The Preserver's Garden

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Our toll free number eight hundred eight two three eight
two five five. Good morning. I am Ron Wilson, your
personal yard boy, talking about yardening. And as I promised,
she is back. And who is she? Well, of course
she is our queen. We call her our Queen Bee.
She was our retired Ohio State aperis an entomologist. She's
been working you know what, We've been working together for

(00:22):
a long time, trying to educate more folks about bees,
not only honey bees, but the native bees as well.
I can't think her enough for all the information. It's
so much fun to have her on the show. Ladies
and gentlemen, our Queen Bee. Barbie Blecher, what are you

(00:44):
doing up so early?

Speaker 2 (00:46):
Boy?

Speaker 3 (00:46):
That's a lot of applause. I haven't even spoken yet.

Speaker 1 (00:49):
I tell you you got your fans are everywhere, and
we even have bees that came out. It's still dark.

Speaker 3 (00:53):
Out, I know, it's crazy all.

Speaker 1 (00:56):
Over the windows. Send where's Barbie here?

Speaker 3 (01:00):
I'm trying to stay warm.

Speaker 1 (01:02):
Have you had your coffee yet?

Speaker 2 (01:05):
Mm hmm okay, yes, sir.

Speaker 1 (01:07):
Just making sure you know, Buggy Joe takes at least
three or four before you know. And that's it. Eight
thirty in the morning.

Speaker 3 (01:13):
Oh, and that I would be jumping over the walls
if I had that much, okay, caffeine.

Speaker 1 (01:20):
So you do it? Do you sweeten your coffee with honey?
I would absume.

Speaker 3 (01:24):
Absolutely homegrown honey. You can't beat it.

Speaker 1 (01:27):
Is it homegrown?

Speaker 3 (01:30):
It is homemade homemade honey. Yes, by my very own workers.

Speaker 1 (01:35):
By your own, by your own workers. And by the way,
if if let's just get this out right right off
the bat, if I'm buying some of that honey off
the shelf at the grocery store, doesn't say locally grown
or anything like that, local bee keepers. Is that homemade honey?
Or is that homemade syrup?

Speaker 3 (01:55):
It's it is a syrup product, and it's more than
likely not to pick on Canada. But a lot of
these foreign countries will dump their honey products into Canada
and then they will bottle it and sell it here.
The problem that they're finding is not only does it
have rice syrup, corn syrup, any other kind of a syrup,

(02:17):
it's not honey at all, And there's all kinds of
other innert ingredients in there that you do not want
to eat. So you want to find a local beekeeper
and almost every county and every state has a beekeeper
beekeeping club. You can go on there. You can find

(02:38):
local beekeepers and buy directly from them. It's got nutrients,
it's got all the nutrients and the proteins that we
need for body health. And it's so much better force
than that junk that they sell a secondhand in the stores.

Speaker 1 (02:54):
Yeah, and I you know, I remember you turning me
onto this ten to fifteen years ago and I couldn't
leave it. And I mean we used to tell folks
back then and they were just like, are you kidding me?
And I said, well, just look at the label. I'll
tell you on that. And it's amazing, you know how
that happens, But it does and it's allowed. But again
that's why we always say support your local beekeepers, support
your support your local growers, no matter what it is,

(03:16):
but local beekeepers as well. And you'll find a lot
of these in some of your local farm markets and
places like that as well. But look at the bottle
and make sure that it is locally home grown, and
support your local beekeepers very very important to them as
far as financing them as well. So and it's good stuff. Now,
what's the difference between raw honey and processed honey.

Speaker 3 (03:41):
So raw honey and there we use that term a
little loosely. Raw honey should be right out of the hive.
We will filter it to get all the extra body
parts and wings and stuff out that might, you know,
get into it, but we'll filter it. We might just
so it will run through the filter better. But then

(04:03):
it's right out of the beehive. Commercial beekeepers will heat
their honey, which cause that makes sorry processed honey. It
means that it's been heated, so it destroys all the nutrients,
it destroys the proteins, and that's when you get into
issues with non honey products in it, because you can't

(04:25):
identify the proteins. So if I took a jar honey,
or if you took your jar honey to like a
professor with a microscope, he can tell you every flower
that's in that honey. But what happens when they process
that they destroy those destroy the pollend, destroy the proteins,

(04:46):
so you can't identify. There's no pollen left in the honey.
So at that point it's it's processed. It's just a
sweet liquid that might have honey in it.

