GREEN Organic Garden Podcast

Peter Ramos has been gardening on Long Island’s temperate climate for almost 20 years, and has learned many methods for being effective and efficient with a busy family life. He’ll share successful strategies for creating healthy compost, planting perennial beds that look beautiful and enhancing the landscape and some trials and tribulations of growing trees. Tell us a little about yourself. Live in the suburbs about 30 miles, a little over an hour from New York City on Long Island, kind of the opposite of the Peter you talked to yesterday who lives further out on the island, so your classic suburb, part of a sort of development area, we’ve lived here almost 20 years.  So I live here with my wife and 2 daughters. And you could reference the interview you did with our mom on episode 10 and you could get two perspective growing up on Long Islands. I like you were very influenced by our parents, both my wife and I love gardening alot. I could talk about how they influenced me to doing a compost pile. Growing up we did that, and when of the first things we did when we first moved in, I’m not gonna say I did it right away, but after a couple of years, we were lucky enough to have a little area behind the garage which was out of site, cause it’s one of those things where everyone has to make those decisions. If they’re doing a compost pile, like where am I gonna put it? Cause it’s not the super most attractive thing, so where am I gonna put it, do I have to worry about smell, or anything and animals. And I was able to find this area, I put it behind the garage by the fence. The first one I bought this border type fence, and I put that in the ground, and I carved out between a 4’x8′ area. It’s like 2’ or 3’ wood slats, the kind of thing you put around the garden, like a white picket fence, rolled up. I don’t know how else to describe it, but a border fence. That was the first go around. That lasted many years, then we remodeled the house, it got neglected, there was like debris on top of it, and it sort of got away from us. So then last year, I was finally able to get it going again, basically the second round, I was able to find some 2x4s and cut those up and put those into the ground and use some chicken wire up. So these are different ways of attacking it. I guess you can use some lime if you get smell, but we never had smell. Because we have a dog, we have a fenced in yard, which probably also helps. People think – the suburb we live in, we get racoons, and possums, you get squirrels & rabiits, etc, because we have a cat and adog, we never have too many problems with pests or occassionally we get a squirrel who I guess attacks certain things. So in the decision you have to think about where am I gonna put it and how am I gonna conatin it? So there are things I always talk to people about. Do you want to put it behind some shrubs, where is a good spot maybe that is gonna be tucked away? It’s not the most attractive thing for people to look at. We’ve been lucky that way. And also, in terms of building it, I was lucky to have some found things around it was really easy to do, and now we’re very excited about it again! Do you want to share what you put in it? Pretty basic. All of our vegetable scraps from our food prep, we do a lot of cooking. Through spring, summer, into fall, go dormant for the winter.  We add egg shells, coffee grinds, tea, tea bags, then of course we try to do as much, grass clippings, obviously the grass that’s cut we put in there. Then we do that throughout that period, then we reach that point, where we get in the fall, and just cover it with leaves, let it sit through the winter, then come the spring you turn it over and you’ve got it to use. And that’s basically it and it works... Support this podcast

Marie Ramos taught elementary school for over 31 years. She has lived in the same house in NY for over 73 years and has lots of gardening knowledge to share. Tell me about your first gardening experience? Home and in backyard Knew at early age what vegetables were called. What does organic gardening/earth friendly mean to you? Protecting our soil from pesticides. Hard in suburbia landscapers spray pesticides which is also very bad for pets… that’s why there are poison flags on lawns. Who or what inspired u to start using organic techniques? Just read about it. How did you learn how to garden organically? Learning from scientists and library books, believe in doing things naturally, banana peels around rose bushes make them bloom, companion planting. Tell us about something that grew well this year. Depends on weather cycle – storms last year badly damaged plants and even killed a few…grow mostly herbs which are wonderful plants. Fennel, sage, thyme, oregano, basil, Borel, marjoram, chives, santalina, lavender, lemon-balm, orange mint, rosemary, sorrel. Plant edible herbs right outside back door for cooking ease. Mint and garlic are good for repelling insects and basil is good for tomato horn worm. Is there something you would do different next year? Depends on weather Tell me about something that didn’t work so well this season. Garden never stays still – a movable feast – always needs changed around… Something that u find is easy to grow and is generally successful every-time Pineapple sage…is an annual. Grows to about 3 feet high, late bloomer…wonderful aroma when you rub leaves and has a beautiful red flower. Something you would steer new gardeners away from that you find is typically challenging to grow in your climate Things not natural to our country…stuff from overseas….Bamboo can be invasive weed that will overtake In order to attract birds and butterflies and bees you want to plant things that are native to your area. Do you have any secrets for preserving food-making it last?  Donate – cook and freeze. Prefer dried herbs to frozen…do freeze pesto. Poach fruit for wintertime. Peel fruit, and put it in hole. Know it’s cooked when you put a knife in it and it’s soft. Doesn’t need too much liquid, because it makes it own juice, put a cinnamon stick in it. To make apple or pear butter, poach and then put in blender and add some spices. Lots of recipes online. Eating or harvesting vegetables or fruit on time?  Plan garden as to when they come up. Lettuce is an early spring vegetable, it bolts in heat of summer, then in fall it comes up good again. Some veggies grow quickly, peas are early spring, not summer. Had a wonderful squash success last year. Do you have any special techniques for cooking weird or unusual foods? Squash flowers, need... Support this podcast

