radio podcast: talking tomatoes

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FEELING AT A LOSS FOR SOMETHING TO DO, I ADDED TO MY SCHEDULE. A weekly radio podcast, to be specific, with my neighbors down the road apiece at a local NPR affiliate, WHDD, in Sharon, Connecticut.

THANKS TO ALL OF YOU WHO HAVE WRITTEN to say you enjoy the radio podcasts I create with Robin Hood Radio (NPRs newest and smallest affiliate, and just down the road from me in Ruralville, USA here). Marshall, Jill and I do have fun with our Monday-morning conversations–but you can listen anytime.

WOO-HOO! MY FRIENDS AT WHDD in Sharon, Connecticut, aka Robin Hood Radio, just called to say our A Way to Garden podcasts are not just on iTunes but also on an RSS feed. Easy, peasy, to tune in to.

CO-HOST AND GARDEN DESIGNER CARMEN DEVITO really got me going on the popular weekly “We Dig Plants” show on Heritage Radio Network the other day, when she asked me to think back–now four-plus years–about my journey from the city life of my past to the here-and-now of living in the garden. Apparently I shared such wisdoms as: “With things that you treasure, whether it’s a person, a thing or plant, sometimes you can hold it a little too close and suffocate it.

IKNOW IT’S TOO LATE FOR HELP with the freakish October storm that flattened the woody plants here last weekend, but I have a hunch those of us in snow country will be needing tips for helping the garden through storms to come. After all, winter hasn’t even started yet (evidence outside my window, where it hasn’t melted yet, to the contrary).

ABOUT THIS TIME OF YEAR I GET FED UP with holiday to-do’s, and need a solid dose of horticulture instead. What better task to treat myself to than getting ready for seed-catalog shopping season: making an inventory of leftover things, testing for germination, writing a wishlist—and ordering a few new catalogs to widen my winter world.

BROWN PATCHES of lawn and garden widen daily, and the “grass” is now a minefield of yellow-jacket nests. Ouch! But the hummingbirds dance around me while I weed, and the tadpoles have suddenly hatched into dozens of tiny frogs (boing, boing, boing!) and an older frog poses on a begonia leaf…and I’m grateful to be here, anyhow, if a little tired and crispy.My Gratitude List, in PodcastLISTEN TO my Dog Days Gratitude List on the latest podcast I do each week with Robin Hood Radio, WHDD in Sharon, Connecticut, the smallest NPR station in the nation.

THE FROGBOYS REPORT THAT THEIR MOTHER, who does not say “Urp,” or “Glug,” or “Rivet” or anything else very interesting or endearing like they do, was nevertheless the subject of a 3-part interview with Alan Chartock on Northeast Public Radio network last week.

WE WENT SHRUB SHOPPING–VIRTUALLY, AT LEAST–on this week’s Robin Hood Radio A Way to Garden podcast, with the topic ranging from where to start in the shrub section of your local nursery (under “V,” of course, for Viburnum) to what else to look for besides (the obvious) spring blooms. Click over to hear the latest edition, or browse through our growing podcast archive.

So I can invite guest experts to join me as well as share the program with other public-radio stations, we’re pre-taping “A Way to Garden With Margaret Roach” to stand alone, instead of airing live as part of my local station’s morning show, which it has been since March 2010.You can listen in to the first such standalone show here, right now. This week’s topic: When to sow what seeds, with guest Dave Whitinger of All Things Plants in Texas. Next time (February 4), the topic is why I’m going to grow calendul

I know it can feel about now as if someone sucked the life out of things…but maybe a few of the thoughts we discussed in these two recent podcasts will help make you a believer, too?Part 1: The 365-Day Garden (beginning at the 9:10 minute mark, after a discussion of night-blooming cereus, which radio host Jill Goodman was wondering how to overwinter) Part 2: Don’t Forget the Conifers (podcast about some of