It's the season of abundance in the garden, when the tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, and more are all starting to come in. I'm taking a pause on the podcast for this season so I can relish it, but I hope you'll join me over @plant.outloud on Instagram.

In this episode, I share why I've started using organic fertilizer regularly, how my tomato plants planted out at separate times are all the same size, and why I'm not going to plant carrots in the spring next year.

I also share ideas for using lots of herbs, how to cook with vegetable tops from your turnips, beets, and carrots, how to preserve tomatoes, and what to do with an abundance of cucumbers.

Here are recipes for ideas I mention:
Herb salt:
https://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/spicy-herb-salt

Herb vinegar:
https://blog.mountainroseherbs.com/how-to-make-herbal-vinegar

Herb syrups:
https://www.allrecipes.com/article/how-to-make-herbal-simple-syrups/

Canning summer tomatoes
https://www.foodandwine.com/cooking-techniques/canning-tomatoes-summer-tradition-homemade-passata

Slow-Roasted Cherry Tomatoes
https://smittenkitchen.com/2008/08/slow-roasted-tomatoes/

Cucumber agua fresca
https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/246118/agua-fresca-de-pepino-cucumber-limeade/

Cucumber lassi
https://www.madhuseverydayindian.com/savory-cucumber-lassi/

Food in Jars
https://www.foodinjars.com/

Slow Drinks
https://www.instagram.com/slowdrinks

Noma
https://bookshop.org/a/25027/9781579657185 

Jolena Stewart started Love Energy Nature with one goal in mind: to provide high-quality, bath and body products made without synthetic ingredients. Jolena has struggled with eczema most of her life. When her daughter also suffered with eczema, she started learning more about how to make skincare with ingredients that don’t irritate their skin. Soon, she decided to sell these products to others. She now also offers coaching for families with eczema, with educational workshops and a new membership called Healthy Habits for Eczema.

I wanted to talk to Jolena because I too struggle with eczema and have learned a lot about managing it on my own and I was curious to learn about how she helped others. In this episode, we talk about her favorite plant-based ingredients for sensitive skin, how to manage eczema beyond skincare, helping kids manage eczema, and how natural doesn’t always mean healthy when it comes to skincare or anything else.

 

Love, Energy, Nature https://www.loveenergynature.com/

Follow Love, Energy, Nature on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/loveenergynature/

Sponsor
Stewart & Claire’s cocktail-inspired lip balms. Use the code PLANTOUTLOUD to receive 15%

Liz Neves is an herbalist, reiki and healing drum practitioner, dream guide, meditation instructor, and mama living and teaching in Brooklyn. She’s the founder of Gathering Ground and author of Northeast Medicinal Plants: Identify, Harvest, and Use 111 Wild Herbs for Health and Wellness (Timber Press).

We have a wide-ranging conversation and talk about how to teach children about plants, three easy-to-identify wild plants, how to celebrate summer solstice, why non-native plants can be just as valuable as native plants, how to communicate with plants, and more.


The links!
Gathering Ground
http://www.gatheringground.nyc/

Liz's teaching program, Infuse
http://www.gatheringground.nyc/new-events-1

More about plantain http://www.gatheringground.nyc/new-blog-1/2018/3/27/plantain-natures-first-aid-kit

More about dandelion http://www.gatheringground.nyc/new-blog-1/2018/3/21/dandelion

More about linden https://www.eclecticschoolofherbalmedicine.com/linden/

More about knotweed https://www.gaiaherbs.com/blogs/herbs/japanese-knotweed

More about making a flower essence https://theherbalacademy.com/homemade-flower-essence/

Liz’s book: https://bookshop.org/books/northeast-medicinal-plants-identify-harvest-and-use-111-wild-herbs-for-health-and-wellness/9781604699135?aid=25027&listref=books-from-the-plant-out-loud-podcast

Sponsored by:
Stewart & Claire Use the code PLANTOUTLOUD to receive 15% off at checkout

Peter Hoffman is the former chef and owner of Savoy and Back Forty Restaurants in New York City and author of the new book, What’s Good: A Memoir in 14 Ingredients. He is a longtime supporter of the farm-to-table movement and served on the boards of the New York City Greenmarket, the Chefs Collaborative, and is a Slow Food NYC Snailblazer award recipient.

