see it grow and it's like,

671
00:45:20.242 --> 00:45:20.402
ooh,

672
00:45:20.403 --> 00:45:21.503
what kind of flower will it be?

673
00:45:22.703 --> 00:45:23.004
So yeah,

674
00:45:23.104 --> 00:45:23.624
I like that.

675
00:45:24.812 --> 00:45:25.293
After this,

676
00:45:25.713 --> 00:45:30.718
we followed Sophie around the farm as she was collecting a lot of different ingredients for dinner.

677
00:45:31.759 --> 00:45:35.163
She then invited us into her kitchen and while she was cooking,

678
00:45:35.803 --> 00:45:38.046
we had a really nice chat about food,

679
00:45:38.246 --> 00:45:44.192
about the relationship between soil health and ingredient quality and about nutrient density.

680
00:45:45.772 --> 00:45:46.773
You started as a chef.

681
00:45:47.473 --> 00:45:49.875
We already discussed this at the beginning of the video.

682
00:45:50.215 --> 00:45:50.535
We did.

683
00:45:50.715 --> 00:45:50.996
Right?

684
00:45:52.056 --> 00:45:53.437
You then opened a restaurant,

685
00:45:53.938 --> 00:45:54.478
like Métodie,

686
00:45:54.518 --> 00:45:57.220
a palm-to-table layered restaurant.

687
00:45:57.440 --> 00:45:57.620
Yeah.

688
00:45:57.760 --> 00:46:00.522
Do you still cook food professionally for a living?

689
00:46:01.343 --> 00:46:04.965
Right now we're actually at a very interesting stage where we are still cooking professionally,

690
00:46:05.025 --> 00:46:07.687
but not directly for the public unless it's for courses and stuff.

691
00:46:08.007 --> 00:46:09.868
So we do it now for the content creation,

692
00:46:10.049 --> 00:46:13.091
which has been a shift in our way of cooking,

693
00:46:13.171 --> 00:46:14.051
which has been interesting.

694
00:46:14.832 --> 00:46:14.952
And

695
00:46:15.248 --> 00:46:36.514
this moment is no different like we're standing here in our professional kitchen where we do a lot of filming and it's really it's fun having you guys here and doing it for once so i'm looking forward to seeing how that pans out um yeah so we do cook professionally but not for a restaurant and uh it's been uh much calmer yeah

696
00:46:36.694 --> 00:46:44.616
so how different is food that you buy from the supermarket to the food that you grow yourself here in the nordic

697
00:46:44.912 --> 00:46:45.272
Garden.

698
00:46:45.632 --> 00:46:47.453
It's cannot compare guys.

699
00:46:47.534 --> 00:46:48.814
It's like apples and pears,

700
00:46:48.815 --> 00:46:49.114
you know,

701
00:46:49.214 --> 00:46:51.456
you're comparing two things that should not be compared.

702
00:46:51.796 --> 00:46:51.936
Well,

703
00:46:51.956 --> 00:46:52.376
of course

704
00:46:54.197 --> 00:46:58.540
It's sort of funny because I think the first time that I realized the difference between something

705
00:46:59.020 --> 00:47:13.148
Tasting so different depending on where it came from was when I was working in soup and so as these are the last bosses that I ever had basically when I was working for somebody else and we were writing this cookbook transforming their recipes and

706
00:47:13.468 --> 00:47:33.642
me and this other chef who were just like what makes this soup delicious like how much gram of this spice and we were trying to like scientifically figure out like what made a really good pumpkin soup right so we did all these trials and then in the end it just came down to like it's all about the pumpkin like if it's a nice pumpkin it's going to be a nice soup if it's a shitty pumpkin you

707
00:47:33.643 --> 00:47:41.788
know it's going to be less nice right and that was the first moment where I sort of thought like yeah where does actually all this food come from like we just order it

708
00:47:42.352 --> 00:47:43.152
comes into a box,

709
00:47:43.713 --> 00:47:45.253
you open the back door of the restaurant,

710
00:47:45.834 --> 00:47:46.314
bring it in,

711
00:47:46.434 --> 00:47:49.255
and every day you order more or less the same ingredients depending on where you're working.

712
00:47:49.295 --> 00:47:52.376
But basically you're just like one salad isn't the other,

713
00:47:52.516 --> 00:47:52.776
right?

714
00:47:53.077 --> 00:47:58.239
And that was like this moment where I started to think about like where does it come from and does it make a big difference?

715
00:47:58.879 --> 00:47:59.319
And it does.

716
00:48:00.600 --> 00:48:03.441
So I think the biggest difference is obviously taste,

717
00:48:03.661 --> 00:48:06.402
but also health because you're not eating chemicals and all those,

718
00:48:06.562 --> 00:48:06.802
you know,

719
00:48:06.903 --> 00:48:09.524
great benefits that you're not poisoning your body with poisons.

720
00:48:10.044 --> 00:48:10.164
But

721
00:48:10.404 --> 00:48:11.925
if you're going the hedonistic route,

722
00:48:12.005 --> 00:48:16.486
I think it's really about how nutrient dense it is,

723
00:48:16.626 --> 00:48:20.087
and also about just the general flavor profile of things.

724
00:48:20.467 --> 00:48:23.668
So I think that's the biggest game changer for anybody that loves to cook.

725
00:48:23.768 --> 00:48:26.129
It's that you can compare them side by side,

726
00:48:26.469 --> 00:48:28.690
and there is a very big difference in the flavor.

727
00:48:29.030 --> 00:48:29.270
Okay.

728
00:48:30.050 --> 00:48:32.331
What do you think about the topic of nutrient density?

729
00:48:32.371 --> 00:48:41.776
Just the fact that we are finding out more and more that food grown in a healthy soil with a healthy microbiome in the soil is actually more nutrient dense.

730
00:48:41.796 --> 00:48:50.140
So between the carrots that has been mass produced in a very intensive way that you buy at the supermarket or the one that you grow in your soil here,

731
00:48:50.660 --> 00:48:54.002
you will have a massive difference in terms of how much nutrient the carrots holds.

732
00:48:54.306 --> 00:49:05.816
I find that such an interesting topic and we both know Dan Kittredge who's basically like a big advocate for this and showing you know the difference in the nutrient density profiles and like how that is related to soil health.

733
00:49:06.216 --> 00:49:09.519
So I think that that is just like it's super fascinating.

734
00:49:09.599 --> 00:49:16.324
It also is something that we've had as a physical on-site feedback loop of eating the food that we produce,

735
00:49:16.364 --> 00:49:23.270
where it's like you taste the difference so clearly between a store-bought tomato and a tomato that you pick off the vine on your...

736
00:49:23.430 --> 00:49:23.670
you know,

737
00:49:23.750 --> 00:49:25.151
regenerative organic farm.

