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Designed to help the beginning gardener learn the tools of successful vegetable and herb gardening.
GREETINGS FROM THE GARDEN. Hosted by gardeners Ben Futa and Qwantese Winters, Let’s Grow Stuff is designed to help the beginning gardener learn the tools of successful vegetable and herb gardening. Each episode provides quick and easy techniques to make growing fun!
03/13/24
Start your spring gardening to-do list with ‘Let’s Grow Stuff’
As winter thaws, Wisconsin gardeners are itching to get back outside. From helping out pollinators to preparing for your best...
02/09/24
Interview: PBS Wisconsin’s Let’s Grow Stuff summer “on set” at Eagle Heights Community Gardens
Greetings from the . . . winter! It’s me, Sig, your occasional PBS Wisconsin Let’s Grow Stuff blogger (and garden-curious,...
02/09/24
Let’s Grow Stuff Interview: Lata and Tilak grow seeds of India in Eagle Heights Community Gardens
Greetings from the 2024 PBS Wisconsin Garden & Landscape Expo! It’s Sig, again, sharing a second conversation from my summer...
08/10/23
Let’s Grow Stuff: Designing your turf-free landscape
Note: This is Part Two of a 3-part blog series explaining how to “Replace your lawn with something better, a...
07/13/23
Learn more about the new season of ‘Let’s Grow Stuff’ – read a Q&A with series co-host Ben Futa
Throughout the 2023 season of Let’s Grow Stuff, co-host Ben Futa is leading a sustained conversation, both in videos and...
07/07/23
Let’s Grow Stuff … in a community garden!
Greetings from the garden! I’m Sig, one of Let’s Grow Stuff’s green-ish thumb enthusiasts here at PBS Wisconsin. You might...
05/03/23
Let’s Grow Stuff: Replace your lawn with something better, a beginner’s guide
Throughout the 2023 season of Let’s Grow Stuff — our videos and the blog — we’ll be following a sustained...
03/23/23
Let’s Grow Stuff: The case for going peat-free
Potting soils and peat Gardeners everywhere are at a moment of pent-up anticipation as winter breathes its final breath. Early...
12/01/22
Let’s Grow Stuff: Gifts for gardeners
When it comes to thinking of gifts for gardeners, I always put practicality first. Is this something a gardener can...
10/20/22
Let’s Grow Stuff: A proximity to plants on the balcony
Greetings from the balcony garden! Sig, here, one final time this season with some reflections on my foray into small-space...
10/07/22
Let’s Grow Stuff: Ben’s weekend wins for autumn
One of my favorite things about gardening is that it’s an endless form of job security; it’s a hobby that...
08/04/22
Let’s Grow Stuff: Feasts, failures and futures of Sig’s balcony garden
Greetings from the balcony garden! It’s Sig, here, crawling my way through the hot n’ heavy months of summer and...
Meet the Gardeners
Ben Futa is the co-host of Let’s Grow Stuff and a professional gardener and horticulturist. He is passionate about connecting people to plants — and to one another — through public gardens. Ben grew up gardening on 5.5 acres in northern Indiana. For more than 20 years, he cultivated his green thumb under the enabling influence of his parents. A childhood hobby for gardening evolved into a professional passion for public horticulture through internships with the Lurie Garden in Chicago’s Millennium Park and Fernwood Botanical Garden in southwest Michigan. Ben’s experience shaped his outlook that public gardens are more than the sum of their plants: they must also embrace the “culture” of horticulture, creating gardens and programs with, rather than for, diverse audiences. He believes that gardeners, through their gardens, will save the world.
Qwantese Winters is the co-host of Let’s Grow Stuff as well as a doula, urban gardener, herbalist and home cook. Her work aims to create space for diverse communities in the world of food growing — through education and accessibility, and the empowerment these two crucial elements bring. Qwantese was born in the suburbs of Chicago but grew up on the West side of Madison in Middleton, Wisconsin. After learning about her grandfather’s Gullah Geechee roots, she was inspired to bring her ancestral history of food growing, herbalism and medicine to her community. She joined the Troy Farms Urban Farmer Trainee program in 2019 to build growing skills. It was at Troy that she discovered her love of helping others see the connection between their culture and the land. Qwantese believes nature and its bounty are home to us all, and seeks to help diverse communities overcome the barriers that prevent the development of a healthy relationship with the land.
Funding for Let’s Grow Stuff is provided by American Transmission Company, Ganshert Nursery and Landscapes, Willy Street Co-op, the Focus Fund for Wisconsin Programming, and Friends of PBS Wisconsin.
Ronald Hermance says:
Online Zoom series this year like last year?