NUTRITIOUS MOVEMENT & THE GARDENER, with KATY BOWMAN
- Jennifer Jewell
- 5 days ago
- 6 min read
Summer makes it easy to move your body – to get out for a walk, to work in the garden, to hike, bike, stroll, boat, climb, swim, dance under the stars. Whatever calls you.
Are you meeting your body’s need for movement? Physical movement expert Katy Bowman, a biomechanist and founder of the Nutritious Movement, wants to know, and more specifically, she wants you to know.
As we know, many of us – most of us?? – do not move enough, and even if we do, we don’t get a balanced diet of movement. Which gardening can help with, and which Katy says is essential to a healthy body, mind, heart, and attitude. Katy joins us on Cultivating Place this week to share more.
And it is not just a matter of moving more, but moving more in a great diversity of ways, with all of your body’s moving parts. As gardeners, we know the consequences of overmoving or moving incorrectly in new ways each season and paying the price with our lower backs, our shoulders, and our hands. Katy has some thoughtful direction for us.
Katy is also the bestselling author of "Move Your DNA", "Movement Matters", "Grow Wild: The Whole-Child, Whole-Family Nature-Rich Guide To Moving More", and more. She believes we all need a healthy and balanced movement diet that maximizes the evolutionary roles of all of our moving parts. Gardening is a great start in the right direction; mindful gardening movement only makes it better.
Summer is a gardening season - and just an annual life season - that invites us to MOVE around with our bodies and activities in a lot of ways.
As a gardener who loves what gardening allows and invites me into by way of a great diversity of movement, but also as an aging gardener, I am personally
delighted to welcome Katy to Cultivating Place this week and this season!
Follow Katy Online:
And on Instagram:
All photos courtesy of Katy Bowman, individual credits in image titles, all rights reserved.
If you enjoyed this program, you might also enjoy these
Best of CP programs in our archive:
JOIN US again next week, when Guest host Bed Futa is back and in conversation with Marc Sardi, a Montreal-Based scientist turned floral artist who has reinvented his relationship with the natural world, and himself, along with changing careers. It’s an authentic conversation exploring how rediscovering our most authentic relationship with plants also allows us to know ourselves, and our world, better. That's right here, next week. Listen in!
Cultivating Place is made possible in part by listeners like you and by generous support from
supporting initiatives that empower women and help preserve the planet through the intersection of environmental advocacy, social justice, and creativity.
Thinking out loud this week...
When Katy talked about a healthy movement diet, you know my mind went
As all parents paying attention to their children’s nutritional intake know, it’s not really about a balanced diet in one meal but rather over the course of a day or a week. So, when you think about your healthy gardening allowance in the course of a week – are you getting your weekly allowance of just sitting or strolling without an ,agenda outdoors? Are you getting enough high impact gardening – weeding, pruning, raking, watering? Enough time picking or arranging flowers or herbs for beauty and pleasure and the serious sensory integration? Enough time incorporating flowers or herbs into food?
If you had a HEALTHY and regulated weekly gardening/outdoor time allowance, visiting and exchanging energy with your plant and soil friends, and their wildlife friends – what would it look like?
What would the benefits of this be? What would this model as health and sanity, and healthy priorities to others?
I am working on my weekly allowance. And don’t forget that some of this time should really be about just being there –not an easy task for many of us, and yet, so many rewards from just this.
In Public Growing Announcements this week:
First Up, OUR NEXT Quarterly CP COMMUNING GATHERING on June 17th at 9 am Pacific, 12 noon eastern in preparation for the Summer Solstice IS now open for registration – if you have attended one before you will receive an email invitation to pre-register for this one in preparation, otherwise find links to register soon on the events page or in our bio on Instagram. Space is limited, so please register early, registration is free, but donations are gladly accepted.
This CP COMMUNING, Ben Futa will be our featured speaker focusing in on biodiversity– what it is, what it means to us specifically and how it shows up or doesn’t in our garden lives and how to nurture more of it in all the ways: ecologically, socially, culturally, spiritually, economically even. Can’t wait to be together again – our intentions set in the last meeting before the Vernal Equinox and ripe and rich in my mind. Remembering to notice joy, to nurture joy in the simplest ways, and to also not force joy in moments or spaces where that is not the most important sensation or emotion to take care of – sometimes we have to tend to grief, frustration, and even confusion before we can make space for JOY.
The emotional landscape is a divine diversity too….
Flower farmers and Flowers are in full swing right now, and there are so many good reads, and related events to do with Frances Palmer’s new book: "Life with Flowers", just hit the shelves (yes, an interview with her will be out a little later in the season) and that was on top of Ngoc Minh Ngo’s gorgeous latest, Roses, and the new fabulous compilation from the Slow Flowers Society The Flower Farmers – that entire collective of floral humans has some amazing events taking place all around the country wherever these flower farmers are – make sure to check out the collective and individual websites or Instagrams to stay on top of good things happening near you.
Over in the United Kingdom, if you do not follow Garden Masterclass, you should. So many great events in person in gardens over there but also great online offerings for us on this side. Lectures, movies, webinars. All good growing stuff!
And finally, as we are on the cusp of June, June is host to National Pollinator Week, June 16-22, 2025, and in Colorado, June is Pollinator Month. People and Pollinators, an advocacy and policy group in COLORADO will be our guest
during Pollinator Week and on June 12th, they are hosting a free online-friendly how-to session on using iNaturalist with PPAN Board Member, Dr. Julie Morris.Â
And June 27th — Colorado Pollinator Network's 2025 Big Day of Bugs will be
taking place at Denver Botanic Gardens.
WAYS TO SUPPORT CULTIVATING PLACE
Cultivating Place is a co-production of North State Public Radio, a service of Cap Radio, licensed to Chico State Enterprises. Cultivating Place is made possible in part listeners just like you through the support button at the top right-hand corner of every page at Cultivating Place.com.
The CP team includes producer and engineer Matt Fidler, with weekly tech and web support from Angel Huracha, weekly communications support by Sheila Stern and Carley Bruckner, transcripts by Doulos Transcription, and regular guest hosting by Abra Lee and Ben Futa. We’re based on the traditional and present homelands of the Mechoopda Indian Tribe of the Chico Rancheria. Original theme music is by Ma Muse, accompanied by Joe Craven and Sam Bevan.
SHARE the podcast with friends: If you enjoy these conversations about these things we love and which connect us, please share them forward with others. Thank you in advance!
RATE the podcast on iTunes: Or wherever you get your podcast feed: Please submit a ranking and a review of the program on Itunes! To do so follow this link: iTunes Review and Rate (once there, click View In Itunes and go to Ratings and Reviews)
DONATE: Cultivating Place is a listener-supported co-production of North State Public Radio. To make your listener contribution – please click the donate button below. Thank you in advance for your help making these valuable conversations grow.
Or, make checks payable to: North State Public Radio - with Cultivating Place in subject line
and mail to: Cultivating Place
PO Box 37
Durham, CA 95938