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Happy Hour #221: Growing Community Gardens · Stuff Mom Never Told You

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Okay, this is Annie and Smanna and welcome to stuff
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: I never told your production of iHeartRadio.
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: And welcome to another edition of Happy Hour. If you're
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: doing Happy hour things, do so responsibly. Annie. Are you
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: doing Happy Hour things? Got your red wine?
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Yes? Well no? Oh oh, let's see. I have the
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: beer I tried to open last week and it was
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: a shameful A different cans, a different can, but I
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: just had to. I was so ashamed of the whole
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: thing that Samantha watched me struggle with this for four
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: minutes trying to open a twist off cap. So I
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: just wanted to prove I could do it. So, uh,
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: just a nice light beer for now.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: Did you open it? Yeah? You opening previously? Okay, okay,
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: nicely that nicely done.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: No, I did it on I want you to know,
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: right in front.
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: Of you out of I'm not gonna die out of video,
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: so I couldn't mind. I could have already opened it.
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: Oh no, you know you can have predone it too.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: No, don't do this.
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: Sorry, I'm sorry. I just I can't verify. I couldn't
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: be on a stand. What I could say was I
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: saw she had a beer. I didn't really notice if
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: the tab was on or not, and then she pulled
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: it off camera.
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  Speaker 1: I'm sorry, this hurts me. I was trying to redeem myself.
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: You were, and you did it too quickly and not
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: on not on camera, on video.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: No, I'm so sorry.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: I don't have to read this next week, but for now,
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: I am drinking my throat coat and citron Asian tea
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: together because these allergies will not leave me, y'all. It's
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: just it's a constant right now. Like I'm doing the
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: flimmy things. It's not cute, it's not cute. I guess
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: this might be my voice now. Well I don't know.
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: We'll see, but with that, who knows. But speaking of
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: happy hour ish things, Annie, we have to remind them that, yes,
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: we will be on a Virgin Voyages voyage from October
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: second through the seventh, and we would love for you
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: to come and join us. I'm pretty sure we're going
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: to have our own little happy hour at that time.
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: We will be with other podcasts because this is a
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: whole thing called Stuff at Sea where we get to
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: have five nights of adult only time together. You can
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: see us doing a live podcast episode. You could see
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: the other podcasters do their live podcasts as well. You
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: can join us for some hanging time. I'm sure some
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: fun activities will be planned, so yes, join us. And
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: if you are interested on going on this voyage with us,
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: you can visit Virgin Voyages dot com slash stuff to
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: get information and all of that. So we hope to
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: see you there. Oh this is twenty twenty six just
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: in case. Yes, I don't think I said twenty twenty six.
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: If it's past twenty twenty six, you're too late.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: We had a great time and be missed out.
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: But yeah, so this happy hour, I decided I wanted
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: to talk a little bit about gardening. Yeah, I know
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: I'm on a whole role about this, but specifically about
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: community gardens because as we just recently had the episode
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: about gardening and women, you know, we got to talk
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: about victory gardens, we got to talk about community gardens,
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: We got to talk about sustainability and how really it
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: is important to have this kind of community and any
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: have you ever had a community garden.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: Like a CSA?
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  Speaker 2: Is that what they're called, Well, yes, CSA, but also
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: like around your neighborhood that you can have like areas
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: where you have your little plots or just actually just
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: go out there and plant together and harvest as a
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: crew as a small neighborhood community.
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: H not really. I've known people who have gardens that
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: I've helped with the gardens and they give away because
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: they'll have like a ton of zucchini or something, which
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  Speaker 1: I love, and that's amazing. But I don't think I've
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: ever had kind of the communal aspect necessarily.
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, I find it interesting because in my community
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: when I lived over my old neighborhood over the west
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  Speaker 2: side of Atlanta, if you know, you know, they did
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: try to have a community garden, and for one season
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  Speaker 2: they had it and it was pretty interesting. I was
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  Speaker 2: really excited to see about it. You could become a
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  Speaker 2: part of it, help cultivate it, provide and then like
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: you can kind of gather vegetables together. And then it
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: just kind of went away. There was a whole battle
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: about the area and the land because it was I
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: think city owned at that time, and someone was trying
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: to sell it. It was an old whole thing. I
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: have seen other community gardens out and about, and I'm
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: very jealous about those community gardens, and it seems to
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: be in areas that are a little more afflo or
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: up and coming, so it might not have already been
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  Speaker 2: established because I feel like the older generations don't care
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: about this, and you can kind of have hear about
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: our talk about victory gardens and that kind of how
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: that went out of play. I think this has a
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: little to do with that. But the younger generations, probably
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: our age or younger who are really like, you know what,
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: this isn'tind of cool, let's do this. So I feel
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: like millennials really came back together and been like, we
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: want some of this, we want some of this. So
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: it does seem like it's a neighborhoods that are a
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: little more up and coming younger generation in this time.
