Speaker 1: Episode four oh one, how to Keep Your Garden Alive
Speaker 1: with Nicole John C.
Speaker 2: Burke.
Speaker 3: Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast, where you'll learn to
Speaker 3: save money, embrace simplicity, and here your hosts, Jen and Jill.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Frugal Friends podcast. My name is Jen, my
Speaker 1: name is Jill, And this interview was potentially life changing
Speaker 1: for me. Did not go in thinking that because I
Speaker 1: am not a gardener, and I left really not just
Speaker 1: fired up to start a garden, because any anybody can
Speaker 1: make you motivated by their success, right. But I have
Speaker 1: left with an intrinsic like desire, like value for the
Speaker 1: journey of gardening. And if that's not what we're trying
Speaker 1: to do with spending money and frugality, I don't know what.
Speaker 1: I don't know what we're doing like, but she left
Speaker 1: that in me.
Speaker 2: You will get to hear Jen's transformation right before your ears,
Speaker 2: right in your right into your ears. And for me too.
Speaker 2: I love gardening. I would say it is one of
Speaker 2: my top three hobbies. And I walked away with some
Speaker 2: pieces of Oh, yeah, that's how I can bring refinement
Speaker 2: to it. Oh that's the missing link on this thing
Speaker 2: that I've been questioning for a while, so you're already
Speaker 2: tuned in, just stay with us.
Speaker 1: Yes, but first, this episode is brought to you by weeds.
Speaker 1: They grow very fast, and some people even think that
Speaker 1: herbs like basil are weeds, and sometimes we don't like them.
Speaker 1: Sometimes we want to get rid of them. But sometimes
Speaker 1: if you think basil is a weed, you should welcome them.
Speaker 1: You should welcome these weeds that we can eat, especially
Speaker 1: if they grow really well. Kind of like keeping your
Speaker 1: money in a highieald savings account. When you put your
Speaker 1: money in a high held savings account like CIT that's
Speaker 1: got over four percent apy, it is going to be
Speaker 1: growing like a weed, and that is a weed that
Speaker 1: we will gladly accept. Frugal Friends Podcast dot com slash
Speaker 1: CIT and start your garden in your savings account.
Speaker 2: Speaking of weeds, we pulled you all in our friend
Speaker 2: letter about gardening. Do you garden? What's your biggest struggle?
Speaker 2: You all were neck and neck. There really wasn't like
Speaker 2: a winner answer. Yeah, you're across the board. Yeah, but
Speaker 2: I can't keep my plants alive. You have but bugs
Speaker 2: and pest keeping in my stuff? Yeah, but I have
Speaker 2: a different struggle or no, it's not for me. So
Speaker 2: there are some of you that's no, it's not for me.
Speaker 2: If you're tuning in it, you're gonna probably be transformed
Speaker 2: and start for it.
Speaker 1: But most, an overwhelming majority of you do garden or
Speaker 1: want to garden. And so this episode is really tailored
Speaker 1: for It's the midpoint between Jill and I. I started
Speaker 1: this not wanting to have a garden at all. That
Speaker 1: was me. I was like, Nope, not for me. Jill
Speaker 1: was like, yes, I love it, but I have all
Speaker 1: of these different struggles. And so she answered all of
Speaker 1: our questions, even the questions we didn't know we had,
Speaker 1: and a lot of yours because a lot of your
Speaker 1: struggles that you let us know, like what's holding you
Speaker 1: back is the time to water it? A lot of
Speaker 1: you said weeds, A lot of you said weeds. One
Speaker 1: hundred degree temperatures are holding you back. She covers that
Speaker 1: just all of the things that you guys mentioned as
Speaker 1: feedback in the polls, she really, we really made it
Speaker 1: a point to point these things out so that you
Speaker 1: feel like you've gotten a little a little more assurance
Speaker 1: than if you want to start a garden, it will
Speaker 1: work for you this time.
Speaker 2: And if you want to tune into other episodes like this.
Speaker 2: We've got episode two ninety going Plant based on a Budget.
Speaker 2: We've got episode two ninety eight No cost Ways to
Speaker 2: be more eco friendly. So these are really adjacent content
Speaker 2: episodes that you could queue up, but stick with us
Speaker 2: as we talked to Nicole.
Speaker 1: Yes, Nicole john zie Berg. She has written two books,
Speaker 1: Kitchen Garden Revival and Leaves, Roots and Fruit. So this
Speaker 1: is really an episode about growing food, growing plants that
Speaker 1: will nourish you. But she has an online community of
Speaker 1: over one and a half million people. She's taught over
Speaker 1: six thousand students in her online Kitchen Garden Academy and
Speaker 1: Garden Consultant Certification courses, and she is a really good teacher.
Speaker 1: I think, like just from hearing her in this one interview,
Speaker 1: I'm so excited to learn more from her, so and
Speaker 1: I hope you will be too.
Speaker 2: Let's do it.
Speaker 1: Nicole, Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast. We are super
Speaker 1: excited for this conversation. It's gonna be a fun one.
Speaker 2: It is.
Speaker 4: I'm so excited. Thank you for inviting me. And you know,
Speaker 4: in the before we started, you told me you had
Speaker 4: given up on gardening, so I feel like I've been
Speaker 4: dared to talk you back into it today, so I'm
Speaker 4: I'm I'm ready.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And that's exciting for me just to be a
Speaker 2: fly on the wall to watch you just kind of
Speaker 2: bully Jen into what's going to be best for her. Really, yes,
Speaker 2: because gardening plans are my happy place. Granted, I am
Speaker 2: still learning. What I learned from most people is you
Speaker 2: are always learning, so that's comforting. But I personally am
Speaker 2: looking forward to this conversation because there's there's a lot
Speaker 2: of questions I have.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and disclosure journey. I My father in law is
Speaker 1: a commercial farmer. He has a U pick farm and
Speaker 1: a winery and he can grow anything, he can make
Speaker 1: bring anything back to life. And so I've just I've
Speaker 1: heard him doing I've heard these things before, like you
Speaker 1: can you I mean, you can't kill this and stuff
Speaker 1: like that, and I assure him he.
Speaker 2: Takes that as a dare. That's her dare.
Speaker 4: I definitely watch me, watch me kill this land. Yeah,
Speaker 4: not intentionally, just it's just me so I got it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, But I know that there's a lot of people
Speaker 1: out there like me that want to get better at gardening.
Speaker 1: So let's just start out, Like, for someone who hasn't
Speaker 1: totally given up on green yet hasn't totally given up
Speaker 1: on gardening, how would you but they have killed things before?
Speaker 1: Where what would you what would be your starting point?
Speaker 1: Where would you recommend someone like me start?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Yeah, So first of all, I think it's it's in
Speaker 4: your head, like to to kind of there's this funny
Speaker 4: thing that happens with gardening. I don't know. I think
Speaker 4: part of it is because there is a magical piece
Speaker 4: to this where we literally don't get it. Like we
Speaker 4: put a seed in the ground and then you know,
Speaker 4: months later, we're eating something from that seed. It started
Speaker 4: this small and it became, you know, a watermelon. And
Speaker 4: so I think there's a piece of gardening that people
Speaker 4: have kind of pushed off to be magical. And I
Speaker 4: call it the green thumb myth, which is you're either
Speaker 4: born with this ability to keep plants alive or you're not.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: It's like Harry Potter, like you're either a witch or
Speaker 4: you're a muggle. Is that what was that what it
Speaker 4: was called? Yeah, you're either a witch or you're a muggle. Right,
Speaker 4: And so most of us assume, like we put that
Speaker 4: first seed or that we buy that plant from home
Speaker 4: depot and it dies immediately, or we buy it and
Speaker 4: we're kind of like we're waiting for our name to
Speaker 4: come out of the hat, right, like are we are?
Speaker 4: We are? Do we have the green thumb? Or do
Speaker 4: we not? And that is there's really, you know, nothing
Speaker 4: that could be further from the truth. Like gardening is
Speaker 4: a skill, right, and so like you ladies have developed
Speaker 4: this skill of frugality, you know, and it's not like
Speaker 4: you were born with it. You didn't like come out
Speaker 4: of the womb and go like I know how to
Speaker 4: stretch a dollar, you know, like I know how to
Speaker 4: make a budget. You know, you didn't. You weren't born
Speaker 4: with this ability to make a budget. You've learned it
Speaker 4: and it's a skill. And so just like you guys
Speaker 4: could totally teach me a thing or two or twenty
Speaker 4: five about frugality, it's the same with gardening. It's a skill.
