The Good Dirt: Sustainability Explained

It's the autumnal equinox as we record this one — rain all afternoon, a first cup of hot tea for the season, the kind of cozy day that makes you want to slow down and pay attention. Fitting, since Mary and Emma open this episode by pausing to say hello properly: a reintroduction, for anyone new to the podcast, of who they are and why they've kept this conversation going for years, even as the pace has slowed to something more sustainable than weekly.

Then Mary sits down with Daniela Ochoa Gonzalez, a food systems circularity advocate who's spent more than fifteen years turning zero-waste ideas into real programs — from a green-barter pilot she built in her hometown in Michoacán, Mexico, to her current work here in the Montgomery County Agricultural Reserve. Daniela's story moves through Cornell, a favela-inspired recycling exchange in Curitiba, Brazil, and a front-row seat to just how much food — avocados especially — travels a long, tender distance before it ever reaches an American kitchen counter.

This conversation lands just ahead of Food Waste Prevention Week, and it's full of the kind of practical, no-guilt wisdom Daniela calls "food communion" — not just what we eat, but what we do with what's left over. Expect real numbers, real hacks, and a genuinely moving reframe of a habit most of us do without thinking twice.

In this episode:

• Mary and Emma's reintroduction to the podcast — where Lady Farmer and The Good Dirt have been, and why the podcast has settled into a monthly rhythm
• Daniela's path from international relations and conflict resolution studies to food systems circularity, by way of Cornell, the Pan American Health Organization, and a green-barter pilot she built in Michoacán, Mexico
• The Curitiba, Brazil program that inspired her work: exchanging recyclables for fresh produce in low-income communities
• What "food systems circularity" means — from soil to plate to what happens after
• The scale of avocado waste moving through the DMV region, and what that waste costs the farmworkers and land it came from
• How Daniela ended up in the Montgomery County Ag Reserve, and what she learned about the incinerator eight miles from home
• The difference between landfilling, incinerating, and composting — and why methane from food waste is a bigger climate issue than most people realize
• A tour through the local composting landscape: decentralized vs. centralized composting, drop-off locations, and why "closer to home" matters
• Practical food waste prevention hacks: the three-list system (pantry, fridge, freezer), "remix night," market traps, proper storage (onions and potatoes should never share a bin!), freezing bread and bananas, and more
• Confusing food date labels — why "best by" doesn't mean "bad," and where to check if you're unsure
• Food Waste Prevention Week: what it is, when it runs, and how to find local and virtual events
• Daniela's monthly community group in Poolesville and how listeners can plug into food waste prevention where they live

Resources & Links Mentioned:

• Food Waste Prevention Week — national campaign; this year runs September 28–October 4
• Save the Food — NRDC's food waste tips, storage guides, and recipes
• Eat or Toss by Rachael Jackson — a science-based resource for deciding whether food is still safe to eat
• NourishNet — University of Maryland's NSF-funded food recovery initiative; free English/Spanish fact sheets available on the site
• Compost Crew — DMV-area food scraps recycling and composting service, with Compost Outposts at One Acre Farm, ECO City Farms, Butler's Orchard, and Greenbelt
• Red Wiggler Community Farm — Germantown, MD care farm with a CSA
• Koiner Farms (Charles Koiner Center for Urban Farming, Silver Spring, MD)
• Regenerative Solutions — Daniela's freelance practice and monthly community group in Poolesville, MD
• Eco City Farms
• One Acre Farm

A note on the numbers: Daniela cites a number of statistics in this conversation (avocado waste tonnage, Montgomery County food insecurity figures, household spending, methane comparisons). These come from her own research and public sources rather than something we've independently verified — take them as her stated figures.

We'd love to hear from you.

Have you found a food-waste hack that actually stuck? Ever learned a storage trick (like the onion-and-potato rule!) the hard way? Send us a message or leave us a voicemail — we always love hearing what the good dirt means to you.

🌻 About Lady Farmer:

• Subscribe to The ALMANAC, a Lady Farmer Newsletter & Community
• Visit Our Website
• Follow @weareladyfarmer on Instagram
• Email us at thegooddirtpodcast@gmail.com or leave us a voicemail! Call 443-459-1950 and ask a question or share what the good dirt means to you!

Original music by John Kingsley. Editing and podcast production by Lady Farmer. The Good Dirt podcast is proudly part of the Connectd Podcasts network.

