119. Plant Hoarding, the Garden Party, and Being an Influencer w/ Destin Noak

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 dearest friends.
I am so excited to be with youtoday, y'all.
I have another wonderful plantperson and podcaster on the show

(00:22):
for you today.
My buddy, destin Nowak, betterknown across the internet as the
Texas Garden Guy, has becomesomething of a plant I'm going
to call him an influencer I doit a couple times during the
episode and definitely offendhim for it but a plant staple in
the garden education world inthe state of Texas and across
the internet.
He puts out great content abouthis home garden, his greenhouse

(00:43):
and all kinds of other things.
Destin and I have gotten to befriends over the past couple of
years.
I have been on his garden partyshow quite a bit several times
and we've gotten to hang outsome and he is just a
down-to-earth, nice, genuine,super cool dude.
He has so much experience inthe plant world in building

(01:05):
greenhouses in home gardeningand dealing with issues in the
garden like poor soils andthings like that, and he's
mostly self-taught.
He is one of the people I getto talk to who's come at
gardening just because he lovesit, not because he has training
in it or anything else.
He has learned about growingthings himself and I think
that's just the coolest thing.
So after I don't know probably ayear of trying to find a good

(01:29):
time to have Destin on the show,we finally got it done and I'm
so excited that you get to hearfrom him now.
We talk about and you'll hearit a couple of times this
episode that, if you'relistening to this, when it drops
or soon after, you couldactually come to Wichita Falls,
texas, and meet both Destin andI at Smith's Garden Town at
Plantapalooza 2025.
More on that later, but for now, let's jump into it.

(01:51):
So grab your trowel and yourbag of potting soil, give it a
good slap and get ready forepisode 119 of the
Planthropology Podcast with mygood buddy, destin Nowak, the
Texas garden guy.
Dude, I am so excited to get totalk to you today, destin, how

(02:30):
are you doing?

Speaker 2 (02:31):
I'm doing great, dude .
It is my Friday, I'm in a verygood mood.
I get to go to a nurserytomorrow, so, like it's my kind
of day, I'm happy about this.

Speaker 1 (02:39):
That's excellent.
Well, thanks for coming on.
We've been podcasting togethersort of for a while on your show
, the Texas Garden Guy, andfinally had the opportunity to
get you on here and I'm superexcited to talk to you.

(03:06):
Yeah, man, I was getting jealousbecause you asked everybody
else and I was like, am I doingsomething wrong?
I was like why doesn't anyoneever ask me on their podcast?
And you're like no, I justhaven't gotten around.
I was like you're fine, I wasjust messing with you.
But like I did notice that Iwas like you're fine, I was just
messing with you.
But like I did notice that Iwas like am I a bad host?
Do I not get invited on otherpeople's podcasts?
No, it's so.
Honestly, that's such a weirdthing Because, like, I think I
did it.
I podcasted for like two yearsbefore I started to like get on
other shows, even likeinterviewing other podcasters,
and I started to think the samething, like am I bad?
Bad at this?
I promise you're not.
You do a great job.
But before we get too far downthat road, why don't you
introduce yourself a little bit?

(03:27):
Where are you from?
What do you do?
How'd you get to where you aretoday?

Speaker 2 (03:30):
Yeah, so my name is Destin Nowak.
I go by Texas Garden Guy onpretty much all the social
medias.
I think I even have a Pinterestaccount that I don't really
check.
But I'm just south of Houston,texas, in Brazoria County.
I've been doing a lot ofbackyard gardening since I got
out of the Air Force back in2011.
When we lived in an apartment,I had a balcony garden, and we
live in a subdivision, like alot of people in the little

(03:52):
starter house with a tinybackyard, and so during COVID, I
got the wild hair to startrecording myself, and so that's
when Texas Garden Guy was born.
I have about 50 fig trees in a16th of an acre with a bunch of
desert roses.
I'm a plant hoarder is what I am, that's.
I'm a certified plant hoarderand we do our podcast, the Texas

(04:14):
garden guy show.
That's my old one.
The garden party.
That's how I met Vikram.
We had him on and we werepretty good buddies ever since.
I have a lot of people like youthat are way more qualified to
talk about plants on my podcastthan I am, so I enjoy having you
as a friend now.
We've met once now and we'llmeet again soon.
Actually.

Speaker 1 (04:31):
Yeah, absolutely, and we'll talk about that a little
bit more later.
But we've got a cool eventcoming up.
Actually, I'm trying to thinkof when this episode actually
releases.
I think it's like next week, asthis episode comes out.

Speaker 2 (04:43):
That's perfect.
Could be good to promote likefor the 31st yeah.

Speaker 1 (04:46):
Yeah, we're like a week out from a really cool
event in Wichita Falls and we'llgive you all the details a
little bit later in the episode.
But if you're in like theMetroplex sort of North Texas
area, put it, put May 31st onyour calendar to come see us at
Smith's Garden Town yeah, andthat'll be a lot of fun.
But palooza plant plant, apalooza plant, a palooza who
can't?

(05:06):
Did you come up with that name,or was that felicia?

Speaker 2 (05:09):
I?
I don't remember.
I think maybe I did.
I'm one of those.
I'm a dad without kids.
Like that's what I am.
I sing songs about what I'mdoing and I make up names for,
like, I am a dad withoutchildren is what it is.
I'm just a full-blown dad yeah,so I don't know me or felicia
came up with, I forget that'sawesome.

Speaker 1 (05:26):
Well, so so did you like grow up gardening because
you're talking about?
You've gotten into the pastseveral years, but was that a
thing is when you were a kid, oris that sort of newer later in
life?

Speaker 2 (05:37):
so probably like you, I spent a lot of time outside
nowadays with with kids the waythey are, with the video games,
and I mean we had video gamesback in the day but I feel like
we were restricted a lot like onhow much you can play them Like
, cause I remember during school, when school was out, we'd
literally get woken up at seven30 in the morning when the sun
is coming up, kicked out of thehouse, locked the doors and like

(05:58):
it'd be like a what do theycall it?
Solitary, where they slide theplates to the doors and on the
front porch you only come insideif there's a number.
Two, because my dad workedshift work.
My dad worked a lot of likenights and day shift and stuff
and so he'd be sleeping duringthe day and then having to work
all night.
But my grandma was a biginfluence, my dad's mother.
She grew up in Florida in likethe Pensacola area and anybody

(06:21):
who knows like nursery industryknows like that's a big like
plant nursery area and so shegrew up working in the nurseries
.
And my other side of my dad'sfamily was they're a bunch of a
bunch of German and Czech folksand they garden and grew a lot
of their own food.
They grew up as assistancefarmers on like cotton
plantations, it's like that.
Like picking cotton, pickingokra, it's like that.

(06:41):
So we grew up growing a lot ofstuff, growing a lot of stuff in
the backyard, trying to be asself-sufficient because we were
just broke.
So growing up, my grandpagardened, my dad gardened, but
like I didn't want anything todo with it.
Like when we're kids, we don'twant anything to do with what
our parents think are cool.

Speaker 1 (06:58):
Right.

