September 2, 2024 • 21 mins
In this episode Janey welcomes Angela to discuss vermicomposting otherwise known as worm composting. They talk about using this method specifically in garden beds - worms are surprisingly smart and giving them space allows them to move to the conditions they need to survive, thrive and give your garden incredible benefits, like improving soil texture, structure and aeration, increasing nutrients and more! Worm castings (worm poop) also contribute to faster plant growth and can prevent plant disease.
Listen to learn how you can add this amazing, natural method to your garden beds!
Angela Judd has been a Master Gardener since 2015 and is dedicated to teaching desert gardening through her website,"Growing in the Garden", as well as YouTube, Instagram, and her monthly online class, "Growing in the Garden Academy." She authored "How to Grow Your Own Food" and created planting guides for low desert gardening. Her mission is to help others succeed in challenging growing conditions!
For more from Angela:
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Vermicomposting Made Easy Article
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Dig, Plant, Water, Repeat is produced in association with Caloroga Shark Media. Hear other shows from Caloroga Shark along with subscription info and Merch with free shipping here!
Listen to learn how you can add this amazing, natural method to your garden beds!
Angela Judd has been a Master Gardener since 2015 and is dedicated to teaching desert gardening through her website,"Growing in the Garden", as well as YouTube, Instagram, and her monthly online class, "Growing in the Garden Academy." She authored "How to Grow Your Own Food" and created planting guides for low desert gardening. Her mission is to help others succeed in challenging growing conditions!
For more from Angela:
YouTube
Vermicomposting Made Easy Article
Love what you’re hearing?
Make sure to check out more from Janey:
Store
YouTube
Dig, Plant, Water, Repeat is produced in association with Caloroga Shark Media. Hear other shows from Caloroga Shark along with subscription info and Merch with free shipping here!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Support for this podcast comes from Proven Winners, the plant
brand that gardeners of all experienced levels trust the most,
and the brand that I have personally trusted in my
own gardening journey since twenty twenty. Proven Winners selections, including annuals, perennials, shrubs, trees, bulbs,
and even houseplants are simply amazing and all are trialed, tested,
(00:22):
and specifically chosen for one purpose and one purpose only
to ensure gardener success. Visit Provenwinners dot com and find
your next favorite plant today.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Callarogashawk Media.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Hi everyone, Janie here, Welcome back to my garden and
welcome back to the Dig Plant, Water Repeat podcast. Today
on the podcast, I have Angela Judge. She is master gardener, teacher,
author of the book How to Grow Your Own Food,
and creator of Growing in the Garden, a hugely successful
YouTube and Instagram channel focused on desert gardening.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
Did I get that right?
Speaker 4 (01:15):
Angela sounds great? Yay?
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Well, welcome, Thank you so much for being on the
podcast today.
Speaker 4 (01:21):
I'm happy to be here, thank you.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
So, give me a little bit about your background. You
you live in Arizona, right, and it's it's hot.
Speaker 4 (01:29):
It's hot there, right, not all parts of Arizona are
a pretty diverse state. But the part I'm in Phoenix
area is considered the low desert and so that desert
part will tell you what you need to know. It
is it is hot here, and so we have different challenges.
Every area has challenges, are different, so we have some
(01:50):
benefits too.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
So you're still doing it.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
I mean on your YouTube channel, your Instagram, your garden
is lush and beautiful. And had you not told me
that you lived in Arizona, I don't think I would
have believed you like it's I mean, it's gorgeous. So
tell me how did you get into gardening? How did
this whole thing for you start?
Speaker 4 (02:11):
Well, I have early memories. I think it's one of
those you know, the seeds are planted when you're young,
you know. I have early memories with my grandparents actually
in Indiana, when we would go visit them, and I
always kind of had an interest. And then we moved
back to Arizona in two thousand and eight and we
finally had a backyard and there was room, and so
(02:34):
I just started growing and really struggled actually quite a bit,
trying to figure things out. And is that initial struggle
really sparked a desire to learn more. I eventually found
the Master Gardener program and kind of found the resources
for learning, but it was difficult, and so that's kind
(02:56):
of I always remember that new gardener in me, and
that's who I speak to, is just like, Hey, you
can do this, but let me let me show you how,
and some of it might be different than what you're
used to, and so I really just try and share
what I'm learning and share, you know, the possibilities of
what you can do in our climate.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
Yeah, I mean I think that that's huge. And you
always say that you love helping gardeners succeed even in
tough conditions, and I mean, yeah, you're talking about tough conditions.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
Tell me about some of the hurdles that you have
to go through.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
I mean obviously the heat, but I mean tell me
about what you have to go through as a desert gardener,
what you have to do to grow food there.
Speaker 4 (03:38):
Well, it's interesting. I had some experiences this summer with gardeners,
you know, from all across the country. You kind of
gather at different things, and each time someone saw my
tag and it said Arizona, their guttural reaction was ooh, yeah,
I tried. At first, I was like, oh, yeah, it's hard.
