Building simple, cost-effective solutions for conserving water resources.
In This Podcast:
When looking into how water was being cycled in her community, and then looking at other desert-like cities in other states and countries, Brook Sarson was intrigued. California was in a drought and she realized there was a lot of potential ideas and processes implemented elsewhere that could help her community. Brook shares what she discovered about the ‘ethics of place’ and the significance that small changes in a community can have on a whole watershed.
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Brook is co-owner and CEO of CatchingH2O and H2OME. She started H2OME in 2008 with the mission to be a resource to the San Diego Community for water harvesting. She was determined to create change from the ground up by showing homeowners, educators, and policy makers how simple and effective rainwater harvesting and greywater recycling can be. Her continued mantra has been that individual contributions create tremendous impact toward a larger water conservation strategy.
Since H2OME’s inception Brook has directly installed or facilitated hundreds of thousands of gallons of water conservation between rainwater tanks, greywater systems, and landscape design changes. Her engineering background perfectly complements the permaculture design framework she uses to approach design problems.
Go to www.urbanfarm.org/smartwatersavings for more information and links on this podcast, and to find our other great guests.
Documenting the first town-wide pesticide-free ordinance in the world.
In This Podcast:
On a trip overseas, a professor of Sustainable Agriculture & Food Systems stumbled onto a story worth telling about the first community in the world to ban pesticides. Philip Ackerman-Leist was able to document this endeavor from almost the very beginning and he shares the reasons why anyone who cares about their community needs to understand what happened and why it is so important.
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Philip is Professor of Sustainable Agriculture & Food Systems at Green Mountain College in Vermont, where he established the college’s organic farm, sustainable agriculture curricula, and the first online graduate program in Sustainable Food Systems in the United States.
He and his wife Erin live on a remote off-grid farm in Pawlet, Vermont with their three children, where they raise grass fed American Milking Devons cattle. He is the author of Rebuilding the Foodshed: How to Create Local, Sustainable, and Secure Food Systems and Up Tunket Road: The Education of a Modern Homesteader. His newest book is A Precautionary Tale: How One Small Town Banned Pesticides, Preserved its Food Heritage, and Inspired a Movement, Published by our friends at Chelse Green Publishing.
Go to www.urbanfarm.org/topplinggoliath for more information and links on this podcast, and to find our other great guests.
Guarding forests as a valuable part of the agriculture system.
In This Podcast: Being a farmer in these days of changing climate can be challenging, so when a severe drought threatened the livelihood of sheep farmer Steve Gabriel, he resorted to using previously ignored wooded areas. Examining the forest near his home he realized the bounty that he had been overlooking, and sought out more information about forest farming. He now teaches others how to do this natural farming process. There is a bonus on mushrooms too!
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Steve is an ecologist, forest farmer, and educator living in the Finger Lakes Region of New York State. He passionately pursues work that re-connects people to the forested landscape and supports them to grow their skills in forest stewardship.
He is an Agroforestry Extension Specialist for the Cornell Small Farm Program and co-owns Wellspring Forest Farm & School with his wife Elizabeth, where they produce mushrooms, maple syrup, duck eggs, pastured lamb, and elderberry extract, all from forest-based systems.
The school hosts several educational programs each season with the goal of increasing people's understanding of healthy forests and how they can play a critical role in their stewardship. He is the author of two books: Farming the Woods, and Silvopasture, both published by Chelsea Green.
Go to www.urbanfarm.org/wellspring for more information and links on this podcast, and to find our other great guests.
Actively teaching through growing food at school.
In This Podcast: (10 pt, centered, ITP and names bold)
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Lanita is a Special Education teacher at Irving Elementary in Cleeeburne, Texas and teaches in a Preschool Program for Children with Disabilities. She’s very excited about garden-based education and the opportunities it gives her students to learn across all academics in every grade level. Her school garden is funded through grants so she is able to work with teachers and students to create their own garden.
Go to www.urbanfarm.org/lanita for more information and links on this podcast, and to find our other great guests.
Having the perspective and impact of younger generations on growing food.
In This Podcast:
Early childhood impressions of environmental pollution led Matthew Kozuch to seek out solutions, and while at UC Berkley he worked on several projects with Engineers for a Sustainable World. After graduation he continued with them and became the National Build Day Coordinator. This is the first of hopefully an annual event in more than 50 chapters across the United States.
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Matthew currently serves as the Build Day Coordinator for Engineers for a Sustainable World (ESW) which he’s been a part of since joining the UC Berkeley chapter as a project leader in 2014. He graduated in May 2017 with a B.S. in Energy Engineering and is facilitating solar photovoltaic maintenance for the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission.
