Urban Forestry Radio

Hardy kiwi vines produce berries that are sweeter than table grapes and they have more vitamin C per ounce than an average orange. And while the fruit is similar to the larger, fuzzy kiwis that grow in New Zealand and California, kiwi berries have edible skin. In this episode our guest is Iago Hale, Associate Professor in Agriculture, Nutrition and Food Systems at the University of New Hampshire and he explains how to grow kiwi berries in a cool climate.The prize for this episode's contest was: Cold-Hardy Fruits and Nuts: 50 Easy-to-Grow Plants for the Organic Home Garden or Landscape by Allyson Levy and Scott Serrano and valued at $33.  The host of The Urban Forestry Radio Show and Podcast is Susan Poizner of the fruit tree care education website www.orchardpeople.com.  Tune into The Urban Forestry Radio Show LIVE by going to RealityRadio101.com on the last Tuesday of every month at 1.00 pm Eastern Time.Learn to grow organic fruit trees successfully. Sign up for OrchardPeople.com's premium online courses at

According to Entomologist Thomas M. Dykstra, Ph.D. of Dykstra Laboratories in Gainesville, Florida, insect pests can't attack healthy plants. Learn more and ask your questions in this live radio show.In the show, Thomas mentions that anyone can measure leaf brix with two tools:  A garlic press that you can easily clean A refractometer  Thomas also mentions a PDF Leaf Brix Chart. Here are two versions of it to download:Leaf Brix ChartLeaf Brix Chart with Insect GroupsThe prize for today's show was a copy of Joe Lampl's new book:The Vegetable Gardening Book: Your complete guide to growing an edible organic garden from seed to harvestThe host of The Urban Forestry Radio Show and Podcast is Susan Poizner of the fruit tree care education website www.orchardpeople.com.  Tune into The Urban Forestry Radio Show LIVE by going to RealityRadio101.com on the last Tuesday of every month at 1.00 pm Eastern Time.Learn to grow organic fruit trees successfully. Sign up for OrchardPeople.com's premium online courses at https

There are some fantastic heirloom peach cultivars that are not available at your local supermarket....but you can grow them at home! Lawton Pearson of Pearson Farm talks about his family's history of growing peaches in Georgia and his favourite cultivars. You can find a video excerpt from the show here: https://youtu.be/zZtV8o1B4EYThe host of The Urban Forestry Radio Show and Podcast is Susan Poizner of the fruit tree care education website www.orchardpeople.com.  Tune into The Urban Forestry Radio Show LIVE by going to RealityRadio101.com on the last Tuesday of every month at 1.00 pm Eastern Time.Learn to grow organic fruit trees successfully. Sign up for OrchardPeople.com's premium online courses at https://learn.orchardpeople.com/. 

Commercial growers are increasingly growing sweet cherries and other fruits in an easy to prune, maintain and harvest fruiting wall structure. Matthew Whiting, Extension Specialist from Washington State University, played a key role in developing the UFO cherry fruiting wall system and he explains how they are grown. During the interview, Matthew mentions this document which describes the steps for creating a UFO cherry tree. Our show prize this month was a copy of Micro Food Gardening: Project plans and plants for growing fruits and veggies in tiny spaces by Jennifer McGuinness valued at $26.99. The host of The Urban Forestry Radio Show and Podcast is Susan Poizner of the fruit tree care education website www.orchardpeople.com.  Tune into The Urban Forestry Radio Show LIVE by going to RealityRadio101.com on the last Tuesday of every month at 1.00 pm Eastern Time.Learn to grow organic fruit trees successfully. Sign up for OrchardPeople.com's premium online courses at https://learn.orchardpeople.com/. 

Learn how to transform your backyard into a food forest, integrating existing fruit trees and shrubs into the design. Dani Baker, author of The Home-Scale Forest Garden: How to Plan, Plant and Tend a Resilient Edible Landscape is our show guest. Dani is the owner of Cross Island Farms in Wellesley Island, NY and the creator of The Enchanted Edible Forest. The host of The Urban Forestry Radio Show and Podcast is Susan Poizner of the fruit tree care education website www.orchardpeople.com.  Tune into The Urban Forestry Radio Show LIVE by going to RealityRadio101.com on the last Tuesday of every month at 1.00 pm Eastern Time.Learn to grow organic fruit trees successfully. Sign up for OrchardPeople.com's premium online courses at https://learn.orchardpeople.com/. 

Fruit trees can be productive, but they can also be beautiful! In this episode learn how to create an espalier fruit tree planting where the tree is trained up against a wall or fence.  Our expert guest will be Ron Perry, Ph.D., Professor in the Department of Horticulture at Michigan State University (MSU) (Retired) and Co-Author of Espalier Fruit Trees for Northern Gardens: Creating Fruit Trees as Art (affiliate link). Email in a question during the live show and you will be entered into this month's contest to win a copy of the book, valued at $15.99.The host of The Urban Forestry Radio Show and Podcast is Susan Poizner of the fruit tree care education website www.orchardpeople.com.  Tune into The Urban Forestry Radio Show LIVE by going to RealityRadio101.com on the last Tuesday of every month at 1.00 pm Eastern Time.Learn to grow organic fruit trees successfully. Sign up for OrchardPeople.com's premium online courses at https://learn.orchardpeople.com/. 

