The Dirt Doctor Radio Show

Thanks to our dirt doctor our garden is thriving.

Ill tell you up front the cons. Organic has its growing pains. Its not supported widely, everyone wants instant results, and the organic approach is trying to interpret what nature does and enhancing its effects to a small degree. The natural world gives us more data than we can process in a lifetime so there can be unaccounted variables we havent seen or just flat out choose to ignore. I love this is available through podcasts. I can listen through my day sometime during the week, or weeks later, since i usually miss the live show. I can remember a couple of decades ago when i was just a preteen, tending to my quarter acre garden, as listening to the dirt doctor radio show on that...ahem...one AM channel, on our cars rides back home every sunday afternoon. I, or i guess i should say my parents since they were the ones with the pockets, bought into what was advertised everywhere and what was available to us in our area and just out of last of knowledge of alternatives. The biggest difference i can remember by gollowing howard garretts advice was actually a patch of san augustine in the yard. We had just transplanted some sod from a family member’s yard, and it was thriving pretty well under my care and some commercial fertilizer. I noticed no matter how much i watered after the fertilizer treatment, it had shriveled, gone stiff, and tan colored. I followed his advice and never used the nitrogen rich mess again. I had to keep the stuff drenched to get it back. Afterwards we followed up with whatever organic amendments we could scrounge up at our local feed store and shortly after it took over the parents yard. Owning my own home today, my flowerbeds, garden, trees, and yard thrive. I regularly follow his advice on nematodes, corn gluten meal, compost tea, as well as compost when needed. My paperbark elm and autumn maple blaze settled in incredibly well after clearing their root flares. Now ive got my own ginkgo trees ready to transplant. His advice on maintenance is only over shadowed by his advice on trees that will suite the environment they will be in.

The commercial breaks are too much for a podcast and they are the same ads over and over. During the show if he’s not trying to sell you on probiotics, stem cells or his book you can get some information but having to fast forward through 3 hours of podcasts to get maybe 20 minutes of often repeated information gets old quickly.

Very informative and interesting. This stuff works. Only problem is that in the past couple of years the show is a broken record. You will hear everything he has to say in a couple of weeks. Give it a month then start listening to Bob Webster on KTSA on weekends (streaming no podcast, sorry) or Mike McGrath on You Bet Your Garden podcast.