Speaker 1: I'm here in my backyard with my seven year old Ruby,
Speaker 1: and it's pretty clear Ruby has some strong words for
Speaker 1: me about my recent gardening failure. I notice, why do
Speaker 1: you did basy? But please don't clain me. Who who
Speaker 1: do you say to blame? Feel this is not the
Speaker 1: first time I've committed atrocity like this. My backyard is
Speaker 1: littered with tiny green casualties all my attempts to develop
Speaker 1: a green thumb. But I am determined to get better
Speaker 1: at this, to achieve, to cement my place among the
Speaker 1: grades of gardening, and at the very least grow something,
Speaker 1: even if it's just for my own family, so that
Speaker 1: they can enjoy the literal fruits of my labor. So
Speaker 1: let's dig into this journey where hopefully I'll do some
Speaker 1: growing and maybe my plants will too. Hey there, I'm Mure,
Speaker 1: a co host of Part Time Genius, one of the
Speaker 1: founders of Metal Flaw, and this is Humans Growing Stuff,
Speaker 1: a collaboration from My Heart Media and your friends and
Speaker 1: Miracle Grow. My goal is to make this the most
Speaker 1: human show about plants you'll ever listen to. Along the way,
Speaker 1: we'll share sweet, inspiring stories, tips and tricks to nurture
Speaker 1: your plant addiction, and just enough science to make you
Speaker 1: sound like an expert at your next Zoom happy Hour.
Speaker 1: And in this episode, we'll take you through how my
Speaker 1: big grudging relationship with gardening began and talk about why
Speaker 1: instead of resenting my failed experiments in the dirt, it's
Speaker 1: given me some much needed peace of mind. It's Me
Speaker 1: and the mental health Benefits of gardening. Chapter one, Plants
Speaker 1: or the New Therapist. If Andrea Agasi you can start
Speaker 1: out the first page of his autobiography with the sentence
Speaker 1: I hate Tennis, I feel like maybe I can say
Speaker 1: the same thing about gardening, because the truth is, I'm
Speaker 1: like the Charlie Brown of gardening. But what's shocking about
Speaker 1: the fact that I can't garden is that I actually
Speaker 1: come from a long line of gardening experts. My grandfather
Speaker 1: was a botanist. He published papers on growing tropical forests,
Speaker 1: and he became a chief of forestry in India, where
Speaker 1: he literally raised and protected forests. My dad was also
Speaker 1: an agriculture He worked on her besides and tried to
Speaker 1: figure out how to make giant crops yield more food.
Speaker 1: My uncle is a master gardener. My mom can I
Speaker 1: d almost any plant you throw at her. So I
Speaker 1: feel like, somewhere lurking inside me, there's this gardener that's
Speaker 1: waiting to be awoken. But I've been confused as to
Speaker 1: why I never got into gardening. So I called up
Speaker 1: my sister Shampa. So I am calling you because you know,
Speaker 1: I'm doing this gardening podcast right and I'm trying to
Speaker 1: figure out what people think of me as a gardener.
Speaker 1: And I'm certain that you have some memories of me
Speaker 1: as a child. Well, what do you remember about me
Speaker 1: going into the garden with you guys and gardening as
Speaker 1: a family. You would slowly disappear, I remember, and when
Speaker 1: we realized that you were gone, you'd come like uh,
Speaker 1: with a glamorous tray of some kind of snacks or drinks.