I saw Daniel on Meet the Farmer last week on TV and I got his website up and contacted Dan and here he is already! I learned so much just in the first two minutes of watching the show and I know a lot of you are going to be excited to learn today too! Daniel is one of the first people called when a swarm needs removed. Daniel runs the NJBees.com website full of information about bees and you can also find out how to become trained as a beekeeper yourself. Tell us a little about yourself. I began beekeeping about 5 years ago. I was visiting a friend of mine’s farm, I was giving him some help with his mobile chickens. I looked across the field and there’s this chain link fence with a bunch of boxes in it and  I asked him, “what’s that?” And he said, “those are my bees.” “Oh wow, cool, you have bees? What’s the chain link fence for it’s not gonna keep the bees in or out?” “It’s to keep the bears out!” “I’m like Bears …  bees …. I’m sold!” I started reading up on things, about 6 months later I purchased my first pack of bees. I do a whole bunch of bee rescue, I sell a whole bunch of honey.  I average about 20 hives that I manage right now, it’s a hobby sort of gone wild. Tell me about your first gardening experience? I can’t claim to be an expert gardener, when I was a very young child, my grandparents lived next door to a guy who tilled his backyard and made it into a wonderful garden. I was probably maybe 3-4 years, and I wander into his backyard, and he’d show me the  carrots, tomatoes and  various other things he grew. I’m very into the outdoors, I’ve been around gardeners, and gardening, I’ve done a lot of work, tangentially related to, but I’d say my earliest experiences were with Mr. Ribner in North Bergen NJ. You’re in NY, but isn’t your thing called NJBee? I’m born and bread in NJ, my primary home is in Teaneck, NJ I have bees in my backyard. Depending on the time of year, between 4 and 6 hives in my backyard I have a number I have a summer home in Woodridge, NY. That’s where my garden is, that’s where my big apiary is. When I started I was reluctant to keep bees in my backyard. Teaneck is Urban, so I was nervous, I have neighbors etc. So when I first started keeping bees I kept them in Woodridge which is much more rural. I’ve got about 10 hives there, I also keep them in Eldred NY, also have bees in Manhattan right over Central Park. I keep bees on a roof in  Teaneck I’ve got bees in a number of locations. I travel back and forth, it takes about an hour and 20 min, about 80 miles. The bees make the trip. They’re limited to a 3 mile radius outside the hive. I often move hives from one location It’s better to start with them in Teaneck, we have an earlier spring We have a summer dearth in NJ, and there’s still a whole bunch of flora upstate so I transition bees. Later summer into fall, I move a lot of my hives upstate because they’re still productive. What you take the hives at night? We wait till evenings, when I first started moving hives, I actually sealed them up, I was worried about losing a bee or two. I position the entrance so the wind won’t blow in it, I reduce the entrance, I don’t want to lock the entrance so I don’t have to worry about temperature. I move under the cover of darkness sometimes they’ll hang out on the front porch of the pickup, once you start moving the van they go inside the hive. As long they are 3 miles away they’re not gonna return to the original location. Then do Support this podcast

Who or what inspired u to start using organic techniques? Wouldn’t do it any other way. How did you learn how to garden organically? Grandmother Tell us about something that grew well this year. Tomatoes Is there something you would do different next year? Dedicate more time to my own garden, I spend too much time taking care of other people’s gardens. Tell me about something that didn’t work so well this season. Kale Do you have any secrets for preserving food-making it last?  Freeze almost everything. Only cans some salsa and fruits. Eating or harvesting vegetables or fruit on time?  Have to go out at least every other day and keep on top of stuff A favorite recipe you like to cook? Garden Chowder – with zucchini, tomato, corn, with lots of milk and cheese in it. Very hardy garden soup. A favorite tool that you like to use? If you had to move and could only take one tool with you what would it be. Rototiller. Big and small. Doesn’t use deep beds. Likes to weed by hand with a trowel. Likes to use grass clippings for mulch in the garden. A favorite reading material-book, mag, blog/website etc you can  Rodale Books excellent resource. Go To books. Parting Advice It’s important to make sure you know where your manure is coming from. The herbicide that the cows are eating lasts into the manure. Need to make sure you ask if they are feeding the cows “weed-free” hay because it can lead to stunted vegetables. Also tip for growing potatoes, is that scab only grows in alkaline soil, so you need to add sulfur to soil to balance ph.   Thanks for visiting Mike’s Green Garden. If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/organic-gardener-podcast/id962887645 If you have any comments, questions, guests you’d like to see, or topics you’d like us to cover please send us any feedback positive or negative. We’re here to serve our audience and we can only improve with your help!!! Thanks for visiting Mike’s Green Garden changing the world one garden at a time. Support this podcast

Tell us a little about yourself. Peter is a retired chemical engineer from the hi-tech software sector. He’s been gardening for about 30 years, until about 3 years ago had only perennials in gardens. He has 10 different gardens now spread out across several acres. Peter developed a custom software irrigation  system to manage the diverse eco-climates that accounts for light, wind, soil, temperature. Then he developed some more software to manage plants in the house so they could take a vacation during the winter. Living on the Canadian shield which is solid limestone in Ottawa makes gardening a challenge. Created Seed Haven to reduce pests in his garden, deal with the short season and reduce water usage. Seed Haven works in your own garden soil providing a naturally safe barrier for your vegetables and herbs to thrive from seeds or transplants to harvest. It protects your investment in time and money so you can provide those fresh natural organic vegetables and herbs for your family. If you’ve experienced the frustration of losing many or even all of your vegetables and herbs to pests, Seed Haven is right for you. Tell me about your first gardening experience? Were playing darts at local pub and joined by a couple who were horticulturalists back in 1988. What does organic gardening/earth friendly mean to you? Cutting down on artificial tools used to grow just about everything these days, quality, taste, safety and environmental impact. Who or what inspired you to start using organic techniques? Has 2 vegetarian granddaughters and getting to see them pick veggies and just eat them is lots of fun! How did you learn how to garden organically? Started organically, don’t use pesticides anywhere on property. Peter is a ground water specialist as well and understands this is not good for well. Tell us about something that grew well this year. Cold and lots and lots of rain, but still had a decent harvest of green beans, carrots, and beets. Is there something you would do different next year or want to try/new? Experiment with a bigger variety of vegetables. Have little sun because they live on a treed lot. Tell me about something that didn’t work so well this season. Tomatoes Something that you find is easy to grow and is generally successful every-time. Beans, beans, and more beans, usually green and yellow bush beans. Something you would steer new gardeners away from that you find is typically challenging to grow in your climate. Squash and melon because they don’t have a long enough season and they have powdery mildew everywhere. Rotation not possible in smaller beds. Which activity is your least favorite activity to do in the garden. Really don’t, because gardening is always therapeutic. What is your favorite activity to do in the garden. Picking crops with granddaughters. Nice to see which day lily is going to bloom. A favorite tool that you like to use? If you had to move and... Support this podcast

