Latest / The Shed Organics Show / #33 - Youtube's New Regenerative Superstar | Chilli Donela

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#33 - Youtube's New Regenerative Superstar | Chilli Donela · The Shed Organics Show

• 0:00
  Hey everybody, what's going on? Welcome back to another episode
• 0:04
  of the Shed Organics show. My name is Jordan, and today we
• 0:08
  have the wonderful Chili Donnella, and Chilli is quickly
• 0:14
  becoming one of my favorite people to watch on YouTube.
• 0:17
  Her story is authentic and compelling and just following
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  along the message that she has for everybody to get back in
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  touch with regenerative agriculture techniques, to be
• 0:28
  nurturing a good steward of the land.
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  But doing this at 19 and now 20 years old, sharing her journey
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  and having this maturity of mind and thought, it's just so
• 0:39
  captivating for me and I really wanted to jump on the bandwagon
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  and highlight exactly what she's doing.
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  She recently toured around the mainland, she's from Tasmania,
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  she's been on the mainland a couple of times and toured
• 0:51
  around some of our favorite gardens that you might have seen
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  the legends Fast Harvest Permaculture that were on the
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  show as well. She visited self-sufficient me,
• 1:01
  the legend Mark up there. He's close to me as well.
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  So it was nice to see her in my part of the world.
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  But all of these wonderful people that are sharing their
• 1:09
  story, and Chile's gone and highlighted that.
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  So we cover a little bit of that in today's episode.
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  And I'm just so grateful to her for both the message that she
• 1:19
  puts out there, the effort that she puts into her videos and
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  everything, but also taking time to share her stories with us
• 1:25
  today. So let's jump in to the
• 1:28
  conversation with Chili Donnella.
• 1:48
  What have you been doing this morning?
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  This morning I was just preparing for the interview.
• 1:53
  I had my breakfast eggs on butter as usual.
• 1:56
  Yeah, fresh and set up a fire. Yes, fresh is best.
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  Yeah, I know, and I'd see so many delicious eggs that you
• 2:02
  post constantly from your gorgeous girls in the garden,
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  right? I have only seven hands, but I
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  cherish them. They're they're great layers,
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  almost 7 every day now as spring is around the corner, which is.
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  Great, nice, nice, and then cooking them in butter the way
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  it should be. You're a big advocate for these
• 2:22
  kinds of things and what really drew me to your channel, your
• 2:27
  content, and you as a person initially.
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  It's like the crazy kind of mentality that you have.
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  It's this maturity and mentality, and it's also this
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  what I would call like wide awake mentality.
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  I don't want to go too far down any rabbit holes in terms of
• 2:45
  this type of thing, but you're aware and very clever and I love
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  that about you. So I just think that you're
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  conscious about a lot of things and being such a young person,
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  it's not something I see all the time.
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  I think more and more people are becoming aware of these types of
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  things just by being around the right messages.
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  But it's often confusing, isn't it, when we have this mainstream
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  narrative of certain topics about whether it's the way we
• 3:17
  grow our food with chemical agriculture and all of this
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  through to, you know, our changing climate, weather
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  patterns, the causes of these things like cows or, you know,
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  making sure we not demonize fats and all of these types of
• 3:33
  things. Is this messages that you've
• 3:36
  discovered yourself or are they? Yes.
• 3:40
  You've been brought up around. No, this is well a bit of both.
• 3:45
  It really started, if you want to go to the very beginning and
• 3:49
  the very start of this. It started I, I would say in my
• 3:54
  grandparents garden I was immersed in, in Finland.
• 3:58
  We would travel to Finland and spend a summer there and we'd go
• 4:03
  into, I just spent so much time in their garden, Berry picking
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  in the Raspberry bushes or the gooseberry bushes, which were
• 4:11
  extremely thorny, but the berries were so worth it.
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  Or potato digging. And in the hothouse, they had a
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  little hothouse full of cucumbers and tomatoes and big
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  zucchinis. And as a little child I was just
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  bewildered by it. And it, I think maybe that was
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  the first thing that got me on this journey.
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  But then the next one was around when I dropped out of school, I
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  started, started really getting interested into gardening and I
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  as a way of kind of just like de stressing and letting go and
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  like clearing your mind and also the good nutritious food as
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  well. But I'm set up for raise garden
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  beds and I just started learning about things because I by that
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  time I was starting to dream about the future.