🌿 The Good Dirt Producers:

• Wendy Gray

A few weeks ago, we sat down with Jill Demers and couldn't stop talking...so, we came back for part 2!

In this episode, we dig into the economics of small farming in America, and why the deck has been stacked against it for decades. Jill lays out the numbers plainly — most small farms operate at a loss, propped up by off-farm income, in a system that was never designed to sustain them. We talk about commodity crops, genetically modified seed, the vertical integration of the food industry, and what "get big or get out" actually did to the farms that used to feed us directly.

But this isn't a doom-and-gloom conversation. Jill's real subject is reconnection, what she calls "farm hospitality," and what we'd call remembering something our bodies never really forgot. Because underneath all of it is the same idea Jill's been chasing for over twenty years: food is our deepest connection to nature, and the fracture in that relationship is costing us more than we realize...in our health, our communities, and our sense of belonging to the land under our feet.

In this episode:

• Why 86% of U.S. farms are classified as "small" — and why most of them lose money every year
• How the "get big or get out" model took hold after WWII, and what it replaced
• What a commodity crop actually is (and why that field of corn you're driving past isn't headed to anyone's dinner table)
• The vertical integration of seed, chemical inputs, and distribution — and why it locks small farmers out
• Genetically modified corn, glyphosate, and what it means for our gut health
• Jill's concept of "farm hospitality" as a way to reconnect people to their food — and why many farmers resist it
• The disappearance of farmland to development and, increasingly, to solar leases
• Food deserts and systemic inequity on reservation land in Montana
• Why Jill encourages people to "start at the top of the food chain" (and what that means)
• The cultural narrative that food should be cheap — and why that narrative is doing real damage
• How much less of our income goes to food today than it did in the 1950s, and what filled that gap
• The "60 harvests" figure from Kiss the Ground — and what it means for how much time we actually have
• Why Jill believes consumer dollars, not policy, will be what shifts the system first

Resources & Links Mentioned:

• ReWild Ranch — Jill Demers' regenerative farm, glamping, and retreat space in the Bitterroot Valley of Montana
• Kiss the Ground — documentary on regenerative agriculture and soil health, source of the "60 harvests" statistic
• Listen to Part One: "Food As Our Deepest Connection to Nature with Jill Demers of ReWild Ranch" (Ep. 238)

We'd love to hear from you.

Has your own relationship to food or farming shifted this year, the way Mary's and Emma's has? Where do you land on "starting at the top of the food chain"? Send us a message or leave us a voicemail — we always love hearing what the good dirt means to you.

🌻 About Lady Farmer:

• Subscribe to The ALMANAC, a Lady Farmer Newsletter & Community
• Visit Our Website
• Follow @weareladyfarmer on Instagram
• Email us at thegooddirtpodcast@gmail.com or leave us a voicemail! Call 443-459-1950 and ask a question or share what the good dirt means to you!

Original music by John Kingsley. Editing and podcast production by Lady Farmer. The Good Dirt podcast is proudly part of the Connectd Podcasts network.

🌿 The Good Dirt Producers:

• Wendy Gray

Our guest today on this week's episode is Julie Brams — an earth-centered psychotherapist, certified forest therapy guide, meditation teacher, and the author of The Nature-Embedded Mind: How the Way We Think Can Heal Our Planet and Ourselves. Julie states that her work is in helping restore the human mind to its rightful place within the living world. She is also co-founder of Elemental, an earth-centered learning community helping participants heal the division between humans and the rest of nature. This is a rich, unhurried conversation — the kind you might want to take on a walk, or sit with under a tree. We hope it meets you right where you are.

In This Episode

• Julie's path from 34 years as a licensed marriage and family therapist into earth-centered psychotherapy and forest therapy guiding
• Why she moved away from the term "ecopsychology" to "earth-centered" and "re-rooting."
• The idea of "the rest of nature" — and how this small language shift addresses the human/nature divide
• How Western civilization's model of extraction and domination differs from cultures built on kinship and reciprocity
• The historical roots of mind/body/earth separation — from ancient Greek philosophy through Descartes and the Enlightenment
• Why our bodies "cannot be separate from Earth" — from the air we exchange with plants to the physiological toll of space travel
• Gloria Steinem's phrase "linked, not ranked" as an alternative to hierarchy
• The story of The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight and the moment it reshaped Julie's thinking about sustainability
• What forest therapy actually looks like in practice — and Julie's own humbling first encounter with a tree
• A story about a jumping spider that became an unexpected lesson in love versus ownership
• Reflections on grief, reciprocity, and the idea that the more-than-human world may be missing us as much as we miss it
• Language, indigenous wisdom, and the book Sand Talk as a guide to non-divisive ways of thinking
• Why unlearning this division is, in Julie's words, "a group effort"