But then I was like, hey, wait a minute, be nice. Yeah,
(04:02):
so you know, there are there are challenges we have.
We don't have some challenges that other places have. And
I like to say that, you know, our summer is
like other people's winter. You know, obviously you're not going
to try and garden in the middle of the winter. Unfortunately,
we do try and garden in the middle of the summer.
So it really is the high heat. You know, yesterday
was one hundred and ten, low humidity, generally low rainfall,
(04:25):
intense sunlight, you know, short growing seasons, not great soil
soil for desert, you know, client desert adapted things, but
as far as growing fruits and vegetables, it's a challenge.
So you know, all of those things kind of together
make it challenging. But again, I'm an optimist. And although
(04:46):
in the middle of the summer, I'm like, what iverythink
my life every summer?
Speaker 3 (04:49):
And yeah, you know, I'm razy.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
I'm right there with you because we've we're triple digits
in you know, in July and August, and I'm like,
what am I doing here?
Speaker 4 (05:00):
It's tough because our like our lows are in the
nineties a lot of times, and so we don't cool off.
And I think that is the other part of it,
that when you're not from here that surprises people that
our mornings and evenings aren't cool and we're hot into
October and it starts, you know, in May, and so
if that part of it is a challenge.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
So what you know, prime, what's your prime growing season?
Like you know, for me, it would be like may
you know what I mean, April and May is prime?
Like what's your peak season in Arizona.
Speaker 4 (05:33):
So we are coming into it right now. We're coming
into I would say mid September. Once those nighttime temperatures
kind of get in the seventies, then we're like, okay,
it's go time. So it's mid September and October are
kind of our key planting times. It's funny, I just
taught you I have an online class. I just my
class this morning met with all of them and we
were talking about the different seasons in Arizona and kind
(05:56):
of trying to boy people up after this season that
we're just kind of going through. But we have a
lot of little seasons that we try and basically do
the best we can within that season. You know, we're
in kind of this monsoon season, which is a second
opportunity to plant warm season crops that we try and
take advantage of because our spring season, where we can
(06:16):
plant warm season crops often gets cut short by hot
weather that you know, warm season crops don't like. So
we just kind of do the best we can within
those seasons. But we're definitely coming into you know, the
everyone's starting to look a little you know, the anticipation
is there that Again, it was one hundred and ten yesterday,
so it's not we're not there yet.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
You guys are standing on hot zombies, but we're getting closer.
I love, you know, I love hearing about the different calendar.
I mean because Florida is kind of the same way.
They kind of run on, yeah, run on a different
growing calendar than most of the country, and it kind
of hearing that it kind of opened my eyes that like,
(06:58):
even where I live in northern California, we have a
different growing season as well. You have to be very
very regional to have the most success, which is fabulous.
So you have a online class called Growing in the
Garden Academy. Is that right, And is that focused on
desert gardening or just general gardening.
Speaker 4 (07:18):
No, it's pretty specific to Arizona and hot climates. I
have people from other parts of the country and actually
other parts of the world that have similar climates to us,
but it's focused on, you know, really hot climate gardening,
different topics each month. And then as part of that,
a lot of them get my journal, where I talk about, Okay,
this is exactly you know, these are the seeds I'm
(07:39):
starting indoors right now. This is kind of looking ahead,
and so they can you know, use it to plan,
help them plan. So that's just another tool that people
can use to kind of follow along. And I'm really
open in that group. I know, people laugh about Instagram
and it's just like, oh, it's everyone showing how great
everything is, and I'm like my garden journal's kind of
(08:00):
the opposite. It's like, Okay, this died, this died. I
got this bug, this bug, this bug, but this is
what I'm doing about it. And remember that thing I planted,
this is how it's doing. So this is a place
for me to really just be open and kind of
share the success's failures and what I'm learning from that.
Oh that is that classes are great.
Speaker 3 (08:20):
It's fun.
Speaker 4 (08:20):
It's a lot of fun.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
Yeah, I mean that must that's worth its weight in gold.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
Like I can imagine as somebody to live, well, somebody
who lives in the desert, because you know, it's hard
to find information that regional. So I mean, like it's
just fabulous. I'm just I'm so impressed that you do that.
So Angela, you are would you call yourself a veggie gardener?
I mean, I know you do it all, but you
you your passion is veggies.
Speaker 4 (08:45):
Would you say, yeah, I would say I think that's
the thing we can really grow here. As I looked around,
you know, other parts of the country, it really is
more about you know, these beautiful flowering shrubs and perennials,
and it's tough for us to have that. We just don't.
It's different here. Yeah, so there's some of that, but
I think that's where we have our opportunity is with
(09:07):
a lot of these annuals. So we do you know,
I do a lot of fruit trees, I do a
lot of flowers, and I do a lot of vegetables,
and yeah, that's kind of my focus. A lot of edibles,
I think is okay.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
And so so I saw a reel that you put
on Instagram that was your garden beds. You had put
a verma composter, a worm composter in your garden bed,
which I mean this reel was fabulous. I felt like
I took a whole class in sixty seconds or something.