Speaker 4: It's something that you want to have a you want
Speaker 4: to pick a teacher. That's c only what I recommend,
Speaker 4: Like don't just forage Google and YouTube for every single
Speaker 4: gardener's opinion about out there. So you want to pick
Speaker 4: in general, one method that you want to study under
Speaker 4: whether a person grows and raise beds or they have
Speaker 4: you know, they're doing the no dig method and they're
Speaker 4: they're growing in big rose and they're farming, or if
Speaker 4: you want to follow a homestead or like, pick your
Speaker 4: style and pick your your teacher and your method and
Speaker 4: then commit to practicing. And so it's just like, you know,
Speaker 4: if I was like today, I'm like, hey, I want
Speaker 4: to take a pickleball, right, which I've never played a
Speaker 4: day in my life. I'm not going to go out
Speaker 4: to the court and uh, you know, grab whatever it
Speaker 4: is they have, I guess a little paddle or something
Speaker 4: and expect to be good, right because I've never played before.
Speaker 4: And so gardening is the exact same thing. You're just
Speaker 4: gonna you don't. You don't start by going to buy
Speaker 4: a plant, right, You start by picking a method, taking
Speaker 4: some classes or you know, getting a book, reading about it,
Speaker 4: and then committing to showing up to practice, say five
Speaker 4: minutes a day, doing a little little bit at a time.
Speaker 4: And so I think that, you know, that's kind of
Speaker 4: one of my big like soapboxes is let's stop the
Speaker 4: madness of going to home depot in April buying a
Speaker 4: ton of of plants, taking them home, watching them all die,
Speaker 4: and then assuming that gardening's not for you and you
Speaker 4: know you just don't have a green thumb, because it's
Speaker 4: really just a skill. So that would be the very
Speaker 4: first step I would say for everyone listening is get
Speaker 4: out of your head that you know it's a magical
Speaker 4: thing and you either get it or you don't see
Speaker 4: it as a skill, just like any other thing we
Speaker 4: build into our lives that we didn't grow up doing.
Speaker 4: And most of us it sounds like for you guys,
Speaker 4: even though your grandfather was in the farm, like most
Speaker 4: of us didn't grow up. If you grew up in
Speaker 4: the eighties, nineties, two thousands, most of us haven't grown
Speaker 4: up near a garden. And so it's not your fault.
Speaker 4: That's like my one two. That's my four favorite words
Speaker 4: to say to people. It's not your fault, Like it's
Speaker 4: not your fault that all the plants die, that you
Speaker 4: haven't been able to keep anything alive yet because you
Speaker 4: just didn't grow up with it. And so it's something
Speaker 4: we have to teach ourselves and learn as adults.
Speaker 2: This is such a good soap box because this is
Speaker 2: one of my issues even though my favorite place to
Speaker 2: be is outside and digging in dirt, still not doing
Speaker 2: it expertly. But that's one of the things that trips
Speaker 2: me up is I might start doing one thing and
Speaker 2: then I'm on the internet and all these things are
Speaker 2: now popping up in my Instagram feed about well, here's
Speaker 2: how to do this right, And then I get in
Speaker 2: my head about, oh, man, I started at this way,
Speaker 2: should I not have done that? And you're kind of
Speaker 2: just continuously reinventing or jumping ship or hopping around because
Speaker 2: there's now some new information that maybe that's the more
Speaker 2: important thing. So your your advice to pick one person
Speaker 2: and learn. It's kind of like what we talk about
Speaker 2: in the personal finance space, like you can start with
Speaker 2: one person, we actually recommend it. But then once you
Speaker 2: become more of a master at that skill, that's when
Speaker 2: you can kind of start to branch out once you
Speaker 2: understand the fundamentals. And that's what I'm hearing from you
Speaker 2: is get the fundamentals with like one thing, not the
Speaker 2: cluttering of voices.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, like go deep, right, go deep instead of going wide.
Speaker 4: Take some time to pick your method and pick you
Speaker 4: know your your teacher. But yeah, I learned this in college.
Speaker 4: I had a professor who he just studied so fully
Speaker 4: one author and basically read all the books by this
Speaker 4: one author and essentially became like the expert on this author,
Speaker 4: and then later, you know, would choose another author to
Speaker 4: go deep on and essentially, I mean you could like
Speaker 4: pick their brain and it was almost like talking to
Speaker 4: the author directly. And I think that's a thing we
Speaker 4: met we were in its. You know, this is a
Speaker 4: great information age, but it's information overload for most of us,
Speaker 4: and especially now that you know all of us are
Speaker 4: entertained by three to five second videos on Instagram and TikTok.
Speaker 4: It's like you only need to be online for two
Speaker 4: minutes and you've already seen probably twenty garden projects.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 4: I've thought about doing a video that's like, stop saving
Speaker 4: garden projects. You're never gonna do. We don't need any
Speaker 4: more ideas, right, we don't need any more ideas. We
Speaker 4: just need to practice. And I love the idea of
Speaker 4: five minutes, you know, just just putting it in your calendar.
Speaker 4: I'm a big My next book actually coming out is
Speaker 4: going to be on gardening habits, and I did a
Speaker 4: lot of study on habit building. I'm sure y'all read
Speaker 4: Atomic Habits, and I read a. BJ. Fogg's book. He
Speaker 4: actually inspired Atomic Habits, James Clear. It's called shoot the
Speaker 4: tiny Habits. Yeah, I think that's what it's called Tiny habits.
Speaker 4: And he talks so much about the stacks, right, like
Speaker 4: just taking something you normally do already and then just
Speaker 4: attaching that new habit onto it. And so I would say,
Speaker 4: my next recommendation would be, like, pay attention to the
Speaker 4: flavors and the taste that you like, especially all the
Speaker 4: green things. So any herbal flavors that you love, any greens, lettuces,
Speaker 4: anything that is just green. So we're not going to
Speaker 4: fruit yet, but green things. Pay attention to those that
Speaker 4: you love, buying, that you love using in your recipes,
Speaker 4: and grow those first. The green things are the simplest,
Speaker 4: easiest to grow. We'll talk about that, I'm sure later,
Speaker 4: but pay attention to those and grow those things first.
Speaker 4: That's how you build the habit, right, So if I
Speaker 4: could convince you to start, I would say, and maybe
Speaker 4: we can do this little practice. What's a green? What's
Speaker 4: a green that you frequently buy from the grocery?
Speaker 1: Kale?
Speaker 4: Okay, kale, kale. Yeah, So I'm so glad you said
Speaker 4: that because it's such an easy one. So I would
Speaker 4: say to you, just start with kale, and like, how
Speaker 4: would how do you use kale in the kitchen kale salads?
Speaker 1: Like I'll meal prep kale salads almost weekly.
Speaker 4: Okay, and you prep it for the whole week. Mm
Speaker 4: hmm okay, awesome. So what you would do is then
Speaker 4: like let's say, do you do it like on a weekend,
Speaker 4: like a Saturday or Sunday.
Speaker 1: Usually on a Sunday.
Speaker 4: Yeah, okay, So what you'd want to do is like
Speaker 4: habit stack that, right, So take that time when you're
Speaker 4: prepping your kale and it'll start obviously you have the
Speaker 4: kale from the grocery. But at that same time that
Speaker 4: you're prepping your kale salads for the for lunch, right
Speaker 4: before it or right after it, you're going to go
Speaker 4: take care of your kale garden, right, so your kale plants,
Speaker 4: so you would you know one the first day is
Speaker 4: going to be okay, right now, I just did my kale,
Speaker 4: I'm thinking about kale. I'm going to go source everything
Speaker 4: I need to plant my kale. So I'm going to
Speaker 4: get seeds and some soil and a container and make
Speaker 4: sure I have a water source. Then the next week
Speaker 4: you could go and be like, all right, this is
Speaker 4: my planting day, right, I just prepped my kale. I
Speaker 4: know this is a value to me. And then that's
Speaker 4: the day you plant it. And then every week when
Speaker 4: you're doing that mail prep, you attach that to now,
Speaker 4: for five minutes, I'm going to go and work on
Speaker 4: my kale gardens, so that you know, two months from now,
Speaker 4: I'm not buying this from the store anymore. It's coming
Speaker 4: out of this garden. And so you just connect that
Speaker 4: five minutes. You already know this is a value to you.
