Latest / Beyond Labels Premium / Episode #129: Spring Gardening Secrets with Joel Salatin: Tips for Beginners and Seasoned Gardeners

Transcript

Episode #129: Spring Gardening Secrets with Joel Salatin: Tips for Beginners and Seasoned Gardeners · Beyond Labels Premium

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: In my opinion, mulch is the key to everything.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_02: The soil doesn't like to be naked, it likes to be covered.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_02: And earthworms don't want to come up on naked soil.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_02: They want to come up on soil that's got some cover.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, you take you know the difference between um you know what's underneath mulch versus you know uh bare soil, there's no comparison.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_02: Look at the bugs, look at all the stuff that's under there, you know, when you when you pick up mulch.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_02: So get your mulch lined up.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_02: You know, that might be it might be wood chips, it might be some straw, it might be some junk hay, it might even be leaves.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_02: Uh get them in a bag, uh have them there stashed and ready, but but think about your mulch.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: Hi, welcome to Beyond Labels.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Dr.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: Cena McCullough, and we're here with Joel Salatin, our farmer.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: And today we're gonna tap into Joel's knowledge about of starting your garden for the springtime, right?
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: Spring is coming, and so we're thinking about spring gardens.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I've asked Joel to talk about not only setting up a garden for the first-time gardener, right, or somebody who maybe just wants to dabble in it a little bit, um, all the way through what how somebody who's a seasons, seasoned gardener might be preparing for this spring garden, um, and any little tips and tricks that Joel knows about.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: So, Joel, let's start with somebody who is just starting out and maybe they're really busy and they want to start growing their own food, but they want to make sure that it is sustainable for them.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: So they're not overwhelming their plate, you know.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: So, what are some things that that person can start doing to get some easy wins in starting to grow their own food?
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_02: Hmm.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's a that's a great, uh, great idea.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_02: And so before you go out and start ripping up your yard and ripping up, you know, the lawn and everything, uh, you you can start with something as simple as as some containers.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, this is called container, container gardening.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_02: Container can be as small as a as a flower pot, it can be as large as uh, you know, a big basin of some bathtub for that matter, you know, uh of some sort of big thing.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_02: But um, but the beauty of a container is that you know, you haven't done a whole bunch of uh destruction and tear up to begin with.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_02: And um, and you can actually if you don't like if you if you actually don't like where it is, you can move it around if you want to.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and so the the key on the container is you want holes in the bottom of it.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_02: Uh so you know if you want to use some discarded, you know, an old uh dishpan or whatever, you know, um it it ought to be at least um 10 inches deep, uh, preferably.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um and it ought to have holes in the bottom so you can get drainage because one of the one of the most common problems in a container garden is the water doesn't have any place to go and the roots get waterlogged.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_02: And then you've got you know, you've got sick plants.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um so that water needs to be able to wick away.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_02: Ideally, you'd put a little bit of gravel in the bottom, even so that you know, so there can be some water there.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I mean so so that there can be gravel there.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um so the dirt isn't right up against the bottom of the of the pot, whatever it is.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and and when I say gravel, I mean, you know, maybe uh some crushed stone, um an inch and a half, something like that, you know, in a 10 or 12 inch pot.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_02: Uh just to just to give you a little just to give you a little bit of uh of protection so that you don't end up with a sealed a sealed clay bottom from you know from from dirt that's filtering down into the bottom and and it can still uh drain.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_02: As a medium, obviously you can get you know garden soil in a bag, and uh, and that's not a bad idea, especially if you're starting.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um, it might cost you a little, but right now I'm a lot more interested in your success than the cost of it.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um probably you know, if you're interested in this, you're not doing it primarily to save money, you're interested in it primarily just for what it does for your soul to grow something yourself, and and the quality of what you can grow.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, a good a good um um biological, you know, um soil, a growing soil doesn't have to be potting soil, it could be you know just growing soil, which is a lot cheaper uh than potting potting soil is kind of the you know the the the top, and and then you know you can go down, um, but that'll that'll give you some good material to start.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_02: And uh and you're good to go.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_02: You know, pour your bag of stuff in there, and and that's why you don't want you know, when I said 10 inches, it should be 10 inches, but doesn't have to be 18.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_02: 18 if you if you have a vessel that's 18, if you have an old bathtub or something you want to use, that's fine.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_02: But if you're gonna use something 18, you know, put um uh put some gravel in the bottom.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_02: Don't don't buy all that, you know, grow it, don't buy all that soil uh to fill that vessel because you don't need it 18 inches.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, something eight, ten, twelve, or ten or twelve is is enough for you know for most vegetables.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um and and you know, as far as what to plant first, what do you like?
