Heart of Herbs Herbal School Podcast
Welcome to the Heart of Herbs Herbal School Podcast, with Demetria Clark.
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Heart of Herbs Herbal School Podcast
Seeds of Storytelling: Bevin Cohen's Journey from Sustainable Homesteading to Herbal Visionary
Renowned author, Heart of Herbs Alum, and sustainable homesteader Bevin Cohen captivates us with his dual life at Small House Farm in Michigan. Bevin shares how the serene Michigan winters fuel his prolific writing, leading to the creation of numerous books since 2018, including his debut, "From Our Seeds and their Keepers." We journey through Bevan's world of storytelling, exploring how his family-centered homestead provides a rich tapestry for his narratives and passion for sustainable living.
Join us as we delve into the deep connection between storytelling, herbal education, and family heritage. Bevin introduces his collaborative work with Timber Press, "Herbs and Every Season," a comprehensive guide to integrating herbs into daily life. From medicinal uses to culinary ventures like the unique sunflower cornbread recipe, Bevan's stories inspire us to consider the role of herbs in engaging and educating, all while celebrating the personal joy found in herbalism and cooking.
Discover the flourishing world of seed libraries and native plants as Bevin discusses their role in promoting biodiversity and community engagement. We explore the seeds of change being sown through these libraries, particularly among younger generations eager to embrace sustainable practices. Bevan's upcoming online class, "Herbs in Every Season," promises to equip listeners with the knowledge to cultivate their herb gardens, inspiring us all to unearth the extraordinary potential within our everyday lives.
Heart of Herbs Herbal School
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There you go. Hi, this is Demetria Clark, the director of Heart of Herbs Herbal School, and this is the Heart of Herbs Herbal School podcast. And today I have the illustrious Bevan Cohen with us today. And I say illustrious because the output, your output, is insane. So I and I'm always, I always feel like I'm running really fast to catch up with everyone else in the world. So when I see like, really like, amazing output, it's so inspiring. So thank you for inspiring me and thank you for being on with us today. So please tell us a little bit about yourself.
Speaker 2:Well, first, Demetria, thank you so much for having me on the show. You know I've been called many things, but I don't know if I've ever been called illustrious before, so thank you for that. That's really nice. You're making my day here for sure. Well, like you mentioned, my name is Bevan Cohen and I'm from Small House Farm, which is a sustainable homestead project in central Michigan. So that's me in a nutshell.
Speaker 1:That's awesome and you're so. This is what I've picked up from you over the years that you do everything, and this is what I think. One of the reasons why I've always, like, really admired the work that you did is that you do it as a family unit. Am I right? I mean, this is like a family affair.
Speaker 2:You're your wife your children.
Speaker 1:Like everybody is involved, and I love that because that's how Heart of Herbs was. I mean Heart of Herbs was written with I was nursing one kid and the other one was running around the house. I mean it was literally like a family affair and I always liked that because I feel like you can really get that from your work and from your website. Can you tell people where they can find your website? Before we get too far into everything, it's easy Small house farm. Oh, you froze up. Can you say that again?
Speaker 2:Oh, of course Smallhousefarmcom.
Speaker 1:All right, so everybody that's smallhousefarmcom get your own commercial going. All right, so you have many books out there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's.
Speaker 1:true, that's why you're so illustrious.
Speaker 2:Well, okay, so we're in Michigan and in Michigan in the wintertime we get a lot of snow, and so it really slows down a lot of other activities. We're not out in the garden as much. We're not doing maple syrup yet. It's really a time of, we say, peace and reflection, right, but it's also very busy because I spend a lot of the winter writing. So over the years, I've gotten, I guess, pretty efficient with writing. We published our first book. It was a self-published book. That we did in 2018. And well, it's really just kind of spiraled from there. I've worked with a number of publishers since then and I think that we have had a book come out every year since 2018. So, whatever that number is, yeah, that's quite a few, it's quite a bit, but it keeps me out of trouble If I'm not writing. I got to be out splitting wood, so you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I get that. I get the wood splitting thing. I'm in Virginia now, but I grew up in the White Mountains. I know what splitting wood means.
Speaker 2:So you're familiar, so anything to stay in the house writing that's kind of my thing anything to stay in the house writing.
Speaker 1:That's kind of my thing, yeah, well, I uh I'm tempting my husband, um, to get me a wood stove cooker for the barn, because we have a big fire down there and that's where we hang out in our off time. So I thought if I could do if I could do dinner in there too. I can stay in the uber warmth longer, so I think I'm getting it oh, that's awesome.
Speaker 2:That's that's very cool. Um, that's that's very cool. I'm a little jealous of that.
Speaker 1:That sounds like fun yeah, so it'll be able to do both things. But um, so you have put out let's see 18, 19, what six books yeah, I was gonna have you do the math for me yeah, like I'm guessing mean it's technically maybe more than that.
Speaker 2:So in 2023, I did a series of books for Timber Press and so they were state-by-state guides. So we actually did one. It was for Michigan, indiana, ohio, wisconsin, illinois. So that year, technically we did five books, but I just counted as one cause, you know yeah, so it's busy.