Speaker 1: I think ice coffee was a hit of yours. Most
Speaker 1: ice cream, I think, um. But I remember being like
Speaker 1: dirty and you'd come out with your clean clothes and
Speaker 1: a snack. I have a history of avoiding gardening, but
Speaker 1: I feel like I need gardening right now, because did
Speaker 1: you know what actually relieves stress and reduces anxiety that
Speaker 1: is backed by actual science. In a study published by
Speaker 1: the Journal of Physiological Anthropology, subjects were monitored while tending
Speaker 1: to and transplanting indoor plants, and then monitored again while
Speaker 1: completing a task on a computer, and subjects had significantly
Speaker 1: lower blood pressure after working with the plants. Then there
Speaker 1: are all these other impressive studies that show the positive
Speaker 1: impact gardening can have on patients with PTSD, you know,
Speaker 1: post traumatic stress disorder. Groups of veterans who suffered from
Speaker 1: PTSD who participated in horticultural therapy actually showed greater control
Speaker 1: over their symptoms. And in this era, when we're stuck
Speaker 1: at home and I can't really see my friends or family,
Speaker 1: I've been looking for a new way to manage some
Speaker 1: of my mounting stress and anxiety, something to get excited
Speaker 1: about and do with my kids and obsess over in
Speaker 1: the best possible way. But before I get my hands dirty,
Speaker 1: I want to reach out to my good friend Barry
Speaker 1: tin Day. Thurston Bearing today is one of the most
Speaker 1: renaissance people I know, and I'm saying that as someone
Speaker 1: who's gone to renaissance festivals. Bear twin Days a writer
Speaker 1: and activist, comedian, and now a podcaster. He hosts the
Speaker 1: incredible how to Citizen with Bear ten Day, which makes
Speaker 1: me want a citizen as a verb. He is the
Speaker 1: author of the best selling book How to Be Black,
Speaker 1: which is so good. He's been gardening his whole life,
Speaker 1: and if he hasn't gotten tired of it yet, I
Speaker 1: figure he's the right person to go. Do you for
Speaker 1: some growing inspiration and motivation recording. Now I'm gonna give
Speaker 1: you a clap welcome, thank you. I do everything wrong
Speaker 1: with plants, like I overwater them, I underwater them. I
Speaker 1: have him in the wrong spots of the house, the
Speaker 1: wrong size pots. I go on vacation without them, which
Speaker 1: I don't think they love. I'm just looking for inspiration
Speaker 1: from someone who's been a lifelong gardener, and I wanted
Speaker 1: to ask you to tell me about how you got
Speaker 1: into gardening. YO. First of all, you're not alone, but
Speaker 1: start somewhere small and and just walk down and know
Speaker 1: you're gonna kill something like I don't know if you're
Speaker 1: gonna become I've already done that part. So, my guest,
Speaker 1: you sound like you're in some kind of like you know,
Speaker 1: backyard tribunal is going to hit you pretty soon, like
Speaker 1: for like war crimes, Like the scale of the slaughter
Speaker 1: sounds pretty pretty significant. Plants can be very fickle. Sometimes
Speaker 1: they act like little divas and they have very high demands.
Speaker 1: Their persnickety, they're finicky like. So don't feel like you're
Speaker 1: too special or two alone in this. And I've just
Speaker 1: returned to gardening. But as a child, I found it
Speaker 1: pretty soon because my mother enrolled me in a community garden.
Speaker 1: It felt like miles and miles and miles away from
Speaker 1: home because it was not on our block, but I
Speaker 1: think it was maybe twenty blocks away. And so I
Speaker 1: had a little plot of land and I would grow
Speaker 1: veggies and we would eat them. And so what I thought,
Speaker 1: you know, was my mother trying to expand my horizons
Speaker 1: and get me to explore our the outdoors in a
Speaker 1: relationship with nature. Might have just been child labor, right.
Speaker 1: It might have just been let's not go to the
Speaker 1: grocery store so much. This little human can make food
Speaker 1: happen all on his own. One of the things I
Speaker 1: saw in your Twitter feed that I really loved and
Speaker 1: I've been thinking about is how plants connect you to
Speaker 1: the president and to the past. Yeah, so I have
Speaker 1: snake plants. We've we've always had snake plants in our family,
Speaker 1: and I have been taking care of these plants for
Speaker 1: my whole life actually, so I have plants that no
Speaker 1: me from when I was, you know, six years old,
Speaker 1: and my mother passed away in two thousand five of
Speaker 1: colon cancer, and I have the plants from her home too.
