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- [00:01]
Emily Gracie
Since 1792, this little book has been predicting weather, planting times and astronomical events.
- [00:08]
Ronnie Miller
They were predicting periods of rain March 10th through the 23rd. Well, yesterday was March 10th and we had over an inch of rain.
- [00:16]
Carol Kinnear
It has great things in there, like you can find out what month has the worm full moon sometimes.
- [00:22]
Ronnie Miller
They can be pretty spot on.
- [00:25]
Emily Gracie
It's North America's oldest continuously published periodical.
- [00:30]
Carol Kinnear
So you can't expect a publication to give you you an accurate weather forecast months in advance.
- [00:36]
Emily Gracie
I think many people use them to plan events throughout the year. But as technology has improved, many viewers.
- [00:42]
Carol Kinnear
Understand that these predictions are likely to change. Get a meteorologist if you want an accurate forecast.
- [00:48]
Evan Chikvara
I used to despise the old Farmers Almanac, but after listening to what people said about it, it picks up on some patterns that us in the weather world tend to not see. So there's some helpful stuff in there when it comes to seasonal changes and forecasts.
- [01:01]
Emily Gracie
Today we are going off the radar to explore the surprising science behind the Old Farmer's Almanac.
- [01:08]
Matt Gunn
You know, we say we're around 80% accurate and that really depends on where.
- [01:12]
Emily Gracie
You are, what's behind their mysterious formula, and how does a 233 year old publication continue to thrive in the digital age and changing climate that we live in today. I'm meteorologist Emily Gracey and you're listening to off the Radar, a production of the National Weather Desk. On the show we dig deep into topics about weather, climate, the ocean, space and much more. Our goal is to help you better understand the weather and to love it.
- [01:38]
Dave Williams
As much as we do.
- [01:44]
Ronnie Miller
They actually predicted the snow. Now it here's the I say predicted.
- [01:49]
Emily Gracie
This is Ronnie Miller.
- [01:50]
Ronnie Miller
Snow showers in the north, isolated showers in the south and very cold. It was very cold in the south, but those showers turned in snow showers here.
- [02:00]
Emily Gracie
Retired golf pro, avid gardener, loving grandfather and loyal reader of the old Farmers Almanac.
- [02:07]
Ronnie Miller
But I am a little bit worried about July. They say tropical storm threat the 15th through the 19th.
- [02:14]
Emily Gracie
Ronnie is also my father in law. Yeah, he was my inspiration for today's episode.
- [02:19]
Ronnie Miller
Read July. That's how, how could they predict that? That can't. It's no way.
- [02:24]
Emily Gracie
They have 80% accuracy.
- [02:26]
Ronnie Miller
They do. Well, I mean there's pretty accurate the 10th through the 23rd.
- [02:31]
Emily Gracie
Weather is a big part of Ronnie's life. It always has been. Over many holiday dinners in the past couple of decades. He's always been sure to mention to me when the old Farmer's Almanac has just nailed a forecast.
- [02:42]
Ronnie Miller
It's not, it can't be. It's not a perfect science. I mean meteorology isn't a perfect science, but this can't be.
- [02:48]
Emily Gracie
Of course, as you can imagine, as a broadcast meteorologist, I didn't always have an open mind to this kind of.
- [02:54]
Ronnie Miller
Comment to do it a year in advance. I don't know how they do it, but I.
- [02:59]
Matt Gunn
But they have a whole meteorology team.
- [03:01]
Ronnie Miller
They do. See, I, I am unaware of those things.
- [03:05]
Dave Williams
I wasn't either. I had no idea.
- [03:07]
Emily Gracie
On this beautiful almost spring day in South Carolina, Ronnie came over to chat with me about it. He brought his already well loved copy of the 2025 almanac with him. So is this something you had as.
- [03:18]
Dave Williams
A kid your parents have forever solved.
- [03:20]
Ronnie Miller
At some point in time? When in my youth I remember hearing about farmers all in that and it may come from my grandparents, I'm not sure, I can't remember. But it's, you know, something other diet I do refer to.
