Gardeners are always searching for something—a new variety of rose, disease-resistant tomatoes, or a magnolia that will survive our North Country winters. There are countless sources for garden information and inspiration these days, so I recently asked my fellow Master Gardeners to recommend books, blogs, podcasts, and movies to delve into during the off-season and boy did they deliver! These recommendations come with a disclaimer: there are no guarantees that you won’t go down a rabbit hole one of these chilly winter days and not emerge until spring warms the ground, but at least you will have had some fun and will have learned more about backyard gardening. Enjoy!
PODCASTS AND BLOGS AND CHANNELS
Melissa is a 5th generation homesteader who teaches how to use modern homesteading to grow, preserve and cook your own food. Her newsletters are great! You never know if she’s going to be plugging a new garden video, teaching how to dry beans pioneer style, or sharing how to change grandma’s pickle recipes to can them safely today. Check out her Pioneering Today podcast too! Email info@melissaknorris.com for her newsletter.
Luke and Sindy Marion created MIGardener to inspire others to garden, live healthier lives, and have fun doing it. Their videos are great for beginners, but also have in-depth information about many rather specific topics. They know northern gardening. Join the Facebook group: MIgardener
Joe Lamp’l hosted Fresh From the Garden for the DIY Network, hosted a show on PBS that toured gardens around the country, then created and produced the Emmy Award-winning Growing a Greener World. Now he talks and writes about gardening. His website contains organic gardening information. There is a wonderful “Resources” section full of links about different subjects (Pest and Insect ID, Disease ID, Butterflies, Birding, Plant Lists, Invasives, etc.)
The Joe Gardener podcast is all about organic gardening. He often has guests that we’ve all heard of: authors, scientists, and educators in the field, some of whom he teams up with to offer online courses. Beginners can get a lot from his podcasts, but they always go deep as well. His conversations with his composting guests are kind of like listening to a couple of rocket scientists who garden on weekends.
This blog and website by Dr. Matt Candeisas, ecologist and botany-enthusiast, aims to inspire people to care about plants as organisms. Dr. Candeisas also covers it all in his podcasts–from Azaleas (episode. 334) to Wetland Conservation (episode 249). He does it all with quiet aplomb and myriad expertise. Garden weeding ear candy! Check out his podcast too!
Margaret Roach (Author of A Way to Garden, The Backyard Parables, And I Shall Have Some Peace There) looks at gardening as a sort of life partner and spiritual practice, but she knows the technical stuff too. She calls herself an old-fashioned, organic-style gardener. Roach also has an engaging, informative website, newsletter, and weekly articles in NY Times with seasonal gardening advice and recommendations. Trees, shrubs, perennials, and vegetables are covered in the rural Hudson Valley (zone 5). Also recommended: A Way to Garden podcast.
Landscape Designers Joanne Shaw and Matthew Dressing want to have great gardens that are low maintenance. This site contains down-to-earth tips and advice for plants, gardens and landscapes. They aim to seasonally educate you to manage your garden and landscapes.
NON-FICTION BOOKS
Organic Seed Grower by John Navazio.
While the book is geared to larger-scale production, there is plenty of useful information for the backyard gardener and it’s an essential topic about which people are very curious. This book has excellent, readable information with color photos. The author has been on the research team at Johnny’s Selected Seeds for almost a decade and has a background in plant breeding.
Square Foot Gardening books
These books have helped millions of people transform their gardens to use less water, reduce garden waste, and harvest more abundant and tasty crops.
A Way to Garden: A Hands-on Primer for Every Season by Margaret Roach
Roach’s approach to gardening is a unique blend of what she calls “horticultural how-to and woo-woo.”
Dirt to Soil: One Family’s Journey Into Regenerative Agriculture by Gabe Brown
Healthy soil rules when it comes to our gardening goals and the health of our ecosystem. In this book Gabe Brown tells the story of what happened when he dropped the use of most of the pesticides and synthetic fertilizers that are a standard part of conventional agriculture and switched to no-till planting, diverse cover crops mixes, and different grazing practices.
WEBSITES
Gardener’s Path is a “how-to” site with answers to all kinds of gardening questions.
Farmer’s Almanac is The Old Farmer’s Almanac’s site. Where the almanac used to be quite folksy in spots, now those parts are clearly labeled. Facts are now checked and it is quite science-based. This site is enjoyable and trustworthy.
MOVIES AND SHOWS
Fungi are crucial and we are still trying to understand the depth and breadth of the important role they fill in the biosphere. Watch this for a glimpse into this world.
Gardeners’ World, Monty Don
This BBC gardening show (half-hour episodes) is filmed at Don’s extensive and stunning British garden. Seasonal gardening advice and instruction is a wonderful antidote to winter/COVID news/anything that ails you. Several seasons are available on Amazon Prime Video, some on Brit Box, and some on YouTube.
Thanks to Master Gardeners Linda Carney, Matthew Carney, Juli Pomainville and Louise Scarlet as well as Maria “Flip” Filippi, Local Foods Program Leader, for sharing their favorites.
A Master Gardner since 2013, Anneke Larrance loves to grow perennials, annuals, vegetables, fruit, water lilies, and houseplants. She experiments each summer, cultivating at least one plant she’s never grown before. She led the CCE creation of a living barn quilt, enjoys judging 4-H horticulture exhibits at the county fair, and writes and presents about gardening.