Growing Food, Jobs, and Hope with Michael Ableman

Grow Figs Where You Think You Can’t — Revised & Expanded

My fig book is now more than three times the size of the original, with practical advice on growing in pots, pruning, overwintering, and getting figs ripe—plus ideas from cold-climate fig growers around the world.

Find out more and get your copy.--

In this episode, Steven revisits a 2020 conversation with farmer, author, photographer, and urban agriculture pioneer Michael Ableman.

Ableman is the co-founder of Vancouver’s Sole Food Street Farms, an urban farming project that turns city land into productive growing space while creating meaningful work and community connection. His book Farm the City: A Toolkit for Setting Up a Successful Urban Farm shares practical lessons from that work, including how to find land, choose crops, build markets, navigate regulations, raise funds, and engage the community.

This is not just a conversation about growing vegetables in unlikely places. It’s about what happens when food growing becomes a way to rethink land, work, dignity, neighbourhoods, and the purpose of a farm.

For home gardeners, there’s a useful reminder here: gardens are never only about yield. They can feed people, yes. But they can also create beauty, connection, routine, and purpose.

In this episode:

• Why urban farming is more than putting raised beds on pavement 
• How Sole Food Street Farms uses farming to create jobs and community 
• What urban farmers need to think about beyond growing crops 
• Lessons from Farm the City
• Why food gardens can be practical, social, and quietly radical 
• What home gardeners can learn from urban farms, even on a much smaller scale