Speaker 2 (06:58):
It wasn't until I got out of the Air Force and came
back.
I had no idea what I wanted todo with my life.
I had no idea where I wanted togo, what I wanted to do, and my
dad just says here's I need totill up the backyard.
He goes here's the tiller, Justgo till, just take your mind
off everything, relax, you gotsome time to kill.
And so when I started tilling,started working in the garden,

(07:19):
my mind kind of just went tolike a that white noise in the
TV, like back in the day foryounger people, back in the day,
at like 2 am, the TV would justgo fuzz, like there would be no
24-hour stuff, like there'djust be fuzz and just be white
noise.
And I'd fall asleep every nightto white noise.
And that's what happens whenI'm in the garden sometimes.
It's just I get the white noiseand everything else kind of

(07:42):
shuts off.
And that's what happened.
It kind of gave me thatrelaxation, that therapy that I
didn't know I needed, and sothat's how I kind of got into it
, how I got hooked.

Speaker 1 (07:53):
That's awesome, man.
And yeah, I mean, just thespending time outside gardening
is so good for just your mentaland physical health, right, like
being out in the sun, beingactive, like it's so good for
you.
And you're right, like, my sonis definitely into video games
Bradley's definitely into videogames, but we've been talking
about it.
He's really excited this yearabout growing some tomatoes,

(08:14):
like.
What's funny is he doesn't likeat the moment, even like
tomatoes, like he's not into it.
But I do think, like once he'slike oh, grew this, like we got
to eat it, like we got to try it.
And there's like a lot ofscience behind that too.
They've done tons of studiesthat kids and adults like when
you grow your own food, it likemeans more right and and people
are more likely to eat itabsolutely like.

Speaker 2 (08:35):
if you like pizza.
If you like pizza.
What you could do is you couldsay, hey, I'm gonna grow all my
toppings for my pizza this year.
Say I'm gonna grow the tomatoes, grow the tomatoes, mix the
tomato sauce, I'm going to growthe basil, I'm going to grow
some oregano, I'm going to makemy own Italian seasoning.
You could like literally talk akid into making it all of it,
growing his own pizza toppings.
If you want to go wild, you canteach them how to make wheat,

(08:55):
but that's kind of a little hardto do, impossible, but I mean
it's a little tough.
But you could really talk yourkid into growing what they
actually like to eat and getthem interested in what they
want to grow.
So it's definitely a cool ideato get your kids involved as
early as possible, I think.

Speaker 1 (09:11):
Yeah, absolutely Well , and so kind of go into that.
You mentioned like growingthings you like, and that's one
of the best pieces of advice Ithink we can give people.
Like in the garden is.
It's kind of weird.
It's like people have this ideaof like what a garden, like a
home garden, should look like,and they're like I need to grow
tomatoes, I need to grow peppersand whatever, like, whatever it

(09:31):
is, but then a lot of peopleend up growing things that are
honestly kind of difficult tostart out with and they end up
growing things they don't wantto eat and then they get
discouraged and so, like, Ithink one of the best things you
can do is like pick threethings you like and just go for
it.

Speaker 2 (09:47):
Yep, absolutely.
That's always my recommendation.
When people ask me, hey, how doI get started gardening?
I tell them well, what do youlike to eat?
Pick one of those, don't.
That's the other thing.
People will go out and get 50tomato plants their first year
and they get overwhelmed.
But, like, if it wasn't forlike my wife, I wouldn't even
grow squash, cause like I likesquash, as you can hear, but
it's not my favorite, but likeshe loves it, so I definitely

(10:09):
grow quite a few plants of it.
So like, but if it was just me,I'd probably just grow desert
roses, plumerias, peppers andtomatoes and figs.

Speaker 1 (10:17):
Figs are a good one.

Speaker 2 (10:19):
Yeah, oh, figs are so easy.
But you're absolutely right,though you should definitely
customize this blanket mindsetof what a garden is like farmer
Brown down the roads goteverything.

Speaker 1 (10:32):
Your backyard could be whatever you want it to be.
Your garden be whatever youwant it to be.
That's yeah, I think it'sreally important.
So, as you got started, youmentioned that you were growing
things on your patio which youcould do in an apartment.
You can do in a dorm room likethere's.
You can grow stuff anywhere youare.
But you've really like I don'tknow taking the bull by the
horns here and just seeing likeyour videos in your garden and
all of that, like you've got aton of stuff too much stuff.

Speaker 2 (10:53):
Yeah, it's, my dad was over here this past weekend
and anytime my dad goes over, mydad's got 100 acres and so
anytime, anytime he comes over,he's got a tin he's like a
couple acre lot reserved for apecan orchard, and so we mix in
some figs.
There's a pomegranate, he'sjust a pomegranate now too.
But Eric told me he comes over,I load him up.
My loquat was getting too bigfor the pot and so I was like,

(11:16):
hey, you want a loquat?
And he's like, yeah, so heloaded up my loquat, but he was
telling me walking around and hewas like, dude, he goes.
If you ever move this is goingto be bad, this is going to.
Yeah, he's like I don't knowwhich.
He goes, it's a lot, and he'slike it doesn't look bad, but
like I just don't know howyou're going to move all this

(11:36):
stuff.
And it can be overwhelming forsure.
But, like when you're living inan apartment, you'd be
surprised how much you can growin containers on a balcony, as
long as you have enough sunlightand as long as you can get
irrigation.
I was telling our friend Kelsey,who's in Austin, she has a
balcony garden and what we usedto do is we unscrewed the faucet

(12:04):
diffuser and we put a quickconnect adapter with those
shrinking hoses and so weliterally quick connect the
water hose to the kitchen sinkand then run it out the balcony
and water the garden like thatand then, when we're done, just
disconnect it.
So there's a lot of ways tofind that you can do things on
the balcony.
It's super simple and it's andhonestly, container gardening is
easier than in-ground gardeninglike 100%.

Speaker 1 (12:22):
Oh yeah, Well, and you can control it more, right,
Like you can make the soilwhatever you need it to be.
You can control for weedspretty well.
There's always going to beweeds, Like I think.
I think so.
So let me get your take on thisa little bit, because I think
what people end up wanting islike a low maintenance garden,
and I try to tell people that'snot a real thing.

(12:42):
Like there's lower maintenance,there's things you can do to
make it easier, but there'snever like, like you're you have
to work in it.
How do you keep in your garden,Cause you have a lot of plants
and I know it's something youlove, but how do you keep from
getting overwhelmed by it?
Like, how do you keep doing thethings, like even on days when
you get home and you're justlike well there.

Speaker 2 (12:59):
There are definitely days where I'm overwhelmed.
This spring got me reallyoverwhelmed when I opened up my
greenhouse and I got a 20 by 12greenhouse.
It's eight foot tall.
I had citrus touching the roof.
I couldn't walk in mygreenhouse so there were certain
things that died because myhose couldn't reach all the way
back there to water them overthe winter.
But just unloading thegreenhouse and trying to,

(13:22):
because I have to empty out thegreenhouse to put stuff back in,
like I have to get everythingout to organize it and I'm super
OCD.
Like even when my wife helps mewater the garden, I have a
certain way that I pull the hoseout to go to this side and like
I had to learn like let her doit however, she wants to do it,
she's trying to help.
So like I'm just OCD.
But I enjoy the monotony ofpulling weeds.

