Grow What You Love

Here's a look behind the scenes with professional climber, Kate Rutherford. We get the inside scoop on her genesis as a climber and how (and why) she helped co-found Farm-to-Crag, an organization dedicated to bringing the hyper-local, organic food movement to climbers around the world. We also talk about how regenerative agriculture could be a winning solution for helping mitigate the climate crisis while fostering species diversity and human health.

Listen in as we share ideas in Kate's garden before preparing "garden medley" tacos straight from - you guessed it! - the garden.

In this episode, we visit Community Healing Gardens co-founder Nicole Landers in Venice Beach, California. Nicole has discovered that, when you do what you love, wonderful things happen.

"...when you do what you love, life throws you some really great things to move it forward." - Nicole Landers

Nicole is the co-founder of Community Healing Gardens, a non-profit that serves communities from Venice to Watts. Her goal is to strengthen the community through urban gardening, and what we hear in this episode is that Nicole and her organization are growing a whole bunch more than food. They’re growing the lives of families, the livelihoods of adults in need of work and inspiration, and feeding the community through their job re-training program, outdoor education and culinary classes, school garden, and over 70 garden boxes that line the streets.

We learn early on in this conversation that the model Nicole is using to create Community Healing Gardens is repeatable. If we listen to ourselves and the people in our communities, we each have the power to enact positive change. 

"All good things grow with love. If you put that in your ethos and live that model, the skies the limit." -Nicole Landers

I can’t wait for you to hear Nicole's story and the unfolding of her life, and the incredible organization she created with the help of her co-founder and team.

Lilly Padilla is a Certified Integrative Nutrition Health Coach and Chef specializing in Chinese Nutritional Therapy and Ayurveda. She’s also the author of the book, Anti-Cancer, Habits & Anti-Inflammatory Nutrition. She began studying nutrition and the benefits of a plant-based diet after treatment for ovarian cancer and surgery that went horribly wrong, decreasing her chances of survival.

In her own words, it was her discovery of nutritional therapy and a renewed connection to nature that saved her.

In this episode, we visit Lilly at her Los Angeles home where she lives with her dog Paco -- her other savior and love of her life. There she was cooking up a summer meal, treating us to some of her most healing foods.

Listen in to hear more about her life-saving foods, including her recipe for cauliflower ceviche.

In this episode, we journey to Southern California to the home and garden of Kristin Morrison, maker of wildcrafted textiles and founder of All Species, a fashion-forward, ecological clothing company. We find Kristin in her outdoor dye lab where we make a vibrant dye using Mexican marigold. We also get a sneak peek at a dye she's making out of avocado pits -- who would have guessed that avocado pits can be used to make a plant dye?!

Kristin creates fabulous, wildcrafted textiles utilizing plant-based dyes from plants that she grows or finds in the wild. As the story goes, her passion for her work sprang from a “chance encounter with a cluster of cacti just around the corner from her home.” There she found cochineal, not a plant but a bug feeding on the cactus, that she used to create the first of many dyes, this one a vibrant red. This is where she discovered the perfect medium for bridging her studies in fashion design, regenerative agriculture, and plant medicine.

Hear how our Mexican marigold dye turned out and listen in for a cameo from Baby Sage at the end! :)

In part two of my conversation Kevin Espiritu, the mastermind behind Epic Gardening, we make one of his go-to Apolcolype Challenge recipes. A simple yet tasty meal of smashed potatoes with fresh rosemary along with his favorite eggs and homemade pickled vegetables -- all of which he's either grown in his garden or bartered for under the Apocolypse Challenge rules. Hear how this recipe comes together while we chat about some of the many people and inspirations fueling his work.

In part one of this conversation, I talk with Kevin Espiritu, the mastermind and talent behind Epic Gardening and the author of Field Guide to Urban Gardening. We recorded our conversation in June when Kevin was in the middle of his first annual Apocalypse Challenge in which he’s only eating food he’s grown or foraged, or food he’s bartered for using his homegrown stores. (Think potatoes!) We also hear how he stumbled into gardening after wrapping up a degree in accounting and how Epic Gardening came to be.

Justine Kahn is a champion of the slow beauty movement and the founder of Botnia, a plant-based skincare line. I met with her at her home and mini-farm in the heart of Sausalito, California where we took a tour of her garden, made a simple calendula healing oil, and chatted about her unexpected journey into plant-based skin care. You won't want to miss a minute of her story or the how-to for making your own garden-to-table calendula oil.

We visit William Ryan Fritch, Original Film Score Composer, and Cook, at his home and studio in Petaluma, California. This was an incredible experience that only gets better as the hour ticks by. Which is why this episode is split into two parts, it was the only way to fit all the good stuff in. You won't want to miss a minute!

We visit William Ryan Fritch, Original Film Score Composer, and Cook, at his home and studio in Petaluma, California. This was an incredible experience that only gets better as the hour ticks by. Which is why this episode is split into two parts, it was the only way to fit all the good stuff in. You won't want to miss a minute!

Part one begins in William's kitchen where he's making a breakfast of curried potatoes and eggs for his family. Here you'll begin to get a sense for the amazing human being William truly is. We then move out to his studio to hear him play some of his instruments. These include a $5 thrift store cymbal and a broken accordion. Neat, right? 

In part two, episode three, we hear some of the music William is currently recording and wrap up our conversation with cocktails made with herbs from my garden.

Here's a look behind the scenes. Author and organic gardener, Emily Murphy, shares the genesis of Grow What You Love in this first-ever episode. We hear stories and inspirations not found in her book, Grow What You Love, or on her blog, Pass The Pistil.

In each of the following episodes, Emily takes us with her as she journey's to the homes, gardens, and studios of chef's, musicians, slow beauty experts, activists, and professional athletes. She interviews politicians, entrepreneurs, farmers, fashion designers, gardeners, and people growing community gardens and flower farms in city centers. We go on location to each of these places, getting a sneak peek into the lives and inspirations of others.

Grow What You Love is a podcast sharing stories of people, plants, and growth with a capital "G." 

Subscribe to the podcast where ever you choose to listen, give it a thumbs up if you like it, and please leave a review. You can also find photos and notes from each of the episodes on the podcast blog, growwhatyoulove.love or passthepistil.com. Follow Emily on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, and Pinterest @passthepistil