Speaker 1: In all those moves that I had made when she
Speaker 1: was alive or even after she passed in two thousand five,
Speaker 1: they were driving moves, you know. When I moved from
Speaker 1: Boston to New York, that was me moving to a
Speaker 1: city that she never knew me as a resident of.
Speaker 1: That was a really big deal for me to move
Speaker 1: to New York in two thousand and seven, two years
Speaker 1: after and my mother wasn't part of that journey, and
Speaker 1: I did not let the moving company handle the plants.
Speaker 1: I drove them myself in my car along with her ashes.
Speaker 1: So I have like actual like evidence of her life
Speaker 1: and these plants who kind of knew her. When I
Speaker 1: moved to California a year ago, I had to ship
Speaker 1: them and they survived the journey. And one of the
Speaker 1: first things that we did when we moved in there's
Speaker 1: no furniture, we didn't have a bed yet, but we
Speaker 1: had the plant and I potted my mother's snake plants,
Speaker 1: and it was like she moved with us. It was
Speaker 1: like she got to meet uh this new place and
Speaker 1: inhabit it with us. And now those plants are behind
Speaker 1: me and all of the zoom calls and I'm forced
Speaker 1: to do every day that she sits with me. So
Speaker 1: the snake plants have ebbed and flowed in size over
Speaker 1: the year, and depending on how well I've taken care
Speaker 1: of them, um and how crowded they are in in
Speaker 1: a pot, so they will they will kind of grow
Speaker 1: into the space. You a lot for them. And so
Speaker 1: I had just been maintaining them. Then Elizabeth took over.
Speaker 1: But my partner, my fiance, Elizabeth, I tell you, she's
Speaker 1: like the queen of the green around here because she
Speaker 1: went and I used to clown about, You're always buying
Speaker 1: more pots and bigger things things and more this than that.
Speaker 1: But then she made it beautiful. The snake plants that
Speaker 1: she's been taken care of are huge. They are bursting
Speaker 1: with life. They're so vibrant, and it's so emotional and
Speaker 1: beautiful for me because my fiance never got to meet
Speaker 1: my mother, and here she is kind of bringing her
Speaker 1: to life in our shared home and taking such care
Speaker 1: and with such conscientiousness, and the plants are responding. So
Speaker 1: to me, it's like, oh my mom, My Mom approves,
Speaker 1: you know, like she's feeling the love. You know, you're
Speaker 1: doing the respectful things. She was always very big on
Speaker 1: respect taking care of these plants, and they're rewarding us
Speaker 1: with a greener, brighter, stronger presence. So the ones in
Speaker 1: my office are doing okay. The ones that taken care
Speaker 1: of are thriving. I feel like this is why I
Speaker 1: need a garden, Like as much as I need it
Speaker 1: for like the relaxation and the meditative aspects of it.
Speaker 1: I also just like stories is a big part and
Speaker 1: when you and you can create stories. So one of
Speaker 1: the things, like just noticing what's already here has been
Speaker 1: a really necessary mental health exercise. My my days are
Speaker 1: very exhausting in that, like many of us, I stare
Speaker 1: at a computer screen all day. I also um handle
Speaker 1: hazardous material on a daily basis with respect to white
Speaker 1: supremacy and ideas of race and racism, especially in the
Speaker 1: United States. And I talk about these things, and I
Speaker 1: read about these things, and I write about these things,
Speaker 1: and I make shows about these things, and it is toxic.
Speaker 1: Um and sometimes it gets to four or five pm
Speaker 1: on the day and I'm burnt out and I'm fired up,
Speaker 1: and I'm piste off, or I'm sad, or I'm all
Speaker 1: of those at once. And if I just go outside
Speaker 1: and initially reluctantly do something that needs doing in the garden,
Speaker 1: turn the m post, chop up some bananappeals, to add
Speaker 1: to the compost, check in on the plants, trim or prune,
Speaker 1: and those leaves are not dehumanizing me. Twenty minutes of
Speaker 1: that is meditation to just live and breathe and be
Speaker 1: in harmony with more life, and that helps me feel
Speaker 1: less trapped in this world that most of us did
Speaker 1: not sign up for are not enjoying. And to see
Speaker 1: these plants still produce some fruit and still growing, and
Speaker 1: they have a sense of the movement of time through
Speaker 1: the life of plants, whether they were the ones who
Speaker 1: were here already, are the ones we added to the mix.