In the past, you would consult a plant hardiness zone map if you wanted to know whether a fruit tree or any other plant could survive in your climate.  But our climate is quickly changing. Are plant hardiness zone maps still helpful? In this episode, we chat about plant hardiness zones with two research scientists from the Canadian Forest Service. They are Dan McKenney, PhD and John Pedlar. You can learn more about their work and download plant hardiness maps here. To watch a video excerpt of this podcast visit:https://youtu.be/IqLozgJAE5MListeners who emailed during the live show were entered into this month's contest. The prize was a copy of the Arbor Day Foundations's new book Now is the Time For Trees: Make an Impact by Planting the Word's Most Valuable Resource (affiliate link) valued at $19.95 USD. You can find more information about plant hardiness zones below: Canadian Plant Hardiness Zone Maps and More:planthardiness.gc.caChange and Evolution in the Plant Hardiness Zones of Canada:https://academic.ou

How do you encourage young fruit trees to grow faster and produce an earlier harvest?  Susan Poizner of OrchardPeople.com chats with John Cline Ph.D, Professor in the Department of Plant Agriculture, at the University of Guelph in Ontario. John’s focus is on tree fruit physiology and his goal is to discover what factors affect fruit quality and yield. Email in a question during the live show and you will be entered into our contest to win a copy of Susan's new book Grow Fruit Trees Fast: A Beginner's Guide to a Healthy Harvest in Record Time valued at $14.95. Order your copy at https://orchardpeople.com/growfruit/ or here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09WN84GHHThe host of The Urban Forestry Radio Show and Podcast is Susan Poizner of the fruit tree care education website www.orchardpeople.com.  Tune into The Urban Forestry Radio Show LIVE by going to RealityRadio101.com on the last Tuesday of every month at 1.00 pm Eastern Time.Learn to grow organic fruit trees successfully. Sign up for OrchardPeople.com's premi

Steph Roth from Silver Creek Nursery in Ontario talks about how she grafts fruit trees. We will cover collecting fruiting wood, rootstock choices, bench grafting and more. The host of The Urban Forestry Radio Show and Podcast is Susan Poizner of the fruit tree care education website www.orchardpeople.com.  Tune into The Urban Forestry Radio Show LIVE by going to RealityRadio101.com on the last Tuesday of every month at 1.00 pm Eastern Time.Learn to grow organic fruit trees successfully. Sign up for OrchardPeople.com's premium online courses at https://learn.orchardpeople.com/. 

Cider apples are a hot commodity these days. But what about perry pears? In this episode,  Barry Masterson, of Kertel Reiter Cider talks about  perry and tells us how to make it and what pear varieties to use.  Barry, who is from Ireland, lives with his German born wife, Ines, in the village of Schefflenz in North Baden, Germany.  The prize for this week's contest a copy of the book Grow Your Own Mini Fruit Garden: Planting and Tending Small Fruit Trees and Berries in Gardens and Containers by Christy Wilhelmi. 

There is a right way and a wrong way to water your fruit trees and other plants. And how you irrigate will affect the health of your plants and the quality of your harvest. Learn the science behind irrigation with sustainable food gardening expert and author Robert Kourik. The prize for this episode is a PDF copy of Robert's book Roots Demystified valued at $12. Robert sources his irrigation equipment from https://www.dripworks.com/.The host of The Urban Forestry Radio Show and Podcast is Susan Poizner of the fruit tree care education website www.orchardpeople.com.  Tune into The Urban Forestry Radio Show LIVE by going to RealityRadio101.com on the last Tuesday of every month at 1.00 pm Eastern Time.Learn to grow organic fruit trees successfully. Sign up for OrchardPeople.com's premium online courses at https://learn.orchardpeople.com/. 

Learn to use your home grown heirloom fruits in recipes from centuries past. Show guests include orchardist Darren Turpin of Orchardnotes.com, historic cook Paul Couchman of Regencycook.co.uk and culinary historian Brigitte Webster of Tudorexperience.com. 

Lindsay Mitchel, Editor at the International Society of Arboriculture's publication Arborist News and Sarah Ruark, technical advisor at the Davey Institute, the research arm of Davey Tree, talk about the Detective Dendro® educational mystery series, what it's like to be a real life tree detective, and ways that we can all investigate the mysteries that we encounter in our own trees.The host of The Urban Forestry Radio Show and Podcast is Susan Poizner of the fruit tree care education website www.orchardpeople.com.  Tune into The Urban Forestry Radio Show LIVE by going to RealityRadio101.com on the last Tuesday of every month at 1.00 pm Eastern Time.Learn to grow organic fruit trees successfully. Sign up for OrchardPeople.com's premium online courses at https://learn.orchardpeople.com/. 

