Ep. 390 - The August Newsletter | York Meadow Farm

Today we cover the August Newsletter from York Meadow Farm where we cover shopping locally, being the featured vendor at the farmers' market, our campaign to get 1000 likes on Facebook and more!  

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Join Rob today in this late-to-post episode where he shares the monthly newsletter from York Meadow Farm and takes a deep dive into everything that's been going on over the last month!  

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Discussion Links:

The August Newsletter | York Meadow Farm

How to Make a Hügelkultur Raised Gardening Bed

Keep up to date with current events from York Meadow Farm!
https://www.yorkmeadowfarm.com/newsletter

Ready Farmer One – The Farmers Guide to Selling and ...
Ready Farmer One – The farmer’s guide to create, design, and market an online farm store, is the first book of its kind. It will fundamentally change the way you think about farm sales. It will take you through the different stages of starting and scaling an online farm store.

Maurice Small
Maurice works to transform the food landscape in North America via regional initiatives that create and rebuild local food systems.

York Meadow Farm: Lacto-Fermented Foods
Rich in probiotics, our fermented foods are also paleo and keto friendly. Eat a proper human diet.

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:00

If we stand together, we'll never fall. We can make a difference.

SPEAKER_02 0:14

Well, hi there, and welcome back to another episode of the All Around Growth Podcast. My name is Rob Kaiser and I am your host. Today is Monday, August 1st, 2022, and this is episode number 390 of a show that provides insight and tools to build the life and homestead of your dreams. And since it is the first of the month, we are going to cover the newsletter from York Meadow Farm. And that is the farm in homestead where I reside here with my mom and dad. And basically, what we do at the beginning of each month is we review what happened during the last month and kind of look ahead, or that gives us some insight into what we can expect and look ahead into the month ahead. So let's dive right into that. And in large part, that's why today's episode is a little delayed. At the time of recording, it's 7.04 p.m. Normally I'm doing these 12 hours earlier at least. But you know what? Life on life's terms, guys. Uh had to take care of some priorities, and luckily I was able to do so. And here we go. Without further ado, let's dive into the August newsletter subtitled Shop Local Featured Vendor 1000 Likes and More. And it begins, hello. Last month we highlighted the beautiful flower arrangements Elaine is growing and selling at the farmers market of Medina County, located in the Cornerstone Chapel parking lot at 3939 Granger Road, Medina, Ohio. Medina offers two farmers markets within a five-minute drive from one another. We encourage everyone to check out and support both markets. By doing so, you will have easy access to over 60 vendors within just a few miles from one another. An unparalleled local shopping experience. You know, and this is how we're gonna do this today. I will read a paragraph or two and then I will provide some feedback. And you know, of course, I will link to the actual newsletter in the show notes along with the archive of all past newsletters as well. But uh, you know, I think that this is really important to highlight about my hometown. Um, you know, we are in an area here that's not that big. Medina is not a huge area, and we have two farmers markets in in town. We have this one, the farmers market of Medina County, which we have participated in last year and the year prior, and then we have the Medina Farmers Market, which is on the square, and that is the one that we are participating in this year due to uh some change with the farmers market of Medina County. But nevertheless, like I said, within a five-minute drive, 2.3 miles straight as the crow flies, to be exact, we have two different farmers markets, each with a different market experience. And it's awesome. And uh on that, the ones that were wholly responsible for setting up the farmers market of Medina County were the vendors themselves. A few years ago, when you know we were deep in the throes of COVID, there was some confusion or or just lack of movement on the farmers market and how everything was going to proceed that year. So some farmer or some vendors took it upon themselves to form a market to deal with the uncertainty or you know, the lack, yeah, the uncertainty. So they created some certainty, they created a market, they created results, and that is a prime example of something that you know each and every one of us can do if we are not satisfied with the current