Farmer Jesse Retires as Host
TRANSCRIPT//
Hey y’all,
So, I didn’t want to do this on one of the podcast episodes as part of the intro because, well, I figured it would probably be several minutes of me talking, and obviously delivering some relatively sizeable news, so I didn’t want to have that attached to someone’s interview forever.
But yes, I have decided to end my run as the host of the no-till market garden podcast. When I started this podcast, literally in our walk-in cooler at our old farm with a cell phone, a crappy microphone—no internet because, you know, no internet companies serviced our area, I was using the hotspot on my phone, in fact—anyway, when I started the podcast I didn’t honestly think anyone would really listen to it so I didn’t really have much of an end game. Basically, I was farming full time, I mean I am still farming full time, but I was farming full time, and experimenting with all sorts of different no-till techniques and some of them were working and some of them weren’t. I saw a lot of promise but I had a lot of questions and the information about how to do this style of agriculture was basically non-existent—just a handful of podcast interviews and videos out in the world. So I figured, a podcast kinda made sense because, well, I love podcasts, I’m a huge NPR nerd, and it would give me a good excuse to call the people who I knew were farming this way and sort of hear about their systems and swap ideas and then share it.
I did not however, think anyone would really care. I kinda figured I would make a few episodes and learn some stuff and then move on. So I had my friend Willie make a ridiculous theme song—I think my instructions were something like, “I want it to sound like a sports show,” Then I designed a really crappy logo myself, which we later updated—thanks Adam—and I figured out how to put the episodes online, after much trial and error. Then, to my utter amazement, people kinda liked it. My first guests like Alex Ekins and Daniel Mays and Josh Sattin and Jay Armour all showed such different styles and how dynamic this idea of no-till could be. The audio was hilariously bad at times but it didn’t seem to matter, because the information was really valuable to myself and to those early listeners. And personally, I was hooked. I loved the conversations and I also realized there was this whole style of vegetable production that a lot of people were doing and thinking about and tinkering with but there was no real central place for them to share their work. And so because of that, my buddy Jackson Rolett and I decided to start notillgrowers.com and I dove head-first into the podcast and this project.
Now, as full time farmers, who weren’t particularly savvy, we didn’t really have the time or money or expertise to be doing a podcast and starting a media company, and didn’t really have any idea of how expensive or time consuming it would be. But we knew the information that we wanted ourselves as farmers, and the information our growing audience was asking for, so we focused on the quality of the information and slowly improving the sound as we went along. However, those other shortcomings eventually did catch up to us. Those first two years were really tough, honestly. Tough on my family, tough on the farm business. I had a borderline breakdown in early 2020 before the pandemic hit, which of course, the pandemic itself did not help with said breakdown. And I think you can maybe hear a little of that in my voice around that time. I got really sick, and I became a little depressed, and like a dummy I’d taken on a book project. It was just… a lot.
I believed in the work but there was genuinely a moment I thought it was all going to implode. But I’ve listened to enough HOW I BUILT THIS and STARTUP to know that almost every new venture has that story of it being on the verge of collapse and then suddenly an investor swoops in or funding is found or something clicks and it rebounds into something great. For us, that click—that whale of an investor if you will was simply hundreds and hundreds of small farmers. It was you.
The patreon page just kept growing. We got all sorts of donations from all over the world. It saved this work and got me and No-Till Growers through the hardest times and allowed us to grow no-till growers into what it is today while keeping all the content free and open to anyone and everyone. I mean that’s our business model. That’s been our business model from the beginning, how do we pay people to create content while giving all that content away for free? And I am just so incredibly appreciative of you all for believing in that idea. The support has come from every direction and I literally could not have done these 120 or 130 interviews without you all. Even if you gave us just a few bucks here or there, or bought the book from us, or a hat, you made a huge difference. You saved this work. You created it. It’s yours. And you’ve built a community––an incredibly smart and diverse and innovative community. In fact, when I first started this podcast, my guest list was short. Jackson and I always joked that we figured I’d interview six or so people and then just keep calling them back over and over again. When I was on episode 4 or 5, I think I had no idea who episode 7 or 8 would be. Now however my list of potential guests has grown to far beyond what I would I ever going to be able to get to. There were a lot more people out there like us working on these methods than we realized. But also, and we don’t want to take too much credit for it, but I also like to believe that giving away information in the way that we have, has helped grow more ecologically-driven farms—free information is just such a powerful fertilizer.
And so with all of that in mind, it is admittedly, as you would expect, a little difficult for me to step away. There are a lot of conversations I still would love to have and I am so incredibly grateful and proud of what we’ve built, and thankful for all the information people have given us. But it’s also time. I need to focus more on my own farm business and on my family and on my local community and give my wife Hannah some of the opportunities she’s given me by watching the kids and managing the house while I did interviews or recorded intros and all the things that have come along with this role. Content creation like this has a higher earning potential than farming, but the goal for me personally was never to have the podcast replace my farm life, but rather to simply enhance my skills as a grower and share that information with anyone and everyone. And I also think that’s what made this podcast the success that it is—is that I genuinely needed the information, and I genuinely wanted to give it away. And now, for me personally, it’s time to employ what I’ve learned on an even greater scale, but I need to free up a little bit of time to accomplish that.