Joey and Holly Baird from thewisconsinvegetablegardener.com.  They are a couple living in the Milwaukee area of Wisconsin who produce weekly online videos, write for a number of newspaper, and also have a quarterly digital magazine.  Their information not only covers organic vegetable gardening, but cooking, canning, homesteading, urban gardening, and more.  This information is valid for everybody, regardless of where they live.  They reach a worldwide audience. Tell me about your first gardening experience? Joey grew up on an agricultural farm. Holly grew up in suburbs of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Joey always had a garden growing up full of tomatoes, green beans, peppers, etc. Holly had a small garden about 4’x4’ with sunflower seeds that grew out of the compost pile. What does organic gardening/earth friendly mean to you? Grandparents gardened that way naturally, and because that was how you had vegetables to eat. OG is a way to mimic nature, make less of an impact on nature, and get reward of harvesting probably a better harvest! Who or what inspired you to start using organic techniques? Just thought food does take a little bit of work so why would you add chemicals to the healthy food that you are growing? How did you learn how to garden organically? Pick it up from older generation, lots of information on internet that will save you a lot of time and learn what grows in your area which is so important. Tell us about something that grew well this year. from http://thewisconsinvegetablegardener.com Jerusalem Artichokes also known as Sunchokes – a white tuber that grows sort of like a potato but is less starchy. Is there something you would do different next year or want to try/new? Going to grow some yacons ( a tropical plant but can grow in Wisconsin?) can eat and cook watermelon crossed with an apple but they look like sweet potatoes Tell me about something that didn’t work so well this season. Tomato horn worm got into tomatoes Something that you find is easy to grow and is generally successful every-time. Leaf lettuce and root vegetables and generally tomatoes grow well too. Something you’d steer new gardeners away from that you find is typically challenging to grow in your climate. Really hot peppers. A favorite tool that you like to use? If you had to move and could only take one tool with you what would it be. Flat tine garden fork for aerating soil, compost, digging up potatoes Eating or harvesting vegetables or fruit on time?  Tomatoes ripen from inside out and bottom to top. Harvest if you start to see a pigment change on the bottom, then go ahead and pick it. Do you have any secrets for preserving food-making it last?  Can can, pickle, use lacto fermantation, dehydrate things, store in a root cellar or cool storage in home. Facebook groups – people are sharing recipes. Canning is definitely a science, simple but takes some prep work. Use a recipe that was published after 1995, can always talk to local extension agent to check on safety. Need to know the difference... Support this podcast

Tell us a little about yourself. James Brake is creator. I’m born and raised in Mississippi and spent a lot of time on my grandfather’s farm. Was a very technically oriented kid. Went off to travel in the world for a number of years, always stayed in computers, but always had multiple home gardening projects including hydroponics to grow vegetables and stuff when I lived in California and I’ve taken it to a new step here. Now you’re in Hawaii, right? Are you all in Hawaii? Yes, we are all in Hawaii. Greg, I’m originally from NJ, after college did a lot of work in technical sales, taking an engineering degree to kind of help folks develop businesses and technological solutions and deliver those solutions accordingly, as well. Krysta Carmack, was unable to connect without static so she types a few answers here and there. The Growbot, is about the size of a coffee table, and what it does is it grows a salad pretty much everyday in that coffee table are size. It uses hydroponics, kind of automation for adding the plant food and adding the water, so you don’t have to think about it. You just put it in your backyard, connect the hose, you put in your seeds, and then about ten days later most of your seeds should have sprouted, so you take off the germination cups, and about 4 weeks later most lettuce is ready to start harvesting. Most of the varieties of lettuce that we recommend that you grow is the kind that perpetually grows new leaves. You can also grow kale, carrots, and other types of root vegetables, there’s an area of that as well. That’s kind of the basics of it. The core thing is it’s very very easy to use is what I was striving for and also it’s very economical.  For getting that salad a day, plus some kale and some other vegetables on less then a dollar a day in plant food, which is just  a mixture of bird manure which is guano, seaweed, folic acid, which are all naturally sourced. Folic acid is in soil and sea water, it’s a naturally occurring substance, source for this is a mineral called leonardite. So it’s on Kickstarter?  It’s gonna be on Indiegogo. I’ve been building prototypes, testing out the technology for about 7 years. I started in California with a really big one, that my wife wasn’t happy with how big it was, it wasn’t portable. So the next one that I built, had a much smaller footprint, and was portable so if we wanted to have a barbecue or the kids want to use the backyard for kickball etc., we could easily move it out of the way and then move it back to the center of yard, where the best light was. Then we moved to Hawaii, and we built this Growbot. So this Growbot has the small footprint and we can just pick it up with 2 people and move it back to where you want it. It’s got 7 years of work on it, multiple versions of it, looking for what worked best. This particular model, we started on it, and finished this design late last year,  actually had it completed early January, and the first plants growing in early February. We have it all documented. We haven’t had to buy lettuce since early March, kale came in a few weeks, later and that’s been doing fantastic. And we’ve had tomatoes, and cucumbers and things like that. I love this idea because it’s going to enable people who want to grow lettuce and vegetables in the winter, could you have it in the winter, is there enough light? I guess you could have grow lights?... Support this podcast