set of circumstances that we find ourselves in. We can create a new set of circumstances. Moving forward in the newsletter, hashtag shop local. There was also mention in last month's newsletter of new fermented products, in large part based on your feedback, and that's customer feedback, which includes kimchi, salsas, and chimichuri, uh chimichuri, gym chimichuri, and a fermented mustard blend. And now that I am working full-time on the farm and homestead, we have more than doubled our production as we prepare for the launch of our online store this fall. Alright, so guys, also in the show notes, what I will do is link to the newsletter where you can sign up for updates from the Farm and Homestead from York Meadow Farm so you can find out how to support the show, how to support me, our family, the business that we're building by buying our product online. We're not quite there yet, but quite frankly, guys, if you're interested in buying, let me know, and you guys can be my test subject. And uh yeah, for that I'll give it 10% off. Um t.me slash allaroundgrowth for details or send me an email, allaroundgrowth at gmail.com, and let me know that you'd like to order some and I will make it happen. We will make it happen, and uh I would love to hear your feedback on that. Anyways, more on that later. So we included a break in the newsletter at this point, then wrote if summer is crazy busy for you and your family and you can't make it to the market, there's always an option to shop local, and you're going to love it. Our friends over at Yellow House Cheese have made it quick and easy. The online store is open Tuesday through Thursday. There's delivery and pickup on Saturday at multiple locations. You can buy from multiple vendors quickly and easily, and you can pay online and pick up your prepackaged groceries at your convenience and at your location of choice. So you can check it out. Now, this isn't really going to be applicable to you in terms of ordering and buying if you are not in the Northeast Ohio Cleveland metro area, you know, Cleveland Akron uh area for that matter. These pickup locations spread far and wide. What they're doing is quite awesome, and I would just encourage you to check it out and click on the link to shop online. That'll take you to the online store, which is run through the local line platform, and that will give you some insight into you know how you can set up an online store for yourself. And I've talked about this in the past, and I did locate the book, and this is mentioned in Diego Footer's new book titled Ready Farmer One, The Farmer's Guide to Create, Design, and Market an Online Farm Store. Localline is one of the platforms that they use and reference in this book. And basically, it goes something like this. What if you could increase your farm sales, reach new customers, streamline your sales process, and get back all the time you spend at the farmer's market? An online farm store makes all of this possible and ready farmer. One is the blueprint. You'll learn a myriad number of things. And I'm gonna link to this book in the show notes because others are doing it and you can do it too. This book is filled with stories of farmers who have used these methods to change their farm businesses, increase sales, and free up time. Don't get left behind. Alright, so if you are a farmer growing veg and you know other market products, um, this is a great resource. I am definitely going to actually leave this out on the coffee table as a reminder to continue reading this in addition to exploring the other avenues that I have begun exploring with regard to launching the online store, which we are planning on doing the first day in fall, which I believe is September 22nd. More details on that to come. If you are interested in assisting with the launch, let me know because I think that there will be some need for some uh people who are really interested in dedicate, like making a dedicated, concerted effort. And those of you who are already working with me on this show, even though we are working out the details on how we are actually working together on this, perhaps this could be something that we could work together with as well. So, again, more on that later, but definitely do check out the link in the newsletter to see how Yellow House Cheese structures their online store through the local line platform. That brings us to what's new at York Meadow Farm. And quite frankly, guys, July was one of the busiest months we've ever had here on the farm and homestead, and we've never been more excited to share the news with you. Now, earlier in the month, Dad ran into the big city and picked up another order of over a thousand lids and jars of different sizes. And you know, we just need more and more quickly to keep up with the