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First Aired - 12/06/2011 02:00PM
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Henry Lau is 17 years old and in Grade 12 at Windemere Secondary School in Vancouver, British Columbia. He belongs to the Windermere Organic Garden, a student-led initiative that provides food for the school cafeteria while focusing on the importance of organic practices and educating students about food and agriculture. The garden has a 16x20 foot greenhouse, 13 garden beds, an aquaponics system, and an industrial-sized composter. When senior students started the project 5 years ago, Henry knew nothing about gardening, but the plants starting to pop up in his teacher's office caught his eye. He found that agriculture was an art, and watching something as small as a seed turn into a meal was an amazing experience that gave him a better appreciation of food. He credits his experience with the garden to a great deal of personal growth and admires that it can be an open and peaceful space for everyone at the school. Henry feels fortunate to live in a community dedicated to food security and the growing green movement, and when he graduates, he hopes to continue studies in food and nutrition while working in the local community garden and tree orchard. This episode was sponsored by Jones Family Farms.
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First Aired - 03/20/2011 03:00PM
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This week's episode of We Dig Plants explores one of the most important and misunderstood crops in the history of America - tobacco. Tune in and learn about the history of the nicotiana plant and how it affected our economy, health and politics. Find out about the origins of cigarette production and why the big tobacco companies are able to influence so many other organizations around us. This episode was sponsored by S. Wallace Edwards & Sons. For more information visit www.SurryFarms.com.
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We Dig Plants Introduction: Tobacco! (22:41)
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We Dig Plants, Alice Marcus Krieg, Carmen DeVito, Heritage Radio Network, S. Wallace Edwards & Sons, tobacco, in 1612 John Rolfe, found that tobacco would grow very well in Virginia, tobacco as a means of currency for Chesapeake colonies, valuable exchange for gold, began growing in the Americas in 6000 BC, American Indians began using tobacco around 1 BC, believed to be a cure all, used to dress wounds and used as a painkiller, chewing tobacco was used to relieve toothaches, first crop grown for money in North America, in 1632 it was illegal to smoke publicly in Massachusetts, people smoked 40 cigarettes a year in the 1800s, the Duke family fortune is based on tobacco, The American Tobacco Company, Phillip Morris, Marlboro company, cigarettes were promoted to men, soldiers overseas were given free cigarettes every day, women needed to smoke after entering the work force, Carmen was a smoker and ended up quitting, by 1944 cigarette production was up to 300 billion a year, servicemen received 75% of these cigarettes, tar wars, in 1984 congress passed the comprehensive smoking education pact, companies have to change warning labels every few months, cost for cigarette production is low, top producing states are Kentucky Georgia and North Carolina, Eye Chart for Hearing Impaired Smokers, tobacco companies are married to American politics, Thank You for Smoking,All About Tobacco Plants (14:35)
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the tobacco plant, nicotiana, various species, cultivated to grow tobacco, nicotiana tobaccum, Jean Nico, French ambassador of Portugal, ornamental nicotiana, flowering tobacco, poisonous parts of the plant, indoor seeds, self sowing, growing tobacco in a garden, cigarette ads, Burpee Seed Company, history of the crop,To comment on this episode click here. There are currently Comments
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We Dig Plants Introduction: Wine! (15:00)
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Hearst Ranch, Groundworks INC, Mario DeVito, the origin of wine, Georgian Wine, ancient wine used wild grapes, the earliest domestication of grapes was 3200 BC, wine cultivation was also in ancient Egypt in 3300 BC, no one knows when wine was first introduced in ancient Greece, the Minoans had wine, modern Greek wine is believed to be very similiar to its ancient counterpart, wine was a huge part of the Roman diet, the Appalaichian system, a bottle of Roman wine was discovered in the 1800s in a sarcophogus in Germany and it was a preserved bottle from 327 BC, olive oil was a common way of preserving wine and more effective than a cork plug, the peasants drank mostly ale, wine was flavored and watered down sometimes, Spanish explorers brought grapes to the Americas for ceremonies, the native grape of Eurasian region was bred with our Native American grape species and created a hybrid resistant to insects, Mario has been making grapes for several years, Mario blends CA grapes and ancient techniques for preservation, best time to plant is March, planting to be able to replant, your prune in October, best land for grapes are hilly dry soil thats loamy and gravely and a little rocky, only manure no chemical fertilizer, Mario has many opinions on the pruning of the vines, leaving shutes and cutting or tying the rest, you can't always cut in January or Febuary, but in CA you cut in the winter, you don't want the sap to start running when you prune, the difference between growing table grapes and wine grapes, protecting grapes with shade, grapes are very prone to diseases, any time it rains or is humid or foggy the next day you have to spray the grapes,Home Wine Making (15:00)
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home wine making, grape crusher, machine to seperate the grapes from the stem, manual or electric, you take a thermometer to measure the juice and sugar, squeeze a grape to taste how much sugar is in it, Mario blends a bouquet of grape varieties, the grapes should ferment naturally and within a couple of days, the grapes rise and the juice goes down, you continue to measure with the thermometer, the sugar level goes down and the alcohol level goes up, between zero and five percent you remove the juice and put it in a barrel or demijohn, you take all the grape skin and put it into the presser, the fermentation creates pressure, put water in the airvalve so if it bubbles nothing goes in, the worst enemy for wine is air, you filter that wine with an electric pump, using one inch of vegetable oil to prevent air escaping, a young wine you can drink in May or April, Mario bottle himself with cork and has a machine to keep bottles 55 degrees, this wine has no sulfites or preservatives so it will go sour at the wrong temperature, Â ,To comment on this episode click here. There are currently Comments
