February 13, 2025 • 41 mins
This episode emphasizes the importance of community, realistic expectations, and small beginnings in gardening. We explore how to nurture connections with neighbors, set achievable goals, and adapt to various living conditions to create a rewarding gardening experience.
• Understanding why content creators should be careful with gardening recommendations
• Setting realistic expectations about food production at home
• The vital role of community in successful gardening practices
• The benefits of starting small to prevent burnout and build confidence
• How climate zones affect plant selection and gardening success
• Encouragement to grow what you love for a more sustainable gardening journey
• Practical advice on basic tools and soil preparation techniques
• An overview of seed starting and maintenance strategies
• The significance of planning for pest management and post-harvest practices
As always, thanks so much for listening! Subscribe, rate, and review Planthropology on your favorite podcast app. It helps the show keep growing and reaching more people! As a bonus, if you review Planthropology on Apple Podcasts or Podchaser and send me a screenshot of it, I'll send you an awesome sticker pack!
Planthropology is written, hosted, and produced by Vikram Baliga. Our theme song is "If You Want to Love Me, Babe, by the talented and award-winning composer, Nick Scout. Midroll tunes are by Rooey.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
What is up?
Plant people it's time oncemore for the Plantthropology
podcast, the show where we diveinto the lives and careers of
some very cool plant people tofigure out why they do what they
do and what keeps them comingback for more.
I'm Vikram Baliga, your hostand your humble guide in this
journey through the sciences.
And, as always, my dear friends, I am so, so excited to be with
you today after well, it's beena hot minute, a hot minute, I
(00:23):
think.
I was looking back and my lastepisode I posted was in like
August of 2024.
And I know it's weird to talkabout the date on an evergreen
content platform.
In fact, I've been told not todo that and I just don't care.
It is now February of 25 and alot's happened.
A lot's happened in the lastsix months or so.
But I'm getting back to thisand I wanted to talk a little
(00:44):
bit and I will here in just asecond about where I've been,
what I've been doing, what'sgoing on and where we're going.
But I just wanted to say thankyou for sticking around and, if
you're hearing the sound of myvoice right now, for being a
part of this.
Still, even after the longbreaks I've taken the last
couple of years and have takenthe time to figure some stuff
out about this podcast, butPlantthropology is back.
It's going to look a little bitdifferent, the schedule is
(01:06):
going to be different, somestuff will change, but it's back
and I'm very, very happy aboutall of that.
So where have I been?
I've been here and there and ina lot of places.
I took on some newresponsibilities at work here at
Texas Tech.
If you don't remember, I'm anassistant professor of practice
of horticulture in the plant andsoil science department at
Texas Tech University and I canstill get all that out in one
(01:28):
take.
So I'm pretty proud of that.
But in the fall, I also took onnew administrative
responsibilities as theassistant dean of outreach and
engagement for the college and,ironically, I stopped
outreaching and engaging throughthis platform at the time.
So am I doing a good job?
I don't know, not sure, butlife was overwhelming.
(01:51):
It gets that way right.
There's been a lot.
There's just been a lot, a lothappening, and so I took a break
, recalibrated, restarted,evaluated what I was doing here
with the show, and I think overtime I have come to realize that
it's something that I love andit's something that I care about
and something that I want tokeep doing, and so I'm going to
keep doing it and I hope you'llkeep coming along with me.
So the format of the show isgoing to change just a little
(02:13):
bit.
We're going to stick with sortof every other week recordings
as much as possible.
There may be a time that I skipan episode and stretch it out.
I may do some extra ones inthere, I don't know be a little
bit different, but it's going tobe basically every other week
and I'm going to start runningit in seasons.
I think what burned me outbefore and if you're a content
creator of any kind, youprobably understand this that
(02:36):
there's this pressure to justindefinitely produce and to be,
I don't know, on all the timeforever, and it just gets to be
a lot.
So I'm probably going to run theshow in 10 to 12 episode
seasons and then take a coupleof months off to record and come
up with new content and thingslike that.
It'll be a pretty healthy mixof solo content.
(02:57):
These first couple episodes ofseason oh gosh, I should have
looked this up.
I think this is going to beseason six, because I'm going to
go back in time and categorizeeach year that I've done the
show as its own season, and I'vebeen doing this since 2019,
which is bonkers, cuckoo,bananas, and so I think that
would make this season six.
But each season I'll have 10,12 episodes again a mix of solo
(03:19):
content, like these first coupleepisodes of the season will be,
and then some great guestinterviews, maybe some live
stuff and a lot of other things.
So I hope that you enjoy that.
It's going to be a littledifferent and I'd love to hear
your feedback.
I'm hoping here in the next fewweeks to send out a listener
survey just so I can hear morefrom you.
So I think I'm going to try totackle some more topical things
(03:41):
as we go through this, to answeryour questions, like we've done
in the past of Q&A episodes,try to find guests that I think
will answer some of thequestions you may have about
what's going on in the world,what is happening with
horticulture and the environmentand nature and everything else,
but I also want to take sometopics that I think are going to
be very important for us goinginto the future, about how we
(04:03):
can interact with theenvironment.
So all that to say that a friendrecently asked me if I would
start creating more gardeningcontent.
And I thought that was weird atfirst because I was like that's
kind of my whole thing.
Right, I create gardeningcontent.
But then I really started tothink about it and I do, but I
come at it from a different way.
(04:24):
Right, I talk to experts, Italk to people in the industry,
even on my social media.
A lot of times I'm debunkingstuff and I realized I don't
create just a lot of contentthat's like here's how you
garden.
I work that into other things,but it's never just that.
And I started to think aboutwhy I have been hesitant to do
that.
And I want to talk about thatreal briefly here at the top of
(04:46):
this episode.
Why am I hesitant to creategardening content and say this
is how you grow your tomatoes?
Because that's something I careabout.
Right, I want people to learnto garden.
I teach vegetable production, Iteach introductory horticulture
, I'm going to be teaching fruitand nut crop production.
So I'm very much a growing foodkind of guy, very into urban
(05:07):
agriculture and urbanhorticulture and things like
that.
But I think over the pastseveral years something I've
seen in the social media space,and I'm going to say up front
right now that I think thisepisode in this sort of idea in
my head may rub some people thewrong way and I'm sorry for that
.
That's not my goal.
But I have decided that I needto be very, very honest with the
(05:28):
way I approach some of this,because it's important that we
have the context for the thingswe do, right?
I think it's important that wereally critically evaluate why
are we doing what we do?
What are our goals and all ofthat.
And over the past several years, I've noticed that with some
particular accounts that pop upon social media Instagram,
tiktok, some different podcasts,some different ideas the
(05:51):
content they make in thegardening space is very, very
good and a lot of the well.
I'm friends with those people,right, I'm in the same space.
I do that too, but sometimes wesend the wrong message and I
think I hesitate because I don'twant to send the wrong message
to people.
I think when the world startsdoing the thing whatever the
(06:11):
thing is for you, right, going alittle funny Sometimes one of
the things that we start tostress about is food what am I
going to eat, what am I going todo?
And gardening is a great toolto help address that.
But I think it's important tounderstand that for most people
the vast majority of people,maybe most of you listening to
this it may not be superattainable, and some of that is
(06:35):
education, which I'm going totry to help with, but some of
that is socioeconomic.
Some of it's just life right.
Maybe you live in an apartment,maybe you live in a rental
house where you can't do things,or it's harder to do things.
Maybe you live in an apartment,maybe you live in a rental
house where you can't do things,and or it's harder to do things
.
Maybe you move around a lot.
Who knows?
Whatever it is, there arelimiting factors and I think
sometimes, as content creatorsin this space, we unfortunately,
(06:56):
either on purpose or infinitely, send the message that, oh,
start gardening, you'll neverhave to go to the grocery store
again.
Right, I know we've all seenthat out there and that's just
not the case.
That is not a lived reality formost people.
Now, some people can do it, andthose people are blessed to be
able to do that, and more powerto them.
I think that's amazing if youcan grow all of your own food,
(07:18):
but for most of us, and myselfincluded in this.
It's just not realistic.
It's not real life.
So this episode is going to beabout sort of gardening 101, how
to take control of growing alittle bit of your own food.
But I'm going to try toapproach it as honestly as I can
in terms of what we can expect,what we should expect, how we
(07:38):
should go about it and maybewhere some of the pitfalls are
and things like that and sometips and tricks to being more
successful.
Okay, and some of them may besurprising to you.
So that was a very longintroduction and it's kind of
just my first point in thisepisode I'm going to say right
now, because some of you havealready not heard this from me
or have taken this in a certainway.
(07:59):
I think if you can garden, youshould.
I think everyone can dosomething, whether it's just
growing herbs in your windowsillor something else.
I think we should all be trying.
I just want to make sure we'rebeing clear and that our contact
is good, so I'm going to playsome music at you and then let's
jump in to more of this.
Hey, thanks for being here.
I love you guys.
Okay, we are back.
(08:42):
So there are three basic thingsI want to talk to you about
today.
Okay, and I'm not going to saythese are the three best steps,
the three things you need toknow if you're going to grow a
home garden and you're going togrow some of your own food,
because that's clickbaity andthat's not what I want, even
though it would get more peopleto listen to this.
Here are the three things youneed to know.
All right, and I'm going to gomaybe out of the order that I
(09:05):
think a lot of people would orthat you may expect.
Okay.
So, number one, the first thingyou should do when you're
thinking about growing your ownfood and again I said it before
the intro break everyone shouldbe able to do something, whether
that is, again, you grow someherbs and pots in your
windowsill or you, I don't knowput a pot or a container on your
(09:30):
patio, you find some old bootsor a toilet and you fill it up
with plants.