Resources & Links Mentioned

• The Nature-Embedded Mind: How the Way We Think Can Heal Our Planet and Ourselves by Julie Brams (2026 Nautilus Gold Award winner)
• Elemental, the Earth-Centered Learning Community co-founded by Julie Brams
• The Association of Nature and Forest Therapy, where Julie was certified as a guide
• The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight by Thom Hartmann
• Molecules of Emotion by Candace Pert
• Sand Talk by Tyson Yunkaporta
• Paul Hawken, author of Carbon: The Book of Life— referenced from a past Good Dirt conversation
• EcoCiv, an organization promoting earth-centered culture and economy

A Note From Mary

If this conversation stirred something in you — a longing, a memory, a small ache of recognition — we'd love to hear about it. Send us a note or leave us a voicemail. And if you try Julie's simple invitation this week (find a tree, sit with it for twenty minutes, see what happens), tell us how it goes.

🌻 About Lady Farmer:

• Subscribe to The ALMANAC, a Lady Farmer Newsletter & Community
• Visit Our Website
• Follow @weareladyfarmer on Instagram
• Email us at thegooddirtpodcast@gmail.com or leave us a voicemail! Call 443-459-1950 and ask a question or share what the good dirt means to you!

Original music by John Kingsley. Editing and podcast production by Lady Farmer. The Good Dirt podcast is proudly part of the Connectd Podcasts network.

🌿 The Good Dirt Producers:

• Wendy Gray

This episode initially aired on June 19th, 2021

We have a special bonus episode for you this week in celebration of our newest national holiday-- Juneteenth! Mary and Emma reunite with author, historian and farmer Tony Cohen for an exploration into the history of Juneteenth and the holiday’s complex folklore and origins. Tony takes us back in time to examine how this monumental declaration of freedom spread in a variety of ways depending on the geographic, economic and social landscape of the time.

Mary, Emma and Tony pause to reflect upon what freedom means and looks like in the modern era and why society continues to resist a hard look at injustice. Tony points to how altering behavior can feel like giving up our own freedoms and comforts and reminds us that the fair trade movement has deeply historic roots. He also reflects upon the transition from enslavement to the tenant farming system and points to how that system affects us still today. The trio grapples with some hard truths about freedom itself and acknowledges the work still left to be done. 

Tony shares how he celebrates Juneteenth at Button Farm and rejoices in community as he reflects upon the precious ability to gather and take new found enthusiasm into the world. 

Let’s get into the episode:

1:30 - Emma introduces this week’s special episode

3:00 - Tony Cohen on the history of Juneteenth

15:00 - The transition into freedom

20:00 - The shift to “waged” labor and the evolution of slavery

28:00 - Fair trade

31:00 - Local emancipation

41:00 - Celebrating Juneteenth

42:30 - The happenings at Button Farm

48:00 - Creating Community

Things Mentioned: 

• Button Farm
• Oprah’s visit 
• The Menare Foundation
• HipCamp - Camp at Button Farm 
• Anthony Cohen
• The Good Dirt - Episode 31 
• The AG Reserve - Montgomery County 
• The Underground railroad in Montgomery County, Maryland: A history and driving guide
• Juneteenth becomes a federal holiday 
• Lift Every Voice and Sing
• DC Emancipation Day 
• Montgomery County Historical Society 
• 13th Amendment 
• 14th Amendment
• 15th Amendment

Stay in touch & keep the conversation going:

Have thoughts on this episode? A question for Mary and Emma? We'd love to hear from you — send us a message at thegooddirtpodcast@gmail.com or leave us a voicemail at 443-459-1950. Tell us what the good dirt means to you.

And stay tuned — Jill and Mary and Emma have so much more to explore together. Part Two is coming.

🌻 About Lady Farmer:

• Subscribe to The ALMANAC, a Lady Farmer Newsletter & Community
• Visit Our Website
• Follow @weareladyfarmer on Instagram
• Email us at thegooddirtpodcast@gmail.com or leave us a voicemail! Call 443-459-1950 and ask a question or share what the good dirt means to you!