Speaker 1 (04:58):
Interesting, so try to find it. And then when we're
looking at these uh different honeys that are on the shelf,
and you see all different colors from a really dark
color to a very light and I almost see through
the honey type of color that just varies on what
what there what was in flower at the time that
the honey was being made.

Speaker 3 (05:17):
Yeah, well, those beess brought in and that's the fun
thing about buying from your local beekeepers. We'll have spring honey,
we'll have like summer wildflower honey and fall honey. But
a lot of beekeepers like when we have a black
locust that blooms in early spring, or the the bassward
trees say, have a beautiful light honey. So if we

(05:39):
take our honey off, if we take our honey off
right after that bassward is finished blooming, you're gonna have
the most beautiful clear honey. And it has a specific
taste that is unique to black locusts or bassward Go ahead. Yeah,
if you have your you're lucky enough to have your

(05:59):
ap near a clover field where they're raised in clover
for animals or for seed. It has the most wonderful,
deep flavor, all kinds of different flavors in there, but
it's it's unique to that clover. So whatever the bees
went to, whatever pollen and nectar they brought back, that's

(06:20):
what is becomes your honey.

Speaker 1 (06:23):
And if it's a near buckwheat.

Speaker 3 (06:27):
Beautiful example, buckwheat is produces a very dark honey, but wonderful, deep,
heavy flavor, very unique. And goldenrod. Golden rod produces a wonderful,
darker honey with a deep flavor.

Speaker 1 (06:45):
I always thought the buckwheat honey taste of morel almost
like sorghum glasses.

Speaker 3 (06:49):
M h.

Speaker 1 (06:50):
Really talking with Barbie Butcher. She is our queen Bee,
getting our our usual update on how we're doing with
the bees out there. What about spotted lantern fly honey?
Real dark color.

Speaker 3 (07:06):
It is dark, it's got a little bit of a
red to it.

Speaker 1 (07:09):
You know, I'm just kind of joking there because it's
beep there, you know, spotted lantern fly poop.

Speaker 3 (07:16):
Yeah, it's it's excreted. So when the spa lantern flies
are feeding, they have a sucking mouth part and they
excrete the extra liquids and you know, stuff that they
don't want, extra liquids and sweets, so the bees pick
that up. And they do it because they're hungry. So
we you know, when we have a drought like this,
they're looking for anything that might pass as nectar, so

(07:39):
they pick that up. And it can have different flavors
because the spied lantern flies are feeding on things that
not necessarily that bees that wouldn't necessarily go to, so
it does have some unique flavors. They say it's kind
of smoky. I don't really taste a big different, but

(08:00):
it is definitely sweeter.

Speaker 1 (08:02):
Hm. I cracked up when I started seeing the articles
going about that, and then you sent me an article.
I was like, that's pretty funny. But I never thought
about it. But it's true. I mean, you know, we
talk about describing, you know, how can you tell you
got magnolia scale? And you know, you just like if
you see was and bees all you know, flies flying
around and you know that's part of the deal, and
sure enough that's you know. But anyway, so they take

(08:23):
advantage of the spotted lantern fly as well. So there
you go. But that all of these factors are what
will cause the different flavors and the different colors and
shades of all of the honeys that are available out there.
Today from your local independent beekeepers.

Speaker 3 (08:38):
And it's fun because a lot of beekeepers will go
travel all over the United States and we buy other
people's honey from different states, like mangrove honey or you know,
wild orange honey, orange blossom, orange blossom honey. There's a
wonderful and it tastes like oranges.

Speaker 1 (08:55):
Unbelievable.

Speaker 3 (08:57):
Yeah, So, I mean it's fun. And why buy that
junk in the store that all tastes like syrup when
you can have that experience of tasting the local fauna.

Speaker 1 (09:08):
There you go. Hey, by the way, happy bee lated birthday.

Speaker 3 (09:13):
Oh well, thank you.

Speaker 1 (09:15):
It was sweet thirty one forty one, Sure, forty one, that's.

Speaker 2 (09:19):
What I thought.

Speaker 3 (09:21):
Double the thirty one.

