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Recorded March 8th, 2022

[The following transcript was auto-generated using Otter.ai. If there’s a discrepancy between the audio and text, please reach out to me and I will correct it. Thank you.]

Matt Derosier 0:00
What would you tell people that want to get started in like farming or homesteading?

BowTiedFarmer 0:07
I’d say go ahead

Matt Derosier 0:23
This is the FarmHopLife Podcast. I’m Matt Derosier. Today my guest is BowTiedFarmer on Twitter. I have no intro for him, a real man of mystery. How’re you doing today?

BowTiedFarmer 0:32
doing really well. How are you?

Matt Derosier 0:35
Good. Thank you. So I guess let’s just start out why the anonymity, anonymity.

BowTiedFarmer 0:44
So what it is, is it’s an online community, really based on Twitter. We basically it’s a group that follows an account called BowTiedBull. Okay, is he started this online? I guess you would say writing marketing following a long time ago called Wall Street playboys. He’s all about he’s kind of got a Wall Street background. He talks about efficiency, how to get rich. A lot of E commerce type, lifestyle and tips and strategies. So I began following him and reading some of his stuff a couple years ago, he transitioned from Wall Street Playboy’s to bow tied bull about a year ago. And I started reading that he has a sub stack, and really, really enjoyed it. It’s kind of crypto based. It’s about kind of taking finances in your own hands and trying to get away from this banking system. And anyway, people started bid make getting their own bow tied accounts, and it just really took off. And so now if you look on Twitter, there’s all kinds of them. There’s a bow tied ox, there’s just and they call it the jungle. And so there’s all these animals and people and it’s all anonymous. And it’s really cool. It’s really fun. I like it because I can DM or email, anybody in the jungle. I don’t know who they are. But they could be a lawyer. They could have Wall Street background. They could be a farmer. You know, it’s amazing, the network and the reach. You know, if I have if I’m trying to set up a website, I can reach out to this guy possum. And he is a website guru. I mean, so it’s just it’s really cool. And so I got into it. I decided I do farmer farmer. I got a little bit of farm background. I’m not like a real farmer. I’m more of a homesteader as so. Farmer was just kind of cool. It was short and sweet. And that was I started joining the group in May of 2021. So it’s been a wild ride.

Matt Derosier 3:41
That’s awesome. I forgot to start off with something. So in the spirit of your anonymity, I don’t have a bow tie. But I do have this. Cool. So I thought I’d rock it in style. I’m also anonymous today. So I should just delete ai My name bowtie MATT Maybe.

BowTiedFarmer 4:06
There you go. Yeah.

Matt Derosier 4:08
So so then you said you’re not much of a farmer more of a homesteader. So then how did you get started homesteading?

BowTiedFarmer 4:17
Ah, so I’m on some land, this family land. I was coming up here all my life, riding four wheelers and playing in the woods. Later on in life, I moved up this way actually just through another through through work. And I was Renton and finally one day I was like, Man, I just need to move out on this land. And so I talked to my grandma and she let me build a little house out here. And you know, it just kind of fit I started gardening. You know, as soon as I got out here, man. Another thing is like my grandpa I was a gardener. I was always outside doing stuff, I love the outdoors. And so, when I moved out here, I kind of messed around with a small garden. And really COVID kind of clicked like, Hey, I kind of want to start growing my own food and try to, you know, see what, see what I can do and our bit got bit by the bug, and I mean, I went crazy. I did a big garden, and I love it. Now. Another thing is my wife is a huge animal lover. And so whenever we got out here she want to go and so I I’m kind of like the labor you know, I built a built some fences, and got her some goats and then we wanted chickens. So we got chickens and goats, or goats for milk. Ah, well, they were just goats for fun start now. Okay. We had some, we started out with some Nigerian dwarf goats. And they’re really fun. I mean, I built all kinds of stuff for them to climb on and jump around on and it was really fun. And then she got into the LA Montes. So now we have three lamonta goes to DOS and abuk. And so this past two or three months ago, we got some more Nigerians some some registered, little, small Nigerians a boy and a girl. So that we can get some some babies from them, too. So yeah, it was just getting animals, right. My wife loves animals. So we just started, you know, acquiring more and more animals. Now I have 30 hands. Three goats. I got a cow. And I got three dogs, three cats.

Matt Derosier 7:02
Nice. I’m assuming the cows for milk then?

BowTiedFarmer 7:06
No, well, I say it’s a cow. It’s actually a bull. Oh, him a year ago. A year ago, I bought some beef from a guy that he he’ll get a steer and raise it and then finish it off. And I bought some meat from him. And I was like, Man, I can do this. So I have a about a half acre behind my house that is spent in. So I got on Facebook. And I found this guy. He actually just brought me the cow and everything that it was a baby. It was like a six month old bull for $300. And he brought it to me. So that was my first Yeah, that was my first experience with cows, or bowls or whatever you want to call it. So I don’t know what I’m gonna do with him yet. He was actually I told the guy I want him to be banded. And he’s like, Yeah, I’ll ban them before I bring him. And I didn’t know what I was doing. Right. So he pulls up with the trailer and let’s and mountain my pastor, he went and banded. So I gotta bold now and I’ve read that you can still butcher him, like when they’re young. And it doesn’t really mess with the meat too bad. I’m trying to get some more fences up. And I might just if I get these fences up, I might just put them out in the front pasture and keep him you know, he’s intact. And then I can just get some some cows and breed him. So I don’t know yet.

Matt Derosier 8:45
Still playing with it. What’s the what’s the deciding factor? I guess for you like what do you kind of like? What’s this? What’s, you know? What, how would you make that decision?

BowTiedFarmer 8:57
Well, obviously, my wife definitely wants to just keep him, right. She does not want to eat them. But I’m looking at him like so I guess right now he’s in a smaller pen. I mean, he’s got plenty of room. But I’m kind of wanting to get him out of there and clean that pasture up where he’s at and that’s kind of where I need to put my goat now. Okay, so I need another place to put that the big boy so he can kind of get out of the way and you know, have more room. So that’s the only reason and then plus, I’m kind of getting low on beef again. I got a half a cow about six months ago, six or seven months ago. So it will be time. I’m thinking by the end of the summer he’ll be big enough and ready.

Matt Derosier 9:56
So I say what times what what kind of cow?