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  Like I really want to farm. And now learning in garden beds
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  is a great stepping stone to just like experience and learn
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  things. And this is not what to do.
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  This is what you have to do. And that was, I think, the
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  pivotal moment. That will I relate to that
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  because my grandmother was integral in doing that
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  connection initially from a young child eating from your
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  back backyard in your garden, that's the quickest way to your
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  nutrition. It's like from as soon as it's
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  picked to you eating it, it's the most maximum nutrition.
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  Not all these food miles that we're used to having and
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  processing. It was just that initial
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  concept. And you know what you're growing
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  and you know how you're growing it.
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  No chemicals, no pesticides. It's just like chicken manure or
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  pig poo or something like that. Amazing.
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  And yeah. Yeah, doing your own composting,
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  all of the stuff that I love seeing you, you do.
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  But you haven't always been in Tasmania, have you?
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  No, we moved about a year ago. Cool.
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  And why the why the move to Tassie is that, was it motivated
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  at all by wanting to be more on land and with sort of
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  countryside feel? Well, we've always thought about
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  Tassie and like Tassie, but my dad calls, calls us like we were
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  renting in NSW and he always throws the story that we're
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  economical refugees to Tasmania because it's slightly cheaper,
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  but it's getting a bit more expensive now.
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  My goodness, land prices these days.
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  You're going crazy. Yeah, but we've been here a year
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  and I really like the area, the feel, the countryside, the
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  there's hardly a few people around here in Tassie, which is
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  a good thing in my opinion. But.
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  Yeah, yeah. The times that I've been there,
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  I've loved it because it's similar to New Zealand, which is
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  where I grew up a lot and it has this, it's really green.
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  It does get quite cold, as you mentioned earlier, it can get
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  pretty cold. But yeah.
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  Did you, were you growing before initially up in Sydney and how
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  was the change for you learning how to grow down there with a
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  colder climate? We were actually in Germans Bay,
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  which is 3 hours South of Sydney, but the climate was
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  pretty temperate. It wasn't crazy or anything.
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  We didn't get frost, so I could grow vegetables all year, leafy
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  greens in the winter time and in the summertime.
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  That's great. But now here it's quite a change
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  because we could do get heavy frost.
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  So I'm just trying to learn with it.
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  In some parts of Tasmania we get snow, but not here.
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  Yeah, the TASI climate is really interesting because the soil is
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  really rich and fertile. There's there were, I don't
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  know, was it 10 million years ago there were lots of tiny
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  volcanoes which created the rich fertile soil.
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  And so, yeah, it's great place for growing.
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  And this property here we have 4IN ground garden beds.
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  It's everything's growing in ground, but we just have like a
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  border. So it's pretty cool.
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  But the soil is needs fixing. It's quite hard.
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  Yeah. OK.
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  Well, I'll have to send you some cover crop because it would work
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  really well. Maybe when it starts to warm up
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  a little bit in spring, but there's some good stuff in
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  there. I'll send you some so that you
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  can Chuck that out there and get that soil improving, but that.
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  'D be lovely. Yeah, cool.
• 8:39
  So in terms of like your growing journey and then now sharing
• 8:45
  that online, like the purpose behind doing it for you, was
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  that anything like just trying to follow your passion?
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  Because something that I'm trying to do by putting this out
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  there is helping people understand all of this cool
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  information. Try and make gardening and
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  growing your own food and produce and all of this type of
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  awareness more simple for people and more accessible.
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  What's the motivations for you for putting yourself online and
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  sharing your journey? Because people are loving it and
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  it's like me and I reckon it's awesome.
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  Well, I think it's good that, well, a lot of people now that
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  nowadays don't really know how to grow and be sufficient.
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  So YouTube is a great tool of just sharing the knowledge.
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  I mean, I'm not an expert at anything.
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  I'm still learning. And that's the whole reason why
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  I go to places to interview people and learn and just like
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  create this good community of people where we can share ideas.
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  Because I was talking about this the other day with my dad.
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  But there's a saying that Jim Rohn says, what was it?
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  He says that if we share ideas, hang on.
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  He says that it's if we share good ideas with them, with one
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  another, we are richer for it. So like if you do the maths
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  quickly, it's like I have a good idea, you have a good idea.
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  We swapped those. Like we share those good ideas.
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  Now we both have two good ideas. Yeah.
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  But like if we did that with money, it doesn't really work.
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  Like I have $1.00, you have $1.00, I give you my dollar, you
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  give me my your dollar. We just we still have $1.00.