So can you tell us a little bit about that, Like,
first of all, like what is vermicom posting? How do
(09:40):
you get started and putting it in your garden bed?
That's so interesting?
Speaker 4 (09:44):
Well, that was born out of necessity, you know, because
I wanted to do vermic composting. The benefits of worm
castings for your garden, especially when you make it yourself.
You know, the fresher the better, the more microbial activity,
the better, you know, And it really is, we do
need such nutrients, rich good soil in order to grow things.
And so I got my firmicomposting bin outside of my
(10:07):
bin garden and they all died because it got too hot.
And at the time, I had four boys at home
in my house. They've three of them have since, you know,
grown up a little bit and moved out. But I
don't want to bring anything else like that into I'm like,
I don't want worms in my house. I have enough
that going on. And so I had seen this. I
(10:30):
work a lot with Arizona Worm Farm and I had
seen they had a kind of a sample one and
I said, hey, Zach, he's the owner. I said, tell
me more about that, and how does that work? And basically,
the worms are really smart and if they're in a bin,
they have no If they're in like a tub outside
of the garden, if the conditions are bad, they have
no place to go. They're going to die. But if
(10:52):
we put them in our beds, as long as it's
not an elevated bed, you know, if it's connected to
the ground, if the conditions aren't good, they can leave
the bin and find cooler conditions and so that way
they're able to stay alive. And this is a really
effective method even for cold climates because they kind of
do the opposite thing. They'll kind of mult it really
(11:13):
well in the winter and then they'll kind of burrow
down and then become more active. Where in our summers,
you know, there's not a lot of worm activity happening
in those bins. I still put food scraps. Basically, what
the let me explain what it is. I guess. So
it's an area in my in my garden bed I
kind of devote you know, one square my square foot
(11:33):
garden where it's kind of hollowed out, and I make
a worm habitat, you know, with the wood chips and
then the worms, and then I feed the worms and
then cover that with browns again more wood chips, and
the worms eat the food create worm castings. I can
either just leave those castings in the garden. They help
that garden bed. I can harvest them whatever I want
(11:54):
to do. But in the summer, when conditions aren't good
and it's hot a lot of times, the worm will
burrow down and be less active during the summer. But
then it's nighttime temperatures especially come down, the worms will return.
And it's just a really good system that promotes a
lot of micro realactivity in your beds and makes them
very fertile. I don't use a lot of fertilizer. I
(12:17):
rely a lot on compost and worm castings in my garden.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
Wow, that is just so cool, Angela.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
We have to take a quick break to hear from
our sponsor, but we'll be back in just one second. Okay,
all right everyone, we are back with the Digplant Water
Repeat podcast.
Speaker 3 (12:39):
Welcome back. We have Angela a jud from Growing in
the Garden.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
She is a master gardener, teacher, author and creator of
Growing in the Garden, which is focused on desert gardening. Angela,
we're talking about vermic composting in garden beds, and you're
just blowing my mind right now. So just as a
quick recap, it's basically having a worm bin in your
garden bed, which is which is amazing, Like, it's just
(13:06):
so interesting. I've kind of heard about it a little
bit before, but kind of ignored it, and then when
I saw you talk about it on Instagram, I was like, wow,
that that definitely definitely makes sense. So tell me how
how do you get your worms? Where do the worms
come from?
Speaker 4 (13:22):
So red wigglers are the best for this type of
comp for composting really in general. So I Arizona Worm Farm.
It's a local company that is really fabulous, really a
great resource for here in Arizona. And so I get
them from them, and you really you just have to
add the worms the one time and they again make
(13:45):
them right in the beds. The bin is really only
for us. The bin is so I know where they'll
be and I so I can add it if we
wanted to, we could just bury scraps anywhere in the
bed and the worms would take care of it. Been
having a bin, yeah, they they would obviously, you know,
they would take care of it, but having a bin
kind of keeps it centralized. So I know, Okay, this
is where I'm adding food, and this is also where
(14:07):
I can get the worm castings.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
The worm cast and to be specific, worm castings are
worm poop, that's right. Yeah, that's what they make. And
they are nutrient like microbial active like that is. And
it's wonderful. It's gold for your garden, especially fresh. The
fresher the better, and you can't get fresher than making
(14:30):
it yourself in your garden and just having them live,
work reproduced right in your garden. It does a lot
of good things.
Speaker 4 (14:37):
We need our plants to be healthy and have a
strong root system and they're more resistant to pess. You know,
worm castings, there are so many benefits from them, and
having it in the bin in the beds really makes
a lot of sense.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
Yeah, yeah, that's huge. Do you have it in every
single garden bend?
Speaker 4 (14:55):
That you have. Yeah, I try to every now and
then I'll i'll do a bed and I'm like, oh wait,
I forgot to put a bin in. So this fall
I'm making sure that I'm adding them to a couple
that I forgot, and I will refresh them, you know,
as I refill my beds up with composts and things.
