85: Ben Klempner on Urban Farming Activism

Ben is a husband and father of two boys and two girls living in the Jerusalem Foothills. He attended the University of Montana where he received a BA in American Literature and a Minor in Wilderness Studies. He received his Master’s Degree in Social Work from Barry University in Miami, Florida. Ben learned how to farm by reading lots of books, watching and listening to lots of videos and podcasts, speaking to farmers, and then jumped in headfirst to start a one thousand container EarthBox farm. 

Now, he manages a small urban farm at a community center that uses raised beds, containers, and no-till gardening techniques using thick layers of straw mulch and a broad-fork. Ben advocates for himself and encourages and consults other small-scale farmers, gardeners, and would-be farmers to carve out niches for themselves as municipal and educational farmers within their municipalities and education school boards.

Ben started lasagna gardening after watching Greg’s sheet mulching video, available free here.

Ben’s book recommendations:

The Edge of Eden: High Yield No-Till Integrated Gardening by Laura Wheeler

Food Not Lawns by Heather Flores

Wisdom of the Last Farmer & Epitaph for a Peach by David Mas Masumoto 

Farmacology by Dr. Daphne Miller

The Third Plate by Chef Dan Barber

What Are People For?, Bringing it to the Table, & New Collected Poems by Wendell Berry

The One Straw Revolution by Masanobu Fukuoka

Gaia’s Garden by Toby Hemenway

(Producer’s note: Click here to listen to Toby’s Hemenway’s Podcast.)

The Vegetable Gardener’s Bible by Edward Smith

The Soil and Health by Sir Albert Howard

Greenhorns edited by Severine Von Tscharcher Flemming

Where can you find Ben?

GrowingGreens.net

www.urbanfarm.org/klempner

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