Shownotes
http://organicmechanicsoil.com/contactus-organic-potting-soil.html
Mark Highland the Organic Mechanic and author of Practical Organic Gardening: The No-Nonsense Guide to Growing Naturally is here to share his garden entrepreneurship journey today! Full of golden seeds you won’t want to miss this!
Can I ask? Are you a millennial? Cause I talk about rockstar millennials all the time. I have this funny story to tell you I have this book I wrote called the Green Queen and I feel like you are the Green King. I was reading your list of water saving tips and I feel like you and I are a lot a like. The reason I came up with the Green King idea is because I was showing the book to my friends in NY and they were like that’s our son the Green King and I feel like you really are the Green King!
Not quite a millennial, more of an X… some of their things like the tech part.
What do you mean your videos are awesome! Your music and stuff I love them!
But I didn’t do those, a good friend. I’m sure you’ve heard the millennials have killed golf and kleenex and cereal and I like those things. I like cereal.
I’m sure there’s some slacker millennials but not the ones I talk to.
They’re just driven honest. IDK too many millennial slackers. I just attended a farming conference, where there’s ton of Millennial farmers! The Executive Director of the Sustainable Ag Institute was talking about how there are 250 million farmers in the world and about 2 million of them live in the US And of US farmers in PA in the young farmers which is under 30 years old 60% are women!
Not just backyard slowly shifting statistics about farmers and how things are changing grand acreage is not even close
sustainable farming I think that is encouraging.
I’ve been reading a lot of statistics lately that a small 1 acre farm produces more food per acre then conventional farms. I mean it’s gonna be a ton of work and take a lot of energy. I think my listeners are those type of people they have more experience then me more like my husband full time gardeners. I call them green future growers .
Welcome to the Organic Gardener Podcast today! It is Sunday February 11, 2018 and I have an awesome guest on the line and you’ve heard the prechat!
His name is Mark Highland and he has a business called the Organic Mechanic Potting Soil
Tell us a little about yourself.
The volume of soil will directly impact
good soil is key
little bit of time and elbow grease
Tell me about your first gardening experience?
I lived all over the place
my first gardening
grandmother’s vegetable garden
walking down the row
- picking an eggplant
- asparagus
- 3 gallon bucket
- water
- walking down the rows pouring out this liquid on the plants
down the road
this was my job
neighbor had a dairy farm
anerobics manure tea that was in this bucket
pouring it on the plants
working in the garden when I was little
in school
going for an art major
ceramics all over high school
glass blowing
end of my sophomore year I didn’t want to get my MFA and move to NYC as I was being directed to do. The teachers loved my stuff and were like you can get into this school
- stay in state find something else
- found horticulture
- environmental
- plant blindness
- the term
Richard Louv coined that term
Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder
kids not getting
see the world with a gray lens
- grass trees shrubs
- flowers
- vegetable
- those are flowers
- those are trees
- acorns come from an oak tree
a world that I didn’t know existed
diversity
plants and animals everything’s connected
fell in love with horticulture right away
start of things
I did
so eye opening
loved learning about plants and how they work
inner workings of the industry
You can be a:
- nursery grow plants
- trees
- just work on trees
- arborist
- landscaper
- designer
- architect
- nursery grower
you can be so many different things
at the time
in the 90s when I was at the University o Florida
textbook
potting in compost
been going to the farming market
volunteered
Gainesville
somethings Mary
not any good potting soil
maybe someday
moved to
I like that I tried the different jobs in horticulture
- interior plants
- farm out in Oregon
- design build landscaping
- intervened at public gardens
- LongWood gardens
University of Delaware
Masters
- arborist plant health technician
- grunt
only job I didn’t have was a florist
- get to do that at home
- bathroom or another
- so many jobs in this industry
- be outside
- some people hate cubicles
- love being outside
- helps connect with nature
I just
good choice
whole path led me to meeting my wife
started bringing
Longwood love story
we stayed because this is a great area
Chester County in PA
2006
gardening
on the east side
hour outside of Philly
chester county west of Philly
blessed of
greater gardens of Philly
35 public gardens
- Longwood gardens
- Mount Pub
- Swarthmore arboretum
- tyler
- Jenkins
- Bartram’s Gardens
gardens
really cool one
Philly history…
What is your place like? Do you live onsite?
Don’t live on site
tiny town in median
basically operated last 6-7 years
basically a big ware house we rehabbed
1/2 an acre
materials
machinery
bagged and palletized
100% organic
potting soil amendments etc
property
friend started a company
recycle waste vegetable oil to produce biodiesel
started building gardens
turned into a summer CSA
grows food for Chester County food bank
take care of garden
weeding planting
harvesting
chef that comes in to teach about preparing healthy food
eat from the GARDEN
CSA garden surrounds the property
company itself
running the company is a lot of hours in the week
raising the family
time to write a book
Practical Organic Gardening: The No-Nonsense Guide to Growing Naturally
by the Organic Mechanic Mark Highland
It was fun
asked to write this book
it was a labor of love
wrote it in 2016
came out around the holidays around 2017
something in it for everyone
great for any beginning gardeners
gardeners who want to learn more
it’s not just about the food
about more of that
a paradigm shift
thinking about the bigger picture and ecosystem
not tunnel vision on your own property
all the subjects
working soil
organic fertilizers
care and cultivation
fighting pests and diseases
propagating plants
self gratifying
harvest seed
take cuttings to multiply your plant sec
section on containers
lawns
recycling and reusing
a lot of fun
work with great people
learned from gardeners who were more experienced and taught me things I learned from gardening
can’t discount this
a lot of this is the information
rewarding things in being in this industry
gardening your whole life
10 different gardeners things you never thought of before
strength of an organization is about people who work there
a
all the schools in the world
been there and done that and is willing to share
poured my heart and soul into this book
things that o
always been a writer
taking complex scientific information and making it assessable
try to do in the book
brain always wants to
how did that work
that’s
I like to think that’s one of my strengths
how to water
try not to splash the leaves
most of the time
don’t get those leaves wet
Almost 400 retailers
Maine to florida
out towards Chicago