Speaker 1: That slows things down, and it gives some differentiation to
Speaker 1: the days which all start to blur into one long
Speaker 1: zoom call and that's not life. I've actually been thinking
Speaker 1: about that a lot. How Like in this groundhog day,
Speaker 1: these plants are kind of this tangible measure of time.
Speaker 1: I love that you think about that too, their proof
Speaker 1: of life. Like we're all being held hostage, and these
Speaker 1: plants are like they're the markings on the door frame
Speaker 1: that showed that time is passing. They're they're continuing to
Speaker 1: live and probably somehow showing us how to as well,
Speaker 1: if we would slow down enough to pay attention. I'm
Speaker 1: not quite there yet, fair Tenday. It is always such
Speaker 1: a pleasure to chat with you. Thank you so much
Speaker 1: for the inspiration and the time. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: Good luck with your own growing. And now for a
Speaker 1: section we call poetry corner. This poem is called Observations
Speaker 1: from a Serial Plant Murderer. Orange black for a million hazel.
Speaker 1: These aren't colors that you want your basil. Thank you.
Speaker 1: After I chatted with bear Tin day, I couldn't stop
Speaker 1: thinking about what he said about starting small. So I
Speaker 1: dusted off a pair of gardening shears for my basement.
Speaker 1: I found a pretty copper watering can, and I took
Speaker 1: my kids this little nursery just a few blocks from
Speaker 1: our house. So you tell me a little bit about
Speaker 1: we went to a nursery this weekend. Right, It was
Speaker 1: super fun. We went with your brother. Uh, tell me
Speaker 1: what it felt like to walk into the nursery because
Speaker 1: it was so hot outside, right, what did it feel
Speaker 1: like when we walked inside? Just felt so cool, so nice.
Speaker 1: It was just so it was just fun. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: and what did it look like? Well, from a plant,
Speaker 1: you were on chilts and then once you came outside,
Speaker 1: do you see this hanter plants on the ground. It
Speaker 1: was just like a juncle. I was starting to feel
Speaker 1: better already, which makes sense because, as I mentioned, there's
Speaker 1: actually a lot of science behind the mental health benefits
Speaker 1: of just being around plants. According to data collected and
Speaker 1: reported by researchers at Texas A and M University, living
Speaker 1: near green spaces can improve your mood, It can reduce aggression,
Speaker 1: and even lessen the negative impacts of stress on your health.
Speaker 1: So as I watched as Henry picked out a little
Speaker 1: palm and Ruby found this money tree, just being with
Speaker 1: them in these plants, I could feel my stress and
Speaker 1: my anxiety fade away. But after a week, those bright
Speaker 1: green leaves were on the yellow and we were quickly
Speaker 1: entering basil plant territory, and I didn't want another funeral
Speaker 1: on my heads. So I reached out to a gardening expert,
Speaker 1: Mr Planti himself, Michael Perry. The Sunday Times has declared
Speaker 1: I'm one of the top twenty most influential horticulturalist. Is
Speaker 1: an expert gardener, port preneurs and co host of the
Speaker 1: Plant Based podcast, and we're so excited to have him here.
Speaker 1: Michael Perry, thank you so much for being on the show.
Speaker 1: Thank you, thank you for the wonderful intro. One of
Speaker 1: the most intriguing things to me about your bio is
Speaker 1: that you worked as a plant hunter. It's it's not
Speaker 1: plant hunting as in I was climbing down ravines and
Speaker 1: you know, dangling off cliffs, but very much kind of
Speaker 1: plant hunting in terms of visiting lots of breeding companies,
Speaker 1: going to see customers at home to collect unusual plants,
Speaker 1: you know, going into the kitchens of a lot of
Speaker 1: these breeding companies in order to select new plants, but
Speaker 1: also devise ways of marketing with new plants and existing plants.