Speaker 2:We were really busy around here. Um, I don't sit still very well, so in the winter time it's a really good way for me to harness that, that energy that I have. Um, you know, in the summer I'm able to burn it off. We're out in the garden, I travel a lot, we do a lot of things. It's a very, very busy place, but it's nice to sit down and, you know, try to collect everything that's going on in my mind and and put it on paper. Or put it on paper Listen to how old I sound. So, you know, type it off the screen.
Speaker 1:I understood. You tell me you're using post-it notes. I'll know, Right, oh, that's so funny. I got a label maker and my I got. I got to check the phone book I got like 50 notebooks. I'm not even kidding you. So, um so, what has been your favorite book to this point as far as getting your message out there, or maybe you feel like the impact on the future?
Speaker 2:That's a really great question, so I'm going to answer that with a few different things. So I would say that possibly my favorite book was my first book. It's called From Our Seeds and their Keepers and it's a collection of stories that I collected from seed savers that I met traveling around. I go to a lot of seed swaps and that sort of thing and I was meeting a lot of older folks that are preserving these family varieties of you know, different fruits and vegetables and things, and I had these opportunities to sit down and they would share their stories with me and we collected them into this book. And you know I have a little sentimental attachment to it, I guess because it was my first book, but it was also just really fun to work on and to meet these people and then to collect those stories. You know, to preserve those stories as well, just like the seed savers preserve the seeds. We were able to save those stories, so that was really special.
Speaker 1:It's like a song catcher. Yeah, it totally is you? Know what I mean. Like that once those I so I always try to like this is like totally, this totally reclaimed right Saturday night live from the 80s people. But like, um, I always tell my kids my grandfather's stories and my mom's stories and, and because we're losing them to 30 second sound bites and you, you put these together for the next generation. Yeah, that's like like that is something to be massively proud of.
Speaker 2:I appreciate that. You know I'd met in that adventure. I met an old lady in Kentucky whose name was Sylvia and we originally connected over a variety of corn that her family had grown. And we spent hours and hours, even on the phone, with Sylvia talking and she shared so many stories, all these things she could remember. At one point we weren't even talking about the corn anymore. She was telling me stories about. She remember when she got sick as a little girl and her mom would go out in the woods and collect plants to make medicine and she'd be telling me about that. I'm just writing and writing everything that she'd say. And then one day Sylvia says you know, I'm so appreciative, bevan, that you want my stories, that you want to hear these stories. She says nobody else seems to care about these stories. My family's heard them. Nobody wants to hear them. I don't have anybody else to tell these stories to. And that's really when it hit me. I thought, well, this is significant. So that was really why we started writing the stories down. I said we have to save all of this whatever we can. So that was a really special one, that book.
Speaker 2:Then last year I did a book with Ogden that we called the Heritage Pantry and it was sort of a food preservation guide. It was a little bit different than a lot of stuff that I do. We write a lot of things about gardening, whether it be seeds and seed saving or herbs and herbalism. So this one was a little bit different because it's now that we've collected all this produce what do do with it type of book. But I was able to stick a bunch of stories in there. If you read any of my books all of my books everything that I do is all story based. I love the story teller by heart, right, so I stuck a bunch of stories in there, like about my grandma and her preserving tomatoes and all sorts of stuff. So it was kind of an opportunity for me to document some of my stories um, which I thought was really nice to do.
Speaker 1:I can't even tell you how attached I am. I mean, like that you include this in your work. I mean I know I'm a total goofball. I have no. I mean I'm like over here just about ready to lose it, because I don't think people realize that a lot of the education stops when the stories end. Yeah, we are literally. Our whole human existence is based on storytelling and our ability to pass information on. Before we could write, right, oh, absolutely Before we could do mass communication. I mean every town, village, you know, the town, crier, the person who traveled from here or there with the stories. Like, when we lose these stories, I think we lose what it means to I don't know I guess this sounds corny but what it means to be American, because we're both in America.
Speaker 1:But those are our roots, those are our plant roots, those are our people roots. Those are everything, and the fact that you're collecting and sharing this is just that you have, and you continue to do so in your work is one of the reasons why you get the term illustrious.
Speaker 2:Well, you know and I think that's an important thing, that you're touching on the importance of storytelling and I think that you know, even outside of America, like any place all over the world, you know, storytelling has played such a role in passing down information from one generation to the next. But if we wanted to fast forward, even to these modern times, with these 30 second snippets that you'd mentioned, that sort of thing, you know, to these modern times, with these 30 second snippets that you'd mentioned, that sort of thing, you know, um, there's still a value in storytelling that takes place today, in this fast paced world that we live in.
Speaker 2:I mean, even if you think of, like, what they call it content marketing, right, uh, right, it's, it's even social media.
Speaker 1:I'm no good at that.
Speaker 2:No sure, but the social media that tells a story, that has that engagement, is going to do well, you know, cause there's something inherently inside of all of us that responds to that. Whether it's long form or short form storytelling, people respond to it because they love to hear that story, because maybe it's just ingrained in us that we know that that has value.
Speaker 1:So I think it's also we like to know we're not alone.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:So when you're listening to us, when you're sharing, you know someone's story about a plant or garden or whatever and say I read it, I'm like that's my papa. We all can make these connections. Or, oh, I did that with my babies. I wonder if that's because they're from the similar area of the country. As you know, my grandmother was, and so I think it really helps to continue these threads. And then we see that the younger generations taking these threads to new technological areas right, but I think it's amazing. So I love, I love that you put that in your work. So I just felt like I wanted to I don't know talk about that for a little while, because I just think it's so cool that your work includes people you know, yeah, sure, and I've even found as a teacher that storytelling works.
