Is Harmony With Nature A Sustainable Farming Philosophy?

Molly and John Chester set up Apricot Lane Farms (known as the Biggest Little Farm) with the intention of working in harmony with nature, while maximizing nutrients and flavor. Have they been successful? What has changed since the documentary came out five years ago featuring their farm? How has the farm grown and is it living up to its original goals?

Molly Chester answers all of the questions above today, sharing insights on the biodynamic and harmonious philosophy behind their farm (that now has over 250 varieties of fruits and vegetables growing on the property)! She talks about how it has shaped her son…and her own life. She also answers the question about whether the biggest little farm is possibly too big now! Plus, Molly shares what’s next for their biggest little farm.

Check out Molly’s website: apricotlanefarms.com

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Episode Transcript

Within the below transcript the bolded text is Hilda Labrada Gore and the regular text is Molly Chester.

Five years ago, we interviewed John Chester of Apricot Lane Farms. His biodynamic farm has grown a lot since that time, so what’s the latest? Has the philosophy of farming changed at The Biggest Little Farm, and how does that philosophy of harmony with nature pan out? This is episode 492, and our guest is Molly Chester. Molly is the Cofounder of Apricot Lane Farms, the farm that was featured in the documentary, The Biggest Little Farm. She is a farmer and she is John’s wife.

In this episode, Molly gives us her take on the farm, explaining its biodynamic approach, their philosophy on how that’s playing out, and what it means to her and her family. She also answers the question about size. Has The Biggest Little Farm grown too big? She shares how she as a chef always wanted to maximize nutrition and flavor. We find out how it’s all playing out for her and The Biggest Little Farm in this conversation.

Before we get into it, I want to let you know that we are offering a discount on new members as we celebrate the Weston A. Price Foundation’s 25th anniversary. The Weston A. Price Foundation was established as a nonprofit on September 2nd, 1999. In honor of our 25th year, we are offering a special rate of $25 for brand-new members.

You can join or gift a $25 membership to a friend or family member. You have until September 26th, 2024 to take advantage of this special offer. If you are a first-time member of the foundation or want to gift a membership, it is only $25. Go to Weston A. Price. No special code is needed. Thank you for celebrating our 25th year with us, and welcome to the family.

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Check out Molly’s website: ApricotLaneFarms.com.

Become a new member of the Weston A. Price Foundation for only $25 (limited-time offer)

See our sponsors Maui Nui Venison and Optimal Carnivore.

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Welcome to the show, Molly.

Thank you for having me.

Biodynamic Farm

I’m so happy to be here at Apricot Lane Farms. It is absolutely beautiful. A lot of our audience is accustomed to us talking to regenerative farmers, but I know that your farm is regenerative and biodynamic. Can you tell us a little bit about what those terms even mean to you?

Biodynamic is a form of regenerative farming, so it’s considered a regenerative certification. Biodynamic means that you’re treating your farm as an ecosystem much like regenerative does. You’re trying to build your fertility from within the farm. You’re trying to solve problems from within the farm. Biodynamics also goes as far as using the rhythms of nature. It brings in the cosmos in ways that others do not. It’s very poetic in nature. I’m infinitely inspired by it. We’ve chosen to stick with that one.

Can you give us an example of what that means being in harmony with nature and the rhythms of nature?

There’s a calendar that biodynamics uses, but it goes off of where the planets are in the sky. If you think from a simple level, the moon cycles determine the tides. It affects water within our body too. It also affects water and moisture within the plant. Whenever you’re at a full moon, everything’s in a full expression of its moisture. That means all of the juices are up at the top of the plant.

If you were to prune at that moment, it’s good if you want to dry that for oils or something like that, but it’s maybe not as good if you want to prune that in a way that preserves all of that energy down in the plant. You are considering those things. Certain days are better to plant certain vegetables. It gets incredibly detailed. It’s a bit of something to aspire to that you work towards over time.

Have you heard of it before you started farming?