- [03:35]
Emily Gracie
Okay, so are you referring to it for gardening resources, for weather forecasts? For all of the above? What, what do you get out of it the most?
- [03:45]
Ronnie Miller
All the above. There's some interesting short stories, human interest short stories in there that, that I read is other features like planning by the lunar phases and days of the days of the year that are best to do certain things like get a haircut, lay shingles and things like that. So it's interesting and I do look at those features. They predict the weather for 12 months in advance, specific days of the month of each month for different regions. And sometimes I'm amazed at how accurate it can be. For instance, in March in our region, the Southeast, which is South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, they were predicting periods of rain from March 10th through the 23rd with mild temperatures. Well, yesterday was March 10th and we had over an inch of rain. I don't use it to predict the weather, I use my meteorologist friends. But from a standpoint of just going back and looking at it and amazing how sometimes they can be pretty spot on.
- [04:59]
Emily Gracie
Today I'm sitting down with the editor in chief of the old Farmers Almanac, Carol Kinnear. Long before weather apps and Doppler radar, this humble publication was telling folks when to plant their peas and whether to pack an umbrella. We'll uncover the mysterious methods behind their seasonal forecast, how the centuries old guide balances tradition with modern science and get the inside scoop of what you need to know before digging in your garden this spring. So whether you're a seasoned gardener or just somebody who appreciates a publication that's outlasted every tech startup in history. Stick around because sometimes the most reliable forecasts come from the most unexpected places. Carol Kinnear, editor in chief of the Old Farmer's Almanac. I'm so excited to talk to you today. I want to hear everything about this publication. Just, it's like a legend when it comes to, you know, gardening in America and weather in America. And can you give me first of all, a history lesson here on the Old Farmer's Almanac and how it started?
- [06:03]
Matt Gunn
Sure, absolutely. Thanks for having us. The Old Farmers Almanac dates back to 1792 and at that time our founder, Robert B. Thomas, he was one of many almanac makers almanacs at the time, really. Almanac, the word means calendar. And you know, at the time you might have a bible, an almanac, if you're lucky, you might have some kind of a news print or something at that time, but not much else, you know, for, for matter in the household. And so almanacs were this wonderful daily ability to have something every day to look at, advice. And then weather, of course, became very important because everybody, every, every other person in 1792, say, was a, was a farmer or a grower. And so Robert B. Thomas, he, he felt that the other almanacs at the time weren't as good as they could be, let's say. And he also was an amateur astronomer and his whole entire weather formula is based on the science of magnetic storms on the sun and looking at those cycles and applying that data and those patterns to the long range weather forecasting. So from the beginning we have had the same formula. But of course now we can bring computers and a lot more data to bear on that formula. But that's really the essence. And I think, you know, we say we're around 80% accurate and that really depends on where you are. But you know, that's incredible. Even if we were, you know, somewhere close to that and that's really just based on those patterns. And so, you know, Robert B. Thomas, he was the editor for 50 years. I'm the 14th editor, I'm the second female. And you know, I think the best thing he ever did was say that we also need to have a bit of humor. You know, this, this book is meant to be informative and something you need, but also something that you might turn to throughout the year to get a smile or information or something that just, you know, tickles the funny bone.
- [08:07]
Emily Gracie
Yeah, a lot of people think it is just like a weather forecast for the season or the upcoming year, but There's a lot more to it. Can you tell me, first of all, kind of the structure of it, what's in it and how often it comes out?