Speaker 1 (09:22):
Yeah right, talk about Barbie. But you are Queen Bee.
We're gonna take a break. We come back. We let's
take a look now at what's going on with our bees.
We had a warm fall so far. How are they doing.
What we're gonna do is we go into the winter season.
Brand new be discovered this year in the United in
the world. I think it's kind of interesting. It's got horns.
We'll talk more about that as well after the break.
Here in the garden with Ron Wilson Fucking yardening at

(09:44):
eight hundred eight two three eight two five five. Barbie,
let your our queen Bee is with us this morning,
give us a little be update and of course hope
you take her tips about the honey and which ones
you purchase. Just buy local, that's the bottom line. Buy
locally deuced honey and you're in good shape and it
support all of your local beekeepers. So we've had a

(10:07):
kind of dry in some areas that was dry up
until three or four weeks ago, pretty dry, and then
of course warmer temperatures continue. Finally got a little bit
of snow this week, cooling back down. Where do our
bees stand at this stage.

Speaker 3 (10:20):
Well, you know it's interesting because the bees had been
flying every one day. The bees are flying yesterday. We
are out flying around just looking for something to eat.
So there's nothing flowering. So when you see these bees
flying around this time of year, you know they're robbing
from other weaker colonies. They're looking, you know, at the

(10:42):
food tross at the farms, and the bird feeders are
looking for anything that they can find that they think
is nectar or pollen to take back to their colony.
So it's hard on them. They're spending a lot of
energy foraging and not really fighting anything that's nutritious. But
we you know, some parts of Ohio, I think down

(11:05):
your way, especially in the eastern Ohio, they're dry. They
had a dry fall. They didn't get they didn't get
anything from the golden rods to speak of. And there's
a gentleman up in northwest Ohio and they're they're low
up there. They didn't get the harvest that they usually

(11:26):
expect because they didn't get anything out of the golden rods.
So these these dry falls that we've been having are
are tough on the bees, you know, and other pollinators
as well.

Speaker 1 (11:38):
Obviously we talk about planning things that flour late in
the season, keeping water out for the for the bees,
things like that, but there's nothing really at this stage
in the game that a homeowner can do correct.

Speaker 3 (11:51):
Media humming bird feeder out, but it might freeze.

Speaker 1 (11:54):
Yeah, so the hummingbird feeder could be a source of
of some sugar water, I guess for them to uh
to benefit from. And if somebody's listening saying, why would
they go to UH farm troughs or my bird feeder,
why do I see bees around there. It's not there's
no pollen there.

Speaker 3 (12:11):
There's no pollen, but it looks like pollen. It's fine,
it's around. They can pick it up and carry it
back to their colony. So what happens They take this
stuff back. It looks just like pollen to them, and they,
you know, offload it to the gal whose stores in
the cells. And they said, well that's good, that's not

(12:31):
palling you dummy. So they just they just seal it
off and wait for more to be brought. So they
can't eat it, they can't use it.

Speaker 1 (12:40):
Kind of like the three stooges and they get the
little two fingers to the eyes or smack upside that.

Speaker 3 (12:44):
Yeah, just like that, swaintly ye.

Speaker 1 (12:47):
Get back out there.

Speaker 3 (12:49):
Out there, Try it again, Try again, fish. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (12:52):
So if you see those out there and they don't
chase the birds away from the bird feeder, no they don't.
As a matter of fact, could be a source of
food for some birds if they're interested.

Speaker 3 (13:02):
Oh yeah, a lot of birds love eating bees.

Speaker 1 (13:06):
So there you go. So again, you know, we had
we sometimes on a nice day, we'll leave the back
door kind of cracked open so Miley, our dog can
go in and out freely. And it's amazing still how
many bees come in that back door and you know,
fly around a little bit and they realize they're in
the wrong spot and head back out again. But it's
a boy, they've just been so active up like you said,
even a couple of days ago, still seeing them flying

(13:28):
around out there. So how about when they get caught
all of a sudden with that, like the snowfall or
the colder tempts? They know what's going on, right.

Speaker 3 (13:36):
Bees are amazing, you know, their their brain is basically,
you know, five nerves that are stuck together. The things
that they know. They know it's gonna starts getting colder.
They know basically an hour before it rains it's going
to be raining. They all head back to the colony.
If it's going to get cold, they will cluster and

(13:56):
they detached their wings and they buzz, and that buzzing
creates heat. So because of course it takes a lot
of honey to produce that heat, but they will buzz
and keep the core of the colony warm. And believe
it or not, even if it's zero outside, it's a
cozy ninety five or no ninety four down where the
queen is. So they're able to keep their colony warm

(14:21):
just by buzzing their wings.

