There's a growing movement to bring more outdoor learning to public schools. This month, we profile Land to Learn, a non-profit organization that provides hands-on, garden-based learning to elementary students and teens throughout the Hudson Valley.

Executive Director Nicole Porto previously worked as a farmer and has dedicated her career to building sustainable and just food systems. In our interview, Nicole describes how Land to Learn's gardener-teachers work with kids of varying ages to instill knowledge of where their food comes from and advance values of caring for the Earth. There's also the unexpected thrill of watching the seeds they planted — strawberries, tomatoes, arugula — grow before their eyes.

"One of my favorite things to watch people get excited about is when a little yellow flower starts to grow a tiny, baby, spiky cucumber," Nicole says.

This episode focuses on Land to Learn's SproutEd program for elementary schools in Beacon, Newburgh and Kingston. Through SproutEd, gardener-teachers build school food gardens and teach monthly lessons that combine knowledge of plants, nutrition, cooking, and environmental stewardship. Separately, Land to Learn also offers employment and internship opportunities for teens and college-aged kids.

Find more information on Land to Learn at Landtolearn.org.

Lastar Gorton, Beacon's new Ward 1 city council rep, is tired of watching families be forced out of the city because their paychecks can't cover the rent or a mortgage down payment.

Lastar grew up in Beacon, and she has watched waves of lifelong Beaconites leave as the cost of housing rises, while developers have erected dozens of mostly luxury condo buildings. That includes her uncle, who was forced to leave his longtime apartment and move away from Beacon after his wife passed, despite expressing interest in buying the building he lived in. His offer, which would have easily bought the place just a few years ago, was slightly under the highest bid.

In this interview, she makes the case that Beacon hasn't done enough to resist real estate market forces that have already forced many longtime community members to move to Poughkeepsie, Newburgh and other nearby cities and towns. And she outlines what she believes it will take to create a wave of truly affordable construction in Beacon — as opposed to the "below market rate" units that are sometimes passed off as affordable.

There's plenty of other great stuff in this episode too, including on traffic, a community center, the TOD development and more.

If you like what you hear, please share it with a friend, and subscribe to our newsletter at Beaconites.com

How do you end up going into business with your life partner? For Paula and Justin King, the couple behind Rexhill Studio, the decision came many years after they first met, as their separate interests and skillsets gradually converged in their adopted home city.

Paula grew up in NJ, attended NYU and lived in the East Village in the 90s. Justin grew up in Ohio, took an early interest in art and dreamed of escaping the Midwest. They both ran away to the West Coast, each for their own reasons, and met in Portland where they lived for years before moving back East and putting roots down in Beacon.

Over time they realized they had complementary skills - Justin a woodworker of steadily improving ability, Paula a gifted interior designer with the operational knowledge to maintain books and oversee a shop. Thus was born Rexhill, a mom-and-pop cabinetry and interior design studio that has found a niche by resisting the prevailing forces of our economy.

In an age when most manufacturing is modular and mass produced, Justin and Paula have embraced a way of working that is custom and small-scale and local. And they've done it together while raising kids, something common in bygone times but very rare these days.