Rosewyn Urban Regenerative Farm

Today I'm talking with Chelsie at Rosewyn Urban Regenerative Farm.

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00:00
You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters.  I'm your host, Mary Lewis. A Tiny Homestead is sponsored by the Homegrown Collective, the best option for organizing a responsible and regional food system for America.  You can find them at homegrowncollective.org. Today I'm talking with Chelsie at Rosewyn Urban Regenerative Farm. Almost forgot the name of your place is Chelsie, sorry.  Good morning, are you?

00:29
I am doing phenomenal and yourself? I'm good. It is a gorgeous day in Minnesota again, two days in a row. Yes, we're finally  hitting steady seventies over here. So it is optimal outside time.  Yes. Springtime is wonderful.  Um, my favorite is fall, but spring is my second favorite season. So,  and, uh, I know you're in Montana because  I talked to Morgan yesterday.

00:56
and she recommended that I talk with you and Morgan is in Montana as well. tell me all about what you're doing because urban regenerative farm is not something I hear very often.  No, no. I mean, the optimal idea was to get a big plot of land, but then I just figured I need to do something where I am to show other people it's possible to do it wherever you are. So  I focus a lot on small footprints.

01:24
Growing options that way if someone's in an apartment or in a trailer, they realize that they have an option as well. Um, I really, really am an advocate for food and medicinal security as a community. And if we can all grow something in our yards and trade, then our community will be a lot more sustainable, uh, as a whole. And no one, it will, it will equalize kind of the deficit or the difference between income levels.

01:56
So essentially  sovereignty for everyone  and burning down the gates on the way.  Good, good. I  don't advocate burning anything, but I understand the phrasing, burning down the gates to keeping people out from doing what they want to do. Yeah, gatekeeping, know, just those  gates.  So I collect knowledge so people have access to it.

02:23
and can check out books or whatever they need to check out. Yeah, absolutely. The reason that I kind of jumped on that phrasing is because this is the five year anniversary of George Floyd's death in Minneapolis and I live an hour southwest of Minneapolis. And at the time that that happened, my husband worked not a mile and a half from all the destruction from the fires that were set. So

02:50
I'm a little twitchy about anything on fire right now.  I understand and I apologize about any triggers that happened. No, that's okay. I just remember him coming home from work when he was actually allowed to go back to work because the place that he worked at was on lockdown for three days.  So it was a hospital  and  he was, he looked pretty shell shocked when he walked in the door and  we are both very white people. And I said, why do you look so sick? And he said, honey, he said, if you could see.

03:20
the road I drive on to get to the hospital. He said  every building has plywood up on the windows or it's burned.  it to affect him in that way when he had nothing, I don't know, at stake as it were in it,  it was a big deal here. So I don't want to bring the discussion down, but I'm just making people aware that  we all really need to respect each other.

03:49
And we really, really need to be careful of how we live our lives because everyone deserves a life that's good and everyone deserves respect. So that's all I have on it.  Absolutely. No,  I fully understand that. So anyway,  so do you teach about the urban regenerative stuff?  So  I am definitely more a one-on-one person because everyone

04:17
and everyone's situation is so individual and unique.  So what I do,  I'm also a shamanic healer. So  in all areas, I create like a sacred space for people to find their own power, you know?  And so I do give tours  and answer questions, but on a whole, have not done like classes at this point yet. I'm sure it will evolve into that at some point, but right now,

04:47
It's just trying to figure out how one, each person can implement something where they are. Okay. Yeah. Um, we have a bunch of plants, like bedding plants that we grew on purpose to sell to people this year, because I want everyone to be growing something if they have the space, if they can make the space because our, our supply chain stuff might go a little wonky this year again. And I'm really concerned about people having food.

05:17
And the best thing you can do for yourself is grow your own produce. if it's just herbs. Herbs have medicinal properties.  They are also really nutritional and they make crappy food taste better.  Absolutely. Yeah, I have had  people come over and get cuttings off some of my plants and I get a lot of volunteer trees on my plot. So  I will pull those and give those away as well.