738
00:49:26.252 --> 00:49:26.792
As a chef,

739
00:49:26.852 --> 00:49:30.894
I can only say what a great attribute that it's not only nutrient dense,

740
00:49:30.895 --> 00:49:31.734
it's not only healthy,

741
00:49:31.815 --> 00:49:32.755
but it's also tasty.

742
00:49:32.835 --> 00:49:33.676
Like those to me,

743
00:49:33.836 --> 00:49:34.836
when they go hand in hand,

744
00:49:34.856 --> 00:49:36.317
it's like a win-win for everybody,

745
00:49:36.437 --> 00:49:36.597
right?

746
00:49:36.617 --> 00:49:37.738
Because if somebody was telling you,

747
00:49:38.418 --> 00:49:40.259
you need to eat these nutrient dense veggies,

748
00:49:40.659 --> 00:49:41.160
but you're just like,

749
00:49:41.161 --> 00:49:42.940
I don't like veggies and they're not that tasty.

750
00:49:43.041 --> 00:49:43.941
And now it's sort of like,

751
00:49:44.301 --> 00:49:44.501
okay,

752
00:49:44.521 --> 00:49:45.422
you get to eat a carrot,

753
00:49:45.423 --> 00:49:48.584
but that carrot will also taste better than the average carrot that you're maybe used to.

754
00:49:49.044 --> 00:49:49.464
So for me,

755
00:49:49.604 --> 00:49:49.804
it's,

756
00:49:50.284 --> 00:49:50.404
yeah,

757
00:49:50.405 --> 00:49:52.025
it's one of those things that it's a win-win.

758
00:49:53.266 --> 00:49:54.668
A win-win and you know.

759
00:49:54.669 --> 00:49:56.691
Tasting density and taste go hand in hand.

760
00:49:57.091 --> 00:49:57.372
Yes.

761
00:49:57.552 --> 00:49:58.313
Actually related.

762
00:49:58.614 --> 00:49:58.774
Yeah,

763
00:49:59.375 --> 00:49:59.495
yeah,

764
00:49:59.555 --> 00:50:00.096
yeah.

765
00:50:00.136 --> 00:50:01.658
Like the flavor profile.

766
00:50:02.508 --> 00:50:03.208
is actually better,

767
00:50:03.309 --> 00:50:03.529
right?

768
00:50:03.589 --> 00:50:06.050
If you have a more nutrient-dense carrot,

769
00:50:06.150 --> 00:50:09.192
it shows that it's shown scientifically that they taste better.

770
00:50:09.712 --> 00:50:16.276
And I think it's an exciting prospect that there's going to be a tool for us as consumers to basically check,

771
00:50:16.336 --> 00:50:22.679
like scan our ingredients at the supermarket or at the farmer's market or at your local farmer and just see like,

772
00:50:23.200 --> 00:50:26.441
is this actually like a very nutrient-dense product or is it just,

773
00:50:26.601 --> 00:50:27.062
does it look,

774
00:50:27.302 --> 00:50:27.542
you know,

775
00:50:27.622 --> 00:50:29.323
every carrot looks the same to the consumer,

776
00:50:29.403 --> 00:50:30.984
but inside they're not the same.

777
00:50:31.472 --> 00:50:34.434
And I have great hopes that if we're sort of empowered with this tool,

778
00:50:34.994 --> 00:50:36.735
that that's going to change a lot of,

779
00:50:37.095 --> 00:50:37.355
you know,

780
00:50:37.495 --> 00:50:38.396
it's going to change the game.

781
00:50:38.596 --> 00:50:39.796
And I'm looking forward to that moment.

782
00:50:40.217 --> 00:50:40.417
Yeah,

783
00:50:40.517 --> 00:50:40.717
sure.

784
00:50:41.998 --> 00:50:42.198
Okay,

785
00:50:42.238 --> 00:50:45.459
so we're now moving on to the very last part of this episode.

786
00:50:45.840 --> 00:50:51.863
And Sophie and I put out some chairs outside of the house in a beautiful spot overlooking the whole farm.

787
00:50:52.443 --> 00:50:53.884
And we had a bit of a longer...

788
00:50:54.512 --> 00:50:55.512
kind of conversation.

789
00:50:56.093 --> 00:50:58.914
I would say a bit more in the classic podcast style.

790
00:50:59.614 --> 00:51:00.855
So we talk about a lot of things,

791
00:51:00.915 --> 00:51:02.135
including the business model,

792
00:51:02.275 --> 00:51:03.496
the education part,

793
00:51:03.556 --> 00:51:07.938
and then also a more personal conversation about what it's like to live on a farm,

794
00:51:07.958 --> 00:51:09.318
to raise children on a farm,

795
00:51:10.079 --> 00:51:11.239
and a few other things as well.

796
00:51:12.479 --> 00:51:14.620
So at the start of the conversation,

797
00:51:14.740 --> 00:51:19.162
you told me that a big part of what you're trying to create here is about education,

798
00:51:19.362 --> 00:51:21.303
and we haven't really spoken about it yet,

799
00:51:21.304 --> 00:51:22.944
so I would love for to tell me more.

800
00:51:23.404 --> 00:51:23.824
Wonderful,

801
00:51:23.864 --> 00:51:25.405
I'm really happy to talk about it as well.

802
00:51:27.427 --> 00:51:27.627
Yes,

803
00:51:27.687 --> 00:51:28.287
it is actually,

804
00:51:28.728 --> 00:51:29.088
I would say,

805
00:51:29.108 --> 00:51:31.009
the main thing of what we're trying to do here,

806
00:51:31.109 --> 00:51:33.551
and that is sort of like raise awareness and that,

807
00:51:33.911 --> 00:51:34.752
as I said before,

808
00:51:34.812 --> 00:51:39.435
I'm calling it sort of edutainment because I think it's always fun to learn through storytelling.

809
00:51:40.035 --> 00:51:42.517
It's also why we chose sort of YouTube as a medium to,

810
00:51:42.737 --> 00:51:42.978
you know,

811
00:51:43.058 --> 00:51:46.800
get videos out there and to draw attention to the regenerative movement.

812
00:51:47.300 --> 00:51:49.482
It's also one of the ways where I feel like our sort of,

813
00:51:50.243 --> 00:51:51.383
of in-house people,

814
00:51:51.443 --> 00:51:52.204
planet profit.

815
00:51:52.680 --> 00:52:11.555
could get into balance where it's like I really strongly believe that it shouldn't all be about economy or all be about personal interests or all be about the impact or it should be you know how you can bring your own skill set together and make money that way while also having purpose and doing something good for the planet and I feel like this model

816
00:52:11.556 --> 00:52:18.240
that we've created does all three of those things because we get to live a really yeah meaningful and yeah

817
00:52:18.340 --> 00:52:19.241
I want to say healing,

818
00:52:19.242 --> 00:52:20.181
but that sounds as if we're sick,

819
00:52:20.201 --> 00:52:23.003
but sort of nurturing existence in this beautiful place.