Speaker 2:It's such an important tool, you know, even if the story is just to draw people in and to get their interest. You know now they're paying attention to what I'm saying that we can have these as a teaching opportunity, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, storytelling is powerful and I'm lucky to be in situations where I find not only are folks willing to share their stories with me, but then I have the opportunity to share those stories with an even wider audience.
Speaker 1:My grandfather would have loved you. Would have loved you. Um, he used to record stories from uh people from his town who lived through the depression and served in the second world war. He would go and interview them so he, I don't know he did he, so we have copies of all of that, but he was very much the the the grand storyteller, so he would. He would be really enjoying looking over all your material if he was still with us.
Speaker 2:So that's awesome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so all right, tell us a little bit about herbs and every season.
Speaker 2:Yes, so this is coming out soon.
Speaker 1:I'm so excited.
Speaker 2:It's coming out like right away.
Speaker 1:I got to get a copy of it.
Speaker 2:You got to.
Speaker 1:You will love it the most.
Speaker 2:So it comes out March 25th. So if your listeners are listening before that, we're doing pre-sales, we're doing pre-orders right now so they can still get a copy of it ordered, and the pre-orders that we're doing come with some great gifts as well too. Um, but at the end of my telling you what my favorite book was, I think this is going to be where I ended anyways, because oh good, I'm sorry no, no, my gosh, no cool that's.
Speaker 2:It's all good, but because I think that it's the best work I've ever done, you know it's yeah, you know well, I've had all these years now really fine-tuning the craft, so so to speak, but some of my books have done quite well commercially, and so what that means is that this book is with Timber Press and Timber Press really allowed me the opportunity to kind of do whatever I want, and when you're working with a larger publisher sometimes that's not always the case. They have specifics that they want to do.
Speaker 1:I couldn't choose my own covers.
Speaker 2:Well, right, yeah, I didn't even get a say in it.
Speaker 1:They just said this is what we chose, and I was like, oh, and that's usually the way that doesn't look like me at all it's, it's tough, it's.
Speaker 2:That's a balancing act that I've learned over the years. I just sometimes just got to let go and let somebody else do stuff. But with this one, you know they they are interested in an herbal medicine book is what they wanted, you know. And I was like, okay, we could do that. I've kind of already done something like that. A few years ago we wrote the Artisan Herbalist, which is really Beautiful book. Oh, thank you, I appreciate that. So I told him. I said you know, I've kind of already done that. So I really want to kind of expand on that concept and let's look at herbs through the lens of the seasons. Let's follow these plants through the life of an entire year. But we can't just talk about them from a medicinal standpoint. I also want to talk about these plants from a culinary standpoint, In real life. I do both. I'm not just a strictly medicinal herbalist, right?
Speaker 2:I mean I'm also using herbs in the kitchen, not just a strictly medicinal herbalist, right? I mean, I'm also using herbs in the kitchen and most people do so to truly communicate with somebody the importance of herbs as a lifestyle. We have to talk about it from both points of view. And they were like okay, you could do that if you want. And I was like well, thank goodness, I've already written like 45,000 words.
Speaker 1:Well, that's a good thing we're on the same page, because let me tell you, it's done. Yeah, it's a good thing we're on the same page because let me tell you it's done. Yeah, it's already done.
Speaker 2:I'm turning it in. It's already done. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah, it came out really nice. So we broke it down seasonally. We started with spring and I mean, depending on your philosophy, the seasons could start at any point, so you could really pick this book and just open it up at any stage. But we started with spring and worked our way through the seasons. So each season features plants that predominantly exist for me in that season or are plants that I need in some way during that season, right. So we really took the seasonal approach. And then we talk about herbs in the kitchen, we talk about herbs in the apothecary, but I also have to talk about growing or foraging the herbs, where to find it, habitats, that sort of thing. So it's really the most inclusive thing that I've ever been able to write. It's it's really it's jam packed full of info. It's pretty awesome.
Speaker 1:It sounds incredible. So I, I, I, I mean, I'm a clinical herbalist, blah blah, blah, blah blah.
Speaker 1:Anyways but my favorite thing is preparing food for my family. I always joke I probably should have been like a chef but like I love you know stuffing herbs and things people don't think about and making my own spice blends and you know my whole I have a whole section of my kitchen that's just cooking herbs and people look at me like I'm crazy and I feel like I may have found someone I would love to cook a meal with sometime. Oh, I would love that. It's like so much fun in that.
Speaker 2:You were a guest on my podcast sometime last year, I believe it was, and we did ask the herbalist segment, where people send in their questions and have them, you know. So it was a lot of it was medicinal herb questions. You know what I mean. So you were the perfect person to have on being a clinical herbalist and at one point I asked you what is one of your favorite ways to work with herbs, and that's what you said was using it to using herbs to cook for your family, and I thought that is the message right there. You know, even somebody who is steeped in clinical medicinal knowledge understands the importance of herbs from the culinary standpoint and the role that that plays. That's heavy right. It's so easy for us to get boxed into thinking about things one way or the other, but in reality, both exist simultaneously, right.