Sometimes I'll move it to a different location and the
bin can be anything, you know, hardware cloth shaped kind
(15:18):
of in a circle works. Basically, you want nice and
deep and porous is the idea.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
So the worst Okay, when I saw your real it
almost looked like it was like a wire mesh garbage can.
Speaker 4 (15:30):
It was a dollar a dollar store garbage like it
was it is. It looked like that because that's exactly
what it was. What it was. That's amazing, exactly what
it is. I prefer actually one that's a little bit deeper,
So those I use those sometimes, but my preference is
because my beds are deeper. I like it to be
(15:50):
bottomless and deeper. But those also, those work really well.
Those they do work.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
That's so funny.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
I was like slowing it down and trying to look
and see exactly what it was I was like, I can't,
and then so you just stuck that in the hole
and then you filled it with worms, filled it with
some food scraps and shredded cardboard.
Speaker 3 (16:12):
That's your brown.
Speaker 4 (16:13):
You can use. Shredded cardboard you can use. I have
a lot of wood chips in my garden areas, and
so I've kind of transitioned. I'm just trying to be
I don't want lazy. I'm not going to call myself lazy, resource, sourceful, efficient,
I think it's the word I'm going. I'm going to
go with efficient. And so I have a lot of
wood chips, and that to me, has been an easier
(16:34):
method to have to use the wood chips. But yeah,
you can use it's a great way to the wood chips.
For me, has has been effective. And then I topping
it also with the woodchips as the layer of brown.
It's basically a little bit like composting in your beds.
Speaker 3 (16:50):
And then do you put food scraps in there for
them to eat?
Speaker 4 (16:54):
Okay, So then I put food scraps in and then
I put the wood chips on top. And then you'll
see because I don't put lids on mine, so you'll
see that level go down, and then I'll be like, okay,
it's time to feed the worms and pull back the
wood chips and add some more food scraps, cover it
back up with wood chips. Yeah, after a while they'll
(17:15):
be it'll be you know, fewer worms and lots of castings.
And that's when I'll get out my bucket and just
fill it up with these. I just I get so
giddy every time. I'm like, this really works. These look
at these these are and it's just you know, it's
so good and so healthy. And then I'll spread those
around the bed, take them to my containers, and I
(17:37):
love it nothing better, you know, because you know how
fresh and good it is.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
I know it makes and you can buy worm castings
for pretty expensive at the garden center, but like you said,
they're not fresh. They're not fresh, and they're not out
of your garden, and they're not using your resources, which
is you know, which is what you want, which is
I mean, it's just so cool, I have to say, Angela,
I've been so turned off. I actually have a worm
(18:03):
vermic composting bin that I purchased. It's in my garage
and I haven't used it because I've been so afraid
of the worms leaving, like if it's a bad environment,
they leave, and I'm scared that I'm gonna have worms everywhere, right,
so i haven't been doing it. But this it's like, okay,
well if they leave, they're in my garden bed, like
(18:23):
that's where I want them to be. So this is
to me, this is a really accessible way of starting
vermic composting. And the way that you explain it makes
it like super easy, like I can do that. So
I think that this is great, very exciting.
Speaker 4 (18:39):
It is. It is really and the worms are smart,
you know, smart enough, right, the worms are smart enough
to leave that bed if you've not done a good
job with it, and you know, and they'll come back
when when conditions are right, or if it's too hot
or too cold, And so I think it's for it's
pretty you know. I killed, like I say, I killed
(19:00):
that thing of worms and I felt so bad. I
was like like, not only are they they're expensive, it's
not you know, they're expensive, but also you just feel.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
Bad you're killing something. You're killing something. Yeah, No, I
think that's huge. I've heard horror stories of people like
in hot environments. I live in a hot environment, and
they recommend here putting it underneath your sink in your kitchen,
and I've heard horror stories about worms escaping and being
all over your kitchen and I'm like, I'm not.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
Doing that, absolutely not.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
So yeah, so this is a good this is this
is a solution I can handle. So where can we
find more information from you? So you have your Growing
in the Garden Academy that people can sign up, you
have your website. Where else can we find you?
Speaker 4 (19:47):
Yeah? So my main place, I would say is Growing
in Thegarden dot com. That's my website. That's and you
can kind of link to everything from there. But it's
Growing in the Garden really on all social channels on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok. Yeah,
just Growing in the Garden. Love it.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
You're awesome and I love that you're a desert gardener.
And I just feel like you're opening everyone's eyes, Like
you don't even have to be a desert gardener to
listen to what you have to say, because you have
such good advice for everybody, you know what I mean,
just for adverse conditions.
Speaker 4 (20:19):
So that Martin Bear is smaller, so we have to
be on our game.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
You have to do it. You have to be good.
Speaker 4 (20:26):
Well, you have to try.
