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Another great interview I did in May 2015 I talk about this interview in a recent interview I don’t think I’ve posted yet but you’ll be hearing soon from Listener and fellow Idahoan Vicki Henderson so I hope you enjoy this. Tell us a little about yourself. My husband and I live in Boise ID, in a main urban part of town, on a standard lot. There’s just the two of us, we have three kids who are grown and live in the area, 1 cat and 3 chickens. For the last ten years we have developed an urban homestead with fruit trees, perennial vegetable gardens, summer gardens because the climate in Boise, ID is very cold in the winter and hot and dry in the summer. We try to become more self-sufficient, do organic gardening and work with the weather. At sort of ground level, about 100-200 feet. High desert climate surrounded by hills that go up to about 4-5000 feet and then you get out into the high mountains of southern Idaho. Sort of a high desert, mountainous climate. Tell me about your first gardening experience? I thought about that a lot, the one person who really hooked me on gardening was my grandfather. I grew up in a little city called Pomona in California, he was what I called a master gardener without the certificates. He lived in a standard lot, he had an avacado tree, a peach tree and cumquats, and grapes and strawberries and had just an immaculate back yard and front yard and he just loved to garden, had been in WWI or WWII, and it was very theraputeic, my grandmotehr was a baker and canner, preserved foods, and knitted and crocheted, I just loved spending weekends with my grandparents. What does organic gardening/earth friendly mean to you? Look at it as trying to work as closely with nature as possible given different variables. I think it depends on how or where you’re living and what particular challenges you face where you are. Who or what inspired you to start using organic techniques? I’m in my late 50’s so I was a kid in the late 60-70’s and there was kind of a back-to-earth movement with the hippy culture. I think in the ’70s I started really looking at why are we using a lot of herbicides and pesticides and what’s going into our ground water, and as I became older and a home owner I was looking at what can I do to sort of work with nature more, to use less water and mulch, use less herbicides and pesticides and use other alternatives, use different kinds of products or natural ingredients that would reduce pests and weeds, and any kind of noxious things that were growing. How did you learn how to garden organically? I subscribe to Mother Earth News way way back when they first started publishing, read a lot of Rodale press over the years, that promoted organic gardening, and from going to nurseries and greenhouses and talking to other people and now with the internet, then it’s a matter of filtering of through all that information. I did become a master gardener through the University of ID, Boise ID. They did start offering permaculture classes. Tell us about something that grew well this year. Cool weather crops are doing great, have a couple of kinds of kale and some collard greens. Tomatoes and peppers planted, perennial vines – blackberries, raspberries, and marionberries.  Last year we had a great harvest of tomatoes and peppers, peppers were down a little bit, everyone in the valley said that last year. Had a great fruit harvest, nectarines, no apples last year, but our new baby pear tree even gave us some pears. Peppers I usually get small starts, I planted them in June and they were well watered and taken care of and the plants got really big, but there were no peppers, just kind of odd. There’s lots of small starts up this year. Bought a small greenhouse this year. I have some nice big 4′ green beans, and some basil and cilantro and a few other herbs coming up. Is there something you would do different next year or Support this podcast