150: John Good of The Good Farm on Finally Farming on Their Own Land, a Maniacal Focus on Weed Control, and a Legacy of Efficiency

Farmer to Farmer with Chris Blanchard

John Good farms with his wife, Aimee, at The Good Farm in Germansville, Pennsylvania. Ten acres of vegetables serve 200 CSA members plus farmers market and wholesale sales. 2017 was their first year farming on this land under this name, after eleven years of renting ground at the Rodale Institute where they operated their private farm business, Quiet Creek Farm.

John and Aimee took a very strategic and long-term approach to getting onto their own land. John shares how they developed their farm business on their rented land at Rodale, including how they prioritized their investments and built the markets and off-farm equity that helped them make the transition to their own land. We talk about how they developed their new infrastructure on blank ground, how they financed their land purchase, and how they found a piece of property that met their needs.

Before they started Quiet Creek Farm, John and Aimee worked at Food Bank Farm in Hadley, Massachusetts. Food Bank Farm ran an incredibly efficient, intense, vegetable operation, and John shares how he and Aimee have adapted the systems they learned there for crew management and operational efficiency, but without the intensity. And John shares how he has carried that farm’s maniacal focus on weed control forward to his own farming operations without a bunch of fancy tools.

Perennial support for the Farmer to Farmer Podcast is generously provided by Vermont Compost Company and BCS America.

Pictures, show links, and more at farmertofarmerpodcast.com/episodes/good.