Podcasts by The Manic Gardener Archives - WebTalkRadio.net
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The Manic Gardener–Energy and Landscaping: Surprising Connections from 2012-07-02T21:11:24
We’ve all heard this one: to shade your house in summer (and save the energy used to run fans or air-conditioners), plant a tree on the south side of the house. According to my guest this week, ...
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The Manic Gardener – The Weed-Free Garden from 2012-06-25T04:01:12
A weed-free garden sounds too good to be true, and near the end of our interview, Lee Reich, author of Weedless Gardening, admits that it is: He does indeed weed—for about five or ten minutes a ...
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The Manic Gardener–The Seven-Fold Way of Xeriscape Gardening from 2012-06-11T14:00:05
If you think “stones and cactus” when you hear the term “xeriscape,” then Andrea Cummins would like to talk to you. She’s too polite to just say “No,” and too eloquent for “Er, not so much,” but...
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The Manic Gardener – Hidden Waters from 2012-06-04T04:01:33
My guest this week is Duncan Patten, an ecologist with whom I discuss agricultural pollution, the importance of riparian strips along streams, fracking, and yes, rain barrels, all under the umbr...
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The Manic Gardener – Thrifty Gardening with Marjorie Harris from 2012-05-28T04:01:10
If you’re a Canadian Gardener, chances are that you’ve heard of Marjorie Harris, but we below the 49th parallel may not be so fortunate. The author of seventeen books, fifteen of them on gardeni...
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The Manic Gardener – Greener than Grass from 2012-05-21T04:01:51
“Greener” here doesn’t refer to color, but to being environmentally friendly. Yup, it’s a metaphor. Last week’s show presented some information about the damage that conventionally maintained la...
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The Manic Gardener – So—What’s wrong with lawns? from 2012-05-14T17:01:35
Lawns are practically an American institution, but they’re increasingly under attack. The amounts of pesticides, fertilizer, and water used on them are all matters of contention. If you’re wonde...
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The Manic Gardener – A Farmer’s story from 2012-05-07T17:29:31
When they try to make a movie of Atina Diffley’s story, some producer is going to reject it as unbelievable. Losing one organic farm to development, okay; but nearly losing a big chunk of the se...
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The Manic Gardener – How to Buy a Plant from 2012-04-30T04:01:32
On one level it can’t really get much simpler: you give them the money, they give you the plant, and you’re done. But then there’s the question of whether you and the plant stay happy with this ...
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The Manic Gardener – Composting 101: Bite the Silver Bullet from 2012-04-23T17:24:02
Spring has sprung just about everywhere in North America, and certainly across the pond, and in spring the avid gardener’s thoughts turn to—composting. All that pruning and mowing and clipping a...
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The Manic Gardener – More Space Than You Thought: gardening on balconies, porches, and terraces with Fern Richardson from 2012-04-09T17:52:18
Fern Richardson’s balcony measures four feet by ten. On it she grows a fig tree, an apricot, a kumquat, two apple trees, and an abutilon, an ornamental tree with bi-colored leaves and red, hibis...
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The Manic Gardener – Turning the Tables, Again from 2012-04-02T15:22:50
When this show first ran under the title Turning the Tables: Organic Farmers Sue Monsanto, in December of 2011, 83 organic farmers, seed farmers, and organizations that had sued Monsanto were wa...
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The Manic Gardener – Mixing It Up in the Veggie Garden from 2012-03-26T17:08:09
Here’s a riddle: how do you grow vegetables without a vegetable garden? Answer: polyculture. Which means that you either tuck the tomatoes and lettuce into with your existing flowerbeds, or you ...
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The Manic Gardener – Minding Your Manure from 2012-03-19T14:06:28
Some organic gardeners swear by manure. Others swear they’ll never touch it. To the first group, it’s the ultimate one-stop soil conditioner, complete with built-in fertilizers. To the second, c...
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The Manic Gardener – Landscaping for Wildlife from 2012-03-12T14:20:43
Doug Tallamy is not an idiot, so when he talks about a new national park that extends across the entire continent, he’s not proposing to bulldoze cities or tear up freeways. No; he’s talking abo...
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The Manic Gardener – From Seed to Seedling from 2012-03-05T05:01:41
People in northern climes, with their short growing seasons, often try to get a jump on the season by starting their plants, especially their vegetables, indoors—on a windowsill, or in a greenho...
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The Manic Gardener – Potless Plants: Starting seeds with Soil Blocks from 2012-02-27T05:01:46
When you first see them, soil blocks are both unremarkable and fantastic. They’re just cubes of dirt, after all—big deal—but they function like a pot of earth twice their size or more. In fact, ...
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The Manic Gardener – Where it All Comes Together—Or Falls Apart from 2012-02-20T05:01:21
Most of us are familiar with the term “food security,” meaning simply that people should have enough to eat. But Charles Levkoe, a doctoral candidate at the University of Toronto, explains why t...
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The Manic Gardener – Seeds for the Season from 2012-02-13T14:38:01
It’s not yet spring, but with days growing perceptibly longer, the season of the seed catalogue has arrived. Many backyard gardeners still rely on packets from the grocery store or from the gard...
