Nature Calls: Conversations from the Hudson Valley

In this episode, Master Gardeners Tim Kennelty and Jean Thomas sit down with all four authors of the most comprehensive field guide available of a single county in New York State: From the Hudson to the Taconics”An Ecological and Cultural Field Guide to the Habitats of Columbia County by Anna Duhon, Gretchen Stevens, Claudia Knab-Vispo, and Conrad Vispo for the HAWTHORNE VALLEY FARMSCAPE. This conversation is in two parts because o...

This episode of “Nature Calls, Conversations from the Hudson Valley” is a retrospective look at one of the early radio interviews from our precursor show, “Digging in With Master Gardeners,” aired on WGXC, 90.7 FM. Teresa and Jean interviewed Master Gardener Volunteer Kathryn Schneider about birds. Kathryn was introduced to the joys of birding by her mother who was a birdwatcher. She took it about as far as you can, since she now h...

Jean and Teresa interview fellow Master Gardener Volunteer Tim Kennelty about pollinators. Tim is also a Master Naturalist with Cornell Cooperative Extension, and has served as a board member for the Columbia Land Conservancy.The conversation starts with the definition of a pollinator. Tim explains that a creature that goes from flower to flower to feed will get pollen stuck to itself. The creature then carries the pollen to the ne...

Tracey Testo-Smith returns to Nature Calls: Conversations from the Hudson Valley to share her knowledge and experience about foraging. In this episode, Tim and Jean sit down with Tracey Testo-Smith, Agroforestry and Natural Resources Program Manager at Cornell Cooperative Extension (CCE) of Columbia and Greene Counties, to discuss the practice of foraging. This interview was originally recorded as part of the Digging In With Master...

Welcome to another Retrospective episode, this time about wildflowers. This was originally recorded in 2019 as part of the radio show, Digging in with Master Gardeners on 90.7 WGXC FM. The content is still very relevant today, so we've repurposed it for our podcast format.

In this episode, Tim and Jean sit down with Tracey Testo-Smith, Agroforestry and Natural Resources Program Manager at Cornell Cooperative Extension (CCE) of Colu...

This episode, originally aired as a Digging In With Master Gardeners radio show interview on WGXC 90.7FM, is a discussion about the many virtues of growing your own vegetables. Tim Kennelty interviews Teresa Golden and Jean Thomas about the multiple facets of home vegetable gardening. The first and most obvious benefits to gardening for your own pantry are that you have arguably the freshest possible vegetables, a wider assortment ...

This episode of ”Nature Calls: Conversations from the Hudson Valley” is a retrospective from one of the early radio interviews from our precursor show, “Digging in With Master Gardeners” which aired on WGXC, 90.7 FM. Teresa and Jean interviewed Master Beekeeper and Emeritus Master Gardener Volunteer Linda Aydlett. The original was aired as episode 14, and can be found on the Digging in with the Master Gardener page. Linda Aydlett h...

This episode ofNature Calls, Conversations from the Hudson Valley is a retrospective look at one of the early radio interviews from our precursor show, “Digging in With Master Gardeners”, aired on WGXC, 90.7 FM. Teresa and Jean interviewed Master Beekeeper and Emeritus Master Gardener Volunteer Linda Aydlett. The original was aired as episode 14.

Linda Aydlett has been a beekeeper for over a decade, tending from two to thirty hives...

This episode continues our conversation with Kristopher Williams of PRISM and a frequent guest on Nature Calls: Conversations from the Hudson Valley. Kris is our go-to expert about all things invasive. We have talked to him about invasive plants, insects and diseases. Today we asked Kris to tell us some of the success stories about his long career as an environmental advocate. We have spoken to Kris in previously aired episodes 23,...

This episode brings back our frequent guest, Kristopher Williams, of PRISM (Partnerships for Regional Invasive Species Management). Eight PRISMs exist across New York State and work to prevent or minimize the harm caused by invasive species on our environment, economy, and health and welfare of residents. PRISMs are intended to coordinate invasive species management functions including coordinating partner efforts, recruiting and t...

In this episode, Tim and Jean sit down with Rosemary Mix, president of the Capital District chapter of Wild Ones. That's a national organization that was an outgrowth of Douglas Tallamy''s idea for a “Homegrown National Park” whereby individuals planted their gardens with native plants to make a network of pollinators and a healthier ecology nationwide. The idea became the “Wild Ones” organization in 1977 at a native landscape conf...

In this episode, Tim and Jean host Kyle Bradford from the Hawthorne Valley's Farmscape Ecology Program. Kyle gave a presentation to the Master Gardener Volunteers of Columbia and Greene Counties on the subject of ants. It was so well received that several MGVs urged the podcast team to invite Kyle to be a guest on the podcast. Kyle holds a MS in Conservation Biology from Antioch University New England and a BS in Environmental Scie...

Welcome back to the It's All Greek Retrospective series that contains previously aired short segments about gardening acronyms, jargon, and botanical nomenclature. In this third and last part of a series, Master Gardener Jean Thomas covers plants that have been named after people, a discussion about soil pH, and a range of acronyms.

The first short segment covers the popularity of naming plants for people. It's been going on since ...

In this episode, part 2 of the “It's All Greek Retrospective” series, Master Gardener Jean Thomas talks about jargon and acronyms with the help of some examples from our own New York gardens. These previously aired short segments have been grouped together as they all focus on a common topic: helping to better understand gardening nomenclature.

From the Dawn Redwood (Metasequoia glyptrostroboides) to the vast Iris family, nicknames...

Are you bewildered by botanical names, typically in Latin, the jargon, or the acronyms surrounding gardening and most other outdoors activities? This series, It's All Greek Retrospective, consists of previously aired podcast segments that provide some insightful descriptions in an attempt to untangle such language puzzles so we can all use the terms as intended... to describe things more accurately.

In this first of three episodes,...

In this episode, Master Gardener Volunteer Nicole Schmitt of Hannacroix Hill Farm chats with Tim and Jean about her career as a flower farmer. Like so many stories in recent years, her interest in flower gardening came about as a result of the pandemic. Constrained in many ways, Nicole moved to a farm with a few acres and began to achieve many goals. In a previous episode, Tim and Jean talked with Nicole about her mini-farm, which ...

Shane Stevens, Natural Resource Program coordinator for Cornell Cooperative Extension of Columbia and Greene Counties, is our featured guest in this episode.. Shane is also Regional Director of the Master Forest Owners Program of the Catskills and the Lower Hudson. The topic is the Master Forest Owner (MFO) program.

Begun in 1991, the program is a collaboration of Cornell Cooperative Extension with the US Department of Agriculture,...

In this episode, Tracey Testo-Smith, Agroforestry and Natural Resources Program Manager at Cornell Cooperative Extension of Columbia and Greene Counties, is our guest. The topic is a timely one, Carbon and Forests. Climate change and its ramifications have made us aware of the importance of halting excessive release of carbon as CO2 into the atmosphere.

One of the main agents of sequestering and storing carbon on the planet is the ...

In this episode, Master Gardener Volunteer Nicole Schmitt joins Tim and Jean to talk about her mini farm where she raises goats, chickens and hogs amidst an active flower farming operation. Small-scale farming is experiencing a resurgence, and Nicole has hands-on experience to share. Nicole describes how she came into Hannacroix Hills Farm, her ten acre farm based from a nineteen thirties farmhouse, by chance. Since assuming the pr...