Montana Update | Herb Challenge | Herb Gathering 101| Gardening Podcast Shoutout

Montana Update

Hey there listeners! Hope you have been enjoying family week here at the Organic Gardener Podcast. Many podcasters talk about their “I Made it Moment”, and one of them is always when their family members learns what a podcast is! My brother of course has been listening to podcasts for years and is probably who turned me onto them and my mom being the hip woman she is, who can do more on her iMac then most people, called me the other day to tell me a few things about my podcast! 

First of all she said, my challenge is leaving out a whole group of people! She said, what about those of us that grow herbs? I guess I just thought herbs would be included in either produce or flowers, I mean you can buy fresh basil or rosemary in the produce section of the grocery store. 

Now as a bonus for all of you herb growers out there. My mom offered you a special book of your own, so if you want to enter our challenge and grow an herb that perhaps you’re going to dry through the winter, or just some fresh mint, as my brother talked about for drinks through the summer, my mom is going to offer a book to one lucky herb gardener out there!

And second she said, she thought the challenge was too much for a lot of people who don’t want to grow so much produce to feed their family for a whole year. I laughed because I thought she could enter the challenge 10 times over, certainly she grows enough herbs, and then I thought, well doesn’t just one or two tomato plants provide her with enough tomatoes for a whole season? So if your a listener and you think the challenge is a bit overwhelming, I just wanted to encourage you to not be so concerned. A packet of seeds should grow enough for most people fro a season, a simple packet of lettuce, or carrots, will probably be enough.

If you’re thinking about my personal challenge to grow 750 sunflowers, that’s because I want to be a flower farmer who grows for market, and remember my first year I planted just 75 flowers and thought that was a lot, but it was really just about a packet of seeds (as a side note I did open a couple of packages the other day that only and about a dozen sunflowers in them)

So I just want to encourage listeners to just dig in that dirt and plan something. And as with any business, we’re just learning so let me know what you think. 

 

Now on the topic of herbs, my friend Theodora who was my guest for episode 12, has started teaching classes this summer. If you would be interested in them, I encourage you to reach out to her at Visit NW Montana’s website or email her at theodorasgarden@hotmail.com

There is a Nutritionist from the County Extension (Anita Galilito) that will be giving a series of presentations on using locally grown produce in recipes.  The first of eight presentations will be at noon, on Wednesday June 24, at the Lincoln County Fairgrounds Pavilion.  If you think anyone would be interested in attending, you could put it out on your Podcast.

And then I just want to give a shout out to some of my favorite podcasters out there. Theresa Loe just started a great podcast called http://www.livinghomegrown.com that is an awesome resource for gardening, canning, and sustainable living. She is living right in LA and just shares some amazing knowledge. 

Another shout out goes to Andy and Kelli at Chicken Thistle Farm their Coopcast is always fun to listen to and full of lots of wonderful information. Dave LeDoux’s Back to My Garden and also Permaculture Voices that Kelly Ware turned me onto in episode 28 

Well, I could go on, I think I might have to do a whole episode on podcasts…

Anyway thanks for listening as always and please reach out to me if you have any comments, feedback, things you like, or don’t like, things you’d like to see, if you’d like to be a guest or know of a guest, if there’s something you’d like to learn about or have any questions. You can reach me at orgpodcast@gmail.com or Jackie Marie Beyer on FB!

About the author, Jackie Marie

I'm an artist and educator. I live at the "Organic Oasis" with my husband Mike where we practice earth friendly techniques in our garden nestled in the mountains of Montana.

Leave a Comment