Okay, that is gardening, right,you can grow a few things.
So I think everyone that canshould 100% full stop.
Okay, grow some of your ownfood.
Can should 100% full stop.
Okay, grow some of your ownfood.
It's very empowering.
But I also think we need to setvery realistic and very
manageable goals andexpectations about ourselves in
(09:54):
the garden.
Okay, because we all live insort of different circumstances.
No two people's circumstancesare really the same.
So for a long time, my wifeAlana and I lived in a rental
house and they had some veryspecific rules about what we
could grow, what we could plant,which was basically nothing
(10:15):
right.
We had grass that we wateredsort of and mowed sort of even
though the backyard is about thesize of my desk and it was just
not real manageable to grow agarden.
Now we did a few things.
We had a little indoorhydroponic system Several
companies make it where you cangrow some like herbs and lettuce
and, if you're real bold andreal good at it, some tomatoes
(10:38):
sometimes or peppers or whatever, but usually it's going to be
greens and herbs.
We had some pots that we wouldput outside and plant flowers in
and maybe a few other things,but generally speaking, there
wasn't a lot we can do.
When I was in college, it wasthe same story.
We had some pots with somedifferent plants and that was
kind of it, and this is likelived reality for I think a lot
(10:58):
of people, a lot of people right.
Either they have a rental spaceor they live in an apartment.
Now, if you live in anapartment, there's some stuff
you can do, right, you can getpots and you can set them out on
your patio.
Sometimes there are limitingfactors.
Maybe you don't get any lightat all because of the way that
your building is situated.
Maybe your apartment complexhas rules about actually having
(11:22):
containerized plants Some do Iknow that sounds weird, but some
do where you cannot, based onyour lease, grow anything on
your patio.
You can't have plants out there, and that again makes it very,
very challenging to grow plants.
Now you could put some pots inyour windowsill again and grow
some herbs.
You could do a lot of thingsEven if you live in a home.
(11:45):
You own your own home, you havea front yard and a backyard and
all of these things.
I think people don't understandsometimes the time and the
effort and commitment that goesinto actually producing food
right now.
If you're good at it, if youget lucky, your, your climate is
well suited to something.
(12:06):
You can grow a lot of tomatoesin a four by four foot bed.
Okay, it's possible, and I'vehad someone comment that on my
social media when I was talkingabout this.
But that's not the case all thetime, right?
Maybe your soil is not good,maybe you live in a place where
your sunlight is inadequate orit's super dry and you don't
(12:26):
have the resources to add awhole bunch of extra water.
Maybe you're in a homeownersassociation that limits what you
can do on your own property.
I'm going to go ahead and sayand I guess someone will get mad
at me for this I don't care.
Homeowners associations arelike thinly veiled organized
crime.
So there's that, but anyway, Ican already like taste the angry
(12:49):
emails for that it's okay.
I think it's important tounderstand that, regardless of
our circumstances, even if wehave the ability to plant a full
backyard of plants, it's reallyhard to sometimes replace our
shopping trip Because, dependingon where you live, you may not
be able to grow a lot of thethings you need.
So I live in Lubbock, texastrip Because, depending on where
(13:11):
you live, you may not be ableto grow a lot of the things you
need.
So I live in Lubbock, texas andI think a lot of you know that
where it is a billion degrees inthe summer and negative a
billion degrees in the winter,we have big temperature
fluctuations.
This week.
As I record this, we hadfreezing fog last night.
I think our low tonight is 17degrees Fahrenheit.
Last week, one of the highs,one of the days, was about 91
(13:32):
degrees Fahrenheit.
It's early February, by the way.
We'll hit negative temperaturessometimes in the winter.
We'll hit 114, 115, sometimesin the summer.
That is limiting on what I cangrow If I want tomatoes in well,
now, february.
Where do they come from?
Well, they come from thegrocery store.
They're grown in Mexico.
(13:53):
They're grown along the GulfCoast.
They're grown in parts ofCalifornia, arizona.
Internationally, there's a lotof places that grow tomatoes
right now.
It's just not us, unless youhave a big greenhouse and
there's some challenges there aswell, and when it gets hot in
the summer, my tomatoes aregoing to shut down, and so
there's big sort of chunks ofthe year where I may or may not
(14:14):
actually be able to growanything, and so or grow the
things I want.
So if I want tomatoes atdifferent parts of the year, I
probably have to get them fromelsewhere.
Okay, so sometimes when we thinkabout I'm going to grow my own
food, I'm going to make my owngarden, we really have to couch
it in.
What is practical to grow whereI live?
What can I use and am I goingto be able to preserve this?
(14:36):
Right?
Maybe I have the best yeargrowing tomatoes that anyone's
ever had and I grow 5,000 poundsof tomatoes out of a pot on my
back porch and I'm the whatevernumber wonder of the world in my
tomato production.
If I don't preserve those,they're not going to get me
through winter, right, becausethey're not going to sit on the
counter.
(14:56):
They really won't even sit inthe fridge.
So I have to think aboutdehydrating them.
I have to think about canningthem or pickling them or freeze,
drying them or doing a lot ofdifferent things with this
product so that it gets somelongevity and so I can continue
to use it.
So we have to think about that.
We have to really think aboutwhat can we grow when, what
(15:16):
limitations are on my growingspace and, based on all of that,
what are my practical,reasonable goals and what can I
really really accomplish?
I think we should think about aswe venture into growing our own
food, how do I supplement, nothow do I replace.
How do I supplement what I do?
(15:36):
How do I grow some herbs that Ilike, maybe there's a specialty
crop from maybe a differentethnic group or something that
you really want that it's hardto get locally.
Okay, maybe think about growingthose.
Grow the things you like, growthe things you wanna eat.
But again, for most of us, thethought of completely replacing
(15:57):
our vegetable intake, our fruitintake, from our backyards is
just not real.
It's just not real.
We gotta think of differentways to get that.
That actually leads me into mysecond thought.
Okay, so, after we've setrealistic goals and expectations
, what do I actually feasiblyexpect to get out of my garden?
(16:17):
I think the second mostimportant and, if we're being
honest, I actually think this isnumber one.
Okay, I'm burying the lead alittle bit here, because you can
have the best goals.
You can actually have bestroadmap and plans for starting a
garden.
You can have all the skills youneed People.
We have to build community.
We have to build community.
I think the most importantthing you can do when food
(16:40):
supplies get scarce, when we'rereally questioning how am I
going to be able to have enoughtomatoes and lettuce, how am I
going to be able to make itthrough financially or
nutritionally or whatever elsethere is, I think, the number
one thing.
One of the most importantthings we can do to weather some
of these storms is to buildcommunity.
(17:01):
In sort of popular media there'sthis very I don't know
idealized in a weird way pictureof the lone survivalist who has
a compound and has all thisfrozen food and they grow
strawberries and all thesethings that on their own they
take on the world and they don'tget eaten by zombies or
whatever, and that's kind of fun.
(17:22):
It actually lends itself wellto our sort of at least in my
growing up experience this ideaof individualism, exceptionalism
.
But again, I don't think that'sreal.
I don't think that's how itworks.
I think when things start to gobad, the best thing we can do
to make sure we have the fruitsand vegetables we want, that
we're successful in our efforts,is to build community.
(17:45):
We multiply our skill sets.
So maybe you're really reallygood at growing tomatoes, but
every bit of lettuce you've everput in the ground has died Well
, it's hard to make a BLTsandwich without the L right and
you get all the tomatoes youwant.
Bacon's a whole other issue.
Who's got pigs?
Who has grain to make bread?
(18:05):
You just have tomatoes.
But maybe your neighbor is thebest darn lettuce grower in the
world, right?
Maybe someone that lives a townover grows and mills their own
flour or their grains, whatever.
Maybe someone raises pigs andyou can make your BLT sandwich
by being a part of a community.
I think that's something we missso much in not necessarily the
(18:30):
garden space, but overall.
Sometimes we lose the forestfor the trees and we're like
okay, we've got to do this andI've got to have the fertilizer
and I've got to have the raisedbeds and I've got to have all
these things to make it work,when really we just need to
trust the people around us andwe need to build a strong
network of people that we canwork with.
So get to know your neighbors.
(18:50):
I think one of the best gardentips I can give you is go meet
your neighbors.
Go talk to them.
Hey, what are they growing?
Maybe they're not.
Maybe you can help them right.
Maybe they're someone that hasbeen growing plants for 45 years
and they've just been waitingfor a neighbor or someone to
come talk to them about howgreat they are at doing it right
.
Learn from each other, build oneach other's experience.
(19:11):
We're not in any of this stuffalone and so I think it's really
important when we startthinking along some of these
lines that I know people arethinking and I know several of
you that are listening to meright now are thinking about
this like, oh, I gotta grow alittle more food.
Food's gonna get expensive.
Food may be scarce for a lot ofdifferent sociopolitical
reasons and economic reasons.
(19:32):
Build community.
In my estimation, there isnothing more radical, there is
nothing more important andpowerful than to get to know the
people around you, to get toknow your neighbors, to get to
know the people that live inyour city, in your town, in your
(19:52):
community.
Build strong communities and wecan weather a lot of storms.
Okay, I think those are greatchoices.
I think those are things weshould be trying to do all the
time, not just when things arebad, but when things are good.
You can rely on each other whentimes are tough and you can
celebrate together when they'renot.
It's never bad to have morefriends, whether they're in the
(20:14):
garden space Maybe someonedoesn't like gardening, they
don't like getting their handsdirty in the soil, but they are
really good at canning andthey're really good at
preserving things.
Well, okay, you make a greatteam now.
You grow the stuff.
You take it to your neighborSusan I don't know why they're
named Susan and then they helppreserve it.