820
00:52:23.004 --> 00:52:23.723
Like you've been here now.

821
00:52:24.904 --> 00:52:27.125
I hope you can attest to sort of the feel here.

822
00:52:27.126 --> 00:52:27.365
You know,

823
00:52:27.366 --> 00:52:29.786
it's really calm and peaceful and beautiful.

824
00:52:29.806 --> 00:52:33.288
And we get to create this space that is going to over time just become more productive.

825
00:52:33.289 --> 00:52:36.230
So from a personal perspective of where you want to raise a family,

826
00:52:36.290 --> 00:52:37.571
this is a really great location.

827
00:52:38.611 --> 00:52:40.433
And it's also a really great location to teach from.

828
00:52:40.453 --> 00:52:42.894
So to get people involved and show them,

829
00:52:43.074 --> 00:52:43.314
you know,

830
00:52:43.315 --> 00:52:46.176
all the different plants and how you can grow and how you can cook.

831
00:52:46.196 --> 00:52:46.316
And

832
00:52:46.616 --> 00:52:48.257
These are these basic things that people do,

833
00:52:48.658 --> 00:52:48.878
I mean,

834
00:52:48.978 --> 00:52:49.819
especially the cooking.

835
00:52:50.459 --> 00:52:50.940
Every day,

836
00:52:51.060 --> 00:52:51.220
right,

837
00:52:51.260 --> 00:52:54.302
you're every day making a choice when you buy something in the supermarket.

838
00:52:54.503 --> 00:52:55.864
Every time you put something in your mouth,

839
00:52:56.104 --> 00:52:57.605
it's like a political act,

840
00:52:57.985 --> 00:52:58.426
basically.

841
00:53:00.447 --> 00:53:08.774
And I felt that combining education with this farming and cooking is just bringing our skill set together.

842
00:53:09.175 --> 00:53:15.320
So what we try to do is empower people to cook with regeneratively grown produce.

843
00:53:15.604 --> 00:53:31.011
to grow it as well and a lot of people think when they hear like learn how to grow your own food like grow all of your food that's not necessarily the aim it's more to yeah encourage people to take back a little bit of control over their food system and experience

844
00:53:31.012 --> 00:53:44.036
the joy of cooking some of your own food really amazing um and so that education comes in different forms because you mentioned the youtube channel you've been doing so you spend a lot of time trying to educate people online about farming about cooking about

845
00:53:44.256 --> 00:54:03.284
a lot of things right yes and then there's also a physical uh version of that where people come here and you teach people how does that work yeah well i i so i'm a very big advocate for in-person events like i love the digital space when it's used sort of for good right social media can be very toxic but i also think that there's a lot of really great information out there you're an example where

846
00:54:03.304 --> 00:54:12.748
basically you get to find like really good information and really inspirational stories so i think that the digital space is great for growth and for scaling um

847
00:54:13.088 --> 00:54:15.549
But I also very much am a social creature.

848
00:54:15.649 --> 00:54:16.630
Like I like to connect.

849
00:54:16.650 --> 00:54:17.410
I like to talk.

850
00:54:17.450 --> 00:54:22.032
I like to get the instant feedback at which sometimes the internet is like less capable,

851
00:54:22.092 --> 00:54:22.252
right?

852
00:54:22.272 --> 00:54:25.553
To give you that instant feedback of what do people really think about this?

853
00:54:26.134 --> 00:54:29.315
Maybe you'll get the extreme haters or you get the extreme people that are really,

854
00:54:29.595 --> 00:54:29.855
you know,

855
00:54:31.836 --> 00:54:33.357
supportive and positive.

856
00:54:33.557 --> 00:54:38.359
But there's also just a large part of the population that watches and doesn't say anything but thinks something.

857
00:54:38.379 --> 00:54:39.660
But you don't really get that feedback.

858
00:54:39.700 --> 00:54:39.980
And so...

859
00:54:41.048 --> 00:54:56.923
I always wanted to combine the two and have people come to the farm and take courses here also because it's a much better indicator for you as the person creating the educational content to get like good feedback on what are people really looking for like what are their struggles what are their you know what

860
00:54:56.963 --> 00:55:02.248
are their wants and then you can better cater to them so okay yeah so what what What form does it take?

861
00:55:02.708 --> 00:55:04.350
Is it people come...

862
00:55:05.002 --> 00:55:06.282
For regular lessons?

863
00:55:06.342 --> 00:55:08.823
Is it a sort of a camp where they come for a whole week?

864
00:55:09.883 --> 00:55:11.384
So currently we have the format,

865
00:55:11.385 --> 00:55:14.405
we have basically the growing part made now.

866
00:55:14.445 --> 00:55:16.725
So there's more education on the way,

867
00:55:16.785 --> 00:55:17.125
let's say.

868
00:55:17.185 --> 00:55:18.366
But what we have live right now,

869
00:55:18.406 --> 00:55:18.866
of course,

870
00:55:18.867 --> 00:55:19.666
is around growing.

871
00:55:19.806 --> 00:55:25.128
And so basically helping people to set up their little vegetable plots and sort of food systems.

872
00:55:25.688 --> 00:55:29.969
And you can come do that in one day workshops or you can do that in a two day workshop.

873
00:55:30.069 --> 00:55:33.930
So some of them are more geared towards like one specific

874
00:55:34.911 --> 00:55:54.066
part of it so for instance composting or how you take care of your seedlings and stuff or garden design for instance and then we have a two-day course which is super intensive and it sort of like hits all the you know it hits all the parts that are important for you to successfully grow vegetables regeneratively so there's a

875
00:55:54.086 --> 00:56:03.214
module that starts out with your holistic vision and sort of takes you all the way through to how to design and what drives fertility and then you know basically like crop

876
00:56:03.294 --> 00:56:19.619
planning more of the technical aspects of it and then you get access to our digital course so we do have a digital course as well which is basically an add-on for the inside or you can take it on your own at home anywhere in the world whenever you want and then you know learn that way awesome

877
00:56:19.699 --> 00:56:28.562
so yeah messages out there for people who are interested in learning more about starting their own market garden yeah and what about cooking are there cooking lessons they're gonna come

878
00:56:30.182 --> 00:56:30.702
They are.

879
00:56:30.703 --> 00:56:35.185
We have a lot of tutorials out there right now about growing and about cooking.

880
00:56:35.345 --> 00:56:36.325
And for the growing,

881
00:56:36.365 --> 00:56:40.688
we've got our digital product set up and of course our onsite events.

882
00:56:41.488 --> 00:56:42.269
And then for the cooking,

883
00:56:42.329 --> 00:56:43.249
we're working on that.

884
00:56:43.549 --> 00:56:47.211
We are of course also cooking for some onsite events that we host where we have farm tours.

