Episode 9 - Ananda Gardens
Christa Hein : Hey there. Welcome to the Farm Educator’s Roadmap. I'm Christa Hein, a former nonprofit girl turned farm education entrepreneur. I've spent the last 30 years creating hands-on programs that connect people to the land, animals, and the traditions that nourish our daily lives. If you're listening, you probably believe what I do - that farm education is needed now more than ever. Not just on rural farms, but in suburbs, cities, and everywhere in between.
In this podcast, you'll hear real stories and practical advice from farm educators all across the country, people who are creating change through their programs in creative and inspiring ways.
Whether you're dreaming about starting your first program, are already knee deep in your own farm education work, or are you just curious about how others are impacting their communities through farm education - you're in the right place. Let's dig in.
Welcome to the Farm Educator’s Roadmap. I'm Christa Hein, and today we're diving into an important question. How can production farmers who may not run formal education programs still play a vital role in teaching their customers about food, farming and wellness? Our guest today is Melisa Oliva, co-founder of Ananda Gardens in Montpelier, Vermont, alongside her husband. She started the farm from scratch in 2015 with a mission not just to grow organic produce, but to cultivate health and wellness within their community. Ananda Gardens is a certified organic farm offering a CSA and farm stand, and they take a unique approach to customer education, helping their members build an emotional connection to their food through recipes, farm-to-table experiences, and interactive communication.
Melissa is a certified health and wellness coach and a plant-based nutrition educator. She's focused on engaging adults, particularly parents, as a way to influence the next generation's understanding of food through CSA newsletters, farm tours, and collaborations with local chefs, businesses, and even Montpelier's local government.
Ananda Gardens is proving that production farms can be powerful education hubs in their own way. So if you're a farmer wondering how to better connect and educate your members or customers, this episode is for you. Welcome, Melissa.
Melisa Oliva: Thank you for having me.
Christa Hein: Yes, so I wanted to start by having you share a little bit about your journey. What led you and your husband to start Ananda Gardens, and what inspired you to integrate wellness into the farm's culture?
Melisa Oliva : Well, long journeys. So, my husband and I came from different paths because, when I met him, he was already living in Vermont and he was doing organic farming, starting a co-op with some friends and he had experience with, orchards, organic orchards, apple orchards too.
And right when we met I was starting to getting excited about the connection with earth and how that in a spiritual way needed to be something concrete because I came from the yoga world and I was a yoga teacher, and we talk a lot about, the earth chakra. We talk about like connecting with the Pachamama and, and Gaia and, all these different names that resonate with people that want to have a better connection with land.
So I started just flirting with urban agriculture, but developing this realization that I wanted to do something with my life that has to do with connecting, creating the real connection with land. And that's a spiritual way that later in life I started to understand that it's for wellbeing.
It's for the well-being of the land. It's so integrated and interrelated. So when we met, we were kind of like in both different journeys. I was finishing my expressive art therapy training. And then we met and he invited me to Vermont, and I have friends who have always said oh, you're so Vermont, just you’re so Vermont.
And I couldn't really understand what that meant anyway, but I guess it was like, I like to live in the countryside. I love to live by the values of do-it-yourself, you know, like back to the land thing. It's true. I came here, I fell in love, and I completely saw a future of growing a family and being here.
So that's where our journey started and then a lot of things happened, but down the road we started to refine what would be Ananda Gardens and Ananda means bliss, absolute bliss. It's a Sanskrit word and it's the name of our oldest daughter. So, we wanted to honor her and also this quality of the divine that means Ananda - that is pure bliss.
It's just the joy of being alive. And that's what we wanted that this gardens would be. And we started renting land and a year later it was just so timing so many things happened in the right time to actually be here and we started our farm. And since the beginning, I was very into how do we develop this into something that connects people to the land and nourishes them?
Something in their diet, in me providing wonderful ingredients for their meals and nourishing their soul too -how do you do that? So it took time, 'cause we needed to develop the gardens first and because I didn't come from a farming background. It took me a while to sink into the rhythms of the land, into what it takes to establish perennial gardens, fruit trees, and bushes and all enriching the soil and all of that - it takes time.
Meanwhile, 'cause I'm very impatient, and I want things now. I got connected with Shelburn Farms and the ABCs on farm-based education. And went there and learned on like that wonderful area of educating people about the value of farming and the connection to the land. It was surprising to me though that the program is focused just in, mostly in kids.
And because I come from an expressive art background people always ask me, oh, you work with kids? 'cause people assume that art and creativity and imagination is just kid-related. And I do, sometimes work with kids. I love working with kids. And mostly I like to work with adults, grownups.