- [08:20]
Matt Gunn
So the old Farmers Almanac, the almanac, the annual edition, comes out once a year. And so we're working on 2026 right now. In fact, we're, we are waiting for the weather forecast. That's always the last piece to come in, of course. And so what else is in there is the calendar. We have calendar pages for every day of the year. And those will give the sunrise and sunset. They will give sky watch what's happening in the sky that month. What are the holidays? There's a little bit of poem. There's farmers calendars on all of those calendar pages for each month. And again, this goes back to the beginnings of an almanac. It's like, what, what might you want to do? What sort of advice? Like, how are you keeping track of the days? It's March. We need to make maple syrup, all those kinds of seasonal things. And then we also have a ton of stories in the 2025. We have stories on hugging. We have stories on all sorts of plants. You know, we have things like how to cheat your zone, like how could I grow something like, you know, a daffodil in Florida or, you know, a palm tree in Connecticut? So those are things. So lots of things. I would say what binds it together and that's really makes sense with the weather is people who love the outdoors, people who like to sky watch, maybe linemen, somebody who's a truck driver or a mail carrier or, you know, all those things, a school teacher. A lot of people depend on the weather. And so for all those things, I think brings that together in the almanac, that love of nature and outdoors. Oh, yeah.
- [09:56]
Emily Gracie
I think there's some confusion too, because sometimes we throw out the term the Farmer's Almanac, but there's actually two separate publications, right?
- [10:03]
Matt Gunn
Yeah, the Farmer's Almanac. I, I, I, we know them. They're in Maine. And they're, I don't, they're probably, I think they've been around since the 1980s. And, and they may have had an earlier iteration. And there's the Harris Almanac, and almanacs come and go. I mean, I think the only thing that we can say is we, we, we're the oldest continuously published publication in North America. You know, we haven't ever stopped publishing. And so that's the feather in our cap. And our distribution is very wide. We're 2 million plus copies and lots of formats. We have 100,000 subscribers to our hardcover. We do a Canadian edition. And then we don't just do the almanac, we do an annual garden guide. And then we do a whole line of calendars, including our weather calendar, which is a fantastic one. Lots of fun facts and history, you know, historical weather happenings. And those are highlighted in year to year with cool photos of like, weather phenomenon.
- [11:06]
Emily Gracie
Something I did not know about until I read recently is this famous hole that's in every single one of them. Can you tell me about this?
- [11:16]
Matt Gunn
Well, I will tell you about the hole. So my. My nephew has a little farm in Kentucky, and he loves to send me a picture of where he's hung his. His almanac with the hole which is right in his barn on a nail. But of course, outhouses were a very popular spot, which you might that up in your ouse. But not all the editions have them now. It's really only our classic. The hardcover doesn't, and some of the others. But people either, you know, people sometimes will say, well, the, the one with the hole, it's, you know, it's small and it's newsprint. And we're like, that's exactly right. This is your utility version, right? And then you can get the bookstore one that's on whiter paper and nicer, if that's what you want. But the one with the hull is the classic, and it costs thousands of dollars, thousands of dollars to get that hole punched in that many. In that many copies. We have to use special printers that could do it. And so we've been with our printer for a long time. They know our peculiarness and. Yeah, but it's. I love it. You know, you just throw a string in it and up it goes in your shed or wherever you want it.
- [12:17]
Emily Gracie
Anybody wear it around their neck like a necklace?
- [12:19]
Matt Gunn
Well, we do if we have like a costumed party at work.
- [12:23]
Emily Gracie
I can only imagine what those costume parties are like.
- [12:26]
Matt Gunn
Somebody made a little mini set with holes as an earring.
- [12:29]
Emily Gracie
You guys are as nerdy as meteorologists are at. I always have my nerdy earrings on. Well, I want to talk about the scientific relevance here because, you know, like I said, meteorologists, I think, immediately kind of discount this as like, oh, it's folklore. This isn't real. So I'm curious about this secret formula. I know you're not going to give away too much, but I'm also curious. I'd love to kind of bring up the discussion of farmers and people being outside and just the Intuition when it comes to weather, simply from living it, right?