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_02: You know, what uh man, it's hard to go wrong with a tomato.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_02: There's probably there's probably more difference between uh a homegrown tomato and what's in the supermarket than any uh Cena, you're shaking your head.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, you agree with that.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, the difference between a homegrown tomato and one in a supermarket is probably the single uh biggest difference because the supermarket tomatoes are all selected, their cultivars are selected so they can rattle around on the back of a of a tractor trailer for 2,000 miles, you know, between California and your house.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_02: So uh is that where you started, Cena, when you started your first one?
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_02: What what did you grow first?
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_02: Or did you start with greens?
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so actually I bit off more than I could chew, right?
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: I decided I was going gung-ho, and basically had Donnie helped me rip up the lawn, like you said, not to do.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: We ripped it up and made this huge area and all these rows, right?
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: Because I was like, I'm not gonna till, let's do it by hand.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: So I did all this stuff by hand.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and my and I got all excited.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, I'm gonna plant this and this, like prop rotation and everything, first time out, right?
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I couldn't even keep plants alive in the house, like house plants at this point.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: And my girlfriend comes over who was already homesteading and she wanted to check it out.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I showed her my garden, and she goes, Are you trying to feed a village?
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, What?
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: And she's like, You don't need this, and she's like, You're not gonna be able to keep up with this.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: Like the weeds alone will drive you crazy because I was not gonna spray.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: She was absolutely right, right?
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: It got so I did really well for like a month, right?
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: And it got so overwhelming.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: That was a big failure.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: So over the years, I just failed back and I said, you know what?
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: After because I was having kids, and that was taxing and all the things we do during the day.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so I said, you know what?
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna, I just need a win, right?
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: I need one win under my belt because I was feeling like I just can't farm, you know?
• 7:48
  unknown: Right.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: And it reminds me of your book, You Can Farm, like right?
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, I can do it.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: I just need really small scale.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: So um I did start container farming, container gardening.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: I want to call it container farming to elevate my status here, but yeah.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: So it was container gardening, and I actually started with lettuce, and that was because you had given the advice that it's one of the most, you know, contaminated foods with a pathogen, um, still is so um I had so much fun growing it because it was something that I could I can manage, it did not become overwhelming to me.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: I stuck it, uh, we had a bunch of windows next to the kitchen um table, and so I stuck it like a centerpiece on the kitchen table with all the sun coming in, and each of my I had two boys at the time, and so they each had their own lettuce plant, and I learned about um the cut and come again, right?
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: Where you could just pluck some up.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_02: We're talking about two plants, yeah.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_02: Two plants.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: So I had three big well, no, so I had one, right?
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: I was only responsible for one, and it was like this this big circle, and um, I think the seed, I got a seed packet, and I think it was called it was like a lettuce mixture, right?
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: So they mixed the seeds for you, and it's it was all organic.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then each of my sons had one little pot.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: So each of us was only responsible for one plant, and I said, you know what, that's the level I'm at.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: I think I could do that.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: So it it but it was so we didn't grow a lot of food, but it was so much fun because it was rewarding.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: We did it together, right?
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: We all would water the plants, and because we we pick it and it would the lettuce would keep growing, right?
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's called cut cut and come again.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, cut, cut and come again.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, cut and come again.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: So it was amazing how much lettuce we got from my one little circular pot because it just kept growing.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, lettuce was coming up from all sides of this pot.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: And we'd pick on this side and eat it, pick on this side, and we'd be sitting at the table, and it was so great for my kids because you know, let's face it, with all the processed food choices today, it's hard to get a child to eat a piece of lettuce, right?
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: Because it was beautiful, it was this multicolored lettuce and it tasted amazing.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: We would sit at the table.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was sweeter.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: They would, my kids would literally just grab a piece of the lettuce and like stick it on their hamburger, you know?