Speaker 1:Oh, you make a tasty meal and the medicine will go down. I don't care what you're feeding your kids. If you make a tasty meal and the medicine will go down, I don't care what you're feeding your kids, if you make a tasty meal with it, they're going to get there. And so many times my kids were getting medicine and no idea Like it's like. Let me make you a tea that tastes like dirty sock. All right, we're having dirty sock for dinner and you'll never know. You know it just makes life so much easier when you understand that. So I'm really excited. I'm really excited to see your connections to the seasons, because I think we're going to learn a lot about you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, you may be telling us more than you want.
Speaker 2:You're like well, you know, and I don't mind having that, you know, chance for people to kind of look into my personal world a little bit. I think that's important. When we were working on the book, you know, I really wanted to make it accessible to as many people as possible. But not everybody is going to experience the seasons the same way that I do, right, some places. Well, my sister-in-law lives in San Diego. She doesn't even have a season, you know what I mean. So we had to think about it, seasons from many perspectives, like there's the seasons that I experience, you know they're very distinct and different, but there's also the seasons of a day or the seasons of our lives, and and I really wanted to kind of lean into those concepts as well, because I think that as herbalists, as medicine makers, it's important for us to see those relationships that we have with the outside world and how it connects to the relationships we have with our inside world as well.
Speaker 1:Oh, I love that. I have been personally working on getting more aligned with my day, so I would always get up at like four o'clock in the morning, start working right away and, like you know, do a 12 hour day. And then and I was like this is insane- yeah, that's a lot.
Speaker 1:And I was like, what about the things I really want? What gives me minutes of grace that last all day? And I'm like sunrise does, sunset does, getting sunshine on my skin, does you know? And experiencing the season of the day. So I just love how you you put that, because I think that we get so, even like herbalists, get so connected to this box here and then we have to work and we have to produce and we have to implement.
Speaker 1:We're competing against a million different things out there and you're like whoa, slow down, speed Racer. Like what's going on here? How can I look at this differently? And I love you should make a companion workbook. Oh, for people to like what? What was my seasonal day? You know like you could do something really fun with it. Or today's the day you make like a really sexy mexican hot chocolate with all the beans from here. Or you could do like a you know, a golden milk or a soup. Or you could like do all kinds of fun stuff for people.
Speaker 2:Now that I gave you another project.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I'll put that into my spare time. We'll work that in. No, that's a really cool idea, you know, and I think that helping people find reasons to experience that you know what I mean. So there's a lot of recipes in the book to try to help people that tactile sit down and let's get in the kitchen and let's make something. You know, because I to try to help people that tactile sit down and let's get in the kitchen and let's make something. You know, um, cause I think that is important to experience.
Speaker 2:It's interesting what you're saying about. You know, even as herbalists, that sometimes we find ourselves, um, you know, stuck on this computer and we're not trying to, we don't have the opportunity to maybe get outside or we don't prioritize it Like maybe we should. And I find that, being self-employed, it's even more difficult. You know what I mean, because there's nothing to stop me from working 24 hours a day. Like you work in a punch in, punch out job. You're punched in or punched out, but when you're an entrepreneur, it's like you could accidentally slip into working all day and night.
Speaker 1:I've had times where I have We've got to redo an update, we have security protocols, we have this. We're redoing 3500 pages of content, like you know. Let's go.
Speaker 2:I would literally have gone to a hotel and worked 24 7 for like four or five days, just because I don't know you have well, I mean, sometimes you gotta everyone's coming up and you're like you gotta got to get this done, and so I mean that's part of it. But the routine, if that becomes the routine, that's not healthy.
Speaker 2:No, no, you're so right so finding those barriers is very important to provide that. Allow yourself to have that space and think about your day as the seasons, you know, not everything is the super productive summer, you know.
Speaker 2:We're going to have the wind down of the fall, we're going to have the peace of the winter and we have to incorporate that into our day-to-day life and I think, I think that that's really important. So, for me, working on the book was a big wake-up call, because I am one of those let's work 24 hours a day. Let's just you know, it happens, it happens, I, you know. So it was good for me, it was really good for me to write that down and be like, oh, if I'm going to put this in a book, I got to live it, we got to be doing it. Um, so it was really nice, it was really nice.
Speaker 2:So I'm I'm excited to share the book with everybody. I'm excited to get it out there and I hope that everybody enjoys it as much as I enjoyed making it. Um, because it's really like I said, I think it's some of the best work that I've done. It's really brought together a lot of the messaging here at Small House Farm and presented it in a way that I haven't been able to do before.
Speaker 1:That's so awesome. So what do you think will be the favorite recipe?
Speaker 2:Say that again. You broke up, I'm sorry.
Speaker 1:What do you think will be everyone's favorite recipe?
Speaker 2:Oh, my goodness.
Speaker 1:Or what's one you think we should buy the book to make immediately. What do you think will just blow people's socks off?
Speaker 2:Well, one that was really popular. We had a photographer come. She came out and spent four days here shooting a bunch of stuff around the gardens, and then we did a bunch of the recipes and one that really got her. We did a super sunflower cornbread where I replaced a bunch of the cornmeal with actually ground sunflower seeds and it's got sunflower oil in it, and then we decorated the top of it with sunflower petals. When we made it it came out so beautiful and it was so delicious. And she's you know, she was from Chicago. She's like I don't even eat cornbread, she's like, but I would eat this every single day, and so that one was a hit.
