August offers opportunities to sow seeds for crops that will carry our gardeners into autumn. There will be about 60 days before the first frost date. Check out the video links for crops that will mature before October 15th. Because frost dates are not set in stone, you may even have a longer period. Last year, I harvested some warm-weather crops after November 1, so you never know. Just know there is ample time to continue your 2025 gardening journey...

I am elated to offer this episode after beginning my gardening adventure thinking that everything had to be sown before July 1st. There are plenty of crops that you can sow for a fall harvest. The main things to remember is that they should mature in the next 60 days of so and that they can endure cooling late summer and early autumn temperatures, especially at night.

Here are some links for you to check out.

From one of my favorite YouTube channels, the Gardening Channel, here is a video with 20 potential crops you may want to consider sowing in August.

I want you to think outside the box and have fun gardening. I have experimented with multiple varieties of crops such as kale, collards (my favorite), okra, beans, peas, and others from the African Diaspora. So, I am happy to share this video from a plant person in Brooklyn that grows cotton! Also, check out this offering.

I love our plant kin, without them, life as we know it on Mother Earth would not exist. Check out some videos regarding plant research:

The Sleepy Scientist: How Plants Make Life Possible

New Scientific Discoveries That Change Everything About Plants

How Plants Think...

I always thought bolting was something you wanted to avoid except perhaps if you wanted to collect seeds. But the Benefits of Bolting?

Happy August, look out for the September episode dropping soon!

Contact: orrinw@uic.edu

The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed are the speaker’s own and do not represent the views, thoughts, and opinions of the University of Illinois at Chicago, the OCEAN-HP, the CPHP, the CUT, or the RWH podcast series. The material and information presented here are for general information purposes only. While the podcast is about food literacy, we offer no medical or health advice and encourage our listeners to seek guidance from their healthcare providers.

Here is a short 15-minute episode with reminders about what to pay attention to in our gardens in July.

July has arrived and gardening season is in full swing. There are approximately 105 days left in the typical growing season. Of course, if you take some steps to extend the season you may be able to grow crops such as collard greens, kale, etc. in early winter.

Here are some crops you may want to consider growing in July that will provide a yield before the frost returns. Stony Acres Gardening and The Gardening Channel offer options for growing in the USDA Hardiness Zones 5, 6, and 7 before the first frost date. Zone 5 may have a shorter window and zone 7 a longer window but we are looking at a range between 80 to 110 days, with climate change being the wild card.

It does not hurt to reiterate the importance of water for your garden. We often discuss watering and the proper technique, but this video happens to be the best I have ever seen on the topic. Please watch it.

You may want to take a deeper dive into research, but here's a reminder that fertilizing your garden, especially a container or grow bag garden, is essential. Proper watering and fertilization are necessary for maintaining and producing healthy plants. Healthy plants are a deterrent for pest problems as pests are nature's way of dealing with weak and dying plants.

I am closely watching the supply chain issues we may experience nationally as farm workers are not showing up to harvest and prepare produce for distribution to market. Stay tuned for more on that coming up but it is also a reason to vastly and quickly increase home and community gardens as well as urban and peri-urban farms. How we do that is something we need to discuss as vulnerable communities. The recent Congressional action on taxes, along with the attacks on Medicaid, will find millions of people uninsured and unable to access food. Alas, here is another reason to invest in and engage in practices to expand our gardening sector. The need for a care and self-care economy is growing rapidly.

Best herbs for container gardening:

Momzone

Medicinal Backyard

Garden Answer

Please, please remember we do not offer any medical advice, so please consult with your primary care physician and/or the health care team of your choice before proceeding with any herbal or personal health care journey...

I am going to stop here until the next episode when I will update you on the state of the food supply chain...

Produced by Orrin Williams orrinw@uic.edu

The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed are the speaker’s own and do not represent the views, thoughts, and opinions of the University of Illinois at Chicago, the OCEAN-HP, the CPHP, the CUT, or the RWH podcast series. The material and information presented here are for general information purposes only. While the podcast is about food literacy, we offer no medical or health advice and encourage our listeners to seek guidance from their healthcare providers.

Tune in for some general observations about June gardening and seasonal shopping. Also, remember to get some Vitamin N—the N stands for nature. Get outside, get moving, and eat real, whole seasonal fruits and vegetables as the main part of your diet.

The summer solstice is almost here in the northern hemisphere, and it is time for one of my favorite foods- watermelon. Make sure you know how to select a great melon.