Speaker 1: So it was a very very unusual role and not
Speaker 1: one that you could have predicted or had any training for.
Speaker 1: I honestly a lotted so much and one of the
Speaker 1: things I saw that you had introduced was the egg
Speaker 1: and chips plant. Yeah, can you can you tell the
Speaker 1: listeners when the egg and chip plant is because it
Speaker 1: is fascinating. Well, egg and chips plant is basically all
Speaker 1: one plant which is grafted in the middle so it
Speaker 1: grows as one. And it's an eggplant a k a
Speaker 1: abergine on the top and a potato on the bottom.
Speaker 1: So hence the egg and chips. There's also another plant
Speaker 1: in that series, which is the tomotato, and that is
Speaker 1: tomatoes on the top and potatoes on the bottom. And
Speaker 1: that was actually marketed as ketchup and fries plant in
Speaker 1: the US, But the tomtato concept wasn't necessarily new. This
Speaker 1: is something that used to be done during the war
Speaker 1: in order to make the use of space in limited
Speaker 1: spacing gardens and on allotments. Tell me a little bit
Speaker 1: about your grandparents garden and and and what it was
Speaker 1: about it that that was such a dry to you.
Speaker 1: When you're a kid, you know, your parents dump you
Speaker 1: there and the grandparents look after you, and you tend
Speaker 1: to you tend to get to know and love the
Speaker 1: things that your grandparents are into. And for me, it
Speaker 1: was growing and growing plants to exhibit a flower shows.
Speaker 1: They were selling up markets as well, but yeah, it
Speaker 1: was a lovely childhood and they had this very big garden.
Speaker 1: I was always getting lost and you know, wanting to
Speaker 1: be in the wilderness and growing the plants. Obviously started
Speaker 1: doing that at home as well, and it was yeah,
Speaker 1: and just learned so much. Was such a magical time.
Speaker 1: What are some easy ways to start building an urban
Speaker 1: jungle in my apartment in Brooklyn inside, So that's obviously
Speaker 1: house plants. House plants are massively trendy over the last
Speaker 1: few years. I don't know what your light situation is,
Speaker 1: but it's probably better to start with a few plants
Speaker 1: that are less fussy about the lighting. So like the
Speaker 1: z Z plant would be perfect. Various different types of
Speaker 1: pothos Latin name often shown as skin dapsis or ePRO primum,
Speaker 1: or you could have some color fears. They're not too fussy.
Speaker 1: Spider plants quite classic. A lot of foliage plants are
Speaker 1: probably going to be the most versatile thing for you
Speaker 1: to go for. But if you have got some sunnier
Speaker 1: rooms and you can have some flowering plants, I mean
Speaker 1: a lot of people overlook orchids. A lot of the time,
Speaker 1: I think because the price on orchids is really really
Speaker 1: came down, you know, I Kea was selling them for
Speaker 1: like two euros apiece, so people hadn't got the same
Speaker 1: respect for them. But all kids are incredible house plants.
Speaker 1: They blew for six weeks of the year, they're versatile,
Speaker 1: and or it's the one that I feel like I've
Speaker 1: read something about a plant that you put ice cubes
Speaker 1: in and let it melts, that this advice has kind
Speaker 1: of got a little bit mangled down the line because
Speaker 1: it's it's the equivalent of an ice cube per week.
Speaker 1: That makes so much more sense. It's nothing actual ice
Speaker 1: cube because kind of if you get that cold directly
Speaker 1: onto the roots of the orchid, it won't like it.
Speaker 1: So I often kind of rebrand that as and shot
Speaker 1: glass of water per week because that's similar amounts. So
Speaker 1: shot glass espresso cup worth of water per week is
Speaker 1: going to keep your orchids super happy. Or you can
Speaker 1: do the soak and leave it method, where you basically
Speaker 1: soak the orchids in a big bucket of water or
Speaker 1: a sink of water for about twenty minutes and then
Speaker 1: let them dry because you've got to remember or chids
Speaker 1: in the rainforest, they go through you know, wet periods
Speaker 1: to dry, so they're used to drying out in between,
Speaker 1: so you need to always let them dry out in between.