Original music by John Kingsley. Editing and podcast production by Lady Farmer. The Good Dirt podcast is proudly part of the Connectd Podcasts network.

🌿 The Good Dirt Producers:

• Wendy Gray

Jill Demers is the founder of ReWild Ranch in Montana, a one-of-a-kind regenerative farm, wellness destination, and educational space, rooted in the one question she's been asking for over two decades: Why are Americans so disconnected from their food — and at what cost? As a regenerative farmer and certified nutrition therapy practitioner, Jill has built ReWild as an answer to that question — a place where the farm is the center point, and guests leave changed in ways that they will never forget.

This conversation is rich, wide-ranging, and deeply resonant with everything Lady Farmer stands for. It's also the kind of talk that makes you want to go outside and put your hands in the dirt.

In this episode, you'll hear about:

• Mary's return to growing her own vegetables — tomatoes, seeds, and all — as she and Emma transition away from their longtime CSA
• Emma's reflections on joining a new CSA and what food rhythms look like in a young family
• Jill's origin story: childhood memories of fresh-shucked corn, a lifelong obsession with food and ecology, and graduate school research on the Dust Bowl
• What ReWild Ranch is — a regenerative farm, glamping destination, and women's retreat space in the Bitterroot Valley of Montana
• The three ways guests can experience ReWild, from passive glamping to immersive hands-on workshops and women's retreats
• How Jill's son Alder's autism diagnosis became the catalyst for her deep dive into nutrition therapy — and how dietary and lifestyle changes led to the eventual loss of his clinical diagnosis
• The Dust Bowl: what caused it, what it revealed about soil health and industrial agriculture, and why Jill argues we may be living through something even more catastrophic today
• Glyphosate, the gut microbiome, and the parallel between soil health and human health
• The "60 harvests" statistic — where it comes from and what it means for the future of food
• Why Jill believes feeding the world is not America's job — and what a "checkerboard" model of small-scale agriculture could look like instead
• The concept of "accidental education" and why ReWild is designed to connect people to food, nature, and each other in ways they can't unlearn
• Wendell Berry, John Steinbeck, and the long literary tradition of writing about humanity's relationship with the land
• The genuine constraints of local, seasonal eating vs the cultural reality of a food system that allows almost limitless food choices — and how to navigate that without guilt or rigidity

Resources & Links Mentioned:

• ReWild Ranch — Jill's regenerative farm, glamping, and retreat space in Montana
• Kiss the Ground — documentary film on regenerative agriculture and soil health
• The Nature-Embedded Mind by Julia Plevin — mentioned by Mary; a psychotherapist's exploration of humanity's innate connection to nature
• Zach Bush, MD — physician and researcher who speaks extensively on the shikimate pathway and glyphosate's effects on the microbiome
• Wendell Berry — essayist and farmer whose writing on agriculture and community Mary has been revisiting
• The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck — Jill's graduate thesis subject; discussed as an early work of ecological criticism
• My Story as Told by Water by David James Duncan — mentioned by Jill as a formative read

Stay in touch & keep the conversation going:

Have thoughts on this episode? A question for Mary and Emma? We'd love to hear from you — send us a message at thegooddirtpodcast@gmail.com or leave us a voicemail at 443-459-1950. Tell us what the good dirt means to you.

And stay tuned — Jill and Mary and Emma have so much more to explore together. Part Two is coming.

🌻 About Lady Farmer:

• Subscribe to The ALMANAC, a Lady Farmer Newsletter & Community
• Visit Our Website
• Follow @weareladyfarmer on Instagram
• Email us at thegooddirtpodcast@gmail.com or leave us a voicemail! Call 443-459-1950 and ask a question or share what the good dirt means to you!

Original music by John Kingsley. Editing and podcast production by Lady Farmer. The Good Dirt podcast is proudly part of the Connectd Podcasts network.

🌿 The Good Dirt Producers:

• Wendy Gray

This week, in honor of International Compost Awareness Week, we're joined by Ben Parry, CEO of Compost Crew — a small but mighty business in the DC metropolitan area helping thousands of households and businesses turn their food waste into something good for the soil. Ben's story is a quiet revolution in itself: a journey from renewable energy to regenerative soil, from powering the grid to feeding the ground beneath our feet.

