303. Listener • Chef • Cover Crop Expert | Nick Schneider | Thrive Chef Works | Twin Cities, Minnesota

Tell us a little about yourself.I'm from Minnesota originallyfamily typical upbringing in the suburbscareer as being a chefmy extensive hobby as being a gardenermarket gardeninggrowing up in the 80s food was sort of an afterreddishso I got a degree in psychologyneeded to do something a little more inspiringlived in Europe for a semester in collegetraveled around Europe and really saw food in a different lightexperienced it really differently from what I hadThen I decided to go to culinary school, I ended up in Vancouver BCrelatives out there as well so I came back to the twin citiesItalian kitchensownerskind of moved around bit as chefs do is quite normalI also started gardening at a fairly young ageearly twentiesI ended up dating a woman from the Ukraine, she had a strong gardening interestI had always been interested in nature as a young kidgardening with my parentsbut very simple, chard and green beans and that kind of thingI started working at a natural foods coop right next to a really old and thriving community gardenin St Paul and that’s where I met some really great gardeners who I would call mentorsOne particular gardener there was a soil scientist at the university of MN, she took me under her wing learned some incredible techniquesraised bedno till gardencover cropsrotationOne 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 gardensShe 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 thebest looking vegetablesearliestlargest vegetables in that gardenIt 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 wasusing those techniquesI 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 Paulchildrenform a market garden essentiallyI was able to take over that job when she was finished, working on her phdI 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 muchSo wait, are you a rockstar millennial?I'm 42 so I'm more of an xeryeah for meFor many years, I've been involved in both the culinary world and the growing worldI 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 MOSESMIDWEST Organic Conference for Organic Farming and meet a lot of great farmers and gardenersmove to the country and start a land based businessAlas I stayed in the city and am still working as a chefAfter working at some great restaurants and for some people who are superstars for natural foodslocal alice watersworked for this woman for 7 years, after that endedI started my own business as a personal chef, working in people’s homescooking Monday - Friday, everyday meals, it's different from catering Gives me a lot more time on weekends and eveningsbeing a chef is pretty awesome but the restaurant life can...