BowTiedFarmer 9:59
Black Angus,

Matt Derosier 10:01
Black Angus. Okay.

BowTiedFarmer 10:03
And he’s not he’s still not very big though. I mean, he’s not like huge. So he’s still got some growing to do hopefully when the grass is turning green now. So hopefully he’ll shoot up in the next four months. I’m thinking,

Matt Derosier 10:20
Did you say how much acreage you’re on? Is it more than five? Oh,

BowTiedFarmer 10:25
yeah, well, so it’s a family land. It’s 200 acres. Oh, wow. But I’m on three. Okay, you know, like my I got deeded three from my grandma. That’s pretty sweet. So yeah, it’s awesome, man. I got plenty of room really? I got three acres is enough to do a lot, right? Yeah, I mean, I got, I got this cow. And all the goats and my garden. I got fruit trees and everything planted. Right on three acres, right? I mean, that’s just barely enough to get all that on there. But obviously, you know, later on, whenever people move on, there will be opportunities to get more of this land. I’m gonna try to keep it all in the family. We’ll see what happens. The future is unknown. Because you got to buy people out and everybody wants money. So we’ll see what happens. Are you?

Matt Derosier 11:28
I’m trying to figure out roughly where you are. Because you’re so like, intentionally elusive about it. I’m like, Okay, are you east or west of the Mississippi? And then I’m gonna leave it at that. East east of the Mississippi. Okay. All right. That’s good enough for me. Okay. Yeah.

BowTiedFarmer 11:51
I mean, we can talk. So we can talk later, you know? There’s ways to break down and Amity once we you know, but I don’t know, though, you know, you know, I’m, I’m Barmer. Yeah. Very strange. It’s a so the anonymity thing, the reason why the anonymity is with crypto, I don’t know if you’re familiar with it. But there’s, there’s a little bit of curiosity. There’s some security issues with it. You know, there’s not, and I’m not saying me personally, but like, let’s say I was a rich, rich guy with all this money. And it’s not in a bank anymore. Right? It’s not with Wall Street on in the stock market. It’s like, and it could possibly be in your house. Or it could be, you know, a lot more security to worry about. You don’t really want everybody knowing who you are anymore. And plus just the whole canceled culture nowadays. I tell you what, ever since I’ve started this account, as a non, it’s what I’ve always wanted, because I will go on Facebook, and with you know, my normal account. He can’t say what you want to say, you know, because my mom’s on it, and

Matt Derosier 13:27
share the

BowTiedFarmer 13:29
pictures. So I can’t say, Hey, man, I love this rap song. I really love this rap song. You know, because you’re supposed to be listening to rap. Music. And so it’s really cool. being anonymous. I still work trying to keep it.

Matt Derosier 13:55
So, yeah, it is, but I feel like we’re moving towards an age to where privacy is going to be a luxury. You know? Yes, that’s so I mean, I get it, I absolutely get it. But for like, if we want to get into it just like a little bit like me personally, like, people like to be able to see a face. Yeah, I mean, otherwise, it’s just like working in Amazon warehouse, right? Like you don’t even know like, who your coworkers are, who your managers are. I mean, you got like your managers a robot or something. I don’t know. So yeah, still, we still can’t lose that human touch.

BowTiedFarmer 14:48
It’s really weird. Here we go. Again, like, there are people that were in the community, the bow tied community online, and they were anonymous. And then as soon as like some of them decided to like, you know, go another way. And they just switch their account and put their face on their profile. As soon as somebody does, it’s weird. Like, as soon as you see somebody’s face, everything changes is totally, I can’t explain it to you. Like, as soon as you see my face, everything, like even even hearing my voice tonight, you know, now, you know a little bit more about me. Right. But I don’t know, you heard I

Matt Derosier 15:32
mean, yeah, but like voices don’t match faces very well.

BowTiedFarmer 15:39
Yeah, but like, I can just Okay, so there’s people in the in the community that like I interact with, like we all know each other. Right? There’s this guy, Bernard. Anyway, he goes on spaces, and I hear His voice. Right. And and there’s another guy. I don’t know. It just gives you another detail about that person that you didn’t. It’s kind of like reading a book. Right? Whenever you read a book. It’s really cool. You you read Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory, and then you watch the movie. And it’s not the same. It’s totally different. Right? Right. Your pagination, you can understand that makes that anonymous account seem cooler than it is or worse than it is. I don’t know. It’s just interesting. It’s kind of like, kind of like an experiment for me.

Matt Derosier 16:30
That’s true. That I mean, there is something to it. So you get to kind of say what you want to say. And I don’t know. Just don’t have to worry so much about the backlash and like, Man, am I gonna get like, with my name, you know, right there being in the Lower, lower left corner, like, it’s gonna be pretty easy to find me and ruin my frickin life. I say something that pisses somebody off or whatever. So yeah,

BowTiedFarmer 17:04
there’s me, I’m still not gonna do that. I’m not gonna I’m not I wouldn’t ever say anything wrong. But people can misconstrue what you say and absolutely out of context. And, and that’s another thing. Like, whenever I was on Twitter before, I always wanted to be anonymous. Really, I would get nervous that somebody would see my name and, like, try, come find me. You know, that probably would never happen. But I just kind of, I don’t know. Twitter’s kind of crazy, right? Yes, it’s one thing to be on. Facebook. Facebook’s a lot different than Twitter. Twitter is like, even you can get in a lot of trouble. Like if you get a rage mob after you. Yeah, I mean, I don’t know. It’s just crazy. There’s a lot of wild wild.

Matt Derosier 17:56
There is. Absolutely no wanna me, you crazy bow tied community people anyway. So

BowTiedFarmer 18:06
yeah, and the bow tie community is cool. Because like, you got a lot of, yeah, a lot of help beings, we stick together. And you know, we all are. It’s really cool. Because it’s very positive place. Right? So there’s a lot of especially starting out, back in over the summer. I mean, it was just so much fun. I was sharing pictures of my, my farm stuff, and my chickens and everything I’m doing, and everybody just loved it. And people would like my stuff, you know, before, people, you would post stuff on Twitter and get like, no likes, you know, no, but it’s like, it’s like a void. Because it’s so hard to get traction on Twitter, right? It’s almost impossible. So it was like a jumping off pad a launch pad. Because we all like each other stuff. And it kind of and then it started growing outwards. And so that was another cool aspect of it.