Speaker 1 (14:22):
And when you say detached, they don't take their wings off.

Speaker 3 (14:26):
Oh no, sorry, but they just sort of disconnect them
so that they can buzz in a different way instead
of flying. They buzz it up and down.

Speaker 1 (14:36):
Because if they were still connected, they'd pick up the
hiven and take off.

Speaker 3 (14:39):
Yeah, you just see this behove going.

Speaker 1 (14:41):
On flying away. And then you know what I see
beehives that are painted all different colors. Is there a
particular color that's best for them? Or you know, I mean,
white's obviously the prominent color, but I'm more and more saying,
you know, greens and yellows and reds and all that
out there.

Speaker 3 (14:56):
Yeah, they like the earth tunes. And for two reasons.
So when the bees are flying around and coming back,
if you have all your hives in a row and
they're all white, they they don't always go back to
the same colony. They might drift to the right or
drift to the left. So your colonies on the ends
always end up having more bees in them. Because the

(15:17):
bees they don't remember exactly which high they came out of.
So we paint them different colors and they know, okay,
that hive is mine and they'll go right back in.
And that the earth tones hold more heat in the wintertime,
So the browns and the greens and the tans, we've
actually used that heat detector and pointed them at the

(15:40):
hives and the ones that are painted earth tone colors,
they retain more heat, which is really important in the wintertime.

Speaker 1 (15:47):
Cool or you can just get Nina Bagley's hive covers.

Speaker 3 (15:52):
Yeah, keep them nice and toasted.

Speaker 1 (15:54):
And by the way, I want to thank you and
Teresa and Nina for sending me all the videos and
all the information you guys send me on a basis
keep me updated with his bee keeping. I tell you what,
you guys do a great job.

Speaker 3 (16:04):
You're the three Stavrone. We appreciate our favorite drone.

Speaker 1 (16:08):
We got about thirty seconds. Did you see the new
bee they discovered in Australia with the horns on it?

Speaker 3 (16:12):
Yes, Lucifer, Lucifer. It's got horns.

Speaker 1 (16:18):
I'm assuming we have long.

Speaker 3 (16:20):
Horn bees in Ohio that have little horns, but not
like this little guy. She's got pointed horns.

Speaker 1 (16:27):
Yeah, and it's only the female from what I read. Yeah, yeah,
that's pretty cool. That's pretty cool, very cool, Barbie Bletcher.
Always a pleasure, our Queen Bee. Thank you for all
so much, for all the information, and we will continue
to hear more from you as we go along.

Speaker 3 (16:41):
Thank you, thank you so much. Enjoy your day, all right, Thanksgiving.

Speaker 1 (16:46):
I'd be thanksgiving to you, Barbe Blecher. Coming up next
the one of the authors, co author from The Preserver's Gardens,
Jeremy Hill's gonna join us here in the Garden with
Ron Wilson. Welcome back here in the Garden with Ron Wilson.
You know, every now and then to come across a
book that I just absolutely love and I like to
share it with you. I highly recommend. And I'll tell

(17:07):
you what. I've just found another one that was a
pleasure to read through. I've taken notes. It's a if
you grow your own vegetables, or maybe you don't, once
you read this book, you'll want to. If you've never
canned your own vegetables or preserve them or save them
for a later date, you've never done that before. After
you read this book, you're gonna want to. And if

(17:28):
you've never done any of this stuff before, and you
read this book. You're gonna enjoy it so much, you're
gonna want to trust me. Well written, great pictures, great instructions.
Easy if I can read it and understand it. You know,
it's easy to read. It's absolutely wonderful. It's called The
Preserver's Garden, How to Grow a Garden for fermenting, canning, pickling, dehydrating,

(17:51):
freeze drying, and more. Co written by Stacy and Jeremy Hill,
and with us this morning is mister Jerry Hill. Good morning,
good morning. Thanks for having me hey, my pleasure, and
thanks for spending time. I know you guys are headed
out to a big farmers market today and you got
stuck staying back to talk with me.

Speaker 2 (18:10):
Yeah, I want to thank you for that. It got
me out of going in early. So thank you. Thanks.

