Make Me Good Soil w/ Sophie Strand

The Healing Sting w/ Kate Hinkens

Kate Hinkens had been dealing with Lyme disease since she was seven years old. After years of misdiagnosis, relapse, and months of intravenous antibiotics that left her sleeping eighteen hours a day and unable to finish a sentence, she found her way to bee venom therapy - ordering bees online, standing in her bathroom with tweezers, and stinging herself until something shifted. Kate is now a beekeeper and bee venom therapy practitioner who teaches people how to self-administer BVT for chronic illness. In this episode we get into the biochemistry of why bee venom can do things antibiotics can't, what a low-histamine diet looks like during treatment, the full medicine cabinet of the hive: honey, propolis, royal jelly, bee pollen, bee bread, the ethics of beekeeping, and what bees have to teach us about reciprocity with the natural world. TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 Intro  01:28 Kate's Lyme disease history and years of misdiagnosis  03:17 Why Lyme is so hard to diagnose and treat  05:00 The antibiotic route and why it stopped working  08:25 Discovering bee venom therapy  10:00 The science: melittin, biofilms, and chronic Lyme  12:30 Apamin and the blood-brain barrier  14:00 Immune regulation and systemic inflammation  16:00 Diet and detox during BVT  19:00 Alpha-gal and the Lone Star tick  21:30 Andrew's own Lyme disease experience  23:00 Royal jelly, propolis, honey, bee pollen, and bee bread  32:00 The ethics of beekeeping and native bee populations  40:00 Does it matter what species of bee you use?  43:00 The honeybee's origins in North America  45:00 The ethics of using bees for BVT  49:00 Fun facts: how honey is actually made  54:00 How bees make decisions  57:00 The geometry of the honeycomb  59:00 The vibrational frequency of bees and healing  1:01:20 Kate's bee boxes and her BVT practice  1:02:41 How this deepened her connection to nature  1:05:07 Favorite food memory CONNECT WITH KATE HINKENS Website: stinglab.org [https://www.stinglab.org/] Instagram: @katehinkens [https://www.instagram.com/katehinkens/] FOLLOW GARDENS OF EARTHLY DELIGHT Substack: gardensofearthlydelight.substack.com [https://gardensofearthlydelight.substack.com/] Instagram: @gardensofearthlydelightpod [https://www.instagram.com/gardensofearthlydelightpod/] Podcast: gardensofearthlydelight.com/subscribe [https://gardensofearthlydelight.com/subscribe] Music by: Constant Smiles [https://felte.lnk.to/constant-smiles] Logo design by: Hunky Kitty [https://www.altonkyle.com/] ★ Support this podcast ★ [https://buymeacoffee.com/gardens]

