The Urban Farm Podcast with Greg Peterson

Latest Episodes:

222: Heather Szymura on Hydroponic Container Farming Apr 15, 2017

Show notes

222: Heather Szymura on Hydroponic Container Farming.

Growing limited-season crops year-round regardless of climate extremes.

In This Podcast: We meet Heather who decided to change directions away from a professional one towards one more in tune with nature and healing and to her surprise ended up becoming a farmer! She is selling lettuce and kale she is growing year-round in the suburbs near Phoenix and tells Greg how she is doing that in a shipping container in her backyard.

After 15 years in the corporate business world and a degree in Global Business Marketing, Heather decided it was time for a shift. She resigned from her position at UPS, went back to school to pursue a degree in Naturopathic Medicine and at the same time delved more into her hobby of urban farming. It was in here that she found her life’s passion unearthing the amazing benefits growing herbs and veggies.

Her business, Twisted Infusions, became a reality in 2016 when the container farm arrived on their doorstep! They sell non-GMO, pesticide free, hydroponically grown lettuce, kale and herbs! Now, being a farmer and business owner is Heather’s full time job. She and Brian, her husband and best friend, live in Glendale, Arizona with their two children, Killian and Mary. Throw in two snakes, a pink tarantula, a bearded dragon, and a leopard gecko and that’s the Szymura family.

Go to https://www.urbanfarm.org/2017/04/15/heather-szymura/ for more information, photos and links on this podcast and to our other great guests.

221: Ocean Robbins on the Food Revolution Summit Apr 13, 2017

Show notes

221: Ocean Robbins on the Food Revolution Summit.

Finding a path of health, hope, and possibility through better food choices.

In This Podcast: This is a special podcast interview with food activist Ocean Robbins about his Food Revolution Summit happening April 29 to May 7.

At 15, Ocean was a co-founder of the Creating Our Future environmental speaking tour, on which he and three other participants spoke in person to more than 30,000 students, presented for 2,000 people at the United Nations, and opened for the Jerry Garcia band in San Francisco.

In 1990 at age 16, Ocean founded YES!, an organization he directed for the next 20 years with the goal of connecting, inspiring and mobilizing visionary young leaders worldwide. He has since spoken to hundreds of thousands of people, led hundreds of retreats, workshops and Jams for leaders in over 65 nations, written books, mentored (and learned from) changemakers, and been a creative partner and lead editor for several bestsellers.

In 2012 Ocean founded the Food Revolution Network, which now has more than 350,000 members working for healthy, sustainable, humane and delicious food. He currently serves as adjunct professor in the Peace Studies department at Chapman University. Ocean has personally spoken and facilitated leadership gatherings in Jordan, Israel/Palestine, Singapore, Costa Rica, Russia, Finland, Canada, the Netherlands, India, Peru, and across the USA.

All this and he is also an active and proud father of special needs twins, a lover of life, and a human being who is trying to live in a good way on this earth.

Visit https://www.urbanfarm.org/2017/04/13/ocean-robbins-2/ for show notes

220: Ben Raskin on Practical Advice for Community Gardens Apr 11, 2017

Show notes

220: Ben Raskin on Practical Advice for Community Gardens

In This Podcast: For those envisioning a perfect community garden, Ben Raskin has put together a fabulous resource to guide, inspire, and empower the designers and leaders of future neighborhood plots. He tells Greg about the purpose he had for writing his latest book and some of the lessons he’s learned during his years of farming.

Organizing a community garden from scratch with smart planning and long-term goals.

Ben has been working in horticulture for more than 20 years and has been with the Soil Association in the United Kingdom, since 2006. His own experience includes; running a walled garden in Sussex which supplied a Michelin starred restaurant, and working for Garden Organic at their gardens in Kent. He also set up and ran the 10-acre horticultural production at Daylesford Organic Farm before moving to the Welsh College of Horticulture as commercial manager.

Ben also works on a range of other projects and over the years these have included working as Horticultural Advisor and founder Board Member of The Community Farm near Bristol, and running a program of biochar trials with organic growers. He is currently managing a new agroforestry planting on Helen Browning’s farm near Swindon.

He is also a board member of the Community Supported Agriculture Network UK and committee member for the Organic Growers Alliance. With all of this experience, he is also an author and has written The Community Gardening Handbook, and two family gardening books titled Grow, and Compost.

Visit https://www.urbanfarm.org/2017/04/11/ben-raskin/ for show notes

219: Jennifer Osuch on Fundamentals of Self Reliance. Apr 08, 2017

Show notes

219: Jennifer Osuch on Fundamentals of Self Reliance.

Teaching back to basics food preparation and preserving skills.

In this podcast: Jennifer tells about the importance of self-reliance skills and why they are becoming needed once again. She explains what led her to this place in her life where she teaches some of these old traditions that traditional homesteaders relied on daily.