05:46
People can give donations if they want, at this point I really am just trying to get stuff in people's hands. Yeah, we have stuff for sale, but after this episode, I'm going to chat with my husband about putting out on Facebook that  if people would like one or two plants for free, they're welcome to come get them. Yeah, after  almost all, everyone that's come and got it had a tour. They leave with something, whether it's  a tree start,  a start of a plant cuttings.

06:14
Even sourdough starts have gone.  Yeah, we just grew so many that we are overrun and we're not going to have enough room in the garden to actually plant all of it.  And I realized that those plants that don't get planted are going to die. And I hate that. I hate it a plant dies. Absolutely.  So I'm going to put out a notice later today and be like, if you would like to just come grab one or two,  it's not going to cost you anything. Just please take my plants and give them a home.

06:43
Yeah, one of my biggest plans for more space is, so  we just recently got married this month and we're going to celebrate with everyone in July. But after that, I'm shutting down my pool  and I'm converting it into an in-ground greenhouse. So I have a lot more space.  Awesome. And congratulations on getting married. Thank you. That's fantastic.  would you, would you, uh, I don't know, put like a

07:13
a framework above the pool and put shade cloth over it and then put dirt in the pool. How are you doing this? So the plan  is  doing just like a greenhouse top on the pool since it's already in ground.  And then I'm going to line the walls with pallets and fill them with soil so I can do some vertical growing as well in there. And probably like a raised bed on one side and some like

07:41
Pable tops on the other for seeds and stuff and then towards the deep end I did bring back  a fruit cocktail tree from Arizona on our wedding trip  and  It has six different types of stone fruits on it and that will be the centerpiece in there And then at that point we'll acquire ducks  as well since they need a lot more space than the chickens do  Please post photos of your progress on Facebook and Instagram if you're on Instagram because I want to see how this goes

08:11
Absolutely. I'm not on Instagram at this moment, but I will propose photos of any updates in progress. I have a nice little list of volunteers and I've been bartering Skillshare's with people. So it will be kind of a community effort too. What a fantastic idea. I had never thought about turning a pool into a greenhouse. That is amazing. I mean, it's just copying like a wall of peenie, you know, but using what I have where I have to implement it.

08:38
Yeah, no, that's fantastic.  We don't have a pool. And even if we had a pool, I would probably want to swim in it.  I really like I did. That's how you got me to Montana. I grew up over in the Pacific Northwest in Washington. So getting me away from the ocean required the pool here.  But now that I'm here and I see how often I actually get to use it in Montana, I'm like, I can use the greenhouse so much more.  Yeah, absolutely.

09:07
You have you said you have chickens. How many chickens do you have?  I have four chickens. I just acquired them. I want to say a little over a week ago. So they're about three weeks old right now.  I did have chickens before I left Washington. When we moved here to the city and not having like a  backyard, everything was covered in turf when I moved to this house.  Um, so I've been slowly removing that as well. So they will go out.

09:34
Probably in another six to eight weeks. Okay. How big is your property? Just because I'm trying to get a picture of how much room you're working with here.  Oh man. I have like a really narrow shotgun property.  It is so everything is divided into different areas. Like I have the front food meadow that I just did and I probably want to say that that's probably

10:03
an eight by 20 area. And then there's an area between our main house, which they're both, we have a main house and a pool house. And in between there is an area where this lady put in a whole bunch of snow on the mountain, but that is edible. So I just threw a whole bunch of red clover and shade loving wildflowers in there as well to kind of combat.

10:32
that since it wants to grow like men.  And  then there's a raised area and that area is probably what? Maybe four by eight feet. Okay. And then I have four raised beds  up on  a rocky raised area that she, the lady before us had put in where I do most of my annuals. Everything else here is pretty much perennials. That way it just keeps growing.

11:01
And then  there is the food forest area that I did that's probably about four by 16 feet long. And that's the first area I converted. I started with a dwarf apple tree  and a grapevine and a bunch of herbs and shrubs.  have like currants  and service berries in there.  And it just kind of, and I let it go wild. Like I don't pluck any of the weeds.

11:30
because those are medicinal.  And  then  on the side of the pool is where all my raspberry blackberries and mint are duking it out for space. And that's probably three by 12 feet. So you have like, we call them fairy gardens here. We screwed up  a couple of years ago when one of our greenhouses went over  and  there were a lot of seedlings in the greenhouse. And of course, when the greenhouse got blown over, everything got mixed up.

