This week Producer Lukas is on vacation so we're going straight to air!! Ben and Mark sit down to discuss Cullen's Foods - Ben's venture of more local, more organic, and more transparent foods! Learn more at www.cullensfoods.com

Norm is a cum laude graduate of Ohio State University, and a graduate of the University of Windsor. He has spent his years since graduating teaching, growing cut flowers, and most recently, growing organic greenhouse vegetables. He is the Director of Research and Development for Erieview Acres and likes to pontificate about the benefits of organics – which is why he’s here today!

This week we are chatting with Glenn Munroe, Special Projects Manager at the Compost Council of Canada. Glenn has a background in environmental science and government policy, which has led him to the Council where he recently co-authored the report “Roadmap for Optimizing Carbon in Canada’s Managed Soils” which will be released at the upcoming Summit on Soil Health

This week we are chatting with Nicole Rycroft, Founder and Executive Director of environmental not-for-profit Canopy. In addition to being a member of the UBS Global Visionaries Program, Nicole is an Ashoka Fellow, the recipient of a Canadian Environment Award Gold Medal, winner of the 2020 Climate Breakthrough Award, and a recipient of the Meritorious Service Cross of CanadaWe talk about the importance of old growth forests, the threats facing them, and an update on the largest act of civil disobedience in Canadian history

This week it's just Ben and Mark and we're talking about the foundations of gardening: soil. Our challenges, and our thinking on this important subject. Plus, what we're working on and the season that was.

In our final week of summer sabbatical we are revisiting another favourite from the archive, Steven and Emma Biggs.

Steven is an expert in growing exotic fruits in our northern climate, as author of the Biggs-on-Figs blog where he writes about growing figs among other things, and the book – Grow Lemons Where You Think You Can’t. At 14, Emma is author of her own “Kid-to-Kid” guide for gardening, Gardening with Emma. Together, Steven and Emma host their own podcast called The Food-Garden Life Show.

Originally aired July 15, 2020

Doug Tallamy is a New York Times best-selling author and a professor of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Delaware. We really appreciate Doug's ability to take difficult subjects - such as the biodiversity crisis - and make them deeply understandable to lay-gardeners such as us.

This week we are chatting with Jennifer Reynolds, incoming Editor in Chief at Harrowsmith Magazine. Jennifer’s career has spanned various marketing and communications roles across non-profit and home & garden, including Evergreen Canada and Gardening Life Magazine. She also happened to  start her career many years ago at Weall & Cullen garden centers

This week we are chatting with life-long friend of the pod Emily Corbett of Northshore Apothecary + Goods - ethically wildcrafted natural products for the body, mind and cabin. Emily is an enthusiastic student of nature with a Masters of Environmental Studies from Queen’s University in Kingston, and teacher of nature with an education degree underway and many years of outdoor education under her belt. Northshore’s line of scented products are harvested and processed entirely by Emily in keeping with the sustainable ethos of wildcrafting, which Emily is here to tell us more about!

You can find Northshore online at https://northshoreapothecary.ca/ or on Instagram at @northshore_apothecary

This week we are chatting with Angel Beyde of Good Fortune Farmstead. Angel and her partner Raph are experienced farmers in search of their farmstead. Their mission is is to grow abundant, delicious & nutrient-dense food to feed and beautiful flowers to delight! Good Fortune farming practices will regenerate the soil (increasing its long-term fertility), protect our precious water and increase the land’s drought-resilience. Their goal is also to strengthen local food sovereignty in the face of climate change, a global pandemic and racial injustice — issues which are known to be deeply interrelated. The business plan includes offering subsidized farm educational opportunities to BIPOC youth and adults

Learn more about Good Fortune at Good Fortune Farmstead (https://www.goodfortunefarmstead.com/)