Beyond Permaculture with Cassiopeia Farm
If you follow any flower farmers on Instagram, the romance may be all too tempting: picture yourself quitting the city, fixing up an old farmhouse, and spending your days harvesting flowers and arranging bouquets on a ten-acre homestead. Now imagine doing that in a fire-prone, flood-prone, deer-pressured, rapidly developing portion of Austin without access to well water or an agricultural property tax exemption. Sam Eberhardt and Dan Poole are farming on the razor’s edge, doing everything the hard way, and still somehow managing to make the dream look absolutely fabulous.
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Season 2 Trailer
The upcoming season of Hothouse is devoted to climate change. I'll be talking to activists, artists, farmers, and journalists about the new normal that we face in 2019. How is climate change already affecting our lives? What can we do to limit global warming? And how are each of us reckoning, in our own anxious ways, with the future?
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Houseplant Confidential with Jane Perrone
On this episode, we’re taking an intimate look at the the most domesticated plants of all: houseplants. My guest, Jane Perrone, is a London-based journalist and the host-producer of the indoor gardening podcast On The Ledge. We’ll discuss Jane’s background, some myths and misconceptions of container gardening, and the human tendency to anthropomorphize our houseplants. At the top of the show, I’ll dive into the revealing history of the Aspidistra elatior, a houseplant once so iconic it was the subject of a popular song, the codename for a “black propaganda” operation in WWII, and the central metaphor in a George Orwell novel. Today, the Aspidistra is barely considered a houseplant at all.
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Gone to Seed with Colleen Dieter
Colleen Dieter, co-founder of the the Central Texas Seed Library, talks about how saving, swapping, and sharing seeds can help us build community, reclaim lost agricultural knowledge, and preserve crucial genetic diversity in our global food supply.
Thanks to Colleen and a group of other volunteers and librarians, a seed library is coming soon to Austin’s fabulous new downtown Central Library. Here, anybody can browse and take home free, open-pollinated seeds to grow in the garden.
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Nothing Natural About Capitalism (Part 2 of 2) with Ryan Rosshirt
In Part 2 of the series “Nothing Natural About Capitalism,” Leah talks to Austin-based activist Ryan Rosshirt about permaculture design and the challenge of building a society that supports meaningful work. We’ll discuss ecosystem repair, the joy of chickens, and how the Austin chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) is fighting business interests big and small to improve quality of life for workers.
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Nothing Natural About Capitalism (Part 1 of 2)
Capitalism: Can't live with it, can't live without it! Or can we? And what is the connection between capitalism and what we eat, how we work, and who bears the impacts of climate change? What, if any, are the alternatives? In this two-part series, "Nothing Natural About Capitalism," the Starship Hothouse will boldly go where no gardening podcast has gone before, as Leah attempts to articulate some nascent ideas about how the design principles of permaculture, combined with the populist vision of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), might offer a ray of hope in these dispiriting times…
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Conservation & Identity with LaJuan Tucker
On this episode, we'll examine the relationship between natural history and social history. Park ranger LaJuan Tucker has a passion for wildlife preservation and a personal mission to encourage more young people of color to pursue careers in environmental conservation. What does a park ranger do all day? How should our parklands be used, and who gets to decide? And how do we, in the 21st century, reconcile the romance of the iconic Texas landscape with the racist realities of our past?
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Amaranth to Zinnias with Gretchen O'Neil
Farmer-florist Gretchen O'Neil stops in to dish the dirt on growing cut flowers. Gretchen is the founder of Petals, Ink, a floral design studio, mobile flower truck, and women-run farm in Manor, Texas. She'll tell us about the highs and lows of the farming life, how working the land has helped this New England native find a sense of seasonality in Central Texas, and she’ll recommend a whole bunch of varieties you can plant from seed right now to get start your own cutting garden -- no greenhouse required!
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Fungal Vision with Daniel Reyes
On this episode, we venture into the strange and mysterious kingdom of fungi with mycologist Daniel Reyes. Daniel is the founder of MycoAlliance, a science and education company that offers classes in mushroom propagation and conducts research at an off-the-grid laboratory in a nature preserve in east Austin. In addition to growing culinary and medicinal mushrooms, MycoAlliance specializes in Mycoremediation, the practice of using fungi to clean up toxic pollution.
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