Tending Seeds: Adventures in Gardening, Homesteading, and Herbalism

Follow along on our journey of living off-grid on our 42 acre homestead in western Colorado as well as running a regenerative herb farm and creating seasonal herbal products to meet the needs of our community. Other topics discussed will include planning and goal setting for your best life, the importance of community building, and tons of DIY projects for the farmstead. Help keep the show going by checking out our online farm store at NordicFoxFarm.com. We appreciate your support so, so much!

Ep 65 - Market Vending Tips with Sara and Mike 06/04/2025

Ep 64 - Mushroom Foraging with Whitney Johnson 04/30/2025

Ep 63 - Seed Farming with Dan Brisebois 04/15/2025

Ep 63 - Seed Farming with Dan Brisebois Hey friends! Hope you’re doing well! Spring is poking its head up here but we’re still getting snow off and on as well, so we’re not able to start planting outdoors yet. We have lots of great stuff happening inside though! We’ve got loads of grow lights and heat mats set up and we have tons of seedlings already taking off! We’re really trying to narrow our focus this year to growing larger quantities of a fewer number of crops. Specifically we’re focused on the things that we need big amounts of in order to produce the things we make for our farm store – mainly our seasonings and our herbal teas. We’re also still growing vegetables for our personal use, and continuing to expand our perennial food forest of course. But we’re getting a lot more dialed in on prioritizing what we really HAVE to have versus all of the fun random things that I WANT to have when I flip through seed catalogs. Which sometimes is easier said than done, because there are just so many cool varieties out there and I want to try them all! Speaking of seeds, that’s our focus today! My guest today is Dan Brisebois, a farmer who focuses on growing seeds. His newest book is The Seed Farmer and I was sooooo ridiculously excited to get to talk to him about it! I’ve been a bit of a fan girl about Dan’s work for quite a while now, ever since I learned about his worker co-operative farm and then got to go through his Farmer Spreadsheet Academy a few years back. Yall know how much I love a spreadsheet! Dan’s book is absolutely fantastic and I think you’ll get a ton from it whether you’re wanting to learn to save seed and come up with your own plant crosses for your own personal garden use, or if you’re interested in selling seed someday yourself. I hope you enjoy our conversation! ~*~*~*~*~*~*~ Connect with Dan: -- get a copy of Dan's book, check out his great blog, learn about the Farmer Spreadsheet Academy, and listen to the Seed Farmer Podcast! ~*~*~*~*~*~*~ As always, if you enjoy the podcast please share it with a friend or two and leave us a positive rating and review! You can also support our work by checking out our farm store at . We have some great new tea blends up in the shop plus all of our delicious seasonings and smoked salts. Make sure to use the code PODCAST25 for 10% off your first order, and hop on our mailing list while you’re at it. I hope you’re doing well and getting to have some planty fun this spring. Our next episode will be all about mushroom foraging! Until then, keep your hands dirty and your heart open. /episode/index/show/tendingseeds/id/36139245

Ep 62 - Traveling Farm Work with James Miller 03/13/2025

Ep 62 - Traveling Farm Work with James Miller Today I have a really great guest for you! His name is James Miller and I actually met him as a tattoo client. We did a large piece that took several sessions and so as I was tattooing him we had some really amazing conversations that then led to me wanting to bring him on the podcast. James was here in Colorado to work on a local farm as a WWOOFer. Now what is WWOOFing? WWOOFing stands for World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms. This is an organization that networks small farms with individuals who are interested in working on farms. This usually isn’t paid work, but instead a pre-set arrangement of working a certain number of hours per day or week in exchange for meals and housing, plus the knowledge that you will get to pick up along the way. So WWOOFing can be an amazing opportunity for someone who is interested in traveling all over the country, or even the world, and learning some cool skills as they do so. It’s something I was looking into doing when I was younger so when James told me he was a WWOOFer I knew I had to have him on the show! Today James will share his experiences with us traveling through two different organizations – WWOOFing, as well as another similar site called WorkAway. We recorded this episode in December right before he left Colorado for his next farm destination. His travels have taken him to several different states as well as Spain and Morocco and who knows where he will go next. If you’re interested in learning agricultural skills, WWOOFing can be a really cool option and James will outline some of the things he looks for when considering a new potential work arrangement. I hope this episode will inspire you and give you the travel bug! Enjoy! Connect with James on . ~*~*~*~*~*~ Our is full of goodies for you! We have two new offerings in the shop -- our Hot Italian Seasoning, and our Tummy Mender Tea. Our seasonal Lymph Love vinegar is also back in stock to guide us smoothly out of winter and into early spring over the next few months. Your support helps us to keep growing, literally and figuratively <3 Coming through Hotchkiss, Colorado? Swing by our new in-person farm store at 148 E Bridge St! We'd love to see you and have a chat over a cup of tea! Use code PODCAST25 at checkout to save 10% on everything in the farm shop! You can follow us on and . Please share the podcast with a friend so we can reach more fantastic like-minded people!! <3 /episode/index/show/tendingseeds/id/35665160