(13:44):
I enjoy monotonous tasks, likeat work, sometimes building
spreadsheets.
I don't mind it, I like that'swhat pulling weeds is repotting.
It's all like monotonous worksometimes and it's like I was
saying earlier, with liketilling, it's white noise.
It's kind of like I know I'mgoing to redo this, I know I'm
going to transplant this.
I know I got to transplant this.
It's kind of that white noiseagain where it's kind of like

(14:05):
therapy, you just shut yourbrain off and pull weeds, like
that's my thing.
And as far as like maintenancefree, like you said, there's
nothing that is like maintenancefree.
But hydroponics are pretty lowmaintenance.
They're about as lowmaintenance as you can get.
That lettuce grow farm standthat I got, that tower that's
got the pump in the bottom,that's about as low maintenance
as you can possibly get.

(14:26):
I mean you gotta clean it onceevery like six months when you
swap it out, I mean add somenutrients every once in a while.
But like other than that, it'spretty low maintenance.
But like you're saying, antsand weeds are two constants ants
, you're never going to get ridof all.
The weeds, you're never goingto get rid of all the ants
it's're never going to get ridof all the ants.

Speaker 1 (14:44):
It's just not going to happen.
Nope, no, and I think there'ssomething to that too.
Like I think like you weretalking about these repetitive
tasks, but more than that, likesomething that you care for and
that you have to be intentionalabout caring for, like your
garden or specific plants, likeit's really good for you.
I think people, people that getbogged down in, especially I

(15:04):
spent years working in thegreenhouse, right, like years
running a greenhouse, and now Ihave plants in my office, but
it's like four of them insteadof a whole greenhouse full of
plants, and I think it's easy toget bogged down in the desk job
and just, I don't know, somedays I get home and I'm just so
mentally drained that I just sitthere.
But Bradley and I have beengoing out and going so mentally

(15:25):
drained that I just sit thereand I think being but Bradley
and I have been going out andlike going to the park now that
it's warmer and getting outside,both stays and playing around,
and it's like I don't know howto explain it to people that
don't experience it that it justclears your head.
It really helps, like it's formy mental health at least.
It's a huge deal.

Speaker 2 (15:43):
Well, and another thing that I try to explain to
people is we all know there'sonly 24 hours a day, right?
You have to get a certainamount of hours of sleep, you
know you got to go to work foreight hours.
So what are you going to do inthose 12 hours that you have, or
those six hours you have free,eight hours you have free?
Are you going to sit in frontof the TV, watch a football on
Sundays?
Are you going to go outside andgarden?
Are you going to go to dinner?

(16:05):
Are you going to go here?
You're going to do that.
Are you going to go on vacation?
Cut out football.
I used to be a diehard footballfan, watching football every
Monday, thursday, play themevery game every day of the week
.
Now I cut out football and Ifound my production levels got
so much higher because I thoughtabout all the hours, because I
wasn't just watching the cowboys, I'd watch all the games.

(16:27):
So, like you gotta see, yougotta decide what's more
important.
Is it the leisure or is it theproduction?
Find more satisfaction inproduction Than I do in the
leisure, because then I feellike when I do sit down, I sleep
better and I feel like Ideserve it when I sit down.

Speaker 1 (16:46):
Yeah, absolutely Absolutely.
So you know, you mentioned thedifferences between container
gardening or we could call thatraised bed gardening too and in
the ground, and there'sdefinitely some huge ones, I
would think, especially in likea heavy clay soil, like you've
got down there in your part ofthe state, like that's got to be
such a challenge.

Speaker 2 (17:04):
People ask me about in-ground gardening.
I tell them I don't know,because I don't do any in-ground
gardening.
I'm in a subdivision where theybrought in the cheapest fill
dirt.
It literally cracks.
When it is a rain, for abouttwo weeks my ground will just
start to crack and you canliterally drop an air.
I've almost dropped an air podin the crack and literally it's

(17:26):
going to come out like on theother hemisphere.
So it's insane how bad the soilis.
And you mean you, can I tellpeople you go dig a hole five,
five foot deep and come out thenext day and it's just still
filled with water.
It doesn't drain.
So yeah, that's why it's soimportant for me to bring my
soil in, because it's just gonnabe so much better, better, and

(17:48):
I would say the minimum beddepth would be 12 inches.
I make like eight inch beds,but 12 inches is probably the
minimum, 18 if you can do it.
But yeah, you're able tomanipulate that soil a lot
easier.
I mean, from your time in, likethe ag extension, like having
to do soil samples and amendstuff, like it's a lot of money
and a lot of time and a lot ofenergy?

Speaker 1 (18:12):
Oh, yeah, for sure.
And then why fight it forever?
And raised beds are such agreat opportunity to and not
just like a heavy clay soil.
But maybe you're in a moreurban environment and you don't
have a lot of empty yard spacebut you have a patio.
I know we put in some raisedbeds one time at a local high
school and they had this sort oflike interior courtyard kind of

(18:34):
thing, so it was ringed by theschool and there's a courtyard
in the middle and there was acouple of trees and some
in-ground beds but they werelike the size of my desk, like
it wasn't much, right.
And so we brought in someraised beds, we brought in soil
and the culinary class and Ithink one of the ag classes.
We're managing them and growingbasil and onions and herbs and

(18:54):
things like that.
And it was like such a cooldeal.
And I know there are some likepurists out there, some garden
purists that are like it's notin the ground, it's not right
there's.
There are fewer and fartherbetween than I think they used
to be.
But I think we do what we gotto do right.

Speaker 2 (19:11):
I get the weirdest comments and faces when I tell
people I've never done a soilsample.
I've never done one soil sample.
But I bring in my soil though Ibring in all my soils.
I don't even get it by thetruckload because for me it's
easier to manage with the bagsbecause I've got a three-foot
gate.
It's hard to get I to managewith the bags because I've got a
three foot gate.
It's hard to get like I have tohave some free space to store a

(19:32):
pile of soil as well.
So bagged soil, I really don'thave to worry about testing the
soil, unless I was having issues.
But luckily I haven't had manyissues with soil.

Speaker 1 (19:43):
So that's good, that's good.
And so you talked about yourgreenhouse a little bit, and I
know you're a.
You said plant hoarder, I wasgoing to say collector.
We can cut that however youwant.
I'm a, I've accepted it.
So what kind of things do youhave in your greenhouse?
What are some of the coolerspecimens you've got in there?

Speaker 2 (20:00):
So I started out when I first started gardening with
a couple cuttings of figs and Igot them off Facebook
Marketplace because growing up,growing up, any family in Texas,
their grandma had a fig tree inthe backyard.
So like I wanted a fig tree andso I went and got cuttings and
you find out how easy they areto propagate and went from
having five fig trees to ahundred fig trees.

(20:21):
So, like, I got my license.
Make sure if you're going tosell plants in the state of
Texas, you go through the TexasDepartment of Agriculture and
get your license, because theywill fine you per plant.

