The Olla Story

The Beet: A Podcast For Plant Lovers

Epic Gardening

Home & Garden, Education, Leisure, How To

4.8 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 23 October 2023

⏱️ 10 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Josh is a chef by trade, but got into gardening while growing food for his business. He saw water conservation as a problem for the longevity of the local food system. Everything changed when he learned about the olla, and today he is the cofounder of Grow Oya, one of a handful of businesses that specialize in this ancient irrigation technique. Epic Gardening Shop Homepage: https://growepic.co/46Hr79l Botanical Interests Shop Homepage: https://growepic.co/40b6Vu6 Book Collection Page: https://growepic.co/3s7H21q EG Homesteading Book: https://growepic.co/46VCKJk Learn More: Ollas: Irrigate Your Garden With Ancient Tech Connect With Josh McWilliams: Josh McWilliams is the co-founder of GrowOya. He’s a certified chef with a passion for the farm-to-table movement. Learning about food systems while on the Sustainability Council at the University of British Columbia, led him to want to find the most efficient, sustainable way to grow his own food, while living in a state of "time poverty" (too many things to do and not enough time to do them) that so many of us seem to be experiencing. From this, Growoya was born! Instagram Facebook Twitter TikTok Pinterest YouTube Shop the Store As an exclusive for listeners, use code THEBEET for 5% off your entire order on our store, featuring our flagship Birdies Raised Beds. These are the original metal raised beds, lasting up to 5-10x longer than wooden beds, are ethically made in Australia, and have a customizable modular design. Shop now and get 5% off your first order. Get Our Books Looking for a beginner's guide to growing food in small spaces? Kevin’s book, Field Guide to Urban Gardening, explains the core, essential information that you'll need to grow plants, no matter where you live! He also wrote Grow Bag Gardening to provide you with specialized knowledge that can bring you success when growing in fabric pots. Preorder Kevin’s newest book Epic Homesteading if you are looking to turn your home into a thriving homestead! Order signed copies of Kevin’s books, plus more of his favorite titles in our store. More Resources Looking for more information? Follow us: Our... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:18.0	Today we are going to share the story of the oya. The humble oya. Actually we're going to share the story of a man who took the oya to another level and that would be Josh McWilliams, the co-founder of Grow
0:24.2	Oya. Welcome to the show, dude.
0:26.2	Thanks so much for having me.
0:27.7	Yeah, pumped to be here.
0:29.2	Me too.
0:30.2	Me too. We've known each other for quite a while now. It's been a while since I think we first connected though like maybe three years at least.
0:38.0	Yeah, I think there was this thing that
0:45.0	COVID thing and so yeah I heard about that COVID thing and so yeah I heard about that it's kind of rough
0:50.0	but yeah I mean like look at when I first learned of the oya I think I had had been familiar with the concept but I would certainly say that you guys made it much more popular within like USA gardening culture and so I thought
1:06.7	maybe today we could first start talking about the oya itself and then share your
1:11.2	story because I always like talking about how people make businesses around the plant world as well to provide inspiration for those who might want to go down an alternative path like myself or like yourself.
1:21.3	So maybe we start with the oya itself. Yeah, absolutely. So this at least for me and how I got connected it was absolutely about solving problems.
1:33.4	So I'm chef by trade.
1:35.9	Everything had been food up at that point.
1:38.0	I was shepping up at the University of British Columbia
1:41.4	in Vancouver, Canada.
1:42.7	And sat on the Sustainability Council there
1:45.9	was learning a lot about our food systems
1:48.6	and how not secure those food systems were.
1:53.8	My daughters were really young at the time
1:56.0	and I remember having a bit of an epiphany
1:58.8	out in the restaurant lounge one day.
	...

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