On most market days, he can be found on his bicycle at the Union Square Greenmarket.

In this episode, Peter and I discuss how plant lives are metaphors for the human experience, the strawberries New Yorkers clamor for every August, how to cook with stone fruit pits, why scraggly rosemary is better than the lush stuff in the supermarket, and how you can learn more about a country’s culture by the types of peppers they grow.

Episode website

What’s Good: A Memoir in 14 Ingredients by Peter Hoffman

Lab Girl

Sponsored by:
Stewart & Claire Use the code PLANTOUTLOUD to receive 15% off at checkout

In this episode, I go solo and share some of the life lessons I’ve learned from the garden.

#1 It’s not too late!
I’ve always felt late to everything, including gardening. It’s not too late this year or in your life to start gardening! Listen to learn more.

#2. Perfect is as impossible in the garden as in life.
By nature, plants are not perfect and neither are we. But plants want to grow and so do we. We need to embrace the imperfection of the garden and help nature do its thing. Here is a wonderful piece by Kat Kinsman that I mentioned. https://www.foodandwine.com/how/dont-be-weird-about-gardening

#3 Embrace the process
People like to say progress, not perfection. How about process, not perfection. I’m so grateful that my garden is not my main source of food, and because of that, the stakes are lower. I get so much joy in the process of gardening that the harvest is just a bonus!

Episode post:
plantoutloud.com/episodes/lessons-from-the-garden

Sponsored by:
Stewart & Claire Use the code PLANTOUTLOUD to receive 15% off at checkout

A Conversation with Sunyatta Amen

Plants aren’t always just pretty things to look at on Instagram. Behind them are real human stories, including stories of oppression.

To help me tackle some of the tough topics, I spoke to Sunyatta Amen, a fifth-generation master herbalist & natural lifestyle expert. She grew up steeped in ethnobotany behind the counter of the ‘Black Pyramid’ herb shops & vegan juice bars founded by her father in Harlem. She has had a lifelong drive to create beautiful, safe spaces in gentrified communities and decolonize wellness for all.

She is the founder of CALABASH Tea, a multi-award-winning wellness brand designed to reconnect modern people with food and drink as medicine. She creates healing tea blends that are quite delicious if I do say so myself. She offers spice blends and herbal tonics--all available through her online shop, calabashtea.com.

In this episode, we discuss what it means to decolonize wellness, Sunyatta’s favorite coffee replacement, why sea moss is a hot ingredient and how to use it, and how she uses tea as a healing agent for herself and her community.

Calabash Tea: https://www.calabashtea.com/

Blue Velvet tea from Calabash: https://www.calabashtea.com/store/bluevelvet?rq=blue%20velvet

Sea moss from Calabash: https://www.calabashtea.com/store/seamoss?rq=sea%20moss

Read more at https://www.plantoutloud.com/sunyatta-amen

This episode is sponsored by Stewart & Claire. Use the code PLANTOUTLOUD to receive 15% off at checkout. 

Resh Gala is the owner and founder of Hundred Tomatoes. Her intensive planting methods have garnered her a loyal social media following and she was named a 2020 Gardener of the Year by Burpee Home Gardens. She also creates YouTube videos for Kellogg Garden Organics.

Resh only started gardening in 2016, when she killed two tomato plants on her patio. That failure led her to learn everything she could about gardening. In 2017, she built raised beds and filled them with top soil...that turned out to be terrible and once again, nothing grew. By 2018, she replaced a lot of her soil with compost and then finally had a successful harvest.

She now builds and installs kitchen gardens for people in central New Jersey and coaches people all over the US in growing vegetable gardens. With tomato planting season upon us, I sat down with Resh to learn more about what we need to know to grow a great crop of tomatoes.

In this episode, we talk about when to plant tomatoes, how to prune tomatoes, how and when to fertilize them, and many other things you need to know about growing this popular garden vegetable!

Follow Resh on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/reshgala

Check out her website https://www.reshgala.com/

Follow Plant Out Loud on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/plant.outloud   

Resh’s Amazon Shop: https://www.amazon.com/shop/reshgala?listId=FECGKFC7PP2J

Stewart & Claire: https://www.stewartandclaire.com  Use the code PLANTOUTLOUD to receive 15% off at checkout.

