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Episode #84: Gardening with Joel · Beyond Labels Premium

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Be thinking about your succession so you don't got get caught with underutilized or uh yeah unutilized uh uh space.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: And then think about think about your shade, your height.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, the sun's gonna come in from the from the south.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: You can either have something, you can extend your season and cool things down by putting something high, uh, like for example, uh say, you know, pole beans or something that you're gonna trellis uh on the south side to shade some late, you know, some late uh uh, you know, lettuce or something on the on the north side.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: Uh or you can put your shade, you can put your high thing, you can you can trellis up some you know some cucumber vines on the north side and leave the front side for things like green beans, peppers, uh that sort of thing.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so think about the way the light is going to come in so you don't inadvertently have something that's tall on the south side shading out something that leaves a lot of sun on the you know on the north side.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: Hello, welcome to Beyond Labels.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Dr.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_01: Cena McCullough.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: I'm here with farmer Joel Salatin.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: Today's a very special episode because springtime is upon us and it's time to get out there and plant a garden.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: Whether you're a beginner like me or an expert like Joel, it this is an opportunity for all of us to kind of get our hands in the soil, start becoming more food independent, and grow our microbiomes.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: So in this episode, Joel is gonna talk to us about gardening.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: All right, take it away, Joel.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, Tina.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, it is it is time to to get this in the ground.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: We've certainly had a wonderful break in the weather here, uh, in at least in in uh in our area of the of the country.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so uh so let's think about some of the things that you want to think about as you as you uh plan your garden.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the first thing I would suggest is that obviously you need to get a you know a good seed bed um for uh uh for growing.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: You can do this, you know, by hand.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um you can do it with a broad fork, you can do it with tillage.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, there are lots of techniques.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you can go into a yard, put down, you know, like three um uh a nice big heavy barrier of cardboard, just take some boxes, break them up, and put about three layers of cardboard down on a lawn and put uh compost and dirt on top of that, you know, about 12 inches, and boom, you have a garden.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: And the uh and the cardboard just you know kills all the grass.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: So by the end of the season, you know, you have a whole garden bed.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: So there are some really neat uh non-tillage, non-tillage techniques that you can use to jump start if you're a little bit behind the eight ball, uh, you know, to to get your garden in right now.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: Now, um, you know, the other thing is to all of your you know, summer things, your frost, your frost uh uh susceptible stuff, you know, tomatoes and peppers and uh things like that, especially, uh you know, you can start those and get a jump start on the season.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: You don't want to go out with them until after frost, but you can certainly jump start them.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: You can you can put seedlings, you can uh you can put seedlings in eggs.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you can make take a take a carton and um and knock the top off of a bunch of eggs after you've eaten the eggs, obviously.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: And um, and you can and you can plant seeds in those eggs.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of people do that.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: And then when you plant them in your garden, the egg gives you a lot of calcium for the um, you know, for the little uh transplants.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: It makes a real cheap, uh, uh cheap, non, you know, uh whatever, recyclable way uh to you know to start your little seedlings.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, and and a and a tomato can be you know four or five inches tall in a you know in a little uh egg casing.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: So um so you know, you can start those uh in the house on a windowsill, move them around, take them in and out every day.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, if you're just growing for yourself, goodness, uh, you know, uh a dozen tomatoes can give you a lot of tomatoes.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: Think I want you to think about think about uh focusing your energy on good technique and robust plants, not trying to grow way you know way too many plants.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: A couple of plants grown well will be much more enjoyable and out yield um 20 plants growing poorly because you either you know don't have as uh enough you know time or place or whatever.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um you know and and uh you know one of one of the most successful uh tomato uh experiments I ever did was uh we had a we had a uh a spot out here past the lawn, kind of in the edge of the field.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I didn't want to you know till everything up and all that.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: So I just went out with the shovel and just made little um little round spots about you know 12 to 18, 18 inches, took a shovel and just kind of uh tore up that, tore up that sod and mashed it all up and planted my tomatoes in there and staked them.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, and for the first for the first uh month, as the tomato plants were really growing and getting good, um uh I just I just mowed the lawn.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, imagine you've got your lawn and you've got these little holes uh instead of a tree, it's a tomato, right?