Tim Nichols from the Brewing Business Podcast will share his knowledge of growing organic vegetables and hops in Tuscon, Arizona to produce some of the finest tasting craft beer available. Tell me about your first gardening experience? 6 years old – Tuscon with Dad. Grew tomatoes and spices. What does organic gardening/earth friendly mean to you? Using all natural products and just using dirt in the ground. Who or what inspired u to start using organic techniques? Tim considers himself a naturalist and wouldn’t want chemicals in his own beer. How did you learn how to garden organically? Looked online for how to garden hops. Tell us about something that grew well this year. Beefsteak tomatoes – great yield from following organic techniques including how much sun and water to give plants. Is there something you would do different next year? Build more room for hops to spread out and grow more. Eating or harvesting vegetables or fruit on time?  Tomato lover so Tim tries to eat as fresh as possible. Hops is time consuming to harvest, but once harvested Tim vacuum seals them for up to 6 months. A favorite recipe you like to cook? Homemade tomato sauce with fresh herbs. A favorite tool that you like to use? If you had to move and could only take one tool with you what would it be? Hoola hoe to scrape weeds. A favorite internet resource? www.brewingbusinesspc.com and podcast. A favorite reading material-book, mag, or website etc you can recommend? If you have a business to you have any advice for our listeners about how to sell extra produce or get started in the industry? If you want to do it get out there and try it because there is a shortage of home brewers. Connect with your local home brewers association. Parting Piece of Advice? Just get out there and do it. Get your kids involved. @TimNicholsontap www.brewingbusinesspc.com podcasts brewing business and 52 weekend startup podcast Thanks for visiting Mike’s Green Garden. If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/organic-gardener-podcast/id962887645 If you have any comments, questions, guests you’d like to see, or topics you’d like us to cover please send us any feedback positive or negative. We’re here to serve our audience and we can only improve with your help!!! Thanks for visiting Mike’s Green Garden changing the world one garden at a time.  [contact-form subject='[Mike%26#039;s Green Garden’][contact-field label=’Name’ type=’name’ required=’1’/][contact-field label=’Email’ type=’email’ required=’1’/][contact-field label=’Website’ type=’url’/][contact-field label=’Comment’ type=’textarea’ required=’1’/][/contact-form] Support this podcast

Theodora Brennan makes salves, creams, lotions, etc from natural herbs that she grows or gathers in NW Montana. Tell me about your first gardening experience? My mother’s garden  in Southern California. What does organic gardening/earth friendly mean to you? Leaving the land better then you found it.                                  Who or what inspired u to start using organic techniques? Natural progression How did you learn how to garden organically? lots of failures….some successes Tell us about something that grew well this year. Strawberries  & Kale Tell me about something that didn’t work so well this season. Brocolli and cauliflower Something that you find is easy to grow and is generally successful everytime Lettuce, beets, carrots … cold weather crops. Something you’d steer new gardeners away from that you find is typically challenging to grow in your climate Corn, watermelon, and cantaloupe (there is a corn out of Alaska that’s been successful) Do you have any secrets for preserving food-making it last?  This year was able to dry garlic and onions in a dry place. Eating or harvesting vegetables or fruit on time?  Pick enough for one cannerful at a time Do you have any special techniques for cooking weird or unusual foods? Chickweed Pesto – Backyard Medicine (I also found this recipe for Chickweed Pesto online at Produce on Parade’s website) A favorite recipe you like to cook? Leafy greens sautee’d with eggs for an omlette for breakfast . For dinner – a salad with flowers like nasturtiums, hollyhocks, or daylillies. Daylily roots can be roasted like potatoes and the  blossoms can be stuffed with cheese, and the flowers can be cut up into egg rolls. Support this podcast

Last week I interviewed Jennifer Hill-Hart from AERO (Alternative Energy Resource Organization)  and when I mentioned my husband and my’s interest in biodiesel she recommended I get in touch with Bob Quinn. So I reached out to Bob and today he is here to share his story about his organic farm in Big Sandy! The Research Center strives to explore cutting-edge ideas on the high plains of Montana. It is located on the Quinn Organic Farm in Big Sandy, Montana, within the famed Golden Triangle. The experiments are conducted on small acreage in an effort to determine how a farm family can make a comfortable living on fewer acres. Current experiments include oilseeds for fuel and lubricants, storage and fresh vegetables, crop rotations, green manures, and weed management. Tell us a little about yourself. I was raised here in Big Sandy on the 2400 acre wheat and cattle ranch that my grandfather started in 1920 and my father continued to farm between 1948 – 1978. He was here 30 years. I’ve been here since 1978 with my family, so we’re pushing 40 years here pretty quick. Starting about 1983, I started a flour mill in Fort Benton, with the purpose of marketing our hard red winter wheat and spring wheat crops directly to whole grain bakers in California. We were just selling grain at the beginning. In 1984 we added organic grain that we bought from some organic farmers we found in North East corner of Montana. In 1985 we aded a flour mill. In ’88 we built our own cleaning plant, I had about 10 employees but it was about 50 miles away, so it was always a little bit of a management challenge because I still had my farm, I was farming full time. So finally sold it to an employee Andree Childs in 1999, he has expanded and done much better then I ever did, so I’m happy about that. I started converted to organic about 30 years ago starting experiments in 1985. Planted my first crop in 1986. I had my first 20 acre of certified grain in 1987. I was so excited about our experiments in 3 years transitioned the entire farm in 3 years, and by 1991 we were 100% certified organic and have been that way ever since! That’s gone very well for us. Very excited about it and excited to promote transition organic agriculture around Montana, the US, and around the world!!! That give a little introduction. About the same time in 1985-6 started the ancient grain product we market under the trade mark of KAMUT®. That has grown to the point we now contract with about 150 gardeners in MT, Alberta, Saskatchewan for about 80,000 acres. We sell the grain all over the world. The trademark means it’s always grown organically. Most people who have trouble eating modern wheat, have no trouble eating Kamut brand grain products. This is my son-in-law. How long have you been here? 4 years. Tell the folks if you love it or not. Yeah it’s great! Well I’m Jackie Beyer from the Organic Gardener Podcast Holey Moley Hello Everyone! Well Andrew came to me with an MBA not knowing anything about producing oil, and I said why don’t you try us out for a year, if you don’t like it you can go away with a business creation line on your resume and after 6 months he said he’s having more fun then any of his friends. We supply University of Montana, MSU, Botany Soap, conversation with some other big companies, we also do business with Organic Valley, and a lot of other health food stores as well. Another thing we do is we give back the waste oil and give it back from restaurants and university of food... Support this podcast