12:00
And so my husband just like planted a bunch of little, I don't know, four foot by five foot plots with whatever it was and we just let it grow.  we ended up with some great squashes out of the deal.  Yeah, I will plot. So when I actually at the top yesterday, they had some heirloom type of winter squashes  and so  they were handing out seeds and I just popped three of them in there in my food forest area yesterday. So we'll see those and how they.

12:30
out. Yeah, um, just a hint for anybody listening. When you plant squashes, even like summer squash, if you mound up the dirt and then you put the seed in the middle of the mound, however deep it's supposed to be, supposedly that helps them grow. I don't know if it's true, but that's what my husband does and they do really well. Nice, good to know. I do a lot of electroculture over here too.

12:56
with copper rods and in  the front,  I have wrapped the whole  little gated area with the copper wire as well.  And I've seen some great results  in the areas before that one. So in the food forest and the raised beds. I had never heard of that before. I do a lot of like indigenous type practices.

13:25
Rather than trying to control nature, just want to work within. So I might suggest an area, but nature does what she wants, right?  Yep. She sure does. Like blowing over a greenhouse that you spent months getting things growing. yes,  yes, that was one of the saddest things that's happened here in the almost five years we've been living here. I watched it go over  and I stood there and cried. Chelsea, honest to God.

13:51
I can imagine one of the places that I like to frequent for my growing materials lost their whole greenhouse from the snow this year.  So,  it can be devastating. bet. Yup. And then I realized I was crying over something that I couldn't fix. And I was like, okay, there's going to be an upshot here somewhere. I know it's going to be silver lining to this disaster. And there was, it all worked out fine. food forest.

14:18
I've heard that a lot lately with people I've been talking to and we are also in the process of getting ours really going  because we have ash trees in our tree line and the ash beetles, know, the emerald ash borers, whatever they're called,  they have found our ash trees. So  my husband and my son are in the process of taking down the ones that they can get to safely.  And then we have a dude who brings us firewood. He is an arborist, woodcutter person.

14:48
and we'll hire him to take down the scary, dangerous trees by the pole barn. this has become an opportunity as well because we now have spaces where we can put in new trees.  So we're in the process of getting as cheaply as possible  more apple trees, more plum trees, more peach trees  so that we can have a food forest that is basically fruit. And  it's been so fun researching what will grow in Minnesota.

15:16
Like we have two peach trees that produced peaches last fall. I didn't think you could grow peaches in Minnesota. And that's why I'm so excited with the greenhouse because the stone fruit tree has six, so it has two peaches, two apricots, a plum and a nectarine on it that are grafted on. I really like grafted trees. So I also have an apple tree that has four types of apples grafted on and then a lemon and lime tree. But that little girl stays inside until.

15:46
And then she rolls right back outside.  But yeah, they're great small fruit options for the grafted trees.  Yeah. And I, because we've been doing all this research, I didn't know that you could graft different fruits onto one root stock. And my husband did a whole bunch of research on it.  And he said, did you know we could grow cherries, plums, apples, peaches, and like two other things on one root stock? And I said,

16:16
No. And he said, I want to try this. I was like, I think you should. I think we should do that. We'll have a Frankenstein fruit tree. Absolutely. It's so cool. And it came that one actually, we, so we did a two week road trip for our wedding and this man, don't know why he takes me to nurseries and things. I'm gonna leave without something, but it's very adorable. And I saw that and she rode back in the shower of the trailer the whole way. She had like her own little greenhouse.

16:45
Well, she's got a good start then. Yes.  Very nice.  And then  you were talking about your chickens.  people, probably people listening to podcast know this, but most people don't realize that  it takes a good four to six months before laying hens will start laying eggs. so  I'm telling stories today. I'm sorry. I'm going tell this one and then we'll ask you more questions.