Matt Derosier 19:11
Yeah. Um, so you said you you had a garden with your with your Grandma, did you say when you like kind of so had like, How’d you get started growing food? I mean.

BowTiedFarmer 19:26
Well, growing up, my grandpa, he always had a big garden. And like, I would be out there helping him. I wasn’t like, I wasn’t like, you know, spending all day out there. And he, you know, I was I was kind of young too. He got older. I was the baby. So I was probably 6789 that age. So I still didn’t really know what was going on with the garden. I was just out there playing in it and helping So he kind of he developed Alzheimer’s, Alzheimer’s and passed away. I wish he was still around so much knowledge. But anyway, he kind of planted that seed and me. And I had a little background, I love being outside. And so we moved out here we had a little bit of land, right? I’m like, well, I’ll plant a little garden. So I just kind of messed around with it. Didn’t really know exactly what I was doing. And then finally, I was like, you know, I’m gonna just do this all the way. So now I have a tiller that goes on the back of my little tractor. And that was a game changer. I know a lot of people don’t like tilling up the land. But I’m telling you, if you got one, you don’t have to mess with that little tiller. You know, the hand tiller, you can really, you can really get it right. So once I got that made it a lot easier. And I’m still learning man, I’m only I’ve only been doing the big garden for two years now. But I really enjoy it. We really do enjoy.

Matt Derosier 21:07
Come and join this. The substack you’re you’re putting out I’m still being being cheap. And bust man. Just you’re just the free stuff that you’re you’re putting out. It’s pretty cool. We can do that. We can get into that at the end. But But yes. So you said, Mark, let’s see. So I started remember when the when COVID kicked off that was kind of like your real big motivator to grow more your own food, have a bigger garden, take on some animals, was there? Was there something before that? Or was that really like? Oh,

BowTiedFarmer 21:50
no, I guess maybe. I guess that’s just kind of when I got I guess you would say red pilled. I was always kind of conservative.

But COVID kind of opened my eyes to see that everything wasn’t the way I thought it was. And I really can’t trust everybody like I thought I could. And so I can’t trust everything to go the way it’s supposed to, you know. And so then then I was like, I can’t remember exactly, I think I just wanted to do the garden because it just seemed like the right thing to do so so I went up, I found a tiller. And I drove a couple hours to go get it. And I started making a bigger garden because that was always the thing that would hold me back was I wanted a bigger garden. But I don’t feel like run this little hand tiller, you know, all the way around. You know, it’s just a lot more work, right? Yeah, absolutely. And I had a disk that went on the back of my tractor, but the disc just never really got it right. So I got a tiller. And then the next thing is the roads, you know, the roads, you gotta have something to draw some roads. And I got one of those. And so now I’m in business, right? I can make I can make a garden as long as I want it to. Now, but and I really want to make a bigger one. But you got to have some flat land and you got to have plenty of room. So I made a bigger one last year, but it was a little bit too far away from the house that I got. Deer deer are really bad around here. So they’ll start tearing everything

Matt Derosier 23:46
up. Sounds like a good problem to have.

BowTiedFarmer 23:50
Yeah, they’re bad. I don’t like them. You know, I really don’t like deer. Because they just eat all my stuff. They’re just,

Matt Derosier 23:58
they’re just but I mean, like, you can Yes. Good to have them. Yeah, I mean, that’s an easy way to stock the freezer if they’re just walking right into your property.

BowTiedFarmer 24:09
Oh, yeah. Well, I’m just saying, people, people think like, oh, it’s a beautiful deer. They’re just so gorgeous. And you know, they’re just so calm and peaceful, but really, they’re kind of assholes. They can be absolutely beautiful animals. I’m just joking around.

Matt Derosier 24:35
I mean, but also they can be assholes for sure. Yeah, yeah, they want you to eat those. Those sunflowers. There’s work for you.

BowTiedFarmer 24:45
Oh, man. Yeah, I was just fixing to say that I planted a whole huge swaths of, of sunflowers. And we were gonna you know, it was for pictures and for the birds and Just count on to look at. And man, they were doing so good. And then one day, man, those deer just they came through and ate every head off of just about every one of them.

Matt Derosier 25:10
Yeah, I couldn’t believe here. Same here.

BowTiedFarmer 25:14
So then last year, I made one and I put a fence around it, just the temporary fencing put a little closer to the house. And it just didn’t do good. I don’t know if it was just a bad spot or what maybe I planted too many. They were just piled in. And they just they just didn’t grow that big. I don’t know why. Dang. That’s another thing man. I love I love learning. It’s like an experiment, you know? Just keep Yeah, yeah. It’s a learning experience. There’s no right answer to gardening. There’s no right answer to any of it. You just do what works for you. All right. I love that. It’s fun.

Matt Derosier 25:55
So So what’s working for you like so? You? Like do you practice permaculture or like have guilds or I guess raised, I think you’ve got raised beds set, right.

BowTiedFarmer 26:11
I tried some raised beds last year, my wife wants some real bad. But I learned see I learned a lot from that. I just put some in the post that I did today, there was a post on raised beds today that actually explained everything. The secret to a raise bed, is you have to bring in your own good soil. What I did is I took some compost and some dirt, like just kind of scooped up out of my garden area. Yes, and it just had so many seeds in it. Like it was just a raised bed with like tons of just weeds. And so in the garden, you can just I can run that tiller, see, I leave a long row a wide row. So I can run the tiller tractor in between each row and clean it up, clean all those weeds. Because I get a ton of weeds in my garden, there’s just no way to stop it. But if you get weeds up in your raised bed, they’re really hard to deal with. So what you got to do is you got to bring in some some special soil that has been treated properly and doesn’t have seeds in it. You either got to buy some or have it hauled in or make your own or something. But you don’t want to just use any type of soil that you find in your raised beds. Does that make sense?

Matt Derosier 27:42
Yeah, does it does make sense. Okay. I mean, I did a I did a post today about how my compost is going hauling the deep litter out of my chicken coop. And like all that organic matter getting broken down. And, and I put that I empty out the chicken coop once a year. But this time, so by the time we can start planting, it’s ready. So it’s that all that nitrogens not gonna burn the plants anymore. And so I mean, my plants did awesome. Last year, we did, we did raised beds last year, and we’re gonna reuse them this year, obviously, just throw on more, more fresh compost, and hopefully they’ll take off again.

