trouble with the podcast feed? it’s being upgraded!

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IN MID- AND LATE-AUGUST 2017, those of you who subscribe to the feed of my public-radio show and podcast on iTunes or another app may have experienced hiccups, with either the feed not updating with the latest show, or loads of old shows appearing all at once. We apologize, and here’s what happened, from Marshall Miles, President of Tri-State Public Communications (Robin Hood Radio)—“the smallest NPR station in the nation”—where the show is produced.

“Chaos furnishes the building blocks for order.”—Betty Brooks

TO ALL of A Way To Garden podcast listeners:

About two weeks ago, our “on demand” audio platform, created in 2004, had a catastrophic failure. The technology used to create that platform in 2004 is vastly different than today! So we had to rebuild our entire “on demand” site basically overnight, with all of our shows containing 12 (yes 12) years of programming. Thousands of shows.

Once we secured a new server, picked a new platform, and hired a new company to store and play our podcasts, we began to re-populate the server.

We apologize for any inconvenience you have been and are experiencing right now, but we had to build from the ground up, and were left with no choice.

Margaret’s show was a priority! We have one more major upload of archived A Way To Garden shows that will happen within the next week or so, and that should bring the archives up to date for the last five years. Any old shows that are not updated and have enough requests will be added one at a time at later dates.

Believe you me, this is not a mission we wanted to do, but had to do. We are sorry for the interruption, and confusion, but in the end, will end up with a simpler, easier to search, more responsive system.—M.M.

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My weekly public-radio show, rated a “top-5 garden podcast” by “The Guardian” newspaper in the UK, began its seventh year in March 2016. In 2016, the show won three silver medals for excellence from the Garden Writers Association. It’s produced at Robin Hood Radio, the smallest NPR station in the nation. Listen locally in the Hudson Valley (NY)-Berkshires (MA)-Litchfield Hills (CT) Mondays at 8:30 AM Eastern, rerun at 8:30 Saturdays. You can subscribe to all future editions on iTunes or Stitcher (and browse my archive of podcasts here).

rethinking the lawn, with dan wilder

THE LECTURE that he’s been giving for a number of years is not-so-subtly called “Kill Your Lawn.” Ecological horticulturist Dan Jaffe Wilder knows that starting over and creating an entire native habitat instead of a lawn isn’t for everyone. But Dan just wants to grab our attention and get us to start to make some changes at least in the way we care for the turfgrass we do want in our landscapes. And maybe give up a little square footage of it to some other kind of more diverse planting, too, like the wild strawberries (Fragaria virginiana, inset). Alternative, more eco-focused styles of lawn care, along with some lawn alternatives is what he and I talked about on the podcast. Dan is Director of Applied Ecology at Norcross Wildlife Foundation in Wales, Massachusetts, and its 8,000-acre sanctuary. He’s also co-author with Mark Richardson of the book “Native Plants for New England Gardens.”