Speaker 4: You know it would be huge to replace this from
Speaker 4: the grocery, and so you just attach a little bit
Speaker 4: of a habit right after you do that thing in
Speaker 4: the kitchen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is kind of already blowing my mind because
Speaker 1: we're writing, we're finishing up writing our book and it's
Speaker 1: about reframing spending as a skill instead of something that
Speaker 1: you're naturally good at or naturally bad at. And so
Speaker 1: I feel super convicted because I just wrote about how
Speaker 1: to master a skill. And like the Japanese have this
Speaker 1: like shoe hai of like first shoe. You you study
Speaker 1: under one master, and then as you get better than
Speaker 1: you expand until you transcend and have your own way
Speaker 1: of doing things. And so like I literally just was
Speaker 1: revising that chapter. This week's are getting you.
Speaker 2: I wanted to see, I want to see your kick
Speaker 2: you around. I want to more.
Speaker 4: I will I will say this is th and this
Speaker 4: is going to be the same thing for your reader, right,
Speaker 4: for everyone who's listening. The only thing that actually I
Speaker 4: say this a lot, like we all have our excuses, right,
Speaker 4: but in general, like the reason why I don't save
Speaker 4: money and I'm not you know, I'm not budgeting is
Speaker 4: because I don't want to, right, and I don't want
Speaker 4: to because I don't see the value in it, right
Speaker 4: it in some way, I don't see the payoff for
Speaker 4: the work. And I would say ninety nine point nine
Speaker 4: percent of people who don't garden. Yet they'll say it's
Speaker 4: because they don't have a green thumb, they don't have
Speaker 4: enough space, they don't have enough sun, they don't have
Speaker 4: enough time, all, they don't have enough money, whatever. But really,
Speaker 4: if it boils down to it, they just don't see
Speaker 4: the value in it. M And because they don't see
Speaker 4: the value in it. They don't want to because we
Speaker 4: do what we want to do, right, Like we scroll
Speaker 4: Instagram because we like it. And so so that's like
Speaker 4: one of my biggest things. And I'm sure you guys
Speaker 4: feel this too. Is Like the bigger thing is not
Speaker 4: can I convince you that you could have a garden
Speaker 4: that you do you could create a great thumb. The
Speaker 4: bigger question is can I convince you that it's worth it?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 4: Can I convince you that that this is worth your time?
Speaker 4: That it's it's not just worth it, it's essential, Like
Speaker 4: it's part of the human experience that you're missing.
Speaker 2: WHOA, Okay, yes, then let's go there, because I was
Speaker 2: going to ask you about someone you know, like low
Speaker 2: maintenance people who are low on time, which that could
Speaker 2: be true. You might have a lot going on in life,
Speaker 2: but how do we get to the point of valuing
Speaker 2: it so that we can make the most of even
Speaker 2: what little time we have.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So there's so many things that you know, we
Speaker 4: see as challenges, right, So let's just name and y'all
Speaker 4: can help me out on this, Like what are some
Speaker 4: of the like current challenges we all face, you know,
Speaker 4: especially like your your listeners I'm guessing are somewhat like you,
Speaker 4: probably somewhat like me. Right, So we're busy, what's another challenge.
Speaker 4: We're stressed out, probably tired, tired, We're we're trying to
Speaker 4: like connect with the people we care the most about, right,
Speaker 4: like kids or spouses or parents or like even just
Speaker 4: have real relationships these days, right, So like connecting in
Speaker 4: physical spaces with people. I'm guessing we're all trying to
Speaker 4: stay healthy, maybe not gain weight or get weight off,
Speaker 4: or just feel good in our bodies.
Speaker 2: Mentally exhausted, yes, on.
Speaker 4: Mental stewards of our resources, so like, okay, not waste money,
Speaker 4: but invest it in the right places. Yeah, And then
Speaker 4: I think we all have like a guilt complex about
Speaker 4: the environment and climate. We all know we should do more,
Speaker 4: we don't know what to do. And then I think
Speaker 4: we're all struggle with anxiety and depression.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: And so if you go back, well if you look
Speaker 4: at the science, but also if you go back a
Speaker 4: century when we were connected to the production of our food.
Speaker 4: So Joel Salatin is a famous guy, and he owns
Speaker 4: Polyface Farms, and he has a famous quote of like
Speaker 4: in the nineteen twenties, our food wasn't in grocery stores.
Speaker 4: Our food was in our backyards, it was down the street,
Speaker 4: it was in community gardens, it was at farmers' markets,
Speaker 4: and that since the nineteen forties, essentially after World War Two,
Speaker 4: all of our food moved to grocery stores and we
Speaker 4: all suddenly got disconnected. So for me, what this looked
Speaker 4: like was food addiction in high school and college, where
Speaker 4: I was eating tons of food. I didn't know how
Speaker 4: to process my feelings. I was rarely spending time outside,
Speaker 4: and food to me was like this evil thing that
Speaker 4: made me fat in my mind and that I should avoid,
Speaker 4: but I needed it for energy. And so I had
Speaker 4: this really bad disconnect with food where I saw it
Speaker 4: as the enemy rather than as my friend. And what
Speaker 4: I lived overseas for a couple of years and got
Speaker 4: introduced to the idea of seasonal food and food right
Speaker 4: from the earth, and food that's fresh rather than preserved,
Speaker 4: and went through just this huge learning of my disconnect
Speaker 4: was with food was actually the cause of the food addiction.
Speaker 4: It wasn't that I couldn't stop eating. It wasn't that
Speaker 4: I was a quote unquote like terrible person or a
Speaker 4: lost person. It was just I had grown up and
Speaker 4: it was just more like a product of my culture.
Speaker 4: So essentially what we're all all these things were fighting,
Speaker 4: the busyness, the anxiety, the depression, the wanting to take
Speaker 4: care of our bodies, needing energy, needing to connect. So
Speaker 4: many of these things get solved in a garden. So
Speaker 4: just imagine that all of us, everyone listening, has this spot.
Speaker 4: It could just be one box, right, It's got herbs
Speaker 4: and greens and a few more special things. But it's small.
Speaker 4: It doesn't even have to be big, sixteen square feet,
Speaker 4: all right. And every morning you go out there, when
Speaker 4: you wake up, you go outside. Science has shown when
Speaker 4: you're outside and the sun is coming up, your dopamines
Speaker 4: come on, your cortisol slows down. You feel good. Right,
Speaker 4: You've got the air outside, you've got the sky above
Speaker 4: your head. You're only out there for a minute. You
Speaker 4: grab some mint, you grab some anassists up, you grab
Speaker 4: some rosemary. Go inside, make yourself a cup of hot tea,
Speaker 4: go through your day. It's lunchtime. If you get to
Speaker 4: be home. If you don't, you can do this before
Speaker 4: you leave for work. You cut a big basket of greens.
Speaker 4: Go inside, rinse this salad off, and now you've got
Speaker 4: the base of your lunch that you're going to eat
Speaker 4: either at work or at home. So you're sitting there,
Speaker 4: You're eating things that came right out of the garden.
Speaker 4: It's like, you can't get fresher, you can't get more nutritious,
Speaker 4: you can't get more vitamins and variety than what you
Speaker 4: just grabbed from this little box. Right then you go
Speaker 4: through the rest of your day. You hit the end
Speaker 4: of the day. You know, generally people are turning on
Speaker 4: the TV. They're like, you know, zoning out, scrolling whatever.
Speaker 4: Everybody's disconnected. Instead, everybody in your household heads out to
Speaker 4: the garden to grab a few things for dinner that night.
Speaker 4: It takes three to five minutes. Everybody has a moment
Speaker 4: where they clear their head. You know, they get to
Speaker 4: see the sun go down. You get to see the
Speaker 4: crazy things that happened that grew overnight while you were
Speaker 4: you know, working and doing your own thing. Go inside,
Speaker 4: make a big pasta dish with some herb sauce, and
Speaker 4: maybe put on some peas or you know whatever, the
Speaker 4: little extra bit that you harvested from the garden that night.
Speaker 4: Maybe put some flowers in a vase that you pulled
Speaker 4: from the yard. And then at the end of the
Speaker 4: day you could go just sit out there, watch the sunset,
Speaker 4: maybe just take a little walk and water your garden
Speaker 4: before night. So and probably five to ten minutes of
Speaker 4: your day, that's all it took. You got yourself outside,
Speaker 4: which we know proves like totally changes all the emotions
Speaker 4: and energy. You You filled yourself up with some of
Speaker 4: the most nutritious food. You actually can't get it through vitamins,
Speaker 4: you can't get it through grocery store varieties. You connected
Speaker 4: with your family and your loved ones. You had a
Speaker 4: moment of like a memory maker where you're out there
Speaker 4: connecting together. You cleared your head, You got yourself off
Speaker 4: your phone, away from a screen outside at least two
Speaker 4: to three times that day. Yeah, and you also stewarded
Speaker 4: the environment. You all these plants are feeding butterflies and bees,
Speaker 4: and you know, supporting wildlife and the ecosystem. And you
Speaker 4: use less plastic, you have less food waste, and you
Speaker 4: save money.
