Seasons and Episodes

Season 5: Saltgrass

Season 5 started in January 2023.

This season has all of your favourite Saltgrass elements; communities working together to build resilience and connectedness, renewable energy, activism, indigenous perspectives, ecology, conservation and yet one theme is going to repeat more than others this season. Woven through this season we will have a repeated refrain of waste reduction and the myriad of ways we can work towards this, starting in our own homes.

…and an invitation to join Allie in doing a Wheelie Bin Challenge.

Season 4: Saltgrass

Season 4 started in late July 2021 and will continue through to April 2022.

It includes episodes from the Central Goldfields region as well as some episodes from further away. We look at the controversial bioenergy plant, councils coming together across vast distances to commit to renewable energy, healthy soil, healthy people and a look at what is happening in Mildura.

Season 3: Saltgrass

Season 3 started in August 2020 and wrapped up in June 2021.

Episodes feature Aunty Julie McHale, e-bikes, zero waste food, sour dough bread, economy alternatives, artists looking at climate and student strikers.

Season 2: Turning the Goldfields Green

This season began as the terrible fires of the 2019/2020 fire season here in Australia were still burning and before Covid 19 became a global pandemic. Both topics are covered in this season as well as protest, non violent direct action, food security, farming, art, anxiety, birth, death and the long ride in between.

Season 1: An Environment for Change

This eight part series from 2018 was the starting point for all that followed and acts as a kind of pilot project. Episodes include Boomerang Bags, Repair Cafe, Gung Hoe Growers and more. 

Dja Dja Wurrung Radio

Dja Dja Wurrung radio is a collection of 32 short segments made for MAINfm in 2015/16. It was for and about the local aboriginal community, covering history, local stories and interviews with kids, adults, entertainers and historians. It was created by Uncle Rick Nelson and Allie Hanly and has been edited together to form seven longer episodes, each comprised of three or four of the original segments.

Why have seasons?

I am on several podcasting facebook groups and it often gets asked why shows have seasons. I think the general rule with podcasting is: if it works for you then do that thing.

For me, having seasons made sense because the project is evolving and changing over time. Each season has had a different logo and slight changes in the aesthetics. It has also been a reflection of the scope of the funding I have received at any given time:

  • Season 1 in 2018 was funded by a local council grant. This was called An Environment for Change, an 8 part series that was a pilot project for what would later be called Saltgrass. It was very clear to me that I was only just scratching the surface of what could be covered in a show like this.
  • Season 2 was a my first grant from the CBF which allowed for 6 months of weekly episodes in the first half of 2020. I initially called this project Turning the Goldfields Green because I wanted to focus on our central Victorian region that has had a devastating amount of damage done to it during the gold rush. It is called upside-down country by the Dja Dja Wurrung as every square meter of this landscape was dug over, turned upside down in the search for gold in the 1800’s. I was also using Saltgrass as the podcast name… confusing?  Yes it was. I added Dja Dja Wurrung Radio – a series I made in 2015 with Uncle Rick Nelson – at the end of this season as I thought it was worth sharing again and fit in with the values and ideas explored in Saltgrass.
  • Season 3 was a second grant from the CBF for a full year of weekly episodes to follow on from season 2. I transitioned fully into the name Saltgrass and mostly left the ‘goldfields’ tagline behind as I was looking forward to including episodes from further afield. I was forced by a bad back to recognise that a weekly schedule was insane and my health was suffering because of it, so I shifted to a fortnightly new release schedule – and started airing older episodes again on the radio stations in the weeks between. Because what was originally going to be a year of content was looking like two years at this slower release rate, I decided to break season 3 at episode 23 and start a new season, taking a month off between seasons to rest and re-set.
  • Season 4 ran from July 2021 and until July 2022 and completed the funding given by the CBF back in 2020 – which covered both season 3 and 4. This season experienced a lot of breaks and pauses for various reasons.
  • Season 5 With fresh funding from the CBF, this time with a sensible schedule of fortnightly episodes built into the application. Season 5 will run throughout 2023.