demand. Now, it's also been nice this year to make batches of sauerkraut with herbs from our Hugo Culture Raised Bed. And if you want to know more about this and even learn how to make your own, you can check out an article that I wrote titled How to Make a Hugo Culture Raised Gardening Bed. And there are some photos of the palette and jars and lids in the back of Dad's truck, and some photos of our Huga Culture Raised bed, which is about two feet high, four feet wide, and twelve feet long. And you can see that we have oh, thyme, oregano, rosemary, lavender, um, some dill, uh you know, a little bit of basil, a number of other things growing in there. And for this particular batch of sauerkraut, I was out there harvesting oregano, and this just made for some nice photos and a nice experience. Now we are certainly not growing everything that we are using in our sauerkraut, that would be nice, but for the sake of consistency and keeping up with the demand and working as a two-man team, we source it out. But uh, having some fresh cut herbs from your own Huga Culture Raised bed sure is nice. So, you know, if you're interested in that, check out the show notes, check out the newsletter, and I will link to this also independently the article titled How to Make a Huga Culture Raised Gardening Bed that I wrote as a contributor for something called Men of Order, which will be linked to in the show notes. Moving on in the newsletter. We're moving at a pace where dad is considering a secondary table to keep up with the labeling and packing of cases after the ferments are complete. And as you can see, packing one batch of kraut takes up a lot of space. And I put a photo that I most likely shared in the Telegram group, which you can be a part of at t.me slash all aroundgrowth and join in the conversation with everyone there. Now, this is a photo of a packing day of Curtito where I've probably got what looks like almost 30 jars packed already, and I have another tub full, and I'm just packing, packing, packing, and I'm basically taking up the entire length of the eight-foot table. Now, if we have two of these, we can have two continuous operations going, one packing, one in production, or just one giant assembly line of packing and/or production. It all depends because we've never really worked in that way and we are learning new things every day, especially with the ability to put our shelving on wheels. So we're gonna have big roly shelves. More on that later. Now, in addition to the usual suspects, there's also some new kids on the block, and I'm getting back to reading the newsletter if you couldn't tell. We decided to level up on our salsa game last month and make a batch of salsa in the same size containers that we use for our kraut. Let's go! We made five gallons of salsa, and basically we bought a bushel of oh, we bought a bushel of Roma tomatoes, we used maybe a peck of jalapeno peppers, I don't know how much cilantro and onions, probably another peck of onions. Um you know, a lot, and uh turned out pretty good. Um, we've got one family that's come up two weeks in a row and just bought five jars at a time. You know, uh they're they're just they're just wiping us out of salsa. Uh two weeks, 50 bucks of salsa. Alright, I guess they like it. Um they said that they were out of it by Wednesday. Oh boy. So uh we'll have to start bringing more to the market just for them. Um later in the month, about mid-month, you know, I we were proud to report that we were the featured vendor at the Medina Square Farmers Market. And uh actually that was July 23rd. That was the market on Saturday, July 23rd. So the week leading up to it, there was a lot of press on social media promoting us as the featured vendor. And the promo read as follows York Meadow Farm produces handcrafted batches of probiotic-rich fermented foods and all natural bath and body products scented with pure essential oils. We and our partners incorporate organic, sustainable, and regenerative farming practices into the production of food we grow and the products we make. Subscribe to our newsletter for details on the upcoming launch of our online store with products from our own farm and homestead and featured products from our local farmers market community. Visit our website for the most up-to-date information at YorkmeadowFarm.com. And as newsletter subscribers, you guys will be the first to see updates about the online store. And what's cool is I'll give you some little little little sneak peek into that. Um, mom and dad have gotten down with the idea of selling some other vendors' products through our store. Now, of course, we would sell some stuff for our tenant farmer Cody if he wanted us to. He's already selling through Yellowhouse Cheese, so I think if he had another avenue to sell