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought this is amazing.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: So that was a huge win for us.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: So I started with the lettuce, and then I, as you know, have a love for herbs.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: So I still do this today.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: I still have containers of my herbs that sit on the windowsill, or I may sit them right outside of my back door.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: And that way I can move them inside.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: If there's going to be frost, like if I planted too early, there's frost or something, I'll move them inside, you know.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so now I grow a lot of different types of herbs.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I love that because the kids are developing a love for the herbs, and you can smell them.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: You can walk by and have the kids rub their hands across the herb and smell the oils from them, and you can just toss it right into whatever dishes you're cooking.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: And like the lettuce, it just keeps on growing if you, you know, if you pick it right.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: So I'll have it for a long time and it's doable for me.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and and there it there again, the herb, the fresh, the fresh picked herb, again, is so different than than the the old, you know, the supermarket stuff.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_02: So I I really I really like you know to pick pick something you like, don't pick something you don't like, and um and pick something that magnifies the difference between you know your your personal garden versus what's in the what's in the supermarket.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_02: And um, you know, don't don't start out with something that's hard.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_02: Start out with something that's easy.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_02: Um one nice thing about a tomato is often you can go to the you can go to the a store and get sets and and you can put them in your you know, put them in your container, and it's like instant garden.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_02: You know, if you plant seeds, you have to wait for the seeds to come up.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_02: And so there's there's you know, tomatoes and peppers, squash, those kind of things.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_02: Uh you can often get, you can often get uh well and even uh uh cabbage or broccoli, uh those kinds of things.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um I wouldn't start with uh with cauliflower.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_02: I know a lot of people love cauliflower, but uh cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, those are all a lot more difficult to grow, a lot more prone to bugs.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_02: Whereas things like tomato, lettuce, pepper, uh, they're pretty, you know, they're they're pretty hearty.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_02: And so um, you know, so start with something simple, start with your container, and then um, and then think about think about um how you're going to cover that soil.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_02: So if you've got something in there like scents, you can actually cover it with some newspaper or something, uh, you know, poke a hole in it and or or or you know, put it around.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_02: But keep that soil covered moist.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_02: It can be covered with some with some uh bark mulch, some wood chips, uh, some grass clippings, um, but but keep it covered with something so that it doesn't dry out.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_02: And that's gonna make your plants really, really happy and you know, and feed your and feed your worms.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, let's shift gears a little bit now and go to um our our gardeners that have uh bit off bit off a little more.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_02: And um, I'll just make my make my pitch here for for beds, uh beds that are like you know, four feet by eight feet.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_02: The beauty of this is that a four foot by eight foot bed is not overwhelming.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_02: When you look at a four by eight foot bed, even if it's weedy, even if you've neglected a little bit and it's a little bit weedy, you know, it's it's doable.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's in a it's small enough to be doable.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_02: And so, of course, I like I like raised beds.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_02: And uh if you're as as you start down, um think about how much you need to grow, and this is where some of your records, how much did you grow last year?
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_02: So you you start a planning thing.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_02: Where I'm going with this is you want some sort, ideally, you want a written plan of some sort with with a planting guide.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna plant this on such and such a day, this on such and such a day, this on such a day.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_02: And if you want a if you have something, let's say beets.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_02: Um beets are really fun to grow, they're easy to grow, and and they're really good.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_02: Those uh that red, you know, lots of carotene, lots of lots of goodies in a beet, a good red beet.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you want to stagger those.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_02: You're probably not gonna eat a boatload of beets.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_02: So so you you plant, you know, you plant enough for uh two or three uh meals and wait two weeks, plant another little set and another little set.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_02: So you stagger them so you've got them, you know, coming in over time.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_02: Um, probably the one of the most important things you need to think about in your, you know, as you pre prepare your garden this time of year, right now, before things get hectic and busy.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_02: Line up your mulch, whatever your mulch is gonna be.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_02: Because mulch, mulch is the key, in my opinion, mulch is the key to everything.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_02: The the the soil doesn't like to be naked, it likes to be covered.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_02: And earthworms don't want to come up on naked soil, they want to come up on soil that's got some cover.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, you take you know, the difference between um, you know, what's underneath mulch versus you know uh bare soil, there's no comparison.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_02: Look at the bugs, look at all the stuff that's under there, you know, when you when you pick up mulch.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_02: So get your mulch lined up.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_02: You know, that might be it might be wood chips, it might be some straw, it might be some junk hay, it might even be leaves.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_02: Uh get them in a bag, uh have them there stashed and ready, but but think about your mulch.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_02: And then the other thing is think about uh compost.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_02: Uh now obviously you can go get you can buy compost, um, which you know a lot of people uh do.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but if you don't want to do that, you know, you want to make your own, make your little compost beds out there, and and um, you know, maybe you have a farm friend that'll give you a little bit of a little bit of manure and some junk.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_02: Hey, you can have fun.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, this this is a real you know visceral, a visceral uh thing too, is just mixing and watching the magic of these worms come in and the decomposition, and you you know, you put it in this four-foot deep pile, and you know, in two months it's you know, it's um two feet.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_02: It's pretty amazing to watch that, but it's it's extremely concentrated.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_02: And so whether you buy compost or you buy grow soil or you build your compost, you've got to think about your fertility.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_02: What what what's gonna be the fertility engine?