Speaker 3 (20:28):
Yeah, you have to try.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
Well. Thank you so much Angela for being here. I
appreciate it. I hope you all enjoyed listening, and I
hope you all have a chance to get in your
garden today. Thank you so much to my podcast sponsor,
Proven Winners. Visit your local garden center today and look
for the white containers featuring the Proven Winner's logo. There's
(20:51):
a reason they're the number one plant brand that gardeners
like me trust the most. Visit Proven Winners dot com
for tips, ideas, and so much more. Dig Plant Water
Repeat is produced in association with Calaroga Shark Media. It
was written and hosted by me Janie Santos, with marketing
and production assistants from Courtney Clark. Please consider subscribing and
(21:15):
watch us on YouTube or follow us on your favorite
podcast app of choice to get alerts on all new episodes.
And hey, if you liked the show, give us a
review and hit those five stars on Apple. Executive producers
are Mark Francis, John McDermott and Janie Santos
Speaker 2 (21:36):
Callarogashawk Media
Support for this podcast comes from Proven Winners, the plant
brand that gardeners of all experienced levels trust the most,
and the brand that I have personally trusted in my
own gardening journey since twenty twenty. Proven Winners selections, including annuals, perennials, shrubs, trees, bulbs,
and even houseplants are simply amazing and all are trialed, tested,
(00:22):
and specifically chosen for one purpose and one purpose only
to ensure gardener success. Visit Provenwinners dot com and find
your next favorite plant today.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Callarogashawk Media.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Hi everyone, Janie here, Welcome back to my garden and
welcome back to the Dig Plant, Water Repeat podcast. Today
on the podcast, I have Angela Judge. She is master gardener, teacher,
author of the book How to Grow Your Own Food,
and creator of Growing in the Garden, a hugely successful
YouTube and Instagram channel focused on desert gardening.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
Did I get that right?
Speaker 4 (01:15):
Angela sounds great? Yay?
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Well, welcome, Thank you so much for being on the
podcast today.
Speaker 4 (01:21):
I'm happy to be here, thank you.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
So, give me a little bit about your background. You
you live in Arizona, right, and it's it's hot.
Speaker 4 (01:29):
It's hot there, right, not all parts of Arizona are
a pretty diverse state. But the part I'm in Phoenix
area is considered the low desert and so that desert
part will tell you what you need to know. It
is it is hot here, and so we have different challenges.
Every area has challenges, are different, so we have some
(01:50):
benefits too.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
So you're still doing it.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
I mean on your YouTube channel, your Instagram, your garden
is lush and beautiful. And had you not told me
that you lived in Arizona, I don't think I would
have believed you like it's I mean, it's gorgeous. So
tell me how did you get into gardening? How did
this whole thing for you start?
Speaker 4 (02:11):
Well, I have early memories. I think it's one of
those you know, the seeds are planted when you're young,
you know. I have early memories with my grandparents actually
in Indiana, when we would go visit them, and I
always kind of had an interest. And then we moved
back to Arizona in two thousand and eight and we
finally had a backyard and there was room, and so
(02:34):
I just started growing and really struggled actually quite a bit,
trying to figure things out. And is that initial struggle
really sparked a desire to learn more. I eventually found
the Master Gardener program and kind of found the resources
for learning, but it was difficult, and so that's kind
(02:56):
of I always remember that new gardener in me, and
that's who I speak to, is just like, Hey, you
can do this, but let me let me show you how,
and some of it might be different than what you're
used to, and so I really just try and share
what I'm learning and share, you know, the possibilities of
what you can do in our climate.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
Yeah, I mean I think that that's huge. And you
always say that you love helping gardeners succeed even in
tough conditions, and I mean, yeah, you're talking about tough conditions.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
Tell me about some of the hurdles that you have
to go through.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
I mean obviously the heat, but I mean tell me
about what you have to go through as a desert gardener,
what you have to do to grow food there.
Speaker 4 (03:38):
Well, it's interesting. I had some experiences this summer with gardeners,
you know, from all across the country. You kind of
gather at different things, and each time someone saw my
tag and it said Arizona, their guttural reaction was ooh, yeah,
I tried. At first, I was like, oh, yeah, it's hard.
But then I was like, hey, wait a minute, be nice. Yeah,
(04:02):
so you know, there are there are challenges we have.
We don't have some challenges that other places have. And
I like to say that, you know, our summer is
like other people's winter. You know, obviously you're not going
to try and garden in the middle of the winter. Unfortunately,
we do try and garden in the middle of the summer.
So it really is the high heat. You know, yesterday
was one hundred and ten, low humidity, generally low rainfall,
(04:25):
intense sunlight, you know, short growing seasons, not great soil
soil for desert, you know, client desert adapted things, but
as far as growing fruits and vegetables, it's a challenge.
So you know, all of those things kind of together
make it challenging. But again, I'm an optimist. And although
(04:46):
in the middle of the summer, I'm like, what iverythink
my life every summer?
Speaker 3 (04:49):
And yeah, you know, I'm razy.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
I'm right there with you because we've we're triple digits
in you know, in July and August, and I'm like,
what am I doing here?
