Homesteading from the Heart with The Urban Farm Podcast
I recently had the good fortune of being interviewed on The Urban Farm Podcast with Greg Peterson. The Urban Farm Podcast is one of my top favorite gardening and seed saving podcasts, and I highly recommend checking it out, whether you are a beginner or a seasoned gardener.
Greg’s summary of our interview:
Noel Ruiz shares his journey from urban Southern California to rural Southern Oregon, where he and his family run Homestead Culture. What began as a struggling backyard garden evolved into a life centered on permaculture, seed saving, perennial crops, and heart-centered homesteading. Noel explains grexes, seed diversity, and multi-generational thinking—while reflecting on failure, renewal, and cultivating culture from the inside out. This episode explores how growing seeds can also grow resilience, connection, and joy.
968: Homesteading from the Heart with Noel Ruiz, The Urban Farm Podcast
Here’s an excerpt of my favorite part…
What drives me is heart connection. This is something that has really been a big part of my journey and is a big part of our brand for Homestead Culture. Coming from working more conventional jobs, something really stood out to me. It was the heart connection I experienced when I was working with farmers, people in ecology, native landscape designers and herbalists.
I felt there was much less of this protection between us, and it was easier to connect. I felt immediately welcomed in. Hugging was very normal, in contrast to conventional workplaces. I felt this heart connection. People were willing to spend hours of time answering my questions and helping me, and that really stood out to me.
Through working on homesteads and farms, I’ve really seen the pattern of heart connection repeated many times. I just want to be surrounded by this type of open-hearted community, and it encourages me to open my heart more. Now when I look at what’s really important in my life, it all comes back to the heart.
That’s one reason why one of our mantras for Homestead Culture is “Homesteading from the heart”—because I think that we’re not encouraged to open our heart in all contexts. I’m looking for more of that in my own personal life and I’m putting it out there through my writing on the blog and newsletter.
This is my own personal practice to be more vulnerable and share how I’m looking for more joy and heart connection in my life. It’s become the most important thing to me, because I see all this beauty and joy that comes through heart connections with people, nature, plants, and really everything around me.
It’s a repainting of how I see the life that I’m living.
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