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_02: And number two, uh what's gonna be the covering, the fertility and the covering.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_02: Those are the two things that you got to think about uh with soil.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_02: And then um and then and then plan your you know, plan your planting times.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_02: When are you when are you gonna when are you gonna plant things?
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_02: And obviously there's a whole sequence there, you know, you can plant peas um while it's frosty.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_02: Uh lettuce can certainly be planted in the frost.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_02: So think about what you can plant in the frost and start.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_02: And then, you know, how much how much do you want to plant?
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um, in general, it's better to plant a little bit of several things than it is just a lot of of one thing.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um you know, it's it's a lot more interesting that way, and you know, and that'll that'll keep things exciting.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_02: As you go ahead, Cena.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_02: I can tell you're wanting to say yeah, quick question.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: For so for someone who's trying to figure out like what can I plant in my area and when can I plant it, like their own planting calendar.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have uh a resource for that?
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_02: Or well, uh, yeah, there are certainly planting calendars.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I don't have one right here on my desk, but there are certainly planting calendars that you can you you go Google that up, uh, you know, a planting calendar uh for different now.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_02: Every area has a horticulture zone.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, your frost states are going to change.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um, for example, Cena, you can plant uh peas way sooner than we can plant them here.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_02: In fact, you could probably plant peas before the first of March.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I wouldn't want to plant peas here until about the middle of till about the middle of March or maybe the first of April, because our frost date is May 15th.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_02: And so um so soil, soil temp is really uh you know an important thing.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_02: And for sure, things like your your summer things like tomatoes, green beans, peppers, squash, you don't want to plant any of that until your soil temperature is over 55 degrees all the time.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_02: And you can just use a little temperature probe, a little thermometer probe to stick it in the ground and to see what your soil uh temp is.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_02: Soil, um, you know, it doesn't warm up real fast.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_02: And if it's covered with mulch, it warms up even slower.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_02: So, what a lot of people like like people like us that do use a lot of mulch, um, we'll for for some of those uh early things will actually push that mulch aside and and and bare the soil uh for a little bit just so it'll warm up quicker.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_02: And of course, you know, there are other you you can use uh a little a little uh plastic cloak.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_02: You can make some little, you know, get some nine gauge wire and and um and make a little cloak over top, and you can uh you can buy goodness a month.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, but but you can also, the beauty of that is you can put that on and you can and you can get your soil temperature, you know, batting it down really hard, piece of uh plastic over top with a cloak, and just put that on there, and it'll bring your soil temp up to make your soil think, oh, um, even when it's the first of May, oh, I think it's the first of June.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_02: And that's a really nice thing to be able to, you know, to jumpstart the season.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um, obviously, you know, you can use a um, you know, if if you're trying to really get started early, think about little spots you can use.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_02: Like you can make a cold frame.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you can you can use, for example, if you've got a metal-sided shed, um, or you can just get a couple pieces of metal roofing so that the sun, the sun will hit it and bounce down into a little glass, you know, glass enclosed like a cold frame or something.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_02: Uh you can you can really stimulate you get the sun coming in, plus you get the sun coming down.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_02: You've now doubled the amount of sun energy coming in here, and you can sometimes buy goodness, six or seven, eight weeks worth of grow time by by by carefully positioning to be able to catch uh more sun.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_02: So, um as you know, uh, especially when you you know when you get.