Speaker 1: I'm curious about your own gardening practice. I mean, you're
Speaker 1: so busy with all the podcasts and the website and
Speaker 1: the business. What are some of the health benefits you've
Speaker 1: seen or felt from gardening and how do you work
Speaker 1: into your daily life. It's just it's about connection with
Speaker 1: nature really. I mean, I've just moved into a new
Speaker 1: house and I seem to have I've got probably fifty
Speaker 1: house plants, but I don't. I don't walk around thinking, oh,
Speaker 1: that's fifty house plants, because I feel like it's just
Speaker 1: something I just need in my life. And it's kind
Speaker 1: of like the decor of the room. It softens the
Speaker 1: room obviously, you know, unknowingly, it makes me feel good,
Speaker 1: you know, it's nice to have something to care for.
Speaker 1: But it's also purifying the air in a in a
Speaker 1: very basic way, you know, removing toxins are at a
Speaker 1: very low level as well, and just generally uplifting. I'm
Speaker 1: just having a garden my new garden landscaped here as well,
Speaker 1: and I can't wait to get on board with all
Speaker 1: the planting. But obviously it doesn't help that I'm so indecisive.
Speaker 1: I'll be digging everything up in two months. I like
Speaker 1: that permission to be indecisive. Gardening feels very unachievable to
Speaker 1: a beginner because there's lots of experts. They kind of
Speaker 1: don't necessarily explain it in a simple way because I
Speaker 1: think they're afraid of dumbing it down. Actually, you need
Speaker 1: to make gardening accessible and explain it very differently to
Speaker 1: different people. And also failure, failure is not a bad
Speaker 1: thing at all, And failure in gardening is very natural
Speaker 1: and it happens a lot because plants are like they're
Speaker 1: like living people. They're not always going to behave in
Speaker 1: the way that you want them to. They're going to
Speaker 1: contract diseases or illnesses or not be happy in the
Speaker 1: conditions you put them in. But just don't panic. Just
Speaker 1: brush yourself down and move on. You know, if a
Speaker 1: lot of people kind of see it as oh, I
Speaker 1: haven't got green fingers, or they see it as their
Speaker 1: own failure, but you know, there's a lot more going
Speaker 1: on with the plant than you know. The state of
Speaker 1: your green fingers. Thank you so much for being here.
Speaker 1: Thank you. When I was a kid, one of the
Speaker 1: things my parents wouldn't let me do was get a skateboard.
Speaker 1: When I went off to college, the first thing I
Speaker 1: did was I bought one, and I from as the
Speaker 1: story has a point, this skateboard. It was mostly decoration
Speaker 1: sometimes my friends and I wrote it down the dorm's
Speaker 1: carpeted hallway. But the thing I started noticing when I
Speaker 1: took it out into the real world is how everything
Speaker 1: has an incline. Places that you could have sworn were
Speaker 1: flat parking lots and sidewalks. Suddenly I started noticing every
Speaker 1: dip and angle and just how fast you could race
Speaker 1: forward if you just stood there on your death skating.
Speaker 1: Just a little bit that I did, it made me
Speaker 1: see all this topography completely differently, and I was aware
Speaker 1: of this whole new world. My chat with Michael Perry
Speaker 1: was fun and inspiring and and just dipping my toe
Speaker 1: into the gardening world. I'm starting to see my apartment differently,
Speaker 1: like a plant side view. I mean, it's it's weird
Speaker 1: to say, but I never really thought about which way
Speaker 1: the windows faced or exactly how much sun they were
Speaker 1: letting in. I just knew it was bright, and I
Speaker 1: wasn't thinking about the air conditioner or the poor plants
Speaker 1: I'd set right in front of it. The other thing
Speaker 1: that's been on my mind is, well, I've been thinking
Speaker 1: a lot about Barreton Day and his mom and all
Speaker 1: the years and lives those plants he carries have witnessed.