I heard of it from Tom Cowan. I was at a Weston Price conference. I heard him speaking about something else and he mentioned biodynamics. When we started the farm, I looked into organic and I was a little bit bummed. Organic is a great step and I’m super grateful it’s there, but it is replacing a synthetic chemical for something that’s non-synthetic that can achieve the same results, but it doesn’t go into soil care. It doesn’t bring in the cosmos, and all those kinds of things. I heard Tom talking about this. There wasn’t such a thing as ROC and other regenerative certifications back then, so I looked it up. Immediately when I got to the website, I felt that this was a lifestyle and something that I could work towards over time. It was a practice that I was inspired by.

It seems so aligned. I’m not surprised that you heard about it at the conference because we’re all about ancestral traditions. These are traditions that, for the most part, have been lost.

100%. These are probably the most traditional that I know of any of the different certifications. It is rooted in ancient wisdom. It’s in the stars in that way. That’s what’s cool about it. It doesn’t stop progress either. It’s completely embracing technology in service of the greater whole. I like it.

It’s fun for me to hear you talking about all this because I know you started from scratch. Didn’t you?

Yeah.

In other words, you weren’t super well versed in all this, but you had a dream and a vision that you wanted to have a farm one day and that you wanted to be in harmony with nature.

I was a cook before I became a farmer. It all came from understanding and coming to understand through working on some of my own health issues. In the kitchen, you can do all sorts of things with soaking, sprouting, and fermenting to maximize nutrient density. I had started to learn about those things. I found Sally Fallon and did all of that, but then I realized, “It goes all the way back to the choices the farmer makes.” If you can’t start with nutrient-dense food, then you can’t maximize it to its highest potential in the kitchen.

Wise Traditions | Molly Chester | Sustainable Farming — Sustainable Farming: If you cannot start with nutrient-dense food, you cannot maximize its highest potential in the kitchen.

In search of the farmers who were doing things in the way that we felt were building the most nutrition within the food, we couldn’t find some of those things. We always said, “I wish we could have great eggs.” We talked about maybe 10 acres. We then met our partners and it blew it into a much bigger thing.

The whole concept was a means to the end of having the type of food that I wanted to cook in the kitchen, and then it became the cup that flows over and you’re able to then feed the community. My husband was a filmmaker in a prior life, so a film came out called The Biggest Little Farm. That has been a beautiful way to inspire, which is how we can get to the point of having the patchwork quilt of small farms that can provide that local vibrant food system.

Produce

I want to go back to the movie in a minute, but I want to ask you more about this contrast between organic and produce that comes from a biodynamic farm. If I’m hearing you correctly, you are saying if I buy a bag of organic carrots from Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, or whatever, that’s fine but they’re not as nutrient-dense as those that come from a regenerative biodynamic farm. Is that right?

If I had to answer that in a yes or no question, I would say yes. It’s also tricky because whenever you’re talking about testing, you could put synthetic fertilizer on a plant and you’re going to get higher nutrient readings than you’re going to get from other ways of farming. What I am certain of is this way of farming, a biodynamic approach to farming, is preserving the most life force inside of that food and that you are going to be able to feel the most energy from eating it.

Biodynamic farming preserves the most life force inside the food. You can feel the most energy from eating it.

From there, some tests can be done. We’ve done that ourselves by having eggs from conventional operations and eggs from our farm. Different nutrient markers are far superior to this way of farming. It is true, but that’s where you have to be careful about the thinking world in general. How do you feel when you eat it? I have no doubt that if someone sat down with a carrot that was grown in a biodynamic way and a carrot that was grown in even a flat organic or a conventional way, there would be a huge difference in that taste and experience.

Thanks for clarifying that. What was coming to my mind when you were talking is how a wrestler in high school might lose a lot of water weight to get down to the right weight that he wants to be in a certain class for wrestling. It comes across right on paper but it’s probably not the best system for him to be at the ideal weight. Maybe in the same way, these carrots would test better if they were given synthetic fertilizers but it doesn’t mean that they’re the most nutrient-rich carrots.

It means that they’re probably lacking in a lot of micronutrients and a lot of things that are even able to test. I came to this with the question, “How do I create the most nutritious food that I can possibly eat? How do I create the most flavorful food?” I was the chef. That’s what I wanted. Bar none, this way of farming, to me, is the one that achieves that.