Lincoln Smith from Forested.us explains how listening to the landscape is the secret to growing healthy fruit trees and fruiting plants. Lincoln will talk about some of his top picks including persimmons, mulberries and black raspberries. Today's show prize is: The Modern Homestead Garden: Growing Self-Sufficiency in Any Size Backyard by Gary Pilarchik (affilate link).Click here to see our podcast page and to check out previous episodes. 

Reagan Wytsalucy, Extension Assistant Professor, Agriculture & Natural Resources at Utah State University, talks about her journey to find the last orchards growing the age-old, drought resistant South West Peaches. First Nations communities in the U.S. have been growing these peaches for hundreds of years. Reagan explains why it is essential NOT to plant these trees on a large scale yet. This month's contest prize is: Micro Food Gardening: Project plans and plants for growing fruits and veggies in tiny spaces by Jennifer McGuinness. Valued at $26.99. The host of The Urban Forestry Radio Show and Podcast is Susan Poizner of the fruit tree care education website www.orchardpeople.com.  Tune into The Urban Forestry Radio Show LIVE by going to RealityRadio101.com on the last Tuesday of every month at 1.00 pm Eastern Time.Learn to grow organic fruit trees successfully. Sign up for OrchardPeople.com's premium online courses at https://learn.orchardpeople.com/. 

Do nitrogen fixing plants and trees actually improve soil fertility? Will your fruit trees benefit if you plant nitrogen fixing plants in your garden? Susan speaks to permaculture orchardist Stefan Sobkowiak of Miracle Farms in Quebec, Canada to find out! The host of The Urban Forestry Radio Show and Podcast is Susan Poizner of the fruit tree care education website www.orchardpeople.com.  Tune into The Urban Forestry Radio Show LIVE by going to RealityRadio101.com on the last Tuesday of every month at 1.00 pm Eastern Time.Learn to grow organic fruit trees successfully. Sign up for OrchardPeople.com's premium online courses at https://learn.orchardpeople.com/. 

Learn how to boost your trees health with fruit tree foliar sprays that you can make at home from sugar, molasses, epsom salts...and Coca-cola? Our show guest is regenerative agriculture expert John Kempf. The host of The Urban Forestry Radio Show and Podcast is Susan Poizner of the fruit tree care education website www.orchardpeople.com.  Tune into The Urban Forestry Radio Show LIVE by going to RealityRadio101.com on the last Tuesday of every month at 1.00 pm Eastern Time.Learn to grow organic fruit trees successfully. Sign up for OrchardPeople.com's premium online courses at https://learn.orchardpeople.com/. 

Soil microbes play an essential role in releasing nutrients from the soil in a form that our fruit trees and other plants can access. So, if your soil doesn't have a healthy and diverse microbe population, your fruit trees will not thrive. The problem is that microbes are so tiny that we can't see them with the human eye. How do we know if we have a good microbe population? According to the Soil Conservation Council of Canada all you have to do is bury a pair of 100% cotton underwear in the topsoil of your garden. Leave your undies in the ground for a couple of months. Then, when you dig them up see what they look like. If your soil microbes have been busy digesting and recycling organic matter, then all that will be left is the elastic waist band.  To learn more about this process, I've invited two experts from the University of Guelph to talk about the "Bury Your Briefs Campaign" and about the role soil microbes play in keeping our fruit trees and other plants healthy. They are Cameron Ogilvie, Knowledge Mo

Jack Legg, an agronomist from SGS Canada, talks about soil and tissue testing and how that can help ensure that your fruit trees and plants have the nutrients they need. Click here to see a video excerpt from this show. The host of The Urban Forestry Radio Show and Podcast is Susan Poizner of the fruit tree care education website www.orchardpeople.com.  Tune into The Urban Forestry Radio Show LIVE by going to RealityRadio101.com on the last Tuesday of every month at 1.00 pm Eastern Time.Learn to grow organic fruit trees successfully. Sign up for OrchardPeople.com's premium online courses at https://learn.orchardpeople.com/. 

What is the secret of growing blueberries successfully? In this episode of The Urban Forestry Radio Show and Podcast we speak to Kathleen Demchak, Senior Extension Associate at Penn State College of Agricultural Sciences about blueberries and how to grow them successfully.    Click here to watch an 8-minute video excerpt from the podcast.  Download Kathleen's PDF on growing blueberries, Keys to Establishing a Successful Blueberry Planting. The prize for this episode's contest includes two tools from Dramm. It includes a 10' soaker ring, which directs water to the roots of young trees and shrubs, and a Dramm Bypass Pro Pruner. The total value of the two item package is $38.00. The host of The Urban Forestry Radio Show and Podcast is Susan Poizner of the fruit tree care education website www.orchardpeople.com.  Tune into The Urban Forestry Radio Show LIVE by going to RealityRadio101.com on the last Tuesday of every month at 1.00 pm Eastern Time.Learn to grow organic fruit trees successfully. Sign up for Orcha