Speaker 1: I've been thinking about what my kids will have and
Speaker 1: remember of me years from now, like can we use
Speaker 1: this weird period of quarantine, ng and and virtual schooling
Speaker 1: to foster a level of plants together? And I've been
Speaker 1: thinking about the memories I carry. I never got much
Speaker 1: time with my grandfather, the botanist. He passed away when
Speaker 1: I was nine, and I grew up in the States,
Speaker 1: so aside from a few summers in India, I know
Speaker 1: him mostly through the stories my family tells, But I
Speaker 1: do have a few memories. I cling to walking to
Speaker 1: market with him, trying to keep up because even though
Speaker 1: he was short, he walked so fast, fucking tiny bananas
Speaker 1: off a tree in the backyard and splitting them open
Speaker 1: together they were just so sweet and creamy. And then
Speaker 1: there's this time I fell asleep after dinner on the
Speaker 1: divan in the living room, and he woke me up
Speaker 1: gently and walked me to bed. But before he did,
Speaker 1: he brought me into this little courtyard in the back
Speaker 1: of the house, and together we spied on a flower there,
Speaker 1: one that only bloomed at night. I only kind of
Speaker 1: remember how the flower looked. It was Bethlehem Louie, and
Speaker 1: I know it was white and full, drenched in moonlight.
Speaker 1: And I remember my grandfather whispering to me about how
Speaker 1: ephemeral it was, that the petals would actually crumble off
Speaker 1: by morning. And I remember holding his hand and knowing
Speaker 1: somehow that all of this was special, magical. All of
Speaker 1: that feels a world away tonight. I'm tired, anxious, I
Speaker 1: can't stop thinking about the headlines. My family is asleep,
Speaker 1: so I've come upstairs to make myself some tea and
Speaker 1: too tidy and to putter. But instead of grabbing a
Speaker 1: book or turning on the TV, I noticed the plants.
Speaker 1: I spot the ones my kiddos, Henry and Ruby, brought
Speaker 1: home from the nursery today, and I remember what the
Speaker 1: man at the shop said. The small one needs indirect light,
Speaker 1: so I moved it from the sill to the mantel,
Speaker 1: and then I spot a few brown leaves on a
Speaker 1: different plant, so I grabbed some nearby scissors and I
Speaker 1: start to snip, and in the quiet of the night,
Speaker 1: I start visiting each plant, testing the soils with my finger,
Speaker 1: mapping out a proper watering schedule, And in between thinking
Speaker 1: about my family and forgetting the troubles of my day,
Speaker 1: I start dreaming what this room could look like with
Speaker 1: a little more green. Should I buy some hanging plants?
Speaker 1: Do I need some more pots or stands? I surveyed
Speaker 1: the room and imagine the possibilities, and I actually begin
Speaker 1: to smile, And somehow I tell myself, maybe this growing
Speaker 1: stuff is something I can do, something I can figure
Speaker 1: out together with you. That's it for today's episode. Don't
Speaker 1: forget whether you're a beginner like me, a pro trying
Speaker 1: something new, or someone in between enjoying your community garden.
Speaker 1: There are incredible resources waiting for you on the Miracle
Speaker 1: Grow website. Next time on our show, we'll dig into
Speaker 1: pumpkin spice gardening and figure out what to plan outside,
Speaker 1: what to bring inside, and discover just how far my
Speaker 1: wife and kids will let me take this new obsession
Speaker 1: of mine. Humans Growing Stuff is a collaboration from I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio and your friends at Miracle Grow. Our show
Speaker 1: is written and produced by Molly Sosha and me Mongy
Speaker 1: Chatigler in partnership with Ryan Ovadia, Daniel Ainsworth, Haley Ericsson,
Speaker 1: and Garrett Shannon of Banter Until next time, Thanks so
Speaker 1: much for listening.