Diversity

I understand now you have over 250 varieties of fruits and vegetables here, plus animals that you’re raising humanely and respectfully. Talk to us about what this farm looks like now.

It does have all those things. A part of biodynamics is embracing diversity. Not every farm that farms biodynamically needs to have the level of biodiversity that we have. We also have research and development as part of what we are, so it enables us to have some more flexibility to have maybe more diversity than you would need to have to create a healthy ecosystem.

My husband sometimes likes to say that it can be death by diversity with the amount of things that we have, but it is beautiful to experience. We have sheep, chickens, cows, pigs, and ducks. There are animals all integrated within the system. We have vast orchards. That’s probably the predominant use of space on the farm. We also have a 2-acre market garden that supplies our farm stand and a couple of local farmer’s markets.

Why do you think your husband jokes around about death by diversity? Why does he feel like it might be too much?

It’s super hard. The financial system for food is not working in the favor of a regenerative farmer. Subsidies go to more conventional ways. There’s starting to be some change where they’re starting to think about carbon sequestration and other ways to build soil health and starting to support that but not for us. Nothing hits the mark for us at this moment.

It’s difficult to form that relationship with Mother Nature and trust that process of farming and harmony. Yet, the simple truth of it is that if we don’t start figuring out how to do that, then we’re going to be behind the eight ball. Earth has been here for a long time and is going to be here for a long time after us so we might want to figure that out.

In that process of farming in harmony with nature, it’s where you unlock all of that beauty. It’s where you unlock all of that flavor, all of that nutrition, and all of those things that you want to be able to have as the highest ideal. It’s about understanding that it is an ideal. Every day, you have to step into it with the realities of where we are with society and find that balance.

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Coming up, Molly reflects on how the farm has shaped her son and her. She also talks about what’s next for The Biggest Little Farm.

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Family

Talk to me a little bit about your family. You have kids, right?

Yes. We have one nine-year-old. He was not our first child though because our first child was this farm in all of its extensive animals and things. We have Beaudie, a dog named Blue, and a cat named Petey. That’s us.

What does Beaudie think? You’ve raised him in this nearly idyllic circumstance. How does he relate to nature and his food?

In that sense, it’s a slam dunk. We could have gotten a kid who wasn’t digging all this stuff but he thrives in the natural world. He is a very thoughtful kid. The things that took me until I was 30 years old to start to even consider, it’s in his bones to take care of animals, plants, and the environment. We had July 4th and he was a little bit concerned about fireworks, thinking about the animals.

I’m not against fireworks, but when you think about those things and look at it through the lens of being connected, all of a sudden, it’s almost shocking, some of the stuff. He goes to school on the farm. We have a little home-based homeschool program. It can be a shock to go down to Los Angeles or something like that because it’s a very different way than he has been brought up, but he loves it.

I wonder what that would feel like to leave this natural setting to come to downtown LA where there are sidewalks, parking meters, busyness, and people. Maybe there’s a park but it’s even got artificial turf. I’ve seen some places like that.

It’s true. We were coming out of COVID and we went to a Barnes & Noble. There was an escalator and he didn’t know how to ride it. He was six. I thought, “We have to figure this out.” We went years without him getting off the farm much, and then the COVID thing happened so all of us were shut down. By the time he got back out there to see it, he didn’t know how to do it anymore. One time, we had to go to New York when the film came out. We were telling him about skyscrapers, like, “Beaudie, there are going to be skyscrapers.” He walks out of the airport, sees a parking garage, and goes, “Look, Mom. A skyscraper.”

That’s so cute.

He would probably hate that I told those two stories.

Tell me a story of one of the beautiful moments he’s had here on the farm.

He is a very poetic kid. He loves to write, draw, and read. He knows life where he goes and sits out under a tree. He knows life with animals being born and going to see that happen. It is hard too, living on a farm. Anyone who has had that experience growing up or is doing it, you are very connected with the grief cycle whenever you’re connected to the natural world.