In my work within the farm, I started to understand how a lot of resources are dedicated to kids, and then the kids find the big wall of the grownups around them not having had that education because they didn't have those possibilities. So, I've been very intentional about, yes, developing things for example, we get school tours here. We do volunteering opportunities for high schoolers, for middle schoolers and a lot of my work and the intention of my work is to provide tools and resources to the grownups that have kids in their lives. They can take informed decisions for their wellness for their connection to the land.
So that's how we started to shape the activities we do in the farm. And then they all like take one thing take to another one. And I started to specialize in plant food because I also started to question my own connection with food. Coming from another country that has like a year-round season of everything at the same time, it's like tropical. I come from El Salvador originally. I find myself buying vegetables in the market like in the supermarket. While at home I had things rotten in the fridge because I didn't know how to use them and I wasn't sure how to relate to this new ingredients.
So it's been a journey of finding myself very comfortable on the seasonality of food, on the creativity that takes. And also I'm a mom, I have a work outside the farm. I work with a farm too. So I have a busy schedule, so I have to make it easy. I have to make it like nutritious. I have to make it delicious, all of those requirements I like all moms and dad are there. I feel you. I know it’s hard, but it's possible. And through the years. We have developed these connections with people in our community and we have been growing with the kids of these people. So sometimes when we are invited to a potluck or to, and they bring the food that we are growing, I see these kids munching on spinach and just like eating some like cherry tomatoes, like they wear Cheerios and so it's possible. It's just that we need to try and try and again, try and provide them and just like having them accessible in a way that they will engage and it takes the tools of, for example understanding that our taste profile change. So your kid reject the food, for example that doesn't mean that they're never gonna eat it, it just means that the, the taste buds are not ready for that. You just like make them try it and try it and try it and try it. Which it just like put it in your mouth and taste it and you can spit it up if you want if it's not your thing, but there's like, it takes 15 times to actually like something or understand something.
Christa Hein : So how do you get this information across to your CSA members?
Melisa Oliva : Yeah, good question. So it's newsletters. We have a weekly newsletter. We do tours where at the end of the tour we have this meal and we stay around and talk or sometimes we just provide. I've been also, volunteering and participating on an organization called PCRM which is Physician Committee for Responsible Medicine, and they are in the quest of healing people through nutrition. So I have gotten materials and every time that someone comes to the farm and they do a tour I give them like a brochure with recipes and information about eating the rainbow that they can put on the refrigerator. And like for many years, every week our CSA members get ideas, tips and information about the ingredients in the share with recipes and sometimes easy-accessible recipes that they can use, like shredded turnip tacos, that's really, yes, you can do that or you can put turnip as a pizza topping. You know, like, kind of like eat what we eat because just humans are not that explorers when it comes to everyday eating. It's more about finding the exploration within the ingredients.
So we've done classes too. At some point I was doing classes with PCRM mostly like cancer prevention through nutrition.We did like a basic information of like whole food, plant-based nutrition that was online back in the years of the pandemic. Just events that we do on the farm. I wish we do more, but I have to say that it is challenging to be a production farm and balancing with having a staple and being consistent on offering.
So every year is a surprise year, depending on the access to infrastructure, volunteers and other things - my own schedule changing, the girls' schedule changing, all of those variables shape the offerings. As much as I want to do everything at the same time 'cause that's kind of like who I am, I also feel very content and satisfied of like what we're creating. Just like small, but like consistent, that's kind of like our sweet spot.
Christa Hein : So I wanted to ask you on your website, you call yourself Vermont's Wellness Farm, what strategies have you found worked best for incorporating the health, nutrition and wellness into your farming and your CSA members' experience?
Melisa Oliva : It's been a learning corp like anything else in life and I feel like the foundation of that is that we are very into soil health. So my husband through the years has become, he's the farm manager, so it's like the production part of it. He has been developing techniques, technologies, and also the applying wisdom.
It's not reinventing the wheel but applying and implementing systems to enrich the soil. And we know for sure that a rich and healthy soil produce healthy vegetables and those healthy vegetables yeah they are resilient in terms of diseases they grow with luscious and colorful. They taste delicious.
And you can notice the difference - people ask us like, why your carrots are so sweet. Well, it's an investment because every spring there's this like massive amount of compost that come to the farm because when it goes away it has to come back. Yeah, we produce part of it but not enough to bring back to the soil.
And that is has other goals as like, we don't have as much weed problems, so we don't invest that much time on weeding 'cause we top the beds with compost, so there we do no tilling farming. So that's also keeping the integrity of the micro system that exists in the soil and all of that contributes to the quality of the food.
And that's where we like are well, that that's the wellness that is concrete and is like something that I can tell you. This is what I'm giving to you.
And then the other part is that in my journey, my family are both diabetics. Everybody in my family, everybody, my cousins, my aunts, it's diabetic and diabetes is a very hard condition that won't kill you but will interfere with the quality of your life.