Speaker 2: Okay, I'm bought in. I already kind of was. It
Speaker 2: sounds really idyllic, but I am gonna want to get
Speaker 2: into some of the nitty gritty too.
Speaker 4: Let's do it. But did I convince you? I was
Speaker 4: trying my hardest to convince you.
Speaker 1: I and so you're such a good like story tell
Speaker 1: her in that because I saw myself outside with my
Speaker 1: two sons wearing a prairie dress, not wearing a prairie dress,
Speaker 1: but just like out there, like letting them experience where
Speaker 1: food comes from and what our earth can do for us,
Speaker 1: and like being a part of that and that. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm here, I'm here for you, she's here for it.
Speaker 4: I love it. Okay, I did my job.
Speaker 2: But now now for the nuts and bolts though, because
Speaker 2: a couple of things came to mind, and so whatever
Speaker 2: you want to tackle first. But I'm thinking about pests
Speaker 2: and like remedies for common plant diseases. I'm thinking about seasonality.
Speaker 2: Like it feels kind of like what you described is
Speaker 2: very much for most people in North America, very much
Speaker 2: a summer experience. So kind of what what are we
Speaker 2: talking where we can have some of these foods regularly?
Speaker 2: What about square and birds and deer and skunk and rabbits,
Speaker 2: and what about plant diseases and what about the soil?
Speaker 2: I'm throwing it all at you, but I want to
Speaker 2: get the most.
Speaker 4: Okay, Okay, So I'm going to start at the top
Speaker 4: and we'll go down. Okay. So first is talk timing.
Speaker 4: So I teach something in my book Kitchen Garden Revival
Speaker 4: called the arc of the season. So where do you
Speaker 4: guys live.
Speaker 2: We live in Florida, So we get we get it all.
Speaker 4: You're easy, You're easy. Easy. But if you're listening and
Speaker 4: you live in Wisconsin or Canada or somewhere very cold,
Speaker 4: I've gardened from Houston all the way to Chicago. So
Speaker 4: what I just described to you in Houston, I did
Speaker 4: every day. In Chicago, I did from February to December. Wow,
Speaker 4: all right, so's it works in cold and hot places.
Speaker 4: Obviously there's a month or two where it's not happening
Speaker 4: in a cold climate, but it can still happen in
Speaker 4: a greenhouse with a cold frame. There's ways you can
Speaker 4: make it happen. So most people talk about frost states,
Speaker 4: like you can only garden after your last frost state
Speaker 4: and before your first frost date. I teach ignore that.
Speaker 4: More of what we're talking about is seasons. So we
Speaker 4: have a cold season, a cool season, a warm season,
Speaker 4: and a hot season. So for you guys in Florida,
Speaker 4: you're probably going something like cool season in the middle
Speaker 4: of winter, like from November to January, where you're going
Speaker 4: to do lots of greens, lots of peas, lots of
Speaker 4: root crops. You have maybe a chance of frost, but
Speaker 4: probably not, am I right?
Speaker 2: Not yet?
Speaker 1: Probably maybe like one or two days.
Speaker 4: Yes, Okay, So Houston was the same. So you're gonna
Speaker 4: have lettuce from October until March. I love that October
Speaker 4: to March, so all the greens, the kale, all that
Speaker 4: kind of stuff. That's October to March. As soon as
Speaker 4: you pass Valentine's Day, essentially you move into what I
Speaker 4: call the warm season. That's when there's no chance of frost,
Speaker 4: and that's your best time to grow tomatoes, cucumber, squash, zucchini,
Speaker 4: all those quinn essential summer things. For you guys, that's
Speaker 4: actually a spring and a fall thing. So you do
Speaker 4: warm season plants in the spring. In the summer, you
Speaker 4: guys move really high and that's what we call the
Speaker 4: hot season. We had that in Houston. So that's when
Speaker 4: you're going to grow okra, eggplants, sweet potatoes, all those
Speaker 4: things that you associate with like equatorial climates, you'll do
Speaker 4: those June to August, and then you mirror it. That's
Speaker 4: why I call it the arc. On the other side,
Speaker 4: in the fall, you're going to do a warm season
Speaker 4: garden again, so you'll get to do fall tomatoes, fall cucumbers,
Speaker 4: fall beans, all that kind of stuff. For me in Nashville,
Speaker 4: I'm a little bit lower, so I'm in what I
Speaker 4: call a mild climate. So mine goes cool, warm, a
Speaker 4: little bit of hot, just like for a three to
Speaker 4: four weeks, back to warm and then to cool again.
Speaker 4: I do have a cold season right in the middle,
Speaker 4: and then in Chicago, I had kind of a long
Speaker 4: cold season from something like December to February was our
Speaker 4: cold season. And so the season I got two of
Speaker 4: in Chicago is two cool seasons. So I had a
Speaker 4: cool season in the spring and a cool season in
Speaker 4: the fall, while you guys have warm seasons. So there
Speaker 4: are plants to match every season, right, So there's loads
Speaker 4: of plants that grow in the cool season, loads of
Speaker 4: plants that grow in the warm season. So the way
Speaker 4: I teach, the method I teach is that you're always
Speaker 4: planting the next season, so you guys, right now, you'd
Speaker 4: be planting your warm season garden. You're going to enjoy
Speaker 4: that for the next two to three months, and then
Speaker 4: as soon as you hit June, you start pulling things
Speaker 4: as they finish and moving to the hot season, and
Speaker 4: then go another two to three months and then start again.
Speaker 4: So so that's the timing piece of this is basically
Speaker 4: we're always planning planting, or we're always planning to plant.
Speaker 4: And I know one of your questions is like low maintenance, right,
Speaker 4: like we're busy, and so another piece of this is
Speaker 4: planting a lot. So I know, like a common teaching
Speaker 4: for gardening is start small, but I actually recommend the opposite.
Speaker 4: So at least if you're having just one bed, don't
Speaker 4: have blank spaces. Like when I look down in your
Speaker 4: garden when you start yours six weeks six weeks after planting,
Speaker 4: I wouldn't want to see any open soil. And so
Speaker 4: that's actually what makes a garden low maintenance. I learned
Speaker 4: this from going to national parks. Speaking of frugal vacations,
Speaker 4: My family loves to go to national parks and I
Speaker 4: was just starting a garden and I would notice we're
Speaker 4: out in big bend actually in a desert, and I
Speaker 4: noticed the plants there there were surviving in a desert
Speaker 4: with like no care, right, no fertilizers, no pesticides, and
Speaker 4: there were just plants thriving in a very harsh condition.
Speaker 4: And I noticed I never saw a plant that was
Speaker 4: by itself. Plants were always bunched very close together growing.
Speaker 4: It was a variety of sizes, but you could never
Speaker 4: see the ground in the areas where the plants were growing.
Speaker 4: And so I've learned that's what a low maintenance garden is.
Speaker 4: It's a garden that's packed with plants so much so
Speaker 4: that the soil isn't exposed. And that leads to your
Speaker 4: next question about pests and disease. One of the reasons
Speaker 4: we end up with weeds and pests and soil that
Speaker 4: isn't good is we're taught to space out our plants
Speaker 4: because most of the directions out there are for farmers.
Speaker 4: And so it'll say, like put a tomato here and
Speaker 4: then give it three feet and then plant another tomato.
Speaker 4: Have you guys seen these direct hats?
Speaker 2: Yes, and I've ignored them. I'm like, I can't do good.
Speaker 4: You're you're my kind of person. So I do the
Speaker 4: same thing, and I realized, basically those rules are for farmers,
Speaker 4: but also those rules ignore the way nature works.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 4: You would never see just one plant, like I have
Speaker 4: a woods behind my home and and it's covered in green.
Speaker 4: Every piece of the ground is covered. There's something growing there.
Speaker 4: And that's the way nature likes to work. And so
Speaker 4: you a way to deal with pasts and disease and
Speaker 4: challenges is you actually plant more the way nature does.
