LUKE RUFFNER ROBINSON from Montana Fruit Trees An aspiring architect, Luke interned on a farm in Portugal to design a bathroom and became fascinated by the farm’s ability to mimic nutrient and energy cycling in forests. Luke withdrew his architecture plans and began research in Systems Ecology. Luke holds an MS in Systems Ecology from the University of Montana and a BA in drawing and drafting.  Golden Seeds from Luke: "Actually that was what got me really interested in, I call it the systems based approach to growing food, you know, which I think, or get organic can fall into that permaculture, regenerative, agriculture. I mean, there's all these words, but I think, I think anytime you're using a systems based approach, I think that's really, when you start to see benefit in productivity, in all of these different properties that can emerge from the system beneficially, I think." "I want to just tell what any of your listeners that might be, that might, that they're listening to what I was saying about specifically watering towards the end of the year. You do want to give them one, all the trees you'll cut them off. You'll cut the water off. I mean, in our climate in August, but then towards maybe after leaf drop, give them a final drink to get them through the winter"Resources Luke referenceHoward T. Odum Emergy SocietyWWOOF Worldwide Opportunities on Organic FarmsOikos Tree CropsGardenFit on PBSRogue Hoe Tools  https://www.montanafruittrees.com/Let’s take a minute to thank our sponsors and affiliate linksWanna donate to the show! You can "buy me a cup of coffee" where your donation goes directly to support the GREEN Organic Garden Podcast to help pay for things like hosting the mp3 files or maintaining the website. [gallery ids="137595,137597,137596" type="rectangular"]Growers & CoAsk Your questions herehttps://youtu.be/2S9tbLIIhy4 The Good Seed CompanyNow Let’s Get to the Root of Things! We’d love if you’d join  <a...

414. Systems Based Approach to Growing Tree Crops | Montana Fruit Trees | LUKE Ruffner Robinson | Missoula, MT

The GREEN Organic Garden Podcast will inspire, teach, and promote earth friendly techniques by interviewing organic gardeners who share their journeys, tips, and tricks to simplify the process of growing your own delicious healthy food. Whether you want to have a small bed in your backyard or a full grown farming operation, our guests will help you reach your gardening goals and offer you resources and solutions to everyday gardening challenges, and inspiration to dig down in the dirt and get growing!

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True Leaf Market is offering a discount code for listeners to get 15% off cover crop seeds: GOG15. (See disclosures below)  https://www.cultivatingconnectionsmt.org/about-us-1 Where the food is the by-product and the product is the relationship and learning that students get from working on the farm and growing lettuce and you get to eat the lettuce that is grown. So cultivating connections is basically the farm classroom and people can be on the farm and interact with animals through a seasonal way.  Salads for Seniors High schoolers who are hired as interns to learn how to be engaged in the kitchen by growing the lettuce, harvesting it, bringing it into the kitchen to clean it, make the salads that are delivered to meals on wheels. Funding?  Tricky for non-profits. If Laura had her way there would be non-profits, for profits and community profits. Now they raise money through grants, weekly CSA shares, and other fundraising projects.  CSA shares support upcoming farmers. $500 goes to help create a future for everyone. Where do high schoolers come from? Local or are there places to stay? Youth farm internships are focused on local high schoolers. Also have adult interns who come from all over and stay on farm but wanted to focus more on local students. First garden experience. Grew up outside of Butte? Remembers a 2nd grade classmate brought a queen bee and was fascinated with rural life. Mom had a small garden full of tomatoes and raspberries. First thing remembered planting was pine trees around her house in town. Went to UMT and was in first year of PEAS program. Next summer started managing one of the community gardens and that was her first foray into growing 10 zucchinis instead of 1 and first experience into working with youth. Took 10 plots to grow for Food Bank. How to engage young people in a way that is meaningful for everyone. Do you want to tell us about social presencing theater and what's social presencing soil? Ways to engage people. The presencing institute was created by Arawana Hayashi. What grew well this year? Community - food and farming are the universal connector. At the farmer's market two people who would usually never talk to each other standing talking about spinach and how they prepared it last week.  What literally grew well last year was the kale. Grows well in all kinds of weather. So good for you. Hope people can grow kale. Also a good community builder and people have their assumptions about kale and so they get people talking to each other. JackieMarie - 2 things, I got to go to the Missoula market, 2xs last year and it was so peaceful talking to the vendors, standing in line getting coffee, exactly talking talking to compost guy and the pepper guy and the vendors so smiling. 2nd - my kale was awful last year. I actually put row cover and forgot 2xs and it was worse than ever.  Kale is a really good indicator species for us. We had tons of aphids last year and the year before. Kale is a really good indicator of stress in the environment. Row cover is a great way to protect it. A great way to stay ahead of kale is to have multiple crops. Maybe every 3 weeks planting kale in different places. For a family of 4 you could get buy with just 4 plants. If you can transplant a few plants in April and then late May, and June. Pull the bugs off the ones that are infested. Also if you can enjoy on off season. Plant in late summer. 5 leaf stage