produce for pickup here on site, or just another avenue to direct them to Yellow House Cheese, I'm sure he would appreciate that. But mom asked me if I would be okay selling another uh an uh another I won't I won't get into who at this point, but we will be selling another vendor's products through our website, which will allow us to have a further diversified product line, and I think that is pretty cool. Um if we can become sort of an aggregator of sorts, that might be one way to further diversify what we're doing, and uh it's also going to require some uh thought and consideration as to you know how we handle it and and what we have to gain from doing it, if it's actually worth it. But uh, anyways, um more on that later, you know, towards the end of the month, in an effort to promote the online store, you know, there's a lot of talk about promotion of the online store, and to give myself, you know, this is this also plays in in in part with my career goals because I have I have changed my career goals uh from where they were for the second quarter to where they are now for the third quarter. My focus is on this online store. I am certainly pushing it through the social media and through the newsletters of York Meadow Farm. And subsequently, you're gonna hear about it here as well because my career is a big part of where we're at with uh you know uh what we talk about on this show, and uh, you know, the the the the the farm and homestead is a big part of all aspects of my life, quite frankly. So, you know, we are probably somewhere in the neighborhood of the mid-700s on Facebook, and we've kind of had a bit of a lull there, we've been at a plateau there for a while, and I think it would be nice if we could get a push and get us over a thousand likes. So I will link to the York Meadow Farm Facebook page as well in the show notes. And if you could go there, click on that link, give our page a like, and you know, share and encourage others to do the same, that would be most excellent and appreciated. And you know, finally to close out the month, we were blessed by a visit from Maurice Small, his family, and his two interns, and that actually occurred yesterday. Now, who is Maurice Small, you may be asking? Maurice transforms the food. Landscape in North America via regional initiatives that create and rebuild local food systems. Alright, now I know that that sounds like a big broad umbrella term, and quite frankly, it is because he is a big broad umbrella man who has done a lot of stuff over the course of his career in the world of farming, urban farming, community-supported agriculture, things like that. And uh, you know, he was also one of the very first people to help out my mom and dad and help them form a vision for the future here way back when, around 2008-2009, when he came out here and helped contribute some ideas that resulted in the initial planting of a hundred blueberry plants eventually in 2010, and that which basically was the official beginning of our family and cooperative farming and homestead ventures, the stuff that I'm talking about now. Alright, so now at that time, Denise, or I mean, I'm sitting here reading the newsletter and but I'm trying to talk to you. Now, my mom had met Maurice through a program called CityFresh, which was a program that worked to provide fresh produce to quote food deserts, right, where residents have few options other than convenience stores and fast food chains for their dietary needs in urban areas. Alright, that's straight from the City Fresh website. I've nothing to say other than I'm just trying to provide some information about who they are and what they do. And my mom worked uh in conjunction with, I believe, Metro Health at that time. She was employed as a nurse, either through Metro or was doing some work somewhere else, and they were working in conjunction with their patients and this program, and that's how she met Maurice. And this is from Maurice's website, and Maurice's message of transformation and commitment to youth, soil, and food has been shared with the following communities: Washington, DC, Baltimore, Maryland, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Youngstown, Ohio, Cleveland, Ohio, Detroit, Michigan, Louisville, Kentucky, Chicago, Illinois, Toronto, up in Canada, Wilmington, down in North Carolina, Raleigh, Durham, Charlotte, Grainville, all in North Carolina, and ultimately Atlanta, Georgia, where he lives today. He was up here today or this past week visiting his mom, spending some time with his interns, and we were able to take a tour of the farm together and proud to show him and everyone the work of our tenant farmer Cody, who, you know, this this was pretty cool to hear, and I I I really wish Cody was there to hear it himself because you made us proud.