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: And and you can mow and and I just you know you you can just put a little bit of cardboard uh out from that uh tomato plant so you don't hit it with the lawn mower.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: And you can and you there's no weeding.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: There's no weeding, you know, you just you just mow your garden.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um and and the sod offers you know a lot of protection and and um you know uh hydration protection for your plants.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: So uh if you're behind the eight ball, you feel, oh man, I you know, I just haven't had time to get all this stuff ready.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: These are some things that you can do, literally in in in in in five minutes, you can go from nothing to having something in the ground.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: And um, and and so you know that's that's kind of my my big tip for the for the moment.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, as far as you know, if you've got beds and things like that, you want to think about uh succession through the season.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: So you've got your early stuff, like you know, like broccoli and lettuce and and carrots and things like that.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but then they're going to wane as the you know as it gets hotter and the and the season progresses.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: So um, you know, uh uh square foot gardening uh is all about uh successional planting.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: So again, we're not thinking about a lot of space, we're thinking about how much can we put in a given space.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: So as the, for example, as the lettuce, as the lettuce comes out, uh, you should already have um pepper plants or uh, you know, you could plant green beans in there, uh, something that's you know later season.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it it could be, you know, it could be uh 10 or 12 inches tall by the time your lettuce comes out.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the way you speed up so that you uh so that you keep this um this garden spot extremely prolific.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the the biggest um waste, the biggest waste in the world is here you are, you've you've you've put all this effort in, you know, a certain number of square feet of of garden space, and then you're not fully leveraging it, utilizing it for something, you know, growing all the time.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the people that do this best are probably Singing Frogs Farm in Petaluma, California.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: And they're basically uh bringing a harvestable crop off of every square foot every single month of the year.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: Now, they are in Petaluma, you know, which doesn't get frost and they can grow year-round.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: But I want you to think about the, you know, the the unbelievable productive capacity of having something harvestable from every square foot every month of the year.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: So of course, they they you know, they everything starts.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: They don't plant any seeds.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: I don't, I don't even think they plant carrots as seeds.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: They everything gets planted as a start and and a little baby plant, so they don't have to wait for that, you know, that three-week period of of germination and getting the plant up and running.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: They can go right in and in it and it goes faster.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: One other thing uh that I'll just mention here uh is think about height and shade.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: So as you're thinking about succession, um, you know, what what am I gonna plant next in in this spot as that comes, you know, is that fit like the beets.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: Think about me, beets grow real fast.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: Radishes grow incredibly fast, you know, and in and you can go from seed to to having something to eat in whatever, you know, 40, 50 days, okay?
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: Which means 40, 50 days from now, there's gonna be room there for something else.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe a green bean, a pepper plant, a uh, you know, a squash, uh, a squash is is is excellent.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but but be thinking about your succession so you don't got get caught with underutilized or uh yeah, unutilized uh uh space.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: And then think about think about your shade, your height.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, the sun's gonna come in from this from the south.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so uh you can either you can either have something, you can extend your season and cool things down by putting something high, uh, like for example, uh say, you know, pole beans or uh something that you're gonna trellis uh on the south side to shade some late, you know, some late uh uh you know lettuce or something on the on the north side.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: Uh or you can put your shade, you can put your high thing, you can you can trellis up some you know some cucumber vines on the north side and leave the front side for things like green beans, peppers, uh that sort of thing.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so think about the way the light is going to come in so you don't inadvertently have something that's tall on the south side shading out something that needs a lot, needs a lot of sun on the you know, on the north side.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, uh a little bit of planning, a little bit of planning can go a long way, you know.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: Uh just just kind of look at your look at your season, look at your calendar, look at your you know, days to maturity, and think through, okay, I've got whatever it is, you know, I've got uh six, you know, 200 days of frost-free growth.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: I've got um, you know, 250 days with frost.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: And and so you're you know, you're you're thinking through those kinds of um those kind of elements.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, sweet potatoes, sweet potatoes and potatoes obviously are are frost, you know, uh they're frost prone, so you can't plant those till after frost.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: But um again, you can you can put in those uh those sweet potato uh little cuttings, sweet potato cuttings, um, you know, long before, you know, in between the the beets, the beets and the carrots as you harvest them so that the the the um sweet potatoes are already well established uh and they're starting to grow uh you know as you finally harvest your last you know beets and uh beets and carrots, your you know, your early stuff.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_01: That is so cool.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: And this is the perfect time for a listener's question.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_01: So Samantha Waterloo um sent this question to us.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_01: I have seen so many people with raised beds and trellis systems.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: Is there a way to have too much growing out of one area where it's actually depleting the soil?