885
00:56:47.212 --> 00:56:48.632
So if you want to come enjoy our food,

886
00:56:48.633 --> 00:56:49.873
you could come visit a farm tour.

887
00:56:50.713 --> 00:56:51.854
And there are tutorials out there,

888
00:56:51.855 --> 00:56:54.935
but there's no in-person cooking currently happening.

889
00:56:55.215 --> 00:56:56.416
There will be in September and stuff.

890
00:56:56.417 --> 00:56:57.297
So if you're into that,

891
00:56:57.298 --> 00:56:58.197
then check out our website,

892
00:56:58.198 --> 00:56:58.577
I'm sure.

893
00:57:00.546 --> 00:57:04.649
So how do you bring all of these different elements into your business model?

894
00:57:04.709 --> 00:57:06.390
Because there's the market garden,

895
00:57:06.410 --> 00:57:07.291
the growing of food,

896
00:57:07.311 --> 00:57:08.952
the regenerating the ecosystem,

897
00:57:10.213 --> 00:57:10.893
the chickens,

898
00:57:11.374 --> 00:57:13.215
there's the education part.

899
00:57:13.495 --> 00:57:17.678
How does all of that come together and how does your economic model work?

900
00:57:18.378 --> 00:57:18.679
Wonderful,

901
00:57:18.699 --> 00:57:19.439
that's a good question.

902
00:57:19.719 --> 00:57:22.661
I just wanted to also just draw back to one thing you said before,

903
00:57:22.662 --> 00:57:24.683
where you said you want to learn people how to market garden.

904
00:57:24.843 --> 00:57:25.263
Of course,

905
00:57:25.283 --> 00:57:26.284
it's very much what we do.

906
00:57:26.384 --> 00:57:28.826
So we do show people a lot of those techniques,

907
00:57:28.827 --> 00:57:28.946
but

908
00:57:29.246 --> 00:57:33.028
Our courses are also very much geared towards people just wanting to grow for themselves.

909
00:57:33.029 --> 00:57:37.911
So it's like basically the average consumer and then people who might want to market garden,

910
00:57:37.931 --> 00:57:39.172
they take our courses as well.

911
00:57:39.232 --> 00:57:47.176
But maybe there are people in the space of like becoming a professional market gardener that are like Jean-Martin Fortier or other people that are really geared towards the business side of things.

912
00:57:47.457 --> 00:57:53.900
I think we are very much geared towards people that are looking to give their own gardens a useful purpose.

913
00:57:54.260 --> 00:57:56.122
So we're more in the consumer section,

914
00:57:56.162 --> 00:57:56.602
I would say.

915
00:57:58.242 --> 00:57:59.583
And as for our business model,

916
00:57:59.723 --> 00:58:02.483
which is a really great question because we have a lot of stuff going on.

917
00:58:05.144 --> 00:58:20.669
So I would say that we sort of have two business running alongside each other and that our place serves as both the backdrop for the education and there are certain aspects to our farm that aren't necessarily needing to be profitable on their own as a singular enterprise.

918
00:58:20.689 --> 00:58:21.529
Like I was explaining to you,

919
00:58:21.530 --> 00:58:21.849
for instance,

920
00:58:21.850 --> 00:58:22.669
the chickens that,

921
00:58:23.129 --> 00:58:23.390
you know,

922
00:58:23.590 --> 00:58:24.670
it's more for just.

923
00:58:25.098 --> 00:58:45.048
us regenerating the land and for the eggs and then using that for the content and for the videography and education the same goes for like our sheep and our our broilers so we see them as parts of the regeneration tool but not necessarily as you know we're making money from selling eggs for instance right um philippe

924
00:58:45.068 --> 00:58:49.090
is very much the gardener of the two of us and i'm much more more the storyteller.

925
00:58:49.670 --> 00:58:55.453
So I think we found a really great way to combine two businesses alongside each other and take the benefit of both.

926
00:58:55.954 --> 00:58:57.174
And so if you see them as a zero,

927
00:58:57.855 --> 00:58:59.256
as individual entities,

928
00:58:59.636 --> 00:59:03.658
I would say that our main focus is on the content and the digital creation.

929
00:59:04.179 --> 00:59:06.700
And then our market garden is working in function,

930
00:59:06.820 --> 00:59:09.422
but obviously needs to generate an income.

931
00:59:09.682 --> 00:59:15.245
But it's not something that we necessarily want to scale to great lengths,

932
00:59:15.385 --> 00:59:15.745
let's say.

933
00:59:16.166 --> 00:59:16.666
Okay.

934
00:59:16.994 --> 00:59:25.061
And so you managed to make it work at the moment with the income from the market garden on one side and the courses and education part of the operation?

935
00:59:25.461 --> 00:59:25.641
Yes,

936
00:59:25.761 --> 00:59:25.921
well,

937
00:59:25.981 --> 00:59:31.386
we are obviously still only in the second year and we have had to invest quite a lot in terms of getting the system up and running.

938
00:59:31.806 --> 00:59:32.126
But yes,

939
00:59:32.167 --> 00:59:33.468
things are looking very positive,

940
00:59:33.548 --> 00:59:39.513
like growth is going strong and we have our KPIs to reach in a couple of years.

941
00:59:39.933 --> 00:59:42.315
So I would say that we are managing to make it work.

942
00:59:42.575 --> 00:59:42.695
Yeah,

943
00:59:42.935 --> 00:59:43.396
definitely.

944
00:59:43.936 --> 00:59:46.098
What's the long term vision?

945
00:59:46.298 --> 00:59:47.879
Like maybe 10 years from now,

946
00:59:48.300 --> 00:59:52.924
how do you imagine this place being like and how do you imagine also the model?

947
00:59:53.424 --> 00:59:53.604
Yeah.

948
00:59:55.446 --> 00:59:55.606
Well,

949
00:59:55.646 --> 00:59:56.567
in 10 years time,

950
00:59:56.667 --> 00:59:58.509
I hope that we're standing in this,

951
00:59:58.589 --> 00:59:58.829
you know,

952
00:59:59.049 --> 01:00:01.151
location with everything that we've implemented.

953
01:00:01.371 --> 01:00:01.731
Having,

954
01:00:01.771 --> 01:00:02.032
you know,

955
01:00:02.392 --> 01:00:02.652
like

956
01:00:03.853 --> 01:00:04.334
I would say.

957
01:00:05.959 --> 01:00:09.562
having great impact and success so that our fertility levels have gone up.

958
01:00:09.742 --> 01:00:11.544
We can have more animals on the land.

959
01:00:11.804 --> 01:00:13.465
Our trees are thriving.

960
01:00:13.986 --> 01:00:24.675
We are still supplying our local community with food because that is definitely one of Philippe's purpose driven desire for his life.

961
01:00:24.715 --> 01:00:25.535
Like he loves to grow.