Speaker 1:We really did a lot of different stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was really fun to make. We did so many different things. Each herb there's what 40 herbs in the book or something like that and each herb's got multiple recipes. So there's what 40 herbs in the book or something like that, and each herb's got multiple recipes. So there's a lot. So it would be hard for me to pick a favorite one. But the sunflower was a fun one, the sunflower cornbread Really I loved decorating it with the sunflower petals. That's really why I'm picking that one, because it was like a little work of art, you know.
Speaker 1:I think that's probably the perfect reason. There is somebody on Instagram who decorates breads and cakes with flowers, and every time I see it I'm like I want to do that.
Speaker 2:So I can understand why you like that. I actually seen somebody had done a focaccia bread and it was very beautiful and that was my inspiration. I was like I'm going to try to do this and mine did not turn out that beautiful, you know, not as beautiful as this Instagram photo, but it was still nice. And you know, and that's the cool kind of cool thing about it is everybody that's going to make that is going to do it differently and they're going to express themselves differently and they're going to make it themselves. It's going to represent them personally and I think that's an important thing when we learn about herbs, to understand how personal it is. You know, whether it's in the kitchen or it's in the apothecary, everything's very unique to where you are, who you are, whatever ailment you're trying to cure. You know all of these things are very specific and that's sort of the beauty of it. You know that it really gives us these opportunities to be, to celebrate our uniqueness to celebrate our uniqueness, right?
Speaker 1:yeah, absolutely I. I am not a fan of herbalism or cooking or anything that it's like.
Speaker 2:This is the only way it's done, you know I'm like no, I will intentionally do it differently, just because they say that, um for sure no and that.
Speaker 2:so we try to do that with those recipes too. All of them are like I kind of like doing it like this, but maybe you could try doing something different, because, well, why not and that's part of the fun of it, you know, like, especially in the kitchen, the experimentation that you can do to try different things and to not be afraid to fail, that's, that's the beauty of the whole thing. So we really try to lean into that and help people just find joy in herbs, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that. So is there anything else you want to tell us about this book and why we have to run and get it from your website pre-order? Because that helps the authors, people, right, it's huge, it's tremendous. It helps the authors and, look, I know we all have had plenty of those boxes on our front porch from all kinds of places no names, I don't want to be taken out, but you know we've all but there is something really important about purchasing from the author it really does a lot for them. So can you, can you tell us why we need to get this from you immediately? Well, I'm going to order it when we get off the phone.
Speaker 2:Oh, you're awesome. You're awesome. Well, so if you get the book from us, if you pre-order the book through us, not only do you get the book right away and you get it autographed by me and some people like that, right Cool. But I'm also going to send you other things with it. I'm going to send you five packets of seeds from our garden. We have a little mini seed business here at Small House Farm, so I'm going to send you five packets of seeds right from our farm likely herbs and flowers, but who knows what kind of gems we're going to come across that we're going to send. So that's going to be a surprise.
Speaker 2:And then you also get a six-month paid membership to our Patreon community automatically. As soon as you buy the book online, you get the email triggered, sent right to you to sign up for the Patreon. So it's six months for free, and that includes a ton of perks and benefits. So as a patreon member, you get. You get exclusive content, you get bonus episodes of the podcast, you get all sorts of different things and some tiers. You get herbal, seasonal herbal gift boxes sent right to your door, um, so more boxes on the porch, right? So you would get.
Speaker 1:They're from you, they're from me and it's it's, they're handcrafted.
Speaker 2:So you will. Every season, you will get a box of seasonal herbal products, whether it's teas and tinctures and and salves and um sauces and lotions and seasoning blends and all sorts of different stuff. It's it's always different and it is one of the most fun things. I love getting to do it because you know a small house. We sell a lot of herbal products on our website. We have a whole store there. So those products we've been offering those things for some of them for years and years and I got to make them in bulk and I'm making tons of them all the time and that's the way that it is. But these ones you don't. These are not available on the website. These are unique products that only come in these packages. So it allows us this opportunity to kind of experiment on a smaller scale and make different things and play with the seasons and have a lot of fun. So it's been making things really fun to be making these different products again. It's been really nice.
Speaker 1:What a cool gift.
Speaker 2:It is pretty cool, they're pretty cool.
Speaker 1:That would be like a good bridesmaids gift. Like you sign all your bridesmaids up for the thing and they get it for like a year. Or you know you have a teenager that's into this kind of stuff, or you're like your aunt, or it. Just all I'm thinking is like what a cool. I would have loved if I when I was younger and I didn't know how to do all this stuff, but I was into it if someone had signed me up for something like that. I just would have thought it was amazing. But what a cool thing to to share with the community overall. Like that's awesome.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's been really fun and they've been quite popular so we like doing it. So the Patreon membership, that's another perk we're just giving folks. If they pre-order the book.
Speaker 2:We just sign you right up to the program for free for six months so they can kind of you know experience it and see if it's for them and that sort of thing, and then obviously, obviously, you get the book, which is the biggest deal of it. All right, so we do encourage the pre-orders and, you know, ordering from an author is always the best thing that you can do, as opposed to the nameless giant online store that sells things to people, um, because when you order directly, um, everybody benefits more that way.