Speaker 3 (18:14):
Well.

Speaker 1 (18:14):
You know, after I read through that text, I went,
wait a second, I'm saving him from all the work
getting set up. Absolutely, you understand. I love it. Hey, Jeremy,
thank you so much. Seriously, what a great book. And
by the way, co written by your wife Stacy. And
from what you told me yesterday, you really were responsible
for just about everything in this book.

Speaker 2 (18:36):
Oh yeah, I mean.

Speaker 4 (18:37):
That's pretty much how it normally works, but now really
she's the brains of the operation. I just do do
the back end work more than anything. So well, it
is a team, I've heard, and it's not just her
and me. It's actually our six kids all have a
role in it as well. It's it's truly a family affair.

Speaker 1 (18:57):
Unbelievable. I tell you what, seriously, you know, whether you
if somebody got this book, you could read this book,
enjoy it, enjoy the story behind it, and never grow
anything and never preserve anything, just enjoying the book. But
if you've never done it before, once you get through
this thing, I'm ready to dive in head first. And
I've been growing things for years and I used to

(19:17):
help my mom. I don't do much canning and preserving myself,
but used to help as a kid growing up. But
this thing, this book, I tell you, makes you want
to grow more, to get out there and do this
so kind of real quick. I love the stories behind
things like this, and you too have a great story.

Speaker 2 (19:35):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (19:35):
Well, I appreciate that we've been preserving food since we
got married twenty one years ago.

Speaker 2 (19:45):
On a small scale and then just kind of worked
up over the.

Speaker 4 (19:48):
Years to preserving pretty much all of our fruits and
vegetables that we consume as a family. As our family grew,
our needs grew, the size of our garden grew, size
of our pantry grew, and it all just became a
matter of scale. And we started out living in Springfield, Missouri,

(20:09):
which you know.

Speaker 2 (20:10):
Now we're in Rogersville, which is just a neighboring town.

Speaker 4 (20:13):
But I did a little research to draw a comparison
in Springfield would compare pretty much.

Speaker 2 (20:19):
To Dayton, Ohio in size and metropolitan area.

Speaker 4 (20:24):
So we went from just basically your suburban street on
the end of the cul de sac home and bought
a little bit of land. We're on twelve acres, and
when we got this farm nine years ago, we were
really able to step it up and grow a lot more.

Speaker 2 (20:41):
And it's just a little more every year, all right.

Speaker 1 (20:45):
So when you and Stacey got married, was this your
goal at that time too? You know, of course you've
got a great family, large family, But was that your
goal to eventually get to a point where we're somewhat
self sustainable and we're going to grow our own and
our own food. And had the small farm.

Speaker 2 (21:03):
Not even a little bit it wasn't even on the radar.

Speaker 4 (21:09):
You know, we had a little backyard garden and I
think we were in our first home. We had a
three foot by six foot bed behind our duplex that
we lived in and grew a couple of tomato plants
and that was it.

Speaker 2 (21:25):
So it's really grown from there. It hm, it starts
from a lot of different things.

Speaker 4 (21:31):
I mean one, saving money is a a is a goal.
Eating clean is probably our main goal that led us here,
being able to know what's in your food. We grow
everything organically using organic practices at least, and you know
there's you just really never know what's in your food

(21:53):
that you get from the grocery store. So we decided
that just a little by little, we would grow more
and more. And tomatoes. If you read the book, you
know we kind of gush on tomatoes are our favorite,
our favorite.

Speaker 2 (22:06):
Thing, and we can you know, it's.

Speaker 4 (22:11):
Sixty to eighty quarts of tomato sauce and just to
keep our family going.

Speaker 2 (22:16):
And not to have any backstock, and not to mention salsa.

Speaker 4 (22:21):
Doopes excuse me? So many things that were made out
of tomatoes. They're a favorite thing. And having clean, good
quality heirloom tomatoes preserved throughout the year. Is it's a
real treat to open up really good tasting tomato sauce
or salsa in February.

Speaker 2 (22:43):
Sure, it's it's something else.

Speaker 1 (22:45):
You know. My I look back at my roots and
my grandparents, great grandparents, they all had the storm the sellers,
you know, into the hillside, and of course my grand
mothers and grandfathers they all did all this kind of canning.
But then I look at the at your book, and
of course it's wonderfully illustrate the picture. You're outstanding. I
look at your pantry. That thing is phenomenal.