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: It is a lot to upkeep. We know that there's
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: a lot of disappointment when we have like animal infestation
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: conversations about how to use, what types of pesticides to use,
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: what types of fertilizer you use. Because there's a lot
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: in this conversation about environmental impact and all of that
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: and being sustainable and doing good practices. So it is
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: something that I'm like, it takes a lot of research.
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: It takes a lot of research, but if it's done well,
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: it's a really beautiful thing to see. And I'm wondering, like,
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: are we back because I feel like maybe it's because
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: I'm not in a neighborhood. I'm not in an affluent neighborhood.
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: I'm in a neighborhood with the older people who've been
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: living here since the eighties and are a lot more
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: urban than in all of the other areas. So that's
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: not an importance. We don't have vacant lots like that
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: in this area. So but I would love to be
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: a part of a community that has this type of
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: opportunity that when in that area that I told you about,
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: had a random peach tree and I didn't know if
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: it belonged to anybody, I really wanted to because it
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: was just like a following off. I was like, can
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: I steal? Is it stealing if I take some of
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: these peaches?
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: Because there was like four four peach trees.
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: Yes, there's like maybe two or three two or three
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: peach trees that were actually producing fruit.
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: I know.
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: There's like a someone's house near me. They have a
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: sign up that's like be responsible, but you could have
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: some Oh, And I know that in some places. That's
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: kind of a thing is like, you know, this tree
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  Speaker 1: is going to give me way more than I can
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: ever use. Right, don't like ruin it and take everything,
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: but right you can have some.
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, And that's the thing, Like I wish we
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: could do that. Like I have a giant fig tree
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: in the back and there's no way that I could
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: get to the top of it to get the figs.
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: But like when I get it, we kind of just
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: hold them in a way, though, what do we do?
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: What do we do? And if you don't make things
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  Speaker 2: out of it, you just have a bunch of figs.
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: And I'm like, I do I give do? Who do
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: I give them? And then I had a lot of
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: tomatoes last year, so I was trying to get not tons,
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: but enough to share with some neighbors. I could give
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: them a couple.
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: I gave you a couple.
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: I'm like, here's these, yeah, because I really really want
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: to share them. But it's such a great idea and
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: there's so many benefits to this, Like as I was
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: we were researching it. First of all, we're talking about
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  Speaker 2: teaching younger generations about farming and gardening and how important
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: that is. It teaches about sustainability, it teaches about climate change,
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: it teaches about food security. So there's so much like
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: to be granted in that it helps. We've talked about
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: for women and health. It helps physically and mentally to
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: be a part of a garden, to be able to
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: put your hands in dirt and to create something and
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: to cultivate something. There's economic benefits because it helps your
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: food budgets if you're able to grow your own all
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: these things, because I typically had been willing to pay
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: a good amount of money for freshly grown tomatoes, like
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  Speaker 2: there's nothing better at a farmer's market, and I also
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: want to help them, you know, in there, but like
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: being able to buy myself instead of paying two dollars
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: per small tomato. You know, there's there's a beautiful thing.
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  Speaker 2: There's environmental benefits. We talked about intercropping, We're talking about permaculture,
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: like those are things that could really help with the soils,
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: talking about different ways to keep it sustained and to
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: continue to help lands. There's so much in this thing
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: that I'm like, why aren't we doing more of this?
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  Speaker 2: In fact, though, are we going to have to come
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: back and start doing more of this? Because I think
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: we are having this bigger conversation about the fact I
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: just saw a post about someone talking about the fact
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: that Costco has already said they know when cost benefits,
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: and then like people are really cutting back they see
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: the patterns of the recession. At first they cut out
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: beef and go for chicken and pork, and then they
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: cut that out and start going for can foods because
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: they're more sustainable and more affordable. Like, there's this level
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: of what we're seeing and like apparently grocery stores like
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: Costco are preparing for that type of storage and that
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: type of buyout, and this is where we are, So
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: we're going to start losing I think, more and more
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: accessibility to fresh produce and fresh vegetables. So why don't
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: we go ahead and take that up as a community.
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: So I find it one alarming alarming that a that
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: we haven't already done this, b that we're having to
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: do this like both those things. Yeah, and then how
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: do we do it for those who can do it themselves?
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because the conversation is an old one, but a
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: lot of foods that are being called out as like, oh,
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: this is so unhealthy, why do people eat this? It's
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: because it's cheap and it's quick, and that's how you
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: get it. People want I believe, fresh vegetables or fresh produce,
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: but it has been out of reach for them either
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: because of price or because of cooking time or Yeah,
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: because you can reach a good point I assume from
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: people I know with your garden, where it's not that
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: much of a time suck, but it is kind of
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: the beginning when you're like learning and you're getting the
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: space and you're getting the stuff that you need. So
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: it's just kind of another time thing in your day
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: and that you might not especially if you have kids, right,
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: like two jobs, whatever it might be that you might
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: not have time for. So yeah, it is a question
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: of how do we make it more accessible for people
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: who maybe don't have the time or don't have the money.