The Less You Dig, The More You Grow w/ Charles Dowding

Charles Dowding is something of a legendary gardener. He coined the term "no dig" and created an entire movement and method to home and market gardening - all focused on the health of the soil. Charles is the author of 16 books - his latest, "Grow Together" being released just yesterday, April 9, 2026. I visited Charles at his market garden, Home Acres, in late February and we covered a lot of ground. We get into how no dig began, what thirteen years of side-by-side dig versus no dig trials actually show in the soil data, and why he waited 20 years to write his first book. We also talk about humanure and a trial that produced surprising results, copper garden tools and the work of Viktor Schauberger, water memory, structuring devices on the hose, and a farmer in the Austrian Alps a hundred years ago who sang to his water and had the best crops in the region. It was an honor to visit Charles at his homestead, even being late February (perhaps the slowest time of year for a garden) it was still filled with life and growth. TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 Intro/Origins of Gardening and Market Gardening Journey 03:06 Discovering No Dig Gardening 06:53 The Role of Cardboard in No Dig Gardening 09:48 Addressing Purity in Gardening Practices 11:41 Climate Change and Its Impact on Gardening 14:13 Education and Transition to Full-Time Gardening 16:05 The Benefits of No Dig Gardening 18:26 Exploring Humanure in Gardening 22:55 Comparative Trials in Gardening Practices 26:15 Innovative Water Management in Agriculture 32:25 The Distinction Between Farming and Market Gardening 34:50 Nutrient Density and Soil Health 37:06 Starting from Scratch: Soil Remediation Techniques 38:26 The Spiritual Connection to Gardening 43:29 The Power of Observation in Gardening 46:16 Water Memory and Its Impact on Gardening 51:21 Favorite and Least Favorite Crops & Favorite Food Memory 53:58 New Book Release: Grow Together RESOURCES MENTIONED Charles Dowding: * Website: charlesdowding.co.uk [https://charlesdowding.co.uk/] * New book: Grow Together (DK, 2026) [https://charlesdowding.co.uk/products/grow-together-50-planting-partnerships-to-boost-your-harvests?variant=54104622104899] * New Energies for Gardening by Charles Dowding [https://charlesdowding.co.uk/products/new-energies-for-gardening?variant=52745942827331] Books & People: * Farmers of Forty Centuries by F.H. King [https://www.amazon.com/Farmers-Forty-Centuries-Organic-Farming/dp/0486436098] * The Fourth Phase of Water by Gerald Pollack [https://www.amazon.com/Fourth-Phase-Water-Beyond-Liquid/dp/0962689548/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3SPF0AYICV68N&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.xkkaRCnvUBHa1VioJQ4zF_eH-kPX1B-VjMMLI5CiyvGg-EQqzg2Ru6KiZtP9edP7hRcrhKEhAZ5HnYVrMV0hmTm9JSfu6l8nX3Ws9itlpXw.swcEhdRfJ8S3fEoJI-mZlOPeJpw5i8k1LxFEPHvizLU&dib_tag=se&keywords=The+Fourth+Phase+of+Water+by+Gerald+Pollack&nsdOptOutParam=true&qid=1775766528&s=books&sprefix=the+fourth+phase+of+water+by+gerald+pollack%2Cstripbooks-intl-ship%2C262&sr=1-1] * Viktor Schauberger - Comprehend and Copy Nature Documentary [https://youtu.be/yXPrLGUGZsw?si=cXMw4f128pksA4Sk] * Rudolf Steiner * Paul Stamets CONNECT WITH CHARLES DOWDING Website: charlesdowding.co.uk [https://charlesdowding.co.uk/] YouTube: @CharlesDowding1nodig [https://www.youtube.com/@CharlesDowding1nodig] Instagram: @charles_dowding [https://www.instagram.com/charles_dowding/] Facebook: facebook.com/CharlesDowdingNoDigGardening [https://www.facebook.com/CharlesDowdingNoDigGardening] Substack: substack.com/@charlesdowding549359 [https://substack.com/@charlesdowding549359] FOLLOW GARDENS OF EARTHLY DELIGHT Substack: gardensofearthlydelight.substack.com [https://gardensofearthlydelight.substack.com/] Instagram: @gardensofearthlydelightpod [https://www.instagram.com/gardensofearthlydelightpod/] Podcast: gardensofearthlydelight.com/subscribe [https://gardensofearthlydelight.com/subscribe] Music by: Constant Smiles [https://felte.lnk.to/constant-smiles] Logo design by: Hunky Kitty [https://www.altonkyle.com/] ★ Support this podcast ★ [https://buymeacoffee.com/gardens]

