Podcasts about eagle street rooftop farm

On this week's episode of Fields, Melissa (Wythe was away on jury duty) speaks with the multi-talented Annie Novak.Annie is the co-founder of Eagle Street Rooftop Farm, the director of Growing Chefs, a nonprofit that provides food education in schools and the community, the manager of the Edible Academy at the New York Botanical Garden, and the author of The Rooftop Growing Guide: How to Transform Your Roof into a Vegetable Garden or Farm. Annie began her journey into growing with commodity chain analysis (where does food come from, and where does it go?), by working at greenmarkets, and by learning from farmers in Upstate New York. She still stresses a regional perspective, emphasizing the importance of rural farms. Of course, she still loves botanical gardens and urban farms for their social impacts and educational offerings. Today, much of Annie's work focuses on education. At the Edible Academy at the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx, she offers children and adults first-hand experiences with plants and fungi in a vegetable garden and a greenhouse.Melissa and Annie dive into how trees communicate, the metaphors we use to talk about plants and fungi, how they relate to each other and to us, and the need for “tenderness toward nonhuman things.” The two discuss creating biodiverse farm ecosystems and revisit the idea of seeds as time travelers. Annie offers a profound appreciation for the nonhuman living world. It's a deep conversation, and one you won't want to miss!Photo courtesy of Naima Green.Heritage Radio Network is a listener supported nonprofit podcast network. Support Fields by becoming a member!Fields is Powered by Simplecast.

Do I need a soil test? And what kind of amendments should I be adding to my vegetable beds or containers to get things off to a good start? And how can I fine tune my composting this year to optimize results? Those are some of the timely questions I covered with Annie Novak, manager of the Edible Academy at the New York Botanical Garden.  Annie is also founder and director of Growing Chefs, a field-to-fork food education program, and co-founder of Eagle Street Rooftop Farm in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Plus, she wrote “The Rooftop Growing Guide.” Annie will be one of the expert presenters at the upcoming Workshop Experience Weekend, May 7th and 8th, in the Hudson Valley of New York that I'm helping organize.

Spring is finally here, and we're kicking off the growing season with a Please Explain that’s all about urban agriculture and city gardens! Find out the best ways to maximize your green space - whether it’s a window box, rooftop plot or a community garden. We’ll also look at the city’s growing rooftop-farm movement, discuss public garden spaces and find out why rooftop gardens are an ecological necessity in our urban landscape. Joining us is Annie Novak, co-founder and head farmer of the nation’s first commercial green roof row farm, Eagle Street Rooftop Farm in Brooklyn. She’s also the manager of the Edible Academy at New York Botanical Garden, founder and director of Growing Chefs and author of The Rooftop Growing Guide. We’ll also be joined by Gerard Lordahl, Director of Open Space Greening Program at GrowNYC, a non-profit which operates local environmental programs, including the city Greenmarkets.  Send us your questions in a comment below, or let us know on Twitter or Facebook!

This week on Feast Yr Ears , host Harry Rosenblum is on the line with Annie Novak, the head farmer and cofounder of the nation’s first commercial green roof vegetable farm, the Eagle Street Rooftop Farm atop Broadway Stages in Brooklyn, as well as the manager of the Edible Academy at the New York Botanical Garden, and founder and director of Growing Chefs, a field-to-fork food education program. Her new book “The Rooftop Growing Guide” is a stylish, easy-to-use book for urban gardeners interested in utilizing their roof space for growing food. Tune in to hear her food and life story plus highlights from the book!

Interview with Annie Novak, the Brooklyn-based horticulturalist, rooftop farmer, and author. Annie is founder and director of Growing Chefs, a field-to-fork food education program; Manager of the Edible Academy at the New York Botanical Garden, and co-founder and farmer of Eagle Street Rooftop Farm in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Her writings have been published in The Atlantic, Diner Journal, and others, and she has a book coming out! It’s called The Rooftop Growing Guide: How to Transform Your Roof into a Vegetable Garden or Farm, and it comes out in early 2016. This episode has a few literary and cultural references thrown in - it’s all detailed in the show notes at tastygrinds.com. Hosted by Dabney Gough. Theme music by Tyler McMahon.