Speaker 1 (20:30):
Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (20:31):
Yeah, so it's a fair price to pay to not get in
trouble, yeah.
But then over the years I'vegotten more into like.
A couple of years ago I startedgetting into dyniums and
plumerias, a lot of the or themalvacays, the dog-baiting
family, and kind of got me intomore succulents and cactus as
well.
So I hear, lately it's beenmore Dorstenia gigas, a lot of

(20:53):
euphorbias, just a lot morerarer stuff.
I'm moving away slowly fromlots of big things to lots of
small things.
I don't know if that's like aTetris move to where I only have
space for small things or what,because if I ever had more
property I'd probably go back togetting big stuff until I ran
out of room for big stuff, sure,and then I'd get the little
stuff.
So here lately it's been morecactuses and succulents, getting

(21:17):
some rare varieties and stufflike that.
So my greenhouse, though, holdsall my tropicals, so palmarias,
hibiscuses, cactuses, a lot oflike my rare stuff.
I put cactuses a lot of like myrare stuff I put in a grow room
in my garage every winter.
I don't trust my greenhouse tokeep it above a lot of your
desert roses, succulents.
They don't like it below 50degrees, right, so when it gets

(21:38):
like to the high 40s, low 50s, Ibring all that stuff indoors in
my garage with the heat lamps,space heater lights, and so they
never actually really godormant.
But in this part of Texas I'min zone 9B we only really need a
greenhouse per se for about twomonths out of the year.
We had a pretty wild winterthis year five inches of snow.

Speaker 1 (22:02):
Yeah, that's crazy.

Speaker 2 (22:04):
And it hasn't gotten hot yet.
It hasn't really gotten hot yeteither, which I'm surprised.
It's almost mid-May and wehaven't gotten to mid-90s yet.
It's very strange.

Speaker 1 (22:14):
It is weird.
And so as we record this, yeah,it's early first week in May,
beginning of the second week inMay and we just had some folks
here in town from Cancun, froman aeroponics company in Cancun,
and it's already hot there,it's always hot there, but they
were freezing.
And it's already hot there,it's always hot there, but they
were freezing.
And it's funny because weactually got rain and if you

(22:34):
know anything about Lubbock,texas, that's a rare event.
So these folks come in and theyland and it's raining and 52
degrees.
It's the beginning of May andthey were like what is going on?
But it's been an interestingyear.
We had a little bit of heatearly, so we had maybe a week in
the mid-90s the heck in.

Speaker 2 (22:55):
March and then it cooled back off.
Yeah, it's been pretty mild.
I looked, because I recycleposts, sometimes recycle videos.
I'll go back like to the yearbefore, like what was I doing?
And I noticed how much biggermy tomatoes were already and I
think it's strictly because itwas so much warmer already.
I feel like it got really warmearly last year and it stayed
hot.
It stayed really hot and that'sone thing like for beginner

(23:18):
gardeners is, every year isdifferent.
If you think you've got itfigured out, wait till next
season, wait till next spring,because it's just, it's so crazy
.
Texas weather I mean sweater ingeneral, it's nuts.

Speaker 1 (23:30):
Yeah, it's nuts.
That's interesting, so do you.
So would you pull all of yourplants out of the greenhouse
during the summer?

Speaker 2 (23:36):
Well, I take my plastic off.
So, because I live on the coasthere in Houston.
I don't have a conventionalgreenhouse.
I've got a shelter lodge at 12by 20, basically a hoop house,
and so the plastic comes offbecause we start in August.
September.
We started getting tropicalstorms, hurricanes, and anybody
around this area who's got ahoop house or a greenhouse

(23:57):
didn't know what it's like.
We had 110 mile an hour windslast year so I pulled the
plastic off and I've been ableto recycle that plastic for like
three years now.
This is the third year so Ihelped help preserve the plastic
because the UV rays destroyplastic panels or plastic for
greenhouses.
And then I take the plastic offand I put a shade cloth a 50%

(24:18):
shade cloth on top of thegreenhouse and so stuff like
tomatoes that usually get bakedby mid-June, july, that heat I
get about an extra month or soof growth being protected from
the shade cloth, and FarmerFroberg is the first person that
showed me about that.
He built a hoop house and grewa whole crop of red snapper
tomatoes under a shade cloth andhe got a big production, so it

(24:42):
helps.
A lot of my plants Like citruswill get some sunburn on their
leaves, so I keep all my citrusin the greenhouse year round.
They stay in big containers butthey don't really move.
They stay in there okay, gotcha, yeah.

Speaker 1 (24:58):
Well, yeah, because that would be a nightmare in a
day.

Speaker 2 (25:02):
Yeah man, it's one of the reason why I grow stuff in
containers is because number onemy soil soil is terrible.
Number two when we first movedinto our house and this is
another tip for early beginnergardeners when you move into
your house, before you dig orplant anything, call 8-1-1.
Call 8-1-1.
And that's Texas, at least,it's 8-1-1, I think.

(25:22):
Call 8-1-1, because they'll comeout and map out your yard and
tell you where the utility linesare, where the fiber is, where
the gas line, where the waterlines are, and when they did
that in my house it looked likeI always describe it as, even in
the nineties the screensaver.
They had all the differentcolored pipes you know like
that's, that's my backyard.
Look like like pretty much fivefeet from the fences all the way
around.
So like I was like, well, I'mnot putting anything in the

(25:44):
ground.
But also I don't plan on beinghere forever.
I want to have stuff with mewhen I go and so, heaping stuff
in pots, next five years or so,when I move out, I'll be able to
take it with me.

Speaker 1 (25:53):
Yeah, that's awesome.

Speaker 2 (25:55):
But I also like to show people that you can grow a
lot of stuff in containers andget away with it.
Citrus trees can live incontainers indefinitely 100%.

Speaker 1 (26:05):
I'm jealous that you can grow citrus so well down
there.
It's just it's too cold here.
We can do it in a greenhouseand my mom actually has some
couple of Meyer lemons and a keylime and a few other things.
Oh, she did so.
My stepdad had built her.
We had an old shed or they havean old shed out in their
backyard that he kind ofconverted to a greenhouse and
everything was staying real warm.

(26:25):
But over the winter they checkit once a week, once every other
week just to water it.
They don't need a whole lot inthe winter.
But a I don't know if it wasone fox or a pair of foxes had
gotten in to the greenhouse butcouldn't get back out, and they
were in there for a week andjust wreaked havoc on all of her

(26:48):
plants Because they were juststuck and like.
So she lost some stuff.
But so you can do like a citrusappear in a container if you're
real careful, yeah, but no, I'mjealous of people that it's
like oh, it's fine, it's happy,whatever yeah, the.

Speaker 2 (27:03):
I did an experiment, so I had a.
I had a meyer lemon thatsomeone had given me.
I think it was, I think it wasungrafted, I think it was just a
limb that someone had probablygave to me, but it had never put
, it, never put out a limb likea lemon for me at all, and I had
it in a rolling container.
And I had a frost Satsuma inone of those rolling containers
too, yeah, and I was like, okay,we're going to get snow, we're
going to get a freeze.

(27:23):
I'm just going her out here tosee what happens and the frost
satsuma held up.
It held up.
The meyer lemon did not,obviously, but the frost satsuma
held up and they say thatthey're.
The frost varieties are coldtolerant down to 10 degrees,
which doesn't necessarily alwaysmean 10 degrees in the

(27:45):
container right sure 10 degreeslike cold.
They mean like mature roots inthe ground.
So I was surprised that it heldup as well as it did and it
dropped all its leaves but itcame right back the graft.
It didn't add very littledieback, it was nuts.

Speaker 1 (28:00):
It's pretty impressive.
That's super cool, super cool.
Well so, looking at the time,this is actually a great time to
take a quick break, and you'vebeen.
Before we go to a break, you'vebeen sort of alluding to all
the stuff you teach people aboutplants and all the cool stuff
you get to do as a plantcommunicator.
I was going to call you aninfluencer, and you really are,

(28:21):
but I don't want to offend you,you're an influencer.

