Category Archives: Organic Gardening

Podcast #21- Seeds for the Season

February 13, 2012 by The Manic Gardener

      

Hover mouse over photograph for name and photo credit. Many more photos below!

 Overview

Four guests, representatives and owners of one organization and three companies that sell heirloom and organic seeds, tell us about a few of their many seeds: new ones, undervalued ones, and personal favorites. But first, I hold forth at greater length than usual about some of the terms that you’ll encounter when perusing catalogs or websites in search of organic and sustainable seeds.

The Show

Okay, I have a confession: I am not a seed catalog addict. I do not pour over new arrivals, cultivars, and varieties, or old favorites, tried and true heirlooms, prolific producers, dependable bearers of heavy yields, whatever. Truth to tell, I didn’t really care.

After doing this week’s show, I do.

Continue reading →

→ 1 Comment

Posted in Organic Gardening, seeds and propagation, Sites to See

Tagged , , ,

Podcast #13 – Notes and Links for “Turning the Tables: Organic Farmers Sue Monsanto”

December 19, 2011 by The Manic Gardener

The “upcoming” podcast mentioned a few days ago is now up. You can listen to or download the show, “Turning the Tables: Organic Farmers Sue Monsanto,” to get part of the back story about why 83 organic seed growers, farmers, and organizations are suing GMO seed giant (and manufacturer of RoundUp) Monsanto.

You can also check out my original post on the suit, written a couple of days after it was filed last spring, for some background.

In the course of the show, many sins are laid at Monsanto’s feet: that genetically modified crops don’t increase yields as promised, that they may give rise to an organism that causes miscarriages in cattle, that they have fostered a race of super weeds, that Monsanto routinely engages in intimidating tactics, that it has sued thousands of farmers.

Continue reading →

→ 1 Comment

Posted in Environment, Organic Gardening, Podcasts, Politics, The Scary Stuff

Tagged , , ,

Podcast #7 – Permaculture: Everything Counts

December 1, 2011 by The Manic Gardener

Permaculture has to be one of the most interesting gardening movements I’ve discovered recently, and I have to thank Jerome Osentowski and Kareen Erbe hugely for letting me interview them about it. The idea of perennial food gardens delights me, and in permaculture that’s just part of the picture: it’s a whole philosophy of living sustainably, and of getting as much of what you need from your own plot of land as possible. I’m all for that, and as I mention part way through—well, both interviews , I think—it’s given me a name for something I’m already trying to do.

I’m honestly not sure what I was up to when I stumbled onto Jerome Osentowski’s Central Rocky Mountain Permaculture Institute, which more or less blew my mind. Four greenhouses, and no power needed from off-site? Figs and passion fruit growing at over 7,000 feet? Hello? Continue reading →

→ 3 Comments

Posted in Landscaping, Organic Gardening

Tagged , , , , ,

Podcast #2 – No Small Potatoes

October 3, 2011 by The Manic Gardener

Yvonne Kimm lives surrounded by potato fields and potato farmers. A native of Manitoba, she married a potato farmer who’s the son, grandson, and brother of potato farmers.

So what did Yvonne do? She became a potato farmer. With a difference: she became an organic potato farmer and one of a handful of certified organic seed potato producers in Montana. I interviewed her at her farm, ten or fifteen miles west of my town Bozeman; you can listen to or download the show, No Small Potatoes, by following that link, or by navigating from the webtalkradio.net. logo in the right sidebar. Continue reading →

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Organic Gardening, Podcasts, Vegetables

Tagged ,

Plot 3: The Weedcloth Solution, or, how to get a crop on a weedy plot

September 5, 2011 by The Manic Gardener

Continuing my policy of acquiring plots that offer maximum challenge to the gardener, I have most recently adopted a swath along the alley that runs down the middle of my block. Alleys, by the way, are one of the things that I believe make for civilized life: they get cars off the street, encourage garages to stop dominating house fronts and take up a discreet position in back yards, and provide much-needed privacy between those yards.

However, they are not especially garden-friendly. The strip I’ve tackled, like most along alleys, is heavily compacted, stony, and weed-infested. Maybe eight feet wide and twelve long, it flanks an outbuilding on the west side of the alley, and is overgrown with grass and creeping bellflower (my nemesis, though not my arch-nemesis). It caught my eye because it gets full morning sun and plenty of reflected warmth from the wall behind it, and I don’t have to walk through anyone’s yard to get through it.

Continue reading →

→ 10 Comments

Posted in Organic Gardening, Vegetables