They can.
It makes salsa for you.
(20:34):
They do all of these differentthings.
So so communities are going tobe so important going into the
future.
Okay, so we've gotten throughour first two steps.
We've set really good goals andexpectations.
We know what we want out of ourgarden.
We have met our neighbors.
We know where we fit into thissort of plan.
We know who's going to grow thewhat right.
(20:56):
We know who is going to be ourtomato guy.
We know who the lettuce personis.
We know where our bread and ourbacon is coming from.
And we're at the step whereit's like you know what, I'm
ready, I'm going to plant agarden.
I'm a first-time gardener and Iam ready to jump into this with
both feet.
Let's talk about that.
I've got a few steps, and Idon't know how many this is
(21:17):
going to end up being.
I'm going to throw them outthere until I run out of them.
But there's a few steps that Ithink we should take to be
successful in the garden.
The first one is start small.
Think about starting small.
Part of managing expectationsis managing our efforts.
There's nothing moredemoralizing to be like I am
going to grow the biggest darngarden in the world and tear up
(21:37):
your whole backyard and getseven tomatoes out of it because
you've put a ton of time andeffort and sweat and tears.
Because I have gardened beforetoo, I know how this works
Indicating two tomatoes.
So maybe you start with thatpot on your patio.
Maybe you start with a coupleof raised beds in your backyard,
or you pick one bed that's sortof out of the way.
(21:58):
It's by your fence.
It still gets some goodsunlight, it's easy to water,
but you don't really know whatto do with it.
Awesome, that's your firstgarden.
It could be 10 square feet, itcould be 100 square feet, it
doesn't matter.
Think of projects that you canstart and finish and do those
from a psychological perspectivestarting and finishing things,
crossing those off your list goso far, okay.
(22:20):
So this is advice I give a lotof times with school gardens and
community garden projects is,it's really easy to get super
excited and overextend ourselves.
Instead, let's pick things thateach step of the process can be
finished in a couple of hours.
So one Saturday, you go out andyou do your bed prep.
You take out the grass, youtill up the soil or whatever
(22:42):
you're going to do right?
That's maybe not always thebest idea.
We'll talk about that in futureepisodes of how to prep a bed
appropriately.
I'm just trying to give anoverview right now.
And then you're done for theday.
You've done your bed prep.
You've finished andaccomplished your mission for
the day.
That is awesome.
You go to work for the week.
You do all kinds of things.
You maybe go out and check onit, piddle around a little bit.
But then the second Saturdaythat you're into it okay, I am
(23:12):
going to make sure that I've gotthe seedlings I want.
I'm going to go out and planout where everything's going to
go in this bed Awesome.
Spend a couple hours doing it.
You've accomplished it.
Start some seeds indoors, getyour plants growing Great.
You're done.
Piddle around for the week.
Third Saturday, you takeanother couple of hours and you
get your tomatoes in the groundand you've accomplished that.
Take a picture of it.
You post it on Instagram andyou feel good about yourself.
You feel good, you feel hopefuland encouraged and, before you
(23:35):
know it, taking little bites outof your garden project, you'll
find that you're done.
Something I've always found inthis green space I landscaped
for a while, I've done a lot ofthings is it feels a lot of
times like we spin our wheelsforever and ever and ever, and
then we're done.
Just it sneaks up on you.
So plan out bite-sized piecesof your project and do them one
(23:57):
at a time.
Take your time and do it in away that you enjoy it, so you
don't burn yourself out, andthat is manageable and
achievable.
Some technical things to thinkabout.
You need to know what climatezone you're in.
What's your weather like,what's the climate in your area
like.
How is it changing?
So again, I live in a zone 7b,which means that our average
(24:18):
annual coldest temperature ofthe year the very, very coldest
that it gets is usually between5 and 10 degrees Fahrenheit.
We've already hit that thisseason.
That tells us some greatinformation.
There's some things.
It doesn't tell us how longit's going to be that cold, how
often.
All that says is over 30 years,we're going to hit this coldest
temperature once 7b great.
(24:39):
Well, you can then go to thegarden center.
You can get online and look atdifferent resources and say
these are plants and seeds thatare appropriate for zone 7b.
These are some things that cantake the incredible heat in your
area.
These things work well with therainfall and the water quality
you have or the soil quality.
So, knowing what your soil doesand what it's like, you can get
(25:02):
a soil test.
Most states, and actually a lotof bigger cities, have soil
testing labs and I can post somestuff on the show notes of this
that kind of give you moreinformation about that.
It can maybe be helpful in someways.
I think knowing the soil, therainfall amounts and timings
when does it rain Not just doesit rain 30 inches a year, but
(25:25):
during which months, when it'shot, when it's cold, when do you
get your rain, knowing how muchsunlight you get, knowing the
humidity, knowing everything youcan about your climate will
make you a lot more successfulin making good plant choices,
picking the right things okay,speaking of picking the right
things, I think something ofpicking the right things.
(25:46):
I think something that's reallyimportant is to grow things you
like.
I don't know why people get sohung up on I have to grow X, y
or Z.
I do know why.
It's because it's what getspromoted a lot.
Everyone needs a salsa gardenand onions and tomatoes and
garlic, and I think those aregreat things.
But maybe you don't like any ofthose things, maybe you are not
(26:09):
going to eat any of those things.
Maybe your neighbors havegotten all of those things from
you and they won't answer thedoor anymore because you've
given them too many.
That's not sustainable, that'snot efficient and it turns out
that we have a big problem withfood waste here in the United
States.
Something like 40% of the foodproduced in the US gets wasted.
That also includes yourbackyard.
We don't put ourselves in thesepictures.
(26:29):
We're thinking big food systems, but if you grow something and
you don't eat it and you throwit away, that's food waste and I
think that is so important tounderstand.
So grow things you are actuallygoing to use or know where
you're going to go with them,even if you don't like tomatoes.
If you have a parent or afriend or a neighbor that does
and you just want the experienceof growing them, that's fine.
Just know where it's going togo.
(26:49):
Choose a great garden location.
That's going to be superimportant.
This is important for thingslike wind and sun and all of
that.
If you live in the Northernhemisphere, the sun sits
southward in the sky, so yourmost intense sunlight is
generally going to come from thesouth and the west.
So if you're growing somethingthat needs a little bit of shade
(27:12):
, maybe you can plant it on theeast side of a fence so we get
sunlight till a little past noon, maybe two in the afternoon,
and then the afternoon it getsshaded during the hottest and
most intense parts of the day.
Right, those are things we canthink about.
Also, think about convenience.
How easy is it to water?
How easy is that area to get to?
They've done studies on whichparts of the garden are most I
(27:37):
don't know trafficked, bestmanaged, and a lot of times it's
the ones closest to your house.
Right, you put the thingsfarther back on your property
that you don't really have tospend a lot of time messing with
, but then you put the thingsthat need more management with
whether that's flowers orveggies or things like that up
closer to your house so thatevery time you look at your
kitchen window or whateveryou're like, oh you know what I
(27:57):
really need to go weed my tomatobed Instead of it being in the
back part of your yard or aroundthe corner or somewhere that is
inaccessible or out of sight,out of mind, because you're not
going to visit those as much,right, you're not going to be,
as I don't know, engaged withthat material as you could be if
it's closer to you.
(28:18):
Get tools.
You need right, basic gardeningtools a water hose it doesn't
have to be anything special awatering hose and a shovel and
maybe a rake or a hoe orsomething so you can clean out
areas.
That will take you a long way.
Don't spend a ton of moneyunless you have the money to
spend or you want to.
It turns out cheap tools.
Even though they may not lastas long as a starter, they'll
(28:39):
get you pretty far down the road, and once you figure out if
this is something you reallywant to do, then yeah, go buy
some really nice equipment thatwill last you years and years
and years.
One of the best tools I thinkyou can have is a great pair of
gloves.
Get a good pair of gloves.
I know, I know, I know we allget our hands dirty.
There's something about feelingthe soil.
I do that too.
However, depending on whatyou're working with, especially
(29:01):
if you're having to clean out anarea, depending on what you're
working with, especially ifyou're having to clean out an
area, you want gloves.
And I can hear some of youthinking, oh, I'm tough, I don't
need gloves.
Man, that's fine, you do youright.
But if you mess up your hands,if you cut yourself badly, if
you get giant splinters, theseare your most important tools,
right?
Your hands are your mostimportant tools in the garden a
(29:22):
lot of times, and so if you messthem up, if you hurt yourself,
you're not going to be asefficient.
Get a great pair of gloves okay, that is something that I will
happily spend some money on is anice pair of heavy-duty leather
gloves, okay.
Test your soil.
I mentioned that before.
There's a lot of differentplaces that do it.
Extension services in your areaprobably do soil testing.
(29:44):
Essentially, you take a sample,you put it in a bag, you send
it off and they can tell youthings like the pH of your soil,
the salt content, the ratio ofdifferent fertilizers or
nutrients in your soil, likenitrogen, phosphorus, potassium
which, by the way, are the threenumbers on your bag of
fertilizer and they'll makerecommendations on how much of
those things you need to add tobe successful, based on what
(30:07):
you're trying to grow.
Usually, the samples will costanywhere between like 15 and $25
, sometimes a little bit more,depending on what you're having
them test for.
But it is so important it isgood to know what's in your soil
so that you can add things toit.
Soil is where the plants grow.
It's where they get theirnutrients, their support, so
(30:30):
many other things, and if youdon't know what's down there,
it's really hard to manage themappropriately from a nutrient
standpoint.
Different things, okay.
Another thing to think aboutagain is bed space.
How much space do you want?
Prep your beds well, get anygrasses or weeds out of there as
much as possible.
