Your favorite Southwestern Quebec Gardening Podcast is BACK with some excellent content for all our beloved listeners, and we have a special treat for you all: the debut guest spot appearance of Lumyhna!

Lumyhna is a gardener with an interest in vegetables and flowers, having a few seasons of experience focused on sowing and harvesting under the careful tutelage of her mother, Bethany (co-host). We had a great conversation talking about why harvesting potatoes is like digging for treasure, curating an Old English Fae aesthetic for your shady garden and the start of her journey with a Hügelkultur garden. Big welcome for Lumyhna, we hope to hear how her gardening season went!

In this episode, we recount Justine's "Highs and Lows" for the start of the season (spoiler: radishes? BIG HIGH) and have an indepth discussion about what to plant if you have a shady area that you want to garden in. Truly not all is lost listeners, there is plenty of options available for you to have a productive growing season!

We also discuss the engineering marvel of trellises, and how they provide much needed structural support for all those tall, tall tomatoes and cucumbers that grow taller than perhaps you were planning for...

Wrapping up the episode, we give the beloved listeners some tips about rainy weather and how to make sure you and your community are safe even in torrential rain storms. Justine's tip? Don't mess around with thunder and lightning! Bethany's tip: have a can opener and learn how to use it (perhaps aimed more at our Zoomer listeners, but a good tip no matter your age!)

Hope you enjoy the episode! Links to things we discussed below:

1) Bethany meant that she is using a Japanese sickle, not a "hori hori". While she loves the hori hori, this is the tool she is using: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTciAFlYW3s2) Mushroom store where Bethany bought her Red Cap Mushroom spores: https://growmushroomscanada.ca/?srsltid=AfmBOorSpHPHZ0YsqZaxIP2reN8XZXLDshPcCjhMPyPnt2tWrXf1ZT28

3) Gov of Canada recommends 2 litres of water, per person, per day, for a recommendation of 72 hours (so 6 litres per person in your household). Link for more recommendations: https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/food-drinking-water-safe-emergency.html

Blooming Valley Garden Club Events: https://www.bethanygl.com/bvgc If you are in the area, come join us for our upcoming events!

As a treat for the listeners who can't get enough of Bethany, here is the first episode that Justine and Bethany did together! This is a rebroadcast of "Episode 15: Water for the People" from the podcast "Loud and Proud Mamas".

It's a great intro on the politics of water in our region, and gives details into the water bottling project. The description below is taken from the original podcast episode from "loud and proud mamas"

Enjoy!

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Beloved listeners, the mamas have a treat for you: our very first guest on the podcast, featuring the marvelous Bethany Lee from Protect Our Water Source!

Bethany is a fellow mother, and like Justine, has roots in the city and has fallen in love with the rural Quebec life in recent years. In this wide ranging interview, we talk about loving and belonging in our communities, how being mothers shapes our hopes for the future, and how we should share the most precious public resource: water.

Bethany is the spokesperson for an organization called "Protect Our Water Source", which become organized when it was revealed there would be a commercial water pumping venture in Hinchinbrook. Her community of Powerscourt was both surprised and concerned by the lack of information provided, and the organization has sprung forth to push for more disclosure on how water testing was performed for this project.

She takes us through the timelines of the project, what risks water pumping poses to the nearby farms, how the community has responded and what the next steps are.

It's a fantastic episode, both for locals and all those who have ever wondered: "Who is water for?"

Bethany would say: "it's for the people".

Sources we mentioned:

Protect Our Water Source: https://protectourwatersource.ca/

"The History of the County of Huntingdon [Quebec]: And of the Seigniories of Chateaugay and Beauharnois from Their Settlement to the Year 1838" by Robert Sellers

Gleaner: "Farm To Food" podcast

Eau Secours: https://eausecours.org/

We have a fantastic, wide ranging conversation for YOU dear listeners, discussing all the finer points of water and how our lives and communities interact with it.

Our brave and intrepid host, Bethany, is also part of an organization called Protect Our Water Source, which is organized in the Haut St. Laurent area to do exactly that: protect our water. In this incredible episode, we talk about the great BAPE news of the day, how you can get involved in protecting water in your community, and who are the other great supporting players in this fight.

Links below for your convenience and ease, dear listeners!

1) What is BAPE: https://www.bape.gouv.qc.ca/fr/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSgYJw3VDXs

2) Protect Our Water Source, Bethany’s organization:https://protectourwatersource.ca/

3) MRC Haut St Laurent mayor finder:

https://mrchsl.com/en/council

4) Find your provincial rep: https://www.electionsquebec.qc.ca/en/electoral-maps/provincial-electoral-divisions/

5) Find your federal rep: https://www.ourcommons.ca/members/en

6) Template letter for call to action - address to Québec Premier Christine Fréchette and Environment Minister Pascale Déry - this will be available on the Protect Our Water Source website soon. We are finalizing the details.

7) List of organization POWS is affiliated with:

Ambioterra: https://www.ambioterra.org/

OBV SCABRIC (our provincially mandated watershed organization): https://scabric.ca/en/

Mouvement d’action régionale en environnement (MARE): https://mouvementmare.org/

Leadership for the Ecozoic: https://www.l4ecozoic.org/

Eau Secours: https://eausecours.org/

Centre québécois du droit de l’environnement (CQDE): https://cqde.org/en/

Vigilance OGM: https://www.vigilanceogm.org/

Water Watchers: https://www.waterwatchers.ca/

8) Vigilance OGM testing for pesticides fundraiser - https://www.vigilanceogm.org/ameliorer-qualite-eau

9) La Presse article - forthcoming, by journalist Éric-Pierre Champagne

10) POWS call to artists for a water-themed variety show in late August - this will also be available on our website in the coming weeks, so watch that space :)