Garden Guys

This is a special one. Tom and Darrin love site visits (think: field trips without the sack lunch) and we go visit a special gem just outside of Durango. But as you will hear, it's not just about the garden; we feel the family, the history, the generational romance of what growing your own food can mean. Who knows, after listening you may feel the Italian sun on your face!

We are back with our weekly show the first Saturday of April but we wanted to give ya all a bit of garden love, and of course it's all about seeds! And don't forget our annual Heritage Seed Sale on Sunday, March 9th at the Fairgounds in Durango. 10am to 2pm. Come early and buy lots!

After waxing poetically about the present environmental state of affairs, we get deeper into the multiple layers of growing alliums. That magical, healthy family of plants that support our cooking and immune systems. We go over some details on several plants from the allium group, including bulbing onions, bunching onions, leeks, garlic, chives, and shallots. They all grow well in the four corners, and you should try to grow at least two varieties. Let's go allium!

HOT damn we're back! Ever feel like you are trying to garden while attending Burning Man? Well, that's what it was like trying to grow some veggies here in the SW corner of the state this summer. Hot. Dry. Windy. Grumpy. Those are our adjectives - what are yours? Oh, and we talk about fences - Darrin took his (275 foot) fence down and invited all the town deer to their front yard; Tom had bears climb over his, for the first time in 25 years. All for the love of gardening - oh joy you carrot, oh joy!

Everyone still have their fingers? Let's hope so, 'cause there's weedin' to be done! We compare present day gardening to what it was like in 1776 when this whole experiment got started.Many garden varieties have carried through unchanged, but our collective cultural involvement in growing food has been altered dramatically. Tom and Darrin also have a “whine fest” and then suggest options for the next month while they’re away.

All about rain. Visualize it. So many benefits. An encore edition from June of 2022: what can you do to direct that rain as it falls on your garden? Why is rain so beneficial? And for all of us that will get rain, it can also come as a frozen package of hail. Indiscriminate, soulless hail thrashing a garden. Take the good with the bad, but visualize moisture in your future.

It's June, and it's hot. And not just outside. Darrin's house registered 89 degrees at 5pm, which only means one thing: he's cranky.Fortunately, we give some ideas on how to get those plants through the rough month, as we all start looking north and west for those summer monsoons. And just for you all and those summer cocktail parties: the history of food through the B.C. years - now you can really wow your friends!

This was a special one! The Garden Guys took the helicopter (aka Toyota RAV4) to Pine River Shares' Community Food Farm in Bayfield, where we heard from Pam and Chris about all the absolutely amazing work they are doing there (and all over the Pine River foodshed). Prepare to be inspired, awed, and hopefully wanting to engage with them - as a volunteer or a donor (or both!).

“There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again.” George W. Bush must have been thinking about gardening, as it's not uncommon to repeat our mistakes. But it's usually someone else's fault...

Just like your favorite NPR shows - maybe "Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me!" or "This American Life" - we here at Garden Guys like to give you an "encore" show. Think of it like "Throw Back Thursday", but on a Saturday. We take listeners' questions on topics such as: when to use inoculant; whether or not to reuse potting soil; can home gardeners use tighter spacings then what the seed packet tells us; and why is Tom's garden so amazing?

It's go time in the garden - so much so that I forgot to upload this until Sunday. Ack! Sorry! Darrin and Tom focus on some key gardening tips that can help busy people focus on the priorities in the garden and keep ahead of the wave of expectations. Let’s grow some food!

Once again, Tom and Darrin get drawn to bees. We give you the "Daily Buzz" as I'm pretty sure we both have "Hive Vibes" and Darrin may or may not be a bit "Buzzed". Did you know there are over 900 different native bees in Colorado?  It’s not just the ol' honey bee flying around out there! Tom also educates us on the benefits of double-digging your garden (just need to do it once - promise!). Unfortunately we ran out time, so this story is "To Bee Continued"...

Spring rains are falling, soft and sound,While onions nestle in the ground.Planting tips? We've got a few,But warnings? Well—they won't stop you.You'll buy too much, and that's just fine,With garden dreams on down the line.Darrin's worms are thriving still,Turning scraps with quiet skill.Foliar sprays—do they hold weight?Let’s dig in, investigate.And garden tomatoes, fresh and red—Why do they dance upon your head?A word to savor, light and tree:The dappled glow of Komorebi.So grab your boots, begin again—The garden's calling. Come on in!

Gettin' ready to garden! As Tom and Darrin start seeding cold-season crops in their gardens, they (try to) offer some tips for success. That led to a discussion on what "eating locally" looks like, how different cultures define it, and how we here in the United States take a different viewpoint than those across the world. And a VERY challenging Listener Challenge for the week!

Darrin loves him some peppers, but unfortunately, we discover that Tom may not be able to take the heat. This week, we follow the history of the pepper and how it made its way into Colorado and New Mexico, and eventually into Darrin's garden. And there’s a new listener challenge: try pocket gopher yoga (serenity now...)! And we almost forgot: the Garden Guys have a new product line of locally sourced, artisan pepper spray, “Farm to Face”.

Sorry to be a punny bunny, but what's a better time to hear about carrots than Easter weekend? Darrin and Tom jump (again, see what I did there?) through time into the origin story of one of their garden favorites: carrots.  Why are they orange? Where did they originate?  And of course some tips on how to grow them in southwest Colorado.  With the planting calendar hovering on the “possible”, we also issue another Listener Challenge:  Measuring your soil temps to ensure germination success!

Tom was lucky enough to interview Peter Del Tredici PhD, botanist, author, and senior research scientist Emeritus at the Arnold Arboretum at Harvard University, while he was here for the Durango Botanic Gardens "DurangoScape Climate Conference". While not all about veggies and edibles, Dr. Del Tredici provided some fodder for Darrin and Tom to discuss.

Tom and Darrin dive into the mysterious history of the potato, and find that Darrin may have familial connections (Antoine-Augustin Parmentier) in the winding story of how it got popularized in France. We also share tips for planting some of your own. Plus a Listener Challenge!

The Garden Guys are back for their annual Thanksgiving show, with Tom and Darrin talking about their successes (tomatoes and mizuna) and their failures (irrigation and sweet potatoes) from their 2024 garden season. Reminders come up about what to do in fall gardens and how to share your prized veggies even though you want to hold on to them. Happy Thanksgiving. Eat some local food!

For the final show of the 2024 growing season, Darrin and Tom wanted to end it with a bang by flying over to McElmo canyon on the Extension helicopter for a site visit in the fields of the Pueblo Seed and Food Company. Dan Hobbs was kind enough to stop his chores to give us a tour of some of their fields and talk about everything from chili peppers, corn, grains, to the challenges and success of regional food systems. With many of these crops going to their bakery in downtown Cortez, they provide an excellent example of closing the loop on local food production!