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: into so our frost dates are May 15 September 15th so we actually only have five months of frost free grow time here where we are um down in Louisiana and and Alabama of course you got a much longer a longer time but in the in the northern areas uh it it may makes a big that that extra month if if you can use a cloak or if you can use some remake which is a a a like a polybond uh it might be under your you know garden catalog polybond this uh that's a that's a a a woven a woven material that um that excludes insects and bugs but lets air rain and and uh air you know and sunlight come through and uh that's a great way to s to start things like squash and things that are real bug prone to let them uh get up and then when you see the first blossom then you take the remay off and it'll just it'll just grow and push the remay up you kind of have it on there um light you know with with enough room to expand and it'll grow up uh cabbage same things so all of these things that you're look gardeners are you know we're all um uh insatiable we have insatiable interest in in techniques and things so now is the time as you prep your garden before you actually get a bunch of stuff in the ground now is the time to say what I what would I like to try this year and and get your material get your infrastructure so you're not down to to you know a week away and oh no I've got to order you know uh whatever it is remade or some or some uh transparent plastic or whatever uh go ahead and get your you know uh get your get your ducks in a row for that so you know what it is including including irrigation if you need it watering uh you know rain barrel cistern I mean think about all that that that risk aversion that risk aversion stuff to make sure you're gonna you're gonna get into it I'll tell you what I want to do this year and I have tried this trees and I have tried this several times and we've been unsuccessful and in part of my uh my office cleanup this winter I spent a couple of days I'm I'm I'm the most organized I've been in about 10 years so I'm really excited about my office cleanup and one of the things that I found was my file on potatoes where you grow potatoes in multiple multiple levels um up and we tried this we've tried this before and we've never gotten it to work and we are committed to doing that again this year to try where you uh supposedly so I've gotten a bunch of articles on this you know there's all all you have to do is this all you have to do is this well let me tell you you know it ain't just all you have to do is this okay um but but but you like like you put you put bare you put uh you make a box you plant potatoes and then the potatoes grow up and then you um you you you you cover them but you leave enough leaf area and supposedly they make another level of potatoes you put another you know um side on and you go up and you can have three feet high and have like five layers of potatoes in this box so in so you just pull all your you know some people use tires uh some people you know just make a crude box um other people use you know a a a barrel that they'll cut they'll cut uh uh rings of a barrel and just stack them but anyway at the end of the season the pictures see it the pictures are ridiculous you you just take this up and you've got this whole like stack of potatoes in in in a little tiny place and um so hope rings eternal for me I'm hoping that we crack the code on that on that potato thing this year because I've always thought this is the coolest thing.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_02: So you know if you're gonna make a if you're gonna make a a plant tower if you're gonna make a pyramid for example for strawberries if you're gonna do any of that stuff get that get whatever you're gonna do together.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_02: If you don't have it together before the spring starts start with what you got don't don't try to play catch up pardon because once once the weather breaks and you've got stuff in the ground you need to put your attention on taking care of what you've got in the ground that's not the time to go out and try to and try to pick up stuff you know you could have done in the winter because what'll happen is what you've got in the ground will get weedy it won't get taken care of and then you're not going to have the you know the success that you have so I've so I I really am very uh uh seasonal about what I do and and uh like like right now I'm building uh four new beds for the these are four by eight four new beds for the garden and you know what if I don't get them from march by done by March 1 I'm gonna walk away from it for a year and I'll be happy with whatever I do get done because you because if if you if you are still pushing and trying to push forward with these uh experiments and new stuff in the middle of the season you're not gonna take care of your uh of what you've got in as well as it should be I love that I think that's actually great advice for life in general right because because it's true like we bite off more than we can chew and then it's this whole like we have this fear of failure in our culture right and and this is what happened to me that first season that I tried to garden I was like well I already you know I spent the money I've like spent some time already I told people this is what I'm doing like you know I have to succeed with it and I ran myself ragged and it ended up failing because I was just pulled in too many different directions.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't have the capacity to finish it.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_00: So I love this that it's like giving yourself grace right it's it's it's understanding that okay that's okay I'm gonna focus my intention it's being very intentional with your time right your thoughts and your your energy and so you couldn't like that's okay I can get back to that I'm gonna now focus on this that needs this immediate attention and and then you could be successful with it.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_02: Any old geezer farmers I have ever met ever met when when newbies ask them what's your first piece of advice I have never heard one give anything except this start small start small don't don't bite off more than you can chew yeah so so I yeah and and and one of the reasons I love the four by eight bed yeah you can make a four by twelve you can make a four by sixteen I've made some you know some four by four by eighteen foot beds but man you know I'm down to the four by eight the four by eight is is like it it's like a it's like a a it's like a five minute thing it's like a five minute block there you can do everything you need on a on a four by eight in in five to ten minutes and that's a block of time that you can actually get done what you need to before your back gets tired and before you know uh and and before the kids whine or whatever uh you can get that done and and so so as you make your beds and they can be as high or as low as you want for me I'm now making 30 inch tall beds 30 inch tall beds and I fill the bottom two thirds with just lumber with wood pieces of you know firewood old junk boards whatever kind of hoogle culture this is an Austrian thing I don't want to get into that rabbit trail right now um and and then and then put soil and compost on the top and um and and and that gets me up 30 inches gets me up where I can work this without even bending over and at my age I'm ready to work my garden without bending over it also makes it really uh great to not have groundhogs and rabbits because it's too high they can't get into it.