Make Me Good Soil w/ Sophie Strand

Sophie Strand is a writer and author of The Flowering Wand: Rewilding the Sacred Masculine, The Madonna Secret, and her most recent book, a memoir called The Body Is a Doorway. She lives in the Hudson Valley in upstate New York where she writes about mythology, ecology, and the intersection between storytelling and the more-than-human world. This conversation spans a lot of ground. We talk about what it means to be from a place versus being of a place, Tom Bombadil and what Lord of the Rings has to teach us about ecology, communicating with plants through dreams, the concept of pharmacon and the problems with how we use psychedelics, making good soil as both metaphor and practice, and how Sophie's experience with chronic illness has deepened her relationship with the natural world. A brief note: This conversation includes some discussion of drug use and psychedelics in the context of plant medicine and healing. TIMESTAMPS 00:00 - The Hudson Valley as savior  04:42 - Being from a place vs. being of a place  06:38 - Human beings as peripatetic wanderers  09:07 - Sardinian throat singing and inherited traditions  11:16 - Eucatastrophe: the happy disaster  15:31 - Tom Bombadil and ecological wisdom  19:26 - Communicating with plants  20:13 - Dreams as messages from plants  22:23 - Dreams come from a place  27:34 - Being an instrument played by fungi  28:51 - Naming and ownership  35:25 - Hopi language and present tense  37:09 - Telepathic communication as wordless  39:24 - Psychedelics and plant medicine  41:17 - Pharmacon: potion and poison  43:10 - Our culture of addiction  46:39 - Ayahuasca and ego death  50:39 - Creating communities that honor intuition  54:31 - Aphids, ladybugs, and observation  56:41 - Make me good soil  57:21 - Degenerative connective tissue disease  59:36 - Soil as tomb and womb  01:01:44 - Nature and healing  01:07:18 - The blue heron as messenger  01:09:36 - Favorite food memory: apples and cheddar RESOURCES MENTIONED Sophie Strand: * Substack: Make Me Good Soil [https://sophiestrand.substack.com/] * Books: The Flowering Wand: Rewilding the Sacred Masculine [https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-flowering-wand-sophie-strand/1140894946], The Madonna Secret [https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Madonna-Secret/Sophie-Strand/9781591434672], The Body Is a Doorway [https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/sophie-strand/the-body-is-a-doorway-a-memoir/9780762487417/] Books & Media: * Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien * The Telepathy Tapes podcast * Landmarks by Robert McFarlane * Time and Again (speculative fiction book) * The Never-Ending Story (film) People Mentioned: * Tom Bombadil (Lord of the Rings character) * C.S. Lewis * James Hillman (mythopoetic thinker) * Patricia Kaishian (mycologist and writer) Places: * Hudson Valley, New York * Overlook Mountain * Ashokan Reservoir * Woodstock, New York Concepts: * Eucatastrophe (Tolkien) * Pharmacon (Greek concept) * Mycorrhizal fungi * Healthism CONNECT WITH SOPHIE STRAND Website: sophiestrand.com [https://sophiestrand.com/] Substack: Make Me Good Soil [https://sophiestrand.substack.com/] Instagram: @cosmogyny [https://www.instagram.com/cosmogyny/]  Books: The Flowering Wand [https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-flowering-wand-sophie-strand/1140894946], The Madonna Secret [https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Madonna-Secret/Sophie-Strand/9781591434672], The Body Is a Doorway [https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/sophie-strand/the-body-is-a-doorway-a-memoir/9780762487417/] FOLLOW GARDENS OF EARTHLY DELIGHT Substack: gardensofearthlydelight.substack.com [https://gardensofearthlydelight.substack.com/] Instagram: @gardensofearthlydelightpod [https://www.instagram.com/gardensofearthlydelightpod/] Podcast: gardensofearthlydelight.com/subscribe [https://gardensofearthlydelight.com/subscribe] Music by: Constant Smiles [https://felte.lnk.to/constant-smiles] Logo design by: Hunky Kitty [https://www.altonkyle.com/] ★ Support this podcast ★ [https://buymeacoffee.com/gardens]

A Life Changing Cup Of Tea w/ Henrietta Lovell (Rare Tea Lady)