This summer, seasonal produce will be abundant in addition to watermelon. See what to expect in Illinois.

See this link for June gardening tips in our June 2023 Food Literacy podcast episode. Check out the Chicago Grows Food website, especially for information about grow bag container gardening.

Register here for the first Narratives and Nourishment project's first event on June 28th at Burst Into Books in the Roseland community area. Stay tuned for upcoming Narratives and Nourishment events, including the Back to School event at Da Book Joint, another vital partner on the project. Thank you to Jurema Gorham of Burst Into Books and Courtney Woods of Da Book Joint for their awesome support!

Contact: orrinw@uic.edu

The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed are the speaker’s own and do not represent the views, thoughts, and opinions of the University of Illinois at Chicago, the OCEAN-HP, the CPHP, the CUT, or the RWH podcast series. The material and information presented here are for general information purposes only. While the podcast is about food literacy, we offer no health advice and encourage our listeners to seek guidance from their healthcare providers.

May 2025 Food Literacy Podcast Notes

May is here in Chicago with the typical temperature swings. We had temperatures ranging between 80 and 90 degrees for a couple of days last week, and now, as I write and put the podcast together on May 20th, it is 53 degrees with a blustery wind. The keyword in this era of climate instability is unpredictable.

Rather than being redundant, I invite you to visit the Roots Watering Hole and Chicago Grows Food websites for more information. The Collard Project inspired our African Diaspora Crop project, which has distributed hundreds of seeds to local urban farmers, as well as home and community gardeners. The seeds are various collard, kale, okra, beans, peas, and peppers from the Diaspora. Seed companies we have sourced from include Sistah Seeds, Truelove Seeds, Ujamaa Seeds, Southern Exposure, and The Seedstead. Here is some recently discovered information about seeds and crops from the African Diaspora, Oro House, The Local Palate, and Yisrael Family Farms.

Also see: The Heirloom Collard Project, and the NPR report on collard seed saving.

More in the upcoming months on the dangers of ultraprocessed foods and nutrition and wellness information.

Contact: orrinw@uic.edu

The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed are the speaker’s own and do not represent the views, thoughts, and opinions of the University of Illinois at Chicago, the OCEAN-HP, the CPHP, the CUT, or the RWH podcast series. The material and information presented here are for general information purposes only. While the podcast is about food literacy, we offer no health advice and encourage our listeners to seek guidance from their healthcare providers.

Enjoy the April 2025 Food Literacy Podcast!

Of significant importance to successful gardening is the number of hours of sunlight available (see the amount of daily sunlight available via your zip code) at this time of year. Now is a good time to start warm weather crop seeds indoors, such as tomatoes, peppers, etc., they should be mature and ready for transplanting after the last frost date (check last frost dates, understand there is no way to know precisely when the last frost date will be, the safest bet is late May or the beginning of June.

In these uncertain times, and that is all I will say about that for now, food prices are probably going to continue to rise, and there may be supply chain issues as well. This made me remember the rise and use of victory gardens. Victory gardens provided as much as 40% of the produce consumed during WWII. We may not be able to completely replicate the victory gardens of old, but the point is we may collectively need to grow as much of our produce as possible to reduce food costs, increase our consumption of produce, and even be healthier.

Grow bag container gardening is nothing if not versatile, for example, this video of large-scale grow bag container operations, with the point being we can grow produce at various scales based upon the space available.

Benefits of Gardening:

Healthline

Ecotero

Cleveland Clinic

Mayo Clinic

If you want to start your 2025 garden early, see some crops you may want to consider for April:

Growfully with Jenna

Fox Run Environmental Education Center on Lettuce

The Gardening Channel 10 Crops to Grow in April

MI Gardener: Why Fabric Grow Bags Are Superior

Chicago Grows Food

Grow Bag Vegetable Gardening

Best Vegetables to Grow in a 1-Gallon Bag

Direct Seeded Grow Bags

How to Reuse Old Potting Soil

Documentaries

Food Revolution...

Talking Plants...

Contact: orrinw@uic.edu

The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed are the speaker’s own and do not represent the views, thoughts, and opinions of the University of Illinois at Chicago, the OCEAN-HP, the CPHP, the CUT, or the RWH podcast series. The material and information presented here are for general information purposes only. While the podcast is about food literacy, we offer no health advice and encourage our listeners to seek guidance from their healthcare providers.

This month's Food Literacy podcast is entirely devoted to gardening. Happy Meteorological Spring, here's to a great gardening season!