A conversation with Wendy Kiang-Spray

Wendy Kiang-Spray is a writer and speaker whose articles about gardening and food have appeared in national and local print publications. Her first book, The Chinese Kitchen Garden, is about growing and cooking Chinese vegetables. She gardens in Rockville, Maryland where she also works for the public school system there.

I cite The Chinese Kitchen Garden frequently in the book I wrote with The Chef’s Garden and as a newer gardener, I really enjoyed reading this book. It weaves together stories about Wendy’s parents’ garden, which sounds incredible, as well as practical information about vegetables and delicious-sounding recipes. I also just joined The Chinese Kitchen Garden Facebook Group, where there’s a lively group of gardeners and cooks.

In this episode, we talk about timing when it comes to vegetable gardens, what to know as we transition into summer gardening, and some Asian vegetables to try for new vegetable gardeners.

Vegetables Mentioned on the Podcast
Luffa gourd
Malabar spinach
Edamame
Thai eggplant
Bitter melon
Long Beans
Chrysanthemum Beans
Tatsoi
Cilantro

The Chinese Kitchen Garden

Wendy Kiang-Spray

Plant Out Loud Instagram

More About This Episode

Stewart & Claire lip balms (Use the code PLANTOUTLOUD for 15% off at checkout)

A Conversation with Linda Shanahan of Barefoot Botanicals

Linda Shanahan is an herbalist, an herb farmer, and a nurse. Since 2008 she has operated Barefoot Botanicals, a certified organic herb farm in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, with her partner Eric VanderHyde. It is here that she feels all of her worlds come together—she grows plants, makes herbal medicines, and teaches classes in medicine making and community health.  Linda believes that the most powerful medicine is building connection with our environment, starting with learning about what grows beneath our feet.

The mission of Barefoot Botanicals is to connect people to plants for food, for medicine and for a more resilient collective future for all beings. In this episode, we talk about how to learn more about herbs and herbalism, what can you expect when seeing an herbalist, how to wildcraft responsibly, and more.

Plant Out Loud Instagram
www.instagram.com/plant.outloud

Plant Out Loud Show Notes
plantoutloud.com/episodes/linda-shanahan

Stewart & Claire lip balms (Use the code PLANTOUTLOUD for 15% off at checkout)
www.stewartandclaire.com

Barefoot Botanicals
https://www.barefootbotanicals.net/

About Herbs website from the Memorial Sloan Kettering Center. https://www.mskcc.org/cancer-care/diagnosis-treatment/symptom-management/integrative-medicine/herbs/search 

American Herbalist Guild’s Guide to Herb Schools
https://www.americanherbalistsguild.com/school-profiles 

Finding an Herbalist Through the American Herbalist Guild. https://www.americanherbalistsguild.com/member-profiles 

David Winston
https://www.davidwinston.org/ 

A conversation with Beronda Montgomery

Beronda Montgomery is a professor of biochemistry, molecular biology, and microbiology and Molecular Genetics at Michigan State University. She is the author of the new book, Lessons from Plants—a book I just love because it weaves together plant science with greater life lessons.

In this episode, we talk about how a plant’s scent is not really for us, why new plant leaves are worth celebrating, and how we might better learn to care for people by caring for plants. Plus, Dr. Montgomery tells us about how she planted a tree when her son was born and how that provided many lessons throughout his life so far.

Before the interview, I share some thoughts about how to prune. My advice: Remove what’s dead, diseased, or damaged first and anytime. Then research the shrubs you have to find out what’s best for that particular plant.

Some of the links below are affiliate links. This means I get paid a small commission if you use the link to purchase something, which you support the podcast. Thank you!

Buy Lessons From Plants
https://bookshop.org/shop/plantoutloud

Buy Braiding Sweetgrass
https://bookshop.org/shop/plantoutloud

Beronda Montgomery Instagram
www.instagram.com/beronda_m

Plant Out Loud Instagram
www.instagram.com/plant.outloud

Plant Out Loud Shownotes
plantoutloud.com/episodes/beronda-montgomery

Stewart & Claire lip balms (Use the code PLANTOUTLOUD for 15% off at checkout)
www.stewartandclaire.com

People Dr. Montgomery follows on Instagram
www.instagram.com/thechocolatebotanist
www.instagram.com/theplantkiki