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's a great question.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: And in general, uh in general, you have to understand that vegetables, vegetables are heavy feeders.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: Now, you know, some are more heavy feeders than others, like for example, garlic is not a specially heavy feeder.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but but um most vegetables, most of the the succulent vegetables that we think of, you know, potatoes and carrots and tomatoes and peppers and those kinds of things, uh, green beans, they are heavy feeders.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: What that means is they are they are take they are extracting from the soil.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: They do not replace soil, they do not build soil, they extract soil, uh, or or or fertility.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: Let's not say soil, let's say fertility.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: So um uh, you know, so so they are like uh they are like if you were if you were training uh to be a marathon runner, uh, you know, your your cal your your your caloric requirement would go way up if you were running five miles a day, for example.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um remember when uh the swimmer Michael Phelps, uh, I saw his I saw what he ate.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: You know, he was in the he was in the pool, swimming pool, what it was like four hours a day, which of course your body has to make a lot of calories to overcome the you know the water, the unless the water's 100 degrees, which nobody wants to swim in 100 degree water.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: So, so uh his his daily calorie intake was like it was like 6,000 calories a day.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it was crazy uh what the guy ate, you know.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, I digress.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: Though the point is that a head that that that vegetables are heavy feeders.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: Now, and so that means that means generally you're going to have to add.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: You're gonna have you're gonna have a compost pile, you're gonna have to buy compost, uh, you're you're gonna have to buy, uh, you're gonna have to acquire material, you're gonna have to inject fertility into the garden.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's not just, you can't just say, okay, uh, we've got we've got soil here, let's have a garden.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: You're gonna have to think about um about getting some compost and some fertility into it.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: But once that's done, the more foliage, the more stuff you can grow per square foot, the better it is.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so uh so you really can't outfoliage, you can't outfoliage a fertile spot.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: If you if you've got fertility, you can't outfoliage it.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_01: Now, do you ever use cover crops?
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, I'm thinking to you know, increase the biomass, but also to maybe restore some nutrients.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: Is that a technique you use?
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we have not used cover crops, but what we do use is a lot of mulch.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: So, for example, lawn clippings, all of your lawn clippings, consider your lawn, the fertilizer factory for your for your garden spot.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, and and you can put lawn clippings on, you know, uh six, seven, eight inches deep, and by fall it's all going to be completely gone.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: And you can take your hand and just stick it down in the black soil.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um uh wood chips, leaves.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we are, you know, uh we are fiends on carbon.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: Wherever we can get carbon, we get carbon.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so if you rake your leaves in the fall, you know, don't burn them, don't, don't, don't let anybody take them away.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, go around and get all your neighbors' leaves and bring them home.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_01: So long as they don't spray.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: That's fine.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but but the point is, and most people don't spray their yard trees, you know, they're they're way up there, it's just ornamental trees.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um but but but a when we talk about cover crops, what we're talking about is a cover.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: And that cover can be something that you put on, it can be a cover crop, uh, but but essentially you want that soil covered.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: And and on in a in a in a small uh in a small area, generally, um mulch is the easiest, you know, the easiest way to um you know to keep that up.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_01: So you said lawn clippings.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_01: Are you putting the lawn clippings directly on the bed of the garden?