So first, what does that mean for the podcast? Well, hopefully with your blessing, I’d like it to continue with new episodes in the fall hosted by two or three other farmers. Doing 20 or 30 episodes on your own is just really not sustainable for a single host who is farming full time. I made it work but it was extremely hard. So more farmers doing 5 or 10 episodes makes a lot more sense for everyone and it may allow us to extend the podcasting season a little longer. I’ve been reaching out to a few potential hosts. Those will be announced later this summer, and we’ll do some fun introductions when that time comes. I truly look forward to bringing in new perspectives, and new questions and new ideas for guests, new styles of interview. And I look forward for myself to taking more of an editorial and production role, and being able to focus on those things to improve your experience as a listener. As a grower who loves podcasts personally, all of that is really exciting to me. I know that some of you will feel like without m , without farmer Jesse as the host, this podcast can’t be the same, but that’s kinda the point, right? I am sure that over the years there have been moments that you’ve thought, “oh I wish he would have asked about this or that thing”. Or just generally, “ I wish he would focus more on profitability or science or bindweed or dry climates or Korean Natural Farming” or whatever it may be. I asked the questions I had and invited the guests I wanted to speak with. Different growers will ask the questions they have and bring in a unique range of perspectives. I honestly think that having a different host or hosts will be the strength of the podcast. New people for you to connect with. New angles. Different information.
I hope you will support and encourage our future hosts the way you have supported and encouraged me, and I know you will, and our information ecosystem will continue to thrive for it. Regenerative agriculture is all about collectivism and collaboration—that’s how any ecosystem thrives. As many of you may know, Hannah and I lived off grid for four years without running water and electricity, forty minutes from basically any modern conveniences. And one thing I really took from that experience was the importance of having a community around you. I am here to tell you—and honestly so is nature—that in the long run, there is no such thing as self-sufficiency. There is community sufficiency or insufficiency. So I want to take that idea and apply it to the podcast. Because it’s not sustainable with just me running it. It needs a village to raise it. To make it something great. So I look forward to introducing you to our new village.
I should say that I am retiring my role as the HOST of The No-Till Market Garden Podcast, but I am still very much going to be a part of the podcast production and part of No-Till Growers. I will still do videos, as well as help to develop new podcasts, and write articles. We’re looking at future events. I may still occasionally do a podcast episode or host a seminar or do the ad reads. And I’m also working on another big audio based project, the preliminary details of which were shared at patreon.com/notillgrowers recently. So you can check that out. I will still absolutely be around, gathering and sharing information and figuring out how to fund this idea of paying people to give information away for free. In fact, our laundry list of things that we want to do, is going to require a tripling or quadrupling of our current budget. So one of the big things we have to figure out is how to get other people who are not necessarily farmers to help fund this work. That’s a big challenge and so things like that need a little more of my attention and they are much easier things for me to organize between the hours of 3-7am every day than, say, podcast interviews which can’t be conducted at four in the morning most of the time. In short, this movement and our work is only going to get better and bigger and richer. But it does require me to step back as the podcast host to accomplish that. And the patreon will keep going and hopefully growing. In fact, we may lean on you the supporters for guidance and ask you what you want from the podcast—ask you for host recommendations, topic suggestions. Nothing changes in that sense, except that hopefully I will be able to engage with you all a little bit more than I can now. And like I said, maybe we can extend the podcast season beyond our regular 30 weeks going about it this way. If we could make this podcast year-round, I think that would be a huge victory. And it may make me a little more accessible personally.
It would be utterly impossible to thank everyone who deserves a thank you but I do want to say a few real fast. Huge thank you to my wife Hannah Crabtree. She’s been so incredibly supportive and you all will never know how much she has done for this movement. Jackson Rolett and his family. Jackson has put up with a lot from me, and has challenged me and worked his butt off. Thank you. His Collaborative Farming Podcast is also some of my favorite work we’ve done, so make sure to check that out. Thank you to Josh Sattin for all the video work he’s done for us including not just Growers Live and various videos but also a ton of guidance and technical support. Then to our other contributors, Clara Coleman and Mikey Densham and Dan Brisebois. That list is actually about to grow, so stay tuned. Jennie Love as well, she is now on to her own project and we wish her all the best in that. She’s been an amazing resource, friend, and supporter. All of the guests and all of the time you’ve given us. It’s just so amazing. All of the people who’ve allowed Josh and me to visit your farms. The freaking patreon members. You all have been incredible. So incredible. I think it’s been a thousand people who have supported us on that site at one point or another. A hundred or so more who have gone through pay pal or Venmo. We sold over 2000 books in 2021 from our site. Hundreds and hundreds of hats. Thank you all so much. I owe a thank you to Chris Blanchard whom I never met but who paved the way with the Farmer to Farmer Podcast for this style of interview podcast and changed my farm business honestly. Thanks as well to Diego Footer who offered guidance and support from early on. Thank you to Andrew Mefferd editor at Growing for Market for his support. Thanks to the sponsors I’ve had in no particular order including Growing for Market, but also Rimol, BCS America, Growers&Co, Paperpot Co, Neversink Tools and Farm Course, Farmers Web, Tilth Soil, Banner Greenhouses, The Soil Food Web… thanks to our Venmo donors, our PayPal contributors, to everyone. To all of you listening. To anyone who has shared an episode. Thank you all so much and I hope you will continue to support this next phase. My last episode will air on Monday. It’s a goodie. So look out for that.
Alas, with complete acceptance of being super cliché here, this isn’t the end of anything—we’ve just been germinating these last four years.
Now we grow.
Thank you for listening. We’ll see you later. Bye