Ep 61 - Italian Folk Healing with Lisa Fazio 02/28/2025

Ep 61 - Italian Folk Healing with Lisa Fazio Hi, friends! We’ve been working hard this month getting back into the swing of things. We spent four days vending at various markets this month and March and April are slated to be busy as well. We also had the official grand opening of our farm store in Hotchkiss and it’s been so amazing to connect with people in person when they come in to browse our teas and other herbal products! We’re getting ready to jump on our next project, which is getting the greenhouse built next month! We’re also getting some seeds going indoors in the meantime, and then they’ll move out to the greenhouse which we hope to have done by mid-April at the latest. This will let us get a HUGE jump on the growing season, as we can’t really put many plants outside until the end of May. And as we wait for spring to arrive, I’m having fun editing some of the great interviews I’ve had time to record these last couple months, including today’s wonderful convo with Lisa Fazio. Lisa is an Irish/Italian American folklore witch, herbalist, and astrologer, as well as the mother of 4 children and Nonna to 2 grandchildren. Her principal training is in Traditional Western Herbalism, Western Astrology, and the folk ways of her Italian immigrant family. The primary focus of her work is ancestral revival and remembrance within the Italian diaspora as well as with anyone who longs for ancestral connection. She has an academic background in Psychology and Ethnobotany as well as years of study and practice in the traditions of Trika Shaivism and Plant Spirit Medicine. She is also a tracker, a wilderness first responder and has spent 20 years working as a clinical and community herbalist. I’m so honored to have gotten to chat with Lisa about her book, Della Medicina: The Tradition of Italian-American Folk Healing. We had such a wonderful conversation and one thing I really want to emphasize is that you don’t need to be of Italian heritage to get a ton of value out of Lisa’s work! So much of what she shares crosses different cultures and backgrounds and I hope this will inspire you to dive into your own ancestry as well. Grab your own copy of ! Connect with Lisa: * * ~*~*~*~*~*~ Our is full of goodies for you! We have two new offerings in the shop -- our Hot Italian Seasoning, and our Tummy Mender Tea. Our seasonal Lymph Love vinegar is also back in stock to guide us smoothly out of winter and into early spring over the next few months. Your support helps us to keep growing, literally and figuratively <3 Coming through Hotchkiss, Colorado? Swing by our new in-person farm store at 148 E Bridge St! We'd love to see you and have a chat over a cup of tea! Use code PODCAST25 at checkout to save 10% on everything in the farm shop! You can follow us on and . Please share the podcast with a friend so we can reach more fantastic like-minded people!! <3 /episode/index/show/tendingseeds/id/35476650