In this conversation, we dig into how composting is transforming what we throw away into a vital resource, the very real challenges of scaling community-based systems, and what it takes at the household, neighborhood, and policy level to shift our cultural relationship with food waste. Ben shares Compost Crew's growth from a small food-scrap hauler with a handful of customers to a regional force serving thousands of homes, the partnerships with local farms that bring composting full circle, and his vision for a future where dropping your food scraps into a compost bin is as ordinary as not littering on the highway.

It's a hopeful, grounded conversation about the patient work of building better systems one bucket, one alley, one farm at a time.

Main topics covered:

• The evolution of composting in the Washington, DC metro area
• The role of systemic infrastructure and community engagement in waste recycling
• Strategies to overcome perceived barriers to food scrap composting
• The importance of local, transparent food systems and grassroots momentum
• Future developments in composting technology and policy

In this episode:

• Ben introduces Compost Crew and its mission to keep food waste out of the landfill
• The story of DC's curbside composting pilot and the ambitious plans to expand it citywide
• Why systemic infrastructure and visibility matter when it comes to building participation
• How social perception, education, and regulation shape compost adoption
• The Compost Outpost model — bringing composting to local farms like One Acre Farm in Dickerson, MD
• The ripple effects of crises like COVID-19 and global conflicts on recycling supply chains and the case for local self-reliance
• The cultural shift needed to treat composting as everyday normalcy — much like the "Don't Be a Litterbug" campaigns of decades past
• Future opportunities: composting in schools, hospitals, and wedding venues

Resources & Links Mentioned:

• Compost Crew — Ben's company, serving the DC, Maryland, and Northern Virginia region
• Compost Outpost at One Acre Farm — The farm partnership model bringing composting full circle
• BPI (Biodegradable Products Institute) — How to identify certified compostable bags and packaging
• The Energy Switch by Peter Kelly-Detwiler — The book that shaped Ben's understanding of energy and resource transformation
• Montgomery County Food Scraps Recycling — Local food scraps recycling programs and resources
• Keep America Beautiful & "Don't Be a Litterbug" — The cultural campaign Ben references as a model for shifting norms

Connect with Compost Crew:

• @_compostcrew

Listen, Subscribe & Share

If this episode stirred something in you, share it with a friend who's curious about composting — or who's still on the fence about that bucket on the counter. We'd love to hear your own composting story: email us at thegooddirtpodcast@gmail.com or call our voicemail line at 443-459-1950 and tell us what the good dirt means to you. Your voice might just end up on a future episode.

🌻 About Lady Farmer:

• Subscribe to The ALMANAC, a Lady Farmer Newsletter & Community
• Visit Our Website
• Follow @weareladyfarmer on Instagram
• Email us at thegooddirtpodcast@gmail.com or leave us a voicemail! Call 443-459-1950 and ask a question or share what the good dirt means to you!

Original music by John Kingsley. Editing and podcast production by Lady Farmer. The Good Dirt podcast is proudly part of the Connectd Podcasts network.

🌿 The Good Dirt Producers:

• Wendy Gray

Spring has a way of pulling us back to the soil — and this season, Mary sat down with someone who has made the health of the soil and the well being of the pollinators and wildlife in her local ecosystem her first priority. Melanie Cutillo is the self-described Plant Wrangler in Chief at Lazy Dirt Wildflower Farm in Mexico, New York, a backyard nursery nestled just east of Lake Ontario, where she grows native and wildflower plants entirely without plastic, peat, or synthetic inputs of any kind.

It was a cold January morning walk to the mailbox and a chance encounter with a dried circle of New England aster in the snow that sent Melanie on a quest to grow native plants. The result is a farm, a philosophy, and a way of tending the earth that she calls "Earth First Gardening."

This conversation is for every gardener who has ever come home from the nursery with a carload of beauty and a pile of plastic waste—wondering if there's a better way.

Melanie and Mary talk about what it really means to be not just a gardener, but a guardian of the earth’s abundance. Whether you have many acres or simply a front porch, a city window or a community garden plot, this episode will remind you that what matters is how we tend to the land we have.

