Hi friends! I hope the month of May has been treating you well! Things here are looking great – it’s finally warm enough that we have some seeds started and sprouting, and we were invited to vend at a local market for a spring event last week. Our farmers' market also starts up at the end of this month and we’re looking forward to being there every Saturday! Today’s interview features two awesome guests who I’m excited to introduce you to: Stephanie Thurow is a Certified Master Food Preserver and Master Gardener Volunteer from Minneapolis, Minnesota. She is a homesteader, author of bestselling cookbooks Can It & Ferment It, WECK Small-Batch Preserving, and WECK Home Preserving. You can find here on the Minnesota from Scratch blog, or on Instagram under the same name. Stephanie hopes her experience with homesteading will help others reach more of their goals. When she isn’t in the kitchen preserving, she can be found in the garden with her hens, teaching food preservation classes, or at the lake with her family and friends. Michelle Bruhn homesteads in suburban Minnesota. She's a local food advocate, Master Gardener Volunteer, writer, garden educator, and farmers' market manager. As the founder of ForksInTheDirt.com, an information hub for garden and farm-to-table living, her passion is helping folks "dig" their food. She can also be found at ForksInTheDirt on Instagram. When not in the garden, Michelle enjoys spending time with her backyard flock, family, and friends while immersing herself in nature (usually with a foraging basket in tow).   Their book Small-Scale Homesteading covers topics such as:

• Gardening tips and tricks: from composting, soil health and what plants thrive best during the different seasons.
• All things preserving: Canning, curing and how to keep your vegetables last year round.
• Raising chickens: how these feathered friends can inhance your homestead.
• DIY products and recipes: healthy alternatives to everyday cleaning products, lotions and soaps.

~*~*~*~ If you’d like to support the podcast, please spread the word about it by sharing it on your social media! You can also support us by checking out our online farm shop. We have lots of great herbal offerings in stock and pre-orders for our summer solstice box will be opening up soon. Until next time, keep your hands dirty and your heart open.