The Urban Farm Podcast Private feed for Members

163: Melinda Adkins on Learning Homesteading Skills Rekindling skills of past generations and sharing thrifty gardening tips Melinda’s Urban Homesteader journey began as a child watching her mother and grandmother tend their gardens which instilled in her a love and appreciation for gardening.  After college she purchased a home in the city and secured employment with the local school di...

162: Jesse Sparks on Neighborhood Harvesting Harvesting fruits and friends from your neighborhood community Jesse is a sixth-generation Arizona native. His great-grandfather owned and operated a farm in Tempe, AZ, and Jesse’s mother’s side comes from farming heritage in Iowa, so he has been surrounded by gardens, fruit trees, and fresh produce his entire life.  He and his wife had a townhouse...

161: Vanessa Simkins on Juicing Deliciously Connecting healthy and flavorful juicing combinations for health and a good diet Vanessa, is the founder of AllAboutJuicing.com: a website and newsletter serving up fresh, tested juicing advice for getting a hot body, glowing skin, and lifelong health through a straw. She is also the founder of Vanessa’s Juice Club and the author of the Juice Lover’...

160: Jim Loomis on Lifestyle Medicine Connecting a plant-based diet and lifestyle to positive health benefits  Jim Loomis Jr., M.D., M.B.A., received his medical degree from the University of Arkansas, where he was elected to the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society and graduated with honors.  He subsequently completed his internship and residency in internal medicine at Barnes Hospit...

159: Brandon Peterman on Natural Building Constructing buildings and materials from locally sourced ingredients  Brandon grew up in Southern California and went to University of Southern California Riverside.  Always feeling a connection to nature, he has been living on homesteads in the woods for the past four years and has been actively doing natural building for the past three years....

158: Andrew Millison on Scaling up Permaculture Sharing a regenerative design system and the medicine our planet needs. Andrew has been studying, teaching and practicing permaculture since he took his first design course in 1996. He began teaching permaculture design at the college level in 2001 and has been an instructor at Oregon State University in the Horticulture Department since 2009. Andrew...

Elena Ortiz on Nature Education for Adults Making connections to nature through working in a college garden. Elena has been teaching with the Phoenix College Biosciences Department in the Maricopa Community College System for eleven years. She has taught environmental biology and general biology for non-majors. Her newest class is Plants and Society , a basic botany course for non-majors. As...

Keri Fox on SPIN Farming Starting a farming business in an urban area and making it work. Keri grew up on an organic farm in a small Saskatchewan community when organic wasn’t cool or trendy. After feeling like an outcast, and perceiving her parents as “poor,” she decided to pursue a more profitable career.  After getting her electrician journeyperson license, she ran an electrical contractin...

155: Lawrence Parkhill of the Veteran Farmers of America  Helping our returning veterans heal through farming and agriculture. Lawrence signed up for the infantry at age 16 when the towers fell, and left at age 18 to go to Camp Pendleton. He was deployed twice to Iraq with India Company, Third Battalion, First Marines.  Lawrence extended his contract by six months or so to deploy with th...

Julian Awad on Backyard Riches and SPIN Farming Taking a Small Plot and with Intensive Farming generate income. Julian experienced entrepreneurship early at the age of 12 when he first started importing candy from Singapore to Malaysia where his family was living at the time. At 19 he started his first company in real estate. Since then, his interest for business and social responsibility has take...

Forest started urban farming in 1969 in Berkeley, California. Through the People’s Park Movement, he was launched into gardening and got the basic training and motivation for becoming a seedman.  He has been a full time, independent, professions seed provider since 1972 and has owned, led, or helped launch at least four seed companies, and founded the nonprofit Abundant Life Seed Foundation w...

Making a difference through social permaculture and gardening. Matt is an experienced teacher, family guy, author, consultant, farmer, seed saver, plant breeder, musician, blogger, & permaculturist. He frequently speaks at conferences, colleges, schools, and events about permaculture and education. Applying his years of working as a teacher writing curriculum from scratch using online classroo...

Saskia is a passionate gardener who believes everyone can grow some of their own food. She is trained in Permaculture, Environmental Science, and Regenerative Entrepreneurship. After turning a house in Anchorage, Alaska into an abundant urban homestead, she created a successful business teaching others how to garden. She recently turned her hands-on food gardening course into a curriculum and manu...