17:14
My husband and I posted on Facebook this morning about the fact that my husband and I had an impromptu discussion this morning at eight o'clock in the morning  on Sunday on Memorial Day weekend about an idea that we both have had percolating in our brains for a week  and come to find out it was the same idea for a new thing for the farm.  I guess, I guess that great minds do think alike. And when you've been together for over 25 years or whatever it's been, um,

17:43
We start thinking alike, it's really weird.  But anyway, I had seen a video Monday about somebody who was incubating chicken eggs. And I was like, that's so cute when they hatch. And we don't really need a new project. We really, really don't. But it's been in the back of my head since Monday. And  my husband says to me this morning, he says, can you ask our chicken dealer, our friend who sells us the laying hens we buy.

18:12
where she orders her chicks from. And so I did, and I said, I said, she gets them from one of the hatcheries, blah, blah, blah. I said, but I said, I would really like to look into getting fertilized eggs and an incubator and actually incubating the chickens ourselves, because it will cost us less money and we can do them whenever we're ready to. And he was like, we could do that. I said, yeah, not right now, but in, know, this fall maybe.

18:42
Mm-hmm. And so we had this whole discussion out of the blue neither one of us planning on having this discussion this morning  All because we both had the same idea and open our mouth to share it at the same time  And so I am primarily the one over here coming up with the ideas, but my husband bless his heart helps me Execute them  That's what husbands are for. It's also what wives are for because he's gonna come to you with an idea at some point

19:11
Be like, I was thinking about doing it. you're like, let me look it up. Let me research it. How can I help? Yes. So, but my husband's idea is that we have been selling out of our chicken eggs in our farm stand every day. Like we have 12 chickens. That's a dozen a day. We can't even keep eggs in our house for ourselves because we're selling them all. And so we got 14 more chickens. They are just starting to lay.

19:40
But that again, that's only two dozen a day and they will be gone because people want good eggs right now.  And so my husband's idea was that we should get some baby chickens and raise them ourselves. And I said, you realize they won't be laying for five to six months from the day they arrive, right? And he said, oh, I thought it was like four months. I said, typically it's five to six months. I said, they have to grow, honey.  And he said, oh, and I said,

20:08
I don't have a problem with doing this. I said, but we need to make sure that there's a market for us to do this.  said, I would hate to buy a hundred chicks, grow them out, and then we're stuck with tons of eggs. can't move.  I said,  if you want to consider it, I said we could do selling the eggs as a CSA model, community supported agriculture model, and people could sign up in the spring for a share for six months.

20:38
And he was like, oh yeah, because then they would come get their eggs. said, yes, because they will pay for them. And it's such a great option for small farmers because then you get the funds up front for the season. Yes, which would pay for the chicks or the incubator to hatch the eggs. So basically, we're kind of we're tabling it for now because we have a lot of stuff going on here at the homestead this weekend. But we're going to revisit it in two weeks. And I'm going to do some research and see what's involved and how much money it would cost us to get set up.

21:08
And I'm kind  of excited about this.  When a new idea presents and it's not an immediate that will never work, I'm always lit up about it.  Oh, absolutely. At one point I told my husband, I'm so thankful for you because sometimes you'll be like, no, that won't work. And I will be like, my brain will just start going,  but these are how it can. And I was like, you just make me think of how it can work.

21:36
Don't tell me what I can't do.  I will show you how it's possible. Like, and that's what again, that's what I do is I just everything is possible. You just might have to look at it from a different angle, you know, apply a different system to it  or just step back for a moment  or get someone else's perspective.

22:00
One of the ideas that I have is, you know, finding elderly people who have backyards and turning it into a little farm for them, providing them everything that they need, but then also delivering the rest to a food bank or having a community feed or even doing  a CSA with the remainder, leftovers. Yeah,  and can I throw an idea at you? Absolutely.  Okay, if you're going to do that, if you're entertaining that idea,

22:30
There are kids  in middle school and high school,  or they used to call it junior high school, I guess the middle school now,  who are interested in learning how to garden,  but they don't really have anybody to learn from. How cool would it be for you to put out the word to your community that you're going to be doing this and that you would love it if there were some young people with strong backs to help volunteer to help work on these gardens?

22:56
Absolutely. And that's another reason why I have my, I have volunteer sheets at like three sustainable businesses in town for people to sign up for tours and information and volunteering. But another thing that I wanted to do was even, um, like Eaglemont here works with, uh, disabled children and they do all kinds of outings and recreational things, but allowing them to come and, and farm and forage for tactile input and.