Speaker 4 (05:00):
It's tough because our like our lows are in the
nineties a lot of times, and so we don't cool off.
And I think that is the other part of it,
that when you're not from here that surprises people that
our mornings and evenings aren't cool and we're hot into
October and it starts, you know, in May, and so
if that part of it is a challenge.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
So what you know, prime, what's your prime growing season?
Like you know, for me, it would be like may
you know what I mean, April and May is prime?
Like what's your peak season in Arizona.
Speaker 4 (05:33):
So we are coming into it right now. We're coming
into I would say mid September. Once those nighttime temperatures
kind of get in the seventies, then we're like, okay,
it's go time. So it's mid September and October are
kind of our key planting times. It's funny, I just
taught you I have an online class. I just my
class this morning met with all of them and we
were talking about the different seasons in Arizona and kind
(05:56):
of trying to boy people up after this season that
we're just kind of going through. But we have a
lot of little seasons that we try and basically do
the best we can within that season. You know, we're
in kind of this monsoon season, which is a second
opportunity to plant warm season crops that we try and
take advantage of because our spring season, where we can
(06:16):
plant warm season crops often gets cut short by hot
weather that you know, warm season crops don't like. So
we just kind of do the best we can within
those seasons. But we're definitely coming into you know, the
everyone's starting to look a little you know, the anticipation
is there that Again, it was one hundred and ten yesterday,
so it's not we're not there yet.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
You guys are standing on hot zombies, but we're getting closer.
I love, you know, I love hearing about the different calendar.
I mean because Florida is kind of the same way.
They kind of run on, yeah, run on a different
growing calendar than most of the country, and it kind
of hearing that it kind of opened my eyes that like,
(06:58):
even where I live in northern California, we have a
different growing season as well. You have to be very
very regional to have the most success, which is fabulous.
So you have a online class called Growing in the
Garden Academy. Is that right, And is that focused on
desert gardening or just general gardening.
Speaker 4 (07:18):
No, it's pretty specific to Arizona and hot climates. I
have people from other parts of the country and actually
other parts of the world that have similar climates to us,
but it's focused on, you know, really hot climate gardening,
different topics each month. And then as part of that,
a lot of them get my journal, where I talk about, Okay,
this is exactly you know, these are the seeds I'm
(07:39):
starting indoors right now. This is kind of looking ahead,
and so they can you know, use it to plan,
help them plan. So that's just another tool that people
can use to kind of follow along. And I'm really
open in that group. I know, people laugh about Instagram
and it's just like, oh, it's everyone showing how great
everything is, and I'm like my garden journal's kind of
(08:00):
the opposite. It's like, Okay, this died, this died. I
got this bug, this bug, this bug, but this is
what I'm doing about it. And remember that thing I planted,
this is how it's doing. So this is a place
for me to really just be open and kind of
share the success's failures and what I'm learning from that.
Oh that is that classes are great.
Speaker 3 (08:20):
It's fun.
Speaker 4 (08:20):
It's a lot of fun.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
Yeah, I mean that must that's worth its weight in gold.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
Like I can imagine as somebody to live, well, somebody
who lives in the desert, because you know, it's hard
to find information that regional. So I mean, like it's
just fabulous. I'm just I'm so impressed that you do that.
So Angela, you are would you call yourself a veggie gardener?
I mean, I know you do it all, but you
you your passion is veggies.
Speaker 4 (08:45):
Would you say, yeah, I would say I think that's
the thing we can really grow here. As I looked around,
you know, other parts of the country, it really is
more about you know, these beautiful flowering shrubs and perennials,
and it's tough for us to have that. We just don't.
It's different here. Yeah, so there's some of that, but
I think that's where we have our opportunity is with
(09:07):
a lot of these annuals. So we do you know,
I do a lot of fruit trees, I do a
lot of flowers, and I do a lot of vegetables,
and yeah, that's kind of my focus. A lot of edibles,
I think is okay.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
And so so I saw a reel that you put
on Instagram that was your garden beds. You had put
a verma composter, a worm composter in your garden bed,
which I mean this reel was fabulous. I felt like
I took a whole class in sixty seconds or something.
So can you tell us a little bit about that, Like,
first of all, like what is vermicom posting? How do
(09:40):
you get started and putting it in your garden bed?
That's so interesting?
Speaker 4 (09:44):
Well, that was born out of necessity, you know, because
I wanted to do vermic composting. The benefits of worm
castings for your garden, especially when you make it yourself.
You know, the fresher the better, the more microbial activity,
the better, you know, And it really is, we do
need such nutrients, rich good soil in order to grow things.
And so I got my firmicomposting bin outside of my
(10:07):
bin garden and they all died because it got too hot.