Speaker 2 (28:24):
I hate the term influencer so much.

Speaker 1 (28:26):
And I know you do.
So when we come back we'regoing to talk about how Destin's
an influencer and about a newgig that he's got.
Well, hey there, welcome to themid-roll Fancy meeting you here
.
How are your houseplants?
Are they doing?
Well?
I hope they are.
Give them a nice little strokeon the leaf just for me.
Tell them I sent you.
Hey, thanks for listening sofar.
I hope you enjoyed this episodeas much as I have.

(28:47):
It's been a lot of fun talkingto Destin and, again, I love
just getting to talk to myfriends on this show.
Speaking of that, there are acouple of things coming up that
I just want you to be aware of.
Not really big format changes,but since Planthropology started
, it has been loosely tied to myjob right here at Texas Tech
University as a professor in thedepartment, and I was talking

(29:08):
to my department chair and we'reat an interesting time of
transition in the department.
I said, hey, what do you thinkabout me sort of carving this
out and making it a side projectof my own?
And so he was like yeah, that'sfine.
In fact, I'm starting anotherpodcast with a colleague called
Deep Roots through my collegehere, and more information on
that soon.
You'll hear plenty about it, Ipromise.

(29:29):
But plant topology now is kindof just my thing and I have
nothing but respect andadmiration and I'm so grateful
to Texas Tech and the Departmentof Plant and Soil Science for
supporting it this far and itmeans the world to me and just a
big final thank you to them.
It's not the last you'll hearabout this, but I just wanted
you to know that some things arechanging just a little bit.

(29:50):
I think some of the guests I'llbring on may change just a
little bit the format of some ofthe episodes, but same old
Plant Anthropology, the samething you have come to expect.
If you want to support the show,go leave us a rating or review
on Spotify or Apple Podcasts orwherever you can.
If you want to pick up somemerch, go to
planthropologypodcastcom.
If you want to financiallysupport the show, go to

(30:10):
buymeacoffeecom.
Slash planthropology and forthe price of a coffee you can
buy me coffee and hosting feesand other things, now that I'm
slightly less supported by auniversity.
Aside from that, I've got acouple of new projects coming up
Again.
Follow me across the internet asthe Plant Prof or as
Planthropology, but I also juststarted a sub stack newsletter

(30:31):
and this will be deeper divesinto some of the stuff we talked
about on here, a lot of thestuff I talked about on my
social media, so follow me.
You can find me at VikramBaliga.
You can look up the plant prof.
And my newsletter is calledoffice hours.
You've got questions.
That may be a place that getanswered, so go subscribe to
that.
There's a link in thedescription and we talked about
in the beginning of the episodeand we talked about later in the

(30:54):
episode as well, that we've gotan event coming up at Smith's
Garden Town in Wichita Falls,texas, on May 31st 2025.
So if you're anywhere in theMetroplex, anywhere close to
Wichita Falls and would love tocome see us, we would love to
see you there.
So again, that's Smith's GardenTown May 31st, all day, while
the nursery is open, and comesee us for Plantapalooza 2025.

(31:16):
And without any more blabbering, let's get back to the episode.
So I apologize for calling youan influencer.
I know, that's like a gross word.
Someone called me that theother day and I was like you
have got to stop, like you'vegot to stop with that.

Speaker 2 (31:33):
It's not so.
I don't.
The term influencer I don'thave a problem with is when
people call themselvesinfluencers.
Like it just sounds.
It sounds cringy.
You know what I mean?
Like oh, I'm an influencer.
Like when I put people aside, Icreate gardening content.
When I put people aside, Icreate gardening content.
I create a backyard gardeningcontent.
That's what I do.
I'm not trying to influence.
If someone calls me aninfluencer, it's okay, but for

(31:54):
me to call myself an influencer,it just sounds cringy as hell.
And when people tell me they'rean influencer too or something
like that, I'm like dude, don'tdo that man, I'm just a gardener
who has the camera on sometimes.
That's all it is.

Speaker 1 (32:08):
It's like giving yourself a nickname, right, oh?

Speaker 2 (32:12):
dude, like Texas Garden Guy, I give myself that
nickname.

Speaker 1 (32:15):
Oh, I'm the plant prof, I do it too, like we're
all doing it.
We're all out here doing it,whatever, I guess not.
Well, hey, you're in goodcompany, but let's talk about
that.

Speaker 2 (32:31):
Let's talk about the garden guy, because it's really
grown into something super cool.
Yeah, it's evolved, it'sdefinitely evolved.
Uh, when I started out doingthe social media stuff it was I
think my first handle was likehoa homestead, because I was
watching all these homesteadingchannels and I was like, oh, I'm
gonna show what it's like doingstuff.
And uh, yeah, and then it wasjust my name and then I was
literally on a group chat withFarmer Froberg and Gardening

(32:53):
with Des.
I was like, hey, I got to comeup with a name, like if
something rolls off the tongue,and I was like I've had chat GPT
and I came up with it in fiveminutes.
But like, so we came up withlike Texas garden guy and I was
like that's it.
I was like, yeah, and as it'sevolved, I'm trying to.

(33:13):
I used to be the guy that waslike spring all the time and I
feel like as a gardener and aslike in a content creator, I've
really evolved.
You ever go back and watch likeyour first videos.
How bad is it, dude?

Speaker 1 (33:26):
How bad like you know , I'm always like should I
delete this Like?
And I never do because it's,it's out there or whatever.
But there's a few of my oldones that I'm just like oh, what
was I doing?
Like, what was I thinking?

Speaker 2 (33:43):
When you're trying to find like what kind of content
you're going to make, what yourniche is.
It's really frustrating becauseyou'll get like a little bit of
success and then it'llencourage you to keep making
videos like that.
So, like some of my firstvideos were debunking plant
myths.
So I did a video where I usedexpired milk.
I did like a half and a halfdilution and used it for as a uh

(34:07):
for powdery mildew, anti-fungallike, and I was like in my
whole garden smell like rottenmilk for like a month.
Like I did the one video and Irefuse to do a follow-up it is
the electroculture video.
Dude, I literally get a dozencomments a day on TikTok.
Where's the update?
Where's the update?

(34:27):
Where's the update?
Dude, like I literally hatemyself for making that video
because it keeps giving dude,the electric, the electric.
And I've been seeing I don'tknow what it is, but I've been
seeing more videos of peopletalking.
Today I saw a video of a guy.
He drove a ground copper rodinto the ground, put a copper

(34:48):
cable on it to a copper bowl,filled it with water and salt
and then he stood in it andmeditated and he's talking about
grounding and I was like whatam I even?
And this dude has like 700 000followers on instagram and he
preaches the book ofelectroculture.
Dude, like more power to you,dude, do you?

(35:08):
I feel like everybody should dowhatever they want to do, but,
like man, it's just the sum ofthe things, dude, some of the
things yeah, it's.