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_01: Like you're mowing the lawn, you take that fresh clipping and you just stick it on the bed.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: Imagine I've got a row of carrots, I got a row of carrots, I bag those lawn clippings, you know, use a bagger behind the lawn mower.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: And because remember, a lawn is a perennial.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: So a perennial is growing fertility, and annual is extracting fertility.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: So your garden, your vegetables are annuals, they're extracting fertility.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: Your lawn is actually growing fertility, especially if you don't mow it real close.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: So set your mower on a nice high setting so you don't have it scalped down to the ground.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: Nice high setting, uh, and and catch those clippings.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: And yes, uh, we keep a couple wheelbarrows, you know, with the with the thing, and uh, and when we bag that, we just put it in a wheelbarrow.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, yeah, it it it makes lawn mowing, it makes lawn.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: Think about what this changes.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: Now we're not mowing the lawn, we're going out to the fertilizer factory.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, say say you've got a row of carrots, you know, that are that are uh four or four inches tall.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: So we just take those lawn clippings.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: The nice thing about, you know, they're all cut up, they're pulverized, they're real easy to handle, they're nice and fresh, they smell great, you know, it's just fresh grass, and you just sprinkle that on, you know, two inches deep, right along those carrots, just put it in, and that is you'll see worms and life come there like you've never seen it before.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_01: That is so cool because I always was under the misconception that because it's green, I have to like compost it first, like you know, cook it or age it first, but I can just stick it right on.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_01: That's that really does give a whole new meaning to mowing the lawn.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_01: Like now it's not a chore to go mow it.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_01: Now it's like I'm helping to support my food supply by you know by mowing this lawn.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it it fundamentally changes the whole chore of mowing the lawn.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_01: I love okay.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_01: So we have time for one more question.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_01: And this is in terms of um what types, like if you're gonna do gardening and beds, what types of beds?
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_01: So the question is I'm deciding between raised beds that are touching the ground.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_01: So the soil is actually touching, you know, touching the earth, and raised beds that are above the ground where the soil is not touching the earth.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_01: So like the ones on the on the stand, which, you know, that's tempting because then you don't have to bend over and bend down at the garden so much, right?
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_01: You can stand up and garden.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_01: So the question is if you're gardening in a raised bed where the bed is raised above the ground, so the soil is not connected to the earth, isn't that potentially bad for the health of the soil and the health of the food that's grown in that space?
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_01: Does it does that um does that type of setup prevent worms from growing in the soil?
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_01: And Cena said that scientists have only discovered roughly 10% of the microbes living in the soil.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_01: So if we disconnect our plants from the earth by creating space with those types of raised beds, aren't we potentially missing out on the magic that happens in the soil layers that we don't even know about?
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_01: Isn't it reductionist thinking for humans to think that planting above the ground will lead to the same healthy soil and healthy food as planting in the ground?
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: Well, uh let's take this, let's take this in in sequence.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: First of all, I'm not a fan of hydroponics.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: Uh hydroponics uh soilless systems are not acceptable.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um uh my only concession for aquaponics, if you want to do aquaponics with fish manure, is I've seen I've seen one time I was at an aquaponics place where they were using uh uh pebbles as a medium, and there was so much organic matter in those pebbles from the fish manure that you could take your hands and look, and it was crawling with worms, with red wiggler worms.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: And suddenly I realized, okay, um so my my new definition is if it's got worms, it's okay.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: Now, now um you can't remember when you make a disconnected, let's let's call it a disconnected bed, you know, so something that's that's way up above the ground, or or something that's in pots, you know, where you've got everything just in pots.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: Remember the the starting medium, the soil, the compost that you got there was connected to the earth.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, you're getting that microbial activity, uh whatever you filled that with, you didn't fill it from something that dropped out out of the sky.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: You went and you and you got stuff from somewhere, you accumulated it to fill that pot.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so, so uh my bottom line is that if that it if it will grow worms, if there are worms in there and they're happy, you know, that's good.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, think about a I mean, you can get a like a verma composting kit and put under your sink, verma composting.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, that that's a completely you know, uh uh enclosed, it's it's a little plastic, you know, box, and yet worms are extremely happy in there.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, in fact, you want them to stay in there and not crawl out across your kitchen floor.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so so um unless you have kids, they probably think that's fun, like my voice.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: Like sure, sure.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: So, so in general.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: As long as whatever you're growing in will um will will make happy worms for me that's good enough.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: Now, is that scientific?