Ep 60 - Tiny Farm Planning with Jill Ragan 01/31/2025

Ep 60 - Tiny Farm Planning with Jill Ragan Hey friends! Hope you’re doing well as we wrap up January here. We have been SUPER busy with some big projects behind the scenes. One of them is that we now have our farm store open in Hotchkiss! For the last two years, Mike and I have, in addition to homesteading, had a small tattoo studio in Hotchkiss. Our lease was coming to an end and we had really outgrown the space so we started looking for something bigger. One of the things we were hoping to find was a new studio space that would be big enough to actually house both of our business! We lucked out and found a great commercial space that’s still on the main road through town and the property owner is super cool and very supportive of everything we’re doing. We've also been trying to find some time to pause and do some planning before things pick up steam here with markets again. I think taking the time to really reflect on what we’ve done before planning for the next season is so incredibly important and that’s why I’m so excited to have Jill Ragan of Whispering Willow Farm on the podcast today! She’s the author of the Tiny But Mighty Farm but our focus today is to talk about her newest project, The Tiny Farm Planner. We had an awesome conversation about so many topics, like honoring the different seasons of our lives, getting away from the cultural urge to monetize everything we are doing, and instead focusing on the joy that activities bring to us. Hope you enjoy! Grab your own copy of ! Connect with Jill: * * ~*~*~*~*~*~ Our is full of goodies for you! We have two new offerings in the shop -- our Hot Italian Seasoning, and our Tummy Mender Tea. Our seasonal Lymph Love vinegar is also back in stock to guide us smoothly out of winter and into early spring over the next few months. Your support helps us to keep growing, literally and figuratively <3 Coming through Hotchkiss, Colorado? Swing by our new in-person farm store at 148 E Bridge St! We'd love to see you and have a chat over a cup of tea! Use code PODCAST25 at checkout to save 10% on everything in the farm shop! You can follow us on and . Please share the podcast with a friend so we can reach more fantastic like-minded people!! <3 /episode/index/show/tendingseeds/id/35091910

Ep 59 - Preserving with a Purpose with Sarah Thrush 01/18/2025

Ep 58 - Homestead Chats with Natalie and Sara 09/27/2024

Ep 57 - Botanical Cocktails with Tenae Stewart 09/18/2024

Ep 56 - Next-Level Tools for Your Homestead 07/18/2024

Ep 55 - Spring Means Worktime 06/13/2024

Ep 54 - Our 2024 Goals 01/22/2024

Ep 53 - Essential Tools for Your Homestead 12/01/2023

Ep 52 - Reflections After One Year Living Off-Grid 10/12/2023

Ep 51 - Alaskan Homesteading with Natalie, the Alaska Redhead 06/22/2023

Ep 50 - Our Off-Grid Infrastructure 06/01/2023

Ep 49 - Small-Scale Homesteading with Michelle and Stephanie 05/18/2023

Ep 49 - Small-Scale Homesteading with Michelle and Stephanie Hi friends! I hope the month of May has been treating you well! Things here are looking great – it’s finally warm enough that we have some seeds started and sprouting, and we were invited to vend at a local market for a spring event last week. Our farmers' market also starts up at the end of this month and we’re looking forward to being there every Saturday! Today’s interview features two awesome guests who I’m excited to introduce you to: Stephanie Thurow is a Certified Master Food Preserver and Master Gardener Volunteer from Minneapolis, Minnesota. She is a homesteader, author of bestselling cookbooks Can It & Ferment It, WECK Small-Batch Preserving, and WECK Home Preserving. You can find here on the , or on under the same name. Stephanie hopes her experience with homesteading will help others reach more of their goals. When she isn’t in the kitchen preserving, she can be found in the garden with her hens, teaching food preservation classes, or at the lake with her family and friends. Michelle Bruhn homesteads in suburban Minnesota. She's a local food advocate, Master Gardener Volunteer, writer, garden educator, and farmers' market manager. As the founder of , an information hub for garden and farm-to-table living, her passion is helping folks "dig" their food. She can also be found at on Instagram. When not in the garden, Michelle enjoys spending time with her backyard flock, family, and friends while immersing herself in nature (usually with a foraging basket in tow). Their book Small-Scale Homesteading covers topics such as: Gardening tips and tricks: from composting, soil health and what plants thrive best during the different seasons. All things preserving: Canning, curing and how to keep your vegetables last year round. Raising chickens: how these feathered friends can inhance your homestead. DIY products and recipes: healthy alternatives to everyday cleaning products, lotions and soaps. ~*~*~*~ If you’d like to support the podcast, please spread the word about it by sharing it on your social media! You can also support us by checking out our . We have lots of great herbal offerings in stock and pre-orders for our summer solstice box will be opening up soon. Until next time, keep your hands dirty and your heart open. /episode/index/show/tendingseeds/id/26876154