Speaker 1:Let's put it like that. Oh Well, I found out at some point with one of my publishers. I was like, hey, my book's being sold at this place and we don't actually sell it in this country. And they were like, well, sucks to suck, they don't respect copyright law. And I was like, oh okay, so like when you order from the author, it's not a counterfeit product, it's not. You know, um, you know, it's not the same with the herbal products when you're getting them from the person, they're actually coming from the person.
Speaker 1:And I know that sounds silly to say it like that, but I wasn't aware until maybe five or six years ago I ordered some it was like a lipstick thing for one of my son's friends. I was like, oh, I'll get it for her for her birthday, that's what she wanted. And she was like I'm really sorry to tell you this, this counterfeit. And I was like what? And it was like it'm really sorry to tell you this, this counterfeit. And I was like what? And it was like it was like a big brand, it was like total counterfeit cosmetic. And ever since then it kind of like opened my eyes to like anything I put in my body.
Speaker 1:I really want to know who the provider is, and I know that sounds paranoid, but I don't know. I got nothing better to do. I'm getting old, you know. I just cause I didn't. I didn't know anything about buying makeup. So if I don't know something about, if I don't know about herbs, then I'm going to order from an herbalist. If I don't know about, you know, cutting boards, I'm going to order a cutting board from the person that makes them, because I I always kind of link that to one. It's great and it's really a sustainable way to live, but also it just I don't know safety, you know. So I mean I know it kind of. I kind of went off on the rails here, so I apologize, but it's like you get the book from the author. You know exactly who you're getting it from and who your money is directly supporting.
Speaker 2:And absolutely that's what I'm trying to get around and, like you said, it's like that with everything it's going to the farmer's market as opposed to the grocery store. The closer you can get to the source with anything, the better it's going to be for everybody.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, absolutely. So. Tell us about your seed library. You had to have known I was going to bring this up.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, oh yeah, for sure. So seed library. So there, for sure, so seed library. So there's there's multitude of answers here, so it's a multi-faceted situation with the seed library. So here, a small house farm, we store and preserve a lot of seeds, all sorts of varieties. On the other side of this wall, behind me, is freezer chests full of seeds, all right, so sort of a seed bank type of thing. And then what we are able to every year, depending on space and pollination, isolation we won't dig into that, but it's what we're able to grow here we grow out every year and then to multiply that seed, and then we offer it through our website to folks through our little seed store, if people want to purchase these unusual and unique varieties, so then they can grow it in their gardens, and then that the whole seed preservation program that we have, and that's fun for us, but we had to make it fun for the whole community as well. So what we've gotten involved in in 2017, I founded an organization called the Michigan Seed Library Network and essentially we've developed a network of seed libraries all throughout the state.
Speaker 2:And what a seed library is? Well, it's just like a typical library, really. You can think of it like that, where people will come to check out books At a seed library. You come to check out seeds, you take the seeds home, you grow them in your garden, you enjoy it and then, in theory, in the fall just like you would return your book you return fresh seeds to the seed library to restock it. So other members of your community have access to locally grown, high quality seeds and it's really taken off.
Speaker 2:As of now, there are 145 seed libraries in the state of Michigan, yeah, right. And to put that in perspective, there's maybe 700 nationwide and 145 of them are here in Michigan, right? So I mean, it's a lot of legwork. There's a lot of people involved. It's not just me. I helped found the organization. There's a number of volunteers that help all the seed librarians doing all the work. It's grown. It's quite a serious situation, but it's not just isolated to Michigan. You know there's seed libraries all over the place. So wherever your listeners are tuning in, you know they can probably find a seed library not far from them, and I would recommend the Community Seed Network. The Community Seed Network has a website that you can go on. It's got an interactive map and you can find seed libraries or seed stewards near you as well. So you can find that, and we kind of replicated that idea with the Michigan Seed Library Network. We have a map of Michigan where everybody could find all the seed libraries that we have here, and you know it's originally I was pushing a lot of like vegetables, garden crops you know what I mean Tomatoes and melons and whatever might be for people to eat.
Speaker 2:But as it kind of shapes itself, the more that it's out there with the public, it's really become a lot of native plants, there's a lot of herbs. That sort of thing has really become some of the mainstays of a lot of these seed libraries. So it is a great way to get access to seeds for native plants for your region, herbs that you might want to grow in your gardens. It's really, really cool to see that sort of thing happening. So even here at Small House, our seed collection, our online store, has really come into a lot of herbs lately. We are selling a lot more herbs than we used to. When we first started it was a lot of beans and tomatoes, and I still do a lot of beans and tomatoes, but the page that we sell herb seeds has grown significantly, yeah, so we've got lots of cool herbs that we're offering seeds for.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. It's nothing better than homegrown tomatoes.
Speaker 2:Homegrown tomatoes. Oh, you got it. They are the best, and so that's kind of a thing, too, when we're finding the varieties that we want to grow. We're going to grow some things because they're historically significant. We're going to grow some things, maybe, because they're sentimental, they're family heirlooms. We're going to grow some things because they're just gosh darn delicious. I'm going to grow some herbs because they're bringing in pollinators or because I'm going to use them in the apothecary, or because I can't get enough of them in the kitchen.
Speaker 2:There's so many great reasons to grow as much as you can, you know, with the space that you have. So it's cool to be able to offer these seeds, because then the customers they'll always email me and tell me how their stuff's doing or whatever, and it's fun to see all the different.