  Bio: LaDonna Kinnick CFH (Certified Family Herbalist) and organic gardener. Graduate of Dr.John R. Christopher’s School of Natural Healing. I incorporate herbal medicine with permaculture and hugelculture to maximize potential yields, health and wellness of the soil and plants and ultimately feed our bodies the most nutrient dense foods that I can. Tell me about your first gardening experience? 18 years old. Killed cactus. Never watered it or touched it or anything. Was a gift. Had never had any gardening experience. What does organic gardening/earth friendly mean to you? Contributing back to the earth. Giving back to the soil. Who or what inspired u to start using organic techniques? Becoming sick at 28-29 years old. Found out it was food.  Need for food without pesticides. How did you learn how to garden organically? Studied on internet. Worldwide encyclopedia. Husband farmer lineage still very much alive in his family. Tell us about something that grew well this year. Tomatoes. (New Hugelkultur (HOO-gul-culture)  – raised bed) Grapes – variety of superfood. Talked about aromatics helping keep bugs especially mosquitos at bay. http://www.mnn.com/your-home/organic-farming-gardening/stories/hugelkultur-the-ultimate-raised-garden-bed Is there something you would do different next year? Change the time when planting fruit trees. Would plant in “Hugel culture” tight bedding. Do you have any secrets for preserving food-making it last?  freezing and dehydrating make sure you don’t under hydrate Do you have any special techniques for cooking weird or unusual foods? Okra which can be kinda slimy but is good for our bodies. Eat it right off the plant nice and crunchy. Can freeze it just raw and comes out just like from the garden. A favorite recipe you like to cook? Any kind of sauce or dish with tomatoes. A favorite tool that you like to use? If you could only have one tool that you could keep what would it be? My hands. A rake and a shovel and hand pruner A favorite internet resource? Geoff Lawton – Permaculturist. Teaches how to take deprived land and regenerate it. Greening the Desert (middle east desert) A favorite reading material-book, mag, blog/website etc you can recommend for our listeners? Studied Herbal Medicine. A favorite song you listen to when working in your garden? No music just the birds. How about an inspirational tip for gardeners? Anybody can do it. Don’t have to have experience or lineage. Companion planting does so much, it’s just fantastic. Thanks for visiting Mike’s Green Garden. If you like what you heard on the Support this podcast

Tell us a little about yourself. My husband and I live in Boise ID, in a main urban part of town, on a standard lot. There’s just the two of us, we have three kids who are grown and live in the area, 1 cat and 3 chickens. For the last ten years we have developed an urban homestead with fruit trees, perennial vegetable gardens, summer gardens because the climate in Boise, ID is very cold in the winter and hot and dry in the summer. We try to become more self-sufficient, do organic gardening and work with the weather. At sort of ground level, about 100-200 feet. High desert climate surrounded by hills that go up to about 4-5000 feet and then you get out into the high mountains of southern Idaho. Sort of a high desert, mountainous climate. Tell me about your first gardening experience? I thought about that a lot, the one person who really hooked me on gardening was my grandfather. I grew up in a little city called Pomona in California, he was what I called a master gardener without the certificates. He lived in a standard lot, he had an avacado tree, a peach tree and cumquats, and grapes and strawberries and had just an immaculate back yard and front yard and he just loved to garden, had been in WWI or WWII, and it was very theraputeic, my grandmotehr was a baker and canner, preserved foods, and knitted and crocheted, I just loved spending weekends with my grandparents. What does organic gardening/earth friendly mean to you? Look at it as trying to work as closely with nature as possible given different variables. I think it depends on how or where you’re living and what particular challenges you face where you are. Who or what inspired you to start using organic techniques? I’m in my late 50’s so I was a kid in the late 60-70’s and there was kind of a back-to-earth movement with the hippy culture. I think in the ’70s I started really looking at why are we using a lot of herbicides and pesticides and what’s going into our ground water, and as I became older and a home owner I was looking at what can I do to sort of work with nature more, to use less water and mulch, use less herbicides and pesticides and use other alternatives, use different kinds of products or natural ingredients that would reduce pests and weeds, and any kind of noxious things that were growing. How did you learn how to garden organically? I subscribe to Mother Earth News way way back when they first started publishing, read a lot of Rodale press over the years, that promoted organic gardening, and from going to nurseries and greenhouses and talking to other people and now with the internet, then it’s a matter of filtering of through all that information. I did become a master gardener through the University of ID, Boise ID. They did start offering permaculture classes. Tell us about something that grew well this year. Cool weather crops are doing great, have a couple of kinds of kale and some collard greens. Tomatoes and peppers planted, perennial vines – blackberries, raspberries, and marionberries.  Last year we had a great harvest of tomatoes and peppers, peppers were down a little bit, everyone in the valley said that last year. Had a great fruit harvest, nectarines, no apples last year, but our new baby pear tree even gave us some pears. Peppers I usually get small starts, I planted them in June and they were well watered and taken care of and the plants got really big, but there were no peppers, just kind of odd. There’s lots of small starts up this year. Bought a small greenhouse this year. I have some nice big 4′ green beans, and some basil and cilantro and a few other herbs coming up. Is there something Support this podcast