There's different ways to dothis.
You can use herbicides, I think,as an occasional tool to solve
(30:51):
specific problems.
Herbicides are not necessarilya bad thing.
You just use them sparingly.
Use them according to the labeland make sure you are on target
with your application.
If you don't want to do that, Iget that.
There's other things you cantry.
With a lot of our weeds,especially the warm season
annual kind of weed.
Shading them out is reallyeffective.
You can use black plastic.
(31:11):
You can use something calledlasagna mulching or lasagna
gardening or sheet mulching tocover it up.
You can physically removethings.
Just make sure you're getting asmuch of the seed bank out, as
much of the underground growingportions especially if you're
dealing with something likeBermuda grass as you can.
But whatever you need to do,get your area clean and managed
(31:33):
first.
Again, I know it is really easyto get excited and go out and
plant into something that ispoorly prepared and then you
fight grasses and you fightweeds in your garden forever.
You don't need to do that.
Make sure it's all cleaned upand then you can manage it
pretty effectively and with lowstress going forward.
Once you've picked your seeds,you've got your climate location
(31:53):
, you've gotten all these things, you need to decide how you're
gonna put those seeds out.
Are you going to directly seedthem into your garden or are you
going to start them indoors andthen transplant them out?
This is going to depend a loton what you're trying to grow.
Use the information on the backof the seed packet.
I'll put out a couple of videoshere in the next couple of
weeks on reading a seed packetand the information it contains
(32:16):
and how to use that information.
You can find a lot of thatonline already.
Get on Google or YouTube orwhatever and watch some of that
if you're chomping at the bit toget going but know whether it's
better to direct seed A lot oftimes our grassy plants, things
like corn especially if you'retrying to grow sweet corn in
your backyard or any kind ofcorn that's going to do much
better direct seeding A lot oftimes.
(32:38):
Our peas and our beans reallygreat to direct seed.
A lot of our leafy greens.
I prefer to direct seed Rootcrops.
For sure the thing growsunderground right.
So if you're trying to growbeets and turnips and then you
grow it out somewhere else andthen transplant it, you can do
that, but a lot of times theydon't survive that super well.
(32:58):
You end up damaging the roottoo much and you end up with
some problems.
So there are certain thingsthat you want to direct seed,
but then stuff like tomatoes,peppers, eggplants, even melons
some melons to a certain extentwatermelons, cantaloupes,
cucumbers, things like that andany cucurbits, they actually
transplant pretty well.
I would again use your localresources, your extension
(33:20):
service, a university near you,even just go talk to folks at a
local garden center and you canget great recommendations on
which things to start inside,which things to direct seed.
Pay attention, as you're doingthat to seasons.
When is your average annuallast freeze?
For us here in West Texas it'sright around tax day.
Anytime between April 10th and15th is usually, historically,
(33:43):
our last freeze date.
I have seen it freeze on Cincode Mayo.
It was 25 degrees for like sixhours.
I have seen the last freezecome in February.
It's a roving target, but thoseaverage dates can be really
useful for you.
If your seed packet, say, plantafter danger of frost has passed
, you probably want to take thatseriously.
If you're really ready to getgoing, maybe plant them inside,
(34:05):
get your seeds started.
There's a lot of ways to dothat.
If you have a bright window, ifyou have a patio that's warm,
if you have a garage with somegrow lights, it's really pretty
easy to start seeds.
Now you can go out and buy awhole bunch of different things
right.
There are these little seedplugs that have lots of little
cells in them.
Put seeds in there, you thinthem down to one plant per cell
and then, when you're ready totransplant, when that plant has
(34:28):
four to six leaves on it we callthat the four to six leaf stage
.
That's usually a great time totransplant.
You don't want to get too bigin those cells.
It's easy to pop those out, putthem in the ground.
Maybe you don't want to go buythat, maybe you don't have room
for it.
You know it's a cheap way to do.
It is to get a foil pan, foilcake pan or roasting pan with a
plastic lid.
Poke some holes in the bottomof the pan, fill it up with
(34:48):
potting soil or potting media orwhatever you have, plant your
seeds down in it and then popthat top plastic top on there
and you've got yourself a littleseed starting.
Greenhouse Helps retainmoisture, helps retain heat in
there, and then once thoseplants are too tall, you pull
the lid off and you're probablygetting pretty close to
(35:10):
transplanting them out.
Anyway, usually with a lot ofour warm season crops, we want
to take our last freeze date orwhenever we're planning to go
out into our garden and backthat off about six weeks.
I think six to eight weeks isusually right in the sweet spot
of how long you want to growyour seeds out indoors.
You need to make sure they getadequate air movement so that
(35:30):
you get stronger stems.
You want to make sure that theyare getting the water they need
without staying too wet.
You'll get a lot of diseases ifyou keep them too wet a lot of
times and you want to make surethey're staying fertilized well
and that they have enough lightso that the stems don't get tall
and leggy.
The other thing I wouldrecommend is to harden them off,
or what we call harden them off, or acclimate them to an
(35:52):
outdoor environment for a weekor two before you plant them.
A lot of times if we're growingthem indoors especially if
they're in a greenhouse theyhave been in ideal, really great
growing conditions before theygo out in the garden.
So if you take them straightfrom that and plop them outside,
where they have to reestablishroots, where they're not getting
watered as well, where theclimate isn't as good, you're
(36:13):
going to get a lot of dying off.
So what you can do is takewhatever you're growing them in
and set them out on your patiofor a day or two.
Bring them in, put them backout for a couple of days If it's
going to be cold, bring them infor sure and just slowly
acclimate them to the newenvironment.
Let them move around in thewind.
Let them get some directsunlight that's a little more
intense.
Let them get into a little bitof water, stress so they develop
(36:36):
a stronger root system.
If you take the time to do that, once you put them out in the
ground they're going to be muchhappier.
They will take and establishmuch better.
Once you have your gardenplanted, make sure that the area
stays well weeded, well watered.
The biggest thing you want to dois water consistently.
It's hard for me to tell youyou need to water this many
(36:57):
inches a week or this manygallons a week, because it
varies so much from location tolocation and crop to crop.
The biggest thing is to figureout how much water your plant
needs and give it to itconsistently.
That'll help with a lot ofdisease problems and
physiological problems.
If you get rain that week, it'sprobably okay to skip a
watering.
But just get back on scheduleas soon as you can.
Okay.
(37:18):
Think about how long that plantis going to go.
Think if it's something youneed to prune, plan for harvest.
You know some crops will take40 days from transplant before
you'll get vegetables orwhatever off them, fruits off of
them.
Sometimes it's longer,sometimes it's shorter.
So you need to know when thatstuff is going to start coming
off the plant so that you havesomewhere to go with it Again,
(37:41):
whether that's to eat it fresh,whether that is to preserve it
in some way.
Have somewhere to go with itAgain, whether that's to eat it
fresh, whether that is topreserve it in some way, or
whatever else.
Plan for harvest andpost-harvest From a management
standpoint.
Again, water is important,fertilizer is important, but
also, like insect management,Make sure that you are keeping
things as pest-free as you can,because they are competing with
(38:01):
you for the thing that you'regrowing.
Now, I'm not going to say, goout and nuke them with
pesticides every time that yousee an aphid.
That's not my point.
Especially if you're growingoutside, a lot of times you'll
have beneficial insects that arehelping you do that job.
But if you're about to be outof control, if you're about to
be overrun by aphids orsomething else, it is probably a
good idea to think about pestcontrol, figure out what
(38:24):
strategies are going to work foryou and think about going about
it from an integrated approach.
Now, that was a lot ofinformation.
I didn't have a mid-roll breakin this one just because I
wanted to get a lot into this 40, 45-minute episode, but this is
a good starting point, right?
This is by no means anexhaustive list of things you
should be doing in the gardenand the landscape.
(38:45):
It's not even a full how-toguide.
I am going to try to producesome more of that for y'all as
we go through this spring andthis summer and into the future,
but hopefully this gets youstarted and gives you some
things to think about.
Again, I think the take-homepoints here are be reasonable
with yourself on what you canrealistically do.
Supplement your food supplywhere you can I think that's
(39:06):
excellent, but then have a plantoo to round out the rest of
your nutritional calorie needs.
Okay, build community.
This is again one of the mostimportant things you can do to
get through a lot of things, butdefinitely in the gardening.
World garden communities arereally strong and they're really
powerful and they're willing tohelp you.
World garden communities arereally strong and they're really
powerful and they're willing tohelp you.
And then follow some goodprocedures, some best management
(39:28):
practices as you actually goout to get in the garden and
plant things in the garden andyou will do fine.
You'll do fine, as always.
You can ask me questions.
I'm happy to try to help whereI can and point you to resources
where there are people that doit way better than me, because
they're out there and you shouldfind them and follow them and
be a part of what they do, andI'll start sharing some
(39:49):
resources on other people that Ithink are great follows that
you could learn a lot from.
But thanks for being with me.
Again, thanks for jumping backinto planthropology.
This episode actually waslonger than I intended it to be,
but it turns out there was alot I wanted to say about
gardening and my podcast, so Iguess I can't right.
So thanks to you for listening,thanks to the Texas Tech
(40:10):
Department of Plant and SoilScience and the Davis College of
Agricultural Science andNatural Resources for helping
support the show and, let Me Doit, thanks to all the folks that
have made this possible overthe years.
Thanks to Nick Scout, theincredible, award-winning
composer for Athene music.
Everything else is done andrecorded and edited by me for
(40:31):
now.
Maybe that'll change in thefuture.
I don't know.
If you want to supportPlanthropology, you can go to
planthropologypodcastcom.
See merch, listen to oldepisodes, do all those kinds of
things.
