Several years ago, if you were to ask Marina Escobar how she defined passion, her response would sound quite different than it does today. For nearly three decades, she spent much of her professional life in media, specifically television. She served as Vice President of Visual Technology at ESPN and led teams to create groundbreaking on-screen innovations in augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR). In this role, she and her teams were recognized with accolades like the Best of Disney (owner of ESPN) and multiple Sports Emmys. Escobar has been an advisory board member for the Center for Sport, Peace, & Society, helping global leaders create a more peaceful, equitable, and inclusive world using sport, and was honored as one of the Most Powerful Women in Cable in 2017. These were very big shoes to wear — a powerful executive with immense responsibility, in addition to her position as a Latina in an industry traditionally dominated by men. In that capacity, she was always focused on mentoring women in technology and empowering them to have a seat at the table.
Now semi-retired, she still believes in the trails she has blazed for women, and many of her former mentees continue to reach out to her for professional advice; yet, her passions have become simpler, more pared down, and frankly, more beautiful. “I’d become so busy that I’d forgotten to notice and nurture the beauty around me: my parents, my family, and my garden,” Escobar says. “Now, my efforts are in being present; it’s now more important to take the time to be with those I love the most, to share moments that, if taken away, I would truly miss.”
For Escobar, family, food, and gardening are intimately intertwined. Her mother, 86 years old and currently battling Alzheimer’s, raised Escobar in a house where singing and dancing in the kitchen was as traditional as the Colombian food they prepared while doing so. Gardening was a big part of her childhood, and much of the food they used in the shared experience of cooking came from plants they tended themselves in their home garden. It was with these grounding familial experiences in mind that Escobar began to reevaluate and pivot her personal and professional goals for the future.
Today, instead of flights to Amsterdam or Los Angeles or Orlando (and the ‘round-the-clock meetings that came with them), she’s sourcing seeds, sketching garden layouts, researching soils, and making meals with her family from the bountiful garden she and her husband have created. She has rediscovered the beauty of gardening, and the joy it has brought with it convinced her that she needed to share her experience.
Initially, Escobar struggled with how she could encourage others to create their own gardens from which they could (literally) enjoy the fruits of their own labor. She began by joining numerous online gardening networks and spent months studying and attending sessions to become a Certified Garden Consultant. Her posts online stood out — not only because they were vibrant and professionally composed (thanks to her long career in media), but also because they offered information that was clearly in demand. Escobar found herself frequently answering gardening questions that she had assumed were common knowledge. One morning, she woke up to over 2,000 views and hundreds of questions after posting pictures of her raised garden beds with “My Paradise” as the tagline. She realized there was a growing desire for the gardening knowledge she had gathered over her lifetime, and with so many people working from home in 2020, Escobar saw an opportunity to teach them about growing and harvesting food. Thus was born Escobar’s newest venture, Seed Your Soul.
The purpose of Seed Your Soul is to bring the gift and joy of gardening to families. This deceptively simple mission spawned a multifaceted enterprise. Part of what Escobar offers through it is general guidance, in the form of an email newsletter that includes seasonal gardening advice, recipes, and more, but the heart of her business is in her personal, customized consultations. Whether in-house or virtual, Escobar offers a full range of garden planning services. Her “DIY Herb Garden in a Pot” package is great for beginners who have yet to develop any sort of green thumb, especially for those who have limited or only indoor growing space available. However, more experienced home gardeners can also benefit from Escobar’s expertise. Her longer consultations can take the form of full garden design, from the ground up, or a garden “refresh,” in which Escobar evaluates an existing home garden and proposes renovation ideas that will help it become a more bountiful food producer.
Beyond initial assessments, Escobar also offers seasonal coaching and garden maintenance plans, perfect for dedicated home gardeners who want to keep their plants in top form. Regardless of the size of the garden project, Escobar’s core tenet is always the same: to show her clients how to grow the most organic food possible in the space they have available and, in the process, provide a place that nourishes the soul as well as the body.
As the year stretches into autumn, gardening tasks begin shifting from the seeding, growing, and tending of plants to the gratifying bounty of harvest. In Connecticut, fall marks the arrival of the greatest variety of locally grown, fresh, seasonal vegetables, and while Seed Your Soul is primarily focused on producing these, Escobar, herself, is no stranger to putting them to use, too. In between stints at television networks, Escobar helped manage her family’s restaurant, La Pequena Colombia, in Jackson Heights, Queens, and in 2004, Escobar and her mother were featured guests on Food Network’s Cooking Live with Sara Moulton, sharing their talent and love for their family’s Colombian cuisine. Seed Your Soul’s mission — Dream it, Plan it, Grow it, Eat it — concludes in the kitchen, and in the spirit of sharing that infuses all aspects of that motto, Escobar offers two of her favorite recipes for your own kitchen.
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