303. Listener • Chef • Cover Crop Expert | Nick Schneider | Thrive Chef Works | Twin Cities, Minnesota
Tell us a little about yourself.
- I’m from Minnesota originally
- family typical upbringing in the suburbs
- career as being a chef
my extensive hobby as being a gardener
market gardening
growing up in the 80s food was sort of an after
reddish
so I got a degree in psychology
needed to do something a little more inspiring
lived in Europe for a semester in college
traveled around Europe and really saw food in a different light
experienced it really differently from what I had
Then I decided to go to culinary school, I ended up in Vancouver BC
relatives out there as well so I came back to the twin cities
Italian kitchens
owners
kind of moved around bit as chefs do is quite normal
I also started gardening at a fairly young age
early twenties
I ended up dating a woman from the Ukraine, she had a strong gardening interest
I had always been interested in nature as a young kid
gardening with my parents
but very simple, chard and green beans and that kind of thing
I started working at a natural foods coop right next to a really old and thriving community garden
in St Paul and that’s where I met some really great gardeners who I would call mentors
One particular gardener there was a soil scientist at the university of MN, she took me under her wing learned some incredible techniques
- raised bed
- no till garden
- cover crops
- rotation
One thing that really inspired me from a young age to kind of continue this and do a lot more was just witnessing the differences in her garden and other community gardens
She made her community garden plot not tilled in the back row and the rest of the 90 plots were tilled once a year. In the other plots, the soil was still quite good but it was obvious she had the
- best looking vegetables
- earliest
- largest vegetables in that garden
It was no mystery she was doing something different and right. It was from her I learned about
Mycorrhizal fungi and the relationship to the plants and how important that was
using those techniques
I was able to follow in her footsteps in a way when she got done, working at an urban agriculture non profit in st paul, centered at gardens all over st Paul
- children
- form a market garden essentially
I was able to take over that job when she was finished, working on her phd
I got to be a market gardener for 3 years, all the while I was cooking at night, I couldn’t do that these days, way too intense, way too much
So wait, are you a rockstar millennial?
I’m 42 so I’m more of an xer
yeah for me
For many years, I’ve been involved in both the culinary world and the growing world
I see that they are so intermittently intertwined, and kind of dependent on each other, the communities overlap so much. I find that really inspiring, such that I was able to go to the MOSES
MIDWEST Organic Conference for Organic Farming and meet a lot of great farmers and gardeners
move to the country and start a land based business
Alas I stayed in the city and am still working as a chef
After working at some great restaurants and for some people who are superstars
for natural foods
local alice waters
worked for this woman for 7 years, after that ended
I started my own business as a personal chef, working in people’s homes
cooking Monday – Friday, everyday meals, it’s different from catering
Gives me a lot more time on weekends and evenings
being a chef is pretty awesome but the restaurant life can be hard on you, working 60 hours a week bare minimum. The end game is sort of to own your own restaurant but that takes lots of hours and lots of risk.
Well, I worked at a restaurant this summer, and I told the owner over and over it’s amazing what you do here. How many people they employ and the pickle guy, and the bakery guy next door, the egg guy, and produce guy, there is so much food and so much to run and manage all the employees, etc. What it must be like to pay all these people through the winter.
I’ve been listening to the organize 365 podcast and this woman talks about getting help, either in your professional life or home, like getting someone to cook for you!
I don’t grow it, but sometimes I will take a small portion from my own garden
if I have an abundance of something, inspired to use some of my own stuff
We know how abundant gardens are, so I do take some of that stuff
IDK if you know this but what is basic model, in the twin cities, we have a really strong natural coop, there are just a ton of them
they all supply great organic food and meats and cheeses
blossomed and proliferated in the last 20-30 years. Went though a hiatus part of the 80s 90s so I am lucky to be a member of some of the co-ops where I buy that stuff.
when you are a personal chef
- get to know the staff
- board members
- influence a little
learn how your membership can be a driver in decision making to get new products or find different ones
give feedback
My particular passion and interest is
- finding great farmers
- keeping great farmers
- coop has to the small local farms in the area
looking for the best nutrient nutrient dense food that is available.
that’s where I get the produce, I don’t grow at the clients homes.
How many homes do you go to a day?
usually one a day sometimes 2
two is about the limit
We’re pretty spread out, so just the commute time. I am hoping to maybe do some bike commuting next year.
I asked to describe a typical day.