Speaker 2 (23:05):
Yeah, it's that's like a store, it really is.

Speaker 4 (23:10):
The pantry itself was actually a dining room when we
bought this old house.

Speaker 2 (23:16):
The house we live in is.

Speaker 4 (23:17):
A it was originally built in eighteen eighty and it's
been built onto it modernized, of course, and this room
was added on as.

Speaker 2 (23:26):
A dining room.

Speaker 4 (23:27):
So it's like twenty feet long and seven or eight
feet wide. It's a really odd narrow room. So we
put shelves down both sides or down three sides really
to make it a big u And it's got five
shelves and we made it all out of heavy lumber,
plywood and two by fours.

Speaker 3 (23:47):
And it is.

Speaker 4 (23:49):
Because it does to be heavy to hold all these
glass jars and the food inside of them.

Speaker 2 (23:54):
So we really made it into our own little family
grocery store.

Speaker 1 (23:58):
I would imagine you don't throw any jars way at
your house.

Speaker 2 (24:01):
Oh no, And I still buy jars.

Speaker 4 (24:04):
Keep an eye on Craig's List, Facebook marketplace if I
see somebody selling a bunch of old jars, I'm on
it because a lot of these jars are one hundred
years old and you can still use them after all
these years.

Speaker 2 (24:15):
They're great.

Speaker 1 (24:16):
Talking with Jeremy Hill. He and his wife Stacey has
written a book that's absolutely outstanding. And by the way,
I want to mention this coming up is Christmas and
you can buy this for yourself or as a gift.
It's called The Preserver's Gardener Garden How to Garden for fermentding, canning, pickling, dehydrating,
freeze drying and more. It's astley wonderful. Pictures are great.
Their website check this out Gooseberry Ridge dot com. Gooseberry

(24:40):
Ridge dot com. That's their farm. And we're going to
take a break and we come back. We'll talk more
about that and a lot of the things that you're
going to find in this book, The Preservers Garden by
Stacy and Jeremy Hill. Here in the Garden with Ron Wilson.
Welcome back. You're in the Garden with Ron Wilson, and
we are talking with mister Jeremy Hill. He is a
co op of a great book and it's a perfect

(25:03):
for Christmas for yourself or somebody else. But it's called
a Preserver's Garden, How to Grow a Garden for fermenting, canning, pickling, dehydrating, freeze, drying,
and more. He and his wife wrote this together. It's
absolutely wonderful. The pictures are outstanding. You will love it.
Very well written, and we have Jeremy with us this
morning talking with about that. By the way, their website

(25:24):
is Gooseberry Ridge dot com. That's Gooseberry Ridge dot com
to learn more about them and all the great things
that they do. By the way, you mentioned at the
very beginning here Jeremy talking about you know how much
you guys like tomatoes, didn't I read in here that's
at the beginning. Stacy wasn't a big tomato lover.

Speaker 4 (25:42):
Yeah, she actually didn't like tomatoes when we when we
first got together, and because she had only had you know,
the pink, hard store potato tomatoes that are designed for
travel and not taste in flavor.

Speaker 2 (25:57):
And once I introduced.

Speaker 4 (25:59):
Her to you know, some some really good heirloom tomatoes,
ones that are designed to be eaten right off the plant,
like er Key purples and Millionaire tomatoes, things like that,
it changed their perspective.

Speaker 2 (26:13):
To realize that.

Speaker 4 (26:15):
You know, what I realized is most people think a
tomato is that little pink disk that you get on
a hamburger at Wendy's, and it's really, you know, that's
that's not.

Speaker 2 (26:26):
The same thing. Those are. Those are grown and shipped
thousands of miles and sometimes they've been picked for weeks,
if not months. They're they're designed for for travel, not
for flavor.

Speaker 1 (26:38):
Right, you know, look, I look at that sometimes and
I gotta admit, some of the grocery stores are doing
a better job today than they did thirty years ago,
There's no doubt about it. But on the same token,
it's still not like picking that cherry tomato or that
airloom tomato out of the garden and put popping it,
you know, dusting it off a little bit, or not
dusting it off and popping it right into your mouth.
The flavor is totally unbelievab and for those that never

(27:01):
wind up growing any food whatsoever. And of course container
gardening makes it so easy for anybody to try something.
You never know the difference. So I said, you know,
people are gonna they eat this from the you know,
the produce and the grocery store or whatever. They never
know the difference, you know, because that's all they've ever had.
But you know, if you get out to local farmers market,
to a farm like yours or whatever, and once you

(27:22):
taste that, you know it's you. It's hard to go back.
There's no I remember my parents and grandparents always complaining
about the tomatoes in the winter time, you know, because
they were just nothing but And so that's where by
canning and preserving and all the different methods that you're
teaching all of the folks here how to keep that going,
you can enjoy those flavors year round.

