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

Samin Nosrat

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...