- [13:03]
Matt Gunn
Phenology, just looking at the signs outside, you know, are buds happening earlier and when do the lilacs bloom? And you know, when to put your peas in is around that time in the big scope of things. Our formula isn't really that secret. It's just kind of why would anybody want to do such a terrible thing? Is long range weather forecasting when, you know, interestingly, AI can help us with the short range. But, but again, long range is a different animal. So we do have a meteorology team and we, but we also factor in again climatology and also really strongly this idea of the patterns of the storms on the sun. And you know, a lot of people recently became aware of that because the auroras were a lot more south visible in the southern parts than they have been. And that's because this end of this 25th solar cycle since we've been keeping track, has been super intense. So like those storms, you know, sometimes things get knocked out down here. It's not like, okay, there's a solar flare and we have a hot summer, it just doesn't work like that. But this idea that for 25 cycles of 11 or 12 years data has been recorded on those, the, the weather as well as those sunstorm cycles. So what happens when you crunch that data? So you know, it's the idea of in the eighth year of a solar cycle and we're seeing this teleconnection with an El Nino or you know, those types of things, we can, we can stack up and we can look at those patterns and say, well, this is probably what's going to happen. So you know, it's based on a ton of data, but you know, factoring in that idea of the magnetic storm cycles and how that impacts us and also taking a look at things like our celestial neighbors, like how does the moon impact? You know, certainly farmers take a look at that, you know, because weather will be different around the, you know, the full and the new moons, just like the tides. So we might not see the water in the ground, but there is water in the dirt and it's moved just like the tides. So what does that mean for a grower? You know, if there's a lot more water, you know, being pulled up during a cold time, that might be really bad for plants say. So those are things that happen in the almanac and they don't, they don't factor into our long range predictions, but we, we add in the information about moon basically because people are looking at that who are growers, especially biodynamic growers and organic growers.
- [15:45]
Emily Gracie
I read, and I don't know if this is true, I read about a story about Lincoln using the Old Farmer's Almanac as a piece of evidence in a court case. Is that true?
- [15:58]
Matt Gunn
It was. And I have to. I don't have the specifics. It's about that it was a new moon, so they would not have been able to see what they said they saw because there wasn't any moonlight. And so they looked at the almanac and sure enough, they were able to see on that night was a new moon or just a barely a new moon.
- [16:16]
Emily Gracie
Old school forensic meteorology there. Wow. And you know, you brought up AI as being kind of the new frontier as far as weather forecasting, but it kind of feels like what's new is old because what you're working off of is a lot of history and a lot of cyclical data. And you know, I just did an AI episode and that's kind of what they're doing too. They're working off of history. They're pulling old weather patterns and replaying them and predicting the future based on that. So it's actually sounds kind of similar to me.
- [16:46]
Matt Gunn
It is. I'm always fascinated. We have the original hand drawn infographics of some of our early weather forecasting that happened when the publication came to New Hampshire in 1935. And it's incredible just to see it is. It's AI hand drawn, I suppose. But I think the thing about historical weather patterns two is that they're changing.
- [17:12]
Emily Gracie
Right.
- [17:13]
Matt Gunn
The climate has always been changing. And you know, we are running a story in the 2026 issue called the New Normals. So, you know, every 30 years we update those data sets and you know, we talk about a new set. So recently they were updated to 2020, so 1990 to 2020, but yet they're not really keeping up because there have been some really rapid changes. The usda, you know, gave its new zonal map last year and most zones change. Most places changed by half a zone, some places more. So we are starting to talk about that. And those kinds of, let's say more recent fluctuations or patterns need to be factored in in a different way. So a few years ago we had, we were really off on precipitation, a lot of those, like very intense weather events, you know, dropping a lot of water, the atmospheric rivers and those sorts of things. So we did some work on that. And again, that's looking at more of a recent data set and Thinking about that, like, we were great on temps that year, but. But that was a little off. And so what is that? We have to react to new data.
- [18:28]
Emily Gracie
Yeah, I want to talk about that weather section, too, because I was intrigued. You know, there's like, the regional forecast, which get a lot of attention, but then there's a lot of, like, you said, information, you know, like, here's the safer Simpson scale. So there's a lot of educational material related to weather in there as well, right?