Speaker 4: That's what my second book, Leaves, Roots and Fruit is
Speaker 4: all about. Is essentially, you plant the centers of your
Speaker 4: beds with fruiting plants, those that are going to be
Speaker 4: big and take a long time to develop. Then you
Speaker 4: plant your medium sized plants along that, and then small
Speaker 4: sized plants like your leafy greens and herbs along the outside.
Speaker 4: And what happens is when you plant all these varieties
Speaker 4: of plants together, you're helping with pests because pest love
Speaker 4: a buffet. And so when you break up your plants
Speaker 4: like this and combine them, pests are like, wait, I
Speaker 4: really liked that one plant, but this one doesn't taste good. Right,
Speaker 4: So they might eat from one plant, but it's not
Speaker 4: like they're going to destroy the entire bed all at once.
Speaker 4: These different plants work together, so you have herbs and
Speaker 4: flowers that put off smells and scents that can repel
Speaker 4: pests and help with pest protection. And then you're going
Speaker 4: to have healthier soil because covered soil is a healthier soil.
Speaker 4: It dries out slower, and it loses it's nutrients slower
Speaker 4: as well. So okay, pess timing, you ask some more questions.
Speaker 4: What were they?
Speaker 1: Plant diseases?
Speaker 4: Okay, plant diseases. I put them in the exact same
Speaker 4: category as pest. If you think about like you never
Speaker 4: watch like Animal Planet, you know, and it's like the
Speaker 4: bad guys coming and who gets taken when the bad
Speaker 4: the bad animals coming to like the predators on its way.
Speaker 4: The slowest one, yes, so it's either it's then the
Speaker 4: slowest one is generally going to be the youngest, the oldest,
Speaker 4: or the injured, right, and so in the garden is
Speaker 4: the exact same. The plants you have to be the
Speaker 4: most careful about are the youngest, the oldest, and the injured.
Speaker 4: Those are going to be the most likely to get pest,
Speaker 4: to get disease and and to cause you know, challenges
Speaker 4: in the garden. So so I try with the smallest,
Speaker 4: with the youngest. Those are the ones I try to
Speaker 4: protect the most. So you watch after those. You you
Speaker 4: do that is a period of time where you like,
Speaker 4: when you plant your kale garden, you want to water
Speaker 4: it every day for the first two weeks. You want
Speaker 4: to be watching out for those tender, little young plants
Speaker 4: because those are very susceptible at the end of their
Speaker 4: life cycle. You want to keep an eye out because
Speaker 4: they're going to be the most likely to attract paests
Speaker 4: and disease. And so those are the first ones you
Speaker 4: want to take out of the garden. That's why I
Speaker 4: really promote seasonal planting. You really don't want a plant
Speaker 4: in the garden for more than sixty five to ninety
Speaker 4: at the most one hundred and twenty days, So taking
Speaker 4: those out and then and then finally the plants that
Speaker 4: are injured, so plants that you know maybe weren't great
Speaker 4: coming in from the nursery, or just have never taken off,
Speaker 4: or just have some issues. Generally those are ones I'll
Speaker 4: prune back and watch and if they don't seem to improve,
Speaker 4: I pull those out as well. So my concept in
Speaker 4: the garden with pass and disease is stay on the offense.
Speaker 4: So I think a lot of people get stressed out
Speaker 4: about all the things that can go wrong, and what
Speaker 4: I try to do is just focus on the good inputs.
Speaker 4: You guys probably do this too with your budgeting, right,
Speaker 4: So I worry less about the bad guys and I
Speaker 4: worry more about what's something good I can do for
Speaker 4: my garden today? So how can I prone it or
Speaker 4: water it or add composts? Like what are good things
Speaker 4: I can bring in? And generally, I have to be honest,
Speaker 4: I spend very little time dealing with pest or disease
Speaker 4: because I'm just focused on the better sub Is there
Speaker 4: pest and disease Absolutely, if you're going to have that's
Speaker 4: a thing we should just clear up. If you're going
Speaker 4: to have an organic garden, pests and disease will be there,
Speaker 4: just part of the deal. But guess what, all the
Speaker 4: food that you're buying from the grocery store that's organically grown,
Speaker 4: they've got pests and disease around them too, but just
Speaker 4: way bigger. So it's part of the food you're eating already.
Speaker 4: You just don't see it. One lady she was like,
Speaker 4: I was trying to come to her garden. She's like, ew,
Speaker 4: I just can't stand the thought of like bugs crawling
Speaker 4: all over my food. Ooh, It's like I just can't
Speaker 4: do it. And I was like, well, I hate to
Speaker 4: break it to you, but bugs are crawling all over
Speaker 4: your food, Like you just don't You're just not aware, right,
Speaker 4: It's just part of the process that you missed. But yeah,
Speaker 4: it is part of it. But but definitely like over
Speaker 4: like like intensively planting, keeping your garden full, and then
Speaker 4: like we talked about before, like prioritizing those things you
Speaker 4: definitely know you want to eat from the garden because
Speaker 4: like that that kind of idyllic scenario I told you of,
Speaker 4: like a day with a garden. That's there's a saying
Speaker 4: like the best fertilizer in the garden is your shadow,
Speaker 4: and it's essentially the same, like the best pest control
Speaker 4: in the garden is your shadow. So I try to
Speaker 4: have things that I don't buy at the grocery so
Speaker 4: that I have to go outside to get them, right
Speaker 4: because they're not in the fridge. So I need this
Speaker 4: thing for a recipe or for a dish, I have
Speaker 4: to go to the garden to get it, and then
Speaker 4: while I'm out there, I'll see oh, oops, like looks
Speaker 4: like there's a bug is eating that plant, or oh
Speaker 4: there's a hole in that leaf, right, And so you
Speaker 4: catch stuff a lot sooner rather than getting away from you.
Speaker 2: Now with that, this is a really specific question. Okay,
Speaker 2: we're following kind of one master, and so we're not
Speaker 2: getting all the clutter of everybody else's ideas. But then
Speaker 2: once we start to see an issue that we want
Speaker 2: to solve for, would you recommend at that point it's
Speaker 2: okay to google, Hey, what's happening with my lemon tree?
Speaker 2: Or is it still best to try and find like,
Speaker 2: what's the one master saying about this thing? Or is
Speaker 2: that when we can open the floodgates to the internet.
Speaker 4: I think you can. But I see that also as
Speaker 4: like I think we underestimate our own wisdom. And so
Speaker 4: something I teach in my first book, Kitchen Garden Revival,
Speaker 4: in chapter seven on tending, is the concept think about nature.
Speaker 4: And I think we've gotten so custom to going to
Speaker 4: the internet or going to the store for a solution.
Speaker 4: I just want to remind everybody like Nature's amazing, Like
Speaker 4: nature knows how to protect itself. The plants want to
Speaker 4: protect themselves. So I have just a little practice that
Speaker 4: I recommend. So if you have an issue cut away
Speaker 4: the issue, add compost to the plant. Is essentially like
Speaker 4: giving vitamins to the plant and then watch it. And
Speaker 4: so that's like my just simple remedy. If you have
Speaker 4: an issue like cut away the problem, add compost to
Speaker 4: support the plant, because nine times out of ten the
Speaker 4: plant will self rescue. Yes, you can totally look it up.
Speaker 4: I'm not against that at all. But as a mom,
Speaker 4: I know you probably felt this too. Like I've had
Speaker 4: an issue with say like something happens to my kid
Speaker 4: or they have like a bruise somewhere or something, and
Speaker 4: I google it and that's like the absolutely worst thing
Speaker 4: I could ever do, because suddenly, like my kid is dying,
Speaker 4: you know, and so like I go to a very
Speaker 4: deep dark place. So I would say beware. And also
Speaker 4: just don't discount how smart you are. You know, think
Speaker 4: about nature, think about the way nature solves its own problems,
Speaker 4: and then just kind of partner with nature in solving
Speaker 4: that problem.
Speaker 2: Oh, that's simpling so much, I know, so helpful.
Speaker 1: You are essentially telling us, and we did not. We're
Speaker 1: not paying you to be here. You're telling us, like
Speaker 1: pretty much all the things we tell people to think
Speaker 1: about when they're spending money and how to save money,
Speaker 1: but you're talking about it in like plant psychology, where
Speaker 1: we talk about spending psychology, and it is it's blowing
Speaker 1: my mind. I never thought to think about gardening in
Speaker 1: this way.
Speaker 4: It's it's very cool, awesome.
Speaker 2: I I don't know that I've got too much more.