23:26
with nature. So I just I have a lot of things but I want to get everyone excited about growing stuff and get them  more connected because we're so disconnected  and seeing where the food comes from, seeing the chickens  and  just how they interact, know, watching them forage or being in the garden while they forage.  Yeah, that's one of the things that

23:53
I find when I talk with people on the podcast that they love the most is that they get to see  the process of their work from literally beginning to literally end result. And so many people have jobs where they're doing a piece of the job and they never see the result.

24:11
Yeah, it's like the story of the four blind men with the elephant, you know, and when they're asked to describe it, they all describe something else because they're touching a different part, whether they're saying, oh, it feels like a treat  because they're touching the leg or, know, whatever. They all described something different. We just need to get together and talk to each other so we can put the pieces together. Yeah. Which is why I started this podcast over 18 months ago. I was like, people have stories to tell and it's going to connect everybody.

24:41
Yes.  And I love it. I love it so much. Morgan said some very, very nice things to me yesterday on her episode made me cry.  So  because of connections that have been made because of my podcast and I didn't know anything about it, I was so excited when I got done talking with her that I ran downstairs and said, honey, I have a story for you and told my husband the story.

25:08
That is amazing. I can't wait to listen tomorrow. That's when it's coming out, right? Yep. Tomorrow morning at seven. Can't wait to listen. Yeah. And for people don't know Morgan at Groovy Grazers in Montana. She's the one that I talked to yesterday.  She has goats.  So yeah,  I think that what you're doing is amazing. And especially since you're in an urban setting because

25:31
We have three acres here and we've spent four and a half years trying to figure out what the heck we're doing with it, how we're going to make it  go and how it's going to benefit not just us, but our community. And we're finally starting to get a handle on it.  Finally.  And you know, when I started out, wanted the big plot. I wanted to do an eco village with a healing center. But again,  like

25:58
So we've converted a shuttle bus. So we  live in that for the most part. Like that's where our room is. And the main house is my farm office and jam  and my healing office. So it's, it's a very micro version of what I wanted, but it still exists. And,  anyone who needs help or needs to research how to heal themselves, they can come here. Anyone who wants to garden or learn about gardening or

26:28
whatever.  I want this to be a very community oriented social place. I'm going to be doing circles like I have a little activity we're doing here next month,  making  little lanterns out of upcycled jars and dried flowers and little push lights,  but just to get people exposed. Nice and I should have asked you back at the beginning of this.  Are you tying in your

26:57
urban regenerative farming with your healing practice? Yes,  absolutely. And everything in life is interconnected. So why not? Okay. Cause some people don't, some people have, have that kind of business and then they have the farm as their thing that they do.  So I feel like if you connect them, then you're also adding all that nature and having hands in the dirt and breathing in really good oxygen from the plants. That's all healing too.

27:26
Absolutely, but then also  if I want to make a tea blend for someone I don't want to order it.  Right. I want to know that there's no chemicals on it. want so it just makes you go down the rabbit. Like  you have to take charge of all these things if you want to know for sure that they're going to be healing and beneficial. Plus it's the energy.  I know that I'm growing everything here with love. So there's love inside those plants because

27:55
I hold a reverence for them. I know that each blade of grass or  each stem, they all have their own spirit, right? So  by being kind and  living  symbiotically with them and stewarding over them,  the medicine that people then use themselves has that intention in it as well. Yes. And people will say that's woo woo.  W O O  W O O.

28:25
It's not woo woo. It is real. It's a for real thing that happens because I'm going to tell one more story and then we're probably going to wrap it You are absolutely right. got all the stories. My mother and one of my mother's in law, okay, she passed away in 2014. She hated cooking. She did not enjoy cooking at all. Like she did it and she did her best, but she didn't love it. And you could tell that she didn't love it. Right. know?

28:55
And she invited me and my husband to make Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner. can't remember which now,  because I love to cook and she knew I loved to cook.  everybody in the family who ate dinner that day with us at my mother-in-law and my father-in-law's house  took home containers of leftovers. I cooked for like 40 people. There were only 15 there, I think.

