Serving Up Bite-sized Information from Plant to Plate

A collaborative effort between Alachua County and the University of Florida, IFAS Extension created the Plant of the Month (POTM) program to provide residents with easy-to-understand information on how and when to grow edible plants. Each month, information on how to plant, care for, harvest, and prepare a selected edible plant is curated by the Environmental Horticulture Extension agent, Master Gardener volunteers, and the Family & Consumer Sciences Extension agent. Plants are selected based on their ability to grow successfully in the area and their popularity with home gardeners. Plants are matched to a month based on when the plant should be planted or harvested. The Plant of the Month program is shared via public service announcements (PSA), posted on a POTM website, Master Gardener social media sites, and complimented monthly on the Alachua County Extension podcast. Podcasts are a great opportunity to extend the educational outreach of the POTM program while building a connection with public audiences. The podcast is distributed and stored on Spotify® for Podcasters and can be listened to on various podcast platforms. The POTM podcast began airing in January 2022 and currently has 15 episodes with a total of 1048 plays. Ninety-five percent of our listeners are from within the United States, but the podcast has been downloaded in 24 other countries. The audience is comprised mostly of 45- to 59-year-olds (62%), followed by 35- to 44-year-olds (26%) with male and female listeners make up 59.6% and 40.4% of the audience, respectively.