Henrietta Lovell is the founder of Rare Tea Company and is known as the Rare Tea Lady. In the late 1990s, she was working in corporate finance, until a trip to China and a $50 pot of oolong changed everything. She fell in love with tea, not the industrial tea bag she grew up drinking in England, but tea crafted by farmers from specific places with terroir as complex as wine. For over 20 years, she's worked directly with farmers who grow tea organically and regeneratively, paying them what their work is actually worth. She runs the Rare Charity [https://www.rarecharity.com/], where tea communities decide how funds are used - primarily putting kids through university who would otherwise have no access to higher education. She supplies tea to Michelin-starred restaurants around the world and has built her entire life around the belief that if you look for great flavor and know where it comes from, you can change communities while filling your life with pleasure. I joined Henrietta at the Rare Tea Company headquarters in London where we enjoyed incredible teas on a rainy afternoon. We talk in depth about camellia sinensis (tea), how the British stole it from China and grew it across their empire, the exploitation built into most of the tea industry, the 15 million people working in tea and mostly living in poverty, organic farming versus certification, bed tea as a morning meditation, and making rhubarb fool in her grandmother's Scottish kitchen. "Healthy soil is healthy mankind. It's not just us who drink the end product. It's the people who grow it and the communities around where it grows. It does matter." TIMESTAMPS 00:00 - Falling in love with tea in China  03:15 - The $50 pot of oolong that changed everything  07:30 - Tea comes from one plant: Camellia sinensis  10:45 - How the British stole tea from China  15:20 - Corporate finance escape: "I can't wait until retirement"  18:40 - Starting Rare Tea Company with naivety and stupidity  22:15 - Meeting the first tea farmer in Fuding, China  26:30 - The exploitation built into industrial tea  31:45 - 15 million people work in tea, most are women in poverty  35:20 - Why we don't know where our tea comes from  39:10 - Direct trade: Paying farmers what tea is worth  43:25 - The Rare Charity: Education chosen by communities  47:50 - Why only 20% of charity revenue goes to admin  51:15 - From seed to cup: The tea growing process  56:40 - White tea, green tea, oolong, black tea, pu-erh  62:20 - Why organic certification is complex for small farmers  67:10 - Temperature, timing, and the art of making tea  71:45 - The 90-second rule for flavor extraction  75:30 - L-theanine: Why tea gives calm energy vs. coffee's crash  79:15 - Bed tea as morning meditation  82:40 - Tea cocktails: Quick extractions with alcohol  86:20 - The nun who made tea as meditation  90:15 - Favorite food memory: Rhubarb fool in Scotland  93:45 - Healthy soil, healthy communities RESOURCES MENTIONED Rare Tea Company: * Website: rareteacompany.com [https://rareteacompany.com/] * Instagram: @rareteacompany [https://www.instagram.com/rareteacompany/] * The Rare Charity: rarecharity.com [https://www.rarecharity.com/] Tea Regions Mentioned: * Fuding, Fujian Province, China (white tea) * Wuyi Mountains, China (oolong) * Anxi, Fujian Province, China (Tie Guan Yin oolong) * Kagoshima, Japan (gyokuro from Sakamoto-san) * Nepal (high mountain green teas) * Malawi, East Africa (second biggest export) * India (Assam region) Tea Varieties Discussed: * White Silver Needle (Bai Hao Yin Zhen) * Tiger Oolong of Mercy (Tie Guan Yin) * Da Hong Pao (oolong) * Gyokuro (Japanese green tea) * Matcha (ground green tea) * Hojicha, Sencha, Genmaicha (Japanese teas) * English Breakfast (blend) * Pu-erh (fermented tea) CONNECT WITH HENRIETTA LOVELL  Instagram: @raretealady [https://www.instagram.com/raretealady/] FOLLOW GARDENS OF EARTHLY DELIGHT Substack: gardensofearthlydelight.substack.com [https://gardensofearthlydelight.substack.com/] Instagram: @gardensofearthlydelightpod [https://www.instagram.com/gardensofearthlydelightpod/] Podcast: gardensofearthlydelight.com/subscribe [https://gardensofearthlydelight.com/subscribe] Music by Constant Smiles [https://felte.lnk.to/constant-smiles?utm_source=ig&utm_medium=social&utm_content=link_in_bio] Logo design by Hunky Kitty [https://www.altonkyle.com/] ★ Support this podcast ★ [https://buymeacoffee.com/gardens]