I am a single employee, maybe in a catering job I hire some help.
in a typical day
I am just going to the coop, getting some things I might need
planning I am following an agreed upon menu
When you go into the store,don’t know what’s gonna be fresh and available
chef skills of thinking on the fly are pretty useful
I like to change the menu seasonally, dishes.
Do you have some entertaining or recipes to share?
One of the best cooking tips I could mention
crowding the pan
If you want to sauté something and you put too many things in the pan, you end up steaming them which is a totally different process then sauteing.
One of the most common things people do to possibly get not as nice results
- vegetables
- proteins
matter of physics, draw more heat into the pan, the more things you put into the pan
heat is more distributed
don’t get the browning so you might as well get the steamer out.
You hit my number right on the nail, I usually fill a cast iron pan as high as I can, I tell my mom all the time, it’s not that people don’t want to cook, they don’t want to clean up so one pan is better then more.
don’t have the time
We have a one year old now so I can relate to don’t have the time
- use a lot of herbs
- bold flavors
- a dish should have one or two herbs
it’s rare that I cook without an herb
Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking
she talks about
important acidic component you can find that in cultural cuisines
- lime
- lemon
- vinegar
- balsamic
- tamarind
sour quality to lift the flavors
Kind of acts a little bit like salt in lifting the flavors balancing out the fattiness you
What about wine, for all of us Italians out there, my mom’s big sauce is lemon and wine?
heres’ a tip about cooking with wine
this comes from Julia child, my dad used to do this, I just have this memory of slowly simmering tomato sauce. If you reduce your wine slowly you will get more flavor
bubbling real slowly through the day
different kind of chemical reactions happening
memory of that taste is really quite great
wines in a professional kitchen we sometimes we don’t have time to slowly reduce, and have to do it more rapidly, can’t extract, not getting that long slow cooking
I’m thinking in red sauce my mom is more likely to use red wine and for fish she is likely to use white.
improved
ala manette sauces
your dealing with such a small quality bigger pot reducing tomato or Balinese
one recipe I love and will share with you
tend to cook simple
love to be in the garden
daylight hours are limited so you need to be out there
Tuscan Kale
lacinto dinosaur kale comes from tuscany
strip off the stem
don’t alway have to do that
- brown butter
- cooking oil in a pan
- let it start to brown a little
- stir fry the kale
- popping sizzling
- blackening of kale
- few drops of water
- steam as well
- little bit of crisp in there
- lightly blackened
- grilled brassicas
- bok choy
- broccoli
mmmm, last summer I cooked a ton of that. Ever since I discovered it it is my favorite kale!
I’m curious. Tell us about your garden, do you live in the city.
I’m in Minneapolis, fairly urban. We have 1/8 acre
before buying our house a few years ago I was in a lot of community gardens
intentional community with a community garden attached to it. Before that we were in rural Wisconsin, I kind of revitalized and expanded an orchard
On our property we have 1/8 acre
- we get full sun, do need to have that
- raised beds
- no till methods
when we set up this garden
curious to do
experiment
4 beds with 4 methods
- Double dug, john jeavons style
- 2 years of layered lasagna gardening brown and green
- 3 years of nothing but cover crops
- sheet mulch compost growing something now
To watch the different examples of things growing was really impressive to me, I found the one I used the cover crop on over the following 3-4 years really produced bigger and more robust
That was a fun little experiment.
Also, the double dug one, we grew sunflowers for our wedding! The sunflowers were like 15 feet tall super happy, everything I have heard of that method produces a lot of productivity.
So how does the double dig method fit into the no-till method is it a broad shovel?
Well the idea is it’s a one and done process where your digging in deep the first time and not touching it ~ I guess that my reaction to that now is that it’s necessary or pertinent in the upper midwest. We have lots of water. Our soils are fairly decent.
- sandy loam
- fairly decent growing soil
What I have seen of the Jeavon’s method is it is done in the summer arid where the water is not that abundant
don’t think it would be that important where I am again
my own thoughts now are, at least growing where I am, don’t need much of a raised bed
in GA where you have the clay soils you might go higher where you need the drainage in the Southwest you might go lower and have a sunken bed
different geographic influences
parent soil is really important and working with that.