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: Well, probably not, but that's my that's my uh my lifetime of experience.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: And you can do that in in the house, you can do that outside, you can do that all sorts of places.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: I I don't think that it's the connection to the earth.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: Look, when you went out and you got the stuff to fill your pot, that's the connection to the earth.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: You weren't you weren't manufacturing that in a laboratory somewhere.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so the connection to the earth was that you you you brought that in.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: So uh I will tell you, um, Cena, we're um literally right now, yesterday and today, uh, if it doesn't rain today, but yesterday, um, Teresa and I are actually building brand new garden beds here.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, we're getting older and we don't like to stoop over anymore.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: So we're making garden beds 30 inches high.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: Now, they're they're basically boxes on the ground, okay.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but but the sides are 30 inches high.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_00: And um uh so they're eight feet by four feet each, and um and we're making those as literally as we speak.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: We made one yesterday, kind of our prototype, and uh hopefully today we'll get the other one together.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: But um uh we we are we are absolute fans of non non-stoop over gardening.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, uh if you can get some height on that, uh whether it's connected or ours will be connected, they're just boxes sitting on the ground and and they're way up.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_00: But uh, if you can get if you uh gardening becomes a lot funner when you can get up off the ground, and rabbits can't get into it, groundhogs can't get into it.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, it makes diff a little difficult.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: And and your children can be with you, and they're not they're not running through the garden.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, one of the reasons I love the elevated bed is because it's so child friendly, because it's really, really easy to for the children to understand.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: We don't walk in this, that's the garden.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: We walk right here, that's next to the garden.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and and it's much more child friendly that they can be there, you know.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: You something 30 inches tall, a you know, a a three-year-old can stand there and enjoy being with you, but they're not going to climb up in there, they're not gonna be a problem, you know, uh uh in your space.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: You can work in the garden and they can stand there alongside it and be your, you know, be your buddy and not be uh fussed at.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_01: That's so true.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_01: That's one of the reasons why I have not been successful for a lot of seasons of gardening, because I have young kids, they'll come around and they're trying to help.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_01: They see me pulling weeds and they'll pull the plants out.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, try to put it back in.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: Like and and and dogs, dogs, you know, if my dogs eat them.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: The dogs will st uh pretty much stay out of it as well.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: Now, you know, you the the elevation won't keep deer out.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: Deer are the one thing that, you know, they'll they'll get up there.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but but e even the deer, you know, it it's a little bit of an obstacle.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_00: You know, they got to work at it a little bit.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: And um, and so yeah, yeah, the uh the jury's out that on a well-managed elevated bed, um, just emotionally and and efficiently, you can grow way more per square foot than you can ever imagine in uh you know, in just a linear thing.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: And and and your focus is so intense because it's you're not just you know running a tiller through um uh tearing up this thing, and you've got a really focused, you know, boundary, it does make you more intentional about what you're planning, how you're planning it, and how you're using every one of those square inches.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_01: Okay now, and we're about out of time, but just for clarification, uh when you're elevated bed, you're not saying that you know it's 30 inches high.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_01: You're not saying you're filling that whole thing packed with soil, right?
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_01: You're filling other things in there as well, right?
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um are you doing logs and stuff like you talked about before?
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so we're we're we're gonna we're gonna do at least.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: So this is kind of our experimental year.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna try to build, you know, at least, you know, well, we're gonna do two.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: I've already got the two stuff down right now.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: We're hoping to build at least two more as prototypes for for an eventual maybe you know, 14 of these.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: But um so we've always used beds, but they've been they've just been uh you know uh up uh what eight inches.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: And um that worked well when I was 40.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: But uh, you know, now that I'm I'm an old geezer, uh I like this idea of getting up 30 inches.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so, yes, at least a couple of these will be Hugo culture, where we take logs, where we pack logs in in the bottom for, you know, for two-thirds of it and just put compost and soil on the top, on the top third.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that makes it more financially doable, right?
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_01: Because I don't I just don't want the listener to walk away thinking, how am I supposed to afford that?
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, compost, soil, it's very expensive.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not all no, I mean you could eat you could you could put any you could put any kind of strata in the bottom.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you could even put uh well, I I wouldn't cons I wouldn't say uh boulders, you know, uh big rocks, but certainly you could put something like you know, uh a rocky shale, just you know, just any kind of fill material in the bottom.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but we're we're gonna use the Hugo culture thing where you know two-thirds of it is just you know wood, wood waste.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: And and then, you know, as as that as that sinks, you just keep adding stuff on top.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I love that.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_01: And you're still connected to the earth.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_00: So connected to the earth.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_01: That's fantastic.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_01: All right, well, we're about out of time.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much, Joel, for your gardening expertise, sharing your wisdom with us.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_01: I can't wait to start my garden this year.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I'm sure we're gonna have more on gardening coming up.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_01: Until then, everybody, let's get outside and start planting some seeds and building our microbiomes.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_01: All right, see you next time.