In this episode, Mary and Melanie talk about:

• What makes Lazy Dirt Wildflower Farm different from a conventional nursery — small scale, field-grown plants, zero plastic, and a focus on local ecotype native species
• The January morning that started it all: a circle of New England aster in the snow and a pair of tracks that changed everything
• Why Melanie ditched plastic entirely — and how a 10-by-25-foot barn full of collected pots finally pushed her over the edge
• The alternatives she found and invented: soil blocking, wool pots, burlap wrapping, and growing in native soil without bagged amendments or peat
• Why avoiding peat matters and what's lost when we use it: carbon sequestration, living soil, and a non-renewable resource extracted from ancient bogs
• The difference between a native plant and a nativar — and why it matters enormously to the pollinators and wildlife that depend on them
• How to ask better questions at your local nursery: Where does the seed come from? Can I bring back my plastic pots? Do you grow from seed on site?
• The concept of "tending" — and why you don't need land to do it. A street tree, a park path, a porch container can all be a place of care and relationship
• Native hydrangeas, dahlias, echinacea, monarda, jewel weed, sweetgrass, and tulsi — stories of plant relationships that illuminate the beauty and intelligence of the natural world
• Melanie's best tip for gardeners: make your seed list in July, at the height of the season, when you can see clearly what you have and what you truly need — then recycle the January catalog
• The new paradigm: from consumer to guardian, from transaction to relationship, from gardener to grower of community

Resources & Links Mentioned:

• Lazy Dirt Wildflower Farm — Melanie's website, where you can also find wool pots for sale
• Lazy Dirt Wildflower Farm on YouTube: youtube.com/lazydirtwildflowerfarm
• Melanie's Substack: So Wild Garden — behind-the-scenes of growing a four-acre habitat garden
• Garden Circles — Melanie's monthly Zoom gathering for gardeners; third Tuesdays at 6:30pm, with in-person farm gatherings during the growing season (find the link on her website)
• Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
• The Wild Seed Project — native seed sourcing
• Ernst Seeds — native seed supplier
• Blossom and Branch Farm / Brianna Groh — inspiration for Melanie's no-till, native-soil approach
• Mount Cuba Center — research on native plants and their relationship to wildlife
• Mary Reynolds, previous Good Dirt guest, on the shift from "gardener" to "guardian"
• Wool Pots — available on Melanie's website; made in Britain from wool that would otherwise be discarded

We'd love to hear from you!

Has this episode inspired you to try something different in your garden this season — a native plant, a plastic-free swap, or a new relationship with a tree on your street? We'd love to know. Send us an email at thegooddirtpodcast@gmail.com, or leave us a voicemail at 443-459-1950. Tell us what you're tending this spring.

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🌻 About Lady Farmer:

• Subscribe to The ALMANAC, a Lady Farmer Newsletter & Community
• Visit Our Website
• Follow @weareladyfarmer on Instagram
• Email us at thegooddirtpodcast@gmail.com or leave us a voicemail! Call 443-459-1950 and ask a question or share what the good dirt means to you!

Original music by John Kingsley. Editing and podcast production by Lady Farmer. The Good Dirt podcast is proudly part of the Connectd Podcasts network.

🌿 The Good Dirt Producers:

• Wendy Gray

What happens when a listener writes in with the very questions your community is wrestling with? You invite her on the show.

Emily Hillman has spent 14 years in the fashion industry — from the artisan workrooms of Midtown Manhattan to the fast fashion corporate world. After purchasing a 19th-century farmhouse in rural New Jersey and becoming a mother, she found that her priorities had quietly shifted. Finding herself at a crossroads, Emily reached out to Mary and Emma, not looking for all the answers so much as a grounded, honest conversation. .

This is The Good Dirt's first interview back after a hiatus. Here we’re talking about the real tension so many of us feel: I want to live more simply, more slowly, more intentionally — but how do I actually do that in the life I'm already living?

If you've ever felt the push and pull between the values you hold and the demands of the world you live in, this episode will speak to you.

In this episode, we cover:

• Emily's journey from Vermont roots to New York City fashion workrooms — and what she learned firsthand about the difference between artisan craftsmanship and fast fashion production
• The "painful catch-22" of slow living: wanting a simpler life that costs money, while earning less because you're stepping back from the corporate grind
• Why removing moral judgment from your daily purchasing decisions can actually free you to make more sustainable choices
• Practical, accessible approaches to buying secondhand clothing for kids (and why our audience is already well ahead of the curve)
• The economics of slow food: buying in bulk, finding local sources, joining a CSA, and why embracing constraints actually sparks creativity
• Composting as one of the most powerful individual acts for the planet — and tips for making it work even in bear country
• How small, cumulative changes add up — and why you're probably further along than you think
• Book recommendations: Redefining Rich by Shannon Hayes, The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron, and Jen Sincero's You Are a Badass series
• The concept of "blue sky thinking" — letting yourself imagine the life you want before the budget anxiety kicks in
• Reconnecting with nature and the seasons as a compass for finding your authentic calling

Books & Resources Mentioned:

• Redefining Rich by Shannon Hayes — [listen to our interview with Shannon here]
• The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron
• You Are a Badass and You Are a Badass at Making Money by Jen Sincero
• Fibershed — a network for regional fiber systems and slow fashion
• Local Harvest (for finding CSAs near you): localharvest.org

Want to chat with us? If Emily's story resonates with you — if you're somewhere in the middle of this same journey — we'd love to hear from you. Email us at thegooddirtpodcast@gmail.com or leave a voicemail at 443-459-1950.