So, in my journey I started to look for ways to figure it out and manage it before I became diabetic. So because I know that genetically 5% of myself, it's diabetic, but whatever I'm going to do with my life and feed my body it's gonna either stop the disease from expressing or fully bring it to boost in a way that I I would lose control of my life.
And I would pass it on to my kids too, because it's the same lifestyle that I'm role modeling and food that I'm providing that is gonna feed that disease. So I find out through many different ways, including a class that I did with Cornell about whole food, plant-based nutrition that the whole food, plant-based diet it's the medicine that can prevent diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, Alzheimer, and other metabolic conditions. That being said, it is vegan so that part, it's hard even to express it. So in our learning curve at the beginning when I was like, sure that I was feeling younger than ever, I lost weight, I was feeling strong in my body. My metabolic metrics were perfect like better than ever.
My husband was the same, my girls were, I wanted to share with everybody. So I became this uncomfortable person. This speak to everybody, this is what you should be doing. And you know what? My CSA members, which some are friends, provided me that honesty to tell me that they sign up for nutrition not for being schooled or not for being preached.
And that was a powerful lesson to learn. And in general in my practice as a health and wellness coach and also in the offerings that I wanna provide to my community. I don't wanna be that uncomfortable person. And I didn't wanna tell people what to do. I what I wanna do is just to share the joy.
So I stopped and what I started to do was just like providing the recipes. All the recipes are whole food, plant-based vegan. I don't tell anymore people what to do. And I said, choose your favorite protein source and this recipe and I said, I use tofu or tempe or chickpeas or whatever, but I allow room for people to be who they are and meet them where they are in their journey and this is what I have find out with the information that I have, that is back by science. It's not that I, read it on a I don't know, on TikTok or something. It's like, it's been years of being very intentional about learning, especially because I have the responsibility of my kids.
I would not feel good providing them nutritious food that I would kind of like doubting about, like it's okay. Like if they're having what hap young minerals wise, vitamin wise. But I feel strong right now so I wanna share that because I know that it can save lives. It have also feel I feel like it have saved my life.
My mom was diagnosed at 35 diabetes and I've seen her going down the hill and I've seen her healing because eventually, when you're seeing people around you doing these changes and you're like, seriously, they started to do green smoothies every day. She's been cutting her meds gradually. It's nice to inspire people without preaching them or tell them tell them what to do.
Christa Hein : So what have you found that really resonates best with your CSA members and other people that you interact with? Is it talking about the nutrition or the recipes, or is it your farming practices or the soil or insect biodiversity? Like what seems to resonate most with them to help them make healing and wellness choices?
Melisa Oliva : Well, different things, right? Just the fact when people register to a CSA, they're committing, and it depends on your values, right? But if you are a thrifty person, if you're someone who look out for your budget, that's a good message right there.
I feel like my health and wellness coaching skills help me there, 'cause it's about your values. We have customers that value that thriftiness, that like being true to their like leading through their means. So, when I tell them that using their CSA, like the best they can it's like a great choice for their budget.
People is like oh yeah, so that speak to them. And I have got letters from people or messages on our website or when we do service 'cause we do service at the end of every season. People have told us that they have never been eating so many as much vegetables as they are right now, and they are very happy about those changes because it's it's something that they wanted to do, but they weren't able to accomplish.
So, that's a big win for all of us. I'm sure that it's inspiring other people too. We are inspiring other people when we are taking decisions that make us feel happy and proud about ourselves.
So sometimes people, it's more their family. So I tell them about how being creative and texture aware of food can help them introduce more food into and diversity into the diet of their kids. Breathe and wake up every morning because if you change your diet and if they see you eating it, there’s gonna be a point where they're gonna start to get more curious. If that's the food that you're providing, that's what they're gonna eat. Because the, I mean, let them be hungry for a little bit and see what happened. So those messages, and then there's some people that are very committed with the environment.
Christa Hein : Mm-hmm.
Melisa Oliva : And they feel that being part of the CSA, it's their contribution to a better stewardship of the land. So we talk a lot about that, providing them information about for example, when Patrick goes and give a speech on conference about techniques or the knowledge that we are implementing in the farm, we can only do that because they trust us and because they are putting their money into this farm and this farm is viable.
Because they're contributing and I feel like that is very important. We have had angel donors also who have donated, and I'm so grateful to you guys. You know who you are and we're so grateful for what you've done because they trust us in a way that they have provided big amounts of money ensuring that our community will continue having the quality of the food. And a woman, for example, pay for her life CSA in advance.. And someone else's share that is a woman in need. Isn't it amazing? Yeah. It's just like, it's so inspiring and also for us, it's like, oh my God, we better get our things together. We have to continue doing this because we committed. So we're committed for life. It's a beautiful thing to feel.