One of the things that’s hard for our society is that that doesn’t happen at a young age. It’s important to experience those losses, start to understand what that is, and see your parents handle it in different ways. He had beloved animals who had died, and then he also had a picnic in the middle of the orchard in the middle of some random day. He gets the good and the bad. There’s no utopia. He experiences people around all the time. He lives a different life.

Children must experience losses even at a young age for them to understand how to get through them and see how their parents handle them in different ways.

The Biggest Little Farm

It sounds like it. It also sounds glorious because it is real life. A lot of kids spend time in virtual reality and they’re missing something. Even as we’re sitting here on the farm, I can smell the fragrance of the flowers nearby. I see the bees, the pollinators. It’s so lovely and so healing on a level. Shifting gears a little bit, tell us a little bit about when the movie came out five years ago, The Biggest Little Farm, did you all experience some changes? What has happened since then? It has been five years since.

It did change things. We had started tours and things. A lot more people were wanting to come, which was amazing and enabled us to expand on that program. I experience that if I go off the farm or when people come for tours and things, I love hearing the stories from people who have watched the film and then decided to take over their aunt’s farm, start growing porch tomatoes, or all sorts of things. There are lots of those stories, which are beautiful and give me a lot of hope.

Aside from that, I don’t get off the farm very often, so my day-to-day life didn’t change at all as far as that’s concerned. Since then, things have continued to develop for the farm. My husband ended up selling a series that’s a continuation of The Biggest Little Farm, the movie. That’s going to be coming out on Nat Geo and Disney+ in not too long, which is very exciting. It’s a continuation of the stories from the film and it focuses from the perspective of the animals. It tells the story of an ecosystem and how things work together and play off of each other.

There are infinite storylines when it comes to that, which is also the fun part of being on a farm and being on a farm that has tons of diversity. When my husband says, “Death by diversity,” he’s like, “Not the llama. We’ve got enough stuff going on.” It is fun because you get to see how these creatures interact together. When you step out of the way, then you see that there’s a natural interplay that all of them are having with one another. It gives you so much trust, inspiration, hope, and good stuff.

That is so good. I’m so glad that in the movie originally, you showed your foibles. I remember you planted a bunch of fruit trees. The next thing you knew, all these birds were eating the fruit. You were like, “What the heck?” You had to come up with solutions. I like that they weren’t artificial solutions. You were trying to work with harmony and nature and figure it out in a way that was a win-win.

By nature, my husband and I both love to dive in. We learn under fire to be the first ones jumping off the cliff and seeing where it goes. With the two of us being like that, we fueled each other to keep going. It was forever the learning playground.

Message To Naysayers

I know you all were able to find financial backers who bought into your vision. I’ve heard naysayers say, “Apricot Lane Farms had backers. It’s unrealistic for other people to be able to imitate what they’ve done.” What do you say to those people?

That’s understandable. There are a couple of different perspectives that you can come up with that. One, we are multiple things. We also have a big research and development component of what we are. That’s the expression of us. There are regenerative farms across the country that are doing it. It may be not to the level of diversity that we’re doing, but they’re doing that and supporting their families. Those are the same concepts that we’re employing.

A lot of the things that make it truly regenerative are things that are the price of seed. To have cover crops out there and owl boxes are inexpensive things that you can start to add to your operation. I wouldn’t tell anyone to be inspired by us and go do exactly what we are. Be inspired by us and then listen to your own heart. Figure out what it’s calling you to do and then listen to wherever you want to be growing things to what wants to be grown there.

When you live in California, you can grow anything any time of the year. That’s where it can get tricky. I will assure you that with the same financial hardships that our agriculture in general, we have to wrestle with those same things in the sense that it is hard for small farmers to make things work. Though we have this research and development component, when we’re looking at our different operations, we still have to answer to those numbers.

It is very illuminating because you realize when you talk to other ranchers and other farmers that everybody is dealing with the fact that these slaughter facilities are a bit of a monopoly and that they can’t get their animals harvested by any kind of means which makes any kind of financial sense. We’re dealing with that and having to make cuts on our farm around a lot of things.