Speaker 1 (35:16):
Sometimes it feels like my algorithm is like
betraying me, like activelybetraying me, because something
will pop up and I'm like man,why, like, why would you think I
wanted this?
You make an interesting pointthat there's kind of two sides
to it.
I agree with you.
Actually, like I I'm out hereyelling about bananas and all
these weird plant hacks, butlike I also think, also think
that you know if it makes youhappy, if it's not hurting

(35:36):
anyone, like whatever, like doit, do you right.
But I think where it gets to bea problem is some of these big
creators that and, like you said, hundreds of thousands,
sometimes millions of followers,and they end up telling people
stuff that doesn't work, yeah,and then they, these folks,
spend money and go out and tryit and do all this stuff and

(35:59):
then they end up disappointedand discouraged from gardening
and like that's the opposite ofwhat we should be doing.

Speaker 2 (36:03):
For sure, and I'm I don't want any censorship, I
don't want anybody to be like soI did, I'm at the, I'm at.
The train of thought is likepeople should just do whatever
they want to do, make the kindof videos.
We know what they're doing.
They're trolling to get moreviews and put on them whatever.
And if people don't do theirown research and it's really on
them, this is america make yourown decisions.

(36:23):
We all have the ability to goput rotten milk out in the yard
if you want to like, if you wantto spend a thousand dollars on
copper, go ahead, whatever.
So I mean because I've dealtwith it too.
I mean I've had videos whereI've put out not so great
information and it came out andlike, well, should I take it
down or should I leave it up?
And you're kind of torn if it'sdoing good, because the worst
videos do better.

Speaker 1 (36:42):
Yeah yeah, because people start fighting in the
comments, absolutely man.

Speaker 2 (36:48):
So like it's bizarre.
But I mean I think we just kindof like I was saying like let
people do their own research.
Just don't believe everythingyou see on the internet.
Everybody Do your own researchand even then it's hard.

Speaker 1 (37:00):
Yeah, but it's interesting.
I was talking with a couple ofguests before you and he's
another garden creator gardenguy Muskoka, up in Canada, yeah,
and he was talking about how alot of times he would be like,
oh, you can look that up.
But then there is somethingabout, and I think one of the
good things that we do as gardencreators is we can put things

(37:22):
in context right, because youGoogle something and it's like
there's 5 million results forsomething For sure and it's like
how do you know what's real,how do you know what works?
And so I think we have a coolopportunity and a cool space to
really teach people stuff andhave fun doing it.

Speaker 2 (37:38):
Yeah, well, I mean, and I feel like I try to be as
responsible as I can with myresponses and my content and do
as much research as I can do,and I also have.
We built this community now ofthe garden party community, like
where we check each other, likespeaking of like Chad G PetT
earlier, like everybody wascreating like the action figure

(37:58):
version of themselves, and stuffand our buddy Jeremy over at
Dirty Punk Gardening.
Like he hates AI, he hates Canva, he's the arts, he's an artist
man and so, like I sent him likemy t-shirt design and I did on
Canva and he was like, did youdo this on Canva?
And I was like, yeah, and hegoes, I'll take it and I'll do
it how.
But like he did an actionfigure of himself with like

(38:20):
ChatGPT, and like he had peoplecoming out of the woodwork to
criticize him and like, andthat's a sweet guy, he's not
used to getting the feedbackright it's like and he's because
everything he does is sowholesome and nice, like I.
I was like I went through hiscomments.
I was like there's like two badcomments, jeremy, this is not
bad.
Like, so we'll go to one of myvideos like hey man, I'm sorry.

(38:43):
Someone's like what are yougrowing in your garden?
Cake frank.
It's like like, go to my video.
Look at the comments.
These are not that bad.
I was like I don't people areso mean dude, but it's so funny
though.
It's so funny because I will goand troll people's comments
sometimes, like I mostly stayout of the comment section.
I mostly stay out of my commentsection.

(39:04):
Yeah, doesn't doesn't mean I'mgonna stay out of everybody
else's comment section, but likeit's not to take people's
criticism and when it comes topeople teaching you stuff on the
internet, you gotta do your ownresearch a lot of times.
Yeah, because everything thatworks in my backyard might not
work in your backyard.
You know what works in mybackyard may not work in the
person like literally a mileaway.
Yeah, the soil type, the shade,it's just it's so different

(39:26):
everywhere you got to do yourown research.

Speaker 1 (39:28):
Yeah, every garden is unique, for sure, and I think
that's again that's a reallygood message to send, because
it's the context matters, right?
Like context is everything, andso you could have a weird tree
that has roots in the garden andyou've got shade and it totally
changes the whole thing, whichagain is a good opportunity to
talk about that.
Like, when we're out in thegarden doing something, it's
like oh, there's this tree isgoing to do this and this, or I

(39:50):
put this here for this reason.
Yeah, but kind of going back toso, the garden party is a lot
of fun, by the way, and ifyou're out there and you haven't
listened to it, you absolutelyshould.
I'm on as much as I can be.
You're very busy, but it's somuch fun it's live.
Do you do Wednesday nights?
Is it Wednesday nights?

Speaker 2 (40:06):
Every Wednesday at 7 pm, central Standard Time.

Speaker 1 (40:09):
Okay and do and it's, is it, do you have?
So I'm just asking liketechnical, specific questions
now Is it through your texasgarden guy youtube or is it its
own garden party now?

Speaker 2 (40:20):
So it's through the texas garden guy youtube channel
and then if you go on spotifyapple podcast even on fate we,
we live stream on facebook andyoutube every wednesday at 7 pm.
You can watch it afterwards,obviously there, but you can
download it on spotify or applepodcast.
We're moving up in the rankings.
I didn't know, I didn't knowabout rating, so podcast ratings
.
So if you don't already go rate, play topology and give it a

(40:43):
five-star rating on Spotifybecause it matters.
And I asked, I did one week ofasking people to go rate it and
we've gone up 31 spots.
We're number 91 in the countryright now.
So's pretty good but the thingto know is like there's a lot of
like commercially producedpodcasts.
Now it's hard to build up therankings because you have like
celebrities and like the bigcorporations producing podcasts

(41:07):
now it's hard to compete withlike professional audio oh,
absolutely.

Speaker 1 (41:12):
And then you've got some of the big podcast networks
that push them out throughtheir channels and they've got a
production team, and myproduction team is this guy,
it's just me and I know yours isjust you.
And so to be in the top 100 isawesome, right?
That's incredible.
Yeah, interesting about thegarden podcast space is it

(41:36):
covers so much ground and you'llsee some like I'm just going to
call some out because they'reamazing like in defense of
plants is huge, it's a hugepodcast.
Crime pays and botany doesn'tis a huge podcast and these are
like top one or two percentshows.
But then the gap I thinksometimes people understand just
on the number side, like socialmedia, has thrown off a lot of
our perceptions of things, Ithink.
Because, like on social media,if you get 100,000 views on a

(41:59):
video, like that's pretty good,but there's people out there
getting tens of millions onvideos and on a podcast, if
you're getting like severalhundred downloads, like you're
doing, pretty good.

Speaker 2 (42:11):
Right, no for sure.
I mean and it's so hard tounderstand how popular someone
is Like we bring in the peoplewe want to talk to.
I mean, that's number one.
We bring people on like you,whether you have a hundred
thousand followers or what.
We bring people we want to talkto.
And so, like I started goingthrough some of these charts and
like some of these people, likethey have podcasts but they
don't necessarily have like abig following on Instagram or

(42:37):
and you start going through itand it's like wow, this is
different.
It's like you can't alwaysassume that like, say, if I have
a big TikTok star, come on thepodcast, and we only put the
podcast out on Facebook, youtube, spotify, and then his audience
doesn't always translate, youknow.
So, like it's hard to know whoto bring on.
So we just, we are the gardenparty, we're here to party, we
want to party with you and wetry to bring in people that

(42:57):
people want to hear.
And so, yeah, with Phil, andPhil is my configly area, phil's
figs is maybe the nicest humanon the face of the earth.

