Here’s a podcast on gardening in hard times and why it matters to garden. Please take a listen. Thanks to Jason, the self-sufficient gardener for putting it into perspective: http://theselfsufficientgardener.com/. Episode 121. Not sure if we’re on the same page politically (I think he doesn’t give enough credit to the pull corporations have on affecting current state of affairs), but he has some good points from the gardener’s perspective. Have a listen and let me know what you think. Doing this post from my iPhone so I may have to plug in the link later. For now,please copy/paste. And, despite living in hard times, revel on!
Tag Archives: self-sufficient gardener
Gardening Podcast Round Up Correction
Props to the self-sufficient gardener (Jason Akers) for the correction. It was not he who proclaimed something or other about the “women folk.” It was Jack Spirko, of the Survival Podcast. As I noted in my round up (not to be confused with Round Up, which I roundly condemn), I’ve spent a bit of time recently listening to various gardening and garden-related podcasts. I should have been more careful to take notes because they did start to run together for me. Unfortunately, I ran the self-sufficient gardener headfirst into the survival podcast guy, and ended up mistakenly attributing a confounding phrase (“women folk”) to Akers when I think it was Spirko who said it. It’s not that I could feign to be offended on behalf of women folk. They can speak for themselves (they’re allowed, I think). It just interrupted the flow of the podcast (why is this all sounding so womanly?). It was weird when I heard it on the podcast, and I assumed the guy was joking, till I didn’t. There was no drum roll, no punchline, and I just waited to see if he was going to say anything about the fact that he’d just said something about the women folk cleaning the game that the men had caught. I mean, seriously? Well, I guess so. That or he just forgot the drum roll and dropped the punchline. Anyway, maybe there are parts of the world that really are, as they say, not Brooklyn. No harm, no foul. Akers straightened me out (and pointed out that his wife would not allow him to be sexist – right on, wifey!). And I realized that maybe Spirko was getting all the sexism out of his system before bringing the impressive Chef Maribel (who needs to work on her marketing — the site is just weird — tell us, please, more about the program to help feed the hungry and less about whose famous cousin you cooked for) onto the show to kick some girly butt…maybe Spirko’s?
Gardening Podcast Round Up – Starting with my Favorite
Yes, the only time I will write “Round Up” in this blog with any positive connotation at all. Well, to be honest, with you, not all of it positive…my apologies in advance for any harsh criticism…but I gotta give you all the dirt on this topic, and I’d be shortchanging you if I were anything but flat out, brutally honest. As always, this is all imho, and I do mean for it to be humble.
So, thanks especially to my fellow reveler Ralph, in the last couple weeks I’ve been listening avidly to various gardening podcasts. The jury’s still out on some of the others but I do think I’ve listened enough to find the one I like the most, so far at least.
My favorite, hands down, is the self-sufficient gardener, Jason Akers. He’s a guy in Kentucky (whose hardiness zone, for the most part, is the same as ours here in Brooklyn – find your own here). His podcasts vary in length but generally run about 30 minutes. He always starts with news and updates which, appropriately I think, tend to be particular to his own locality. The topics he covers range from the practical (see, e.g., peppers, strawberries, bluebirds, and composting) to the philosophical (e.g., Sun Tzu‘s The Art of War applied to gardening). Personally I think the practical ones are his strong suit but I appreciate the diversity in topics. In the ones I’ve listened to, he never comes across as arrogant or condescending, and, most importantly, really seems to get the revelry of gardening. Since I’ve been listening to so many of these, they’ve all started to run together so I have to apologize if I’m attributing something to him he didn’t say but he may have (seriously it seemed) referred to “the womenfolk” when discussing hunting and his wife preparing the food. It was weird and offensive and I’m hoping I’m wrong and he didn’t say it. He’s a young guy, at only 33 years old, but seems like he’s been gardening a long time and, again importantly, doesn’t take himself overly seriously. His website could be a little easier to navigate. The search function needs some improvement, but his podcasts make it worth the effort (and patience you need to find what you’re looking for).
Others that deserve a mention, and will get more coverage in the days ahead include the Growing Your Own Grub podcast. I’m not sure I’m getting the name right on this one (which is one of the things that keeps this from the #1 spot — I can’t tell by a quick look what the name of the blog is, who the host is, etc.) . This sounds like an older guy in Texas who tips his hat every so often to Akers, with who he agrees to disagree on several topics (e.g., raised bed vs. in ground gardening). We, the listeners, benefit when they disagree and get well-rounded coverage on the topic. Message to Akers & the GYOG guy: disagree more often — we learn from it. Another one that I’ve listened to but need more time with are Melinda Myers from my home state of Wisconsin, and Margaret Roach’s A Way to Garden. To the former, I need to listen more and get back to you. As for Margaret Roach, I’ve found a couple tidbits useful but it is presented more like a casual radio talk show, where you have to really listen to gather pointers than with some of the others that just give them to you straight-out and don’t so much bog you down with how they spend their days. I also am not getting some of the joy that I hear from other gardening blogs with Roach’s podcasts although, admittedly, I haven’t given them enough of a listen. When I do, I will definitely be updating this post.
In the meantime, let me pose this
QUESTION: do you have a favorite gardening podcast? What topics would you like to listen to covered on a podcast? Any least favorites? Go ahead … gimme the dirt!
revelgardener 