And at the time, I had four boys at home
in my house. They've three of them have since, you know,
grown up a little bit and moved out. But I
don't want to bring anything else like that into I'm like,
I don't want worms in my house. I have enough
that going on. And so I had seen this. I
(10:30):
work a lot with Arizona Worm Farm and I had
seen they had a kind of a sample one and
I said, hey, Zach, he's the owner. I said, tell
me more about that, and how does that work? And basically,
the worms are really smart and if they're in a bin,
they have no If they're in like a tub outside
of the garden, if the conditions are bad, they have
no place to go. They're going to die. But if
(10:52):
we put them in our beds, as long as it's
not an elevated bed, you know, if it's connected to
the ground, if the conditions aren't good, they can leave
the bin and find cooler conditions and so that way
they're able to stay alive. And this is a really
effective method even for cold climates because they kind of
do the opposite thing. They'll kind of mult it really
(11:13):
well in the winter and then they'll kind of burrow
down and then become more active. Where in our summers,
you know, there's not a lot of worm activity happening
in those bins. I still put food scraps. Basically, what
the let me explain what it is. I guess. So
it's an area in my in my garden bed I
kind of devote you know, one square my square foot
(11:33):
garden where it's kind of hollowed out, and I make
a worm habitat, you know, with the wood chips and
then the worms, and then I feed the worms and
then cover that with browns again more wood chips, and
the worms eat the food create worm castings. I can
either just leave those castings in the garden. They help
that garden bed. I can harvest them whatever I want
(11:54):
to do. But in the summer, when conditions aren't good
and it's hot a lot of times, the worm will
burrow down and be less active during the summer. But
then it's nighttime temperatures especially come down, the worms will return.
And it's just a really good system that promotes a
lot of micro realactivity in your beds and makes them
very fertile. I don't use a lot of fertilizer. I
(12:17):
rely a lot on compost and worm castings in my garden.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
Wow, that is just so cool, Angela.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
We have to take a quick break to hear from
our sponsor, but we'll be back in just one second. Okay,
all right everyone, we are back with the Digplant Water
Repeat podcast.
Speaker 3 (12:39):
Welcome back. We have Angela a jud from Growing in
the Garden.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
She is a master gardener, teacher, author and creator of
Growing in the Garden, which is focused on desert gardening. Angela,
we're talking about vermic composting in garden beds, and you're
just blowing my mind right now. So just as a
quick recap, it's basically having a worm bin in your
garden bed, which is which is amazing, Like, it's just
(13:06):
so interesting. I've kind of heard about it a little
bit before, but kind of ignored it, and then when
I saw you talk about it on Instagram, I was like, wow,
that that definitely definitely makes sense. So tell me how
how do you get your worms? Where do the worms
come from?
Speaker 4 (13:22):
So red wigglers are the best for this type of
comp for composting really in general. So I Arizona Worm Farm.
It's a local company that is really fabulous, really a
great resource for here in Arizona. And so I get
them from them, and you really you just have to
add the worms the one time and they again make
(13:45):
them right in the beds. The bin is really only
for us. The bin is so I know where they'll
be and I so I can add it if we
wanted to, we could just bury scraps anywhere in the
bed and the worms would take care of it. Been
having a bin, yeah, they they would obviously, you know,
they would take care of it, but having a bin
kind of keeps it centralized. So I know, Okay, this
is where I'm adding food, and this is also where
(14:07):
I can get the worm castings.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
The worm cast and to be specific, worm castings are
worm poop, that's right. Yeah, that's what they make. And
they are nutrient like microbial active like that is. And
it's wonderful. It's gold for your garden, especially fresh. The
fresher the better, and you can't get fresher than making
(14:30):
it yourself in your garden and just having them live,
work reproduced right in your garden. It does a lot
of good things.
Speaker 4 (14:37):
We need our plants to be healthy and have a
strong root system and they're more resistant to pess. You know,
worm castings, there are so many benefits from them, and
having it in the bin in the beds really makes
a lot of sense.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
Yeah, yeah, that's huge. Do you have it in every
single garden bend?
Speaker 4 (14:55):
That you have. Yeah, I try to every now and
then I'll i'll do a bed and I'm like, oh wait,
I forgot to put a bin in. So this fall
I'm making sure that I'm adding them to a couple
that I forgot, and I will refresh them, you know,
as I refill my beds up with composts and things.
Sometimes I'll move it to a different location and the
bin can be anything, you know, hardware cloth shaped kind
(15:18):
of in a circle works. Basically, you want nice and
deep and porous is the idea.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
So the worst Okay, when I saw your real it
almost looked like it was like a wire mesh garbage can.
Speaker 4 (15:30):
It was a dollar a dollar store garbage like it
was it is. It looked like that because that's exactly
what it was. What it was. That's amazing, exactly what
it is. I prefer actually one that's a little bit deeper,
So those I use those sometimes, but my preference is
because my beds are deeper. I like it to be
(15:50):
bottomless and deeper. But those also, those work really well.
Those they do work.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
That's so funny.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
I was like slowing it down and trying to look
and see exactly what it was I was like, I can't,
and then so you just stuck that in the hole
and then you filled it with worms, filled it with
some food scraps and shredded cardboard.