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_02: So it gives you a very protected uh a protected thing and it's really great for your kids your kids can be with you and they're not gonna you know inadvertently walk through the garden and and all that stuff and um and and you know you can you you you can create uh a real serious demarcation now uh in general you want those beds to run north and south not east and west um that way whatever rows you have whatever planting you're doing north and south you're gonna get the the sun is gonna run is gonna come over it um the sun's gonna be in the south and so as the sun moves from east to west across there everything's gonna get sun if you make them uh east and west the stuff on the north is gonna be in the shade and so by by by thinking by strategically thinking a north and south orientation then you can yeah you can um uh watch your watch your light um uh and then I want you to think about light and trellises okay so there's some things you're gonna want to put on a trellis you know like like pole beans or or even cucumbers and so you can actually as the season progresses and things get hot you know we've talked a lot about extending the season trying to start early and and how do we warm it up well there's also time in the summer when you want to cool it down and you and you don't want for example lettuce you don't want that in blazing hot July sun and so you can again trick the garden bed into thinking oh it's back to May by having something on a trellis you know peas or or cucumbers or something and then plant your head lettuce right behind it put the head lettuce in a shade and now you've now you've you've bought coolness uh in a time of season when it's gonna be real hot so think about how the light is the sun how the light is going to come through and then how you can how you can um use that light to create little micro micro spots to you know to to trick the spot into thinking it's a it's a different month than it actually is that's so cool I love that and I love the potato stacking I want to I want you to come back and tell us how that worked because if if you get that to work my kids would probably love gardening like that sounds like a little treasure hunt for a kid.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yes yes do you um and I know we're we're getting close on time here so I'll wrap it up with two last quick questions do you plant uh like flowers throughout your garden for the pollinators yeah and there there are definitely flowers that you can use that are um that are insect repellents like nesturtians are one of the key ones but yeah um any kind of integration I mean um you know companion planting and the whole uh square foot gardening uh concept are are powerful are real and so um yeah uh you can for example um uh you know you can you can sweet corn sweet corn can become a um a a a Kentucky Wonder Bean trellis for example so you know and any of that kind of thing that you do uh becomes a you know becomes a positive we typically um we typically interplant and we'll do our next succession uh for example we'll plant let's say we plant early uh early carrots for example they can you know they're they're real early so you can plant carrots and then because you can plant them in the frost they'll do frost fine or peas or beets or lettuce and then we plant peppers and tomatoes a month later intermingled so as the as the carrots and beets are harvested about the time that the the the the tomatoes then are are really coming into production about the time the carrots and beets and lettuce are done.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_02: And then you can do the same thing in the fall you can go in with cool season stuff as the tomatoes begin to begin to to uh uh wane a little bit you can go in it's hot you can plant some of this cool season the tomatoes help to shade it and by the time the tomatoes then get frosted and all go to go to nothing now you've got these beautiful you know cool season stuff growing under it so this this interplanting uh using using um warm season and cold season stuff in companion not only helps to reduce bugs and and all that but it it gives you way more production per square foot wow it's so cool like I and like we were talking about on different podcasts uh different episodes we've done it really is like an art form right it's and so I I think it's just so beautiful every time you talk about it I'm like oh now I want to go do that like that sounds so cool um but this and this this feeds into my last question for you on this segment so you talked about how the farmer's best advice is you know start small okay now my thought is even like watching friends who are like seasoned gardeners there seems to be this pattern where they want to do more and more every season right or every year right kind like just continue to grow and expand and you know the intention is fabulous right they love it they love to experiment um and they want to keep learning and trying more and keep having more and more for food integrity and food security the but my thought is too if so this is a question for you if you're a seasoned farmer and let's say you've grown uh with your farming uh with your garden and let's say this spring you're just not you're having a full plate already right something's come up yeah right and so yeah like you're building a house or something yes like medically speaking if you're building a house and you're overwhelmed then there tends to be this kind of feeling of maybe guilt or even shame that like I should be able to do this why can't I do this?