- [18:47]
Matt Gunn
Absolutely. We talk about weather terminology, and we're kind of this year, for the first time on We did it online, we've been issuing spring and fall weather maps. We've typically done winter and summer, calling for a very hot summer for most of not North America again this year. But the idea that spring is so important to our gardeners, you know, and fall too, you know, looking at all those different activities. And so we are always teaching, we're thinking about, we're working on some new reference sections, kind of ice terminology. You know, ice is such a big factor in our lives. It's really one of the most ruinous things about weather. You know, it can hurt people, it can destroy crops and things. So thinking about what can we teach our readers about ice specifically? So those are, you know, we'll dig in with different stories as well as our reference section, which talks, as you said, about there's folklore about weather and there's also facts about weather so people can get all sides.
- [19:46]
Emily Gracie
Okay, so let's talk about folklore. What is some folklore that you put in there? And it. Does it have any scientific relevance? Is there any truth to folklore? Or is it just for fun?
- [19:56]
Matt Gunn
I can't give too much away. We are doing a really cool folklore section about seasons in the 2020.
- [20:01]
Emily Gracie
Give us a teaser. I want to hear.
- [20:04]
Matt Gunn
Oh, off the top of my head. You know, it tends to be things that are more associated with the celestial events. So it's kind of like, you know, new moon in early June, you know, cold end to the, you know, blah, like whatever the rhyme might be. I mean, lots of them rhyme. They don't all rhyme, but it tends to be those sorts of things. And again, they're based on maybe phonology. The idea of what. What are the seasonal signs we're seeing, you know, what birds are coming back and what does that mean? You know, if we're having a slow start to our, you know, our cover crop or something, you know, is that indicating, you know, that we're going to see more pests? So things that are integrated. I'd say the folklore has, has a lot to do with that. It might look at, you know, if you're like the woolly bear cattle, the caterpillar is kind of gets a lot of attention. And we were, you know, I have to tell you, I'm going to be honest, that we really didn't get our region right this year because we had had an old fashioned snowy, cold winter here in New England and we called for milder. And I will tell you, every woolly bear that I picked up all fall had barely, barely any red, which is again, a sign of a very mild winter to come. So those caterpillars were not right. But those are the kind of folklore things that you'll find in the almanac, that to look at nature again, it's that idea of what is nature telling us that maybe we aren't picking up on.
- [21:34]
Emily Gracie
Yeah, it's interesting because I did talk to someone about Groundhog Day too, and he said, regardless of, you know, what is right, what's accurate, what's wrong here, that's not, that's not the point. The point is everybody's focused on weather for one day. Everybody's talking about the seasons, everybody's appreciating what's going on outside. So I thought that was really insightful and it made me appreciate, appreciate the day in a whole new light.
- [21:57]
Matt Gunn
Yeah, people can't control the weather. It's like the one thing left.
- [22:01]
Emily Gracie
We sure try, though.
- [22:04]
Matt Gunn
Yeah, we do. And you know, for, for farmers and growers, it's, you know, it can really make the difference. You know, I think when we talk about that long range weather, what does that mean? You know, I mean, for me as a home gardener, am I going to put in my soaker hoses, right. You know, am I going to need drip irrigation or some help with that if we're looking at a dry summer? But for a commercial grower, that's just on a different scale completely. And I think for what we see in terms of weather here at the almanac is actually people adapting. So people are saying, look, we can't control the weather and it's weird. And you know, are you seeing what we're seeing? So now people just really want super resilient crops. You know, what are some drought resilient varieties? Heirloom varieties have a lot to offer because they're kind of triple threat. Maybe they're pest resistant and they're drought resilient or things like that. So people are changing their practices. I'd say that that has translated, the weather has translated into a huge focus on soil because soil health can, if you're healthy, if you have healthy soil, you can withstand torrential downpours, drought. You know, if your soil really starts out as healthy. Canada just named it like the year of soil. So like they're big on their farming because of that. Because realizing that's really where weather kind of the buck stops there. Right?
- [23:34]
Emily Gracie
Wow, interesting. Okay, so let's go way back in time with your knowledge of history. When it comes to the old Farmer's Almanac and how it got started, is there any like a founding father that you see as like the father of meteorology or mother of meteorology, somebody who is so influential in this field that maybe doesn't get attention?
