John Hart Asher's guest appearances

John Hart Asher

Hothouse

The Horticulturati

Martha Stewart

Hallie Casey

John Hart

Joshua Trees

” Margret Hofmann

OwlTail

Here's a preview of our bonus segment. To hear the full bonus epsidode, subscribe to our Patreon!  Compost is a mysterious product. Gardeners prize it as “black gold,” but few of us know how it is manufactured on an industrial scale. In this bonus, John Hart Asher breaks down the difference between traditional compost (the kind we might make at home) and the kind that you can buy by the bag or the yard. Commercial compost is a waste byproduct defined by the US Composting Council. Manufacturers don’t have to tell you precisely what’s in it, and in fact they’re legally prohibited from doing so due to the way compost is regulated in Texas. As John Hart explains, this lack of transparency, along with the “windrow” form of manufacturing, can be a real problem for large-scale ecological restoration projects. He describes his work on Mission Reach, an 8-mile stretch of the San Antonio River restored by the city of San Antonio from 2002-2012. Rehabilitating the degraded riparian soil on this site required 35,000 cubic yards of compost – roughly the equivalent of 2,500 dump trucks– and a lot of trial and error. John Hart shares his findings about the shortcomings of commercial compost production and offers up some practical solutions.  patreon.com/horticulturati

Here's a preview of our bonus segment. To hear the full bonus epsidode, subscribe to our <a href="https://www.patreon.com/Horticulturati" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Patreon</a>!  Compost is a mysterious product. Gardeners prize it as “black gold,” but few of us know how it is manufactured on an industrial scale. In this bonus, John Hart Asher breaks down the difference between traditional compost (the kind we might make at home) and the kind that you can buy by the bag or the yard. Commercial compost is a waste byproduct defined by the <a href="https://www.compostingcouncil.org/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">US Composting Council</a>. Manufacturers don’t have to tell you precisely what’s in it, and in fact they’re legally prohibited from doing so due to the way compost is <a href="https://ftp.dot.state.tx.us/pub/txdot-info/cmd/cserve/specs/2014/standard/s161.pdf" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">regulated in Texas.</a> As John Hart explains, this lack of transparency, along with the “windrow” form of manufacturing, can be a real problem for large-scale ecological restoration projects. He describes his work on <a href="https://www.thesanantonioriverwalk.com/pressmaterials/mission-reach/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Mission Reach</a>, an 8-mile stretch of the San Antonio River restored by the city of San Antonio from 2002-2012. Rehabilitating the degraded riparian soil on this site required 35,000 cubic yards of compost – roughly the equivalent of 2,500 dump trucks– and a lot of trial and error. John Hart shares his findings about the shortcomings of commercial compost production and offers up some practical solutions.  <a href="http://patreon.com/horticulturati" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">patreon.com/horticulturati</a>

The Commercial Compost Conundrum with John Hart Asher *TEASER*

We sat down at the picnic table with John Hart Asher, host of Central Texas Gardener and Cofounder/Senior Environmental Designer at  Blackland Collaborative to talk about pocket prairies. What’s a pocket prairie? It’s a very small prairie. What’s a prairie? It’s a community of native grasses and forbs wildflowers that have evolved along with microbes, plants, and animals over millennia. This "disturbance-driven ecology" historically relied on periodic fire and low-frequency, high-intensity grazing to function. John Hart sees the "millions-year-old technology" of the American prairie as a replicable system that we can borrow in our own yards to sequester carbon, manage stormwater runoff, and support the essential interconnections between life forms that make up the food-soil web. As Douglas Tallamy writes in his book Nature's Best Hope, "If each American landowner made it a goal to convert half of his or her lawn to native plant communities...[we] could collectively restore some semblance of ecosystem function to more than twenty million acres of what is now ecological wasteland."    We discuss the role of wildfires and buffalo grazing in Texas before European settlement, the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center's research on prescribed burning, and how to prepare, install, and maintain a pocket prairie.  John Hart insists that we must rethink our approach to landscape design, gardening, land ownership, and even our concept of "nature" if we are to sustain life on earth. He describes prairie restoration as "a trajectory, not an intervention" -- a process, rather than a product -- which can help us reconnect with the web of life, reduce climate anxiety, and make our homes more beautiful to boot.  Mentioned in this episode:   Nature's Best Hope: A New Approach to Conservation that Starts in Your Yard by Douglas Tallamy; the  USDA Web Soil Survey; Black Owl Biochar;  KR Bluestem. Please join our Patreon for bonus episodes, early access, and more! 

We sat down at the picnic table with John Hart Asher, host of <a href="https://www.centraltexasgardener.org/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Central Texas Gardener</a> and Cofounder/Senior Environmental Designer at <a href="https://blacklandcollaborative.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> Blackland Collaborative</a> to talk about pocket prairies. What’s a pocket prairie? It’s a very small prairie. What’s a prairie? It’s a community of native grasses and forbs wildflowers that have evolved along with microbes, plants, and animals over millennia. This "disturbance-driven ecology" historically relied on periodic fire and low-frequency, high-intensity grazing to function. John Hart sees the "millions-year-old technology" of the American prairie as a replicable system that we can borrow in our own yards to sequester carbon, manage stormwater runoff, and support the essential interconnections between life forms that make up the food-soil web. As Douglas Tallamy writes in his book Nature's Best Hope, "If each American landowner made it a goal to convert half of his or her lawn to native plant communities...[we] could collectively restore some semblance of ecosystem function to more than twenty million acres of what is now ecological wasteland."    We discuss the role of wildfires and buffalo grazing in Texas before European settlement, the Lady Bird Johnson <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xg1zhtE69rw" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Wildflower Center's research on prescribed burning</a>, and how to prepare, install, and maintain a pocket prairie.  John Hart insists that we must rethink our approach to landscape design, gardening, land ownership, and even our concept of "nature" if we are to sustain life on earth. He describes prairie restoration as "a trajectory, not an intervention" -- a process, rather than a product -- which can help us reconnect with the web of life, reduce climate anxiety, and make our homes more beautiful to boot.  Mentioned in this episode:  <a href="https://www.workman.com/products/natures-best-hope/hardback" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> Nature's Best Hope: A New Approach to Conservation that Starts in Your Yard by Douglas Tallamy</a>; the <a href="https://websoilsurvey.sc.egov.usda.gov/App/HomePage.htm" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> USDA Web Soil Survey</a>; <a href="https://www.biocharsupreme.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Black Owl Biochar</a>; <a href="http://www.tsusinvasives.org/home/database/bothriochloa-ischaemum-var-songarica" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> KR Bluestem</a>. <a href="https://www.patreon.com/Horticulturati" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Please join our Patreon</a> for bonus episodes, early access, and more!