73: Talyn Martin on food security & local organic farming

Connecting with Talyn:

  • to connect re: food security or support/consulting re: getting your farmer’s market online, gardening, local farming and organic farming, e-mail Talyn at: talynm ( @ ) hotmail.com
  • to inquire about and book a Tarot card reading from Talyn (they’re excellent) e-mail Talyn at: talynm ( @ ) hotmail.com
  • to listen to Talyn’s previous podcast episode, in which she tells the fairytale of the Red Shoes, click here.

Connecting with Janelle:

Personal Mythmaking Podcast’s special pandemic series

It’s episode 73 and I’m chatting with Talyn Martin, a reformed organic farmer living on Gabriola Island (Isle of the Arts) in Canada’s Pacific Northwest.

Talyn is also my friend, and was last on this podcast, telling the fairytale of the Red Shoes, in episode 30 – do seek it out and listen in, it’s a real treat.

I wanted to invite Talyn back on the podcast, and specifically to talk about food security and organic farming, because she has so much experience in it, but also because I don’t think enough of us (even folks like me with organic farmer friends) truly understand how important supporting food security and our local farmers actually is. Let alone how little money they make, and how much work it is.

So, a little more about Talyn:

She began spin-farming (transforming urban lawns into productive veggie-growing spaces) in the city of Vancouver before buying and running an 8 1/2 acre organic vegetable farm on Vancouver Island for several years. During that time she also worked with the local green community to get an online farmer’s market/ordering system up and running (something that is now a necessity for most farmer’s markets during these pandemic times of sheltering in place and 6’ of physical distancing.

A year ago she retired to Gabriola and now supports small farmers in getting product to market as well as consulting/inspiring wanna-be growers.

She’s a part-time freelance writer who is interested in always asking why and draws on her wide travels to highlight societal differences and explore what we can learn from other cultures.

She loves foraging (yay nettle season!) and creating herbal medicine from her surroundings. Talyn is also interested in the occult and consults the TAROT for guidance on all things mysterious.

She lives on a bus in the woods with her lover Mike and their lion/cat Jake.

In this episode we talked about what food security means from a farmer’s perspective, what we need to know as non farmers about the behind the scenes work of farmers, and how to support farmers at farmer’s markets during this pandemic time, when space and time is extremely limited.

We also talked about gardens and gardening, community gardens, online farmer’s markets, farmstands, community supported agriculture boxes, seed supplies, sustainability and mental health, migrant workers and exploitation, climate change, being mindful of seasonality, starting small, and how things actually want to grow!

You’re going to get so much out of this conversation – so enjoy (and make sure to share it widely!)