You can go to buymeacoffeecomslash plantthropology and for
the price of a coffee you canliterally just buy me a cup of
coffee, because that's basicallywhat I will do with it.
Also pay hosting fees andthings and blah blah blah, but
(40:53):
mostly, mostly coffee.
So y'all, thanks for listening,thanks for being cool.
Plant people Be kind to oneanother.
Build good communities.
If you have not been doingthose things, probably a good
time to start.
You know I love you, you know Iam grateful for you and I
cannot wait to talk to you againsoon.
More Plant Apology is coming atyou real soon, thank you.
What is up?
Plant people it's time oncemore for the Plantthropology
podcast, the show where we diveinto the lives and careers of
some very cool plant people tofigure out why they do what they
do and what keeps them comingback for more.
I'm Vikram Baliga, your hostand your humble guide in this
journey through the sciences.
And, as always, my dear friends, I am so, so excited to be with
you today after well, it's beena hot minute, a hot minute, I
(00:23):
think.
I was looking back and my lastepisode I posted was in like
August of 2024.
And I know it's weird to talkabout the date on an evergreen
content platform.
In fact, I've been told not todo that and I just don't care.
It is now February of 25 and alot's happened.
A lot's happened in the lastsix months or so.
But I'm getting back to thisand I wanted to talk a little
(00:44):
bit and I will here in just asecond about where I've been,
what I've been doing, what'sgoing on and where we're going.
But I just wanted to say thankyou for sticking around and, if
you're hearing the sound of myvoice right now, for being a
part of this.
Still, even after the longbreaks I've taken the last
couple of years and have takenthe time to figure some stuff
out about this podcast, butPlantthropology is back.
It's going to look a little bitdifferent, the schedule is
(01:06):
going to be different, somestuff will change, but it's back
and I'm very, very happy aboutall of that.
So where have I been?
I've been here and there and ina lot of places.
I took on some newresponsibilities at work here at
Texas Tech.
If you don't remember, I'm anassistant professor of practice
of horticulture in the plant andsoil science department at
Texas Tech University and I canstill get all that out in one
(01:28):
take.
So I'm pretty proud of that.
But in the fall, I also took onnew administrative
responsibilities as theassistant dean of outreach and
engagement for the college and,ironically, I stopped
outreaching and engaging throughthis platform at the time.
So am I doing a good job?
I don't know, not sure, butlife was overwhelming.
(01:51):
It gets that way right.
There's been a lot.
There's just been a lot, a lothappening, and so I took a break
, recalibrated, restarted,evaluated what I was doing here
with the show, and I think overtime I have come to realize that
it's something that I love andit's something that I care about
and something that I want tokeep doing, and so I'm going to
keep doing it and I hope you'llkeep coming along with me.
So the format of the show isgoing to change just a little
(02:13):
bit.
We're going to stick with sortof every other week recordings
as much as possible.
There may be a time that I skipan episode and stretch it out.
I may do some extra ones inthere, I don't know be a little
bit different, but it's going tobe basically every other week
and I'm going to start runningit in seasons.
I think what burned me outbefore and if you're a content
creator of any kind, youprobably understand this that
(02:36):
there's this pressure to justindefinitely produce and to be,
I don't know, on all the timeforever, and it just gets to be
a lot.
So I'm probably going to run theshow in 10 to 12 episode
seasons and then take a coupleof months off to record and come
up with new content and thingslike that.
It'll be a pretty healthy mixof solo content.
(02:57):
These first couple episodes ofseason oh gosh, I should have
looked this up.
I think this is going to beseason six, because I'm going to
go back in time and categorizeeach year that I've done the
show as its own season, and I'vebeen doing this since 2019,
which is bonkers, cuckoo,bananas, and so I think that
would make this season six.
But each season I'll have 10,12 episodes again a mix of solo
(03:19):
content, like these first coupleepisodes of the season will be,
and then some great guestinterviews, maybe some live
stuff and a lot of other things.
So I hope that you enjoy that.
It's going to be a littledifferent and I'd love to hear
your feedback.
I'm hoping here in the next fewweeks to send out a listener
survey just so I can hear morefrom you.
So I think I'm going to try totackle some more topical things
(03:41):
as we go through this, to answeryour questions, like we've done
in the past of Q&A episodes,try to find guests that I think
will answer some of thequestions you may have about
what's going on in the world,what is happening with
horticulture and the environmentand nature and everything else,
but I also want to take sometopics that I think are going to
be very important for us goinginto the future, about how we
(04:03):
can interact with theenvironment.
So all that to say that a friendrecently asked me if I would
start creating more gardeningcontent.
And I thought that was weird atfirst because I was like that's
kind of my whole thing.
Right, I create gardeningcontent.
But then I really started tothink about it and I do, but I
come at it from a different way.
(04:24):
Right, I talk to experts, Italk to people in the industry,
even on my social media.
A lot of times I'm debunkingstuff and I realized I don't
create just a lot of contentthat's like here's how you
garden.
I work that into other things,but it's never just that.
And I started to think aboutwhy I have been hesitant to do
that.
And I want to talk about thatreal briefly here at the top of
(04:46):
this episode.
Why am I hesitant to creategardening content and say this
is how you grow your tomatoes?
Because that's something I careabout.
Right, I want people to learnto garden.
I teach vegetable production, Iteach introductory horticulture
, I'm going to be teaching fruitand nut crop production.
So I'm very much a growing foodkind of guy, very into urban
(05:07):
agriculture and urbanhorticulture and things like
that.
But I think over the pastseveral years something I've
seen in the social media space,and I'm going to say up front
right now that I think thisepisode in this sort of idea in
my head may rub some people thewrong way and I'm sorry for that
.
That's not my goal.
But I have decided that I needto be very, very honest with the
(05:28):
way I approach some of this,because it's important that we
have the context for the thingswe do, right?
I think it's important that wereally critically evaluate why
are we doing what we do?
What are our goals and all ofthat.
And over the past several years, I've noticed that with some
particular accounts that pop upon social media Instagram,
tiktok, some different podcasts,some different ideas the
(05:51):
content they make in thegardening space is very, very
good and a lot of the well.
I'm friends with those people,right, I'm in the same space.
I do that too, but sometimes wesend the wrong message and I
think I hesitate because I don'twant to send the wrong message
to people.
I think when the world startsdoing the thing whatever the
(06:11):
thing is for you, right, going alittle funny Sometimes one of
the things that we start tostress about is food what am I
going to eat, what am I going todo?
And gardening is a great toolto help address that.
But I think it's important tounderstand that for most people
the vast majority of people,maybe most of you listening to
this it may not be superattainable, and some of that is
(06:35):
education, which I'm going totry to help with, but some of
that is socioeconomic.
Some of it's just life right.
Maybe you live in an apartment,maybe you live in a rental
house where you can't do things,or it's harder to do things.
Maybe you live in an apartment,maybe you live in a rental
house where you can't do things,and or it's harder to do things
.
Maybe you move around a lot.
Who knows?
Whatever it is, there arelimiting factors and I think
sometimes, as content creatorsin this space, we unfortunately,
(06:56):
either on purpose or infinitely, send the message that, oh,
start gardening, you'll neverhave to go to the grocery store
again.
Right, I know we've all seenthat out there and that's just
not the case.
That is not a lived reality formost people.
Now, some people can do it, andthose people are blessed to be
able to do that, and more powerto them.
I think that's amazing if youcan grow all of your own food,
(07:18):
but for most of us, and myselfincluded in this.
It's just not realistic.
It's not real life.
So this episode is going to beabout sort of gardening 101, how
to take control of growing alittle bit of your own food.
But I'm going to try toapproach it as honestly as I can
in terms of what we can expect,what we should expect, how we
(07:38):
should go about it and maybewhere some of the pitfalls are
and things like that and sometips and tricks to being more
successful.
Okay, and some of them may besurprising to you.
So that was a very longintroduction and it's kind of
just my first point in thisepisode I'm going to say right
now, because some of you havealready not heard this from me
or have taken this in a certainway.
(07:59):
I think if you can garden, youshould.
I think everyone can dosomething, whether it's just
growing herbs in your windowsillor something else.
I think we should all be trying.
I just want to make sure we'rebeing clear and that our contact
is good, so I'm going to playsome music at you and then let's
jump in to more of this.
Hey, thanks for being here.
I love you guys.
Okay, we are back.
(08:42):
So there are three basic thingsI want to talk to you about
today.
Okay, and I'm not going to saythese are the three best steps,
the three things you need toknow if you're going to grow a
home garden and you're going togrow some of your own food,
because that's clickbaity andthat's not what I want, even
though it would get more peopleto listen to this.
Here are the three things youneed to know.
All right, and I'm going to gomaybe out of the order that I
(09:05):
think a lot of people would orthat you may expect.
Okay.
So, number one, the first thingyou should do when you're
thinking about growing your ownfood and again I said it before
the intro break everyone shouldbe able to do something, whether
that is, again, you grow someherbs and pots in your
windowsill or you, I don't knowput a pot or a container on your
(09:30):
patio, you find some old bootsor a toilet and you fill it up
with plants.
Okay, that is gardening, right,you can grow a few things.
So I think everyone that canshould 100% full stop.
Okay, grow some of your ownfood.
Can should 100% full stop.
Okay, grow some of your ownfood.
It's very empowering.
But I also think we need to setvery realistic and very
manageable goals andexpectations about ourselves in
(09:54):
the garden.
Okay, because we all live insort of different circumstances.
No two people's circumstancesare really the same.
So for a long time, my wifeAlana and I lived in a rental
house and they had some veryspecific rules about what we
could grow, what we could plant,which was basically nothing
(10:15):
right.