427. Cultivating Connections | Homestead Organics | Laura Garber | Hamilton, MT

Tuesday • March 15, 2022  Here from Missouri is an amazing beekeeper, gardener, and author, CHARLOTTE EKKER WIGGINS!Bee Club Basics: How to Start a Bee ClubA Beekeeper's Diary: Self Guide to Keeping BeesHas lots of checklists to help you get started. Master Beekeeper class is using her next book Bees Need Flowers, Planting for Pollinators coming out soon. Tips include:reading a lot. Join a bee club because it's like learning a new language.Beekeeping is very localNeed to know bee biology to work with bees not tell them what to doSpend a year learning about beekeeping by taking 1 or more classes, reading, meeting other beekeepers.
Bees are colony based, not self centered like humans. Bees sometimes leave because they don't want to spread disease to the hive. Jackie asks what if you can't find a club?  Thanks to the pandemic lots of clubs are meeting on Zoom like Bees Beyond Borders in Florida have guest speakers from leading bee experts in the country.What works and what doesn't in a gardenThe critical part of providing bees is your SOIL HAS TO BE HEALTHY! Need to keep soil healthy which will keep plants healthy and then bees will be healthy and food we eat will be healthy.One out of every 3 bites of food we eat is from bee pollination.Composting is the easiest thing to do.Mulch with compost.Lots of bird houses for natural pest control
I'm the same way. There's so many garden chores I don't want to do but compost is so easy! I don't understand people who say it's too hard, messy or complicated. Charlotte adds we need to move away from perfection. In the old days, magazines used to really focus on green lawns. Common sense says it's expensive to put in, you need to put in high expensive fertilizers, the minute it grows you cut it down and it doesn't really add anything to the environment. A bug bite on a rose leaf is exciting it means there's a relationship between ladybugs and praying mantis etc who are eating the pests in the garden because they need food so a whole in a leaf is important for the rose to grow. What grew well?  Catnip What's something new or different your excited to try? Some Baker Creek Co Seeds.https://www.rareseeds.com/ Some flowers and peppers that were ordered. I like the tried and true.  Do you save your own seeds? I just tried spaghetti squash and loved it so I saved those. I also do companion planting. I plant onions around my roses to deter bugs and if I need an onion. I mix my vegetables and flowers, I don't have them in rows, I plant them in with my flowers because I can move them around each year so they're not planted in the same soil and using up all the nutrients and the pollinators are attracted by the flowers.  How about something that didn't go the way you thought is was going to? My least favorite thing is to dig holes, I didn't get as much mulch as I would have liked in some new flower beds, and I planted...

426. Bluebird Gardens | CHARLOTTE EKKER WIGGINS | Missouri

I thought you might like to hear my recent article in the TV News:August 2022 It’s hot, is it not?! But that’s summer, and at least our nights drop down to cool things off. Besides you can always go jump in a lake, we certainly have lots of them around the Tobacco Valley. For me, getting to run through the sprinkler while I water the lawn is still pretty exciting as we didn’t have running water for a long time. And watering the garden is the word of the day! WATER, WATER, WATER. I don’t feel like we can keep our garden/lawn hydrated. We are finally starting to harvest more and more each day even though it seems late in the season. We had a delicious dinner the other night of fresh potatoes, string beans and cherry tomatoes! Our beets are getting bigger and the beet greens we thin between rows are delicious to sauté with some mini beets mixed in. I also like to blanch the greens to freeze for winter when I’m jonesing for some deep leafy vegetables and I can’t bring myself to buy them in the produce aisle. One of the most common questions I get about the garden is what to do about pests?This year it seems like there is an overwhelming amount of earwigs AKA pincher bugs everywhere, which used to really creep me out but I have since learned are some of the best insects to have in your garden as they eat a lot of the bad bugs that destroy your plants. Contrary to popular folk tales they do not crawl in your ears and lay eggs in your brain. They do like cool moist places to hang out and are generally only active at night. They are attracted to bright lights so even though they are nocturnal they are often found underneath pots on porches that are lit up in the evenings. Earwigs tend to hang by themselves, not belonging to a colony so infestations are usually not a problem. If you find them indoors, they’ll appreciate being moved back outside where they can act like a sanitation engineer clearing your garden of pests and disease. Earwigs are not a threat to humans and won’t bite or sting you. Their pincers are for eating prey and repelling predators. Although they have small wings, they don’t really fly as much as glide from a high spot.Another benefit is they attract birds, lizards and frogs to your garden who enjoy eating these power predators. Besides gobbling the pests in your garden earwigs also enjoy feasting on dead and decaying leaves helping your plants look and feel healthier.Another important garden tip I have learned over the years is to spend a lot of time observing your plots. When you see something like bug bites on your leaves turn them over in the early morning and see if there’s a caterpillar there that needs removing. If you do get an aphid infestation, see if you don’t get a beneficial insect that will eat the aphids and then move on. Many people post photos of tiny black wasps eating the tasty white bugs and want to kill them instead of letting them do their job. Often if you just wait a few days the whole problem will take care of itself. You might find ladybugs or lacewings lured in by the aphids who also disappear when their food supply is gone. Beware, ladybug babies look like weird black bugs you might be afraid are eating your plants but they actually are really good for your garden. Here’s to the beneficial bugs of summer! True Leaf Market is wanting to sponsor the GREEN Organic Garden Podcast and is giving a discount code for listeners to get 15% off cover crop seeds: <a href="https://www.trueleafmarket.com/"...

