The Daily Gardener is a weekday show.
It will air every day Monday - Friday
(I’m taking weekends off for rest, family, fun, & gardening!)
The show will debut April 1, 2019. The tagline for the show is thoughts & brevities to inspire growth.
Shows are between 5 - 10 minutes in length.
The format for the show begins with a brief monologue followed by brevities.
The Brevities segment is made up of 5 main topic areas.
1. Commemoration: Here, I dig up fascinating people, places, and events in horticulture and share them with you. This is the “On This Day” #OTD portion of the show helping you feel more grounded and versed o n the most enchanting stories from the history of gardening.
2. Unearthing Written Work: This is made up of poems, quotes, journal entries, and other inspiring works pertaining to gardening
3. Book Recommendations: These are the literary treasures that will help you build a garden library, strengthen your gardening know-how and inspire you.
4. Garden Chores: A Daily Garden To-Do; improve your garden one actionable tip at a time
5. Something Sweet: This segment is dedicated to “reviving the little botanic spark” in your heart - to paraphrase botanist Alexander Garden; to add more joy to the pursuit of gardening.
The show sign-off is: "For a happy, healthy life: garden every day"
There are a few easter eggs in the show for Still Growing listeners. I still start the show with - "Hi there, everyone" and I end the show by saying the show is "produced in lovely, Maple Grove, Minnesota”.
The music for the show is called “The Daily Gardener Theme Song” originally dubbed “Bach’s Garden". I wrote it on Garageband. It will be available as a ringtone for your smartphone through the show’s Patreon page.
If you enjoy the show, please share it with your garden friends. I would so appreciate that.
Jul 23, 2019
Today, Catholics honor St. Phocas the Gardener who lived
in Turkey during the third century.
A protector of persecuted Christians, Phocas grew crops in his
garden to help feed the poor.
Phocas is remembered for his hospitality and generosity; his garden
played an important part in living both of those virtues.
When Roman soldiers were sent to kill him, they could not find
shelter for the night.
Naturally, when Phocas encountered them, he not only offered them
lodging, but a meal made from the bounty of his garden. During the
meal, Phocas realized they had come for him. While the soldiers
slept that night, he dug his own grave and prayed for the soldiers.
In the morning, Phocas told the soldiers who he was and the
soldiers, who could conceive of no other option, reluctantly
killed him and buried him in the grave he had dug for himself.
Although gardening can be a solitary activity, may we follow in the
footsteps of Phocas the gardener, using our gardens to connect us
to others through generosity and hospitality.
Brevities
#OTD Today is the birthday of Frances Ropes Williams, born
on this day in 1883.
Williams had a shady garden in Winchester, Massachusetts. And, what
is the most-used plant by shade gardeners? Hostas. That's
right.
And, Williams had an appreciation for hostas before they became
widely used in the United States. A graduate of MIT, Williams was
lucky enough to get the chance to work with Warren H. Manning, the
famous Boston landscape architect, for a little over two years.
Williams stopped working to marry Stillman Williams. But sadly, he
died after almost twenty years of marriage, leaving Frances with
four young children - two boys and two girls.
Williams and her family loved the outdoors. When the kids were
little, Williams made them one of the very first playsets.
When the children were grown, Williams found purpose in her garden
and she zeroed in on her hostas. She became known for hybridizing
them and she even wrote about them for various botanical
magazines.
Williams discovered the hosta that would be named for her honor
quite by happenstance. She had visited her daughter in college in
New York, and she stopped by Bristol Nurseries in Connecticut on
her way home. Nestled in a row of
Hosta sieboldiana,was a hosta that had a yellow edge.
Williams bought it and continued to grow it in her garden.
Years later, Williams hosta ended up in the hands of Professor
George Robinson at Oxford. Williams had labeled the plant FRW 383.
When the professor couldn't remember what Williams had labeled the
plant, he simply called it hosta Frances
Williams.
Williams work with hosta helped the newly-formed American Hosta
Society. After she died in 1969, a hosta garden was planted in her
memory at MIT.
#OTD It's the anniversary of the death of John
Goldie who died on this day in 1886.
Goldie was a Scottish-born botanist and author. He led an
extraordinary life.
He started out as an apprentice at the Glasgow Botanic Garden. As a
young man, another botanist bumped him off what was to be his first
plant exploration. However the botanical gods were smiling on him.
The expedition was doomed when most of the party died from coast
fever along the Congo River.
Two years later, William Hooker encouraged Goldie to travel to
North America. He started in Montreal and made his way down the
Hudson River to New York. He wrote that he carried as many
botanical specimens "as his back would carry."
Goldie returned to the Glasgow Botanic Gardens and for five years,
he trained an eager young apprentice and fellow Scottsman named
David Douglas. When Douglas met an early death, Goldie planted a
Douglas-Fir next to his house to remember his young friend.
After Goldie discovered the giant wood fern, Hooker called it
Dryopteris goldieana in his honor and it earned the name Goldie's
woodfern.
Goldie worked tirelessly and he recorded a total of fourteen plant
species previously unknown to science.
Unearthed Words
Here's a poem from Raymond A. Foss called Summer
Rain
"A break in the heat
away from the front
no thunder, no lightning,
just rain, warm rain
falling near dusk
falling on eager ground
steaming blacktop
hungry plants
thirsty
turning toward the clouds
cooling, soothing rain
splashing in sudden puddles
catching in open screens
that certain smell
of summer rain."
Today's book
recommendation: The Living Landscape: Designing for Beauty and
Biodiversity in the Home Garden Hardcover by Rick Darke and Douglas
W. Tallamy
What if you're looking for a landscape that's not only beautiful,
functional and productive, but also nourishes and fosters wildlife.
That's the aim of The Living Landscape. Darke
and Tallamy describe how plants can be used for multiple uses in
the garden.
Today's Garden Chore
Buy a bolt of wedding tulle.
Wedding tulle is the perfect protector for you summer crops and
ornamental from Japanese Beetles and other ravenous insects. It's
attractive and inexpensive; the perfect combination. You can get 600 feet of wedding tulle on
Amazon for just $15.00 using the link in today's show
notes.
Something Sweet
Reviving the little botanic spark in your heart
Since we are in full-on-pesto-making mode, I wanted to
share a recipe that I discovered on called Tarragon & Cashew Pesto
from Dunk and
Crumble.
Cashew Tarragon Pesto
1 large bunch fresh Italian flat-leaf parsley, roughly chopped
4 tablespoons roughly chopped fresh tarragon
1/2 cup raw cashews
zest from 1 lemon
juice from 3 lemons
a handful of lemon balm or lemon verbena stripped from the
stems
1 garlic clove, peeled
1/3 cup olive oil
3 tablespoons lemon vinegar or chive herbal vinegar
salt and freshly ground black pepper
Directions:
Toast cashews in a dry pan over medium heat until lightly brown and
fragrant. Allow to cool slightly.
Purée parsley, tarragon, nuts, lemon and lemon juice, lemon herbs
and garlic in a food processor. Add the olive oil, vinegar, and a
bit of salt and pepper, and blend until a coarse paste forms.
Add a few tablespoons of warm water to thin the sauce to
desired consistency, and adjust seasoning to taste.
Use as a sandwich spread, atop a bowl of hot pasta, or alongside
roasted chicken.
Makes about 3 cups pesto.
Thanks for listening to the daily gardener,
and remember:
"For a happy, healthy life, garden every day."