We had grass that we wateredsort of and mowed sort of even
though the backyard is about thesize of my desk and it was just
not real manageable to grow agarden.
Now we did a few things.
We had a little indoorhydroponic system Several
companies make it where you cangrow some like herbs and lettuce
and, if you're real bold andreal good at it, some tomatoes
(10:38):
sometimes or peppers or whatever, but usually it's going to be
greens and herbs.
We had some pots that we wouldput outside and plant flowers in
and maybe a few other things,but generally speaking, there
wasn't a lot we can do.
When I was in college, it wasthe same story.
We had some pots with somedifferent plants and that was
kind of it, and this is likelived reality for I think a lot
(10:58):
of people, a lot of people right.
Either they have a rental spaceor they live in an apartment.
Now, if you live in anapartment, there's some stuff
you can do, right, you can getpots and you can set them out on
your patio.
Sometimes there are limitingfactors.
Maybe you don't get any lightat all because of the way that
your building is situated.
Maybe your apartment complexhas rules about actually having
(11:22):
containerized plants Some do Iknow that sounds weird, but some
do where you cannot, based onyour lease, grow anything on
your patio.
You can't have plants out there, and that again makes it very,
very challenging to grow plants.
Now you could put some pots inyour windowsill again and grow
some herbs.
You could do a lot of thingsEven if you live in a home.
(11:45):
You own your own home, you havea front yard and a backyard and
all of these things.
I think people don't understandsometimes the time and the
effort and commitment that goesinto actually producing food
right now.
If you're good at it, if youget lucky, your, your climate is
well suited to something.
(12:06):
You can grow a lot of tomatoesin a four by four foot bed.
Okay, it's possible, and I'vehad someone comment that on my
social media when I was talkingabout this.
But that's not the case all thetime, right?
Maybe your soil is not good,maybe you live in a place where
your sunlight is inadequate orit's super dry and you don't
(12:26):
have the resources to add awhole bunch of extra water.
Maybe you're in a homeownersassociation that limits what you
can do on your own property.
I'm going to go ahead and sayand I guess someone will get mad
at me for this I don't care.
Homeowners associations arelike thinly veiled organized
crime.
So there's that, but anyway, Ican already like taste the angry
(12:49):
emails for that it's okay.
I think it's important tounderstand that, regardless of
our circumstances, even if wehave the ability to plant a full
backyard of plants, it's reallyhard to sometimes replace our
shopping trip Because, dependingon where you live, you may not
be able to grow a lot of thethings you need.
So I live in Lubbock, texastrip Because, depending on where
(13:11):
you live, you may not be ableto grow a lot of the things you
need.
So I live in Lubbock, texas andI think a lot of you know that
where it is a billion degrees inthe summer and negative a
billion degrees in the winter,we have big temperature
fluctuations.
This week.
As I record this, we hadfreezing fog last night.
I think our low tonight is 17degrees Fahrenheit.
Last week, one of the highs,one of the days, was about 91
(13:32):
degrees Fahrenheit.
It's early February, by the way.
We'll hit negative temperaturessometimes in the winter.
We'll hit 114, 115, sometimesin the summer.
That is limiting on what I cangrow If I want tomatoes in well,
now, february.
Where do they come from?
Well, they come from thegrocery store.
They're grown in Mexico.
(13:53):
They're grown along the GulfCoast.
They're grown in parts ofCalifornia, arizona.
Internationally, there's a lotof places that grow tomatoes
right now.
It's just not us, unless youhave a big greenhouse and
there's some challenges there aswell, and when it gets hot in
the summer, my tomatoes aregoing to shut down, and so
there's big sort of chunks ofthe year where I may or may not
(14:14):
actually be able to growanything, and so or grow the
things I want.
So if I want tomatoes atdifferent parts of the year, I
probably have to get them fromelsewhere.
Okay, so sometimes when we thinkabout I'm going to grow my own
food, I'm going to make my owngarden, we really have to couch
it in.
What is practical to grow whereI live?
What can I use and am I goingto be able to preserve this?
(14:36):
Right?
Maybe I have the best yeargrowing tomatoes that anyone's
ever had and I grow 5,000 poundsof tomatoes out of a pot on my
back porch and I'm the whatevernumber wonder of the world in my
tomato production.
If I don't preserve those,they're not going to get me
through winter, right, becausethey're not going to sit on the
counter.
(14:56):
They really won't even sit inthe fridge.
So I have to think aboutdehydrating them.
I have to think about canningthem or pickling them or freeze,
drying them or doing a lot ofdifferent things with this
product so that it gets somelongevity and so I can continue
to use it.
So we have to think about that.
We have to really think aboutwhat can we grow when, what
(15:16):
limitations are on my growingspace and, based on all of that,
what are my practical,reasonable goals and what can I
really really accomplish?
I think we should think about aswe venture into growing our own
food, how do I supplement, nothow do I replace.
How do I supplement what I do?
(15:36):
How do I grow some herbs that Ilike, maybe there's a specialty
crop from maybe a differentethnic group or something that
you really want that it's hardto get locally.
Okay, maybe think about growingthose.
Grow the things you like, growthe things you wanna eat.
But again, for most of us, thethought of completely replacing
(15:57):
our vegetable intake, our fruitintake, from our backyards is
just not real.
It's just not real.
We gotta think of differentways to get that.
That actually leads me into mysecond thought.
Okay, so, after we've setrealistic goals and expectations
, what do I actually feasiblyexpect to get out of my garden?
(16:17):
I think the second mostimportant and, if we're being
honest, I actually think this isnumber one.
Okay, I'm burying the lead alittle bit here, because you can
have the best goals.
You can actually have bestroadmap and plans for starting a
garden.
You can have all the skills youneed People.
We have to build community.
We have to build community.
I think the most importantthing you can do when food
(16:40):
supplies get scarce, when we'rereally questioning how am I
going to be able to have enoughtomatoes and lettuce, how am I
going to be able to make itthrough financially or
nutritionally or whatever elsethere is, I think, the number
one thing.
One of the most importantthings we can do to weather some
of these storms is to buildcommunity.
(17:01):
In sort of popular media there'sthis very I don't know
idealized in a weird way pictureof the lone survivalist who has
a compound and has all thisfrozen food and they grow
strawberries and all thesethings that on their own they
take on the world and they don'tget eaten by zombies or
whatever, and that's kind of fun.
(17:22):
It actually lends itself wellto our sort of at least in my
growing up experience this ideaof individualism, exceptionalism
.
But again, I don't think that'sreal.
I don't think that's how itworks.
I think when things start to gobad, the best thing we can do
to make sure we have the fruitsand vegetables we want, that
we're successful in our efforts,is to build community.
(17:45):
We multiply our skill sets.
So maybe you're really reallygood at growing tomatoes, but
every bit of lettuce you've everput in the ground has died Well
, it's hard to make a BLTsandwich without the L right and
you get all the tomatoes youwant.
Bacon's a whole other issue.
Who's got pigs?
Who has grain to make bread?
(18:05):
You just have tomatoes.
But maybe your neighbor is thebest darn lettuce grower in the
world, right?
Maybe someone that lives a townover grows and mills their own
flour or their grains, whatever.
Maybe someone raises pigs andyou can make your BLT sandwich
by being a part of a community.
I think that's something we missso much in not necessarily the
(18:30):
garden space, but overall.
Sometimes we lose the forestfor the trees and we're like
okay, we've got to do this andI've got to have the fertilizer
and I've got to have the raisedbeds and I've got to have all
these things to make it work,when really we just need to
trust the people around us andwe need to build a strong
network of people that we canwork with.
So get to know your neighbors.
(18:50):
I think one of the best gardentips I can give you is go meet
your neighbors.
Go talk to them.
Hey, what are they growing?
Maybe they're not.
Maybe you can help them right.
Maybe they're someone that hasbeen growing plants for 45 years
and they've just been waitingfor a neighbor or someone to
come talk to them about howgreat they are at doing it right
.
Learn from each other, build oneach other's experience.
(19:11):
We're not in any of this stuffalone and so I think it's really
important when we startthinking along some of these
lines that I know people arethinking and I know several of
you that are listening to meright now are thinking about
this like, oh, I gotta grow alittle more food.
Food's gonna get expensive.
Food may be scarce for a lot ofdifferent sociopolitical
reasons and economic reasons.
(19:32):
Build community.
In my estimation, there isnothing more radical, there is
nothing more important andpowerful than to get to know the
people around you, to get toknow your neighbors, to get to
know the people that live inyour city, in your town, in your
(19:52):
community.
Build strong communities and wecan weather a lot of storms.
Okay, I think those are greatchoices.
I think those are things weshould be trying to do all the
time, not just when things arebad, but when things are good.
You can rely on each other whentimes are tough and you can
celebrate together when they'renot.
It's never bad to have morefriends, whether they're in the
(20:14):
garden space Maybe someonedoesn't like gardening, they
don't like getting their handsdirty in the soil, but they are
really good at canning andthey're really good at
preserving things.
Well, okay, you make a greatteam now.
You grow the stuff.
You take it to your neighborSusan I don't know why they're
named Susan and then they helppreserve it.
They can.
It makes salsa for you.
(20:34):
They do all of these differentthings.
So so communities are going tobe so important going into the
future.
Okay, so we've gotten throughour first two steps.
We've set really good goals andexpectations.
We know what we want out of ourgarden.
We have met our neighbors.
We know where we fit into thissort of plan.
We know who's going to grow thewhat right.
(20:56):
We know who is going to be ourtomato guy.
We know who the lettuce personis.
We know where our bread and ourbacon is coming from.
And we're at the step whereit's like you know what, I'm
ready, I'm going to plant agarden.
