We Dig Plants

By Heritage Radio NetworkSociety & Culture Arts

We Dig Plants episodes

October 01, 2012 Episode 91: Southern Living with Rebecca Bull Reed
Welcome to another episode of We Dig Plants! Today, Carmen Devito and Alice Marcus Kreig are joined via the phone lines by Rebecca Bull Reed, the Associate Garen Editor of Southern Living Magazine. Rebecca is a horticulturist who entered the world of garden writing and journalism almost by accident! Hear how Rebecca left her job in agricultural chemical sales to design at a small gardening store. Tune in to hear Carmen and Alice talk with Rebecca about her GWA award-winning article, “Lush Life”. Rebecca discusses what details make a garden eligible for inclusion in Southern Living. Learn about some gardening trends that are taking root in the South, and how growing food has come in vogue. Learn about some of Rebecca’s other stories, and the amazing gardens she has had the opportunity to profile. This episode has been sponsored by Hearst Ranch.
“The most rewarding thing is when you make gardening infectious and you get people excited about trying things in their own garden.” 18:50
“Regardless of where you are in the South, one of the biggest trends that is very exciting to me is edibles. It’s all coming full circle; the South used to be all about agriculture!” 21:40
— Rebecca Bull Reed on We Dig Plants
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37 min
September 24, 2012 Episode 90: Then She Fell with Third Rail Projects
Carmen Devito and Alice Marcus Krieg are back with all new episodes of We Dig Plants! This week, Carmen and Alice discuss one of their recent garden projects with Tom Pearson and Jennine Willett Millman of Third Rail Projects. Carmen and Alice designed a site-specific garden for Then She Fell, a Victorian Alice in Wonderland interpretation that takes place inside of the old Greenpoint Hospital building in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Hear about how the tension is created by the contrasting setting and story, and how this duality furthers conflict in the production. Learn why this project was particularly liberating for Carmen and Alice in terms of creating a garden to suit the Victorian theme. Tune in to hear Tom and Jennine discuss their respective character roles, and how the site-specific nature of the play influences their understanding of the characters’ personalities. Welcome back, We Dig Plants! This episode has been sponsored by Hearst Ranch.
“Even the taste experiences are partnered with the actual performance components.” — Tom Pearson of Then She Fell on We Dig Plants
“The Victorians couldn’t get loose in other ways, but they could go into the glasshouse or orangery and be exotic and be free.” — Carmen Devito on We Dig Plants
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33 min
March 15, 2012 Episode 89: Coach Mark Smallwood
This week on We Dig Plants, Carmen DeVito is re-joined by Mark “Coach” Smallwood, Executive Director of Rodale Institute and Green Mission specialist for Whole Foods. Carmen and Mark talk about everything from soil management courses to beekeeping. Learn why backyard beekeepers are much better suited for honeybees and why colony collapse disorder is commonly misunderstood. Learn more about composting and hear some practical growing tips from “Coach”. This program was sponsored by Whole Foods Market.
“There are very few wild hives left. Bees need beekeepers!”
“We think the answer to the health of the honey bee is not the commercial beekeeper, it’s the backyard beekeeper. They tend to manage their hives in a much healthier way.”
“I like to plant what grows high with what grows low and what grows fast with what grows slow.”
–Mark “Coach” Smallwood on We Dig Plants
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38 min
March 08, 2012 Episode 88: Blake Schreck
This week on We Dig Plants, Carmen Devito talks with Blake Schreck, founder of Garden Tool Company. Carmen and Blake talk about the importance of using and purchasing high quality garden tools. Tune in to learn what makes strong, long-lasting tools- whether it be steel quality, the firing process, or the type of wood used in the handles. What is Blake’s list of essential gardening tools? Listen to find out! This show was sponsored by Cain Winery.
“[The manufacturers of ‘lifetime’ tools] have been making these tools for over a hundred years! They’ve been perfecting them for so long, that you get a well-balanced tool that feels good in your hand.” — Blake Schreck on We Dig Plants
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39 min
February 23, 2012 Episode 87: Margaret Roach
This week on We Dig Plants, Carmen DeVito sits down and chats with Margaret Roach, former editorial director of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia turned organic gardener. Listen in and hear how she left her successful live in NYC behind to find peace in the garden. Learn more about Margaret’s inspiring story and hear how plants taught her to let go and why there’s no such thing as “enough”. This program was sponsored by S. Wallace Edwards & Sons.
“With things that you treasure, whether it’s a person, a thing or plant, somethings you can hold it a little too close and and suffocate it. Plants taught me a good lesson about too close, too tight behavior.”
“I had the illusion for many years that the concept of “enough” was a tangible thing.”
–Margaret Roach on We Dig Plants
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37 min
February 16, 2012 Episode 86: The Founding Gardeners