Speaker 1:It's like you got little babies all over the place right.
Speaker 1:You got little herb grandbabies.
Speaker 1:Well, I always think it's funny when people who like very, when I'm talking to people of like a very traditional lawn setup and then they'll say something like well, I heard, this was a native plant, I was thinking of getting it and I always want to be like you're in trouble, now I'm going to take this and replace it with, you know, a pollinator.
Speaker 1:I'm like, oops, all right, you're going to have a completely different yard next year. And it's great because people do, or or they say, well, I'm not buying my plants from whatever huge store anymore, I'm getting them from this person or I'm getting from this place because of you know they have more what I'm interested in. And I love that, because when you purchase a plant or a seed from someone who's really involved with the history of it, it just I kind of feel like you get to bring those memories to your land too. You bring that, that feeling of yes, this has been cared for and intended, and you know it's almost like I don't know. You get to continue a legacy of preservation and conservation and eating really good maters.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I always tell people they become a part of the story. Now too, they're like the next chapter in the story.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure. Do you find that a lot of the people interested in seed saving and growing native plants and their demographic is changing to a more younger population? I feel like the amount of information my sons in their 20s have about native plants and like, just like all of this stuff and not just because they're my kids, right, like they would probably technically have an advantage, but like even their friends it's like a whole different. Oh yeah, this is their heritage.
Speaker 2:Okra or whatever.
Speaker 1:You know, and I'm like looking at this like 20 something year old firefighter, like okay, cool, like I just feel like it's something that younger people are talking about, more or more interested in, and I don't know, maybe that's just me, but do you find that with your sales and the people that are coming to you know your workshops and classes?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I would agree with that. I would say that, just generally, interest in this sort of thing has grown with every age group.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean A lot of folks are really getting interested in gardening or growing their own, or the benefits of herbs, but certainly more younger people now than I would have said 10 years ago. For sure, and maybe a lot of that does have to do with the social media. You know years ago, for sure, and maybe a lot of that does have to do with the social media. You know their ability to have access to very quickly all sorts of snippets of information and then with the algorithms you look at one plant picture and boy now you're just going to get a bunch of plant pictures, right?
Speaker 1:I should have never looked up a chainsaw. Let me just tell you that.
Speaker 2:You got to stick with plant pictures. That's the key. But, you know, and I think that you're right, though, there's something going on that has piqued people's interests in the natural world in a way that seems very new and it's very exciting, and people are really coming into that in a really interesting way. Um, so it's very exciting to see, you know, I'm not gonna say the, the big p word, but um, in 2020, there's this thing that happened and oh, oh, oh, my gosh, this is how slow I am.
Speaker 1:I'm like it's, I'm like what is he? All right.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna say it for clarity I get you now.
Speaker 1:I'm the only slow, everyone else is already caught on. Who will be listening?
Speaker 2:I hope so, oh goodness, no, no. So in 2020. And that moment, the silver lining of that, if we wanted to see it, was, all of a sudden, people, like eyes, opened up to things in a very different way, things in a very different way. And then I think it's just been really really cool to see people wanting to get back to the land or get back to, you know, learning more about herbs or trying to grow their own food or whatever it might be. It's really cool. And I was so worried that you know we'd have this big spike when it happened and everybody had a panic. You know that it would kind of peter out, it would be over with, but it really seems to have held on with a lot of folks that that continued interest. You know, maybe not everybody's doing sourdough bread like they were, but a lot of folks are still out there gardening and doing things and learning about plants, and it's so cool to see that because well, as herbalists, you know that's like our dream come true.
Speaker 2:right To see other people going out there and doing that as teachers wanting to get people turned on to the land, seeing it happening in real time. That's pretty much the coolest thing.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I've got to agree with you on that. I feel like, yeah, we may not all be out in our gardens as much as we were a few years ago or baking the sourdough bread, but I think from those experiences, people are like I care who grows my vegetables, I care where they come from, I care who's baking my bread for my family in a different way. So I think, even if they're not doing themselves, they are definitely supporting professions that are now offering those. But I think farmers markets are just getting. I mean, I live in the in the middle of nowhere and there's probably four or five within a half hour and you know, I just I'm not sure if they were all there years ago cause we were transplants, but, um, I just feel like this, this interest has not waned. People are natural soap and they're just kind of continuing, maybe not doing the skill themselves anymore, but they're definitely willing to pay for that. They value it now.
Speaker 1:I really think yeah, I agree. So you mentioned classes. Tell us about the classes that you offer.
Speaker 2:Oh yes, so a lot of the educational programming that we do is in person. Right, I do a lot in the spring and in the fall I travel all over the place. Like that's no exaggeration. I mean I've traveled from LA to Prince Edward Island you know what I mean At all points in between.
Speaker 1:I love Prince Edward Island. I can't believe you just said that. Have you ever had their potatoes?
Speaker 2:I did not have their potatoes?
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, they're the seriously the best potatoes in the whole world. What, yes, if you go there again, when you go there again, you have to go. And then my family used to have property there. Really, yeah, um, there was. My mother found these two little cabins and our cottages, I should say a long time ago, but anyways, it is definitely like I'm Prince Edward Island girl before the bridge.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay, well, that's cool, I was only there.
Speaker 1:the one time for a conference.