Speaker 2: I feel like you brought this so full circle of
Speaker 2: like here's all the uswers, there's all issues, because truly,
Speaker 2: that is one of my biggest things is it's not
Speaker 2: just fear of what's going to happen. It's seeing that
Speaker 2: these things are happening. It's seeing that those seeds never took.
Speaker 2: They just didn't grow. I don't know if squirrels or
Speaker 2: birds got to them, but they never grew. And there's
Speaker 2: some things that do happen in my garden that can
Speaker 2: take the wind out of my sails. Or it feels
Speaker 2: like so laborious to now have to look up. Now.
Speaker 2: I just kind of planted and I was excited and
Speaker 2: I'm going willy nilly with it. But now it feels like, well,
Speaker 2: I have to be an expert on all of these
Speaker 2: specific types of plants, and the internet has so much information,
Speaker 2: and what do I do? And then I just walk
Speaker 2: away and my garden doesn't see my shadow. And so
Speaker 2: I feel like you've brought these really helpful tethering points
Speaker 2: of Really, it's a habit issue for me. I'll be
Speaker 2: excited one Saturday of the month, and then I just
Speaker 2: want the thing to do its thing. But I've not
Speaker 2: created a habit to go visit this every day. My
Speaker 2: garden's not seeing my shadow, And how many of my
Speaker 2: issues would have been resolved if that were the case. Like,
Speaker 2: it's not like it needs this whole herkn effort for
Speaker 2: its lifetime. It needs maybe, yeah, that one day and
Speaker 2: then these habits along the way. So I am just
Speaker 2: reflecting back and highlighting I think the things that are
Speaker 2: important for us to glean from here. And I appreciate
Speaker 2: that you're highlighting food that we can eat. I mean,
Speaker 2: of course, having plants and greenery in the house and
Speaker 2: outside and flowers are exciting, but I think the value
Speaker 2: of this plant is serving a purpose for us, and
Speaker 2: so we're getting emotional and mental health through being out
Speaker 2: in our garden. But then we're also getting the nutrients
Speaker 2: that our body needs. So just thank you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you've brought everything full service. I do have one question,
Speaker 1: So where do I start, Like where's the best place
Speaker 1: to find starter seeds or what? Like, what's the best
Speaker 1: what do I need to start?
Speaker 4: Just like, yeah, So so my book leaves roots and fruit.
Speaker 4: So if you're if you want to learn from me,
Speaker 4: then this book Kitchen Garden Revival is setting up the garden.
Speaker 4: So if you I do raised beds, Trellis's I like
Speaker 4: to set up a garden nicely, all right. Some people
Speaker 4: would say fancy, but it doesn't have to be fancy.
Speaker 4: My thing is if you have a beautiful garden, If
Speaker 4: you have a garden that you think is beautiful, I
Speaker 4: don't have to think it's beautiful, but if you think
Speaker 4: your garden is beautiful, you will go there more. And
Speaker 4: so I would say, whatever you do, even if it's
Speaker 4: just a container, whatever you set up, make it beautiful,
Speaker 4: as beautiful as you can afford, as beautiful as you
Speaker 4: want to afford. Because the prettier you think it is,
Speaker 4: the more you're going to take pictures of it, and
Speaker 4: the more you take pictures of it. The more you'll
Speaker 4: notice it, and the more you notice it, the more
Speaker 4: you'll want to go there.
Speaker 1: And the more you post about it on Instagram, the
Speaker 1: more motivation you'll have to keep it up. So people
Speaker 1: don't ask why do you stop posting about it?
Speaker 4: We're all about motivation. It's all about motivation. So this
Speaker 4: is all about the setup. You'll like I talk about
Speaker 4: soil and water and planting, and then the latter part
Speaker 4: of the book is all about the plants. If you're
Speaker 4: a beginner gardener or you just want you already have
Speaker 4: the gardens set up and you want to dig into
Speaker 4: the plants, then my second book would be for you,
Speaker 4: and it's called Leaves, Roots and Fruit, and it is
Speaker 4: a step by step system to learn how to garden.
Speaker 4: So I start with the very simplest, which is growing
Speaker 4: sprouts and microgreens inside. So for your listeners who are
Speaker 4: in a cold climate, this would be your answer for
Speaker 4: what to do in the coldest part of the winter.
Speaker 4: But we go from leaves, so I do sprouts and
Speaker 4: microgreens in chapter one. Step two is herbs, so that
Speaker 4: would be the next place i'd tell you to start.
Speaker 4: Then salad greens, so herbs and salad greens. You're going
Speaker 4: to get the most bang for your buck, the biggest
Speaker 4: roi and so prolific. So for one plant, you will
Speaker 4: harvest week after week after week after week. So you
Speaker 4: just get a huge payout, a lot less stress, there's
Speaker 4: less pests, there's less disease, and it's just a shorter lifespan. Right,
Speaker 4: So it's like training someone to run a five k
Speaker 4: versus a marathon. So leafy plants are the five k,
Speaker 4: all right, So if you're just training yourself, like I'm
Speaker 4: ready to start this, don't You don't have to sign
Speaker 4: up for a marathon yet. It's okay, right, So leaves first.
Speaker 4: Next up is roots, so that's like radish's beets, carrots.
Speaker 4: Those are going to be harder, take longer time, need
Speaker 4: a little bit more skill. A simple one. Two simple
Speaker 4: ones you guys could do would be potatoes and garlic.
Speaker 4: Those are easier. They do take more time, but they're
Speaker 4: not they're pretty, they're pretty dependable. And then the last
Speaker 4: stage is the fruit. So that's all the ones we
Speaker 4: talked about, tomatoes, cucumbers, being zucchini, squash, the plants that
Speaker 4: stay in the garden, for three, four, five months. That's
Speaker 4: your marathon. So you can totally run a marathon if
Speaker 4: you want to on your first go. I just want
Speaker 4: you to know that's what you signed up for because
Speaker 4: a lot of people, a lot of people buy that
Speaker 4: marathon plant. That's their very first plant that they buy,
Speaker 4: and then they come home and they're like it didn't work.
Speaker 4: And I'm like, well, yeah, you like went for a
Speaker 4: marathon on your first run. Like I just ran to
Speaker 4: the end of the block, you.
Speaker 1: Know, yeah, I mean, and I'm a runner, so like
Speaker 1: I get that, and I love you get of the
Speaker 1: five k distance? Yeah, okay, perfect, And I love herbs
Speaker 1: and salad greens. That's what I like buy most consistently,
Speaker 1: and it's only.
Speaker 4: You will get. You want to talk about frugality, there's
Speaker 4: a book the guy who wrote Square Foot Gardening, Bartholomew.
Speaker 4: I just forgot his first name. He also wrote a
Speaker 4: book called High Value Veggies. You guys should get this
Speaker 4: especially for your uh, for your audience, and he details
Speaker 4: which which plants in the garden you get the biggest
Speaker 4: ROI on. And so he did this math equation of
Speaker 4: like it costs much it takes up this much space,
Speaker 4: how much do you get in harvest from this?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 4: Guess what The first fourteen plants are salad greens. I
Speaker 4: thought that too. It's all herbs.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, well yeah, because they're so expensive.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so a half ounce a half ounce at my
Speaker 4: grocery store, a half ounce in a plastic box at
Speaker 4: the grocery is three ninety nine and from one plant,
Speaker 4: from one plant, you can grow two to three pounds.
Speaker 2: Yeah, to do the math on that. And that's something
Speaker 2: you can do indoors year round. So even if you
Speaker 2: don't have a yard where you can do the type
Speaker 2: of gardening that we've been describing there, it sounds like
Speaker 2: there's options for people. Yeah, indoorly in apartments.
Speaker 4: Yeah, or are like I'm on a mission to get
Speaker 4: everybody growing their own herbs because it's it's easy, it's prolific,
Speaker 4: and you will save a ton of money.
Speaker 2: You know what's easy and prolific. And I'm on a
Speaker 2: mission every episode, Yeah, to get to this point, the
Speaker 2: bill of the week.
Speaker 3: That's right, it's time for the best minute of your
Speaker 3: entire week. Maybe a baby was born and his name
Speaker 3: is Williams. Maybe you've paid off your mortgage, maybe your
Speaker 3: car died, and you're happy to not have to pay
Speaker 3: that bill anymore. US bills, Buffalo bills, Bill Clinton, this
Speaker 3: is the bill of the week, Nicole.
Speaker 1: Every week we invite we yell at our guests and
Speaker 1: invite them to share with us their bill for the week,
Speaker 1: and we would love to hear yours.