BowTiedFarmer 28:38
So that’s what I was trying to say in that post today is like the only the only benefit benefit I see to raise beds, there’s like three, maybe the first one is you can put one anywhere. Like if you want to put one on a driveway or on a back porch or on your deck, you can just put one there. That’s cool. The second thing is no weeds. You know, you bring in this special soil or you bring in some organic soil or some something that’s been you know, you can cook the seeds, I think you put it in your oven. I heard I read that it stinks really bad if you do that. But anyway, you want to treat it to where there’s no seeds in it. Because it because that’s the only reason that you want to raise bed is to not have to deal with the weeds. And then the third thing is you can make one that’s a little bit higher to where you bend over. And you can kind of sit on the side and hang out. Those are the three those are the three advantages. I can’t really think of anything other than that.

Matt Derosier 29:47
I I’ve got 24 inch raise beds. I didn’t want to bend over. Yeah, I we got crap soil here at Montana. Yes, where I where I’m at it’s very rocky The Rockies. And the other thing is so we also did Square Foot Gardening inside the race bed and so everything was planted very dense. And if something there was just easier to manage that way, so we like we had a absolute mess of tomatoes. Like we had to like, peel the, like branches apart in order to like, harvest the tomatoes. Like every couple of days. It was crazy how just like matted together everything was. Yeah,

BowTiedFarmer 30:42
yeah. But that often in mind that Oh, and the other tomatoes, man, tomatoes are a pain in the ass to be honest. Like I really, they’re really needy.

Matt Derosier 30:57
Yeah, I don’t even eat them. My wife eats them. And sometimes that whatever’s left over, we make salsa, but I don’t I just don’t like the taste. Just plain tomatoes. I don’t know. I just not my thing.

BowTiedFarmer 31:10
I’m not a big tomato fan. They my babies eat on the cherry tomatoes. My kids is weird, man. My kids love tomatoes. They’ll just yell at tomato. Yeah, so. So it’s good to have them for them. And then my wife can cook with them. So

Matt Derosier 31:31
the other thing about the raised bed is that I built this, this kind of cage over it that kind of like flips up like a DeLorean to do it. I’ll send you a picture or I’ll post it on Twitter or something like that tomorrow.

BowTiedFarmer 31:48
I think what you’re saying now the top.

Matt Derosier 31:51
So I used like fencing over the top. And it looks it’s it’s like a barn shaped. Right? Yeah. And yeah, and so the sides swing up like a DeLorean so we can get in it. And I did that to keep the deer out. Because just regular, like having a normal garden and fencing is expensive. And this was like my $50 solution to that, I guess I don’t know. There’s there’s a couple reasons why I went with raised beds. But

BowTiedFarmer 32:24
it’s crazy how much everything costs. I mean, people don’t realize that like just trying to put a fence around my garden, you know, is very expensive,

Matt Derosier 32:35
$2,500 depending on, there’s no way.

BowTiedFarmer 32:39
So the way I’ve done it, I got all these T posts, I got old T posts everywhere from pulling out pulling them out of the ground from old fences. So I got plenty of posts, and I go to Tractor Supply and buy this plastic net, it’s about six feet tall or five feet tall. And it comes on a roll, maybe 100 feet. And that is still like 60 $70 so I gotta get three or four of those and go around the whole thing Jays. But and it’s plastic, right? It’s not, it’s not really nice. One day, I’m gonna build something nice, you know, like a real, maybe a wood fence. That’d be cool. But, you know, it’s just more work. And then another thing is you, for me whenever I bring that tractor in to tell it up, you know, I don’t I gotta leave my I either have to leave a plenty of space. So that makes the fence even bigger around it. Or so that’s why I like that plastic fencing. I can just pull it open. Right, bring my tractor and so there’s no easy answers.

Matt Derosier 33:57
So what have you tried, that’s worked well?

BowTiedFarmer 34:04
Well, for me, offense is very important. It’s very, very important. Well, well, okay, so for me the what I do, I have a I have a Great Pyrenees dog that stays outside. And she will not run off thank God. And she runs around all night long barking. I mean all night long. So she keeps the deer out of my garden right behind my house. She can’t keep them all away from all my trees all over the property. Because like there’ll be some deer over here. And she’ll run over there and then there’s more deer over there I guess but the deer do are getting into my trees. But anyway, she keeps them out of the garden. So I don’t really have to worry too. much about that, but still during the season is good to have a fence around, it keeps the chickens out, it keeps the kids out. It keeps people, you know, if you if you don’t have a fence around your garden, people are just going to walk right through it to get to wherever they’re going. It’s just a fact of life, even me, I’ll do it. Oh, I see. Back to my back my property, I’m not gonna walk around, I’m gonna walk right over my garden, and eventually that’s gonna start messing stuff up. So, offense is very important. And like, I’ve covered a lot of this and my subs that but what I do nowadays is I have a few plants that we like, is green beans, because you can get a ton of them. And I put them I put them right in the ground and they come up, you know, you don’t have to propagate the seeds and do all this crazy stuff. So green beans, cream peas, it’s kind of like a Black, Black Eyed Pea. Okay, I get a ton of those grows so good and easy. Those are like my main staples, because we can put them up. We can eat them. They taste good. So I got I got like five or six plants that do really good. And they grow easy throughout the summer like okra, but I don’t know, okra, okra isn’t that great? It’s It’s alright. But those beans and the peas, you know, you can eat on that pretty much all yours. So, yeah, anyway, what I do is just till up that ground, I try to add, I’ve been adding chicken and compost, and I’ve been adding leaves, just kind of adding organic matter over the past month or two, whatever I can get and scrape up and just dumping it in there. And I’m gonna let it sit for another couple of weeks. And then I’m just about to tell it all up and go again. One other thing that I do is I go I don’t know if this helps, but it kind of makes sense to me. I go to Tractor Supply and get some of that organic alfalfa pellets. Okay, you know what that is, it’s like a feed for horses. I’ll get like two or three bags of that, and sprinkle that all out into my garden area. And it gets wet, it expands. And it basically puts a little bit of nitrogen in the ground. And until that up in there, too.