Bonus Episode August 2022 Earwigs are Beneficial Insects for your Garden

Garden Variety: A Novel Win a copy of Garden Variety by tagging a friend and also Christy @gardenerd1 and Jackie @GREENorgaincGardenPodcast with #gardenvarietybook  and you will be entered to win a copy of Garden Variety on the Fall equinox Thursday • September 22, 2022!  March 11, 2022 Back to tell us about her new book Garden Variety. Things I love that there's not just one main character, there is but there's great characters and Christy does such a great job of building community and the language and sentences are fantastic the way she describes garden events. You will I garden here in Zone 10b, we used to be zone 9b but with climate change. I belonged to this community garden for 22 years and I was on the board for 20 of those years. I knew from my first season I needed to write a story about a community garden, there's so many things that go on, so I began tucking little stories away over the years.3 books and a NOVELOriginally I didn't want to write a garden book, and as you know I have 3 garden books, but Garden Variety is the way I wanted to write which is telling garden lessons through story. Took a long time, because it was my first novel, it started out in a different way.  I love that you say it's my first because I can't wait to read the sequel and find out what happens to the other characters. Lost Angelos has more than 120 community gardens and needs more of them. 60% or maybe more live in an apartment and community gardens are the solace that provides the space for those people. I am an advocate for more gardens in any empty space. Jackie asks where did you come up with the size because the beds are a really nice size in the story. They must be a composite of people you've met over the years. The main character is Lizzy. She's a section rep. She brings people in, writes citations, At first I was like citations? But then I realized how important they are. Usually rules come about because of something that has caused a lot of damage.  Lizzy brings in this new guy named Jared, who's sort of a surfer, handyman, a really nice guy but doesn't really know how to commit to anything, and is used to just sliding from one thing to the next wherever the wind sends him. Mary who is the president. Bernice who is her foe, who is also on the board who wants to be president. Ned who is the garden master. And some ancillary characters. An eclectic group of people. My goal was to make the characters as diverse as I could, it's called Garden Variety because gardens usually are. I could see me being just like Jared in the beginning, and not even realizing there were rules or things I should or shouldn't do.  I love how in the back you have all the garden tips, because in the beginning I was like I should be taking notes and

425. Garden Variety | Christy Wilhelmi | Gardenerd | Los Angeles, CA

JackieMarie and Aileen share what's growing well, what's their biggest challenge this summer and what they're cooking from their garden in 2022. Aileen is in NJ And JackieMarie is in NW Montana. Aileen has started Artichoke sprouts after doing a stratification process where she froze the seeds.  Both have peppers taking off.  Jackie mentions that the weather is dropping, they had a fire in the wood stove it was so cool this morning. Aileen is still in the 80s and 90s. Jackie mentions this Wild Mediterranean Detox Diet she has been doing for 6 days and they talk about artichokes are some of the best pre-biotics for reseting your gut you can eat and there was a good recipe for artichoke chips kind of like potato chips.Wild Mediterranean: The Age-old, Science-new Plan For a Healthy Gut, With Food You Can TrustThey discussed strawberries and ever-bearing during regular berries that only produce in June. Aileen referred to Jackie's interview with Mark Risdall Smith who wrote the The Vertical Veg Guide to Container Gardening: How to Grow an Abundance of Herbs, Vegetables and Fruit in Small SpacesAileen talked about Jackie's advice to deadhead her zinnias, and Jackie was saying her's haven't hardly bloomed at all. Her calendula and echinacea are blooming like crazy but she's only had one zinnia bloom and they could get a frost any day.   They also talked about what they are eating. Jackie is eating golden beets and Swiss chard, cherry tomatoes. Aileen talks about her success letting cilantro go to seed and then making a wreath from the stalks and seeds and putting in a pot and watering it that is coming up. Jackie mention's her interview with Shanti Nagel she did from Design Wild who's best advice was don't be afraid to move something 3 times to find a place where it is happy and thriving. Aileen talked about adding Dr. Earth's fertilizer and Jackie mentioned that Mike puts alfalfa meal under the tomatoes. Aileen is also eating Swiss chard with fresh herbs and her husband Robbie made them into a vegetable herb stew.  Jackie mentioned True Leaf Market is wanting to sponsor the GREEN Organic Garden Podcast and they gave her a discount code for her listeners to get 15% off cover crop seeds: GOG15. Aileen talked about the seedlings she has growing in her greenhouse for the winter. Jackie mentioned Aileen's Instagram @where_the_seedlings_are. Aileen talked about how she gets mental health relief from being in the greenhouse and playing in the dirt. True Leaf Market is wanting to sponsor the GREEN Organic Garden Podcast and is giving a discount code for listeners to get 15% off cover crop...

414. Systems Based Approach to Growing Tree Crops | Montana Fruit Trees | LUKE Ruffner Robinson | Missoula, MT

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