Speaker 4: So my bill is big. I have four kids, they're
Speaker 4: all teenagers, two dogs, and then a very hungry husband,
Speaker 4: and so my my grocery bill is sky high, especially
Speaker 4: since twenty twenty. But I will tell you what I'm
Speaker 4: so proud of is that on that grocery bill there
Speaker 4: is not a single green and there is not a
Speaker 4: single herb. And it doesn't mean that we don't eat
Speaker 4: salads or have herbs. In fact, right now, every single
Speaker 4: day for the last two weeks, I have cut myself
Speaker 4: a giant size salad. And I'm talking like, consider an
Speaker 4: entire box of spring mix. Okay. I have a friend
Speaker 4: who she challenges people to eat a pound of produce
Speaker 4: a day, so I've been trying to do that. WHOA,
Speaker 4: So I want you to think about a spring mix box,
Speaker 4: all right, That's what I'm harvesting every day at the
Speaker 4: grocery store. That costs seven ninety nine and so I'm
Speaker 4: just going to say I've harvested that would be eight time,
Speaker 4: seven fifty six dollars worth of salad this week, and
Speaker 4: that was not on my grocery bill. So I'm not
Speaker 4: going to tell you how high my bill was because
Speaker 4: it did include many other things that it did not
Speaker 4: include any salad.
Speaker 1: The day I can start growing apple sauce pouches, they
Speaker 1: would be the day that I drop everything else in
Speaker 1: my life and just like commit fully to gardening, Like, yeah, we.
Speaker 2: Can't grow apples here.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, bummer, you're gonna maybe strawberries oranges. Strawberry kids
Speaker 4: don't like orange sauce, because that would be it.
Speaker 1: They do love oranges, and my father in law has
Speaker 1: orange like I think it's tangerine trees and they're they're
Speaker 1: best known for their strawberries, and we get two crops
Speaker 1: of strawberries a year. So that's nice to go pick
Speaker 1: them for free. Yeah, that's a part.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, that's huge.
Speaker 2: Well, if you all listening, have a bill about your
Speaker 2: best bill being not spending as much because you're just
Speaker 2: implementing problem solving and creativity and gardening or just anything
Speaker 2: else your name is Bill. You like someone named Billy?
Speaker 2: You know the Drill Girlfriends podcast dot com slash Bill.
Speaker 2: We're ready for it, and now it's time for the
Speaker 2: lightening round we do.
Speaker 1: All of our sound effects are organic.
Speaker 4: I appreciate that. Yeah, it's it's feeling very real right now.
Speaker 1: So for our Vulnerability round today, we will all answer
Speaker 1: this question except maybe me. What's your favorite plant to
Speaker 1: grow and why? Like Nicole, I feel like this would
Speaker 1: be between you choosing your children, but could you choose one?
Speaker 4: I know. I was like, oh man, this is a
Speaker 4: hard one. I'm gonna I'm gonna go with with Parsley.
Speaker 2: Oh I love Parsley.
Speaker 1: Tell us about par tell us about your love Parsley.
Speaker 4: It's like such a no fuss plant. I was just
Speaker 4: noticing we had like five inches of snow over the
Speaker 4: winter and all my parsley just popped back up as
Speaker 4: soon as the snow went away. So it comes back
Speaker 4: at least twice a year, at least over two years.
Speaker 4: It is a host plant for butterflies, so the swallowtail
Speaker 4: butterfly and ladybugs love it too, So it's like such
Speaker 4: a good eco friendly plant. It is a protector from
Speaker 4: past for other plants. It doesn't need any special care.
Speaker 4: I mean literally, as long as you have it in
Speaker 4: a garden, like close to the ground so that you
Speaker 4: don't you wouldn't want to put in a pot because
Speaker 4: it needs to be watered quite often. But in just
Speaker 4: a normal raised bed. I don't do anything special for it.
Speaker 4: I can cut from it probably twice a week, just
Speaker 4: one plant. I parsley is full of vitamin C. It's
Speaker 4: like it's a packed nutrient powerhouse. And I put it
Speaker 4: in everything. I put it in green smoothies, I put
Speaker 4: in omelets, I put it on top of salads. Has been.
Speaker 4: His grandmother was Armenian and she made this delicious tabooley
Speaker 4: salad with curly parsley. And then she also would just
Speaker 4: chop up like a cup of parsley in every fresh
Speaker 4: green salad. And so I've taken from her and I
Speaker 4: do that. And then you know, if I have like
Speaker 4: if I'm serving my kids like pasta and red sauce
Speaker 4: and I'm feeling like I'm just not making the dinner happen,
Speaker 4: I'll just cut some parsley and throw it on the
Speaker 4: plate as a little garnish and call it, you know,
Speaker 4: a wind. Yeah, so it's it's just an easy I
Speaker 4: would just say, yeah, it's such an easy, dependable plant
Speaker 4: and so good for me, and uh yeah, it's just
Speaker 4: it's just a good one.
Speaker 2: I love Jimmy Cherry.
Speaker 4: Oh that's it too, Yes, Jimmy Churry is to die for.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so they're inspiring me. Parsley, Parsley is going to
Speaker 2: go in the garden.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Nicole, you can have mine if you want to
Speaker 1: have a second favorite, because.
Speaker 4: I want okay, I want to get you. Yeah, second favorite.
Speaker 4: You know. I'm trying not to do herbs and greens
Speaker 4: because those really are my two favorites, but I do
Speaker 4: if you follow me. I grow tomatoes on an arch
Speaker 4: trellis and that's like on the front of my book.
Speaker 4: And I love sun gold and Juliette tomatoes and black cherries.
Speaker 4: I think I they're not like they're the opposite of Parsley.
Speaker 4: They're not easy to grow, they take a long time.
Speaker 4: You only harvest them in a certain period of time.
Speaker 4: And I think it's that magical place where the plants
Speaker 4: meet the top of the arch and it's usually like
Speaker 4: the end of the season and it's like a culmination, right,
Speaker 4: It's just like a moment where you're like wow, Like
Speaker 4: all these little minutes, all these little moments in a garden,
Speaker 4: all these times I walked out here, they added up
Speaker 4: to this and it's like you walk, I walk under
Speaker 4: the arch, and but I plant like eight plants on
Speaker 4: a trellis and every day I'm watching the plants kind
Speaker 4: of like edge their way up, edge their way up,
Speaker 4: edge their way up. And then suddenly you come out.
Speaker 4: There was like a big rainstorm or something, and you
Speaker 4: come out and they met and you know, it only happens,
Speaker 4: like I said, for a couple of weeks at the
Speaker 4: end of this season. Uh yeah. And it's just it's
Speaker 4: like the perfect picture of you know, the work of
Speaker 4: our lives when we do these little things every day
Speaker 4: and how they add up and then you get to
Speaker 4: eat the results. They're pretty delicious.
Speaker 2: I'm so beautiful.
Speaker 1: I'm so glad I gave you my That was beautiful.
Speaker 2: I gave you you have one, well, so mine wasn't.
Speaker 2: It's not a veggie or a fruit because I my
Speaker 2: gardening is fits and spurts. That's how I would describe
Speaker 2: as aesthetics. You have a lot happens for me.
Speaker 1: Of plants that are thriving well for aesthetic purposes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I like greenery for greenery's sake. And I'm and
Speaker 2: I've tried to dabble with with plants and stuff and
Speaker 2: it happens in fits and spurts. So for me, ivy,
Speaker 2: I just love a good IVY moment. It's easy to propagate,
Speaker 2: hard to kill. I just love it. I put it everywhere,
Speaker 2: it's all over.
Speaker 4: That's awesome. I love plants like that that you can
Speaker 4: just grow and grow. And yeah, you get a big
Speaker 4: bang for your buck with ivy. Yeah. Actually, I'm glad
Speaker 4: you said that because I need to put some of
Speaker 4: my landscape.
Speaker 2: It's also a go to gift for me too. I
Speaker 2: will just clip off pieces of my ivy, propagate it,
Speaker 2: throw it in a pot, give it to people. I
Speaker 2: did give one to jenn Al though I've learned better
Speaker 2: because I don't think it's still.
Speaker 4: A lot, but it is still alive.
Speaker 2: Jill. Yeah, job, so that's your favorite thing to grow that.
Speaker 2: She needs some more dirt though she definitely has. She
Speaker 2: needs to get that she needs to refill. That would
Speaker 2: be great. Yeah, she is alive.
Speaker 1: She is alive, and she's alive because you refer to
Speaker 1: her as a small, as a as a girl, a
Speaker 1: human plant. She just have a name though human personalities.