Speaker 4 (27:43):
And the other thing to know about tomatoes that you know,
I try to spread the word on tomatoes should never
be refrigerated, right, Never put a tomato in a refrigerator,
even if you cut a tomato in half and only
eat half of it. If you put that other half
into refridge the next day, the flavor is going to
be changed. That The texture is what a lot of

(28:07):
people associate with tomatoes, and that's it's a grainy, gritty,
not good texture. And that's a result of refrigeration. And
most tomatoes that are shipped in from outside of you know,
wherever they're consumed, are shipped in a refrigerated truck and
with other vegetables that need to be refrigerated, so the

(28:28):
tomatoes fall victim and then people think, oh, tomatoes are gross.

Speaker 1 (28:32):
Good great point talking to Jeremy Hill, co author of
The Preserver's Garden, absolutely outstanding book. You're gonna want this one,
trust me, even if.

Speaker 2 (28:43):
I jumped in and tell you one other thing too.
You've given our website a couple of times. It's actually
gooseberrybridge dot com.

Speaker 1 (28:50):
Not rich Bridge. I don't know why I wrote down ridge.

Speaker 2 (28:52):
My bad, no worries.

Speaker 1 (28:55):
But if they google, if they put that in there,
you'll probably wind up getting it anyway.

Speaker 2 (28:59):
It'll probably getting there.

Speaker 4 (29:00):
But Gooseberry Ridge won't get you anywhere, but it'll probably
get you close.

Speaker 1 (29:03):
I even have an online bridge. I don't know why
I have it, and uh at Gooseberry far Bridge Farm
as well to learn more about them. But anyway, the
book is outstanding and you can find that on your
website right if folks want to order it right from you.

Speaker 3 (29:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (29:18):
And I don't know that we actually have the book
on our website yet.

Speaker 4 (29:21):
Okay, but we we We should have it up there
pretty quickly.

Speaker 2 (29:25):
But it is available for pre order right now.

Speaker 4 (29:28):
It actually comes out on December second, so you've got
a pre release copy thanks to our Yah.

Speaker 1 (29:34):
I'll go sure, I'm a lucky I'm a lucky person.
I know several of my friends now are going to
be asking for this book, which I'll be saying now.

Speaker 4 (29:42):
From Amazon, book Books, a Million, Barnes and Noble, and
it'll be in a lot of local bookstores too after
December second.

Speaker 1 (29:51):
All right, Danny, our producer, said, he went and looked
and it is on your website. So there you go.

Speaker 2 (29:55):
Oh, well, fantastic up and going.

Speaker 4 (29:57):
And I should tell you too that my my wife
Stacy runs the website among any many other things, So.

Speaker 1 (30:04):
Go Hurt and go Stacey. And it's a great website.
So once you get there, and don't forget it's Bridge,
not Ridge, but Gooseberry Bridge dot com. You'll be on
there for a while because of all the great things
you do, and I would want to talk about that
very quickly. But again, looking at pictures of your garden,
you do about every type of gardening from raised beds

(30:26):
and ground. You got cold frames, you got containers, you
got high tunnels, you got it all.

Speaker 2 (30:33):
They try to do a little of everything.

Speaker 4 (30:37):
We're actually an agriturism destination here in southern Missouri, so
people come out to our farm for various things that
we won't get into all of right now, but we
wanted to try to have a representation of a lot
of different kinds of gardening, not just for people to see,
but also for us because it gives us the highest
yields on produce, to be able to try different things

(31:00):
and have to utilize high tunnels along with no till,
along with the containers and cold frames and everything else.
So it gives us the best results, and it gives
people a good sampling of what they could do in
their backyard garden.

