Ep. 65 The Lazy Guide to Seed Farming: Josh Volk, Slow Hand Farm

Josh Volk runs Cully Neighborhood Farm on a one-acre lot in Portland, Oregon, where he grows vegetables for a CSA. Josh also operates Slow Hand Farm, where he helps grow market gardens and community through his writing and technical support. He is the author of Compact Farms and Build Your Own Farm Tools. Across all his work, Josh brings an engineering mindset to farming. In this episode, Josh explains how he integrates seed production into a busy market garden and grows seed mainly for his own use. Josh tells us how he determines what crops to keep for seed. We discuss Josh's "lazy" approach to growing seed which includes natural selection rather than intentional roguing, getting seed clean enough but not perfect, and embracing genetic diversity instead of trying to avoid all cross pollination.  In the deep dive, Josh and I talk about growing fava beans for seed. We get into fall-sown versus spring-sown crops, selecting for cold hardiness, and  threshing using a vintage roller thresher.  We also talk a lot about bean weevils. Enjoy the conversation! Support the Seed Farmer Podcast https://www.farmerspreadsheetacademy.com//supportpodcast   Episode links Slow Hand Farm website https://slowhandfarm.com/ Slow Hand Farm on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/slowhandfarm/ Cully Neighborhood Farm website https://cullyneighborhoodfarm.com/ News links May 21 Open House quarterly seed call https://seedalliance.org/events/virtual-open-house-quarterly-call-2/   Stay in Touch Follow the Seed Farmer on instagram https://www.instagram.com/danbrisebois.farm/   Get my weekly seed newsletter https://www.farmerspreadsheetacademy.com/seeds Order Tourne-Sol seeds (Canadian orders only) https://fermetournesol.qc.ca/ Get my new book The Seed Farmer https://danbrisebois.com/seedfarmerbook   ❤️ Thanks for listening!