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  Changed to $1.00. Yeah, exactly.
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  That makes sense. And the community feel is
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  awesome, Hey, like when you start to have people interact
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  and just share and be excited and kind of be able to share
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  your journey and get excited about the things that you like
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  and that you kind of find more of your people, which I've
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  found. Are you finding that the
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  interaction is something you're really enjoying?
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  Yeah, the comments that I have such great supportive comments,
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  I love reading them. I get like 60, even though if my
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  video gets 1000 views, I get like 60 comments and I'm like,
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  oh, I heart that and a reply. It's it's really cool.
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  It's fun, hey, and I don't know what it is necessarily just
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  your, the way your content comes across is super authentic and
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  that's really missing in a lot of today's stuff, society videos
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  and that kind of thing. It's something I try and do
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  really like a lot, but I take a lot of motivation and a lot of
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  inspiration from your content in terms of that sort of side of
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  things. So what is it like when you're
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  trying to put put out this content and then you're getting
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  this feedback? Is it reaffirming what who you
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  are and what you want to do and where you want to take things
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  with your life? Hey guys, really quickly jumping
• 11:53
  in. I just want to remind you if you
• 11:55
  are not subscribed to this show, that is the number one thing
• 11:58
  that you can do to show me your support.
• 12:00
  So if you're finding value from this conversation and you're
• 12:03
  deeply engaged, I would love you to hit the follow or subscribe
• 12:06
  button. All right, back to the show.
• 12:08
  Yeah, it really does keep you going.
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  It's it's like, yeah, it it just, it just pushes you to your
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  goals, the support of people in the community.
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  And yeah, I. Don't think.
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  Yeah, I think so. Your dad's a big supporter of
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  you 2. You mentioned him a couple of
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  times and I saw that you guys went on this big sort of tour of
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  these incredible places. Can you tell me a little bit
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  about that? The So I think I've done now
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  three mainland trips where I go around I do I try to get around
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  8 interviews in a span of two weeks.
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  That's that's the goal. And then just, yeah, just meet
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  amazing, incredible people. I've learnt so much already.
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  I don't know how many people I've met, maybe 20 old people,
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  but yeah, it's just really fun. And Dad's there with me.
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  He's he's my biggest supporter, he's my cameraman.
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  It's really good. Yeah, he seems to be there,
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  like, all the time. Does he share the same interests
• 13:08
  with you or is he just going to back his girl no matter what?
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  Probably both. A bit of both, Yeah.
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  He's definitely into the whole good food and good nutrition and
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  the way farming should be done and the truth and all that sort
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  of stuff. Yeah.
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  Awesome. I love it.
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  That's really, really cool. And because we've just had our
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  little boy, so it's something that I'm trying to see if I see
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  a lot of these beautiful relationships between the
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  parents and the children and passing on that knowledge and
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  that kind of thing, that's something I get excited about.
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  Yeah. You met some crazy cool people,
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  right? And you were up kind of near my
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  way, which with Mark, it's self-sufficient me.
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  So that's my type of climate. That's where it's similar to
• 13:56
  where he is. And then you also saw vast
• 14:00
  harvest permaculture with that crazy tall building.
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  Those guys are lovely. Since I and went there, it was
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  like really high. What really up the top, I
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  suppose if you're used to living just on one level and in the in
• 14:17
  the ground, you're up on their top story.
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  It's like, whoa, do you do you have any more highlights in
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  terms of some of the people that you visited and anything that
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  really stood out to you as some of the lessons from these guys
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  in their places? There's so much I'm sure that
• 14:34
  you took out of it, but anything that really stood out or one of
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  your favorite experiences maybe like when you we're at a wedding
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  or something else? Oh yes, yes, at Walkie Farm, I
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  went to the wedding. The one of the top ones I think
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  has to be Chris Eggert at Ox Hill Organics.
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  The way he was really doing his dairy operation, it was just, it
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  was so inspiring because I don't know, maybe in the future when I
• 15:03
  have a small dairy herd, I'm not sure, I'm just figuring things
• 15:06
  out. But the way he has his, where he
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  milks the cows, the Jersey cows, he had the hay like spent silage
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  and hay and stuff that you didn't really need to use to
• 15:19
  feed the animals. He had it on a deep bedding
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  method. And it was really incredible
• 15:23
  because that deep bedding not only prevented the cows from
• 15:28
  slipping on the concrete when they're getting milked, but also
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  it was catching all the manure that would then if it wasn't
• 15:36
  there, it would be washed into an effluent pond.