962
01:00:25.676 --> 01:00:26.756
He loves to grow plants.

963
01:00:26.757 --> 01:00:28.037
He loves to garden.

964
01:00:28.038 --> 01:00:28.938
He loves to be outdoors.

965
01:00:28.939 --> 01:00:30.720
So I envision us doing that.

966
01:00:31.801 --> 01:00:33.142
As for the digital side,

967
01:00:33.582 --> 01:00:34.243
I think that

968
01:00:35.467 --> 01:00:36.627
If we are successful,

969
01:00:37.148 --> 01:00:39.288
a lot of people will know who the farming chefs are,

970
01:00:39.348 --> 01:00:46.550
and a lot of people will associate that with a very positive influence that has had on their daily lives in terms of what they do in their kitchens.

971
01:00:46.910 --> 01:00:48.451
So I hope that we have inspired many,

972
01:00:48.491 --> 01:00:49.851
many people to buy organic,

973
01:00:49.911 --> 01:00:51.332
regeneratively grown local food.

974
01:00:52.152 --> 01:00:56.273
And I hope we have inspired many people to feel that they are also capable of growing some of their own food.

975
01:00:56.733 --> 01:00:58.113
How that will evolve in 10 years'

976
01:00:58.153 --> 01:00:58.393
time,

977
01:00:58.434 --> 01:01:02.835
I think that there will be many spin-offs and many different types of courses and areas to explore.

978
01:01:03.275 --> 01:01:03.575
or also...

979
01:01:03.835 --> 01:01:07.578
showcasing other successful regenerative projects is something that I'm very passionate about.

980
01:01:07.579 --> 01:01:08.759
We did a mini series and

981
01:01:09.679 --> 01:01:18.105
I would love to get out on the road also and sort of go beyond this location and I see it as a wonderful home base.

982
01:01:18.606 --> 01:01:31.635
It's amazing so you're really really passionate about trying to obviously to have an impact on the land that you own here and you're doing something amazing here I believe but also beyond that yes trying to reach a lot of people online.

983
01:01:31.795 --> 01:01:49.170
through courses through going to visit other farms yourselves to try and get the knowledge out there to to get people inspired about uh about farming about regenerating about community and all these things right exactly i think the storytelling is super important i feel like that's where there's a lot of um room

984
01:01:49.330 --> 01:01:59.339
still in in our movement like when i feel like we're in this early adaption phase that we discussed earlier and i feel this need to to tell the story like i feel

985
01:01:59.819 --> 01:02:13.348
something burning inside of me that is just like guys this is so great like everybody needs to look over here and not I don't mean here like our farm but I mean like hey regenerative ag is amazing look at all these small farmers that are doing a great job

986
01:02:13.769 --> 01:02:27.158
I feel that because we know a lot of you know small farmers we've been small small skill farmers for a long time now and I sort of feel like uh yeah farmers need to get to this sort of rock star status not for the personal fame but for the sake of sort of,

987
01:02:27.658 --> 01:02:27.938
you know,

988
01:02:28.339 --> 01:02:28.459
the...

989
01:02:29.519 --> 01:02:35.364
the respect that the job deserves and the support that it should receive from the community,

990
01:02:35.424 --> 01:02:36.305
from the local community.

991
01:02:38.606 --> 01:02:38.867
So yeah,

992
01:02:38.907 --> 01:02:41.409
there's maybe a little bit of a missionary in me.

993
01:02:43.190 --> 01:02:47.053
And I also think that there is a really strong case to be made that,

994
01:02:47.293 --> 01:02:47.574
you know,

995
01:02:47.694 --> 01:02:49.615
as love and relationship goes through the stomach,

996
01:02:49.715 --> 01:02:53.519
I also think that change in the world can come via like the kitchen,

997
01:02:53.579 --> 01:02:54.079
if you will.

998
01:02:54.619 --> 01:02:56.341
And I think that's a unique perspective we bring.

999
01:02:56.901 --> 01:02:57.842
and it's a fun one.

1000
01:02:58.082 --> 01:02:58.823
I think people like

1001
01:02:59.255 --> 01:03:02.398
food and like cooking and like good stories and I think

1002
01:03:02.898 --> 01:03:19.793
I think we have all of those do you miss the sort of chefing life and having your own restaurant yeah well I don't flip dust like I think if it was up to Philippe we would probably be opening a restaurant like tomorrow but I sort of trying to I'm trying to hold that off a little bit because of the family aspect and

1003
01:03:20.954 --> 01:03:21.794
Yeah, and sort of the...

1004
01:03:23.531 --> 01:03:23.651
Yeah,

1005
01:03:23.652 --> 01:03:24.432
as I said before,

1006
01:03:24.492 --> 01:03:27.314
it's sort of what you want from your personal life.

1007
01:03:27.354 --> 01:03:29.195
And I feel that even though restaurants,

1008
01:03:29.856 --> 01:03:30.136
you know,

1009
01:03:30.577 --> 01:03:35.140
it's a super satisfactory job because you get to perform every day.

1010
01:03:35.260 --> 01:03:36.141
It's a high stress.

1011
01:03:36.261 --> 01:03:37.022
When you succeed,

1012
01:03:37.023 --> 01:03:37.242
you know,

1013
01:03:38.102 --> 01:03:39.223
you get the room full.

1014
01:03:39.383 --> 01:03:40.804
You serve everybody great food.

1015
01:03:40.885 --> 01:03:41.725
Everybody goes home.

1016
01:03:42.045 --> 01:03:43.887
You have that feeling of.

1017
01:03:44.107 --> 01:04:02.220
a victory and that happens over and over again and maybe sometimes you have a bad night but most of the time you just have this constant feedback loop of like success success and that's really really empowering and i think philippe also thrives under this adrenaline kick um but from my perspective as a mom you know i sort of see how hard it is on family life and

1018
01:04:02.260 --> 01:04:11.407
so i always joke that we'll do it maybe when the kids can do some dishes yeah but i can understand how like

1019
01:04:12.047 --> 01:04:12.367
Well,

1020
01:04:12.547 --> 01:04:13.428
my dad was a chef.

1021
01:04:13.608 --> 01:04:17.010
I worked in a lot of kitchens in my younger years.

1022
01:04:17.270 --> 01:04:17.411
Yeah,

1023
01:04:17.451 --> 01:04:17.871
so you know.

1024
01:04:17.872 --> 01:04:19.652
And I know that it's a very tough life.

1025
01:04:19.712 --> 01:04:23.214
And it's very tough in terms of working evenings and weekends.

1026
01:04:23.215 --> 01:04:24.035
And for your family life,

1027
01:04:24.036 --> 01:04:25.015
it must be very difficult.

1028
01:04:25.556 --> 01:04:26.917
It's always when the kids are free,

1029
01:04:27.677 --> 01:04:28.318
you're working.