I'm a first-time gardener and Iam ready to jump into this with
both feet.
Let's talk about that.
I've got a few steps, and Idon't know how many this is
(21:17):
going to end up being.
I'm going to throw them outthere until I run out of them.
But there's a few steps that Ithink we should take to be
successful in the garden.
The first one is start small.
Think about starting small.
Part of managing expectationsis managing our efforts.
There's nothing moredemoralizing to be like I am
going to grow the biggest darngarden in the world and tear up
(21:37):
your whole backyard and getseven tomatoes out of it because
you've put a ton of time andeffort and sweat and tears.
Because I have gardened beforetoo, I know how this works
Indicating two tomatoes.
So maybe you start with thatpot on your patio.
Maybe you start with a coupleof raised beds in your backyard,
or you pick one bed that's sortof out of the way.
(21:58):
It's by your fence.
It still gets some goodsunlight, it's easy to water,
but you don't really know whatto do with it.
Awesome, that's your firstgarden.
It could be 10 square feet, itcould be 100 square feet, it
doesn't matter.
Think of projects that you canstart and finish and do those
from a psychological perspectivestarting and finishing things,
crossing those off your list goso far, okay.
(22:20):
So this is advice I give a lotof times with school gardens and
community garden projects is,it's really easy to get super
excited and overextend ourselves.
Instead, let's pick things thateach step of the process can be
finished in a couple of hours.
So one Saturday, you go out andyou do your bed prep.
You take out the grass, youtill up the soil or whatever
(22:42):
you're going to do right?
That's maybe not always thebest idea.
We'll talk about that in futureepisodes of how to prep a bed
appropriately.
I'm just trying to give anoverview right now.
And then you're done for theday.
You've done your bed prep.
You've finished andaccomplished your mission for
the day.
That is awesome.
You go to work for the week.
You do all kinds of things.
You maybe go out and check onit, piddle around a little bit.
But then the second Saturdaythat you're into it okay, I am
(23:12):
going to make sure that I've gotthe seedlings I want.
I'm going to go out and planout where everything's going to
go in this bed Awesome.
Spend a couple hours doing it.
You've accomplished it.
Start some seeds indoors, getyour plants growing Great.
You're done.
Piddle around for the week.
Third Saturday, you takeanother couple of hours and you
get your tomatoes in the groundand you've accomplished that.
Take a picture of it.
You post it on Instagram andyou feel good about yourself.
You feel good, you feel hopefuland encouraged and, before you
(23:35):
know it, taking little bites outof your garden project, you'll
find that you're done.
Something I've always found inthis green space I landscaped
for a while, I've done a lot ofthings is it feels a lot of
times like we spin our wheelsforever and ever and ever, and
then we're done.
Just it sneaks up on you.
So plan out bite-sized piecesof your project and do them one
(23:57):
at a time.
Take your time and do it in away that you enjoy it, so you
don't burn yourself out, andthat is manageable and
achievable.
Some technical things to thinkabout.
You need to know what climatezone you're in.
What's your weather like,what's the climate in your area
like.
How is it changing?
So again, I live in a zone 7b,which means that our average
(24:18):
annual coldest temperature ofthe year the very, very coldest
that it gets is usually between5 and 10 degrees Fahrenheit.
We've already hit that thisseason.
That tells us some greatinformation.
There's some things.
It doesn't tell us how longit's going to be that cold, how
often.
All that says is over 30 years,we're going to hit this coldest
temperature once 7b great.
(24:39):
Well, you can then go to thegarden center.
You can get online and look atdifferent resources and say
these are plants and seeds thatare appropriate for zone 7b.
These are some things that cantake the incredible heat in your
area.
These things work well with therainfall and the water quality
you have or the soil quality.
So, knowing what your soil doesand what it's like, you can get
(25:02):
a soil test.
Most states, and actually a lotof bigger cities, have soil
testing labs and I can post somestuff on the show notes of this
that kind of give you moreinformation about that.
It can maybe be helpful in someways.
I think knowing the soil, therainfall amounts and timings
when does it rain Not just doesit rain 30 inches a year, but
(25:25):
during which months, when it'shot, when it's cold, when do you
get your rain, knowing how muchsunlight you get, knowing the
humidity, knowing everything youcan about your climate will
make you a lot more successfulin making good plant choices,
picking the right things okay,speaking of picking the right
things, I think something ofpicking the right things.
(25:46):
I think something that's reallyimportant is to grow things you
like.
I don't know why people get sohung up on I have to grow X, y
or Z.
I do know why.
It's because it's what getspromoted a lot.
Everyone needs a salsa gardenand onions and tomatoes and
garlic, and I think those aregreat things.
But maybe you don't like any ofthose things, maybe you are not
(26:09):
going to eat any of those things.
Maybe your neighbors havegotten all of those things from
you and they won't answer thedoor anymore because you've
given them too many.
That's not sustainable, that'snot efficient and it turns out
that we have a big problem withfood waste here in the United
States.
Something like 40% of the foodproduced in the US gets wasted.
That also includes yourbackyard.
We don't put ourselves in thesepictures.
(26:29):
We're thinking big food systems, but if you grow something and
you don't eat it and you throwit away, that's food waste and I
think that is so important tounderstand.
So grow things you are actuallygoing to use or know where
you're going to go with them,even if you don't like tomatoes.
If you have a parent or afriend or a neighbor that does
and you just want the experienceof growing them, that's fine.
Just know where it's going togo.
(26:49):
Choose a great garden location.
That's going to be superimportant.
This is important for thingslike wind and sun and all of
that.
If you live in the Northernhemisphere, the sun sits
southward in the sky, so yourmost intense sunlight is
generally going to come from thesouth and the west.
So if you're growing somethingthat needs a little bit of shade
(27:12):
, maybe you can plant it on theeast side of a fence so we get
sunlight till a little past noon, maybe two in the afternoon,
and then the afternoon it getsshaded during the hottest and
most intense parts of the day.
Right, those are things we canthink about.
Also, think about convenience.
How easy is it to water?
How easy is that area to get to?
They've done studies on whichparts of the garden are most I
(27:37):
don't know trafficked, bestmanaged, and a lot of times it's
the ones closest to your house.
Right, you put the thingsfarther back on your property
that you don't really have tospend a lot of time messing with
, but then you put the thingsthat need more management with
whether that's flowers orveggies or things like that up
closer to your house so thatevery time you look at your
kitchen window or whateveryou're like, oh you know what I
(27:57):
really need to go weed my tomatobed Instead of it being in the
back part of your yard or aroundthe corner or somewhere that is
inaccessible or out of sight,out of mind, because you're not
going to visit those as much,right, you're not going to be,
as I don't know, engaged withthat material as you could be if
it's closer to you.
(28:18):
Get tools.
You need right, basic gardeningtools a water hose it doesn't
have to be anything special awatering hose and a shovel and
maybe a rake or a hoe orsomething so you can clean out
areas.
That will take you a long way.
Don't spend a ton of moneyunless you have the money to
spend or you want to.
It turns out cheap tools.
Even though they may not lastas long as a starter, they'll
(28:39):
get you pretty far down the road, and once you figure out if
this is something you reallywant to do, then yeah, go buy
some really nice equipment thatwill last you years and years
and years.
One of the best tools I thinkyou can have is a great pair of
gloves.
Get a good pair of gloves.
I know, I know, I know we allget our hands dirty.
There's something about feelingthe soil.
I do that too.
However, depending on whatyou're working with, especially
(29:01):
if you're having to clean out anarea, depending on what you're
working with, especially ifyou're having to clean out an
area, you want gloves.
And I can hear some of youthinking, oh, I'm tough, I don't
need gloves.
Man, that's fine, you do youright.
But if you mess up your hands,if you cut yourself badly, if
you get giant splinters, theseare your most important tools,
right?
Your hands are your mostimportant tools in the garden a
(29:22):
lot of times, and so if you messthem up, if you hurt yourself,
you're not going to be asefficient.
Get a great pair of gloves okay, that is something that I will
happily spend some money on is anice pair of heavy-duty leather
gloves, okay.
Test your soil.
I mentioned that before.
There's a lot of differentplaces that do it.
Extension services in your areaprobably do soil testing.
(29:44):
Essentially, you take a sample,you put it in a bag, you send
it off and they can tell youthings like the pH of your soil,
the salt content, the ratio ofdifferent fertilizers or
nutrients in your soil, likenitrogen, phosphorus, potassium
which, by the way, are the threenumbers on your bag of
fertilizer and they'll makerecommendations on how much of
those things you need to add tobe successful, based on what
(30:07):
you're trying to grow.
Usually, the samples will costanywhere between like 15 and $25
, sometimes a little bit more,depending on what you're having
them test for.
But it is so important it isgood to know what's in your soil
so that you can add things toit.
Soil is where the plants grow.
It's where they get theirnutrients, their support, so
(30:30):
many other things, and if youdon't know what's down there,
it's really hard to manage themappropriately from a nutrient
standpoint.
Different things, okay.
Another thing to think aboutagain is bed space.
How much space do you want?
Prep your beds well, get anygrasses or weeds out of there as
much as possible.
There's different ways to dothis.
You can use herbicides, I think,as an occasional tool to solve
(30:51):
specific problems.
Herbicides are not necessarilya bad thing.
You just use them sparingly.
Use them according to the labeland make sure you are on target
with your application.
If you don't want to do that, Iget that.
There's other things you cantry.
With a lot of our weeds,especially the warm season
annual kind of weed.
Shading them out is reallyeffective.
You can use black plastic.
(31:11):
You can use something calledlasagna mulching or lasagna
gardening or sheet mulching tocover it up.
You can physically removethings.