29:22
I raised two boys by myself, so I cook a lot when I cook too, I understand. Yeah, and my sister-in-law either posted on my Facebook page or messaged me, I can't remember now, it was a while ago. She said, I came home on purpose today to eat your leftovers for lunch. Thank you for what you did for my mom for Christmas. Yeah, that's beautiful. And it's not that my mother-in-law wasn't willing to cook, she just did.

29:52
No, enjoy it. And I feel like when you really love what you're doing,  all of that love energy goes into whatever it is that you are producing. So it's a real thing. is not woo woo.  No, honestly, I'm going to tell you this. This really all started because during COVID, I got to sit with myself and I realized there's just some things about myself that are not  what the doctors are telling me.  I was very overweight.

30:20
Uh, at my highest, I was over 400 pounds. Wow.  Um,  about three years ago, I mean, I got,  I started suspecting that I was neurodivergent during COVID. And I finally, once I moved here, I got that confirmation  and then I was like, well, what else have they missed?  Lots of epigenetic conditions.  And I've lost over 200 pounds and I am out of pain and off all medications by just taking everything into my own hands.

30:50
I don't know what the correct response to that is. I want to say congratulations because that's a lot of hard I can trust my body. So that is it is the congratulations because I was falling and I was I was dying. All my organs were shutting down.  The stress of life, you know that  stress is what 90 % of most doctor visits  and that correlation is not taught. We're not taught about like our lymphatic system, which is our sewage system.

31:19
We need that to drain movement and deep breathing does that.  Um, it doesn't have a pump. Right.  I had to learn to heal myself. And now that I know that I could heal myself with, you know, whole foods and intention  and self care, like, just want that for everyone. So that was the purpose of this  and realizing I have a privilege that I don't have to go work a regular job anymore.  This is now.

31:49
my life's purpose is just helping people wake up to their own power. Okay, so I have a couple things on that. Number one,  what you did was really brave.  Having that time where you could self-reflect and sit  in silence and think through  and realize that you needed to make some changes, that's really brave of you. And making the changes is really amazing.  So I'm proud of you. Thank you.

32:18
And number two, what a wonderful gift you are giving everyone you come into contact with.

32:26
I mean, they all have it there though. I think we're just been taught that we don't. That's part of that disconnect I was speaking of earlier,  we're disconnected from ourselves. And I think oftentimes we have a narcissistic relationship with ourselves and we'll trust someone else just because they have a diploma or a white coat. Yes.  Yes, I could talk about that for hours, but I'm not going to.

32:50
Let's just say I've raised four kids and I have been their advocate the entire time when it came to doctor's appointments. So yeah, never, I never was like, okay, yeah, we're going to do exactly what the doctor said because they said it. If I had a question I asked. Yeah, I was gaslit so long. mean, one of the things, I mean, they always just told me lose weight, you know, one of the things I suffer.

33:15
from is lipidema. All of the weight is not just coming off however they want it to. But another thing is that, you know, I have Ehlers-Danlos. I also have mast cell activation syndrome. So I have a histamine intolerance.  I can't eat beef and tomatoes.  Like red meat is super high in histamine and tomatoes cause almost an allergic reaction in my system, even though I'm not allergic to them. They just

33:44
release so many mast cells into my system, it looks like I'm having them. So  most of my life I was in chronic anaphylaxis. Yeah, that's not any good way to live.  Please tell me that you can eat blueberries. Oh yeah, I have blueberries. have actually am growing honey berries outside and  because they're more cold resistant. Okay, because tomatoes are excellent antioxidant providers and blueberries are too.

34:13
And so are honey berries. I'm, I was just like, Oh no, she's not getting her antibiotic oxidants. That's not good.  No, I am. I make sure that I have a very diverse diet. So I try and make,  they say you need to eat at least 30 plants a week for a diverse microbiome, but I probably eat that in a day. Nice. Good.  All right, Chelsea, I really appreciate your time. Where can people find you? Well,

34:40
Right now, mainly it's on Facebook with Rosen Urban Regenerative Farm or ROOF for short. Otherwise, it's the same at gmail.com if they want to email directly. Okay, awesome. Thank you so much. as always, people can find me at atinyhomesteadpodcast.com. Thank you again, Chelsie. I really appreciate your time. Have a great weekend. You too. All right. Bye.