I’d also like to congratulate the winners of our 2015 Gardening Challenge!!! Shelly Clark who was also a guest on my show in episode 52 won the general challenge and a copy of Rodale’s Ultimate Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening. Shelly wanted to plant enough spinach, lettuce, kale, chard, kohlrabi, bok choy, cabbage, tomatoes, onions, cukes, peppers, herbs! Her successes…lettuce and mesclun, cabbage, kale, onions, cukes and tomatoes! and Kat Lindquist is the winner of my mom’s bonus herb challenge and will receive a copy of The Little Guides to Herbs What vegetable, fruit or flower do you want to grow? Kat said 8 basil plants= enough basil to make pesto each week (10 cups basil)! Support this podcast

Judy Hoysak is the brand manager of Perky Pet Birdfeeders, one of the oldest and largest bird feeding companies in the world. Judy’s here to help listeners learn how to bring more birds into their garden and make it bird-friendly habitat. Tell us a little about yourself. I work with PerkyPets which is one of the world’s oldest and largest bird feeding companies. We have a huge selection of bird feeders, everything from hummingbird feeders and nectar feeders to seed feeders. We supply most retailers that you go to, most feeders that you see in the stores are one of our Perky Pet birdfeeders. I came into the business because I had a passion for the products and the outdoors and I had a real passion for birds, I’m an avid birder, it brought all of my interests together. I love my job, i love to talk about birds, and I love to encourage and to get other people out there to get excited to feed birds. Have you been to Hawk Mountain in Pennsylvania? Yes, we are actually really close to Hawk Mountain and we have actually done some sponsorships events over there. It’s a fantastic group, one of my very favorite places in the world. I went up there during the migration last fall, just really amazing i think they saw like 10,000 hawks that flew over that day, one of the biggest days of the season. Evidently it was a very sacred Native American mountain, because of this really unique geography where as the hawks were flying through they are funneled through this area, its an absolutely beautiful place. Tell me about your first gardening experience? I grew up originally I’m from North Carolina, grew up in the suburbs, and was very ambivalent about the outdoors, everyone had a yard and a garden. I  was living in Brooklyn, I went to NY after I graduated my undergrad, I was just starved for nature, and I was obsessed with nature. My apartment started to resemble a jungle. I went and studied product design in NY and I was completely obsessed with this idea of my starvation with nature, I focused my masters theses on products that allowed people to interact with nature, so I created this kooky furniture line that allowed you to grow vegetables in your coffee table and and room deviders with beams? I was doing weird hydroponic experiments inside, just really fun experiments really wishing I had some outdoor space that I could get out there and garden anywhere I could possibly try to grow some vegetables I was trying. Now i live in rural Pennsylvania I have a yard and a garden. I’m actually digging in the dirt and growing some vegetables. It was something that was really missing from my life and essential to my character. I went to Pratt Institute! The Brooklyn Botanical Garden is also very inspirational. What does organic gardening/earth friendly mean to you? I am lucky to live in rural PA, we have Amish farms, and very, very many local farms in this area, I am very very fortunate, and just about everything I eat is from Lancaster County. I try to really get outside that mass produced food system, I prefer the freshness and taste of things that were grown locally, when you grow them yourself, you get so much more, you can eat a bean that was grown just a 10 seconds ago! Tastes so much better then even something picked yesterday! And this area too, it’s not necessarily a lot of the farms are certified organic, but they say they don’t spray or they are using minimum pesticides and keeping things as natural as possible because that’s the old way they have always done it, as long as your doing things in a pesticide free... Support this podcast

Leslie Reichert, “The Cleaning Coach”, is a nationally-recognized green homekeeping expert dedicated to educating people on keeping their homes, schools and work areas “green”. From obvious dangers like toxic chemicals under the sink to hidden hazards that can be found in the office, Leslie helps teach simple steps to keeping families and pets safe from hidden toxins and health risks. Leslie Reichert’s mission is to teach and encourage others in the “art” of green home keeping. She has a book called the “Joy of Green Cleaning” I quickly ordered on amazon for my kindle easy peasy! Well probably all of your gardening people are listening going what why are we gonna be talking about cleaning?! This is a little weird. but I’ve been in the business for about 24 years, a lot of speaking, most of what I do locally is with garden clubs. It’s fascinating to see when we talk, you’re gonna see how we can marry gardening and cleaning into one really fabulous healthy way of doing things! So I’ve been doing that for 24 years. I started with my own housekeeping service long ago, I grew it to be too big. The reason I got into the green aspect is I became the guru of shower cleaning. I became the Expert shower cleaner. I used what was then allowed to be used called Boraxo. That was the  cleaner that they used on Fiberglass boats. After years and years of using that, I ended up getting very very sick. We found out it was the chemicals in cleaning products that we’re using. I started researching things and I found out that there is an easier better way to do things. Most of what I learned is it’s the same stuff that our great grandmothers used to use. And so that’s why I wrote my book! Joy of Green Cleaning Tell me about your first gardening experience? Gardening for me, was interesting, ’cause my dad had a big old vegetable garden in Western Pennsylvania and he loved to sit and watch while we weeded. As kids that was our job! He’d sit in the lawn chair! When I first think of gardening. I always thought ugh I hate gardening, I think of the weeding aspect of it. I grew up in Pennsylvania. Everyone in our neighborhood had great big gardens. Noone ever thought of organic gardenign at all back in that day. Since I’ve had my own home Clean Green Living, we talk about clean living, clean green eating, clean gardening, and when we talk about clean gardening it’s about using less of the things people are selling you in the store and getting back to what is natural. I’m getting better at becoming an organic gardener! I’m excited to connect with you. I originally thought this would be a topic based podcast that Mike would just teach people, but this has worked out better, it’s been so interesting and I’ve met so many cool friends!  What does organic gardening/earth friendly mean to you? Well, like I said what it means to me, organic gardening is basically going back to, again my great grandmother grew up on a farm in Western PA. It’s so interesting if you look at some of the pictures she’s wearing back then, she’s wearing an old cotton long dress, it’s so sweet, that’s basic gardening, you’re just out there with a hoe. They never used a lot of fertilizers, it was just using what was in the ground, and a little bit of water, and using... Support this podcast