1030
01:04:28.538 --> 01:04:32.080
So it's sort of like you don't get to see your kids anymore.

1031
01:04:32.420 --> 01:04:32.660
You know,

1032
01:04:32.820 --> 01:04:34.722
because it is like holidays.

1033
01:04:35.602 --> 01:04:36.483
You're at your busiest.

1034
01:04:37.435 --> 01:04:37.975
Christmas,

1035
01:04:38.376 --> 01:04:39.236
you're at your busiest.

1036
01:04:39.296 --> 01:04:39.816
Weekends,

1037
01:04:39.836 --> 01:04:40.516
you're at your busiest.

1038
01:04:40.517 --> 01:04:44.158
So it's always sort of that you sacrifice to some extent family life for that.

1039
01:04:44.678 --> 01:04:46.839
And there are many great chefs that are doing that.

1040
01:04:48.359 --> 01:04:48.879
I think that,

1041
01:04:48.939 --> 01:04:49.199
you know,

1042
01:04:49.419 --> 01:04:52.761
we're lucky that we get to eat really nice food and that people are sort of,

1043
01:04:53.421 --> 01:04:56.762
I don't want to say sacrificing their families because I'm sure that they'll find a way to make that work.

1044
01:04:56.763 --> 01:04:57.802
But for me personally,

1045
01:04:58.263 --> 01:04:59.243
I just felt like it was...

1046
01:05:00.003 --> 01:05:00.403
Fair enough.

1047
01:05:01.604 --> 01:05:02.184
Is there maybe...

1048
01:05:02.908 --> 01:05:31.179
a way you could reintegrate the cooking and the chefing into your business model without being you know a full-time restaurant high intensity high stress yeah it can be like a pop-up you know we we discuss this quite often like in summertime doing more events and things and that is definitely in the books but i don't know if i would call that restaurant you know what i mean like it is but it isn't in it's not the same it would never take the same form as it did yeah i i really love I love it when I see these pictures online of these

1049
01:05:31.320 --> 01:05:32.300
tables put out.

1050
01:05:32.740 --> 01:05:48.233
in the farm or in the vineyards in the summers beautiful table i feel like people are looking for experiences that's something magical that you get to do i think there will be a man for that i'm sure you could do something really cool yeah i know and it will happen like it definitely is in the books maybe maybe in

1051
01:05:48.253 --> 01:06:01.664
my mind maybe because we've ran like a super busy restaurant life i'm just thinking like i don't know can we call that a restaurant can i get away with calling that restaurant life but yeah definitely like having really nice food events is like super super nice and especially what you were saying.

1052
01:06:02.044 --> 01:06:05.125
Like here we could just put up tables in the field and,

1053
01:06:05.126 --> 01:06:05.345
you know,

1054
01:06:05.485 --> 01:06:06.605
sit between the olive trees.

1055
01:06:06.625 --> 01:06:09.827
Or here where we're sitting now with these beautiful flowers in the backdrop will be magical.

1056
01:06:09.887 --> 01:06:10.227
I agree.

1057
01:06:10.647 --> 01:06:16.009
And there are a lot of nice initiatives out there of people doing this sort of catering pop-up events and stuff.

1058
01:06:16.029 --> 01:06:17.509
So that's for sure.

1059
01:06:17.809 --> 01:06:18.029
Like,

1060
01:06:18.349 --> 01:06:18.529
yes.

1061
01:06:20.730 --> 01:06:24.951
What would you say is your favorite thing about being a farmer and having this farming life?

1062
01:06:28.188 --> 01:06:30.510
There's actually quite a lot of things that I really like about it.

1063
01:06:32.812 --> 01:06:49.288
I think the best thing about it is that you get to witness the natural cycles and I think that that is a very empowering experience because I think that seeing you know that that cycle of like things slowing down coming up again getting more energy full-on

1064
01:06:49.968 --> 01:06:53.492
like thriving garden seeds and then it decaying sort of again.

1065
01:06:53.832 --> 01:06:55.133
and silencing down,

1066
01:06:55.573 --> 01:06:58.254
it sort of makes you much more aware of that rhythm,

1067
01:06:58.814 --> 01:06:59.795
the pace of life.

1068
01:07:00.295 --> 01:07:04.097
And it puts things in perspective because you also see the force of nature,

1069
01:07:05.537 --> 01:07:13.361
how the life force is so strong and how you can see things that are actually quite damaged still then end up being these beautiful thriving plants.

1070
01:07:13.861 --> 01:07:20.164
So I think there's something about it that is just innately energizing and healing.

1071
01:07:21.036 --> 01:07:22.057
That's one of the things.

1072
01:07:22.318 --> 01:07:26.002
And you get that by just being in the garden,

1073
01:07:26.502 --> 01:07:27.243
harvesting,

1074
01:07:28.004 --> 01:07:29.005
working in the garden.

1075
01:07:29.105 --> 01:07:30.026
So that's super nice.

1076
01:07:30.046 --> 01:07:33.871
I think there's a very healthy side to it,

1077
01:07:33.872 --> 01:07:34.631
let's call it like that,

1078
01:07:34.712 --> 01:07:35.112
mentally.

1079
01:07:36.614 --> 01:07:37.395
Very empowering.

1080
01:07:37.855 --> 01:07:40.578
You start to feel one with the natural,

1081
01:07:40.959 --> 01:07:41.199
you know,

1082
01:07:41.279 --> 01:07:42.080
you start to feel...

1083
01:07:42.856 --> 01:08:04.849
that you're a part of it which is something that i didn't feel growing up so much when i was living in cities and i think that that sort of stepping back into the natural is very good and very healing um obviously i enjoy the good food i enjoy the abundance that we enjoy i enjoy the i enjoy the flavors i enjoy the the sort of learning that as a cook even certain

1084
01:08:04.909 --> 01:08:09.071
things go really well together because they're in season together and sort of being being

1085
01:08:10.352 --> 01:08:13.834
guided by nature in that sense in your creative journeys in the kitchen.

1086
01:08:14.775 --> 01:08:31.326
I like that our kids get to experience this and that they have this connection to the land that they go out and they eat their little edible flowers and that's like part of their daily routine where they just go harvest and yeah sort of those romanticized images that people have about farming are very true.

1087
01:08:31.446 --> 01:08:39.352
I think those are the reasons I think that people enjoy farming and I get to feed people.

1088
01:08:39.672 --> 01:08:41.153
And I think that's really nice,

1089
01:08:41.273 --> 01:08:43.494
like that other people are grateful that you're doing this.

1090
01:08:43.794 --> 01:08:45.655
So your two daughters,

1091
01:08:45.656 --> 01:08:46.956
they enjoy that farm life too?

1092
01:08:47.016 --> 01:08:49.778
They don't miss being closer to the city and stuff like that?