And if you're interested in joining our free, casual Slow Living Through the Seasons cohort, reach out to mary@ladyfarmer.com for the signup link.

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🌻 About Lady Farmer:

• Subscribe to The ALMANAC, a Lady Farmer Newsletter & Community
• Visit Our Website
• Follow @weareladyfarmer on Instagram
• Email us at thegooddirtpodcast@gmail.com or leave us a voicemail! Call 443-459-1950 and ask a question or share what the good dirt means to you!

Original music by John Kingsley. Editing and podcast production by Lady Farmer. The Good Dirt podcast is proudly part of the Connectd Podcasts network.

🌿 The Good Dirt Producers:

• Wendy Gray

Mary and Emma return to the podcast after over a six-month hiatus, reflecting on the evolution of Lady Farmer as a brand and their own experiences within it. They discuss how the cultural context around sustainability has shifted, how they don't want to present themselves as experts or frame sustainability in moral terms, and how systemic forces limit individual impact even as daily habits still matter. They aim to focus more on finding meaning, creativity, and defining “the good life". They share personal updates (babies! work! gardening!) and discuss plans for how they want to continue to unfold into The Good Dirt and the Lady Farmer project.

00:00 Welcome Back Check In

01:11 Meet Mary And Emma

02:12 Lady Farmer Origin Story

04:16 Slow Living Then And Now

08:17 Beyond Individual Responsibility

10:37 Morality Free Sustainability

13:24 Decluttering And Landfill Guilt

15:34 Meaning Emotions And The Good Life

17:16 Creativity Work And Money

19:52 Grandma Life And Restorative Gardening

21:13 Reopening The Marketplace

25:52 Listener Requests And Wrap Up

In this episode of The Good Dirt Podcast, Emma and Mary welcome back Janna Hockenjos, founder of We Are Earth Friends, an environmental education organization designed for children ages 3-8. Jana discusses the program’s impact on young learners' understanding of the interconnectedness of all of life on our planet and provides an update on the progress and expansion of the program. She also offers insights from the suburban food forest project. that she and her husband have been cultivating over the last few years.

In addition, Emma and Mary make the announcement that the podcast will take a sabbatical until next year to allow time for rest and the development of new ideas. In the meantime, they will be continuing with articles, ideas and inspiration in The ALMANAC, the online newsletter and community of Lady Farmer. See the Substack link below!

00:00 Reflecting on Slow Living Amidst Chaos

00:30 Embracing the Present Moment

01:35 Nature's Simple Joys

02:27 Recording Together and Taking a Sabbatical

04:10 Podcast Evolution and Future Plans

08:13 Introducing Jana and Earth Friends

12:25 Jana's Journey and Environmental Education

15:19 Earth Friends Curriculum and Impact

32:14 Making Environmental Education Accessible

36:33 Challenges in Implementing Earth Friends in Schools

37:04 Making Earth Friends Accessible to All

38:57 Homeschool Groups and Marketing Strategies

41:22 The Importance of Patience and Letting Go

42:00 Personal Reflections and Yoga Insights

51:23 Suburban Food Forest Project

54:09 The Healing Power of Growing Your Own Food

01:06:03 The Significance of Good Soil

01:10:33 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

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🌻 About Lady Farmer:

• Subscribe to The ALMANAC, a Lady Farmer Newsletter & Community
• Visit Our Website
• Follow @weareladyfarmer on Instagram
• Email us at thegooddirtpodcast@gmail.com or leave us a voicemail! Call 443-459-1950 and ask a question or share what the good dirt means to you!

Original music by John Kingsley. Editing and podcast production by Lady Farmer. 

The Good Dirt podcast is proudly part of the Connectd Podcasts network. 

🌿 The Good Dirt Producers:

• Wendy Gray