This week on We Dig Plants tune in for a transatlantic conversation with renown garden historian Andrea Wulf. Calling from across the pond Ms. Wulfe gives us an in-depth history lesson of the plants of the revolutionary times based upon her recent book, The Founding Gardeners. From the seeds that Benjamin Franklin sent over from England right before the Declaration of Independence to the gardens at Monticello, learn about the fascinating way in which America came into its own true horticultural identity and even how the choice of gardens at George Washington’s Mount Vernon estate, with it’s all native plants, mirrors the revolution itself. This episode is sponsored by White Oak Pastures
“Jefferson and Adams went on a garden tour in 1786 [in England] . . and they go into several gardens and what they see, what was very fashionable in England at that time, they see so-called ‘ornamental farms’. So these are gardens that combine elements of working land with elements of a pleasure grant. . . and it was this combination of beautiful and useful that appeal to them . . so when they returned to America later they incorporated these elements because it very much chimed with their vision of America as a country of vast lands that would feed the nation but also of sublime beauty.”
“And on the brink of the war Washington writes a letter to his estate manager in Mount Vernon and advises him to on plant native American species,so he’s telling him go to my forest and pick up these plants and shrubs and plant them in my garden. It is almost as if this is his horticultural declaration of independence.”
“Until then American gardeners tried to recreate the Old World in their gardens and there [Washington] is ripping them out [at Mount Vernon] and replacing them with native species. He is creating what I would call the very first truly American garden. He uses his garden almost like a canvas to make this political statement.”
“Washington’s idea behind a national university is that we have these 13 states together now but we really have to mature from being a war alliance to being a truly united nation. . and he believed if you would bring these young men together at a young age, studying together, learning together, they would become one and they would believe in America’s destiny as a united country. And the national botanical garden should belong to the university because if they would see all these trees from all 13 states growing together in horticultural union again that would give them the sense of ‘we are one country’.”
–Andrea Wulf on We Dig Plants
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42 min
February 09, 2012 Episode 85: All About Herbs
It’s all about herbs this week on We Dig Plants. Hosts Carmen DeVito and Alice Marcus-Krieg welcome writer, author, and all around herb-lover Ellen Spector Platt to talk about the uses and ease of use, even in small urban environments, of planting herbs. Her favorite herb right now? Lavender. She’s even written a book about it! Learn all about this fragrant herb and others on this episode of We Dig Plants. This episode is sponsored by Fairway Market.
“It’s a lot of bang for your buck with herbs.”
“In Provence lavender is used in a lot of savory things like stews and chicken.”
–Ellen Spector Platt on We Dig Plants
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35 min
February 02, 2012 Episode 84: Jason Colucci
This week We Dig Plants prepares you to deal with your inevitable Super Bowl hangover with special guest Jason Colucci, host of HRN’s own The Morning After. But not to worry! This trio has gathered to let you in on some of the best herbal headache and hangover cures. Learn about some of the stranger cures from ancient times (goat dung!) to some more modern ones such as Hovenia dulcis. This episode is sponsored by White Oak Pastures.
“My cure to get me through three hours of a shift is a pack and a half of Excedrin, a Sunkist soda in a can, and a small order of pork spare ribs”
–Jason Colucci on We Dig Plants
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31 min
January 26, 2012 Episode 83: Susan Lacerte
This week on We Dig Plants we move away from Brooklyn and take a look at another borough: Queens. Susan Lacerte, executive director of the Queens Botanical Garden, joins hosts Alice Marcus-Krieg and Carmen Devito to shed light on the great cultural and technical history behind the garden— from its green architecture and design (it is a LEED Certified building and has a sustainable rose garden!) to the many different community and cultural activities that the garden hosts year round. This episode is sponsored by Whole Foods Market.
“The building and the landscapes have become our biggest teaching tool . . we have over 20,000 school children come from Queens and around the city a year to learn about photosynthesis, to learn about how plants help our environment.”
–Susan Lacerte on the We Dig Plants
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31 min
January 19, 2012 Episode 82: MANTS
This week the ladies of We Dig Plants are fresh back from MANTS. What is MANTS you ask? Tune in to find out more about the history and goings on of the Mid-Atlantic Nusrsery Trade Show from hosts Alice and Carmen including the perennial plant of the year, the dangers of an advancing Boxwood blight, and how an industry concerned with greenery is trying to go green with rice hulls and other innovative products and techniques. This episode is sponsored by Whole Foods Market.
“The perennial plant of the year for 2012 is: “Brunnera macrophylla ‘Jack Frost’ . ”
“Boxwood is a very commonly cultivated plant, it’s important to the industry, it’s in every garden . . and it’s under attack.”
–Carmen Devito on We Dig Plants
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36 min

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We Dig Plants® brings the Culture to Horticulture. Examining our human interaction with plants via authors, industry professionals, historians, plants people, cooks, gardeners & artists and…