If you have been in this area for some time and spend a lot of time in your car, you have probably tuned in WTOP radio. It is an all-news radio station that gives a traffic report every ten minutes on the 8’s. This is critical information.
If you are a person who likes to tend to his or her lawn and garden, there is also critical information every Friday morning and throughout the day on Saturday when Garden Guru Mike McGrath takes to the airwaves.
Most of us have heard Mike McGrath on the radio…now it is time to meet the man behind the voice.
I recently had the opportunity to sit and talk with McGrath after he had given a talk to some 60 eager listeners at the beautiful Homestead Gardens in Davidsonville, Maryland. Introduced by Don Riddle, owner of Homestead Gardens, McGrath lectured on the timeliness of feeding your lawn as well as plant care. The hour-long lecture was followed by a question and answer session in which he fielded many diverse questions and had an answer for every one. McGrath is not only knowledgeable, but entertaining as well. This talent did not develop overnight; it all began back at Temple University in McGrath’s hometown of Philadelphia.
After graduation McGrath’s first job was as a rock and roll writer, but he developed his initial skills as writer and editor for Temple’s newspaper, The Daily Planet. He relates one story that had a profound effect on him as the events of the early 70’s had on us all. On May 4th, 1970, Ohio National Guardsmen fired on protesting students at Kent State University, killing four students. At the time, McGrath was vice president of the student body at Temple and he asked the president of the group what they were going to do. “He had no idea of a course of action,” says McGrath, “so I took charge and said we had to march on City Hall.” McGrath coordinated a march with the University of Pennsylvania, “they would come from one direction and we would come from another, and we expected trouble,” he says.
“I held a rally,” he tells me, “and I told the students, if you don’t want to risk getting shot, stay here, if not, follow me.” “As we marched to City Hall, the streets were lined with police officers and every one of them had their hands folded behind their backs and were facing away from the students.
“It was a strange feeling,” he says. “When I got home my dad, who at the time was a detective on the Philadelphia police force, said, ‘Congratulations, you won, the war is over.’ “That was the day that everything changed!”
While still at Temple, McGrath met Stan Lee, writer and editor for Marvel Comics. “I wrangled a little writing for Marvel Comics and after graduation I worked for them in New York,” he says. In between these jobs, McGrath’s career as a rock and roll writer was developing.
“I wrote about acts in the early 70’s when record companies were begging you to go to shows and write about it.” At this time, McGrath was also entertainment editor of the Philadelphia underground newspaper, the Drummer, and then moved on to the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News.
One of his more memorable encounters with a star was Grace Slick of Jefferson Airplane. The group had suffered through some tough times and was in the process of remaking themselves and beginning a tour.
“I was pleasantly surprised by their album and I gave it a lot of praise. I was the first person in the business to notice it and it really steamrolled from there. One of the first places they played was the Spectrum in Philly and their management called me to tell me that the group really wanted to meet me and thank me for the write-up. I went backstage at the Spectrum and Grace was gorgeous, they fed me and couldn’t have been nicer. They had been on the road for about 8 months and they came around to Philly again. A good friend of mine from college wanted to go see them and he begged me to take him.
I told him, “Jeff, I don’t know if that is a good idea, I have heard that they are beginning to fall apart. Well, we went to the show and then to join the group back stage. As good as the first show was, this show 8 months later was hideous; people were booing, walking out, etc. I once again told my friend, this is not a good idea, but he said no, no, no, I hear you are such good friends with Grace. So we go down the steps and Grace is there actually duking it out with rhythm guitarist and vocalist Paul Kantner. They were all pale, out of shape and looked awful. As we go down the steps, she sees me, and the next thing I see is the arm go up, and there is this bottle of Chivas (Regal) that shatters on the wall right behind me. I was finally able to convince my friend that this was not the best step, and we got the hell out of there.”
“Truthfully, back stage at best is boring, most of the time. I hung out a lot with Springsteen, Billy Joel, Yes, Genesis, Peter Gabriel, and others.” McGrath’s first interview was with Captain Beefheart (Don Van Vliet).
“I was lucky,” he said. “He was a great interview, charming, witty, he taught me how to do a good interview."
In 1978 things changed for McGrath. “I met a beautiful woman at a party and all she wanted was somebody who could grow her raspberries. Who knows what she thought I was, at the time I was doing a lot of music writing, going to the Spectrum almost every night, the Academy of Music, just all over the place plus I am commuting back and forth to New York because I am writing a book for Stan Lee.”
“ I told the beautiful woman, “Sure, I can do that.” I got home and called a friend and he told me, “You are so lucky she likes raspberries, they can grow themselves.” That beautiful woman, Kathy, has now been married to McGrath for thirty years, and the raspberries are still there.
“About the time I met Kathy” he said. “I was burned out with the music scene, and here she wanted to move to the country and have a little garden, and that sounded fine to me. I told her that I wanted to get out of the business, but she said, ‘Oh no, not yet, we have just met.’ “So she had to go with me backstage and meet Billy Joel and others and that lasted about a year.”
At this time, McGrath was also writing a series of medical articles. “In 76 I was in a serious car accident and I wrote it up for the Sunday Magazine of the Inquirer.” After years of having my stuff rewritten by the staff of the Inquirer, they only cut two paragraphs from my accident story and ran it in its entirety.
“ After that I got a call from Temple to write medical articles for their review magazine.” Another career developed.
With his freelance days closing in on him, McGrath decided to get a “job” and applied at Rodale Press and secured a position as a health writer. From here he developed Men’s Health from a newsletter to a magazine. It was during this time that the McGraths moved to Leigh Valley, PA and took up organic gardening. In 1990, McGrath walked into the office of the president of Rodale Press and demanded that he be given the job as Editor-in-Chief of Organic Gardening. “Bob, this job is mine,” he said to the president.
When the president of Rodale asked to see his resume, McGrath exploded…”what do you mean, I’ve worked here for the last nine years, what resume. Luckily it was a good garden year that year, so I went home and came back the next day with a bag full beautiful raspberries, beautiful platinum sweet corn, lipstick peppers, and bell peppers and said here is my resume.” He got the job and held it until 1997.
From 1993 through 1997, McGrath was also the regular gardening expert on the weekend edition of the Today Show, Saturday Mornings on NBC. He has also appeared on Nova, Good Morning America, CBS This Morning, PBS Healthweek, CNN, FOX, and as a regular contributor on the weekly PBS TV series, “Your Organic Garden” and The Discovery Channel’s “Home Matters”.
After leaving Organic Gardening McGrath wrote another two years for Prevention Magazine and at the same time public radio called and wanted him to do a gardening show. Thus began McGrath’s career on Public Radio. McGrath was also hosting a local gardening show in Philadelphia when he got a phone call from the new program director at WTOP radio who said he was driving through Philly and heard the show and loved it and asked him to become a gardening reporter, which he has now been doing for ten years.
“Finally after 35 years I am doing what I went to college for, Radio, TV and Film. I got into editorial, got into other stuff, running around; I either had an adventurous life, or I couldn’t hold a job.
“I am back to where I control my own time and destiny.”
If you have a chance to hear Mike McGrath speak…do it. Not only is he knowledgeable, but very entertaining and funny in a Woody Allen sort of way. If you can’t catch him live, tune into to WTOP radio on Saturdays and listen to the Garden Plot for everything you need to know about your lawn or garden…organically.
McGrath slays slugs, plays pinball, enjoys baseball, grows way too many tomatoes and will not eat lima beans, no matter how much you pay him.
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