Transitioning to a plant based diet for a healthy lifestyle. Karine was once an extreme carnivore and she happily ate sweetbreads, blood pudding, lots of meats including game, and all kinds of raw meats. Food was her life. She had a catering business and organized dinner parties that would have made a vegan faint. Life was spent in the kitchen, and life was good. Then she embarked on her...

Considering design in architecture and it’s impact on urban agriculture. Sean complements his design practice with research in green building technologies including, among other things, urban and vertical agriculture. Sean is a Lecturer at Danube University Krems, Austria, was an Assistant Professor at the University of Hong Kong, and is a frequent lecturer at international universities and confer...

Growing Food, Jobs, and Hope on the Urban Frontier Michael Ableman, the cofounder and director of Sole Food Street Farms, is one of the early visionaries of the urban agriculture movement. He has created high-profile urban farms in Watts, California; Goleta, California; and Vancouver, British Columbia. Michael has also worked on and advised dozens of similar projects throughout North America...

Utilizing managed intensive grazing for maximum benefit for land and animals Shawn and Beth have been farming together since the 1980’s, for the last twenty years in eastern Ohio, where they manage 24 acres designated by the state as ‘not suitable for agriculture’.  Using intensive grazing as the primary source of food energy, they raise dairy and beef cows, sheep, farm-fed hogs, and a variet...

Robert is a scientist, author, and environmental entrepreneur who founded several leading market-based environmental concerns. Currently he serves as host of Green Sense Radio Show and Founding Farmer/CEO of Green Sense Farms.  Robert is recognized as a national expert and an authoritative source on brownfield redevelopment, sustainability and indoor vertical farming. He is the author of seve...

Storm lives on the South Fork of the Cosumnes River in Northern California with her husband Allen and her youngest child Savannah. She is the founder of “Wings on the Wind Healing Arts Center and Sanctuary.” The center is located on her organic farm, where they raise food, herbs, alpacas, and chickens. She has a bachelor degree in Metaphysical Science, is an ordained minister, a natural health pra...

Marianne is the co-host/co-producer of the Sustainable Living Podcast, the co-organizer of the San Diego Permaculture Meet up group and the founder and organizer of the TOP Organic Edibles Garden Club. Top stands for Transition, Organic and Permaculture. She also is a wife, mother and grandmother who is very much involved in the life of her 3 grandchildren. Marianne teaches Yoga and other subjects...

Cara is passionate about the tradition of supper and takes Civil War history very seriously; So it made sense for her to couple her food passion with membership in MidStates Living History Association.  In the tradition of Dutch oven cooking during the civil war, “a supper was served at four o’clock in the afternoon, a good plain and substantial meal, with nothing fanciful” according to Goedy...

Craig’s love of the landscape was a natural progression of his upbringing in central Minnesota where he grew up at a youth camp. When he attended college in Chicago, he maintained his connection with the outdoors which he soon realized his career path needed to encompass.  In a confluence of events, Craig was hired as the Operations Manager at Chicago Christian Industrial League managing...

Sherrie Pelsma on Pollinator Parkways. Bolstering pollinators in urban spaces and expanding safe habitats. Sherrie grew up on the rural Oregon Coast before moving to Portland to finish her degree. She has spent the last 10 years in Community Education, and runs a program where participants learn learn Do-It-Yourself skills to make homes safer and more energy efficient. As an environmentalist who l...

Jack Wolfson D.O., F.A.C.C., is a board certified cardiologist who uses nutrition and supplements to prevent and treat disease. After ten years performing angiograms, pacemakers, and other cardiac procedures, Dr. Wolfson started Wolfson Integrative Cardiology in 2012 to offer patients the ultimate in holistic heart care. Raised in Chicago, he attended Midwestern University for his D.O. degree...

Whitney is a teacher, trainer, and author with tremendous commitment to, and expertise in, inquiry- and place-based education; strategies for engaging diverse learners; school gardens; and the intersection between environmental education and public schools. She is the Education Director of Life Lab and a lecturer at UC Santa Cruz. IN THIS PODCAST: Greg is excited and a bit envious of the kids...