Speaker 1 (31:15):
And of course the book does as well. It's called
The Preservers Garden, How to Grow a garden for fermenting, canning, pickling, dehydrating,
freeze drying, and more. And by the way, I you know,
again it's so well written. Anybody can do this. Once
you're done, you really do want to just dive into it.
You've taken, you know, done all the homework for us.
I'm assuming there's a little bit of trial and error

(31:36):
through all of your processes here, but you sure simplified
it for everybody absolutely.

Speaker 4 (31:43):
I mean, this is the labor of over twenty years
of trial and error. And the other thing that we
really tried to do with this is to implement a
lot of modern techniques. It's not just canning, you know,
don't just think that this is going to be about
standing over a canner like your grandma did. We get
into modern dehydrating freeze drying. We actually have two freeze

(32:07):
dryers here that we you know, once you have a
freeze dryer, you'll.

Speaker 2 (32:11):
Never not have one. It's an amazing appliance and we
use it constantly.

Speaker 4 (32:16):
So one of the things we get into in the
book is for each produce profile, what preservation methods work
the best for different situations and different pieces of produce. So,
you know, some things just don't can well and they
freeze dry well. Some things dehydrate well, but they don't
freeze dry well. And we cover a lot of that

(32:37):
in the book, so you'll know how to properly preserve
and get the most out of the food, not just
eating fresh, but over the winter when your garden's dead.

Speaker 1 (32:46):
Yeah, and you walk and you walk us through actually
the growing process of best location, and then take us
into the best way to preserve them. And of course
you've got all the different message dehydration, salting, fermentation, freezing,
water bath can pressure canning, freeze drying. I notice you
really focus on the freeze drawing. If there was one

(33:07):
method through here, it seemed like I read a lot
about that we're able to freeze dry, and not too
many things fell into the category that you could not.
That's you guys use that at quite a bit. It
seems like even looking at your pictures here a lot
of freeze drying.

Speaker 2 (33:22):
Yeah, it really is a great method. It stores well.

Speaker 4 (33:25):
We store a lot of our freeze dried food in
mason jars with a vacuum steeler and an oxygen disorber.
If you store that method, or in mil oar bags
It can save a lot longer than pressure or water
bathcnned foods. It does change to the texture, sometimes positively,

(33:46):
sometimes negatively, so you can rehydrate those foods. The other
cool thing about freeze drying is you can freeze dry
prepared food.

Speaker 2 (33:56):
It doesn't have to be just rob veggies.

Speaker 4 (34:00):
Went on a trip last week and on a vacation
for end of season, and we took along stir fried
veggies that had been freeze dried and ate them just
like chips.

Speaker 2 (34:13):
You and my potato chips, and they're delightful.

Speaker 4 (34:15):
So you know, you can get really creative with how
you how you eat this stuff after you prepare it
in freeze dry it.

Speaker 1 (34:22):
Where's the family of six kids go on vacation.

Speaker 4 (34:27):
We actually went up in the Smokies, oh North Carolina, Tennessee,
Smoking mountin National Park, did a little hiking and just
kind of got away for a little bit.

Speaker 2 (34:37):
It's kind of our become our tradition.

Speaker 4 (34:39):
After the first freeze of the year kills the garden,
we just go get away for a week.

Speaker 1 (34:44):
I was in North Carolina last week myself. It wasn't nice.
It was nice weather. Talking with Station and Jeremy, we're
talking with Jeremy Hill, co author of the book The
Preserver's Garden, and this thing is absolutely outstanding. You're gonna
love it. Taking pre orders for the book. It's not
readily available. I happen to get a copy early and
it is as again, like I said, absolutely outstanding. I
love your final chapter achieving success. I think that's outstanding.

(35:06):
And I think the biggest thing here is when it's
all said and done, you said, fine, know yourself, find
ways to motorr self. You motivate yourself and stay on track.
And man, that really does sum it all up. Jeremy Hill,
thank you so much for spending time with us. Tell
Stacey we appreciate you leaving her, leaving you back so
that you know, stayed out all the heavy work. And

(35:27):
thank you so much for this book. It is wonderful.
Thank you all right having us, Thank you, Jeremy Hill.
The name of the book, The Preserver's Garden, How to
Garden for a Girl, Garden for fermenting, canning, pickling, hydrating,
free drawing, and more. I totally enjoyed this one and
I did read it front to back. Great story as well.

(35:48):
Check it out again. Get your pre orders in the
Preservers gardener Stacy and Jeremy Hill,