  No time to sit still for this veteran, he’s a baker by day, gardener by night, good luck keeping up with this gentleman. Get ready to have your mouth watering at the sounds of cheese twists, jalepeno fire tongues and huckleberry muffins he bakes at his German Bakery called the Backstube Edelweiss in Arlee, MT. He also shares tips on growing in our challenging Montana climate and some money saving ideas for extending your season with homemade hoop-houses. Tell us a little about yourself. I’m a born native Montanan, lived in Europe for 30 years and then decided to come back to Montana. The time I was in Europe and Germany, I didn’t do a lot of farming, but I did know a lot of older farmers that were in their 60’s and 70’s back then and that was quite a few years ago, they showed me a lot of simple but very effective gardening tips and stuff like that, it all has to do with simplicity. The easier you make it, usually the better it is. This is the first year that I’ve had the garden here. I also have a bakery. The bakery got started because of Europe, I really missed their breads and pasteries, so we started going to the farmers market with baked goods and next thing you know I have this full blown bakery, which supports the community very well and the community supports us very well, and it’s kind of the way it goes with gardening, you know, it’s one hand washes the other, it’s fun and I enjoy it! It’s a lot of work, yes, but I think the proceeds are better, they say, you harvest what you sow … Gardening, everybody glorifies organic now-a-days, they say you need to be organic certified through the agricultural department and pay all of these fees through the agriculture department to get a certificate to be organic. To me, if a person has a garden, its their conscious that lets them say, either I’m organic or not. If I dump 40 gal of chemical to make it grow, there’s no way in the world I can say I’m organic.  But if I take 5lbs of chicken manure, then yes, I can say it organic fertilizer, it’s not chemical, it’s organic. To me organic is going back to the basics of life, keeping things neat. Weeds are a problem, maybe you’re harvest isn’t quite as big as Joe next door that’s using Mircale Grow and all this other stuff in his garden, but I think mine probably tastes better. Tell me about your first gardening experience? Born in Kalispell, and raised in a little town between East and West Glacier called Essex. Essex was my very first gardening experience, I was probably 8 years old, the only thing we had growing season time, a little bit of lettuce and radishes. The growing season’s probably from the first part of June till the end of August, if you have that long of a period even? If you’re not getting your crop eaten by deer. Almost dead center between East and West Glacier, on Highway 2, which is a fun highway, it’s got a lot of neat scenery. Horseradish grows really well up there, and rhubarb. But gardening itself was basically just radishes and lettuce. Then in the early ’70s to mid 70’s we moved down to the West Valley side of Kalispell, we went from a little garden in Essex to a garden down there that was probably about 20 x 80. That was more from necessity then pleasure, we had a pretty good size family, and times back in the ’70’s were pretty hard … Then we started to garden. My step-dad was the one that was kind of the instigator of it all, and us kids had to do it all of the work. Then I joined the military and went to Europe, that’s where I started. I had a little garden but didn’t really have a lot Support this podcast

   Jamie Todek is a listener who reached out to me and with a little coaxing is on the show today to share her gardening journey which is just beginning! Jamie shares her struggles, successes and passion for creating not just a place to grow food but caring for our planet with intelligence and care. Graphic designer by day, gardener by night, Jamie builds her skills and knowledge base as she combines these loves at her website the Astric Studio.  Tell us a little about yourself. Well, I’m born and raised Michigander. I’m 27 years old, me and my boyfriend just moved out of Suburbia to Oxford, it’s a little bit of a rural town in Michigan. We have 13-15 acres, about half of it is farmable and then we have a 2 acre pond and some wooded area as well. We’re just loving it, it’s so much fun! Tell me about your first gardening experience? Well I remember growing up with my mom mainly, she would garden a little bit in our backyard, I just remember playing with the compost a lot, helping her turn it, finding a lot of worms. Like me, I have 2 brothers, and we would have clear buckets, we would have worm farms, I was thinking maybe that could be why I’m very conscious of the soil. Having a big brother as a kid is the best! Yeah, it makes life interesting for sure! What does organic gardening/earth friendly mean to you? Earth Friendly gardening to me means, growing your own vegetables or flowers and disrupting the natural cycle of things as little as possible. So not only are you using less fertilizers and chemical additives to it, but you can get organic things that also impact the natural course of bees and other insects, so it’s just being conscious that even the little things will roll, if they don’t get solved it develops a larger problem, letting nature run its own course, pretty much. Who or what inspired you to start using organic techniques? It all goes back to I used to be a very big meat eater, and in high school one of my friends bet me that for lent I could not give up meat, and I ended up doing a research paper on vegetarianism. And from there I’ve always been health conscious. And then in college I did some research papers on GMOs and learned all of the harmful things that can cause  can be not only to yourself but to the environment.  So wanting to stay away from those, led to what is causing that? OK, chemicals. So let’s try and grow organically so we can help the world be healthier. I heard this woman called Vani Hari on Lewis Howe’s School of Greatness. And she goes by the name Food Babe, and she is developing the Food Babe Army, she doesn’t really like that name, but it stuck. But she is doing these studies that are changing the world. She’s the one that got Chipolte to list their ingredients, and then lately I think she is responsible for Kraft Food, that were putting dyes in American food but they weren’t able to put it in food in Europe and now I think they don’t put that dye here either anymore because she got so many people to sign her petitions. She influenced me to really give up processsed food. It’s right up my alley, it’s amazing the kind of things Europe bans that are still legal in the U.S. It’s the public’s duty to do the research themselves so I really commend her on all of her work. She really kind of fell... Support this podcast

