It’s a very big day here at gardenstead — we are super excited to announce that we have the first episode of Digging in With Katie and Dan available for you to watch! Or, you know, simply listen to, while you’re doing the dishes (for example) if that’s your preference.
Our brand new video podcast is hosted by gardenstead’s president, Katie Macdonald, and co-hosted by Dan Fox, our congenial, free-ranging video interviewer and uber-friendly conversationalist.
The show will delve a little deeper into current topics around the world of gardening, life, sustainability, and anything else we find interesting, thank you very much. We’ll have experts on the show to throw their two cents in, too.
We plan to operate on the premise that everything comes back to gardening, (everything really does, we’ve found). All in all, it’ll be your basic friendly chat over the garden fence sort of situation.
In our inaugural episode, “Growing Your Own Food”, Katie and Dan are inspired by Michelle Obama’s book American Grown to get chatting about the benefits of homegrown fruits and vegetables (among other things). Go ahead and stream the first episode below, or catch up with us via Spotify or YouTube.
Show notes
The book that inspired Katie and Dan’s chat, American Grown, tells the tale of the vegetable garden the First Lady installed on the South Lawn of the White House in the United States. But, the book is also about how the garden started a national conversation about child obesity, and drew the country’s attention to the connection between food quality and health.
On the show, Katie and Dan chat about
- how Michelle’s awareness of the importance of fresh food grew out of a conversation she had with her kids’ pediatrician
- the broad-ranging benefits of gardening: physical, mental, emotional
- how far food travels before it gets to our kitchens and the problems associated with that
- how poor nutrition among US Army applicants led to bone deficiencies and other significant health problems
- how it’s possible to grow your own food even if you don’t have a backyard
- whether the pandemic-related rise in gardening will continue and create lasting change
- how a few years ago, Katie had never heard about community gardens but now she knows so much more about them
- growing food with kids, and Katie and Dan’s experience with the youngsters in their lives
Stay tuned for our next episode!
