Rita Valley is an artist and gardener living in Southbury Connecticut. Her passion for gardening started at an early age, nurtured by her Polish grandmother who tended an impressive vegetable garden. Valley’s love of gardening has persisted and blossomed into a penchant for writing about her gardening exploits as well.
Rita seems to have the same arrangement that my wife and I have: her husband's the veggie guy and she's the flower lady. She maintains that a good sense of humor is every bit as important as a nice shovel or a sharp pair of pruners.

Welcome to DITD Greg Lowenthal, Greg is President of The Long Island Native plant initiative and has served on the Initiatives board for over 4 years. The Long Island Native Plant Initiative (LINPI) is an all-volunteer cooperative effort of over 30 non-profit organizations, governmental agencies, nursery professionals, and citizens. The native plant initiative strives to preserve Long Island's biodiversity by cultivating ethically sourced ecotypic plants to ensure commercial availability of native plants for nurseries, communities, and habitat restorations.

First up Peter Linderoth, the director of healthy waters and lands for Save the Sound comes to “Digging in the Dirt” with the publication of Save The Sounds 2025 LONG ISLAND SOUND BEACH REPORT. How does your local beach in CT. or Long Island rate?

Then Sandy Wilson joins me. Sandi is employed with the University of Connecticut Cooperative Extension System. She is the Fairfield County Master Gardener Program Coordinator based out of the Extension office in Bethel. She has been involved with the Master Gardener program for 25 years.

Then a little bit about tomatoes.

Peter Linderoth, the director of healthy waters and lands for Save the Sound Comes to “Digging in the Dirt” with the publication of Save The Sounds 2025 LONG ISLAND SOUND BEACH REPORT. How does your local beach in CT. or Long Island rate?

My guest is Sandy Wilson. Sandi is employed with the University of Connecticut Cooperative Extension System. She is the Fairfield County Master Gardener Program Coordinator based out of the Extension office in Bethel. She has been involved with the Master Gardener program for 25 years.

Vincent Dion is a life-long Artist, Gardener, Connecticut resident and Do-it Yourself enthusiast. He maintains a 1,500 square foot backyard garden in Newtown, CT. I have it on good authority that Vincent is quite the gardener and we're here to talk about does his garden grow.

My other guest is Craig Floyd. Craig is a tenth generation Farmer who has been here on DITD several times before. I always like talking with Craig, because of his incredible knowledge of regenerative and organic growing and for his work ethic and empathy for those who have less than the rest of us. Craig is retired from running the Giving Garden in Stonington CT. after a Farm accident severely damaged his left eye. The Coogan farm renamed itself after Craig to honor his legacy. He's now embarking on becoming a public speaker full-time as he teaches us about regenerative growing.

We pay our respects to the passing of Pope Francis, who followed in the footsteps of his name sake St. Francis of Assisi, honoring the planet earth and all its creatures. In 2015 he wrote it in encyclical about this and the introduction was by none other than my guest Professor Naomi Oreskes. Professor Naomi Oreskes is a Professor of the History of Science and Affiliated Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University. Naomi who along with her colleague Erik Conway are bestselling authors of the book Merchants of Doubt…about the machinations of the fossil fuel industry and the book “The Big Myth, about the myth of the free market.

Then Barry Kresch President of the EV Club ( Electric vehicle Cub) of CT. is my guest to talk about everything electric vehicles. Barry Kresch has long been involved in environmental activism. He has been a club member and EV owner since 2012. His participation in the club includes doing analytics, including the Interactive EV Dashboard tracking and EV adoption in CT.

Finally Gloria Frazee of Rewildlongisland.org gives her monthly Long Island report.

Professor Naomi Oreskes is a Professor of the History of Science and Affiliated Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University.

Naomi who along with her colleague Erik Conway are bestselling authors of the book Merchants of Doubt…about the machinations of the fossil fuel industry and the book “The Big Myth about the myth" of the free market. I invited her here today as we pay our respects to the passing of Pope Francis who followed in the footsteps of his name sake St. Francis of Assisi honoring the planet earth and all its creatures. In 2015 he wrote it in encyclical about this and one introduction was written by none other than my guest professor Naomi Oreskes.

Barry Kresch has long been involved in environmental activism. He has been a club member and EV owner since 2012. His participation in the club includes doing analytics, including the Interactive EV Dashboard tracking EV adoption in CT.