Speaker 2: Yes, Nicole, this has been so lovely. If only for us,
Speaker 2: it's been so lovely, it might have been life changed.
Speaker 1: And for me, if.
Speaker 2: People want you to be their master, they want to
Speaker 2: call you master, where can they find more from you?
Speaker 4: Well, you don't have to call me master, you can
Speaker 4: just call me Nicole. But my favorite place to hang
Speaker 4: out is Instagram at gardenery coo, so g r d
Speaker 4: E and ar y coo. We are all over socials,
Speaker 4: so if you like watching videos on other platforms, were
Speaker 4: there as well under the same name gardenery dot com.
Speaker 4: We have over a thousand If you want to get
Speaker 4: lost in some instruction, we have over a thousand blog
Speaker 4: articles that you could just search and then you'd be
Speaker 4: able to see my method for those things. So generally,
Speaker 4: if you have an issue or if you have something
Speaker 4: you want to do in the garden, there's an article
Speaker 4: about it. And then we have YouTube channel and a podcast,
Speaker 4: so same Gardenery on YouTube and then the podcast is
Speaker 4: called grow Yourself. And then of course my books like
Speaker 4: if you want just assyscinct, like I don't want to
Speaker 4: watch a video. I just want to get the plan.
Speaker 4: Then my two books, Kitchen Garden Revival. It's how to
Speaker 4: design and set up a beautiful garden that you love
Speaker 4: and then leaves, roots and fruit is plants specific be beautiful.
Speaker 1: So much, Nicole, this has been so great, and I'm
Speaker 1: so excited for people to grow things and get more
Speaker 1: connected to anything that gets people more connected to each
Speaker 1: other and to the earth. I am giddy about and yeah,
Speaker 1: of course this is going to do it. I didn't
Speaker 1: know why I didn't put it together and I'm just excited,
Speaker 1: so excited.
Speaker 4: Well, thank you for having me. I think you know,
Speaker 4: I don't know if you've watched that show Blue Zones
Speaker 4: on Netflix, but almost every blue Blue Zones are Dan
Speaker 4: Butner researches these with National Geographic and it's areas where
Speaker 4: people live the longest, you know, where they live to
Speaker 4: one hundred or more. And he just recently did a
Speaker 4: video that in all the Blue Zones the people are gardeners.
Speaker 4: And so yeah, I just dream of a world where
Speaker 4: our kids are growing up and they don't have to
Speaker 4: say these sentences that we say that we don't have
Speaker 4: green thumbs and we don't have time for a garden,
Speaker 4: that the garden is just a normal part of their lives.
Speaker 4: And I'm so thankful for the opportunity to share with
Speaker 4: you and your listeners. And yeah, it's called Kitchen Garden
Speaker 4: Revival for a reason, because I really believe that if
Speaker 4: each of us grew a little bit of our own food,
Speaker 4: we could change the planet for the better. So thanks
Speaker 4: for giving me the opportunity. Beautiful, Thanks Nicole, Thank you.
Speaker 2: Wow, I wish we could have kept going for so
Speaker 2: much longer. I got to watch something happen to you
Speaker 2: just now.
Speaker 1: It was putting when somebody can like shift your mentality
Speaker 1: or shift your mindset from from just seeing the project
Speaker 1: to seeing the purpose for the project. And that is
Speaker 1: that's what we try to do with spending. Like saving
Speaker 1: money and frugality is not for the sake of saving
Speaker 1: money and frugality, it's for the time freedom, it gets you,
Speaker 1: the connection that you get with other people through sharing
Speaker 1: and connecting on by nothing groups in Facebook, marketplace, and
Speaker 1: like it's connection and good stewardship of natural resources like
Speaker 1: these are all the reasons that we think values based
Speaker 1: spending and frugality are important. And she literally just took
Speaker 1: all that and translated it to gardening. Basically spoke our
Speaker 1: words to us and who knew you no idea that
Speaker 1: she would do that.
Speaker 2: Translate it to gardening. Yeah, So what will be your
Speaker 2: first step? Like, based on this, you feeling intrinsically motivated
Speaker 2: now seeing value for it, what do you think your
Speaker 2: first step will be?
Speaker 1: So after we pop, like get the renovation all done up,
Speaker 1: I think maybe at the maybe over the crest of
Speaker 1: our hot season, I might start with some herbs, maybe kale,
Speaker 1: the easy stuff. Yeah, I don't eat microgreens, but I
Speaker 1: do eat a lot of kale.
Speaker 2: I'm excited for this. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And Dan, my father in law, has always said how
Speaker 1: kale is so easy to agree. He's always like, please
Speaker 1: take kale with you when you leave. I have too much,
Speaker 1: So I don't know, Like it's not a big cellar,
Speaker 1: but he keeps growing it because it just grows so easily.
Speaker 2: It could be like a good like she talked about
Speaker 2: having a lot of stuff in your garden, it could
Speaker 2: be a really good filler. It is. It's only growing,
Speaker 2: it's hard to kill, so it's just a nice little addition.
Speaker 1: So I'm I'm excited to show Kai like how things
Speaker 1: grow and how the world works. He'll love it. So
Speaker 1: thank you so much for listening. We love hearing your
Speaker 1: feedback on episodes like this and so if you really
Speaker 1: got something out of this episode, we would love to
Speaker 1: hear a review from you, like Missus grows Vege. Wow,
Speaker 1: you really found a good way for this episode called
Speaker 1: the Voice of Reason. It happens to be five stars
Speaker 1: and they say this podcast and the emails are the
Speaker 1: reminders I need about living a frugal life. Thank you
Speaker 1: for bringing our family financial peace and joy. Wow, missus
Speaker 1: grows Vege.
Speaker 2: I'm so I love these short and sweet and to
Speaker 2: the point, they're so powerful. Reviews that this process of
Speaker 2: the friend letter and this podcast is helping you to
Speaker 2: find financial peace and joy is more than we could
Speaker 2: have ever asked.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks for listening. If you all are enjoying this show,
Speaker 2: please also take a minute to review. To leave a
Speaker 2: rating and review, it doesn't have to take you long.
Speaker 2: You don't have to write paragraphs. You can write a
Speaker 2: sentence and it helps other potential listeners find us.
Speaker 1: So thanks in advance, Thank you, see you next time.
Speaker 1: Grugle Friends is produced by Eric Siriani Okay, Jen trees, okay,
Speaker 1: follow up.
Speaker 2: Yes. After we stopped recording, I asked a personal question
Speaker 2: about my garden to Nicole because one of the problems
Speaker 2: I have is I have raised garden beds on the
Speaker 2: side of the house, but we have a live oak
Speaker 2: tree that one of the branches does it is starting
Speaker 2: to hang over a bit the garden bed. And it
Speaker 2: is a beautiful live oak tree that houses many birds
Speaker 2: and animals. But something that has been happening recently is
Speaker 2: blue jays hanging out in the tree on the limbs
Speaker 2: of the tree, and they are pelting me with acorns
Speaker 2: when I go out, like they're bullying her. Yes, they
Speaker 2: are sitting above me, and I know they're doing it
Speaker 2: on purpose. Blue jays and crows are some of the
Speaker 2: two smartest birds on the planet. They know exactly what
Speaker 2: they're doing, and they are lying in wait for me
Speaker 2: and pelting me with acorns like it's a fun little joke.
Speaker 2: I'm just trying to show my garden my shadow, and
Speaker 2: these blue jays are sniping me.
Speaker 1: Yeah. She also it was also a question about the leaves,
Speaker 1: the leaves or coming in the leaf drops, and she
Speaker 1: said that it would be best if you can to
Speaker 1: move it. And then she said her book Kitchen Garden
Speaker 1: Revival actually covers like where's the best place to place
Speaker 1: your raised bed? And so I was like, well that
Speaker 1: kind of changes where I was going to put my
Speaker 1: potential gardens. So I'm I'm excited her mentality with learning
Speaker 1: from one person and treating it like a skill that
Speaker 1: can be improved, just like again takeaway, Yeah, and you've
Speaker 1: got to learn the skill and not just like see
Speaker 1: somebody's videos on Instagram and try to recreate what they have.
Speaker 1: Don't try to like recreate their step twelve when you're
Speaker 1: still on step one or two, because then you're going
Speaker 1: to think, because you're not starting at twelve, you can't
Speaker 1: get there.
Speaker 2: Yep, yep, yep, hmm yep. We're best. We loved it.
Speaker 4: We love