The Hidden Cost of Growing Something Epic w/ Kevin Espiritu

Kevin Espiritu is the founder of Epic Gardening, a media and product company that's become one of the largest gardening brands in the world. What started as a hobby blog about hydroponics in 2013 has grown into a business with millions of followers, major acquisitions including Botanical Interests Seeds and GrowVeg garden planner, and a team of dozens serving home gardeners globally. Kevin's journey started with online poker paying for college, a quarter-life crisis playing video games, and his mom asking him to pick a hobby with his brother. They chose gardening. He first started growing cucumbers and he hasn't stopped growing since. We talk about building an audience by responding to every single comment, the moment in 2020 when everything changed, acquiring a 30-year-old seed company to keep it from disappearing, why organic certification isn't always what people think, and moving from hydroponics to soil. But we also talk about what Kevin has mentioned briefly on his personal channels: the crash-out moment after years of running on pure will, the medication he never thought he'd need, the physical separation he had to create from the homestead that helped build the Epic empire, and why he turned to creating art - a new hobby with no tie to business. "Every creator I know who's had a blow-up moment has had a crash-out moment afterwards. You run on pure will for maybe a year, maybe more. And then it all comes down on you." Kevin built something massive and meaningful that continues to grow. TIMESTAMPS 00:00 - Why Kevin started posting gardening videos online  03:27 - From online poker to playing video games to gardening  05:04 - When gardening became therapeutic (7 years in)  07:00 - Seeing land transform over time  09:32 - 2020: When revenue exploded 6.5 times  10:30 - Meeting Jacques: The pumpkin avatar neighbor  12:54 - "Why do people keep calling me Eric?"  14:23 - Responding to every single comment until you can't  17:09 - Making millions from an online gardening blog  17:39 - Acquiring Botanical Interests Seeds  21:41 - How seed production actually works  22:50 - The reality of organic certification  26:47 - Why seed saving videos never do well  29:52 - Regenerative certified vs. organic  31:21 - Acquiring GrowVeg and Modern Farmer  35:52 - When Instagram blew up: The tripod problem  37:47 - The crash-out moment and needing medication  40:16 - Hiring help vs. staying lean  42:04 - Finding art as a pure hobby  44:23 - Leaving the homestead but staying close  47:03 - What's coming next for Epic  51:24 - Designing seed packets as an artist  52:08 - Favorite food memory: Rice with milk RESOURCES MENTIONED Epic Gardening: * Main website: epicgardening.com [https://www.epicgardening.com/] * Shop: shop.epicgardening.com/GOED [https://shop.epicgardening.com/GOED] (5% off anything with code GOED) * YouTube: Epic Gardening (3.95M+ subscribers) [https://www.youtube.com/c/EpicGardening] * Instagram: @epicgardening [https://www.instagram.com/epicgardening/] * Botanical Interests Seeds: botanicalinterests.com [https://www.botanicalinterests.com/] * GrowVeg Garden Planner: growveg.com [https://www.growveg.com/] * Modern Farmer Magazine: modernfarmer.com [https://modernfarmer.com/] * The Greenhouse Membership program [https://shop.epicgardening.com/GOED?q=the-greenhouse-membership] (5% off with code GOED) * Jacques Lyakov - Epic team member - Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/jacquesinthegarden/] and Youtube [https://www.youtube.com/@jacquesinthegarden] Mental Health Support: If you or someone you know is struggling with burnout, depression, or having thoughts of self-harm, help is available: * 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline: Call or text 988 (US) * Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741741 (US) * International resources: findahelpline.com [https://findahelpline.com/] CONNECT WITH KEVIN ESPIRITU Personal YouTube: Kevin Espiritu [https://www.youtube.com/@kevinmespiritu] Instagram: @kevinespiritu_ [https://www.instagram.com/kevinespiritu_/] Art Instagram: @rampfade [https://www.instagram.com/rampfade/]   FOLLOW GARDENS OF EARTHLY DELIGHT Substack: gardensofearthlydelight.substack.com [https://gardensofearthlydelight.substack.com/] Instagram: @gardensofearthlydelightpod [https://www.instagram.com/gardensofearthlydelightpod/] Podcast: gardensofearthlydelight.com/subscribe [https://gardensofearthlydelight.com/subscribe] Music by Constant Smiles [https://felte.lnk.to/constant-smiles?utm_source=ig&utm_medium=social&utm_content=link_in_bio] Logo design by Hunky Kitty [https://www.altonkyle.com/] ★ Support this podcast ★ [https://buymeacoffee.com/gardens]