Jennifer is the author of the Preparedness Planner series, lead teacher at the online Self Reliant School (which is dedicated to teaching preparedness and self-reliance skills), host of the weekly live Self Reliant Living Show (which I was a guest on in Nov 2016), and a homeschooling mom. She is dedicated to teaching back-to-basics food preparation and preserving skills that help people eat healthy, save money, live greener and be prepared for anything.

Jennifer and her husband turned to the old-school basics when they found themselves in mountains of debt, two of their three boys suffering from asthma and allergies, and she, herself, struggling for years with her own weight management. She knows from experience that eating real food when you're watching every penny is not easy, and trying to put healthy food into storage is almost impossible.

Jennifer, her husband and her three teenaged boys live in Texas. She is on a mission to save the knowledge and wisdom of our grandparents, and to help people apply it to their lives today.

Go to https://www.urbanfarm.org/2017/04/08/jennifer-osuch/ for more information, photos and links on this podcast and to hear from our other great guests.

218: Nafsika Antypas on Living a Plant-Based Life Apr 06, 2017

Show notes

218: Nafsika Antypas on Living a Plant-Based Life.

Understanding the reasons and options for choosing a vegan lifestyle.

Nafsika is the Host and Creator of the world’s first plant based lifestyle TV series that focuses on a plant-based diet living. She has studied about olive oil and the Mediterranean diet in Greece through her father’s business, Pilaros Inc, a Mediterranean food importer, where she has been involved for over twenty years. She created the TV show, Plant-Based by Nafsika which aired nationally in 2016, to change the world through food. This has not only sparked the interest of viewers around the globe but has planted some seeds helping veganism become more “mainstream,”

In 2015, she founded, The Struggling Vegan, which helps people transition to a plant-based/vegan lifestyle while strengthening the community in a public forum called, Veg Room. The organization offers daily menu plans, recipes, health tips and direct messaging to plant-based doctors and coaches.

Nafsika spends her spare time with her family, which includes her two young boys. She and her husband both cook plant-based meals at home and she’ll educate just about anyone who would listen about why it’s healthier to switch to a plant-based diet and why veganism is not just a diet but a way of life.

In this podcast: Greg talks to television host Nafsika Antypas about living a plant-based life and how she was inspired to start her own television show all about living a vegan lifestyle. She helps explain some of the core beliefs behind veganism as well as some of the basics of living a cruelty-free way of life. Go to https://www.urbanfarm.org/2017/04/06/nafsika-antypas/ for more information, photos and links on this podcast and to hear from our other great guests.

217: Sine Lindholm on an Urban Farming 'Growroom' Apr 04, 2017

Show notes

217: Sine Lindholm on an Urban Farming 'Growroom'

Creating and sharing an open-sourced growing sphere to create poetic spaces.

Sine is from Denmark and has a degree in architecture from Aarhus School of Architecture along with an emphasis on psychology. This shows in her projects where she is combining the two, with her main focus on the theoretical and abstract part of architecture.

She grew up on an organic farm with milking cows, however she had never worked with agriculture or urban farming before, until she won an architecture competition together with architect and carpenter Mads-Ulrik Husum. They had designed an Urban Farming pavilion, which received great attention that led to the further development of the project. They teamed up with SPACE10, a future living-lab, where they developed and released an open source design of their pavilion.

Together they started the company Husum & Lindholm, where for the moment they primarily focus on further development of combining architecture with gardening. On the basis of a spatial experimentation with the Urban Farming concept, they strive towards creating architecture where atmosphere and sensuousness - acts as the primary design factors. Their goal - to generate poetic spaces where a symbiotic relationship with vegetation arises.

In This Podcast: Greg sought out this interview with Sine Lindholm after seeing an article about a gorgeous growing sphere design and so today she tells us about the inspiration behind the design. Sine also explains why they hope an open-sourced design will encourage others to improve on their model.

Go to https://www.urbanfarm.org/2017/04/04/sine-lindholm/ for more information, photos and links on this podcast and to hear from our other great guests.

216: Emiley Kight on Loving Natural Foods. Apr 01, 2017

Show notes

216: Emiley Kight on Loving Natural Foods.

Making little changes towards more real foods and feeling better.

Emiley has always loved food, and wanting to share this passion she dove into a Culinology® degree to explore a role as an R&D chef at SW Minnesota State University. That was until her mom became sick and she put her career on hold to act as her mom’s caretaker throughout her treatment for multiple myeloma cancer.

To her surprise, the doctors provided little information on what to eat as a cancer patient, and so Emiley started doing her own research on the effects that food have on chronic disease. Through trial and error in the kitchen, she discovered how whole plants can be used to combat side effects of medication, create pleasure by surprising and challenging your taste buds, and help your body work as efficiently as possible. Completely changing her mother's eating habits (as well as her own) helped her develop a brand-new love affair with foods in their natural state. Now, she is devoted to sharing her story and this information with others to inspire anyone who eats, to fall in love with food again.