I have had mixed results where we have imported compost,
- don’t always know what was in it
- not all created equal
small quantities
What cover cops did you put in that bed?
started out doing a lot of
- rye
- vetch
- oats
- peas
Over the years, I started doing more. I have been recently interested in what Farmer gabe brown
diverse mixes
7 mixes
- buckwheat and
- sorghum and millet
- brassica root with the borage radish I LOVE THAT ONE!
so what I have been doing
doing that recently leave them in cover crop for half season or full season if I am preparing the soil.
section of bed
improve the soil
one of the things I have observed cooking and market gardening
one farm in i
gardens of vegan
first o farmers int estate
master famers
top of the market
partnering with the restaurants
been tot heat farm
see what they do
half of the farm in cover crops each year
other half
assorted vegetables
stuff looked so good
really regenerative ag before we were using that term
some of the things I am working on
diverse cover crops
if you are not putting
if you don’t have animals eating it
going to seed at different rates and different times
buckwheat
style
don’t manage them well
manage in terms of knocking it down
a lot of that in your bed
when you re trying to seed lettuce or something
can be a bit of a challenge
I have been teaching cover crop classes
various venues in town
comfrey is a used a lot in permaculture
one thing I will mention about
you put it in somewhere it’s gonna be there for a long time
has a deep taproot
it’s in to stay if you were ever to till
root you cut will start a new plant
easy to propagate
big reason to use comfrey
it’s a mulch maker
make mulch under some fruit trees
perennial plants if you like
throughout the seasons
use that as a mulch
how quickly the leaves darken and blacken
good sign it’s reacting so well with the soil
you can get the common kind
everything different everywhere
where I am in MN it doesn’t reseed itself
there’s a cultivar called
sterile cultivar
it’s seeds aren’t going to be
south in the south
time to reside itself
time to
become more of a problem
apply local factor
not too close tot eh trunk
feet away
use it to create mulch for that tree
pairs fairly well with fruit tree roots tend to be more horizontal
accessing different
use it cautiously
can heal things too rapidly
here
don’t forget to ask about comfrey as Patti as
Tell me about your first gardening experience?
How did you learn how to garden organically?
4
Tell us about something that grew well this year.
fro me one of the biggest differences I saw was cucumbers and apples
very different corps
doing a lot of applications of foliar feeder this year particularly the
ego ag products
accelerate
calcium
seaweed
different suppliers
not necessarily
spokesperson
do like what they do
saw really impressive results
more cucumbers that just kept producing
apples did extremely well
applications of calcium
right after bloom
absolute ton about plants and crops
how to increase the yield and maximize size
various foliar feeding
john kemp webinars
pretty
cucumbers did well
apples did well
cities are like petri dishes we have a lot of pests
apple maggot lie
coddling moth
decent harvest
talon clay
essential
other wise called surround
pest off of fruit
you know
one thing I observed
though some webinars
cucumbers
stopped producing for about 2 weeks in July it got so hot
plants basically shut down
not pollinate
don’t thing it had anything told ow with the insects
lull
proliferate
getting really weird weather basically beginning of fall
one nice bit of advice
planting and preparing for climate change
plant stuff that is a zone below and one above
plant for extremes cold and variability of weather
September of mine
week and half of high
Is there something you would do different next year or want to try/new?
let’s see
one thing I am excited building to try here is a cold frame
kind of the shape of a deep winter greenhouse
it’s gonna be cedar and polly carbonate
catch that sun at the end of the season end of the summer
carrots
kale
lettuces coming up
about to put the cold farm into place
nov dec
having them freeze
these big jugs
I’m gonna put in there
get from the greek groceries
fill t hem with water
extend the season a little
no fresh produce
I love
tend to do better in my garden in fall through spring
working though a problem
ascertain the issue
basically in spring
tends to go after little brassicas in
transplant
arugula over my life
in various gardens
is a little
growing arugula
in the spring for sure
sprout ing now
super cold tolerant
greens
you may not of have heard of
herbistella an Italian herb
thin
flat
tall
growing that a few times
continue to grow that challenging to grow
Tell me about something that didn’t work so well this season.
other example
polyculture of tomatoes
cucumbers
pole beans like a broad bean
grew everything too close
the cucumbers took over the tomatoes and shaded things a little too much
delayed ripening of tomatoes
keep the tolerances less
problems in gardening in urban areas
spreading things out a little bit more
poly
Which activity is your least favorite activity to do in the garden?
I like most things
that grates on me
wood chips
mulching under fruit trees
wood chips for
keeping weeds off paths to keep them from being muddy
drop them in a central location
find the time
filling the back of a sedan makes a bit of a mess
least favorite job
interesting you mention it
gets at the question of it
are any of our farms
carbon negative
challenge to not bring in
st
What is your favorite activity to do in the garden?
harvesting is quite fun
close to cooking
recipes and things I might enjoy
for example
one of the things I love
in June
Vietnamese soup called pho
thyme basil and cilantro
mint in it too
favorite meals
all of those head
What is the best gardening advice you have ever received?