- [23:55]
Matt Gunn
Archimedes, that's way back. Yeah, no, I mean, I was just kind of thinking ancients, you know, they had their own ways of dealing with the weather. But we're just thinking about weather and I guess I am thinking ancient, but so many, the wetter. W E D E R is this sort of old English word for weather and to weather and weather. And, and the idea is time. So Polish language, the Irish, Serbian, Croatia, many Greeks. For some time, the weather, the words for weather and time were the same. And that makes sense, right? Because the only way the weather's going to change is if you wait and we know that it will change as if time passes. So when you say about who, you know, who would be the influences, I think it's really those early, those, I wasn't kidding. You know, kind of Kepler, you know, this idea of, of the passage of time, keeping time, finding out about our universe, you know, and those ideas were very intricately linked to time. We are keeping the seasons because we need to know when it's time to harvest, when it's time to plant, because that's how we stay alive. So I think, I think just back to that, I'm fascinated by that ancient history of timekeeping and which was related.
- [25:20]
Emily Gracie
To weather for such an old publication. And perhaps your clientele is, you know, people who farm or people who garden. How do you stay up to date when it comes to changing climate and addressing that?
- [25:33]
Matt Gunn
I think that's, you know, we just talk about it like this, like it's a warming world, you know, that's what the numbers tell us. That's why the new normals, you know, which we just updated, you know, are showing these zones. So how does that hit us? You know that again, what I said is I think people are really looking for Ways to control things, whether that's improve their soil as a farmer or diversity of crops or natural pest resilience, like, you know, AI and robots can help with those things to, to just the idea of what can I plant in my yard that can sort of help the biodiversity. We see a lot of interest in pollinators and native plants. They feed the soil and they bring in birds and bees. You know, also lots of container gardening. So I the weather's whimsical, but if I have a container that I could even roll in inside my garage and torrential downpour or I can keep those watered more easily. So things like that, we're just seeing a lot of adaptability. I think many people know that growing and houseplants really took off after the pandemic and it hasn't slowed down. And I think with the cost of living, people are very interested in growing some of their own food if they can. And so, you know, those are really bringing people to the attention of what is the weather going on around here. So I think it loops back, but, you know, that's sort of where we sit at the almanac.
- [27:10]
Emily Gracie
Okay, so spring right around the corner. Can you give us some tips for listeners who maybe are new to this, maybe getting their first Old Farmer's Almanac or their garden guide? Can you give us some spring tips for this year for 2025?
- [27:26]
Matt Gunn
Sure. I think, you know, as we do see, sometimes we're getting, you know, earlier springs or we get excited gardeners. You know, January hits and even here in the north, we're just like, when are we going to plant? So I will say that what I've been learning is that if you can hold your horses, you end up doing better in terms of pest resilience. And so while your, your ground might be ready earlier, like maybe earlier May in my area versus end of May, I found last year that I planted later, I planted in June and I was very pest free and I think so I think what's happening is people get excited. It's possible. And then, you know, you might get that damp weather that, you know, and that just creates pests and disease kind of breeding grounds. So I think the lessons that I always say are like, it's okay to get excited, but you might want to start those inside, even if you can outside. And I think just tips is that, you know, so many retailers, they have so many ways to make it accessible. I think that's the most exciting thing in gardening is there's so many dwarf varieties or patio cucumbers or, you know, so it doesn't matter if you have a backyard. You could have a windowsill and have a voracious herb garden. You know, I'm growing cucumbers in a dark hallway here at work with a little grow light. So I think people need to understand that it's not. It's. It's not out of your hands like it is easy. Packet of seeds is a few bucks, you know, and. And also there's many much more focus on knowledge sharing. I think social media is fantastic at that. But we see a lot of community gardens where it's not just about, okay, I'm gonna go have my little allotment or plot, but I'm gonna get to learn from people that are growing, too. So we see a lot of that sharing that's. That's really been happening.
- [29:24]
Emily Gracie
I have a very specific and selfish question. I live in Charleston, South Carolina, and I can't ever seem to grow tomatoes. Do you have any advice to give me? I feel like I ruin them every year. Something happens. They get poured on or they just kind of get, like, the holes in.