Matt Derosier 37:43
That’s crazy. I’ve never heard of that just dry or do you

BowTiedFarmer 37:47
soak it just dry and let you know the rain will come. And it’ll I kind of don’t want it to break down until it gets till down into the ground and then her rain will kind of break it up. But yeah, so let’s see a year ago. Last year, I got a soil test. And everything looked good except the nitrogen. So I was like, I don’t want to add any. I don’t want to add anything but nitrogen. So sure, yep, there aren’t too many things that you can add, that’s just nitrogen, slight bloodmeal Where the hell are you going to get that and I need a lot of it. So I kept reading and reading and reading. And finally I saw somebody say that alfalfa. And it made sense because it’s just like green grass basically. So I do that. Well that’s a cool trick clover, I planted a little clover in between the rows. So what I do is I draw a row right on the very edge of my garden. Okay, first row, then I skip a whole tractor space a whole tractor wide and do another row. So that way, throughout the season, those weeds will start growing pretty high. And I come through with that tiller, and just till everything up and it just kind of cleans it up. I can run the tiller pretty close to my row and get a lot of those weeds. I still can’t you know, obviously I can’t get all the weeds that are in the row by the plants. But I can at least kind of clean up my garden a little bit. It leaves me saying and so what I did last year is I planted some clover in those big wide rows and then came until that up down into it. So that added a little bit more nitrogen when I’m just kind of experimenting, you know, just kind of trying to figure it all out

Matt Derosier 40:00
be like, Oh, wow, that works. So then are you going to get another soil test after doing the alfalfa pellets?

BowTiedFarmer 40:06
Oh, I probably ought to do one. Yeah, I haven’t done this

Matt Derosier 40:09
to verify like, okay, that works. Yeah, probably shouldn’t

BowTiedFarmer 40:13
that’s a good idea. But all my plants, you know, the plants did work. You know, everything grew pretty good. So

Matt Derosier 40:25
so what? What didn’t work then? What didn’t work? Yeah, like once you try, like, wow, that was like utter failure.

BowTiedFarmer 40:33
Oh, that dam raised bed talked about my substack. Today that was terrible. Because it was just so much weeds. It was crazy. I don’t know what the hell happened. And, and also, I was being cheap. And I built the bed out of a log. I have four pieces of heavy, heavy log that I pulled over there.

Matt Derosier 40:56
Yes, stacks up. Yeah.

BowTiedFarmer 40:59
and stack them in a square. And then I filled it all with there. And it looked great. But then all these weeds started coming up and cucumbers, and I didn’t even plant cucumbers in there. And, you know, tomatoes everywhere. tomato plant invasive

Matt Derosier 41:16
cucumber.

BowTiedFarmer 41:17
So everybody, everybody reading that was probably like, why didn’t you just pull them up? You know, whatever you didn’t want? Well, I didn’t want to do that first. In first. I was like, Man, this is kind of cool. I got cucumbers, I got tomatoes everywhere. You know, I was like, well, let’s see what happens. Well, next thing you know, it was Wow. It was like a jungle. And I was just plants everywhere. So I cleaned it up and it worked. But it just kind of didn’t go the way I wanted it to. So I got rid of those raised beds. Let’s see what else didn’t work. Last year, I got some tomatoes from this place called so true seed. That’s kind of where I get my wet swear I have been getting my seed. And I got a it was like a big slicing tomato bratty you know, there’s millions of them. Oh, yeah. And I planted some of those. And for some reason I planted them all the way down in the corner of my garden on the far end. And they never did really do very good. Man. It took him forever. And then by the time they actually turned red, it was just kind of so late in the season and hot. So I don’t know if that was the brand. Or if it was the location because it was far far away. So like I put all my compost pile on one side of the garden. And so that that compost kind of washes down the hill. Like the nutrients a little bit. Yeah. So I’m thinking that the tomatoes were on that far side. And that was just kind of bad soil over there. You know, just didn’t have as much good stuff down there. Maybe? I don’t know.

Matt Derosier 43:09
That’s possible. So what do you what are you trying? Are you trying anything new 2022 you got you got some goals for this year?

BowTiedFarmer 43:22
Well, this year. Let’s see what what am I gonna try different? I’m thinking about doing? Yeah, I told you I had that second little area where I put all those sunflowers. Yes, I think this year, I’m gonna do the same thing. I’m gonna fence that little area and I’m gonna do sweet potatoes. I’m gonna do like a bunch of sweet potatoes in there. And just let them go crazy. Because I don’t know if you’ve ever done sweet potatoes, but it’s like a fine. It’s like a vine. And it just, they go nuts. So I’m gonna try that. And then I’m going to do what I always do just plant my stuff, plant my green beans and my peas. I’m going to the other thing is I’m going to try to get this fence going. I built about 2000 feet of fence last summer. And now I need to come back and close all that in probably another 2000 feet. Holy smokes. So once I get that done, I’ll have a nice, it’s like 11 acres that I can just throw a cow in or throw a goat and once I get that done, I can just like if I see somebody that’s selling a cow, just grab it. Just give it to my son and go for $100 Just grab it. Right. Right now I got it. I’m looking at added like, yeah, I want that goat. But I mean, they’re kind of piled in right now. I don’t really need any more right now. Sure. So that’s kind of my main goal.

Matt Derosier 45:12
What about your bees?

BowTiedFarmer 45:15
Oh, yeah, bees. So I got four hives. Last year, we did about 30 gallons. And it’s just not really enough to do to sell, right? Because you sell, you know, 30 gallon sounds like a lot. But I need to save a pretty good bid for me to last all year. Right. So anyway, we’re doubling operation. That’s what I’m going to try to do this year, I got four more half setups. So then we’ll have a total of eight. I got my bees coming in next week, I think. And so everything’s set up and ready for them. But it’s not going to be like immediate double the honey output, it’s going to take a little while for them to draw up the honeycombs and build up. Right? You know, they gotta they gotta build up their, their own honey first. And then they start building honey for me. So it takes. So I’m thinking in a year or two, I should be up to 60 gallons, maybe

Matt Derosier 46:26
that’d be pretty sweet

BowTiedFarmer 46:28
would be in. So my goal is to try to double every year.

Matt Derosier 46:33
That’s pretty ambitious.