Speaker 1 (43:07):
Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (43:08):
And then we had Dez on.
Like you, originally, vic fromwas going to be a third member
of the garden party.
I was trying to steal him.
I was like dude, I had a logoalready.
I had a logo designed already.
It was going to be me Phil andVic Room, but I think at the
time you had like two podcastsand an NPR show and a family and
a class and I think you justtaken a new job to the new

(43:29):
position and so I it wasoriginally.
I was like dude, I'll pay you.
I was like, what do I need youfor?
I got paid for an hour a week.
It all worked out.
It all worked out because wegot Dez and Dez has been on
quite a few times.
I've known Dez out of everybodywhich, besides Farmer Froberg,
I've known her the longest outof anybody and she is just
fantastic.
And I was noticing I wouldreach out to a lot of female

(43:51):
content creators and gardenersand they weren't always super
comfortable coming on andtalking to me and Phil and as
soon as I got Dez on, it reallyhelped kind of make them feel
warm and welcome.
It really helped with that.
And so now we've had a lot morefemale content creators and
gardeners on and we try tocreate like a open space for

(44:11):
everybody and we also want tohear different opinions because,
like you got Phil, he's theEast coast surfer.
You got Des.
She's the Austin hippie.
And again me, I'm in Houston,I'm a blue collared gardener and
so like it's really a broadspectrum of points of view.
So like I think it's a reallygood, a really good setup and it
was worked out for the best.

Speaker 1 (44:32):
It's so nice yeah, well, and something that I think
is cool and it's something thatI've kind of experienced just
through my own content creation,specifically actually through
this podcast, but just ingeneral, is the cool stuff just
for you personally, that texasgarden guys led to like
opportunities to go do shows andhave merch and like do meetups
and meet all kinds of coolpeople, but but it's also led to

(44:54):
like a new gig for you, right,like that's such a cool deal.

Speaker 2 (44:57):
Yeah, man, no, like last year, we were doing our
meetups for a couple of yearsnow where we would say, hey,
we're going to be at Jorge'snursery, everybody show up and
we're going to do a walkthrough,and this kind of led to like
every year I do more and moremeetups and we'll just do
nursery things.
And then last year, um, theTexas nursery landscape
association reached out to metake over their entire social
media, and so I got to.

(45:18):
I had no idea what I wasgetting into, by the way, I had
no idea how huge that thing wasand like they're like here,
won't you be here this time,here this time?
And I was like, oh, my God, soI'm doing it again this year.
So that is one gig thatdefinitely has been nice.
I love that.
And I've also builtrelationships with companies
that are in the green industry,like Nelson Plant Food, which I
announced last night on thepodcast that I've accepted an

(45:40):
outdoor sales position with them.
So I'll be getting to go travelaround in nurseries and plant
shops and growers and stuff andstuff that I love to do and also
make content for me and them.
So it's led to me to places thatI don't have a four-year degree
?
I don't have.
I don't have a two-year degree.
I have like a semester and ahalf of community college.
So to be able to get theseopportunities, it tells me I'm

(46:03):
doing something right.
So that's, that's all.
The people that come back everyweek and listen when you start
seeing the garden party podcastis the easiest thing I do and
it's the most fun I have becauseI don't edit anything.
I literally we hear a chord andwe go live and I get to talk to
my garden buddies once a week.
That is the most fun I have andit's the least amount of effort

(46:23):
.
It is so much fun and so tothink that has led me to be able
to get a position where it'slike a full-time job in an
industry that I love and I'mpassionate about means
everything, and I couldn't bemore grateful man.

Speaker 1 (46:36):
That's so cool.
That's so cool and it's such a.
It's a good message too, cause,like you know, we I talk about
this a lot on the show, butthere are so many ways into
plant science and into the plantindustry and, whether that's
you know, on any side of it, onthe content creation, on
nurseries, landscapes, foodproduction, like whatever it is
you want to talk about in theplant world.

(46:58):
I think that's something that'sso cool about.
You said that we have a kind ofa small knit community.
Earlier.
We may have been talking beforethe show, but it's true, like
right, we have such a coolcommunity and I think we see
people coming into it from allwalks of life and like all kinds
of places, see people cominginto it from all walks of life
and like all kinds of places,but I I have always felt like

(47:18):
our online, in person, whatever.
The plant community is sosupportive and so cool.
I feel like very littlecompetition in the in this world
.

Speaker 2 (47:26):
I think it's just such a good group of people yeah
, no, every time I, anytime Imeet anybody, I, I will say that
like me myself get awkward incertain positions, like I get a
little overwhelmed with certainthings.
I'm not, I'm a social butterfly, but like I do get awkward in
certain positions, like at theTNLA thing.

(47:47):
My wife was videoing me andwe're doing a thing and some
lady walked up behind my wifeand tapped her on the shoulder
and she was like I love yourhusband.
And my wife was like who thehell are you?
I was like, oh crap, my wife'sabout to beat some lady.
My wife is the opposite.
She doesn't like people butlike it's definitely different

(48:09):
being in situations like that.
But every time I meet, likewhen I met, met you, like it was
like we know each other.
That's the beauty of theinternet we can.
When I first started doing thepodcast thing, I was doing it
with me, jorge, and another guyand we were trying to get
together once a week in personwith schedules and everything,
and so when I found out aboutlike doing this stuff online, I

(48:30):
I was like that is a gamechanger, man, because we can
have people all around.
We've had people from likeEngland.
We've had people fromWashington on the podcast people
from Canada.
I mean it's been insane theamount of people we can get on
from around the world justthrough the Internet.
So it's so awesome, it's sofreaking cool man.

Speaker 1 (48:46):
It's very cool and you were talking about meetups
and I actually just want to plugour event because it's my
podcast.
We and I actually just want toplug our event because it's my
podcast.
We do it if obviously we should.
So let's talk about that alittle bit.
And as we record this, I'mrealizing I need to send a video
for it, make and send a videofor this to promote it.
Oh see, you're beating me,You're ahead of me.
Let's talk about Plantapaloozacoming up.

Speaker 2 (49:08):
Yeah, so I've been wanting.
I bet we've had Michael Fiorefrom Smith's Garden Town on the
podcast a couple of times andhe's a really cool,
knowledgeable guy.
And I've heard the storiesabout Smith's Garden Town
because Des is from WichitaFalls, originally Cool.
I've only spent a very brieftime in Wichita Falls and it was

(49:29):
not super enjoyable because Iwas in tech school for the Air
Force.
Oh yeah, the only thing WichitaFalls is really good for is
Oklahoma's people coming over toget 4.0 beer instead of 3.2.
Other than that, it's a bit ofa garden town.
So I've heard good things andwe've been planning on doing
something for a while now and wekind of just bit the bullet and
said, hey, we're just going tomake it happen, we're going to

(49:49):
make it happen.
It's a halfway.
It's kind of like a halfwaypoint for both of us because
you're in lubbock, but I plan ondoing some things in the way up
to make a weekend out of it.
So it's going to be a good time.
We're going to have giveaways,we're going to do some live
streams.
It's a nice place, like peoplein the dallas area, because I
never go that far.
I never go that far north sureso it's a good opportunity for
people like in the oklahoma areathere are south oklahoma,

(50:10):
dallas and that area to kind ofmake it their way up there and
come hang out, and it's notgoing to be too hot yet,
hopefully.