Just make sure you're getting asmuch of the seed bank out, as
much of the underground growingportions especially if you're
dealing with something likeBermuda grass as you can.
But whatever you need to do,get your area clean and managed
(31:33):
first.
Again, I know it is really easyto get excited and go out and
plant into something that ispoorly prepared and then you
fight grasses and you fightweeds in your garden forever.
You don't need to do that.
Make sure it's all cleaned upand then you can manage it
pretty effectively and with lowstress going forward.
Once you've picked your seeds,you've got your climate location
(31:53):
, you've gotten all these things, you need to decide how you're
gonna put those seeds out.
Are you going to directly seedthem into your garden or are you
going to start them indoors andthen transplant them out?
This is going to depend a loton what you're trying to grow.
Use the information on the backof the seed packet.
I'll put out a couple of videoshere in the next couple of
weeks on reading a seed packetand the information it contains
(32:16):
and how to use that information.
You can find a lot of thatonline already.
Get on Google or YouTube orwhatever and watch some of that
if you're chomping at the bit toget going but know whether it's
better to direct seed A lot oftimes our grassy plants, things
like corn especially if you'retrying to grow sweet corn in
your backyard or any kind ofcorn that's going to do much
better direct seeding A lot oftimes.
(32:38):
Our peas and our beans reallygreat to direct seed.
A lot of our leafy greens.
I prefer to direct seed Rootcrops.
For sure the thing growsunderground right.
So if you're trying to growbeets and turnips and then you
grow it out somewhere else andthen transplant it, you can do
that, but a lot of times theydon't survive that super well.
(32:58):
You end up damaging the roottoo much and you end up with
some problems.
So there are certain thingsthat you want to direct seed,
but then stuff like tomatoes,peppers, eggplants, even melons
some melons to a certain extentwatermelons, cantaloupes,
cucumbers, things like that andany cucurbits, they actually
transplant pretty well.
I would again use your localresources, your extension
(33:20):
service, a university near you,even just go talk to folks at a
local garden center and you canget great recommendations on
which things to start inside,which things to direct seed.
Pay attention, as you're doingthat to seasons.
When is your average annuallast freeze?
For us here in West Texas it'sright around tax day.
Anytime between April 10th and15th is usually, historically,
(33:43):
our last freeze date.
I have seen it freeze on Cincode Mayo.
It was 25 degrees for like sixhours.
I have seen the last freezecome in February.
It's a roving target, but thoseaverage dates can be really
useful for you.
If your seed packet, say, plantafter danger of frost has passed
, you probably want to take thatseriously.
If you're really ready to getgoing, maybe plant them inside,
(34:05):
get your seeds started.
There's a lot of ways to dothat.
If you have a bright window, ifyou have a patio that's warm,
if you have a garage with somegrow lights, it's really pretty
easy to start seeds.
Now you can go out and buy awhole bunch of different things
right.
There are these little seedplugs that have lots of little
cells in them.
Put seeds in there, you thinthem down to one plant per cell
and then, when you're ready totransplant, when that plant has
(34:28):
four to six leaves on it we callthat the four to six leaf stage
.
That's usually a great time totransplant.
You don't want to get too bigin those cells.
It's easy to pop those out, putthem in the ground.
Maybe you don't want to go buythat, maybe you don't have room
for it.
You know it's a cheap way to do.
It is to get a foil pan, foilcake pan or roasting pan with a
plastic lid.
Poke some holes in the bottomof the pan, fill it up with
(34:48):
potting soil or potting media orwhatever you have, plant your
seeds down in it and then popthat top plastic top on there
and you've got yourself a littleseed starting.
Greenhouse Helps retainmoisture, helps retain heat in
there, and then once thoseplants are too tall, you pull
the lid off and you're probablygetting pretty close to
(35:10):
transplanting them out.
Anyway, usually with a lot ofour warm season crops, we want
to take our last freeze date orwhenever we're planning to go
out into our garden and backthat off about six weeks.
I think six to eight weeks isusually right in the sweet spot
of how long you want to growyour seeds out indoors.
You need to make sure they getadequate air movement so that
(35:30):
you get stronger stems.
You want to make sure that theyare getting the water they need
without staying too wet.
You'll get a lot of diseases ifyou keep them too wet a lot of
times and you want to make surethey're staying fertilized well
and that they have enough lightso that the stems don't get tall
and leggy.
The other thing I wouldrecommend is to harden them off,
or what we call harden them off, or acclimate them to an
(35:52):
outdoor environment for a weekor two before you plant them.
A lot of times if we're growingthem indoors especially if
they're in a greenhouse theyhave been in ideal, really great
growing conditions before theygo out in the garden.
So if you take them straightfrom that and plop them outside,
where they have to reestablishroots, where they're not getting
watered as well, where theclimate isn't as good, you're
(36:13):
going to get a lot of dying off.
So what you can do is takewhatever you're growing them in
and set them out on your patiofor a day or two.
Bring them in, put them backout for a couple of days If it's
going to be cold, bring them infor sure and just slowly
acclimate them to the newenvironment.
Let them move around in thewind.
Let them get some directsunlight that's a little more
intense.
Let them get into a little bitof water, stress so they develop
(36:36):
a stronger root system.
If you take the time to do that, once you put them out in the
ground they're going to be muchhappier.
They will take and establishmuch better.
Once you have your gardenplanted, make sure that the area
stays well weeded, well watered.
The biggest thing you want to dois water consistently.
It's hard for me to tell youyou need to water this many
(36:57):
inches a week or this manygallons a week, because it
varies so much from location tolocation and crop to crop.
The biggest thing is to figureout how much water your plant
needs and give it to itconsistently.
That'll help with a lot ofdisease problems and
physiological problems.
If you get rain that week, it'sprobably okay to skip a
watering.
But just get back on scheduleas soon as you can.
Okay.
(37:18):
Think about how long that plantis going to go.
Think if it's something youneed to prune, plan for harvest.
You know some crops will take40 days from transplant before
you'll get vegetables orwhatever off them, fruits off of
them.
Sometimes it's longer,sometimes it's shorter.
So you need to know when thatstuff is going to start coming
off the plant so that you havesomewhere to go with it Again,
(37:41):
whether that's to eat it fresh,whether that is to preserve it
in some way.
Have somewhere to go with itAgain, whether that's to eat it
fresh, whether that is topreserve it in some way, or
whatever else.
Plan for harvest andpost-harvest From a management
standpoint.
Again, water is important,fertilizer is important, but
also, like insect management,Make sure that you are keeping
things as pest-free as you can,because they are competing with
(38:01):
you for the thing that you'regrowing.
Now, I'm not going to say, goout and nuke them with
pesticides every time that yousee an aphid.
That's not my point.
Especially if you're growingoutside, a lot of times you'll
have beneficial insects that arehelping you do that job.
But if you're about to be outof control, if you're about to
be overrun by aphids orsomething else, it is probably a
good idea to think about pestcontrol, figure out what
(38:24):
strategies are going to work foryou and think about going about
it from an integrated approach.
Now, that was a lot ofinformation.
I didn't have a mid-roll breakin this one just because I
wanted to get a lot into this 40, 45-minute episode, but this is
a good starting point, right?
This is by no means anexhaustive list of things you
should be doing in the gardenand the landscape.
(38:45):
It's not even a full how-toguide.
I am going to try to producesome more of that for y'all as
we go through this spring andthis summer and into the future,
but hopefully this gets youstarted and gives you some
things to think about.
Again, I think the take-homepoints here are be reasonable
with yourself on what you canrealistically do.
Supplement your food supplywhere you can I think that's
(39:06):
excellent, but then have a plantoo to round out the rest of
your nutritional calorie needs.
Okay, build community.
This is again one of the mostimportant things you can do to
get through a lot of things, butdefinitely in the gardening.
World garden communities arereally strong and they're really
powerful and they're willing tohelp you.
World garden communities arereally strong and they're really
powerful and they're willing tohelp you.
And then follow some goodprocedures, some best management
(39:28):
practices as you actually goout to get in the garden and
plant things in the garden andyou will do fine.
You'll do fine, as always.
You can ask me questions.
I'm happy to try to help whereI can and point you to resources
where there are people that doit way better than me, because
they're out there and you shouldfind them and follow them and
be a part of what they do, andI'll start sharing some
(39:49):
resources on other people that Ithink are great follows that
you could learn a lot from.
But thanks for being with me.
Again, thanks for jumping backinto planthropology.
This episode actually waslonger than I intended it to be,
but it turns out there was alot I wanted to say about
gardening and my podcast, so Iguess I can't right.
So thanks to you for listening,thanks to the Texas Tech
(40:10):
Department of Plant and SoilScience and the Davis College of
Agricultural Science andNatural Resources for helping
support the show and, let Me Doit, thanks to all the folks that
have made this possible overthe years.
Thanks to Nick Scout, theincredible, award-winning
composer for Athene music.
Everything else is done andrecorded and edited by me for
(40:31):
now.
Maybe that'll change in thefuture.
I don't know.
If you want to supportPlanthropology, you can go to
planthropologypodcastcom.
See merch, listen to oldepisodes, do all those kinds of
things.
You can go to buymeacoffeecomslash plantthropology and for
the price of a coffee you canliterally just buy me a cup of
coffee, because that's basicallywhat I will do with it.
Also pay hosting fees andthings and blah blah blah, but
(40:53):
mostly, mostly coffee.
So y'all, thanks for listening,thanks for being cool.
Plant people Be kind to oneanother.
Build good communities.
If you have not been doingthose things, probably a good
time to start.
You know I love you, you know Iam grateful for you and I
cannot wait to talk to you againsoon.
More Plant Apology is coming atyou real soon, thank you.
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