Garden Guys

This week (our final weekly show for the 2023 growing season) we travel to The Old Fort at Hesperus to see what’s up with the dynamic ‘Farmers In Training’ program (FIT). We are guided by interviews with the Farmer Training Program Coordinator, Elicia Whittlesey, and the Education Garden Manager, Maggie Magierski.  Several of the FITs chime in as well, giving us insight on what it’s like to be gro...

We follow our show with the esteemed Jim Dyer with one full of banter of "crisp vs. cobbler", how do we get the job of naming vegetable varieties, and season extension techniques (winter is coming...)!

This week we have an in-depth conversation with Jim Dyer and his decades of work with Healthy Community Food Systems. We dive into some core issues regarding future sustainability in the ‘Greater San Juan Food Shed’. Join us for some good food for thought!

Yup. Tom and I create hypothetical stress situations, pretending we are gardeners on the prairie in the 1800s. Not sure if I want to be Charles Ingalls or Almonzo, but either way, we're nervous that we aren't going to survive for very long!

From Apricots to Wasps - and everything in-between - Darrin and Tom catch up on what’s happening in their gardens, what’s getting harvested, and what they’ll do differently next year (including the relocation of a pesky deer).

Probably my favorite show so far! Tom tries to calm me down after our office's efforts at the County Fair. Then we cover some of the decisions involved in deciding what to plant in smaller garden spaces. We culminate with an impromptu garden tour of Tom’s home garden.

It's Fair Time! County Fair is back for its 75th year here in La Plata County, and boy those squash...! This week we delve into the mystery of Cryptobiosis, the fascinating process of‘pausing’ a living organism. Darrin’s tomatoes have also been put on permanent pause for the season, with no chance of cryptobiosis. Which leads us, inevitably to the discussion of weather.  And whether or not Tom...

With all this heat (and little to no rain in the area), Darrin and Tom do a mid-season garden check-in. Can you plant citrus in the four corners? What can you still plant now? And also some background on what originally inspired them to geek out on plants.

Well, if 1 show on the heat wasn't enough... We have some solutions, some laments, some salves, and a positive outlook (which helps).  We also have some ideas of how to plan for success in our gardens in a hotter future. 

We grabbed our snacks, water, and found our field trip buddy - off to the SOIL Outdoor Learning Lab at Riverview Elementary. Wow!

This week the garden guys came back all rested from their vacation and all they can do is complain about pests and failures in the garden.  But really this episode is about ‘Pivoting’ from early summer garden failures to replanting in bare spots to feel better about the rest of the summer. 

Darrin and Tom preach the importance of getting your garden soil tested and then walk you all through how to read it. We also cry (and sneeze) while discussing these very odd temperatures and the prolific pine pollen season we are encountering.

We dig into the enormous bag of email questions and try to answer a few (at least the easy ones). Growing in containers, how to read a seed packet, and doth thou inoculate thy beans and peas?

This week the Garden Guys had a site visit to Beet Street Farm in the Animas valley north of Durango.  Brian & Stacey Petrie, and Chad Goodale let us in on some of the details of running a local farm.  The good, the challenging, and the ugly garlic…

Just kidding. We discovered nothing, but do give some good ideas on how to manage. PLUS: another Garden Guys department - Mistakes Garden Guys Make (MGGM) and our inquiries into artificial intelligence.

Tom and Darrin sneak out of the studio to go visit a new(er) gardener's backyard where we find worms, onions, and corn transplants, oh my!

Two good news stories from the Garden Guys Good News Department (second left in the basement, by the boiler): Colorado’s ‘Right to Repair’ bill passes and why dandelions are so helpful. Plus we pontificate on why growing one's food helps feed the soul at the same time it feeds one's belly.

The Garden Guys discuss facing the garden tasks of spring, and how one of the best starting points is choosing the right crops for our growing season length here in the Mountain West.

So many questions this week…. starting seedlings under lights, replacing peat moss with coir, ‘air-pruning’ with soil blocks, and have you ever tried Trombone squash?

Tom and Darrin get their Zen on, pontificating about insects, diversity in the garden, letting things go, and even throwing out some made up words like procrastgardening and procrastplanting

In this first Garden Guys podcast for the 2023 season hosts Darrin and Tom talk about: - How abnormal is the new normal as far as the weather goes - Managing the Impact of soil temperatures on spring planting - Seed sale recap - Darrin’s medical adventure.  - Making healthy food choices, even if you can’t grow a garden

We reached 20 - we're almost legal! We cover a bevy of topics - thinning, irrigation, and farmer market bucks - before we take a bit of a breather. 

They let us out of the studio again! We accost patrons at the Durango Farmers Market to see why they support our local farmers and ranchers. 

July is a chance to sit back, enjoy your garden while it's growing - observe what's successful, what you'd change next year, and learn from your hands-on experience.

We enter the doldrums of summer with some tips to keep up with the garden beds, the weeds, and the compost pile.