Ignore the recent chilly blast of weather, spring is here and so are the blooms. Some of those cheerful flowers aren’t just a treat for the eye—they’re tasty, too. Violas are one edible variety. They’re part of the pansy family, and you can find them at farmers markets now. “Fresh flowers are one of the few things that you’ll be hard pressed to find packaged in a store,” says Annie Novak, a rooftop farmer and co-founder of Eagle Street Rooftop Farm. “So really the pleasure of eating a flower garnish is you can almost guarantee it’s coming right out of a garden nearby.” Novak is also the manager of the New York Botanical Garden’s Edible Academy, where she works to teach children about the connection between gardening and healthy eating. She points out that, as a children’s educator, edible flowers like violas are an easy way to get kids interested in food. Even simple tricks like floral ice cubes (directions below) can be an incentive for them to stay hydrated. For the adults, the appeal of eating violas is also simple. “They’re one of the easiest ways to make a very simple dish appear quite fancy,” says Novak. Naturally, not all flowers are edible, so do your research before chomping away. (The New York Botanical Garden has this list for reference.) Novak advises the sensible step of planting only nontoxic flowers if you’re introducing your kids to edible blooms. She recommends avoiding things like angel's trumpet, which reportedly causes hallucinations. Sound advice, that. (Photo: Annie Novak with Julia and Janine Gayenelo at the New York Botanical Garden/Victor Chu) As for the rest of us worried about ingesting unexpected chemicals or pesticides, Novak recommends starting the flowers from seed or asking your plant purveyor if they were treated in any way with chemicals. “And if it was, you can wash it or pick off the flowers before you start to eat them,” Novak adds. “Picking off the flowers will actually encourage more blooms and more growth so it will work out the best.” Violas should be a hit with kids and adults alike, since they’re sweet and have a mild floral taste. “The texture is a really important part of the taste of flowers because the petals themselves are very soft,” adds Novak. “It’s a weird combination but [they have] like a crystalline, velvety, melt-in-your-mouth kind of texture. If you're looking to keep your little ones entertained this weekend, The New York Botanical Garden's Culinary Kids Food Festival has a variety of food and plant focused activities going on through Monday, April 21.  Floral Ice Cubes Ice cube tray: larger sizes work better because the ice will melt less quickly Boiled, distilled water: This makes for the clearest-looking ice cubes Edible flowers (such as violas), enough for each ice cube Fill the trays ⅓ of the way with the boiled, distilled water. Place the flowers face down in the water and freeze. Fill ⅔ of the way with more of the water, freeze. Fill to the top and freeze.

Megan Paska grew up gardening with her mother and grandmother in Maryland, and spent her summers on her family’s 450-acre farmstead in rural Virginia. When she moved to Brooklyn, NY in 2006, she found that her landlords were enthusiastic about her putting up a raised bed vegetable garden in the backyard. Soon after came bees and honey, then the chickens and fresh eggs. She created the Brooklyn Homesteader blog to chronicle her backyard and rooftop adventures in agriculture, as well as her experiences with urban farming organizations like BK Farmyards, Eagle Street Rooftop Farm, and Brooklyn Grange, with whom she coordinates educational Beekeeping workshops. Megan also hosts workshops and classesfrequently from her backyard garden and in local businesses as well as private classes on subjects like gardening, mushroom growing, food preservation and beekeeping. She is currently in the planning process of starting a farm, The Homestead at Seven Arrows, on 20 acres of leased land just outside the city. This program has been sponsored by The Heritage Meat Shop. “I love beekeeping…you never stop learning, and that’s a humbling feeling.” “That’s why we started Hayseed’s. We were having a hard time finding good quality things like chicken feed, soil, and soil amendments for a reasonable price.” — Megan Paska on Greenhorn Radio