Reclaim the Harvest with Chris Starkus | The Beet

The Beet: A Podcast For Plant Lovers

Epic Gardening

Home & Garden, Education, Leisure, How To

4.8 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 15 December 2025

⏱️ 104 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Episode Description: In this episode of the Beet Podcast, we revisit Kevin’s talk with Chef Chris Starkus. They dig into dry farming, water security, and the surprising ways urban population booms shape the food on our plates. Chris also goes beyond the usual “farm-to-table” vibe with creative cooking tips, preservation techniques, and new ways to use every last leaf from your garden. And yes, he exposes the wild water waste hiding in commercial kitchens, and how he’s helping fix it with tech that saves more water than you’d believe. Connect with Chris Starkus: Chris Starkus is a chef, farmer, and journeyman beekeeper who’s spent 25+ years stirring up the hospitality world with award-winning restaurants and rooftop apiaries. Named one of Denver’s Top 25 Under 40, he’s opened celebrated kitchens like Urban Farmer Denver while championing full-circle sustainability before it was cool. Today, he partners with the startup Boss Defrost to help save water worldwide and teaches the next generation of eco-minded cooks at Warren Tech. For Chris, sustainability is the whole recipe. Find more from Chris on Chef For All Seasons: https://www.chef4allseasons.com/ Find more from Chris on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chrisstarkus/ Support The Beet: → Shop: https://growepic.co/shop → Seeds: https://growepic.co/botanicalinterests Learn More: → All Our Channels: https://growepic.co/youtube → Blog: https://growepic.co/blog → Podcast: https://growepic.co/podcasts → Discord: https://growepic.co/discord → Instagram: https://growepic.co/insta → TikTok: https://growepic.co/tiktok → Pinterest: https://growepic.co/pinterest → Twitter: https://growepic.co/twitter → Facebook: https://growepic.co/facebook → Facebook Group: https://growepic.co/fbgroup → Love our products? Become an Epic affiliate! https://growepic.co/3FjQXqV Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Come in, shoes off.
0:02.0	What's the Wi-Fi? Most stream the new series I'm binging. Please can we listen to something that isn't Christmas music? Can you, um... You can't have such a T-Froster ticket quickly? Everyone! We're gonna video call Auntie Audrey now. Mom, Joe's talking to telly again. Can we share a video with a dog in his outfit? Hosting this Christmas? You need the UK's best broadband technology. E.E. does more.
0:24.0	Full fibre is the UK's best broadband technology.
0:22.5	EE does more.
0:24.1	Full Fiber is the UK's most reliable broadband technology.
0:26.1	Offcoms broadband terminology research March 223.
0:28.3	Verify at e.e.dochitk. slash claims.
0:31.7	What's going on, everyone?
0:33.0	Kevin from Epic Gardening here, we've got another epic awesome guest.
0:37.0	Today we have Chef Chris from
0:38.6	Urban Farmer Restaurant, which is, I guess you could say a true farm to table restaurant. And we'll
0:43.1	get into what that means in Denver. And he's also the owner of Lost Creek Micro Farm. So a really
0:48.6	great combo of a farmer's chef. And I thought, who better to have on to help us really understand what a high level professional
0:56.2	is doing from a farm and cooking perspective so maybe we can bring some of that knowledge down
1:01.1	into our home gardens and our home kitchens. So first of all, Chef Chris, thanks for coming.
1:06.2	And second, I think it would be great to just give a quick overview of, you know, the restaurant
1:10.5	and the farm and
1:11.3	kind of what you're doing there. Absolutely. Well, thanks for having me, Kevin, and I appreciate
1:15.1	being here. The restaurant is Urban Farmer, Denver in downtown. We were by a union station at the
1:21.5	Oxford Hotel on 16th and Wazi. And what we're doing is farm to table. Now, I know it's a term
1:27.2	that people use a lot
1:28.6	But we're really looking from you know the feet of our cattle how they're treated and how they're put on the menu for instance in our
	...

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