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The Manic Gardener – Water-wise gardening from 2012-02-06T05:01:11
We all know that Texas is in the midst of a terrible drought with no end in sight, so it makes sense that irrigating lawns and gardens is restricted there. But in fact water is running short in ...
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The Manic Gardener – The Way It Works: Compost Science from 2012-01-30T05:01:01
January is a not the best time to start a compost pile, but it’s a great time to learn about how compost works. This week I talk with two experts at the University of Pennsylvania, Tom Richard a...
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The Manic Gardener – Going Native: why and how to garden with native plants from 2012-01-23T05:01:29
Some people think this: Native plants are tough, hardy, drought-tolerant, and easy going, free of those picky preferences that plague domesticated garden plants. Stick ‘em in the ground and they...
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The Manic Gardener – Botany for Backyard Gardeners #1 from 2012-01-16T05:01:24
Sure, you know the difference between a perennial and an annual. But are you aware that perennials, unlike diamonds, are not forever? Some only live for a few years. And a perennial in the south...
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The Manic Gardener – 99.9% Gone: Prairie and Savanna Restoration from 2012-01-09T18:00:29
We’ve all heard of habitat restoration. But how do you do it? What is actually involved—and why would anyone bother, if it takes years of strenuous work and pays little or nothing? Most of the s...
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The Manic Gardener – Kitchen Composting: Bokashi 101 from 2012-01-02T05:01:01
If you live in North America, chances are that you’ve never heard of Bokashi. Yet it may be the answer to your composting prayers. It’s cheap, easy, and so small-scale that you can do it indoors...
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The Manic Gardener – A New Kind of Seed Bank from 2011-12-26T05:01:47
Why would an organization dedicated to preserving our seed-saving heritage not save seeds? And why would such an organization concentrate on developing new seeds? And why, oh, why would a gradua...
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The Manic Gardener – Turning the Tables: Organic Farmers Sue Monsanto from 2011-12-19T05:01:31
Imagine this: Your neighbor invents fire and patents it so that you can’t have any unless you obtain a license–for a fee. Furthermore, your license requires that you put your fire ou...
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The Manic Gardener – The Next Organic Fertilizer: Insect Poop? from 2011-12-12T05:01:52
If you thought worm castings an odd fertilizer, brace yourself: the new kid on the organic fertilizer block is insect castings, or frass. Daniel Jazvac, one of the co-founders of Prime Nutrients...
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The Manic Gardener – Steve Solomon’s Complete Organic Fertilizer—Eventually from 2011-12-05T05:01:44
In the course of this interview, Steve Solomon covers a lot more ground than the tame “organic fertilizers” title suggests. This American-turned-Aussie gardener and garden writer defines the lov...
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The Manic Gardener – Gardening in the City from 2011-11-28T00:50:41
Try this on for size: you live in the city, and you don’t have a yard. But you want to grow your own food. What do you do? Twenty-five years ago, or even ten, chances are you’d have been out of ...
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The Manic Gardener – Geothermal Greenhouse from 2011-11-21T05:01:41
Ever considered harnessing the power of your local hot spring to heat your greenhouse? If so, you have company. And if not, here’s your chance to meet some very different people. Cindy Owings an...
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The Manic Gardener – IPM: Managing Pests Sustainably from 2011-11-14T05:01:47
If you want to go organic but you have no idea how to control pests without a spray bottle of something lethal, IPM can help. It can also help if pests are taking too big a bite out of your esta...
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The Manic Gardener – Permaculture: Everything Counts from 2011-11-07T05:01:06
This is an arm of organic gardening that might be accused of taking itself over-seriously—until you realize how serious are the issues it confronts: not just the poisoning of air, earth, and wat...
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The Manic Gardener – Community Composting with Big Bokashi from 2011-10-31T04:01:28
How can a food bank cut its garbage output from 85,000 pounds in one year to 40,000 the next—and produce tons of “good dirt” at the same time? By composting, of course. But large-scale compostin...
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The Manic Gardener – Fall Garden Tasks from 2011-10-17T04:01:50
Wondering how to put your garden to bed for the winter? Even if you’re not, it’s worth tuning in to hear Linda Chalker-Scott, former science editor of Master Gardener, reveal the most common aut...
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The Manic Gardener – Steps towards Sustainability from 2011-10-10T04:01:33
An interview with Jason Kimm takes place in a truck, a field, and a piece of harvesting equipment I’d never heard of. (It’s called a potato windrower, and it digs potatoes.) Along the way, he de...
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The Manic Gardener – No Small Potatoes from 2011-10-03T04:01:58
Not many people can claim that a dancing accident turned them towards organic farming, but Yvonne and Jason Kimm aren’t like most people. Jason’s multi-generational potato seed farm isn’t unusua...
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The Manic Gardener–From the Ground Up from 2011-09-26T04:01:38
Autumn may seem like an odd time to start a garden, but it actually makes sense, as this week’s guest, Tyson Stillman, explains. He’s funny, pithy, and an amazing source of gardening experience ...
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