In This Podcast: A chance meeting at the Farmers Market connected Greg to Emiley Kight, a Nutrition Consultant who tells about how she helps people to make little changes and enjoy natural foods. She explains about how her focus on food was taking her towards the kitchens of large food corporations until her mom’s illness and the realization that real food information and options were not included in recovery discussions and she decided to work on changing that.

Go to https://www.urbanfarm.org/2017/04/01/emiley-kight/ for more information, photos and links on this podcast and to hear from our other great guests.

215: Suzanne Bontempo on Gardening without Pesticides Mar 30, 2017

Show notes

215: Suzanne Bontempo on Gardening without Pesticides

Contemplating the best options for: If, when, and what type of insect control to use in the garden.

Suzanne has worked in the horticultural industry for over 20 years in a variety of capacities; as a landscape contractor, a fine gardener leading garden maintenance teams, and in retail nursery management. Currently she is an environmental educator and IPM Advocate, where she mentors & educates people. She does this by providing IPM trainings at hardware stores & garden centers, providing educational programs for garden clubs, businesses & organizations, and presenting lectures for the public through government agencies.

Her message is focused around less-toxic pest problem-solving in the home & garden, pesticide reduction, and how to garden sustainably. She helps people see their home or garden as its own ecosystem, and that the real solution to their problem usually doesn’t require a pesticide at all. She enjoys raising the awareness of beneficial insects and how biological control methods in the garden are easy, effective and fun!

Suzanne was recognized for her excellence in her field winning the 2013 IPM Innovators Award and in 2016 received the San Francisco Green Business award.

IN THIS PODCAST: Insects and pesticides are challenging topics for gardeners and even more so for organic gardeners, so of course Greg loved hearing from Suzanne about how to make the best choice for controlling pests in the garden. She breaks down the options in ways that make sense and loves to help others find the most beneficial way to manage their pest controls.

Visit https://www.urbanfarm.org/2017/03/30/suzanne-bontempo/ for show notes

214: Michael Miller on Poverty in the World. Mar 28, 2017

Show notes

214: Michael Miller on Poverty in the World.

Examining the problems of poverty and solutions we need to reconsider.

Michael is a Research Fellow at the Acton Institute and the Director and Producer of Poverty, Inc. Previously, Michael was the Director of Media and Director of Programs International at the Acton Institute and has appeared in various videos including Doing the Right Thing. Before coming to Acton, he taught philosophy and political science at Ave Maria College in Nicaragua and was the chair of the philosophy and theology department. Michael holds graduate degrees in philosophy, international development, and international business.

He has lived and traveled in Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America and speaks extensively on themes of international development, entrepreneurship, political economy, and moral philosophy. He has been featured on FOX Business, CNBC, numerous radio shows, and published in The New York Post, The Washington Times, The LA Daily News, The Detroit News, and Real Clear Politics.

IN THIS PODCAST: Greg gets a chance to talk about a serious social sustainability topic when he interviews Michael Matheson Miller, the Director-Producer of Poverty Inc. Michael has examined this issue at great lengths and tells why some of the things we think are helping are really fostering additional problems and why we should be asking if we are part of the problem.

Go to https://www.urbanfarm.org/2017/03/28/michael-matheson-miller/ for more information, photos and links on this podcast and to hear from our other great guests.

213: Nikki Golly on Nutrition and Wellness Mar 25, 2017

Show notes

213: Nikki Golly on Nutrition and Wellness.

Recognizing the highly important nutrients that might be missing from our foods.

In this Podcast: We get to meet Nikki Golly who’s focus on micro nutrients gives her a detailed perspective on the essentials of good nutrition. Her chat with Greg is a chance to break down the descriptions of some important food terms in today’s vocabulary and bring to light some very key details on the tiniest, but very powerful ingredients.

Go to https://www.urbanfarm.org/2017/03/25/nikki-golly/ for more information, photos and links on this podcast and to hear from our other great guests.

Nikki is a micronutrient coach on a mission to help people experience the healthiest and happiest version of themselves. She graduated with highest honors with a degree in nutrition from Arizona State University. She worked for 8 years in a vitamin store in Phoenix where she gained her vast knowledge of supplements.

Fuel Your Body is a coaching program, as well as, a series of products to help you reach your health goals. Everything you eat makes a difference in how you feel. Your immune system starts in your gut and the foods you eat affect your whole body, from the bottoms of your feet to the top of your head. Through her simple tips, recipes and how to videos, she empowers others to reach their goals.

Our TOPPODCAST Picks

Follow Us

Stay Connected

The Urban Farm Podcast with Greg Peterson

Related Podcasts

Links

Stay Connected