Speaker 2:But the point being, I travel a lot to teach, so I do a lot of that, but not everybody obviously can make it to these in-person things. So we did start a YouTube channel a while ago so we were able to put some some educational programming on through there.
Speaker 1:How do we find the channel?
Speaker 2:Oh, small house farm All right, small house farm, that's so. It's a simple way to find all of our stuff. But one thing that we just recently did, um that I was so excited about is we connected with an organization called the School of Traditional Skills, and it's an online school and they offer classes for you think about it homesteading, they got it from, you know, raising chickens to butchering cattle, to all you name it. They got it right, and so they got ahold of me to do an herb gardening program for their school. So last July, so last summer, they brought this film crew out and they were here for many days and we shot what turned into 17 videos, everything about herb gardening, and I'm talking like from like you know where you're going to source your seeds, to planting out your garden, to where your sun is, to soil, testing every step of it, all the way through harvesting, drying and processing herbs, the whole gambit. And it's a beautiful class that they put together with all. I mean, they followed me around for days with the camera and in the gardens and I told everything I know about growing these plants, and it's turned out to be beautiful and that's coming out.
Speaker 2:Um, basically, as we're recording this. It's coming out, um. So if they visit the small house farm website, smallhousefarmcom, you'll see a link to that. It says like online classes or something, and it'll take you straight through to the school so you can check out my class as well as all the other offerings through the school.
Speaker 2:It's a really cool organization and I was really lucky to connect with them. Um, it was just kind of you know, like-minded people sometimes bump into other. We just kind of found ourselves in the same place at the same time and a conversation came up and they said we want you to do this class and it was cool to really be able to lean into teaching everything I know about growing herbs. You know, because we've been growing herbs here for a couple decades now and out of all the books I've written, I haven't really written a book specifically all about everything I know about growing herbs. So it was cool to be able to put that into a place for folks so that they could, you know, learn from all of my experiences and not make all the mistakes I made and have the herb garden of their dreams.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's awesome. Oh, I love that so much. You've you've incorporated, you know, homesteading, which is really popular right now, but also just growing herbs and practical practicality. And you know, I just I think we're in an age where we're really lucky, we can, if we look, we can find the voices that we need to hear. You know, we can turn off the ones that we don't need to hear. If we want to, we can find, we can. You can find pretty much a class for anything. I'm a total class like nut, Like I'm gonna I'm gonna be taking a hopefully fingers crossed a large equipment operating class so I can learn how to use, like a skid steer and all this kind of stuff. Oh cool.
Speaker 1:You never know right, you never know when it's going to come up, but like I love doing stuff like that, like I love, like always, and I think if people look they can find it. So look, bevan is teaching these things. He is out here, he's giving you the information, he's got books, he has a website.
Speaker 2:He has his own seed library.
Speaker 1:People Check it out. I just love that so much and I love that you've taken the time today to connect with us and to share your story and to share about your herb gardening with Bevan, which is coming out very soon. So thank you so much. Did I say the name of the book, right?
Speaker 2:Herbs in.
Speaker 1:Every Season. Sorry, the class is Herb Gardening.
Speaker 2:It's a lot of the same words over and over again, but yes, you got it. It's Herbs in Every Season and it comes out March 25th, but if they hear this before that, they can always pre-order on my website.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're putting it up before then because I'm like, nope, let's get people some freebies if they want. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, for sure they would love it, especially yeah, listeners, you know for your podcast students from the school. I think that they would really benefit from it. Some of our patrons, some of our members, you know, because you can really get to know them personally because it's really cool and some of them are like older, experienced herbalists and they say, oh, we love these boxes because you're sending us stuff that I never made it like that before, or I never even thought of working with this herb, and so they're learning new ideas and techniques and they're getting inspired and they're old herbies, you know. So I think it's really something that's just it's cool for everybody. But selfishly, I love it the most because it gives me the chance to just really get out there and experiment with the plants in a way that I hadn't been able to do in a few years. So every time somebody supports it, they're supporting my ability to play in the garden and I appreciate that.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. That's so awesome. I, I, um, I love when I go to like a health fair or a products expo or whatever and I see things I've never seen before. I just I'm always like oh, that's so awesome, like, or I don't have to make it, someone else can make it, and they make it better than me. I want to buy this and not have to worry about it, Right.
Speaker 1:Like there's some things you're like no one will ever make it better than me, Right? And then there's other things that you're like everyone's going to make it and that's a good thing to own and to be like I'm going to support a business that's going to do do it for me and really get to learn something in the process. So, thank you so much. Thank you for being on. We've taken up almost an hour of your time, so I do really appreciate it. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2:Oh, Demetria, thank you so much for having me on the show. This was super fun. It was an honor for me to be able to sit down and chat with you. This was very, very cool for me. So thank you.
Speaker 1:Oh well, thank you so much and please keep us updated on any other things that come out so we can have you back or any other big projects you're doing, because, um, what I want to try to do with this podcast series is, I want to highlight how herbalism is different for everyone and how we all have a place in herbalism, and it's not always you know what we think it is. It's often people just like us, like you know, like you know what we think it is. It's often people just like us, like you know, like you know, like people who are just people, who are doing their mission and have incredible, illustrious gifts. I really appreciate it. You have a wonderful day. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2:Thanks again.
Speaker 1:Thanks, bye, bye.
