Roots Watering Hole Podcast Series

March 2023 Food Literacy Podcast

Orrin Williams Season 3 Episode 3

We are kicking off the gardening season with some tips and things to consider fro the upcoming gardening season. To deepen our discussion about food literacy we will be providing links for general cooking as well as using herbs and spices to create tasty meals.

Food Literacy Podcast – Garden Education Show Notes

 In addition to the March 2023 food literacy podcast find a link to a clip and show notes from the  February 2022 Garden Education podcast, covering topics such as hardiness zones, first and last frost dates, seed starts, etc to get you started for this season. The 2023 episode will offer more information but there is no need to, as they say, re-invent the wheel. 

 On a similar note, the March 2022 Garden Education episode offers more information about hardiness zones as well as topics such as sun exposure or the photoperiod for your site. How much light your site receives during the season should be a primary consideration when developing your site plan. In the simplest terms, a site is considered a full sun site if it receives 6 to 8 hours of full sun.  Not receiving full sun does not deter you from gardening successfully. 4 to 6 hours of sunlight or a shady site can yield a nice crop. The difference? Your full sun site is perfect for tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, and many other crops including your flowers to attract pollinators and beneficial insects. Shady sites on the other hand are ideal for green leafy vegetables and many herbs. So let us get started with planning your garden for 2023 and beyond.

Check out our partner Chicago Grows Food which distributes the podcast in their monthly newsletter and is a coalition of various organizations we work with on CGF programs. See the website for a list of coalition partners. During the podcast, I mentioned the Chicago Partnership for Health Promotion (CPHP) see the website about CPHP programs.

 I have proudly worked for nearly two years on the Community Food Navigator project here in Chicago. The project is about all things food in the Chicago area, please check out the website and the app, great work CFN team!

 Explore the Spruce Eats website that I enjoy for information about cooking. In the future, we will cover and include other websites with information about cooking and food literacy.  Stay tuned!

 Again, the links at the top of the page cover many of the topics you should consider during this garden and crop planning time before really jumping into gardening from April thru June. 

 Excitement reigns please reach out to orrinw@uic.edu. Stay tuned for the April Food Literacy podcast with more food literacy information and a segment with soil enthusiast and soil scientist Dr. Akilah Martin.

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, or the CPHP. The material and information presented here are for general information purposes only. While the podcast is designed to promote the development of healthy communities through food literacy, we offer no health advice and encourage our listeners to seek guidance from the healthcare providers of their choice.


People on this episode