1093
01:08:49.938 --> 01:08:51.539
Sometimes I worry a little bit about that.

1094
01:08:51.859 --> 01:08:52.979
That's a very good question.

1095
01:08:53.099 --> 01:08:59.623
I think our youngest is very adventurous and sort of like hands-on outdoorsy.

1096
01:09:00.343 --> 01:09:02.765
So I think she really thrives in this setup.

1097
01:09:03.465 --> 01:09:07.207
Our eldest is very creative and sort of like dreamy and,

1098
01:09:07.647 --> 01:09:07.887
you know,

1099
01:09:07.988 --> 01:09:08.788
loves to make.

1100
01:09:08.928 --> 01:09:14.433
plays and paint and stuff so she's a bit more maybe inward if that makes sense.

1101
01:09:15.414 --> 01:09:16.936
But I think they do both enjoy it.

1102
01:09:17.536 --> 01:09:18.197
Don't get me wrong,

1103
01:09:18.217 --> 01:09:20.719
I'm going to put a little disclaimer here for all the parents watching.

1104
01:09:21.099 --> 01:09:29.707
Our kids also watch screens and like they are not just always happily prancing around in the fields but it is a part of it and I think they do enjoy it.

1105
01:09:29.988 --> 01:09:32.810
But yes maybe when they start turning you know 12,

1106
01:09:32.890 --> 01:09:33.431
13...

1107
01:09:34.812 --> 01:09:41.577
Maybe then we'll start getting some questions about why are we far away from city life.

1108
01:09:42.918 --> 01:09:52.426
I hope to balance that with just regular visits to family and friends and sending them into the city just enough so that they can experience it and figure out for themselves if that's what they want.

1109
01:09:52.446 --> 01:09:56.429
They'll probably live in cities because everybody needs to revolt against their parents'

1110
01:09:56.469 --> 01:09:57.590
choices and then come back to it.

1111
01:09:58.602 --> 01:10:18.153
probably at some point yeah but i don't know i personally think it's amazing childhood to have for kids to be so connected to nature in this beautiful place here yeah with beautiful nature with amazing food with this yeah being not completely disconnected because you still have screen internet and all of that but i think that's that's amazing um i

1112
01:10:18.173 --> 01:10:18.754
also agree

1113
01:10:19.234 --> 01:10:19.734
Having said that,

1114
01:10:19.735 --> 01:10:22.096
that touches on a subject that I want to just quickly put out there.

1115
01:10:22.116 --> 01:10:26.700
I think as humanity we need to do so much more for what happens in schools because our kids are not homeschooled.

1116
01:10:26.701 --> 01:10:27.881
So we send them to public school.

1117
01:10:28.481 --> 01:10:29.142
And in general,

1118
01:10:29.162 --> 01:10:31.223
I don't have much critique about,

1119
01:10:31.644 --> 01:10:32.024
for instance,

1120
01:10:32.164 --> 01:10:33.545
our school here locally,

1121
01:10:33.665 --> 01:10:33.845
right?

1122
01:10:33.865 --> 01:10:36.627
There's people working there very hard and with lots of love.

1123
01:10:37.068 --> 01:10:38.188
But for instance,

1124
01:10:38.208 --> 01:10:40.770
I don't really have much control over what they eat there for lunch.

1125
01:10:40.951 --> 01:10:43.953
And that's one of the things that I find still hard to sort of accept where,

1126
01:10:45.014 --> 01:10:45.254
you know,

1127
01:10:45.255 --> 01:10:45.374
we...

1128
01:10:45.534 --> 01:11:03.944
try our best to give our foods like quite nutritious and healthy things to eat and then yeah but in school they just eat random crap i want to call it let's just call it crap i'm sorry it's crap yeah and that's so so even in our setup it's not perfect right like it's just you can't can't

1129
01:11:03.964 --> 01:11:14.810
control everything so you do the best you can like sure yeah so we talked about all of the the positives the amazing parts of living here being a farmer all of this but

1130
01:11:15.446 --> 01:11:33.979
i would maybe also like to know what's the you know the opposite side of things and i'm sure there are some things that are hard and yeah maybe the question is what's the the hardest part about this about farming yeah or about this life well yeah i was gonna say it ain't all sunshine and roses isn't it like no

1131
01:11:34.139 --> 01:11:44.106
life is also yeah there are hard parts of course and i think like that is one of the things that i was i suppose also hinting at when we were down there where it's like if you want to farm you need to be realistic about what that takes

1132
01:11:44.606 --> 01:11:47.348
and about not only the physical labor,

1133
01:11:47.608 --> 01:11:51.631
small scale farming is obviously not very machine dependent.

1134
01:11:51.671 --> 01:11:52.652
So a lot of it is you,

1135
01:11:53.012 --> 01:11:53.172
right?

1136
01:11:53.192 --> 01:11:55.954
Like you physically showing up every day,

1137
01:11:56.995 --> 01:11:57.455
come rain,

1138
01:11:57.555 --> 01:11:58.155
come shine.

1139
01:11:58.656 --> 01:12:01.498
So I think that's one of the harder parts about farming that,

1140
01:12:01.798 --> 01:12:02.018
you know,

1141
01:12:02.158 --> 01:12:03.579
and the good days is really nice,

1142
01:12:03.659 --> 01:12:06.761
but there are days that it's just the sheep escape.

1143
01:12:07.562 --> 01:12:13.146
You find out that something ate that crop that you were tending to for the past few months and you're not going to now be able to sell it.

1144
01:12:14.883 --> 01:12:15.883
There's maybe gonna be,

1145
01:12:16.703 --> 01:12:17.024
you know,

1146
01:12:17.604 --> 01:12:26.928
sort of regulatory things that you need to deal with that are very bureaucratic and you don't really have time for them and now you're gonna have to just soldier on and like push through because like you need to do this,

1147
01:12:27.008 --> 01:12:27.248
right?

1148
01:12:28.769 --> 01:12:33.831
I would say that one of the hardest parts about being a small-scale farmer in general is making a profit.

1149
01:12:34.051 --> 01:12:35.692
Like it isn't easy to make a profit,

1150
01:12:35.693 --> 01:12:36.533
you need to be smart,

1151
01:12:37.073 --> 01:12:39.174
you need to have like great accounting.

1152
01:12:40.466 --> 01:12:43.628
You want to make sure that you are not over investing,

1153
01:12:43.649 --> 01:12:49.533
because I think that's the easiest thing that you can do in the quest for making things easier.

1154
01:12:49.873 --> 01:12:52.275
But then that obviously needs to be justified at the other end.

1155
01:12:53.156 --> 01:12:53.276
So,

1156
01:12:54.257 --> 01:12:54.377
yeah,

1157
01:12:54.417 --> 01:12:55.157
especially as well,

1158
01:12:55.197 --> 01:12:56.258
like vegetable growing.