Speaker 3 (16:12):
That's your brown.
Speaker 4 (16:13):
You can use. Shredded cardboard you can use. I have
a lot of wood chips in my garden areas, and
so I've kind of transitioned. I'm just trying to be
I don't want lazy. I'm not going to call myself lazy, resource, sourceful, efficient,
I think it's the word I'm going. I'm going to
go with efficient. And so I have a lot of
wood chips, and that to me, has been an easier
(16:34):
method to have to use the wood chips. But yeah,
you can use it's a great way to the wood chips.
For me, has has been effective. And then I topping
it also with the woodchips as the layer of brown.
It's basically a little bit like composting in your beds.
Speaker 3 (16:50):
And then do you put food scraps in there for
them to eat?
Speaker 4 (16:54):
Okay, So then I put food scraps in and then
I put the wood chips on top. And then you'll
see because I don't put lids on mine, so you'll
see that level go down, and then I'll be like, okay,
it's time to feed the worms and pull back the
wood chips and add some more food scraps, cover it
back up with wood chips. Yeah, after a while they'll
(17:15):
be it'll be you know, fewer worms and lots of castings.
And that's when I'll get out my bucket and just
fill it up with these. I just I get so
giddy every time. I'm like, this really works. These look
at these these are and it's just you know, it's
so good and so healthy. And then I'll spread those
around the bed, take them to my containers, and I
(17:37):
love it nothing better, you know, because you know how
fresh and good it is.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
I know it makes and you can buy worm castings
for pretty expensive at the garden center, but like you said,
they're not fresh. They're not fresh, and they're not out
of your garden, and they're not using your resources, which
is you know, which is what you want, which is
I mean, it's just so cool, I have to say, Angela,
I've been so turned off. I actually have a worm
(18:03):
vermic composting bin that I purchased. It's in my garage
and I haven't used it because I've been so afraid
of the worms leaving, like if it's a bad environment,
they leave, and I'm scared that I'm gonna have worms everywhere, right,
so i haven't been doing it. But this it's like, okay,
well if they leave, they're in my garden bed, like
(18:23):
that's where I want them to be. So this is
to me, this is a really accessible way of starting
vermic composting. And the way that you explain it makes
it like super easy, like I can do that. So
I think that this is great, very exciting.
Speaker 4 (18:39):
It is. It is really and the worms are smart,
you know, smart enough, right, the worms are smart enough
to leave that bed if you've not done a good
job with it, and you know, and they'll come back
when when conditions are right, or if it's too hot
or too cold, And so I think it's for it's
pretty you know. I killed, like I say, I killed
(19:00):
that thing of worms and I felt so bad. I
was like like, not only are they they're expensive, it's
not you know, they're expensive, but also you just feel.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
Bad you're killing something. You're killing something. Yeah, No, I
think that's huge. I've heard horror stories of people like
in hot environments. I live in a hot environment, and
they recommend here putting it underneath your sink in your kitchen,
and I've heard horror stories about worms escaping and being
all over your kitchen and I'm like, I'm not.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
Doing that, absolutely not.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
So yeah, so this is a good this is this
is a solution I can handle. So where can we
find more information from you? So you have your Growing
in the Garden Academy that people can sign up, you
have your website. Where else can we find you?
Speaker 4 (19:47):
Yeah? So my main place, I would say is Growing
in Thegarden dot com. That's my website. That's and you
can kind of link to everything from there. But it's
Growing in the Garden really on all social channels on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok. Yeah,
just Growing in the Garden. Love it.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
You're awesome and I love that you're a desert gardener.
And I just feel like you're opening everyone's eyes, Like
you don't even have to be a desert gardener to
listen to what you have to say, because you have
such good advice for everybody, you know what I mean,
just for adverse conditions.
Speaker 4 (20:19):
So that Martin Bear is smaller, so we have to
be on our game.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
You have to do it. You have to be good.
Speaker 4 (20:26):
Well, you have to try.
Speaker 3 (20:28):
Yeah, you have to try.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
Well. Thank you so much Angela for being here. I
appreciate it. I hope you all enjoyed listening, and I
hope you all have a chance to get in your
garden today. Thank you so much to my podcast sponsor,
Proven Winners. Visit your local garden center today and look
for the white containers featuring the Proven Winner's logo. There's
(20:51):
a reason they're the number one plant brand that gardeners
like me trust the most. Visit Proven Winners dot com
for tips, ideas, and so much more. Dig Plant Water
Repeat is produced in association with Calaroga Shark Media. It
was written and hosted by me Janie Santos, with marketing
and production assistants from Courtney Clark. Please consider subscribing and
(21:15):
watch us on YouTube or follow us on your favorite
podcast app of choice to get alerts on all new episodes.
And hey, if you liked the show, give us a
review and hit those five stars on Apple. Executive producers
are Mark Francis, John McDermott and Janie Santos
Speaker 2 (21:36):
Callarogashawk Media
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