SPEAKER_01 26:07

Six years ago.

SPEAKER_02 26:11

And I had literally just built that thing a year or two before. And I had burnt out and I'd built it for all the wrong reasons, and I was twenty-some thousand dollars in debt and miserable and burnt out.

SPEAKER_01 26:35

You know, I'd sit out there and listen to podcasts and cry. And uh I remember putting it up for release.

SPEAKER_02 26:52

And you know what what's really interesting, uh, you know, to go back even further, like ten years ago, when when I was still living in California, my parents would tell me stories about Cody, who was, you know, farming at market at that time, and how he was just this, you know, kind of this barefoot guy, and just uh uh, you know, danced to the beat of his own drum and as I danced with the idea of coming back here and had some nervousness and some trepidation about it. Um you know, my parents mentioned him and uh said, hey, there's there's this guy here that you know you might you might identify with and uh you guys might have might might actually be be friends. Well, lo and behold, ten years na ten years after the fact, I'm actually living here working full time with my dad after quitting my job, and Cody is the tenant farmer here on the land working the high tunnel that I built and shed tears in. It's it's amazing. And Maurice was very pleased to see the way that Cody had lined out his crops, the way that he had things in succession, the way that he had trays seeded out right now, the way that he had seedlings coming on, the way that he had plants in the ground, the way that he had crops in rotation, the way that he had things planted in the tunnel, companion planting, you know, kale amongst the tomatoes and this and that, and and all sorts of interesting things. And his son, um Maurice's son actually said that uh that the that the cherry tomatoes rival, though, is that Maurice grows himself. Because quite frankly, the tomatoes that Cody grows are delicious indeed. And after this whole farm tour and and and looking around and everything real casually, uh we we followed with a local food and cheese sampling paired with a selection of our very own krauts, pickles, kimchi, and salsa. And in all honesty, we learned as much from Maurice and his interns as they learned from us and the work that we're all doing. It truly was a beautiful day yesterday. Now in each newsletter, we also have a portion where Cody is able to um oh shoot. And you know what? As I'm going through this, I forgot to add the buttons to the farmer's market where he's at in Tremont. I will have to remember to do that next week. But anyways, Cody writes, the beds may not move, but move they make you steady heart, strong mind, much sweat. It's all going back to the same place. I've linked to Cody's Instagram page where you can see some photos and see some work that he does, get some insight into who he is, and there is also some nice photos that we've included in the newsletter that he sends me for the little potion portion in the newsletter that we call Cody's Corner. And again, you know, Cody and a number of other vendors are at the other market in town, the farmers market of Medina County, while we are at the Medina Farmers Market. And it's really awesome that we have two farmers markets just minutes from each other right here in Medina. The newsletter goes on to read: We are genuinely grateful to have you as a customer and to have the ability to share the lives we are creating with you via our email newsletter. Thank you. If you like what you see and think someone in your own social networks would like to read this, please share it with them via the links below and there are quick action call to action tabs for Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and the link to forward this email to someone else. And if you'd like to reach out, say hello, or have any questions or concerns, simply hit reply to this email, and that will put direct you directly in our inbox. If you'd like to subscribe to our email list, you can do so here with the link. Please follow this link to view our email campaign archive, and we appreciate your continued support. It means the world to us. Sincerely, the York Meadow Farm family and co-op. And then there are links below that to all of the fantastic market opportunities in our community that we proudly participate in andor support vendors at each of them, and they are the Medina Square Farmers Market, Yellow House Cheese, the Exchange Market, Richardson Farms, Grounded Yoga and Wellness, Destiny Farm, and the Farmers Market of Medina County. Each of those have details listed in the show notes. I mean, in the newsletter rather, and the newsletter will be linked to in the show notes. So, guys, that's about it for today. I know it was a longer one, but quite frankly, these newsletters that we are working on are getting longer and longer and longer as things continue to grow, evolve, and change here on the farm and homestead. We're only two months in or so to this whole world of self-employment, this whole world of partnership with my family. I don't really know what I'm doing. But I'll tell you one thing. Whatever it is, I'm gonna share it with you, and we'll figure it out together. You know, I'm gonna cut this episode short right now so I can get it uploaded and get it released before a Financial Peace University course that I am coordinating and putting together at 9 p.m. this evening. And uh in in a time of you know, chaos and uh confusion, not not chaos, I don't want to call it that, but when a time of transition, you know, finding some stability has has allowed me to really settle into what it is that I'm working on, and the stability can be as simple as something like a newsletter on the first of the month. And if you don't have a newsletter or an organization that you can write for, you can create a blog, you can do something, you can have self-imposed deadlines, you know, you can join a group like the All Around Growth community on Telegram, t.me slash all around growth, for some accountability to help you achieve some of the goals that you're working through. The only thing is you just gotta have the balls to be able to communicate what it is that you want and hopefully connect with someone in that group who's doing something that you uh you know what want to do and maybe doing it a little bit better. Going outside your comfort. That was a big thing that we talked about with you know, Maurice and the interns was was a big key to success. Was well not being afraid to fail and embracing that failure, you know, learning from it, and going outside your comfort zone to find people who know more than you do, and you know, not being afraid to look dumb in order to learn, you know, kind of the whole mentality of fall down seven times, stand up eight. Um this young couple really had a lot of a lot of passion, and it was it was wonderful to uh to to share that time with them. And it was wonderful to learn more from Maurice. And actually, uh one of the things I learned from him is going to be the topic of tomorrow's show when we talk about side hustles. We're gonna talk about financial topics in tomorrow's show, side hustles, additional streams of income, and things that you can do to get a little money going. And that's something that I need to think about because I am no longer employed in the real world. But guys, we're not gonna talk about employment in the real world today. We are talking about the August newsletter from York Meadow Farm, where we're talking about shopping local, the featured vendor, 1,000 likes and more, and ultimately ending the newsletter with an awesome story about Maurice Small. So, guys, that's it for today. Look forward to catching you tomorrow with the financial show on side hustles and more. This is Ralph Kaiser, and thank you.