Ep 48 - The Sustainable Homestead with Angela Ferraro-Fanning 04/27/2023

Ep 47 - Moving to Our New Homestead 04/13/2023

Ep 47 - Moving to Our New Homestead Hi, friends! We're back with our second episode with my partner, Mike, as a guest. We're continuing this series discussing the process of restarting our homestead out here in Colorado. Today's episode focuses on our actual move from Tennessee to Colorado and some of the big decisions we had to make and the logistics that we had to organize. I hope this episode is helpful to anyone who finds themselves in the position of needing to move their homestead in the future. And I hope everyone else finds it entertaining to hear about our adventures! Some topics we touch on : Deciding when to actually make the move. Deciding where/what to live in once we got to Colorado -- we bought raw land so we were starting completely from scratch! Working to get our TN homestead on the market to sell. Moving in stages -- we needed to have infrastructure ready to go for the animals before we brought them out. Our first work trip -- what we accomplished; help from friends. The actual move -- worrying about our animals; finishing fencing in the dark. The rush to beat winter -- getting ourselves situated; not letting solar equipment freeze. The cover photo for this episode is the first selfie we took on our new property, the morning after we arrived and started stumbling around our land for the first time. If we look sleep-deprived and a bit wild-eyed, it's because we were! ~*~ As always, we appreciate your support of this podcast and our work! Please check out the spring seasonal items in the ! , our favorite herbal vinegar, is back in stock. We also have and available in two different sizes now – both are great if you’re dealing with dry skin from winter still. And of course we still have our normal stock of delicious and . Thanks so much for supporting our farm with your purchases! It means the world to us, especially as we work to get our farm re-established in a new location this year, which comes with a lot of expenses. If you're enjoying the podcast, please share it with a friend or three to help us reach more listeners! Until next time, keep your hands dirty and your heart open <3 /episode/index/show/tendingseeds/id/26528130

Ep 46 - Growing Mushrooms with Nashville Farmacy 03/30/2023

Ep 46 - Growing Mushrooms with Nashville Farmacy I’m so excited to welcome Dylan and Mickenzie of to the podcast today! This is the final interview that I recorded back in Tennessee, and some of the only guests that I was fortunate enough to get to meet and hang out with in person! In today’s conversation, we talk about what it’s been like establishing their new homestead, their passion for sharing and teaching others about mushrooms, some of their favorite mushrooms, running a gourmet mushroom farm, and how to grow your own mushrooms. I hope you’ll hop on over to their website to check out their offerings, including some of their grow kits if you want to try your hand at growing some shrooms! Also make sure to give them a follow on their . Enjoy!! ~*~*~ It’s the end of March, but we still have over 3 feet of snow on the ground at our place in Colorado! I’m itching to get the garden going but it looks like I’m still going to be waiting a while. Our kune kune Clementine gave birth to five super healthy and adorable piglets last weekend so that’s keeping us busy in the meantime. If you want to see some really cute pictures, check out the Fox and Elder and . We’ve also released some of our spring seasonal items in the ! , our favorite herbal vinegar, is back in stock. We also have and available in two different sizes now – both are great if you’re dealing with dry skin from winter still. And of course we still have our normal stock of delicious and . Thanks so much for supporting our farm with your purchases! It means the world to us, especially as we work to get our farm re-established in a new location this year, which comes with a lot of expenses. Our next episode will be another joint episode with my partner Mike as we continue to talk about our move from Tennessee to Colorado and transitioning to off-grid life here. Hope you’re doing well out there! Love extra hard on the people you care about, and plant some good seeds – both literally and figuratively. Until next time, keep your hands dirty and your heart open <3 /episode/index/show/tendingseeds/id/26388522