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_00: Like um you know because you're you would in essence be having to give yourself permission to kind of take a few steps backward right and we all have different things on our plate in different seasons.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_00: What would you say to the person who's grappling with that who feels like I should at least be able to maintain like the amount of garden the yields that I did last season but I'm already starting to feel overwhelmed.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_02: So I think I what I'm asking is do you think it's okay for them to kind of give themselves grace like give them permission to kind of throttle back absolutely listen listen um anybody that knows me know that I've been I've been um uh I'll just use the word frustrated for several years when Theresa and I first got married the farm was real small it was just us I love the garden I just love the garden and she does too and I mean we we would just we would have we had this huge big garden we grew everything and um and then as we as the farm grew and and more people and I'm starting to travel and and all this stuff um we we were the ones that loved the garden Daniel our son you know uh he loves the livestock and and he he'd be happy to never have a garden and just buy stuff at the farmer's market okay but I've just read too many self-reliance you know do it yourself stuff you know I and and I just love the garden and so so now for several years our nice big garden right outside by the kitchen um has been um nominal it hasn't been the beautiful big garden that that that that we've had and um and and and so we've had we've we've we've actually uh bought stuff from you know loc local produce growers um and and can it and freeze it and you know we we still do a lot of the things that we did we're just not growing it ourselves so much now we're kind of at this um at this place where um we're we're we're where i i can uh uh pick my time a little better and you know daniel's taken over pretty much taken over the farm we'll we've cycled back to where we think we think we'll find out we think that we can you know uh move back but we're not doing it with the big expansive thing we're doing it with these four by eight rays 30 inch high beds and um uh I'm you know I'm in the process of of building those and putting those in and if it takes me three years to get them all in no problem but every every one we put in is so easy to maintain because we don't have to bend over it's right there outside the kitchen and so um so there are cycles of life you know cycles of life and um and don't don't beat yourself up I mean see no we we live in a time where uh we're we're just assaulted with not enough um you know uh um we're you know we we we get done with the day and we say well the day wasn't long enough we wake up in the morning we say well I didn't get enough sleep and we we have our project list I didn't get and and we are assaulted with not enough and and it's a it's a real it's a real problem in our in our culture I think uh that we that we feel like it's it's never enough and um and so this this this falls right into that and um and there are cycles of life you'll change and um you do do what you can don't bite off more than you can chew and and that way you'll enjoy it and um you'll get done something else and next year you can come back to it or if you don't get it for two or three years that's fine.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_02: You may decide you want to do something different.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_02: So it's okay.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_00: So Joel Salatin just gave me permission to not garden this season that's right that's right I know you got a lot on your plate this season.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah a lot of things and um so so you'll you'll c you'll cultivate some you know some good vegetable growers in your area that you know you'll get friends with and um and that'll that'll be your deal for the year.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah absolutely well and I got I I still have my herbs right I got my container garden with my herbs like and that I can manage.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_00: So so do what you can do.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_00: No Joel this has been so educational and I enjoy as always all of your little insights and your own you know stories from your farm this is these are some of my favorite episodes so I really appreciate you opening up and sharing all that giving us these tips to move forward and um giving us permission to say you know I am enough you know if I can't handle all that stuff I don't want it can't do it right now it can wait there's a season for everything and I am enough and I think that's a recipe for um thriving um not only when you're a farmer when you're a gardener but thriving in life.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_00: So on that end we would like to say to all the listeners you are enough and and we love you all and appreciate you spending this time with us and we will see you next week