Tell me about your first gardening experience? In Africa What does organic gardening/earth friendly mean to you? Not using any chemicals Who or what inspired you to start using organic techniques? Rodales Organic Gardening How did you learn how to garden organically? Reading the Organic Gardening Magazine Tell us about something that grew well this year. All the cold crops, carrots, potatoes, beets, snap pea pods, kohlrabi, herbs, medical marijuana Is there something you would do different next year or want to try/new? Not really after 34 years. Did try sunflowers last year for first time, but froze right before harvest. Tell me about something that didn’t work so well this season. Tomatoes – heirloom. Grew last year but didn’t work this year. Something that you find is easy to grow and is generally successful every-time. Carrots, potatoes, beets, kohlrabi, lettuce, peas, any cold weather crops. Something you’d steer new gardeners away from that you find is typically challenging to grow in your climate Cukes. Eating or harvesting vegetables or fruit on time?  Pick a variety of veggies and make 2 gallons of mixed vegetables, veggies packs Do you have any special techniques for cooking weird or unusual foods? Steam a lot and fry in ghee – clarified butter, shelf life – infinity. Make ghee from cow’s milk, best time to make it right after your cow calves and your cow goes to eating grass. A favorite recipe you like to cook? Potato salad – secrets: green olives & dill A favorite tool that you like to use? If you had to move and could only take one tool with you what would it be. At the dollar store got a little hoe and fork on one end. A favorite reading material-book, mag, blog/website etc you can  Rodale’s Organic Gardening Carla Emery Old Fashion Recipe Book – encyclopedia of country living http://smile.amazon.com/Encyclopedia-Country-Living-Fashioned-Recipe/dp/0912365951/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1424996197&sr=8-2&keywords=Carla+Emery+Old+Fashion+Recipe+Book Final question- if there was one change you would like to see to create a greener world what would it be? For example is there a charity or organization your passionate about or a project you would like to see put into action. What do you feel is the most crucial issue facing our planet in regards to the earth either in your local area or on a national or global scale? Pesticides they’re killing the bees and that’s gonna kill us. Growing their own food or support your local organic people, farmer’s markets, egg selling people, your local health food store. Do u have an inspiration tip or quote to help motivate our listeners to reach into that dirt and start their own garden? Gardening is medicinal. Thanks for visiting Mike’s Green Garden. If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can... Support this podcast

Miriam Goldberger is the author of a new book that is not just informative but absolutely elegant called Taming Wildflowers. Miriam and her husband Paul Jenkins have been tending the Wildflower Farm in Southern Ontario, Canada since 1988. They also developed Eco-Lawn which is a drought-tolerant, low maintenance turf grass that is grown at homes and businesses across North America. Tell us a little about yourself. I have been growing flowers since 1985, 1986, and Wildflower Farm was founded in 1988. I began by being captivated by the process of growing flowers from seed. It originally Wildflower Farm, back in the day it was a dried wildflower farm, then it morphed into Canada’s first pick your own flower farm and I had acres and acres of flowers, annuals and perennials not natives at that time to tend to. I became interested in wildflowers because they were low maintenance, I needed some gardens that weren’t for the pick your owns, that were for display that tended to themselves basically. So I researched the topic and found that perennials; North American Wildflowers and Native Grasses that are such low maintenance! It astounded me! Once they were established, they didn’t need to be watered, they didn’t need to be fertilized, they just took care of themselves they lived for a very long, long time. So I put in some gardens, little gardens just to decorate the place that weren’t for pick your own. And people started asking me about the gardens, and they wanted us to landscape places at their gardens just like those gardens and they also wanted us to sell them wildflower plants. And we received so much interest in the wildflowers, the landscaping the plants, that eventually we succomed to the  customers, and began to seriously study wildflowers and indeed became wildflower landscapers and started a native landscape nursery  and destination point that was in existence for over 25 years! And so I really learned a lot about wildflowers over the years, I learned how to grow native plants from seed, how to landscape with wildflowers either using only wildflowers or to incorporate flowers into an existent non-native garden. And also how to truly grow a wildflower meadow, the way most of us think the way wildflower meadows should be grown isn’t really the case, and it’s not a hard thing to do, but it is different then what you think it might be and then we also developed Eco-Lawn which is a low maintenance turf grass that really is such a great answer to drought problems and high maintenance expensive. There’s been a busy time, never a dull moment. Well how do you grow a wildflower meadow? I guess you don’t just broadcast the seeds on to a pile of dirt? There are a lot of people who ask: Can you just throw the seeds anywhere? Can I throw them on my lawn? Can I just throw them on my garden? If I throw them out into a ditch will... Support this podcast

Here are my biggest take aways from this weekends amazing workshops and gathering of like minded souls in Montana’s beautiful fall weather! AERO stands for Alternative Energy Resource Organization but AEROMT is so much more then that. Their tag line: Linking People, Sustainable Agriculture, and Energy Solutions since 1974 says it best! The weekend started out with a trip over Logan’s Pass:  Friday morning in Great Falls. Although we didn’t make it up to the giant falls we did some beautiful wildlife including a pelican and lots of waterfowl. Then off to the amazing Timeless Seeds Processing Plant! David Oien gives an amazing talk on lentils.   Then we got a tour of the processing plant. Nikki who teaches 2nd grade shared her amazing video with us! Support this podcast