I’d say some of the strongest advice
no till raised bed
no till
all those years ago
an auxiliary to that
something I learned form Steve Solomon more
parent soil
high quality compost
smaller quantities
not to look at all compost as the same or equal
quick caveat
sometimes in urban settings you get municipal compost
not made int eh same aerobic way that good compost should be mad in
throw things a little bit
in your garden
whole other discussion
displaced calcium
more important element
A favorite tool that you like to use? If you had to move and could only take one tool with you what would it be?
pinch herbs with my fingers
hoe that I have
inherited from my parents
seed furrow
doing a little bit of weeding
don’t have a lot of weeding
hardly have to weed
A favorite recipe you like to cook from the garden?
couple of those
dines
one thing I love to do with fresh tomatoes
pasta
a lot of Italian food
Italian farm
see some of this first hand
simple pasta
garlic and olive oil
fresh tomatoes
melt for a brief moment
tossing that with pasta
A favorite internet resource?
well, I have a lot of time when I’m cooking for example
as a chef
often working in peoples homes
busy with my hands
not my
done so for years
down this path of listening to podcasts.
You’re was the first one i downloaded
you can listen to a lot without having to look at the screen
youtube video
people I might say
various site
Bionutrient Food Association
all thats on youtube
john kempf
such an excellent communicator
pat battle
living web farms
his farm
teaching farm
he has great info
those are three that I really love
Ella
A favorite reading material-book, mag, blog/website etc you can recommend?
one of the most recent books that I read that I really enjoyed
fred
interviewed
scott mann interviewed
animal behaviorist
his book is called nourishment
I picked it up started reading it
beautiful weaving of a lot of different disciplines
in the life sciences
human health studies
not about just what animal herds eat
nitty gritty of the details on a micro view
macro view
how that relates to human health
wonderful read
If you have a business to you have any advice for our listeners about how to sell extra produce or get started in the industry?
much in the same way
it’s sept here now
the growing season begins a season ahead of time
think about the soil
what you do to it
conditioning
- preparing for business
- setting up your client base
- potential client bases
visiting them in the winter the season before
what they want
what they are interested in
see what they want so you can plan
side topic
how farmers are going to be able to demonstrate quality
differences in quality
nutrient levels
for example the bionutrient meter that the bionutrient group is working on
you might be interested in talking to dan Kitteredge it won’t be ready for a year or two
most chefs we just understand quietly for taste
a lot of the general population doesn’t necessarily have or is detached, can be reawakened easily enough
very interested to see how things like bricks and any bionutient readings
small spectrometers to help them get a leg up over large suppliers across the country
obscure topic but you might be thinking about that in the future.
That’s interesting, I find every time I talk to a chef I learn something new. When I asked a chef this summer is he said bring it to me. At the back door. He had seen businesses fail by not being able to keep the van running, or deliver enough on time. He also said quality. It sounds like you are talking about the quality of nutrients as well as taste!
that’s the key to this whole thing
I think we are entering into an age where we can be able to explain that scientifically intuitively etc.
I think chefs are also interested in a consistent supply is an important thing
newest and latest vegetables are a good thing to look into
plant breeders are always coming up with new varieties
Chef Dan Barber’s working on
a new company called 7 row seed working on breeders from Cornell specifically for taste of vegetables which is not done as often as you might think.
Final question- if there was one change you would like to see to create a greener world what would it be? For example is there a charity or organization your passionate about or a project you would like to see put into action. What do you feel is the most crucial issue facing our planet in regards to the environment either in your local area or on a national or global scale?
I can give a couple of quick answers
farmers nationwide growing more cover crops
that information in the news
ne farming association
how critical that can be
atmosphere carbon
in a big way
probably changing the US Farm bill
another thing I would say
in addition to gardening or growing something
if everybody grows a garden
readily important
in response
that’s kind of insignificant
add to that
michal pollens comment
adding some kind of community element tot hat
gardening in community way
starting community
helping friends and neighbors
cooperative house
garden for a while
community element gonna be come increasingly important in the future
times get tougher
help keep comm
Do u have an inspiration tip or quote to help motivate our listeners to reach into that dirt and start their own garden?
from the agronomist
the soil is the plants stomach
already
if you are working with someone who is new to gardening
soil and microbes
humanity
that just means the microbes in the soil
plethora
mineralize
metabolize
liquid carbon in ex
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