It is March and the plant and gardening communities are raring to go. In fact, I have distributed thousands of seeds to our partners to begin seedlings and their crop plans.

One site we like is Mind & Soil and their YouTube Channel where they have done numerous experiments on garden-related processes. I think the Mind and Soil website is worth a deep investigation—the following video details and experiments that will influence our soil mix for the upcoming season. The soil mix we will use this season will include 50% potting mix and 50% compost. Into the transplant hole, I will add worm castings and organic granular fertilizer. See the video for rationale and details:

Garden Experiments With Mind and Soil-Compost vs Fertilizer

Check out the videos from the site for tips on seed starting, grow lights and the optimal hours of light required for your seedlings, if you anticipate starting seedlings this season. Remember, do not rely solely on this information source do a search of keywords such as grow lights, best grow lights for vegetable seedlings, vegetable seed starting, best methods for starting vegetable seeds indoors, etc.

The next consideration is a seed starting schedule for cool and warm weather crops, also see. In addition to the schedule other factors to consider are the last frost date for our area, soil temperature and soil temperature requirements for various crops. There are no hard and fast dates or rules, every year is different as you study various sites you will quickly see that for our USDA Hardiness Zone last frost dates vary widely from April 15th to May15th. It is critical for you to begin with cool weather crops because should your guess about frost dates be off it may not damage your crops, Collard greens can tolerate frost, tomatoes cannot. Frost dates are used to determine when to start seeds indoors if you are so inclined so pay attention. See Growfullly with Jenna also in Zone 6 for crops you may want to consider for March.

Here are the links from the 2023 and 2024 March Food Literacy podcasts that you may find useful.

Contact: orrinw@uic.edu

The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed are the speaker’s own and do not represent the views, thoughts, and opinions of the University of Illinois at Chicago, the OCEAN-HP, the CPHP, the CUT, or the RWH podcast series. The material and information presented here are for general information purposes only. While the podcast is about food literacy, we offer no health advice and encourage our listeners to seek guidance from their healthcare providers.

Please listen to this episode of the Roots Watering Hole podcast with Dr. Christy Garrison Harrison of Southern University. We asked Dr. Harrison to respond to a question we asked of respondents to our collaboration with the Center for Humans and Nature for their Questions for a Resilient Future series. The question is "What can we learn from the soil about our fundamental interconnectedness?"

Additionally, we followed up by asking Dr. Harrison to respond to how people in the African Diaspora should deal with the meta-crisis or poly-crisis threatening all beings with extinction. For more information on the term see: https://www.realitystudies.co/p/explaining-polycrisis-and-metacrisis.

We asked the question from the framework of acknowledging that the people of Africa and the African Diaspora are the oldest human populations on Mother Earth. After over 200,000 years of adapting to life, how do we take responsibility and leadership for the future of humans and all of our relations?

The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed are the speaker’s own and do not represent the views, thoughts, and opinions of the University of Illinois at Chicago, the OCEAN-HP, the CPHP, the CUT, or the RWH podcast series. The material and information presented here are for general information purposes only. While the podcast is about food literacy, we offer no health advice and encourage our listeners to seek guidance from their healthcare providers.

Introductory podcast for the 2025 season. Tune in for updates about what to expect in 2025. Also, please share topics you would like to see us cover beginning in February 2025. We are looking for guests as we will offer video episodes with content experts in February or March of 2025. Stay tuned for that, in the meantime let us prepare for a healthy and happy gardening and food literacy season!

National Seed Swap Day is January 25, 2025. Check out the Cool Beans website for more information. Thinking of doing a seed swap this year check out the Cool Beans video on the topic?

Many of us who are advocates of home and community gardening, as well as urban farming, do so because we believe the future is a diversified food system, check out this video regarding why planning for the future is urgent.

Check out this interview on unlocking the secrets of longevity and healthspan from the Center for Food as Medicine. Here is another article to consider regarding the treatment of diet-related diseases versus prevention.

Finally, (and again I am not promoting Traditional Chinese Medicine), is food enough, or are other considerations required for health and well-being?

The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed are the speaker’s own and do not represent the views, thoughts, and opinions of the University of Illinois at Chicago, the OCEAN-HP, the CPHP, the CUT, or the RWH podcast series. The material and information presented here are for general information purposes only. While the podcast is about food literacy, we offer no health advice and encourage our listeners to seek guidance from their healthcare providers.