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  But that hay then was composted and these beak heaps and turned
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  and things and the soil that came out of that hay and the cow
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  manure, it was just so, so rich and didn't stink.
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  It was just really nice and fluffy.
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  And then what they did with that compost is they spread it out
• 16:01
  onto the fields in the very beginning days of when they were
• 16:05
  turning from conventional farm to organic farm.
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  Yeah, but that was one thing. But also he really specializes
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  now in multispecies crops. And my goodness, when we were
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  going on the quad bike or whatever it's called through the
• 16:19
  fields and going through all these rye grass, not just rye,
• 16:27
  but barley, there was multispecies crops.
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  What? What's the white one?
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  Was it? Oats in there as well.
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  Oats, buckwheat. It was a buckwheat field.
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  It was really cool too. And sunflowers everywhere.
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  And yeah, it was just amazing because we were just going
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  through it and seeds were going onto the front of the screen and
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  it was tall. And then the cows, we went to
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  the cows where they were eating it.
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  I know it just it looked really idyllic and all the all the cows
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  were healthy and the soil, when he dug into the soil, it was
• 16:59
  full of worms and just like so much life.
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  And it was amazing that that experience was really cool.
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  I love that man. That's, that's is ideal because
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  that's exactly what like the stuff that I preach in terms of
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  trying to get that soil health back, bringing the biodiversity
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  back in all of the life in the soil, having this really rich
• 17:20
  living soil and seeing people that are doing it on that scale
• 17:24
  get it's exciting because it seems like maybe we can solve a
• 17:30
  lot of these terrible problems that are going on with monocrop
• 17:34
  agriculture and large spraying of stuff.
• 17:37
  You know, we're seeing so much of this glyphosate ending up in
• 17:41
  literally everything and it's even in the air we breathe, you
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  know, so it's kind of it's like, how do we get to a point where
• 17:51
  more and more people are educated like that?
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  We have people like you go and highlight that, showcase it and
• 17:58
  all of that kind of thing. What do you think is next for
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  you in terms of how are you structuring your next steps of
• 18:09
  your journey? Well, obviously continuing with
• 18:13
  YouTube, try and get that going a bit stronger, yeah.
• 18:20
  Trying to find land to lease, I guess, or somehow work with a
• 18:24
  farmer so I can start growing some amazing heirloom cucumbers
• 18:29
  and tomatoes and get beehive sorted and stuff like that,
• 18:32
  yeah. Cool, so a bit of expansion and
• 18:36
  then just living the dream. That's really cool.
• 18:39
  How old are you? Sorry, Chilli.
• 18:41
  I'm 20. 20 My goodness, I I was definitely not thinking about
• 18:47
  life the way that you do at 20 years old.
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  So I'm very grateful that I'm now thinking about it before
• 18:53
  it's too late. But I'm just kind of just the
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  inner orbit of people like yourself when they are so young
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  and so open to all of this new way of living.
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  It's exciting because it gives me hope.
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  Do you think or how do you think we can inspire more people who
• 19:11
  are your age and possibly even younger to get into this space?
• 19:20
  Well, that's a tough one because I feel like the financial
• 19:23
  system, the government, the school system and the mainstream
• 19:26
  media media all like against us to actually wake up and start
• 19:32
  becoming more self-sufficient and growing our own food.
• 19:36
  I don't know. Well, you're right, a
• 19:39
  self-sufficient community is like not one they can monetize,
• 19:46
  but I mean more so in terms of like how can how can more people
• 19:52
  like us reach kids? Is it about going into schools
• 19:57
  and into the mainstream areas or onto mainstream platforms like
• 20:01
  YouTube and these kinds of things and making it seem cool
• 20:04
  and more accessible and doing the things that you're doing?
• 20:08
  Or is it something that we need to be going into the maybe the
• 20:13
  current systems that are already there, the government systems,
• 20:16
  and trying to change what they're doing so that we can
• 20:20
  influence the masses a bit more? That's a big question.
• 20:25
  I don't know. I'm trying my best with YouTube.
• 20:27
  To. Inspire people.
• 20:30
  But yeah, I think the the population just needs to get a
• 20:35
  good kick up their bum and wake everyone up.
• 20:39
  I don't know. Yeah, I feel, yeah, I know what
• 20:41
  you mean. It is a deep question.
