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Is Your Garden Fertilizer an Animal Graveyard? Erin Riley on PYP 568

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Today’s episode is for anyone who wants to grow a more self-reliant, earth-friendly home garden.

Even as a vegan, I routinely used garden fertilizers containing animal byproducts like blood meal and bone meal, as well as chicken and cow manures. It honestly didn’t occur to me that there was an issue, which in hindsight is ridiculous.

Erin Riley had the same experience and the same epiphany. The difference is, she took it upon herself to research where these products came from.

Erin discovered that the ingredients in almost all commercially available fertilizers, even the highest quality “organic” ones, are sourced from industrial animal agriculture, via rendering plants.

Aside from the ethical concerns (not just for vegans, but for anyone horrified by the industrial livestock industry), this supply chain poses incomprehensibly serious potential health risks to consumers of the produce grown in these products. Between the pathogens that could easily start another (and much worse) pandemic, and the forever chemicals accumulating in animal tissue (and don’t forget, we’re animals too), the modern fertilizer industry is a ticking time bomb.

We don’t just talk doom and gloom, though. Erin shares with us how to stop using industrial fertilizers, and what you can do instead as a home gardener or small time farmer. We talk about the importance of micronutrients and soil microbes for plant and soil health, and how we can make our own compost and fertilizer teas.

Erin has started a company called Cabbage Hill Fertilizer to create vegan, organic soil amendments and fertilizers using natural plant and mineral ingredients. She’s got a kickstarter coming up on 11 November, 2023, and hopes to have products in garden centers around the US by 2024.

Links

Cabbage Hill Fertilizer Company on Instagram

Pastoral Song, by James Rebanks

The Yes Men impersonate McDonalds and the World Trade Organization – Post Consumer Waste Recycling Program

And here's the video that I keep coming back to this week when I'm scared and angry and outraged and shocked and horrified:

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If you want to hear more by the choir's founder and director, Micah Hendler, here's our conversation on Plant Yourself.

Dr Howie Jacobson

This podcast is a labor of love and a way to give back to the world that has given me so much. That's why there aren't any sponsors (except me :).

My day job is helping leaders and their teams master their mindsets to remove all obstacles to heart-centered high performance.

Here are three gigs that I do:

1. Trigger-Free Leadership: Executive and Senior Leadership Mentoring and Facilitation

I work with high performing executive teams in organizations — and executive teams that need to become high  performing. My focus is mindset mastery, because it’s our mindsets that either support high performance or get in the way.

At this level, everyone’s got the skills and experience to excel and contribute at the highest level. What holds people back is mindset stuff: specifically the triggers that get them out of creative engagement and into fight-or-flight defensiveness.

My practice is all about teaching people to respond differently to those triggers by updating old maps — essentially removing the glitches that the triggers grab onto.

2. Executive Coaching: Quick Wins for High Performance

I work with individual executives and leaders, one on one. The program is called Quick Wins for High Performance, and what we do is, we work strategically on one or two areas that are holding you back and keeping you from performing at your best.

We reverse engineer the presenting problems — too much work and not enough time, underperforming employees and teams, maddening organizational inefficiencies, etc — and identify and rewire the suboptimal mindsets that are behind those problems.

The work is all about updating your mental maps so your actions and responses are always appropriate, proportionate, and strategic.

3. High Stakes Conversations for Fast Growing Small Business Teams

I help small business teams have high stakes conversations with skill, humor, and grace. When people feel safe, they can do their best, most creative, most collaborative work.

So that's what I do. If you'd like any of those results, drop me a line and tell me about yourself.

You CAN Change Other People!

Well, that's what Peter Bregman and I claim in our provocative book of that title.

What we really mean is, you can bring out the best in the people around you. If you think you're powerless to help people change, it's because you've been going about it the wrong way.

Discover our straightforward, replicable process here: You Can Change Other People.

Music

The Plant Yourself Podcast theme music, “Dance of Peace (Sabali Don),” is generously provided by Will Ridenour, a kora player from North Carolina who has trained with top Senegalese musicians.

It can be found on his first CD, titled Will Ridenour.

You can learn about Will, listen to more tracks, and buy music on his website, WillRidenour.com.

Gratitudes

Thanks to Plant Yourself podcast patrons – Kim Harrison – Lynn McLellan – Brittany Porter – Dominic Marro – Barbara Whitney – Tammy Black – Amy Good – Amanda Hatherly – Mary Jane Wheeler – Ellen Kennelly – Melissa Cobb – Rachel Behrens – Tina Scharf – Tina Ahern – Jen Vilkinofsky – David Byczek – Michele X – Elspeth Feldman – Leah Stolar – Allan Kristensen – Colleen Peck – Michele Landry – Jozina – Sara Durkacs – Kelly Cameron – Janet Selby – Claire Adams – Tom Fronczak – Jeannette Benham – Gila Lacerte – David Donohue – Blair Seibert – Doron Avizov – Gio and Carolyn Argentati – Jodi Friesner – Mischa Rosen – Michael Worobiec – AvIvA Lael – Alicia Lemus – Val Linnemann – Nick Harper – Bandana Chawla – Molly Levine – The Inscrutable Harry R – Susan Laverty the Panda Vegan – Craig Covic – Adam Scharf – Karen Bury – Heather Morgan – Nigel Davies – Marian Blum – Teresa Kopel – Julian Watkins – Brid O'Connell – Shannon Herschman – Linda Ayotte – Holm Hedegaard – Isa Tousignant – Connie Haneline – Erin Greer – Alicia Davis – Heather O'Connor – Carollynne Jensen – Sheri Orlekoski of Plant Powered for Health – Karen Smith – Scott Mirani – Karen and Joe Crabtree – Kirby Burton – Theresa Carrell – Kevin Macaulay – Elizabeth Rothschild – Ann Jesse – Sheryl Dwyer – Jenny Hazelton – Peter W Evans – Dennis Bird – Darby Kelly – Lori Fanney – Linnea Lundquist – Emily Iaconelli – Levi Wallach – Rosamonde McAtee – Dan Pokorney – Stephen Leinin – Patty DeMartino – Mike and Donna Kartz – Deanne Bishop – Bilberry Elf – Marjorie Lewis – Tricia Adams – Nancy Sheldon – Lindsey Bashore – Gunn Marit Hagen – Tracey Gulledge – Lara Hedin – Meg from Mamasezz – Stacey Stokes – Ben Savage – Michael K – David Hughes -Coni Rodgers – Claire England – Sally Robertson – Parham Ganchi – Amy Dailey – Brian Tourville – Mark Jeffrey Johnson – Josie Dempsey – Caryn Schmitt – Pamela Hayden – Emily Perryman – Allison Corbett – Richard Stone – Lauren Vaught of Edible Musings – Erin Hastey – Sean Owens – Sagar Naik – Erika Piedra – Danielle Roberts – Michael Leuchten – Sarah Johnson – Katharine Floyd – Meryl Fury – for your generous support of the podcast.

Disclosure

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1 comment on “Is Your Garden Fertilizer an Animal Graveyard? Erin Riley on PYP 568

  1. Doug and Shari says:

    We miss you guys ,but at least we get to hear you in interviews. We loved this especially as we are building our new garden. Shari and I wish you the best! Glad you are still podcasting!

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