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: It's interesting because as also we know costly gardening can
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: be costly to get the good stuff, to get the
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: which is absurd. Yeah, in a way, there really is
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: if you start thinking about but we just want to
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: use the land to grow our own food. Yeah, it
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: shouldn't be this costly, which if we wanted to be
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: a conspiracy theory slash honestly way more political. We can
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: talk about how the government did make this costly, including
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: making sure that it was harder to plant and to
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: grow these things yourself, so you had to buy from
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: specific people, had to use specific pesticide, had to use
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: specific fertilize, continue to buy the same things repeatedly because
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: you can only grow at once type of thing and
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: you can't germany yourself. Again, that's a whole different episode.
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: And just the health of the soil.
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: Yes, again the episode. Anyway, all that's to say, there's
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: a lot to that, but it is it can be costly.
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: I was looking at one website about how you know,
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: how do you do this? How can you do this?
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: Then this is from urbanharvest dot org and they say
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: one of the first things is that it costs around
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: from a fifteen hundred to four thousand to initially start
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: up something so to even like begin a garden. So
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: if you till the land, if you had to take
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: trees down, if you had to get like in order
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: to get the sun that you need to get all
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: the seas, to get the fertilizer, to get the right equipment.
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: It takes a lot of money and it it seems
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: absurd so that's just the beginning cost. So even just
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: doing out the gate is kind of hard, and then
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: you have probably four hundred dollars a year, five hundred.
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: How however, bigger garden is to keep it up. I
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: know friend previous co hosts, Caroline, they put a lot
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: of money in their garden and it's gorgeous. Like I'm jealous.
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: They got all kinds of white like greenhouses and shade
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: and planters and all the talked about kill earlier, they
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: had tons of kill. They always have kill enough to
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: help like put on a whole dinner for a group
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: of people. I'm like, well, damn, so I'm definitely jealous
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: of that. But at the same time, like it is
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: a lot of effort, like every weekend a lot of
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: times she's like, yeah, we're in the garden. Yeah, we're
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: maintain in the backyard. And I'm like, I don't I
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: don't want that. I want to do this ten minutes
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: a day where I'll go and like plant something, maybe
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: maybe an hour every other day where I go and
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: water things, plant things up. No hour sounds like excessive.
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: Thirty minutes every other day.
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, my mom her, she has a beautiful garden, it's
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: mostly their herbs, mostly flowers, And every time might I
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: call her, she's like, I can't. The rain has to
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: come because I can't spend any more time out there.
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's the other conversation. Now, we're in a
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: pretty deep drought here in the South. We had a
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: whole fire go out down South Georgia and uh, North Florida,
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: so there was a lot going down. I know, California
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: has to felt that. We've talked about the avocados, like
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: the avocado industry was really hurting at one point because
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: of this. The wine industry was really hurting, the different
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: types of produce really hurting at this point, not because
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: of these severe droughts. And with the severe droughts, we
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: have to stop using the water because we have to
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: maintain the water. But then we have the AI data
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: centers that are using millions of gallons of water without paying,
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: and this clean water, essentially it's not like wasted water.
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: So I'm really yeah, I feel like there's a better
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: system for this anyway. With that, there's a lot in
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: this conversation that we have to look into, But with this,
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: it feels like it should be something that we should
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: look at. As a sustainable thing in general community gardens,
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: especially because once again, not everyone can do this. Not
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: everyone has the land to do this, not everyone has
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: the time to do this. Not everyone has the physical
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: capability to do this. Not everyone has the mental capability
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: to do this. If I lose more plants then get them,
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: I might not have a mental capacity. But with all
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: of that, I think it's something that we need to
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: come back and look at. We needed to talk about this.
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: I think there's so many like as I have been
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: really focused on gardening the last month, I have seen
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: more and more leaders and people who are talking about this,
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: especially women in this industry, in this community, talking about
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: how to do this sustainably, how to do this responsibly,
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: and how to do this affordably with accessibility. So we're
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: going to keep looking into this. But here's a big
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: thing for those of you out there who are a
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: part of community gardens, who want to start community gardens,
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: who have started community gardens, let us know what are
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: some of the things that you think we should know
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: as a whole group of people, as a lot larger
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: conversation that we need to know about community gardens. How
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: should we start it? Should we start it. What should
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: we be looking at?
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: Yes, Yes, listeners, Please let us know. You can email
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: us at a Hello at stuffanevertold You dot com. You
• 16:14
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• 16:16
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• 16:19
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• 16:21
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• 16:27
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• 16:30
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