We can’t figure out how to make roosters work so we’re having to let go of the program. We’re having to look closely at our sheep operation because we don’t think we can pencil it out. That’s tough when you have to do that. There are some areas we can keep alive because they’re more of a research and development focus. It’s hard, but never lose sight of the fact that the basics of the principles of ecosystem farming are replicable and inexpensive.

Land Size

That’s exciting. We’re about to wrap up, but I want to ask you two more questions. One is how big The Biggest Little Farm wants to be. Tell us about your goals.

I have no desire to have any more land. We have taken on different parts to close off easements and things like that on the land, but the size is good as far as that goes. What we can do from within this land, I have a lot of dreams about. We could be so much more layered than we are now. When you have 234 acres, there are a lot of things that you can grow and then grow underneath in the story of what you’re growing. There’s a lot of fun stuff there to do.

We also want to continue to develop some of the research and development side of what we are. We have a cool habitat restoration piece that’s on the southeast corner of the farm that we’re looking forward to seeing out. I am inspired by the educational side of what we are both to bring more people to the farm to experience the feelings of what it’s like to be here but then also have workshops and things on the farm that we can then put to our website to be able to share that to our worldwide audience. That is what we’ll end up having after the series goes on Disney+.

I can’t wait to watch it. I was so entertained and inspired by the original documentary. This series is going to be awesome.

Thank you so much.

Health Advice

I want to ask you the question I love to pose at the end. A lot of people tune in to this show who are fairly new to this way of eating and living more ancestrally. They’re often wanting to improve their health. If the audience could do one thing to improve their health, what would you recommend that they do?

I would have them eat food closer to its source probably. It’s going to be the most fun thing too. If you taste the difference between what a tomato is like from the grocery store and what the tomato is like from a farmer who picked it that morning, it’s infinitely different. That’s a life energy that’s inside of that food that then brings that into us.

It also changes your way of being because it becomes a lifestyle because you have to seek those things out. You become more connected to your community. It’s harder to prepare some traditional foods sometimes, so you get connected in other ways, like sharing with other people whenever you’re preparing food. It brings a base-level rhythm back into our lives that can be good for us human beings.

It is harder to prepare traditional food, but it allows you to get connected to other people in unique ways and brings you to back to the base-level rhythm of life.

We always tell people, “Get to know your farmer.” Your farmer is a real person, so it’s not just a connection with the food. It’s with the grower. It’s so different from buying a bunch of carrots from Whole Foods. I have no idea where they came from, what farm, or who the person was behind it. This is a whole different level. Thank you for sharing your heart and your time. It’s been a pleasure.

You bet. Thank you.

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Our guest was Molly Chester. You can visit her website, Apricot Lane Farms, to learn more. You can find me at Holistic Hilda. For a review from Apple Podcasts, Cher said this, “I truly enjoy the panoply of guests that all offer such a unique niche. Unlike many podcasts, this one seems to tie all these tiny practices to the larger web that brings us back to health and wellness in a holistic practice without making a sale. It is empowering to the individual to do the things they deem will bring health to their life. Not just, ‘Buy my magic pill,’ or ‘Start my magic program,’ and the tone stays very light. Thanks to a dedication to staying curious.”

Cher, this means so much. It has been a pleasure producing this show and hosting it on behalf of the foundation. You too may leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. Go to ratings and reviews, give us a bunch of stars, and tell us what you think of the show. What are our strong points? What can we improve on? We read these for your feedback. Thank you so much for tuning in, my friend. Stay well and remember to keep your feet on the ground and your face to the sun.

About Molly Chester

Molly Chester is a farmer and the co-founder of Apricot Lane Farms, a 234-acre regenerative farm in Moorpark, California. Prior to farming, Molly specialized in preparing healing foods as through careful sourcing and ancestral cooking techniques as a private chef. Knowing how the quality of food directly related to the health of a farm and its soil, Molly’s culinary journey led her and her husband, John, to spend a decade transforming a depleted, industrial lemon orchard into a highly diversified, biodynamic farm in order to grow the most flavorful, nutrient-dense foods possible. Her story can be seen in the critically acclaimed feature documentary “The Biggest Little Farm.”