Brunette Gardens Podcast

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.brunettegardens.comI wasn’t sure I’d get chickens again.The first time we tried to raise a flock, I lost my favorite feathered friend when she was only 8 weeks old and then the rest of the flock shortly thereafter to predators.This was all before they’d even started laying eggs.

When asked to describe an herbal family legacy passed down over generations, this writer digs deep to find chamomile tea hiding behind the Nyquil. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.brunettegardens.com/subscribe

Lisa Brunette of the Brunette Gardens Substack interviews registered herbalist Sarah Donoghue of The Herbalist's Diary on what it's like to practice herbal medicine in the United Kingdom. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.brunettegardens.com/subscribe

It was highly ironic to have been positioned as the one who can somehow easily go home again, as the idea of “home” for me has always been loaded and complicated. As I told Stephanie on our video call to plan this week’s collaboration, moving back to this place I have called “home” has been in many ways extraordinarily difficult, and I sometimes think I was crazy to do it at all. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.brunettegardens.com/subscribe

The author shares a personal story of a year in which dying seems to be a prevailing theme. But in the end, nature gently provides sweet signs of life, even in winter. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.brunettegardens.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.brunettegardens.comGarden tomatoes on Thanksgiving and other unexpected pleasures. The author shares her work to get the garden ready for the winter season, including the removal of a bush.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.brunettegardens.comBaking your own sourdough bread takes time, effort, and patience. This is no convenience food, nor should it be. So why bother to go to the trouble?

When a reaction to King Arthur's bread flour reveals the company now adds "enzyme" as an ingredient, a baker is forced to ditch her sourdough culture and start over. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.brunettegardens.com/subscribe

A fiftysomething urban homesteader shares a litany of experiences showing just how challenging it is to operate a homestead in the city, from dealing with backyard poultry regulations to feeling the pressures of urban crime. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.brunettegardens.com/subscribe

Walls are always acts of violence.So said the playwright Eileen Cherry when I interviewed her for a theater magazine back in the 1990s. I thought the notion was profound at the time, so I included it in my profile of Cherry and her work. But now I think it’s a profoundly illogical thing to say. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.brunettegardens.com/subscribe

It has recently come to my attention that the supplements I’ve been taking on a routine basis in order to reduce symptoms of an autoimmune condition might actually be triggering those very same symptoms. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.brunettegardens.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.brunettegardens.comThere was another reason we just sat with the house and yard that first year, 2017-2018. For many of us, gardens become an extension of ourselves, maybe even of our very souls. They represent our hopes and dreams, our deepest wishes and yearnings, and even our sorrows and losses. That first year was one for the books, and in the aftermath, I turned my energy toward that quarter-acre expanse of lawn, invasive plants, and exotic ornamentals, and the vision that came to me was clear: We needed a fence. One that would cordon off the entire backyard perimeter.What happened, exactly, to warrant fencing? I alluded to it when I said the job I’d taken that brought us to St. Louis turned out to be “challenging.”That’s an understatement.

I’d been feeling a little blue, and losing the lucky frog didn’t help.It happened when I cleaned out the bird bath. The lucky frog sits on a broken paver in the middle of the bird bath, and I’d set it or dropped it somewhere when I scrubbed the green slime from inside the bath, switching out to a fresh stone for the birds to perch on. I looked everywhere: In the ferns around the bird bath, all over my little cleaning spot near the hose. The lucky frog had vanished. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.brunettegardens.com/subscribe

An urban farmer draws on the wisdom of his ancestors, and that’s just common sense. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.brunettegardens.com/subscribe

Tyrean 'Heru' Lewis takes up a career path that's incredibly rare today: farming. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.brunettegardens.com/subscribe

St. Louis hosted the 1904 World’s Fair, a moment that has been immortalized in film with the movie Meet Me in St. Louis. This was the river city’s claim to fame at the turn of the previous century, and folks here have never forgotten it. The vestiges of that boom time dot the city as remaining relics of its glory days, when St. Louis was fourth in the nation in terms of population, and we were on par with our chief rival to the north, Chicago, in terms of wealth and prestige. Our ‘farmhouse’ is one of those relics. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.brunettegardens.com/subscribe

They say you can’t go home again, but I did. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.brunettegardens.com/subscribe

Let me tell you a weird story about our cat. We had some problems with water seeping through our basement walls. When this happens, the water is muddy. Even if you clean it up, it leaves a very fine silt behind. One place that ended up having a pretty thick layer was behind the furnace. It was out of the way and hard to get to, so it just sort of built up. We fixed our gutters and created a water garden in the backyard. Our roof runoff fills some drums, and then when they overflow, it runs out to the water garden, as does a French drain to draw water away from the basement. After we did that, we haven’t had as many problems with water in the basement. But that silt just set back there getting dryer and dryer. One day I realized I had not needed to clean the cat’s litter box in a while. He seemed OK. He wasn’t lethargic. I thought, “Maybe that silly cat is pooping somewhere other than in his litter.” I looked and looked and looked and finally found a nice pile of poop behind the furnace in that lovely, soft silt. Well, I guess you can’t really blame the cat. The silt is as soft as down, and the furnace makes that spot nice and warm. But still, I had to clean up the cat poop and then clean up the silt. The cat went back to his litter box, and all was well. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.brunettegardens.com/subscribe

As of today, all five chicks are still alive. So, yeah, we haven’t garnered any losses yet, and the chicks look… healthy. Happy, even. They run around playing games with the “treats” I give them, with beet peels and red pepper bits standing out as apparent favorites. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.brunettegardens.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.brunettegardens.comMy father is a very handy man. He’s the type of guy who sees a brick patio and thinks, “I could do that.” And then he figures out how to do it. And then actually does it. And it looks awesome. As his son, it is both heartening to see what can be done and discouraging when you see how often your attempts at doing something awesome falls short. But as my grandfather used to say, “It’s good enuf fer who it’s fer.” It took me years to translate that from his Oklahoma twang to my more prosaic American standard into, “It is good enough for whom it is for.” I always liked Grandpa’s attitude towards life.