• 20:43
  It's just something that I like to think about and try and, you
• 20:47
  know, contemplate some of these more deep questions, especially
• 20:50
  when we are at a pivotal point where we need to really make
• 20:53
  some changes that are going to wake a bunch of people up to the
• 20:58
  reality that's in front of us. But I just highly commend you on
• 21:02
  what you're doing and all of the things that you're planning on
• 21:06
  doing. Thank you.
• 21:08
  So lastly, just before I let you go, can you tell me a little bit
• 21:13
  about what life is like for you every day or a typical day is
• 21:20
  like, because you took us through this in your recent
• 21:23
  video, one of your recent videos.
• 21:26
  And I presume obviously life is a bit different in the garden
• 21:28
  every day, but what is a typical day look like for you?
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  Or a typical week? Well, trying a typical, typical
• 21:37
  week is always trying to figure out what I'm going to produce on
• 21:41
  YouTube, what I'm going to share.
• 21:43
  So a lot of ideas, spitballing, scripting, that sort of thing.
• 21:48
  But a typical day is just get up in the morning, you know, tend
• 21:51
  to the chickens in the garden and tend to yourself and like
• 21:55
  good nutrition, important eggs and butter.
• 21:58
  I love that. Yeah, that's it currently while
• 22:02
  I'm trying to figure out my way on how to acquire some land and
• 22:08
  then progress further with my dreams and aspirations.
• 22:13
  Of being What are your dreams and aspirations?
• 22:15
  Of Being is like a regenerative farmer of sorts.
• 22:18
  Yeah, I, I definitely. Well, I want to be
• 22:22
  self-sufficient for myself, so like have all the animals that I
• 22:25
  need, but also be a region farmer, grow organic cucumbers,
• 22:30
  heirloom cucumbers and tomatoes. That's like the big goal.
• 22:33
  And also bees, I want the lions, hive bees, so the horizontal
• 22:39
  bees, the way that it mimics nature, natural way of
• 22:44
  beekeeping. Yeah.
• 22:45
  So that's that's it. I love it.
• 22:48
  Well, can you tell everybody where it's best to find you and
• 22:53
  where can they follow you? Where would you like people to
• 22:55
  go? YouTube is best.
• 22:58
  SO chili Donnella, CHILLIDONELA, that's me.
• 23:04
  And I do have Instagram. I do have TikTok.
• 23:07
  Haven't posted much there. I have X as well.
• 23:09
  But if you go to YouTube, the links will all be there, yeah.
• 23:12
  Perfect. Yeah, I highly recommend you go
• 23:14
  and check out your stuff. Where's that?
• 23:16
  Where's your name from? Is your name actually your name,
• 23:19
  Chilly Donnell? It's such a really nice way that
• 23:21
  it rolls off the tongue. It's cool.
• 23:23
  Chilly is my real name but I do get a few comments about that,
• 23:26
  but I haven't changed it in one. I don't know.
• 23:31
  I'm the spice of life, I. Guess.
• 23:34
  I love it, calls it, Yeah. And there we have it, everybody.
• 23:55
  How cool is Chilli? She's so awesome.
• 23:57
  She's on the right track for somebody of her age.
• 24:00
  And I just wish that, as I said, there's more people around her
• 24:04
  age that were getting into this kind of thing.
• 24:06
  So maybe we need to think about these things.
• 24:08
  And if that made you think and stop and think because, you
• 24:11
  know, we don't have the answers yet, we need to have these
• 24:14
  discussions and to have that kind of question posed is really
• 24:19
  important. So how can we motivate more
• 24:21
  people to be like Chili? And she's doing an incredible
• 24:24
  job of putting her content out there and spreading the
• 24:27
  awareness, something that we're trying to do here at the show.
• 24:30
  So if you enjoyed it, please share it around.
• 24:33
  Let's share this message to more people.
• 24:36
  Leave a review on the podcast wherever you're listening to
• 24:39
  this. Give it some stars if possible.
• 24:42
  And lastly, the best thing that you can do for me is to hit that
• 24:46
  subscribe button. So many of you, as I said, are
• 24:48
  not subscribed to this, even though you listen along each and
• 24:52
  every week or even every month or so.
• 24:55
  But it's just so amazing to have you here and I'm so grateful for
• 24:58
  your support. So we'll see you on the next
• 25:01
  episode. Take care.
• 25:02
  Bye for now.