Christa Hein : It sounds like you're making some really great connections with your CSA and I've also seen that you have other connections as well. You've given tours to local chefs and businesses. You've even worked with Montpelier's local government, and you've also served on some Boards of Directors..So how have you used those collaborations to help spread awareness and education about local food?
Melisa Oliva : Well, taking as an example the chefs, many of the local chefs, even if Vermont is like a place that try to like having the image of like local and, sometimes it's not true.
And when it's true, unfortunately, the preps the chefs, the people who are, behind the scenes in this like fine cuisine kitchens, they don't know where the food comes from. They know the name, but they don't know the place. So when they come, we give them the tour and show them the land and give them, like explain them that this place used to be part of the big Lake Champlain like hundreds of years ago, and that's why the soil is so well drained and allow us to have this wonderful operation. Then we tour, they see where the tomatoes are, we talk about soil health and why the food is so good. What's the science behind that? They get carrots from the ground and clean it and get some vitamin B12 because it comes from the soil, and then we share tea or a salad and have a conversation about what have they experienced, what are they taking in, and how do they wanna move forward with that information? So we try to do that with every people, everyone that comes here either either boards of organization related to agriculture or, land by like, conservation, anything we try to share the same structure of the offering and sometimes people, we have had nonprofits too that just come for food ' cause they want to share whole food, plant-based meal that profiles the vegetables and that shows this seasonal experience that is also in line with ecological values and health values.
Christa Hein : So in the few minutes we have left, I wanted to ask you, many farmers don't see themselves as educators. What advice would you give to other CSA farmers or small, small scale growers who wanna incorporate more education into their customer relationships?
Melisa Oliva : Yeah. Well that's a very good question and I think that, I feel like sometimes farmers have also choose the path where they're at because they have a more direct connection with the land.
I find that some farmers have a very spiritual part of them that it's not necessarily show to with the world, but there's a wonderful connection that farmers have. And you can no matter if you're, an ongoing outgoing, have an outgoing personality or if you're shy or if you don't wanna be on the spot 'cause there's many ways to share what you're doing, that doesn't necessarily involve you to put, you involve, to put you on the spot. There's so many ways right now, like sharing pictures or the intersections between educating and inspiring are many. So if you don't feel necessary as someone that needs to educate people legit and share that connection that you have, because people don't have that connection then they are not gonna support your farm and this is something that I started to understand pretty early. So getting a little bit away from the beautiful part of it. It's marketing too, and marketing is not a bad work. It's just like there's this something that is beautiful that needs to be supported.
Let your farm be connected to the people that want to support it because they also want to be part of something greater than them. So getting the voice around your practices, what you're doing, your products, why you are doing what you're doing, all of that, contributes to the broader conversation of why we need family organic farms in the scene of agriculture where we are holding the front for that is that it's in so many ways a way of resistant because it is not easy. We don't have all the support that we should have. So having a community it's as important as having a bank account of people who lend you money. So educating them, inspiring them, connecting with them, it's a great way to keep that strong and now we have so many tools. You can write blogs, you can create books, bigger project, do TikTok, and what I have found is that I don't wanna live my life in social media. That's not who I am. So these opportunities of connecting directly with people have a better goal in terms of the continuation of our project than posting or spending money on social media campaigns that who knows who are they getting. But the one-on-one time that I'm spending with my people community around, it's more valuable. So get out there, find your voice.
Christa Hein: Great advice. Melissa, this has been such an insightful conversation. You've shown that even without structured formal education programs, farmers have a powerful opportunity to teach their customers through newsletters, farm tours, collaborations, and just the way that they tell the story about their food. Thank you so much for sharing your experiences with us.
Melisa Oliva : Thanks so much to you.
Christa Hein : For those listening, if you're a farmer looking to strengthen your CSA connections or a customer who wants to deepen your relationship with your food, I hope this episode gave you some valuable insights.
Be sure to check Ananda Gardens to see their work in action at www.anandgardens.com.
Until next time, keep finding ways to educate and inspire through food and farming. Thanks for tuning in to the Farm Educators Roadmap.
Hey farm educators, I hope you enjoyed today's episode. Before you go, I've got something special for you. If you're ready to build a farm education program that people are excited to book, grab my free guide, Five Simple Steps to Growing an In-Demand Farm Education Program. It's packed with the same steps I used to grow my own farm education business. It'll help you get noticed, attract clients, and make an impact. Just head over to www.farmeducatorsroadmap.com/fivesimplesteps to get your free copy. It's quick, easy, and will make your programs irresistible. I can't wait to see what you create. Thanks for listening, and I'll catch you in the next episode.