- [29:40]
Matt Gunn
Them, they shrivel up.
- [29:41]
Emily Gracie
What am I doing wrong?
- [29:42]
Matt Gunn
So you're gonna have to cover those. Yeah, they can't take it. They can't take that heat and they can't take that wet.
- [29:49]
Emily Gracie
Yeah. It gets really hot here in the summer, though. And I was, like, wondering, am I doing it the wrong time of year? Should I grow them inside or, like, on my porch?
- [29:56]
Matt Gunn
Exactly. Or go earlier and get them, you know, get them fruited and done, you know, so you might start them in March, you know, or do see if you could do something in the late season. And again, you might need a little light for that, depending. But you have so much more light than we do even here, just for blight and for that weather control. I see a lot of commercial tomato growers covering. So for the home grower, you could just get one of those little row. Those, you know, hoops to go over a row. Tomatoes, you know, you can put shade on them. There's, you know, lots of shade coverings that you could do. And. And they need that. They need that if you're going to grow them in high summer down there.
- [30:35]
Emily Gracie
Is any particular type of plant having, like, a big moment right now that everybody wants to have?
- [30:40]
Matt Gunn
Oh, I would say carnivorous plants, so plants that eat bugs. So, like, you know, people know the Venus fly trap, but there's many more for the outdoor garden, especially where you are. But those are. Those are. Those are a collector's item and a fascination right now. And again, they can be pest resilient.
- [30:59]
Emily Gracie
Right.
- [30:59]
Matt Gunn
Because they can eat pests so they can be complementary to other plants. So I think people are fascinated by that. I see a lot on that.
- [31:06]
Emily Gracie
Yeah. And like lemon balm is having a moment on Tick Tock right now.
- [31:09]
Matt Gunn
Lavender, Lavender. Lavender's so big. Yeah.
- [31:14]
Emily Gracie
We're just creating a whole spa right now.
- [31:16]
Matt Gunn
Right. Well, blue plants are the most beneficial for your well being. So that blue and purple, if you just look at them, they're just really good for you.
- [31:26]
Emily Gracie
Cool. Well, I'm excited about my hydrangeas this year too. Okay. Where can we find the old Farmers Almanac? If we missed out, haven't gotten it yet, where can we find it right now?
- [31:37]
Matt Gunn
Well, you can go to almanac.com you can go to Amazon. Usually anywhere you find your plants, you know we're there. Also with the garden guide. So bookstores, if you just go to almanac.com you can punch in your zip code and we'll tell you where you can find us. Near you.
- [31:52]
Emily Gracie
Cool. And are you guys online? Are you on social media? Are you?
- [31:55]
Matt Gunn
We are. So our website, almanac.com you can find tons of free weather and gardening stuff, but then on social media. Yeah, pick us up as the old Farmers Almanac. We do all sorts of fun things on there. Really fun teaching, you know, like learning things, silly things, holiday things.
- [32:10]
Emily Gracie
Carol, this is so fun. Thank you so much for coming on today. I'm hoping it bridges kind of that gap between the science and the folklore and history and brings everybody together for one big love of weather. Because that's what we're all here for, right?
- [32:23]
Matt Gunn
Right. Thank you, Emily.
- [32:26]
Dave Williams
Off the Radar is a production of the National Weather Desk. Make sure you're following the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. New episodes publish every Tuesday. Also, make sure you're following the national weather desk on YouTube. We have some great content on there and you can live stream our show every weekday morning. Also, off the Radar is on Instagram.
- [32:47]
Emily Gracie
So give us a follow where you.
- [32:48]
Dave Williams
Can see snippets from the show and lots of other great weather content. Thank you to Carol Kinnear from the Old Farmer's Almanac for joining me today. Also, thank you to Ronnie Miller, Evan Chikvara, Matt Gunn and Dave Williams for participating in today's episode. Thanks to the National Weather Desk and Sinclair Broadcast Group for their ongoing support of the podcast, as well as my associate producer Brian Petras for his help with today's episode, a meteorological meteorologist, Emily Gracie, had a great start to spring.