BowTiedFarmer 46:35
Around here. My wife, she got into the BS to she found this guy. He’s an old man. He’s probably 70. And he taught her how to do everything. Right. He was her mentor. That’s great. Yeah, he really did help us out a lot and got us going. And but anyway, I guess what I’m saying is the bee community as ag around here. Yeah. You know, they’re getting old. And it could be a big opportunity for me if I want to pursue it. I just got to think about it. Right. It’s a lot of work. Yeah, it’s not easy. You got to be out there in the hot sun. And you got to be sweating, messing with all these little animals, you know, these little insects crawling all over you, right? It is, it’s not really my type of work. I like the hard work about it. And like, I wish my wife could just handle everything. And I just do the heavy labor right? I just pick up the boxes and move everywhere. Yeah,

Matt Derosier 47:47
yeah, I get you. Yeah.

BowTiedFarmer 47:49
But you know, we got kids and so it’s hard to get everything done.

Matt Derosier 47:55
Absolutely. You guys. Last thing about your bees. Do you guys have bear problem where you’re at?

BowTiedFarmer 48:03
No, no, no, no. No bet no bears.

Matt Derosier 48:06
Okay. That’s good,

BowTiedFarmer 48:09
yeah, whenever we first got him, I was thinking that the raccoons would be a problem. We got raccoons everywhere. 1000s of them. So I set some traps out there by the honeybees. And they never did. But in our mentor, he’s like, don’t even worry about it. So because it seems like a raccoon would be able to knock that thing over. If they really

Matt Derosier 48:35
think so. When someone’s hungry, they’re, they’re gonna go after it hard. So

BowTiedFarmer 48:41
I don’t know why they don’t. But they don’t. They told me not to worry about it. So. But yeah, thankfully, no, we don’t have any barriers. I would hate that. I would hate that.

Matt Derosier 48:53
Just in general or just for your bees.

BowTiedFarmer 48:57
Just another thing to deal with.

Matt Derosier 49:00
That’s true. But hey, keep the deer away right also. Yeah, a little bit. Yeah. So what’s been the biggest challenge in in homesteading that you faced? Is? Is it the deer is that the hardest?

BowTiedFarmer 49:18
No, man RC I don’t know man. I guess those fences are kind of hard man building fences.

Matt Derosier 49:32
Just the time and the money.

BowTiedFarmer 49:35
Yeah, time money. Just trying to make sure it all works good. Right. Like I get stressed out trying to make sure especially the fence up by the road. You know, I want it to look good. Build some fences gonna fall down in a year.

Matt Derosier 49:52
Yeah, so I pull I hate redoing stuff. Yeah.

BowTiedFarmer 49:56
But it came out really nice. You know, it came out really nice. Um, Um, I guess for me, you know, as just getting everything done, you know, over the summer, the grass grows, you know, you got weed eating to do and I mean half of it is just maintaining your property. That’s pretty much a lot of is just mowing fences. Now I got an aunt and she wants the trails mode with the tractor, right so and you know, she wanted a bridge built over the creek, you know, so it’s just always kind of something, something else going on pulling you away. And then the kids you know the kids and there’s always something going on that we got to go do or whatever, you know, it’s just hard to juggle everything. But luckily, I got a wife, man and she kind of runs things. She kind of feeds everybody every morning. I have automatic waters. So at least I know that they’re, they’re gonna get they got water, right? Yeah. And once I get that front pasture, and they’ll have plenty of grass, you won’t even have to worry about that. So I guess just time, time is the hardest thing. Because I got a day job to I go to work every day to

Matt Derosier 51:28
your mind, mind sharing what it is that you do.

BowTiedFarmer 51:32
I’m just a supervisor at a plant. Okay, we got welders and painters and assemblers. And I’m kind of the supervisor of keep track of their time and try to keep them busy. And I purchase all the parts. So I’m in supply chain, I’m a supply. That’s basically my background. You’ve had

Matt Derosier 51:58
a hell of a job then the last few years.

BowTiedFarmer 52:01
Yeah, it hasn’t really, it wasn’t that bad until like this the past six months for me. Yeah. Okay, because we are able to get parts from a lot of different places. Okay, it’s not like a very special part. I mean, we do have special parts that that do have to come from a certain place. But we’ve been able to kind of adapt, but recently is getting bad with our main parts that are very specific. And so there’s nowhere else to get them. Right. So that’s kind of come to a head right now. But it’s not too bad, I guess, on top of it.

Matt Derosier 52:56
What would you tell people that want to get started in like farming or homesteading?

BowTiedFarmer 53:03
I’d say go ahead. Go ahead. I mean, for for me, I wish I would have earlier you know, you’re always gonna wish you would have started something sooner. Right? The main thing I would say is, like, try to make sure that your wife is on board with it. You know, because if if she doesn’t want to do it, then that’s true. You probably shouldn’t do.

Matt Derosier 53:33
You’re doing all the work. Like you’re gonna get no support. It’s really got to be a joint effort for sure.

BowTiedFarmer 53:38
Yeah, well, and she’s gonna hate it. You know, it’s true. If your wife doesn’t want to be in out in the woods, then you’re not going to be a homesteader. Sorry. Yeah. It’s just kind

Matt Derosier 53:51
of spending all your time with that dumb garden. Yeah, yeah.

BowTiedFarmer 53:55
Well, she’s gonna want to go out and go out to eat. So at least find a place that is kind of close to the city. You know, don’t kill yourself and go buy something way out in the middle of nowhere.

Matt Derosier 54:12
last wish people were

BowTiedFarmer 54:16
luckily, we’re we’re kind of close to a city. So I don’t know how people do it that are way out. You know? I mean, I don’t I don’t want to be in the city. But I don’t want to be like two hours to get somebody. Right. Right. And we don’t eat out very much. Let me Don’t let me get you confused. But you know, to get out, take a break and go get something to eat right?

Matt Derosier 54:44
Do it I’m with you. The to go out. Going out to eat has gone expensive and crap quality. So like it’s like not even worth half the time it’s not even worth going unless you’re willing to drop Like 45 bucks to person, you know what I mean? Like, we went up with some friends just couple days ago or whatever, and I bought just a crapload of barbecue just for myself and I stretched out into a couple of meals with leftovers and whatnot, but my wife got a pizza. And so like, it’s just there’s just, it’s too expensive to go out anymore. And you’re just like, oh, this tastes like crap. Anyways, I’m gonna stay home.

BowTiedFarmer 55:33
Yeah, you’re right. But see for me, I don’t we don’t drink. You know, I don’t do any. I don’t have any other engagements, right. I don’t have any I don’t go play golf. So for me,

Matt Derosier 55:50
it’s more like a hockey league. Do you sound more like a hockey guy anyway?