Build Day is an initiative started by ESW creating local sustainable change by bringing together technical expertise and community organizing. During the ESW Build Day event this past April, the chapter met with about seventy other volunteers to help construct a chicken coop, plant a strawberry patch, and create sheet mulching for expanding the Hoover Hawks Victory Garden.
Go to www.urbanfarm.org/esw for more information and links on this podcast, and to find our other great guests.
Bringing permaculture education to city dwellers.
In This Podcast: After realizing teaching was not her passion, Amy Stross was looking for something to excite her and fill her need for a purpose. She found both of these when she started growing food and writing about her journey. Embracing permaculture into her gardening and her life, she realized how the techniques could benefit others, so of course she shared! Here is her story and a bonus at the end for Urban Farm Podcast listeners
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Amy is a permaculture gardener, writer, educator, and author of The Suburban Micro-Farm, with a varied background in home-scale food production. As a permaculture designer, she specializes in ecologically regenerative and productive landscapes. Her own front yard landscape is a thriving example, catching water from the roof and growing a variety of edible crops.
Her current adventure is transforming a 3-acre property into a micro-farm with her husband and mischievous farm cat. She reaches hundreds of thousands of people with her expertise and adventures in small-scale permaculture gardening on her popular website, TenthAcreFarm.com.
Her new book The Suburban Micro-Farm: Modern Solutions for Busy People, is published through Twisted Creek Press and Distributed by our friends at Chelsea Green Publishing
Go to www.urbanfarm.org/tenthacrefarm for more information and links on this podcast, and to find our other great guests.
Bringing gardening experts together in one event.
In This Podcast:
Sharing is caring, growing, empowering, and a natural part of the food growing community and Stacey Murphy brings several amazing members of the food growing community together in one online summit about Gardening! She explains what the Garden Hack Summit is and why you need to be a part of it this year.
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Stacey has helped thousands of new gardeners from six continents grow vegetables and herbs in small spaces, so they can enjoy fresh, affordable vegetables and live a healthy, happy life. She walks eager growers through her holistic garden system, showing what to grow, when and where. Stacey is a garden geek, growing food since 1979, and her superpower is packing, literally, tons of food into tight spaces.
Dozens of her students who trained at her backyard urban farm in Brooklyn have gone on to start their own homesteads, gardens & farms. Featured on Martha Stewart Radio and PBS’s Growing a Greener World, Stacey believes growing food organically is the best health plan for people, communities, and the earth. You can find her at GrowYourOwnVegetables.org and don't forget to sign up to receive her best gardening tips and strategies.
Go to www.urbanfarm.org/gardenhacked for more information and links on this podcast, and to find our other great guests.
Finding bounties of flavor hidden in plain sight.
In This Podcast:
It was more mostly just to keep herself busy that Sar Bir went to culinary school, and afterward she still found herself trying lots of new things. So it is not a surprise to hear that she stumbled upon fruit trees in the wild and learned she had an interest in foraging. She shares some of the important things to think about when foraging, and how foraging and gleaning can help you meet some of your neighbors.
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Sara is a seasoned chef, gardener, forager, and author. She graduated from The Culinary Institute of America and prefers to create recipes that draw on her professional skillset yet are realistic for home cooks.
Sara’s writing has been featured in Saveur, Edible Ohio Valley, two Full Grown People anthologies, as well as on several websites. Her book The Fruit Forager's Companion is published through our friends at Chelsea Green Publishing
Go to www.urbanfarm.org/foragingfruit for more information and links on this podcast, and to find our other great guests.
Enjoying a good meal cooked with great food.
In This Podcast:
When you are passionate about getting a good meal from locally grown farms into your home, you have some technology experience, and you are community minded, it is likely that you’d create your own app to make this happen for others. After you are done, why not make short films about some of these experiences? Roza Ferdowsmakan has developed an app to create Farm-to-Table experiences for the benefit of foodies, chefs and farmers; then she created a film series allowing others to have a sample taste of what the experience is like. We learn why this is an ethos driven app, and how this is helping the three key players in a great meal.
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Roza’s goal is to change the way people connect with food, with their communities, and with the earth. As a tech company founder, she created a community-driven, farm-to-table mobile app called bites which launched officially in February of 2018. She also developed two new, related film projects as well as a mural project promoting farm-to-table experiences.
Foodie + chef is an indie film series, where she interviews chefs while they hang out in her kitchen and give her a farm-to-table dining experience.
Farm Talk is another indie film series, featuring tours of local farms with conversations about who they are, how they do what they do, and what the farmers grow.
Go to www.urbanfarm.org/bitesfoodieapp for more information and links on this podcast, and to find our other great guests.