The Green King? Haha! Can I call you that?
To listen to the full episode go to the Organic Gardener Podcast
http://organicmechanicsoil.com/contactus-organic-potting-soil.html
Mark Highland the Organic Mechanic and author of Practical Organic Gardening: The No-Nonsense Guide to Growing Naturally is here to share his garden entrepreneurship journey today! Full of golden seeds you won’t want to miss this!
Welcome to the Organic Gardener Podcast today! It is Sunday February 11, 2018 and I have an awesome guest on the line and you’ve heard the prechat!
His name is Mark Highland and he has a business called the Organic Mechanic Potting Soil
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Now Let’s Get to the Root of Things!
Which activity is your least favorite activity to do in the garden?
Least favorite is weeding
- definitely weeding got to be it for everyone
- when your an organic gardener that’s pretty much hand weeding
- being persistent take them out with a scuffle hoe
- can knock out
everybody that get busy so you got to get in there and weed it, just do it
I’m not able to pop up and squat as fast fast as I used to so I gotta like take it easy, but thankfully we finally raised up the little gardeners! 6 year old can grab the little piles and that’s a little help.
You know what you were saying before about being in a cubicle, my theory is garden in the morning when it’s cool and then go into your computer and art work and stuff when it’s hot in the afternoon. For me it’s often hard to get there, but I like to get my exercise in in the morning.
What is your favorite activity to do in the garden.
Favorite activity would be planting
- bulbs
- plants
- annual time of the year when you get to plant all the garlic that’s fun!
- building something
- I just did all that
- now everything is planted good to go
What my wife and I call our garden walk. In the morning we get up and get out there early
We walk the line
lot of containers still
what’s blooming oh that’s cool you don’t want to miss it. Sometimes things are not always blooming… bloom season is short on things…
looking at the garden
- scouting for pests
- see some holes starting on the kale
- gotta go pick the caterpillars larva
- another way to be connected with your garden
- being present in the garden
- get to hear the birds chirping
- connected with nature
- Saturday morning out with your coffee
- GOOD STUFF!
I totally agree!
What is the best gardening advice you have ever received?
“if your not killing plants your not gardening”
I don’t get sad if I kill a plant
I wanna sink this plant in the ground there
if it flourishes
balance
how much light do I have
for this particular plant
a lot of us garden in less then ideal conditions
pick and choose that way
sink it in the ground
plagued with pests
plants out in full sun
A favorite tool that you like to use? If you had to move and could only take one tool with you what would it be.
My garden tool I can’t live without
hori hori
- looks like a dagger
- super sharp
- have a hilt on the edge
- safer for you using it
- divide plants with them
- dig out a dandelion
- indestructible
pair of Felcos
good pruning saw
- indispensable
A favorite recipe you like to cook from the garden?
- definitely nothing like fresh snap peas
- my dad grew those
- loved them when they were little
- cherry tomatoes for the kids as well
- trying to instill this love of gardening and being outside
- love their electronics
- pick things off the vine and eat them
that’s a classic experience for me and my family!
Good for you, your kids are gonna treasure these moments forever!
A favorite in ternet resource?
there’s a couple of good ones
a whole page in the book
resources
ATTRA – National Center for Appropriate Technology
sustainable agriculture program
center
techniculture assistance
ATTRA .org
We are close to the Rodale Institute
started by JR Rodale
organic gardening mag
research farm
ever since it was
farming systems trial
proving had higher yields
more nutrient dense
I’m thinking I might put this episode up today and I want to put my interview with Paul Kita from men’s health up for Valentine’s Day this week since your so romantic with your wife and he’s got this new book called a Man, a Pan and a Plan. And that’s what inspired me I always wanted to work for Rodale Publishing in NYC cause they’re the ones that published Organic Gardening Magazine which is now Organic Life.
A favorite reading material-book, mag, blog/website etc you can recommend?
Well I have less and less time to read sadly these days
when I am reading
articles magazines I get
green profit
grower talks
if your in
independent garden centers
growing plant and nurseries
horticulture society
phenomenal organization
Philadelphia and beyond
magazine called grow
regionally that ones great
books that I was just finished reading
Teaming with microbes
Practical Organic Gardening: The No-Nonsense Guide to Growing Naturally
The first chapter I try to lay out why I think organic gardening is important. It’s not necessarily a hippie manifesto, I’m trying to have real reasons why we as human beings
should be concerned
- about our air
- our water
- our soil
We really need a total paradigm shift
So we’re thinking about what we’re doing so everyone can have healthy food and drink water 100 years from now 500 years from now.
I set that stage in easy to understand
simple goals
- positively encourage environmental feed back loops.
- They should build soil health and productivity
- help absorb water and nutrients
- producing fresh air for everyone
They’re not just vegetable gardens also ornamental plants
How do we connect with you?
Practical Organic Gardening: The No-Nonsense Guide to Growing Naturally
Practical Organic Gardening – Publishing in December!
On social media
https://www.instagram.com/organicmechanicsoil/
https://www.facebook.com/organicmechanicsoil
https://twitter.com/organicmechanix
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If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
Mike's Green Garden 