BowTiedFarmer 55:56
No, man. No way.

Matt Derosier 55:59
Frolf?

BowTiedFarmer 56:03
What’d do you say, golf?

Matt Derosier 56:05
Frolf. Frisbee golf

BowTiedFarmer 56:07
Oh, yeah, yeah, I do like frisbee golf. I haven’t played. I used to always get high and lose my Frisbee.

Matt Derosier 56:15
I knew you were growing something other than whatever, your tomatoes and cucumbers on your property? I knew it.

BowTiedFarmer 56:25
No, no, no,

Matt Derosier 56:26
this is that’s why you’re anonymous. Now we’re getting good answers. This is

BowTiedFarmer 56:32
I’m smarter than I look

Matt Derosier 56:34
Poppies. I’m smarter than I look.

BowTiedFarmer 56:38
So So what’s your background? Man? Would you? What made you decide to do all this?

Matt Derosier 56:45
That’s enough about me. We’re talking about you. No. No, we can we can get into in just a little bit. I got two more questions for you. Okay, is that okay? So what does the future of farming look like to you?

BowTiedFarmer 57:02
The future of farming is breaking this cycle of going to the grocery store to get everything, you know, Costco needs to get. I mean, I’m kind of getting sick of everybody just relying on somebody else to farm their stuff, right? We gotta get out of that mindset. I’m not saying that everybody has to do what I do. But everybody can like, go to the farmers market, and find somebody that kind of lives close to them. That does it, right. And you don’t have to buy everything. But maybe find somebody close to you that grows something, carrots, salad mix something and you start kind of networking with people around you. So that you’re a little bit more self reliant. You know, I want people to quit buying everything from China. China is like, I love China, like the people of China. I think they’re a lot like us, you know, they’re just trying to work and provide for their families. And they’re dealing with a crazy government just like us. But as far as China, in general, like the actual government, and they don’t, I don’t like them. I don’t like what they’re doing to our country. And it’s not just them. A lot of our politicians are allowing it. And so, yeah, I just see a huge mess in our country. And I’m not just talking about like Republican and Democrat, I’m talking about, in general, they’re both bad. They’re both allowed. They’re both paid off, and it goes top down. The corporations are just killing us. You know, you can’t trust any of the food that you eat. You can’t trust any of the products you buy. I mean, it’s just gotten totally crazy. And so my thing is the future of farming, is we kind of learn where the eggs come from, you know, we learn that eggs really aren’t white. You know, they aren’t all white. For hay. The milk doesn’t have to be pasteurized. You know? It doesn’t necessarily have to be pasteurized. Why, why can’t I sell raw milk to another human? Why can’t I let’s start asking these questions. And let’s start pushing back on these local governments and say, and also let’s try to get Get involved in our local community, and not worry so much about what’s going on in Washington, because I really don’t care what’s going on in Washington anymore. There’s nothing I can do about it. But all I can do is like, get to know my neighbor. Make sure that, you know, if some shit happened, I might be able to make for a couple of weeks, you know, yeah, when everybody’s going to the grocery store. I’m not, I’m going the other way, I’m going farther out into this digs, to see my neighbor. And so that’s what I’m trying to get my my people on Twitter, my followers think, like, whenever, whenever that happens, whenever something bad happens, Costco is going to have a line out the door all the way out to the end of the parking lot. I mean, of people trying to get in there and buy some, yeah, buy eggs or whatever. You know, you don’t have to be that person, you can go to your if you go now and start building relationships at the farmers market once every other Saturday, and you meet somebody that you kind of connect with a little bit, and you start talking to them. And then you can say, all right, do you know anybody that has milk around here? And they say, Yeah, my cousin has two milk cows and say, Well, can you bring me two gallons of milk every other week, whenever I come to the farmers market to buy my eggs from you? And he say Yeah, and so then you got eggs and milk, straight from the source. And so then you don’t have to worry about Costco shutting down or whatever. You know, and so that’s what it’s all about. For me. That’s what I’m trying to get people to realize and understand.

Matt Derosier 1:01:56
Dude, I love that. It’s, it’s the decentralization of food. Like, that’s what we need, like this whole, trucking it in from here, there and everywhere, you know, your foods, probably more than 500 miles from wherever it was grown? Usually. So like if you can go across the street or the other side of town, and you have 75% of what you typically eat. Like, that’s perfect.

BowTiedFarmer 1:02:27
Yeah. Oh, and that’s kind of what kept me from getting all the way into it like I am now. I used to keep a small garden, just playing playing around. And I used to think all this work when I can just go to the grocery store and get, you know, six tomatoes for $1. It doesn’t make sense. Well, it’s not necessarily about that. That’s what I’ve learned. It’s about now I know what, where that tomato came from? Because you can’t trust anything anymore. Right? The organic thing is just a label. And so just imagine like, what is going into the dirt? Where I mean, if you start thinking about it, it’s kind of crazy. And then also think about what those chickens are having to deal with. I mean, they’re in the worst environment. Oh, yes. You ever imagine the pigs? I’m not a huge light paddock guy. PETA, whatever. Yeah, but like, I do have a soul and I don’t want abusing the animals. Exactly. They deserve better. And so you’re just feeding that that machine. And so if you can break any of it, if you can break it just by growing your own tomatoes, that saving a little bit, right, and now everything costs a lot more. So it’s it’s kind of coming back around and in my favor. That’s making me look a little better now. Now you’re not so crazy that and say Hey, guys. I might not be looking so stupid after all right? A couple of years.

Unknown Speaker 1:04:17
I don’t think you’ll have to wait that long. Give it like six to 12 months and you’re gonna be like King or something.

BowTiedFarmer 1:04:24
We’ll see. I mean, and I’m not I’m not about doing the substack I’m not really trying to make money off of that. Um, just the reason why I went paid is just to kind of see I’m just learning. Really, I’m just learning. tinkering. Sure. Yeah, it’s another the substack is it’s kind of it’s kind of stressful man. Cuz it’s just always another thing that you have to do. Right? Yeah. And whenever I went paid, that kind of sealed the deal, like I can’t just not, you know, when it was free is like, Ah, I’ll just take off for a couple of weeks.

Matt Derosier 1:05:02
Right? Right. You’d now you’re holding yourself accountable. Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. So we explaining your bow tied farmer from like bow tied bull. You kind of touched on crypto at the beginning there. How does crypto play a role in individual sovereignty?

