Here is some background information, so that the shows have some context and I can get straight into the gardening talk!
Garden Podcast – FAQ
Is there any particular focus to the shows?
What sort of segments will feature in the shows?
Can you describe your garden and the layout?
How can listeners get involved with the shows?
Is the show just about gardening?
How long are the shows and how often are they produced?
What inspired you to start podcasting?
Is this a technical show about gardening?
Are you a professional Gardener? (Disclaimer)
How did the theme music evolve?
I’m not from Australia, can you describe the area you live in for me please?
Is there any particular focus to the shows?
I have no particular focus to my interest in gardening. I love it all. From organic techniques, to formal gardens, vegie parches, flowers, shrubs, trees, small scale farming, permaculture, hydroponics. Exotics, natives, mushrooms, water plants I eat them all up yum yum. However, is it basically a podcast about my garden and my gardening community (local and afar).
What sort of segments will feature in the shows?
There is the weed and plant of the “moment” as well as book reviews, catalogue discussions, plant reviews the occasional interview, competitions and lots of interaction with you guys. I will be visiting some lovely gardens both public and private and reporting back.
Can you describe your garden and the layout?
If you click on the "My Garden" link, you can see a rough sketch of the layout of my garden. It’s a half an acre (quarter hectare) in the mountains to the east of Melbourne. The front of the block faces north which is the aspect of the sun but there are a lot of very tall gum trees and conifers on the block. This causes a few difficulties with shade but I maximise the sunny areas. The bonus of all this tree cover is that I have a great microclimate with shelter from all but the strongest winds. I’m in a pretty elevated area so there’s no frost here, it tends to flow down the hill and settle on the lower slopes.
As you can see on the diagram on the web site, I’ve got a veggie patch in the north west corner and at various locations around the block. This is all part of my cunning plan to hedge my bets against the seasons but you’ll hear more about that in the episodes. I have a small herb garden at the front as well as a couple of beds of roses. The block is sprinkled with camellias, the odd rhododendron, ferns and some native plants. I’ve got fruit trees dotted about the place and small plantings of raspberry’s and various artichokes.
I’ve named different sections of the garden so that I can talk about them on the podcast and you have an idea of what the area is like. Of course I’ll have some pix of the projects on the blog as well.
How can listeners get involved with the shows?
You will be able to leave comments about the show, on the blog, by following the link under the show notes and as I said I am looking forward to hearing from you.
If you post anything nasty it will be deleted, I’m happy to get your suggestions for improvement but only if you are courteous and sincere. After all, no one sets out to make a bad show and I am new to this, so please be gentle. To see the comments policy click here.
Is the show just about gardening?
From my podcast listening experiences, I know people get irritated when a show goes off the subject, so I am going to structure the shows so that apart from a brief introductory bit about the current weather and listener feedback, the gardening talk will take priority in the episodes.
What I would like to try, however, is to put any other raves or bits of interest at the end of the show. So if you’re just interested in the gardening, then you can get what you need and not get frustrated and if you’re into it, you can keep listening.
If I’m going to play any music that is not made especially for the segues in the show then it will go after the garden talk. Now I can’t promise I will never go off topic, but I will do my best.
How long are the shows and how often are they produced?
I’m hoping to make the shows a minimum 20 minutes. I will be making one episode per month (officially) but if you subscribe to the feed, you might find the odd extra episode creeping in from time to time.
What inspired you to start podcasting?
I came to podcasting when I became frustrated with radio. I like to listen to the radio when going to sleep and it was a case of being interrupted by the gruesome newscasts every hour or the ads that blast out at a greater volume or some “issue” that was being discussed that was depressing rather than relaxing.
So in desperation I went on to ‘Google’ the words “garden podcast” and I found one that I really like that will mention in the upcoming shows. I went on to find a couple of knitting podcasts that I also really liked.
Now, I’m not much of a knitter but it was the quality of these shows that kept me coming back. The first was Brenda Dayne’s “Cast On” http://www.cast-on.com/ and the second is Sticks and String by David Reidy http://sticksandstring.com.au/ Both are very professional and entertaining and I am an avid listener of both.
Is this a technical show about gardening?
Are you a professional Gardener? (Disclaimer)
I just want to say firstly that this series is about my experiences in gardening and what I have learned. I have no gardening qualifications apart from a nursery practices certificate which I did about 15 years ago, which means I know how to propagate stuff.
These podcasts are not factual or evidence based, it’s about fun, sharing a being part of a gardening community. I don’t make any claims about my gardening practices as being best practice or right or even safe. It’s just what I do. Please consult your local gardening professional before taking any action or accepting anything I say as gardeningly correct.
I hope to make this series a bit of fun with interesting information, a few stories and some interviews..
How did the theme music evolve?
The music for the show is my variation on the catchy melody in “The Anvil Chorus”
Quoting Wikipedia
”Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi (October 9 or 10, 1813 – January 27, 1901)
The Anvil Chorus is the English term for the Coro di zingari (Italian gypsy chorus), a piece of music from Act 2, Scene 1 of Giuseppe Verdi's Il trovatore (The Troubador) (1853) which depicts Spanish Gypsies striking their anvils at dawn (hence its English name) and singing the praises of hard work, good wine, and their gypsy women.”
Doesn’t that have gardening written all over it?
Don’t ask me how I came up with this for the theme. It literally just came to me out of thin air. I knew the melody in my subconscious and I couldn’t remember for the life of me which opera it came from or who wrote it. I heard someone mention ‘the anvil chorus’ on the radio and “hallelujah”, I ran in, looked it up on the web and sure enough it was the tune I wanted.
Why this tune?
I came up with the ‘Dig it down under’ title and I guess the word dig has that one syllable stab that coincides with the phrasing of the music. I wrote the lyrics to it and have modified it to suit. I originally planned to write something totally original but this seemed embody the sweaty joy of gardening. I then decided on a fun acoustic version.
I roped in my good friend, JJ Retailer of Tales (local story teller), who is not a professional singer, to sing along to give it an earthy ambience.
I’m not from Australia, can you describe the area you live in for me please?
The state of Victoria is located on the south eastern corner of Australia. Melbourne is the capital city of Victoria.
Please visit http://www.liveinvictoria.vic.gov.au for a full description of the climate and terrain of this corner of the earth.
I live on about half acre (quarter hectare) of that great dividing range about 50km due east of Melbourne city. The other interesting thing about where I live is that it is a high bushfire danger zone. I believe that along with a couple of other areas in the world, it is one of the most dangerous and let me tell you about the wind ( and I don’t mean the morning after eating Jerusalem artichokes). This block is on a north facing ridge with about 40ish tall gum trees around the house and on a windy night it’s very easy to get religious I can tell you.
I always describe Victoria as being between the desert and the ice. When we get the north winds they come down from the heat of the central desert around Uluru (Aires rock) or Queensland and when the wind swings about to the south it’s coming in straight off the Antarctic.
So Melbourne is right between a hot rock and a cold rock and the wind direction has a big bearing on the sudden temperature swings that we get. Some days the weather can change from 40 degrees Celsius to 13 degrees Celsius.
What’s a blog?
For those of you who don’t know what a blog is. Just think of it as a diary with dates on every entry with the latest entry at the top. The latest show notes will always be on the first page of the blog and the previous notes are all accessible via links.
What’s a feed?
A feed is a link that you paste into your podcasting software that allows it to automatically find and download new episodes.
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