1159
01:12:56.298 --> 01:12:58.400
I think of all the enterprises you could run on a farm,

1160
01:12:58.520 --> 01:13:00.681
because what we're doing here is obviously market gardening,

1161
01:13:00.701 --> 01:13:01.902
but within a farm setting,

1162
01:13:01.962 --> 01:13:02.203
right?

1163
01:13:03.183 --> 01:13:05.325
I would say that every enterprise has its...

1164
01:13:06.886 --> 01:13:07.466
It's struggle,

1165
01:13:07.527 --> 01:13:09.908
so I mean that in terms of like you could be growing meat,

1166
01:13:09.928 --> 01:13:10.749
you could be growing veg,

1167
01:13:10.750 --> 01:13:11.189
you could be,

1168
01:13:11.569 --> 01:13:11.810
you know,

1169
01:13:11.990 --> 01:13:13.130
growing flowers and stuff.

1170
01:13:13.651 --> 01:13:18.174
So I think that the market gardening in general is just like quite intensive job.

1171
01:13:18.234 --> 01:13:24.418
So it's a lot of hours that need to go in and you're probably not going to get like super,

1172
01:13:24.939 --> 01:13:27.140
super rich in all contexts,

1173
01:13:27.200 --> 01:13:27.440
you know,

1174
01:13:27.520 --> 01:13:31.984
because there's a big difference if you're close to a city or if you're further away from a city.

1175
01:13:32.444 --> 01:13:34.966
There's a big difference if you're in a economically...

1176
01:13:35.566 --> 01:14:04.810
potent area or if you're in a less potent area so it's very context driven and we are definitely not in the easiest context for making money with market garden um so i say like yeah you just got to be very on the ball in terms of what you're doing and uh and where you're spending your money and if you're spending it wisely and i think that comes with time like you know where to invest and you know but if you start off it's easy to make mistakes and it's easy to lose money quite quick quite quickly if you don't get on top of it.

1177
01:14:05.546 --> 01:14:06.207
Having said that though,

1178
01:14:06.447 --> 01:14:12.951
I feel like we have somewhat of a different experience than maybe other market gardeners because we're coming from this background with the restaurant.

1179
01:14:13.312 --> 01:14:14.332
So even on our last farm,

1180
01:14:14.372 --> 01:14:17.855
we always like the value was always brought in the transformation,

1181
01:14:17.915 --> 01:14:18.315
like in the,

1182
01:14:18.495 --> 01:14:18.756
you know,

1183
01:14:19.516 --> 01:14:22.038
really in the hospitality side of it.

1184
01:14:22.078 --> 01:14:22.678
And here as well,

1185
01:14:22.718 --> 01:14:26.101
like we have that educational branch to our business model.

1186
01:14:26.641 --> 01:14:29.764
So for us also the drive to make lots of money on the veggie growing,

1187
01:14:30.104 --> 01:14:30.844
it's maybe not as,

1188
01:14:32.065 --> 01:14:32.345
you know.

1189
01:14:33.206 --> 01:14:35.429
as pronounced as it is in other businesses.

1190
01:14:35.970 --> 01:14:37.051
I suppose it is really,

1191
01:14:37.111 --> 01:14:40.916
really important to find different ways to create value from what you're doing,

1192
01:14:41.156 --> 01:14:44.080
like being a pure market gardener and putting all of the pressure on.

1193
01:14:44.452 --> 01:15:06.818
that being the the sole income source of income is really tough but being able to diversify and create value from either cooking or now educating people yeah are many other things that people try to do is well yeah it'll be quite healthy you know i think it is i think it very much depends on your personal background i always think like you bring value with your skill set right so i

1194
01:15:06.838 --> 01:15:13.580
think there are people out there that are doing a great job and they're killing it market gardening and that's the only thing they're doing so i don't think you need the diversification

1195
01:15:13.760 --> 01:15:34.729
per se but i do think it's important to sort of place yourself within your context and be very realistic about what that means for you because for instance if you would tell me hey sophie three years ago i wanted you to move to portugal and i wanted you to become like a super successful market gardener and only make money with the market garden i would not have chosen this location do you know what i mean like um

1196
01:15:34.730 --> 01:15:41.852
i'm not saying it's impossible because you can but it's it's not uh it's probably not the best business move to then you know

1197
01:15:42.232 --> 01:16:01.164
selling a product that basically is quite labor intense in a not super rich area you know it would be smarter than to go closer to a city yeah of course yeah sweet um well it's been an amazing conversation i loved it like love the farm the tour everything you're doing here a great energy and

1198
01:16:01.384 --> 01:16:07.728
thank you so much for also hosting us for a couple of days here on the farm we absolutely loved it and thank you for

1199
01:16:08.060 --> 01:16:23.989
cooking this amazing food for us as well i'm so grateful for all of that so yeah thank you well you're very welcome and thank you also i'm really happy that you made the journey out here we're far out so we really appreciate it and it's been really lovely having you and i've been you know we've been blessed to show you around and it's

1200
01:16:24.129 --> 01:16:29.853
it's great to share this place with others and you're always welcome both of you so thank you guys as well

1201
01:16:39.800 --> 01:16:43.001
Thank you so much for listening to the whole episode,

1202
01:16:43.161 --> 01:16:43.402
really.

1203
01:16:44.022 --> 01:16:46.703
More and more people listen to our episodes every week,

1204
01:16:46.743 --> 01:16:47.783
which is amazing.

1205
01:16:48.244 --> 01:16:52.265
But the stats show that actually only a small percentage make it all the way to the end,

1206
01:16:52.325 --> 01:16:52.565
maybe

1207
01:16:53.046 --> 01:16:54.406
25 to 30%.

1208
01:16:55.446 --> 01:16:56.647
Between the recording,

1209
01:16:56.727 --> 01:16:57.127
filming,

1210
01:16:57.447 --> 01:16:58.628
editing and everything...

1211
01:16:59.384 --> 01:17:02.867
An episode like this actually takes me two whole weeks of work.

1212
01:17:03.727 --> 01:17:05.248
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1213
01:17:05.488 --> 01:17:10.832
super grateful if you could help me out by simply following The Deep Seed here on Spotify,

1214
01:17:10.992 --> 01:17:11.753
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1215
01:17:11.793 --> 01:17:14.715
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1216
01:17:15.916 --> 01:17:17.777
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1217
01:17:17.797 --> 01:17:20.079
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1218
01:17:20.779 --> 01:17:21.240
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1219
01:17:21.660 --> 01:17:28.606
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1220
01:17:29.506 --> 01:17:35.331
And God knows we need more people to hear about regenerative agriculture and the amazing work that these farmers are doing.

1221
01:17:36.072 --> 01:17:36.652
On that note,

1222
01:17:36.772 --> 01:17:41.576
I wish you all an amazing day or night and a beautiful life and see you next week.