BowTiedFarmer 1:05:28
Oh, okay. It’s the same thing. As the food industry, you know, you got all these corporations that are just basically screwing us. You know, there’s no other way to put it. And there’s nothing wrong with the banks and the stock market and all that I get it, man. But if you think about it, and also crypto has its problems, too. I mean, don’t get me wrong. There’s scam after scam after scam, there’s horrible people involved in it. I mean, it’s it’s nothing, nothing rosy. But it’s an alternative to the current system, to where I can keep, you know, or someone could keep their own funds in their own possession. Just like gold, right, you can take gold and put it in a safe, and nobody really knows about it. That’s kind of what it is dumbed down a lot. Yeah, you really you can with with crypto, you can actually they do know where to go. So it’s actually pretty transparent. Everything is every transaction is is permanent.

Matt Derosier 1:06:46
Yeah, that’s kind of the point is that it’s a public ledger. Yeah.

BowTiedFarmer 1:06:49
Yeah. So but uh, you know, one day, it will be the system. He I don’t know how it’s all going to work out. And I don’t have any predictions. But I know, I know, trucking. paper dollars across the city can pay in a guard to watch it and put it in this big safe and guard it? That ain’t the answer. That’s very expensive now. So if it’s just digits on a screen, it’s just so much more efficient. That right? There’s no way you can not go crypto eventually. Right? Yeah, government might be a government dollar. crypto. That’s what they do. Eventually, it’s common. That hears me that. The CtbC Yeah. That is scary. Yeah, it is. That’s where they want it. Whenever that happens. They got us right where they want us right, then it’s like, it’s canceled culture is as soon as canceled culture on steroids, then. Because then they zap all your money out?

Matt Derosier 1:08:11
Just, I mean, we’re like, looking at Canada right now. I mean, that’s going to be like child’s play compared to what’s coming. Like, I mean, and, you know, Visa and MasterCard turn it off transactions in Russia or whatever. So people can’t pay for this or that over in Russia right now. And blah, blah, blah. Like, that’s, that’s nothing compared to what we’re going to experience here very, very soon.

BowTiedFarmer 1:08:41
Yeah, it’s gonna be where, if you don’t do this, then we’ll just take all your money. And also, it’s like, they give you money, and you have to spend it by this date. Can you imagine that?

Matt Derosier 1:08:59
Yeah. I mean, like, think about just how bad inflation is right now. Like, spate, you spend the money here, it’s gonna be worth less tomorrow. And the next day, and the

BowTiedFarmer 1:09:11
next day, I’m saying these government, if it’s a fence, a digital currency, they’ll give it to you. Like, let’s say, Your company has to give you they everybody pays you in this digital dollar. Right? And it’s all connected to the central government, they know. And so each company has to ask them for the for the money to give to you, and then they can put a timer on it and say, if it’s just crazy. I mean, so that is pretty crazy happens. I think another thing is, whenever that happens, I think they’re going to just wipe out the debt and just start over. So who knows what will happen and it’s just, I just worry about it for my kids. That’s the one Were mean for me. I’m like, let’s go ahead and do it now. Let’s get this over with a see what’s gonna happen. But then I got a kid. So I’m like, maybe I don’t know what to do.

Matt Derosier 1:10:12
It’s all ugly anyway you cut it

BowTiedFarmer 1:10:14
Yeah. So so that’s what that’s another thing I want to say. Back then I was like, well, it doesn’t really make sense to do all this just for a few tomatoes. But now what I’m doing is okay, so I got 30 hands, right, I got about 10 eggs a day. I got these two goats, dairy goats. So I’m getting about a gallon a day in milk. And then I got the cow on butcher ham, and a couple months, and then I’ll get another cow. So I think that’s pretty cool. Right? Yeah, being able to, it’s, I’m never going to be able to like not go to the store. I’m still gonna have to go the store. Right. Never gonna be completely self sufficient. But I think it’s kind of cool. You know, having some eggs around having some milk around, having some meat in the cooler. And then growing some lettuce to have a salad. Just perfect. I think it’s the way God wanted us to do it.

Matt Derosier 1:11:20
I think so. Did you talk about why like, buy in tomatoes versus grown tomatoes? What did it for me it was the first time I did the egg crack test of storebought egg in the frying pan right next to homegrown egg. sealed the deal for me that that store bought egg even though it was brown. That yolk was so young, like pale yellow and gross when mine. The one that I like drew here was just like a nice rich orange color than just like, you’d never want to eat a store bag ever again. Like, yeah, gross, disgusting. Throw it in the trash.

BowTiedFarmer 1:12:07
Well, what’s up with that? And they wash him. Oh my God. Have you seen how they mix sugar?

Matt Derosier 1:12:17
No, I haven’t.

BowTiedFarmer 1:12:19
I mean, that’s what I’m talking about. Like, no wonder everybody’s like, the sugar is causing diabetes, the sugars causing diabetes? Um, I don’t know. I think it might be all the chemicals you’re putting in the damn sugar. I mean, what go on YouTube and watch it. Okay, how to make sugar. I mean, they cook it and they boil it and add all these chemicals and then

Matt Derosier 1:12:46
it’s all for process. Okay. That’s that makes sense. Yeah, that’s

BowTiedFarmer 1:12:51
gross. So that’s everything. That’s the seed oils. That’s that’s what we’re getting. So yeah, in the eggs. I think they wash those. There’s no telling what they wash it in.

Matt Derosier 1:13:05
It’s just gross. Chlorine, I guess. I don’t know.

Probably some chemical.

Yeah. Well, hey, man, we’ve we’ve been at it for a little while. Is there anything that you wanted to touch on that we didn’t already talk about?

BowTiedFarmer 1:13:20
Oh, man, I appreciate you doing this.

Matt Derosier 1:13:22
Yeah, I appreciate appreciate you being here. So you’ve got we talked about yourselves deck a couple times. You can go to bow tide farmer.com Right. Is that the one yesterday? Yeah, it was@farmer.com And there’s a link to his substack and his farm store. So he’s got vegetable 15 variety seeds there. He’s got an herb garden lot. Honey for sale. Lots of good stuff. Check him out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And of course follow me on on follow him on Twitter bow tied farmer or at bow tied farmer. So yeah.