Speaker 1 (50:16):
Yeah, hopefully, if we're lucky.

Speaker 2 (50:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (50:19):
But yeah, so that's May 31st at Smith's Garden Town,
absolutely In Wichita Falls.
Do you know what the times are?
I don't remember the times forit.

Speaker 2 (50:27):
I think it's going to be like the duration of the
time it's open.
I think it's like maybe like 10to 2 or something, but like
we'll be there all day.
So I mean, people show up,we'll be there.
Yeah, they'll have all of us.
It'll be me.
You Gardening with Des.
Michael Felicia will be there.
The real brains behind theoperation at Smith's Garden Town
is Felicia 100%, 100%.
She's what makes thatmultimedia empire go around.

(50:52):
But have you been there before?
Have you been there?
I have not and I'm excited to gosee it, yeah yeah, it's
supposed to be huge, so I'mexcited to go there and I'm sure
I'll be leaving with someplants, obviously oh, I was
thinking about that and I've gotto kind of, so I'll be making a
big loop.

Speaker 1 (51:08):
I've got like a work thing in kroll a couple of days
before, which is just a it's inthe middle of nowhere, like like
an hour west of Wichita Falls,and then I'm probably going to
go see my dad in the Metroplexafter.
But I'm like, how do I buyplants to take home and keep
them alive in the back of thepickup for a couple of days?
And like I just have to take atarp.
It'll be fine, we'll work itout.

Speaker 2 (51:28):
Just be Get some heat tolerant plants, it'd be all
right.
They like a little humidity inthe backseat.

Speaker 1 (51:33):
Yeah, it'd be great.
It'd be great.

Speaker 2 (51:34):
Let's do what I did Buy small plants.

Speaker 1 (51:36):
Yeah, and I can like tuck in all the corners between
stuff.
It's perfect.

Speaker 2 (51:39):
Absolutely.
Yeah, I mean it'll be excitingbecause we've met up at TNLA but
you were kind of busy with likeyour booth.
It's like we plan on doing likesome kind of live stream.
I want to do like a makeshiftgarden party.
We'll see how we can go.
I know my wife wants to go tothe casino before we go, so
she's going to spend all myplant money before we go to the

(52:00):
meetup.

Speaker 1 (52:00):
So there you go, or maybe she'll win you a whole
bunch more plant money.

Speaker 2 (52:04):
Or maybe she'll win me some plant money.

Speaker 1 (52:06):
We're going to go with that.

Speaker 2 (52:07):
That's true.

Speaker 1 (52:15):
Think positive man.
I'm well, I'm excited about it,I'm excited to hang out and I
just appreciate your time andyou coming on and chatting we.
It was too.
We waited too long to do this,but I'm glad we get to do it now
.
It was a lot of fun absolutelydo it.

Speaker 2 (52:23):
Anytime, man, and you're all, you're always
welcome.
If you want to be a permanentmember of the garden party,
we'll make it happen you maytalk me into it someday.

Speaker 1 (52:30):
we'll see, we'll see.
But plug your stuff.
Tell us where all we can findoh wait, no wait, don't do that
yet.
I forgot.
I almost forgot.
I have done this podcast forsix years and at the end of
every episode I ask my guestsfor a piece of advice, and you
would have been the first one Iforgot because I got so into
chatting about stuff.
But whatever it is, it can beabout gardening, just about life

(52:52):
in general.
If there was like a thing youwanted our audience to take with
them, what would that be?

Speaker 2 (52:58):
Man, that's a great question and I have been told by
many teachers that I am adistraction to the others around
me.
So you would not be the firstperson you're not the first
teacher that told me I'm adistraction.
The thing I always tell peopleis start small with gardening,
whether it's smart.
We kind of touched on this inthe beginning of the podcast.
Start small when you're goingto garden and start out with

(53:22):
stuff you're going to eat.
If you don't like okra, thendon't buy okra.
Obviously there'll be someonein your family who will eat it.
But I think you've touched onthis a couple of times in your
podcast about growing stuff andit's just going to waste Like
it's just a waste of food.
It's food waste.
It's a big deal that.
And set up a compost pile.
Set up some kind of compost foryour food scraps like that I
have.
I have reduced so much stuffthat I throw out, including like

(53:44):
cardboard and paper.
We shred a lot of cardboard andpaper.
It's my compost.
We've reduced so much.
We throw away by composting alot of stuff.
So don't buy so much and try tocompost stuff so cool.

Speaker 1 (53:56):
That's awesome.
Yeah, it's great advice, greatadvice.
Okay, now tell us where all wecan find you.

Speaker 2 (54:02):
Dude, I am the Texas Garden Guy on all the platforms
and the Catch the Garden Partypodcast with Vikram Soon on the
Texas Garden Guy YouTube channelor the Facebook page every
Wednesday night at 7 pm CentralStandard Time.
And we actually just created agarden party Facebook group
which I believe has about 600members already now.

Speaker 1 (54:22):
Wow, that's awesome.

Speaker 2 (54:23):
We're building like a little community, so like if we
don't get to your questions onthe podcast, then you can
definitely go ask it on there,and then people can, kind of
we're trying to build acommunity of people who can help
each other out.
So it's so.
I hate that people will onlydepend on us for answering
questions.
We should be a little moreself-sufficient by helping each
other out.
So I think that's what thecommunity we're trying to build.

Speaker 1 (54:44):
Very cool.
That's awesome.
Well, man, I enjoyed it.
That was a lot of fun and I'mexcited about seeing you soon.

Speaker 2 (54:50):
Yeah man, Two weeks from now this comes out.

Speaker 1 (54:53):
I think Destin's advice is excellent Start small,
but also don't be scared ofgardening.
Just give it a try.
What's the worst that you do?
You kill some tomatoes.
I've killed some tomatoes.
I've killed a lot of tomatoes.
But again, if you would like tocome meet me and Destin
especially Destin, he's coolerthan I am Come see us at
Plantapalooza 2025 at Smith'sGarden Town on May 31st 2025.
But aside from all that, thankyou so much for listening.

(55:15):
Thanks for being a part ofPlanthropology.
You know I love you folks.
You know that I do this for you.
Planthropology is written,produced, hosted all of the
things by me, yours truly,Vikram Baliga.
Our opening music and closingmusic is by the award-winning
composer, Nick Scout, and ourmid-roll music is by my good
buddy, Rui and his wonderfullo-fi dad beats.

(55:37):
Thanks for listening.
Thanks for being a part of it.
Again, Keep being kind to oneanother.
If you have not yet been kindto one another, give that a try.
We could use a lot more of it.
Thanks for being really coolplant people.
Keep doing that too, and I willtalk to you very, very soon.
Thank you.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang

Dateline NBC

24/7 News: The Latest

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}119. Plant Hoarding, the Garden Party, and Being an Influencer w/ Destin Noak

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang

Dateline NBC

24/7 News: The Latest

All Episodes

119. Plant Hoarding, the Garden Party, and Being an Influencer w/ Destin Noak

Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang