Latest / Two Girls and a Cup of Wellness / Organic Farming in Florida: Let's Talk Dirt with Organic Oasis | Ep 36

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Organic Farming in Florida: Let's Talk Dirt with Organic Oasis | Ep 36 · Two Girls and a Cup of Wellness

• Crissy: Organic Oasis was started in 2023 in Palm City, Florida by Lori Scott and Sarah Glover, with a shared passion for sustainable agriculture and healthy, locally grown food. They tend to four acres by hand, building living soil and starting every plant from seed. As a USDA certified organic farm, Lori and Sarah are committed to growing fresh, nutrient dense produce while protecting the land for generations to come. They strive to create a deeper connection between people and and where their food comes from. Let's welcome Sarah and Lori. Crissy and Marie: Hey all, welcome back for another Two Girls in a Couple Wellness chat. This is Chrissy and this is Marie. And today we have Sarah and Lori from Organic Oasis here in Palm City, Florida. Welcome. Yay! Welcome, welcome. I guess Organic Oasis: Thanks. Thanks for having us. Crissy and Marie: we probably could have done this in like live and in person. Yeah, we could have been just at the farm. I let go of the shoot. Hey, maybe we should do that next time. Organic Oasis: The farm the farm right now is not pretty because our we start planting in the ground next week. So our beds are covered so it looks a little drab, but it's about to change. Crissy and Marie: All right. Yeah. Organic Oasis: For sure. Crissy and Marie: Well, let's I I mean, let's talk about kind of like what projects that you guys are doing there that are very helpful for even some of our listeners that don't live here locally, but just to get an understanding of the type of work that you guys do because they may have other you know, farmers in their area and local vendors in their area that do the same thing to get good quality fruits and veggies. Yeah. Organic Oasis: Sure. I guess our big project that we've done this summer is we've gotten better at our composting game. And so in order to reduce inputs, we weren't happy with the compost we were buying in. And so we started making our own. And we went to a couple of classes over the summer to learn, and we do it You know, at scale, but we also do have worm compost bins too that we've been working on. So we've been using our own. Crissy and Marie: Hmm. That's fine. Are they red red wigglers? Organic Oasis: Yep, we use the red wiggler worms. We just have them in like five-gallon bucket systems. And so I love seeing the worms. Sarah doesn't love them, I love them. They're pretty easy. Yeah. But we use their worm Crissy and Marie: I think they're awesome. So I'm gonna give you guys a little Go ahead, go ahead. Organic Oasis: I was gonna say we we use their worm castings for every time we transplant plants, we put some in the transplant holes and then we also make compost tea out of it and we apply it once a month to all of our beds. Crissy and Marie: Okay, we're gonna break it down easy for my non-gardening friend over here. That's exactly what I was gonna say. I am worm Organic Oasis: I'm sorry. Yeah. Yeah. Crissy and Marie: casting. Well, that, and I just wanted to give everybody a little insight that I do not have a green thumb at all. And so this Organic Oasis: Gotcha. Crissy and Marie: is all very intriguing to me. So of course, I'm always thinking about my friends that are also listening to this, and all of our Organic Oasis: Mm. Crissy and Marie: people in our community that might also not have a green thumb. So Organic Oasis: I gotcha. I can break it down. I gotcha. So usually we feed our worms produce scraps from when we harvest every week. And so they really like lettuces, but really you can feed them anything that's not meat or dairy. And they eat through that and about every about a week they eat through their food source. And then their castings are what they poop out. We're talking about worm poop. And it's really high in nutrients and especially microbial life. And so when you take their poop and you make an extract out of it, basically you massage a bag of it into water and you take that water then and put it out on their beds, it feeds your soil life, which will in turn make healthier plants that are more nutrient dense for you to eat. Okay. Crissy and Marie: Very interesting. Very cool. Organic Oasis: Trying to figure out what somebody that's never heard any of this before. Yeah, I know, it's tough. I gotta think back. Yeah. But we're not Crissy and Marie: Well, so my My friend teaches at UCF over in Tampa at a side a satellite office. UCF. UCF is Orlando. USF is Tampa. What is USF? It's a satellite I bought from UCF. Agriculture class. But she teaches graduate students about composting. And we were talking the other day. I'm trying to get Organic Oasis: Mm-hmm. Crissy and Marie: on the show and you guys love her. She's really cool. She's been my friend since third grade. But she talked about composting and put it in comparison for me to understand from a functional medicine perspective that it's like the microbiome of our gut. wow. Organic Oasis: Yeah. Yes, correct. That's correct. So a lot of Crissy and Marie: Very and you're very knowledgeable in the guide. Organic Oasis: yeah. A lot of like organic farmers and regenerative farmers, they pay attention to the health of the soil in order to make healthier plants and more disease resistant plants. And so the compost and worm compost is full of the gut. It's like a microbiome for the soil. You're reestablishing Crissy and Marie: huh. Organic Oasis: microbes and other like I don't know. Biology. Yeah. Our one of our friends, we've been working s with a new company, Treasure Coast Compost, and they've he has been to Elaine Ingram's soil food web class and he's been making functional biology foot filled compost. I don't know, that's like his favorite word to say biology. But it's gonna work for us. Crissy and Marie: Wow. So cool. That is so cool. You know, and when when we think about the body too, you so many people use that kind of same analogy of like treat your body, you gotta fix the soil first and make su and then that Organic Oasis: Mm. Crissy and Marie: will enhance the rest of the body. So it's the same I mean it's the same analogy, which is very cool. Organic Oasis: Yeah, it's been pretty great and last season using our worm compost teas, we greatly re reduced our fertilizer input. So we only applied Crissy and Marie: Yeah. Organic Oasis: a granular fertilizer, which is for us it's an organic product, it's basically chicken manure that's been made into little pellets. We only apply it once a year and that's it. Which is good. Crissy and Marie: Yeah. Organic Oasis: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Crissy and Marie: Now, do you use camanure at all? Organic Oasis: No, any manures for us are tough with the certified organic label. You have to make sure you get it from a Omri listed source. Omri is a certification that these companies have to sh prove that they're using organic inputs. And yeah, we don't have like any local cow manure places that we could get it from, so like cost-wise it's not worth it for us. And they yeah, they do Crissy and Marie: Mm-hmm. Mm hmm. That is a rigorous process. I remember reading about that, how tough it is to become certified organic. Organic Oasis: Yeah. A lot of the tough part for farmers to switch to the organic certification is the is the paperwork. It's the backtrack. So we have to trace everything from when we buy a seed to when we plant it, where we plant it, when we harvested it, and who we sold it to. Yeah, it's a long. Crissy and Marie: Yeah. Organic Oasis: And and then backwards too. Forwards and backwards. Yeah. But we were lucky enough to inherit length that was already certified organic. So we not inherit, we purchased, sorry, yeah, land that was certified or so that made our Crissy and Marie: And that that was Shadowwood farm, correct? Organic Oasis: so that made our process much easier than an average person that just got a lot Crissy and Marie: Okay. Mm-hmm. Organic Oasis: a lot of land then had to prove like what is it, three years, seven years, something like that of three years of non Crissy and Marie: I think it's three. Organic Oasis: Yeah, yeah, it's a lot. It's a lot for somebody that not to see something for three to four years down the road. So we were we were lucky that. Crissy and Marie: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Well, sure makes you appreciate eating organic, right? To know the process Organic Oasis: Yeah. Crissy and Marie: behind the scenes and yeah. So you guys are a CSA. I think you should explain that to the listeners. Yeah. Organic Oasis: Sure. You want to CSA stands for a community supported agriculture. basically people from the community can purchase they they make an upfront payment in the season when we're buying seeds and planting seeds before they see anything, basically, but it's for our input costs and things that we need to start the season with. So we need money first. Yeah. Yeah. And and then for the season, they get a bag of vegetables every week. For 25 weeks our season is. It usually starts in about mid-November and it goes through mid-May, sometimes a little bit longer. and yeah, so that's that's how a community supported agriculture works. It's work it's supposed to benefit both us, the farmers, and the community. And so people will eat with the seasons because we it's farmer Crissy and Marie: Mm-hmm. Organic Oasis: chosen bags. And like last year in February, we had that really terrible freeze. Crissy and Marie: Yeah. Organic Oasis: I was worried. I was worried that our CSA wasn't gonna get a bag for a week or two, but we were really lucky because we grow such a diverse amount of crops that we had enough survive and we were able to replant fast enough that our CSA didn't even miss a beat for that for those was nice. Yeah. And Crissy and Marie: That's great. Yeah. Yeah, it was it it got really cold here in Florida. I mean I'm I'm not gonna complain because everybody else in the northeast really, really got smashed, but it got really cold here. I mean all the trees around were brown and frozen. Organic Oasis: I know we lost a lot of our young fruit trees that we put in the ground, but we're not as near as bad it was in North Florida, so we'll live. They re we replanted, it's fine. Trees Crissy and Marie: Yeah. Organic Oasis: just take a long time. Yeah. And that was our big summer project last year was our fruit tree food forest. Yeah. And we lost quite a bit of that, but lessons learned. Crissy and Marie: Yeah, yeah. I mean sometimes there's things in life that are gonna go on that you have no control of. So it's you gotta like take a step back, take a beat and regroup and kinda go with the flow. I think it goes for everybody in every situation. Organic Oasis: Yeah. And for us, I think it was two years ago now, they've changed our hardiness zone to like fully tropical. But then you got that freeze and so you're like, okay, we still need cold, hardy trees and plants to plant. Crissy and Marie: Mm-hmm. Organic Oasis: But well, it is what it is. We saved a lot. We got lucky. We have a shade house here that we wrapped and we put used propane heaters to save our tomato plants, which the big deal at the farm. We love our tomatoes. Crissy and Marie: Yeah. Mm-hmm. There's nothing better than a farm fresh tomato. Yeah. Organic Oasis: Okay. Mm-hmm. Crissy and Marie: What are some of the fruits and vegetables that would be included in the CSA? You said you have a huge variety. Organic Oasis: Sure. Yeah, we usually do we call it a salad bowl mix because we grow a lot of lettuce. We do a lot of lettuce. Different varieties. Yeah, different varieties of lettuces. So this part of the season, you'll start with the warmer weather ones. and then we move into top to romaines and butterheads, and then we'll go back to warmer weather lettuce. But we do kale, Asian greens, we do green beans, carrots, beets, fennel. Cauliflower, broccoli. Cauliflower, broccoli. You're like standard and then tomatoes. Sometimes we'll throw in the turnips. A lot of radishes and turnips. Fun fun radishes too. Yeah. Yeah. Some Asian rashes. They get real, real big. eggplant. Yeah, eggplant. Trying to think. Collards. For fruit wise, we don't have too much fruit because our trees are still developing, but I've been planting mulberry trees, and so I'm gonna hopefully get a bigger crop of mulberries for our members this year. And we also grow, have you ever heard of Roselles? It's like a they call it the Florida cranberry. It's like it looks kind it's in the hibiscus family and they form these calyxes, so they're kind and they are You dry out and then you eat them or you can eat them fresh. Jamaican people call it Jamaican sorrel. They make tea and stuff out of it. That's super high in vitamin C. It's good. Crissy and Marie: Yeah. Organic Oasis: And those are good for Florida because they grow through the summer. And so they're growing now. And then we'll be able to harvest them for like our first couple of weeks of the CSA. Ooh, sweet potatoes. yeah. Sweet potatoes. That's enough. we sell them fresh because Crissy and Marie: And then you sell them fresh or do you dry them? sweet potatoes. Organic Oasis: we don't have a big enough like dehydrator system yet. But if we get a big enough crop, Crissy and Marie: Mm-hmm. Organic Oasis: I'm gonna figure it out to dehydrate them and make it to eat out of them. Yeah. Yeah. Crissy and Marie: Yeah. I bet it has good medicinal benefits. yeah, I'm sure, I'm sure. So what got you to in the agriculture like world? Organic Oasis: You want me to start? Sure. Okay. I so my background is in health sciences. I went to undergrad at Stetson for what was it, health science and biology, and then I went and got my master's degree in applied anatomy. I thought I was going to medical school. I was like, this is my path, this is what I want to do. And then COVID happened, and so I was moved back home while I was applying for med schools and I applied to the Shadowwood owners and I was hey, do you need an extra farmhand? I'm home. I have time. And I've always been interested in plants and gardening my whole life. And then I started working for them and then fell in love and stuck it out. And that's where I met Sarah, was working for the old farmers. Yeah. I when Shadowwood used to rent their plot, their beds out, their raised beds, you could rent a space to grow your own vegetables. My kids were younger. Crissy and Marie: Yeah, I remember I remember that too, yeah. Organic Oasis: Yeah. My kids were younger. We my husband and I rented a spot and we did that for a few years. And then when Sarah and Bob kind of Rained it back in to get the organic certification. Yeah. Cause they had to have more control over what you know people were doing out here. So then I just helped volunteer and that's how I met Lori. Yeah. And then when they decided Crissy and Marie: Mm. Organic Oasis: to retire, they wanted to sell half their property. So my husband and I decided to purchase the other half of the property and try to keep the organic farm going for the for the community. Yeah. But they say we've Crissy and Marie: Great. Organic Oasis: Other project we've done this year is we've had to build our own entrance. So hopefully this season we can have a lot more community events on the farm. That's what we're interested in. So I mean we have a farm. Crissy and Marie: Yeah, that's what that was another question I was gonna ask. Shadowwood they did have clo I used to belong to it and then I feel like COVID, it just everything kind of fell apart a little bit for Shadowwood. I got it was confusing. There goes 2020. Stirring things up again. Organic Oasis: Yeah. Well, and they were getting you know Yeah. Yeah, and they were easing out of the public eye to just think they wanted to retire. So Crissy and Marie: Yeah. Organic Oasis: we're gonna try to start that back up. We have getting the new entrance, we're gonna have more store hours open here. You can purchase food if you're not a CSA member because I know there's a lot of people that don't wanna commit to a full season. It's a long time, people travel, you know, it becomes a thing. So We'll be open for people to purchase things here. And to come check out the Yeah, and if anybody wants to check out what we're doing, we're wide open for the public to see. So but which Crissy and Marie: I love that because I think people are craving more community events like this, right? I think I really do believe that people are are getting on board with organic fruits and vegetables and cooking more and and being healthier. And especially in our community, that's what our whole mission is, right? But I Organic Oasis: Right. Crissy and Marie: do believe that people are wanting to gather more around those types of themes, right? And so that would be really amazing if you guys could do that. I'll teach yoga if you want to do a yoga door. Organic Oasis: Yeah, we're trying to figure out. We just gotta wait for maybe it's Crissy and Marie: Yeah. Organic Oasis: a thousand degrees actually outside yoga right now. Yeah. It's a whole new meeting to hot yoga, that's for sure. Yeah, it's a basically a sauna walk outside. Crissy and Marie: Not a thousand right, exactly. Not a thousand degrees out. That's right. That's right. No, that's that's amazing. Organic Oasis: But no right now we don't have any plans in concrete for events, but we're thinking maybe a plant sale coming up or maybe a compost teaching class or I don't know, maybe something in the winter time. Yeah, when it's little more Yeah. When my flowers come in pretty and nice. Yes, Lori does a lot of bouquets as well. Yeah. With flowers that you usually don't see Crissy and Marie: yeah. Organic Oasis: in the door, so mm hmm. Crissy and Marie: Very cool. Yeah, I would love I mean, you know, always going and buying bouquets of flowers when we go to public so we go to, you know, local grocery store or something like that. But if we could go to a place where it's already there and you know the amount of right and different Organic Oasis: Yeah. Crissy and Marie: and have roundup all over it. Yeah. Yeah. I would be all about that and for getting ready to come into the fall. Organic Oasis: Exactly. But I didn't get, you know, flown in from Columbia and sprayed. Yeah, really. But Crissy and Marie: Yeah. Yeah. Organic Oasis: that's gonna be, I think, the bigger shift in farming this season that consumers are gonna start to notice is with the shift in fertilizer costs that big farms have to pay. I think they're gonna notice the price spike and they're gonna wanna go to their local farms, especially with the latest cyclospora. Outbreaks. Outbreaks and stuff too. They're gonna wanna find their local farmers Crissy and Marie: Yeah. Organic Oasis: and trust where their food's coming from. So we'll see. We'll see. Crissy and Marie: Mm-hmm. Organic Oasis: We'll s we'll take we'll take Crissy and Marie: I kind of want to come back to the compost for a second. No, because Organic Oasis: Sorry. Sure. Crissy and Marie: no, because you just mentioned it again about doing, you know, doing a composting class. So like how easy would it be for normal people like this girl, this black thumb girl, to be able to do that and and kind of help in the green thumb world. Organic Oasis: I feel like most people think it has to be like a big bin that you have to turn, which is imp important to turn your and aerate your compost. But it could be like you can add a little bit of food scraps every day, but say if you had a like a turner or a bin in your backyard, add some food scraps but every time you add that, add like a scoop of mulch or or leaves with it. It's really important to get your ratio right that's the one of the biggest lessons that we learned from going to these classes is that we had a higher p input of they call it greens which is like higher in nitrogen which is a source that you need but you have to balance it back with your browns and your carbon so your greens would be your food scraps and your browns would be like yard wings yard are are leaves from your yard or or dried down yard waste like grass clippings they're really high in nitrogen so they're Counts as a green, but that's throw it all into your pile, let it sit, maybe mix it once a week and you'll be good. You'll have compost in like two months that you can put on your vegetables, or you can put on your house plants or your grass or your yard or on your grass, yeah. Yard plants. But the I was saying tre Treasure Coast Compost, the company we're working with, they're hoping to start a program where like you can They can pick up a bucket or you could drop off a bucket of your w waste in case you don't want to do the whole at home training like she's talking about. 'Cause I know I probably would not want to do that in my house. But yeah, they're trying to start a program like that. 'Cause a lot of bigger cities have those where you can Crissy and Marie: Yeah, well my parent my in laws live in England and they actually pick up scraps. Everybody has to Organic Oasis: Yep. Yeah. Okay. Crissy and Marie: do it. You have to sort all your trash up. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Organic Oasis: Yep. Canada's like that too, I believe. Yeah. My friends that live in Canada said they couldn't they get in trouble if they throw their compost in the trash. It's a valuable Crissy and Marie: Wow. Organic Oasis: resource that I mean we're friends with fertile fertile earth compost in Miami. And Miami Dave County right now is having a big waste problem. Their dumps are full and they're having to ship their waste up to like Fort Pierce, I think. And so they've started big initiatives down there to divert Yard waste, which is like, you know, tree trimmings and mulch and clippings and stuff, and food waste. And they're starting a whole composting program down there and it's really cool. It's inspiring. But that's at a bigger scale than even we would want to do. Crissy and Marie: that's what Organic Oasis: Florida farms, so as most people probably know, our soil is is basically sand, our native soil, which doesn't hold a lot of nutrients. And so if you want to be able to grow your own food, you need to amend your soil to make it not sand. And compost is a great way to do that, because it not only it helps the nutrient profile of your soil, it helps the water holding capacity too. Cause all that life in the compost helps give your soil more structure. And will stay in place versus being washed away in the next, you know, hurricane. So Crissy and Marie: Mm-hmm. Wow. Yeah. I have a little raised garden out the window. You can't see it. She's really awesome at it. I used to have a four Organic Oasis: nice. That's that's where Crissy and Marie: thousand square foot garden in Tennessee. It was Organic Oasis: wow, that's big. And Crissy and Marie: great. Organic Oasis: throw in here, we have raised beds. We just use cement blocks. They're like two high cement blocks and you know forty feet long, but Crissy and Marie: Yeah, actually I I copied I copied them when I was at shadow when I took a picture and took it to my head so I said, This is what we need, yeah. So and I do I Organic Oasis: you saw a shadow at the end. Okay. Perfect. So you know who Crissy and Marie: get a decent amount during the winter from it, but yes, I did I didn't do it this summer, but the summer before I planted black eyed peas in the summer, Organic Oasis: Mm-hmm. Crissy and Marie: because I was reading it gives does it give hummus, am I right? A hummus back to the soil? It feeds the soil for your tomatoes, which Organic Oasis: So Yeah. Crissy and Marie: I can prefer here. I don't know. Organic Oasis: Yeah. Cow peas are a legume which feeds nitrogen back into your soil, which and then it breaks down and will help contribute to add more carbon and hummus to your available to your next crop of plants. So they're really good. And y well, it's basically a cover Crissy and Marie: Yeah. Organic Oasis: cough, right? And you can and you can eat them too, let if they let form pods, dry out and eat Crissy and Marie: I did. There's Organic Oasis: Exactly. Crissy and Marie: a jar of dried ones in my drawer. Organic Oasis: yeah. We added we have a mi we grow a cover crop. Crissy and Marie: It's fun. I've always enjoyed gardening. Organic Oasis: Yeah, that's good. It's one of it's in our mix of cover crop. Yeah. Crissy and Marie: I've never tried the cupcrum. Organic Oasis: We need well no that that is a cover crop. So that's good. That's very, very good. Yeah. You're a genitive farmer now. Yeah. Crissy and Marie: it is a cover crop. look at that. Check on my resume. I grew a cover crop. You can hire me. Farmer Marie. I mean, I always Organic Oasis: Forhandling. Crissy and Marie: as a little girl would just dig up into the yard and start planting stuff. And this no I think it's from my grandparents, so My grandparents would have both gone through World War Two and that kind of been raised in that era where people didn't they everybody grew a garden in their backyard. So always seeing that and loving it and watching things grow, I've just always enjoyed Organic Oasis: Mm-hmm. Crissy and Marie: it. But it is it's definitely a love. Yeah. You know, and it's funny how some people can't grow anything. No, I'm like, what do you you Organic Oasis: Yeah. Crissy and Marie: can't grow it? Just stick it in the ground and talk to it every day. It'll grow. I do talk to my plants. I talk to my plants. Organic Oasis: Yeah. I think depending on what you're putting in the ground in Florida, it would either thrive or will die quickly. Florida's rough. It's different. I mean, I think I'm from Michigan. Crissy and Marie: Yeah. Organic Oasis: There's you can grow anything in the ground for a very short amount of months, but still you could pretty much throw anything in the ground up there and it'll grow. But yeah. Crissy and Marie: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Organic Oasis: You just gotta aim for more tropical things. Which people are not used to doing. Crissy and Marie: And I'm not used to that. I'm from Massachusetts, so I you know, Organic Oasis: Yeah. Crissy and Marie: I is it Lalot? Am I saying that? Lalot, that type of spinach Organic Oasis: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Crissy and Marie: that's a little freaky in the middle. I was like, I'm eating Organic Oasis: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Crissy and Marie: this because it's good for me. are I have purse personally? Am I pronouncing that right? Somebody gave me a pinch of it. Organic Oasis: Yeah. Crissy and Marie: Yes, but it's super high in omega-3 fatty acids and most of my patients are deficient in omega-3 fatty acids. So I might just start giving it to my patients because it does grow like weed. And it it tastes good. I like it. Huh. Organic Oasis: If you if you need some, we definitely grow that as a weed out here. Yeah, we have plenty out here. You just you just let us know. I don't think we can target it very well though. Yeah. Yeah, I don't like the the taste of it to me. I don't know. I don't think it tastes like all the rest of the green stuff. But it's a weed a lot of the weeds that we consider weeds are edible and are really healthy for you. It's just convincing yourself and other people to eat it. A little tougher job. Yeah, you gotta find a real Crissy and Marie: Mm-hmm. Organic Oasis: Chef that would come up with a recipe that makes it taste good. Yeah. Crissy and Marie: Well, that's the other thing. Marie's a really good cook too, so I'm sure she would could do that. I don't know if I can do anything with dandelion greens. I have tried those. Not what about Organic Oasis: Mm. Crissy and Marie: tea? Yeah. I don't like it. I'll drink it because I know it's really good for me. Right, right. Yeah. But it's terrible. Yeah. That's another Organic Oasis: Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's not great. Crissy and Marie: thing you guys could do there is like cooking glasses. Cooking glass. Organic Oasis: Cooking class. That could be fun too. Would you we have a small kitchen here Crissy and Marie: It could be fun, yeah. Organic Oasis: so we could figure it out. Would be fun. Our friend, one of our friends who volunteers with us. Crissy and Marie: Just some lifetime tables and do it outside. Organic Oasis: Yeah. She's a good cook too. And she'll we'll give her a whole mess of items and she'll come up with a recipe and we're like, okay, great, can we share this with our members? There we go. Yeah. She Fridays and Cole. Yeah, because we do that Crissy and Marie: I love that. Organic Oasis: sometimes if we throw any through Too many like out there ingredients into the bag. Like one bag, I think we gave galengow, which is like a Thai ginger, lemongrass, and some other Asian, more Asian ingredients. And so we we try to help our members out and give a recipe in the weekly email that would use all of those ingredients. Crissy and Marie: I love that. I love that that you're, you know, gonna kind of go in the recipes too, but then also the the the crops of the season and trying to teach people to eat with the season. And I am not very good at that either. I kind of get it into everything on our fingertips. Yeah, and I think that's what it is. You start to get into the habit of just wanting sp certain things at any point in time, and that's you can get those. But I think trying to think outside of the box in the form of your meals and try to start. Even if it's just one meal a week or one meal a day, trying to eat four seasonally was is what I think I'm gonna try to do. And Organic Oasis: Yeah. Crissy and Marie: this this our episode this week is Dr. Sophie. She's a functional medicine gut specialist from Amsterdam, and she talked about getting the variety, so 30 different plant sources a week to keep the microbiome happy. And so I tell my patients, just pick up one Organic Oasis: Mm-hmm. Wow. Crissy and Marie: weird vegetable a week that you've never eaten before and just try to do something with it. And I think that's the I belong to it's called Orlando Organics years ago when I lived in Orlando and they would it was nice. We were in the city, so they just dropped the box off and you paid a fee. So similar to that, I think they collected from local farmers and then delivered boxes to people. But I remember that was the first time I saw a purple potato. And I was like, what do I do with this? And there's there's no Google, you know, you really have to get creative and figure out a recipe. But I think that that's a cool aspect of being involved in a CSA because you're gonna get something that you normally wouldn't eat and you're gonna eat it because you paid for it, right? You're gonna figure out Organic Oasis: Cool. my favorite Crissy and Marie: Yeah. Organic Oasis: part. Back in when I had back when you were a CSA member for Shadowwood. Mm-hmm. I like it. I like it throwing people a curveball. I'm like, look, look at this cool thing I can grow. It still tastes good, I promise. Just you gotta try it. Yeah. Crissy and Marie: Yeah, it's good. I love it. I think this is really eye I mean, definitely eye opening for me. I think we need to come in a field truck. Yeah. We're inviting ourselves. Organic Oasis: Yes, that'd be great. Anytime. Well let us let us know a little bit so we can try to make it look nicer. Yeah. In like a month it'll look start to look nice. Yeah. The beds will be open. There'll be plants in the ground. I'll have mowed the grass down a little bit. Yeah, the rain just really let the Yeah, all these summer rains, we love it, but there's certain low parts on the property that have flooded and so we're like, well, we're just gonna let that grass grow really tall because I can't I can't go back over. Crissy and Marie: Yeah. Yeah. Organic Oasis: That's okay. Crissy and Marie: Yeah. How big is the property? Organic Oasis: It's a little over four acres, our side. Crissy and Marie: Yeah. Organic Oasis: And our growing areas are about an acre right now with the raised beds that went. Crissy and Marie: Wow, wow. Yeah, that's a lot. Do you have a lot of honey bees out there? Organic Oasis: We do and this summer we made a new friend who is now keeping bees at the property. And so hopefully Crissy and Marie: Great. Organic Oasis: he's a new beekeeper and so hopefully we'll get a honey harvest that we'll be able to like sell f to our members or in our store and whatnot. So or at least ourselves. Yeah. Crissy and Marie: That's great. Very cool. Organic Oasis: yeah. I don't know. I really love bees. I'm just slightly mad at them because I was back there and one got me and it stung me right close to my eye and my face. blew up and I was like, really? I wasn't even doing nothing. Yeah. Three, free Botox. Yeah, that was definitely supposed to be Botox. Yeah, Crissy and Marie: Just trying help you. Well maybe it'll help it might help prevent future wrinkles. You never know. Exactly. Organic Oasis: no. I know I felt bad for the bee. I was like, I like you. You didn't have to come attack me. Yeah. But it was great. Yeah. Crissy and Marie: Right, right. I thought we were friends, dude. goodness. Well, this is very cool. Very cool. I love it. Well, we'll have all of your contact information and especially for our local friends if they want to come and when things are kind of open and the store. I definitely will be about the store. I'm very excited about that and meeting you guys. Organic Oasis: And we still have a few spots on our CSA for the upcoming season open too. So if people hear this and wanna join, you can join right from our website, right? So Crissy and Marie: And so it's twenty five weeks. What happens if you miss a week? Does your bag just go to someone else? If you're like on vacation. Organic Oasis: so we usually tell people we give them the option of find a friend if they want to pick up a batch Crissy and Marie: Yeah. Organic Oasis: or if you can't, then we'll donate it to somebody who who needs it or who wants it. So Crissy and Marie: Thanks. Organic Oasis: just because we can't promise like the season to go longer. So if you're for the full twenty five, then a lot of space Crissy and Marie: Right, yeah. I just didn't know. Organic Oasis: in that. But we try to be as accommodating as we can. And we do have like a two week window where we can say like we usually take off for the week of Christmas. Crissy and Marie: Mm-hmm. Organic Oasis: And we don't take off for Thanksgiving because we usually send an email out to our members and most people are home for Thanksgiving, so that's their bag. But or we Yeah, exactly. I know and Crissy and Marie: Mm-hmm. Yeah, and they could use them for Thanksgiving, right? And kind of make some non-traditional dishes. Organic Oasis: this year I'm hoping we'll have a really good sweet potato crop and green bean crop that will be ready for Thanksgiving. So it's right Crissy and Marie: Nice. Organic Oasis: at the beginning of our season, so and hopefully the Rosells too, if people want to make a Florida cranberry sauce. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes a paying comes together it would be good. Crissy and Marie: Well this is lovely. I'm excited for you guys. I hope you guys all have success. Yeah. Great season. Yeah. Your fingers dirty. Microbiome in your garden. Yeah, and I definitely would Organic Oasis: Yeah, thanks for having us. Yes, yes. Yeah, thank you. Crissy and Marie: love education, you know. Yeah. I think education about to be good. I think the more people are importance of soil and impact that it has on our bodies and our environment. And people are wanting to start growing their own stuff, right? In the light of a lot of in the news and things that have happened in the past. A lot of people are really kind of going down that route of wanting to start to make some things on their own. Yeah. I mean, even that that little garden I have, I can't support my family, my teenagers. Organic Oasis: Right. Crissy and Marie: Gosh. You know. But it brings me a lot of Organic Oasis: Which is Crissy and Marie: My garden brings me a lot of joy and happiness and stress relief and the feeling of accomplishment Organic Oasis: big. Crissy and Marie: to grow a thousand red peppers that I'm never gonna eat, I can see right now. I'll take some home, take it so spicy, you won't be able to touch your eyeball. Organic Oasis: Yeah. I know which I feel like if people pick like one thing that they love and start growing it themselves and just noticing the difference in taste and quality, Crissy and Marie: Mm-hmm. Organic Oasis: they're gonna be sold. Because I mean I was kind of a picky eater as a kid, but till I screwed my own tomatoes and I tried them and I was like, wow, these are actually great. Like why did I not like these before? And like beets. Beets was another one. I used to hate beets, but fresh beets on the farm are delicious. So Crissy and Marie: they have beets I love beets. Home grown beets are the best. And and then when you I went to I'm not gonna say the name of where I went, but I went and I bought some peppers the other day and I was chopping and eating them and they have no no flavor. No flavor whatsoever. So you do learn to Organic Oasis: No flavor. And that's Crissy and Marie: appreciate Organic Oasis: yeah, that's like the biggest difference between local farmers trying to supply their local community. We're not growing for the best shelf life of a product, we're growing for the best taste of a vegetable. Like big Crissy and Marie: Yes. Right. So when that lemon is still around three months later in your fridge, like what's going on with that? Yeah. Organic Oasis: Yeah. Yeah. That's when you are asked some questions. Crissy and Marie: Yeah yeah. That you definitely don't want the answers to. It's like a science experiment. Organic Oasis: Yeah. Crissy and Marie: I had a bag of Russell sprouts in the back fridge for three months and it was my science experiment. My husband's like, When are we gonna eat them? I said, no no, we're not. I'm waiting for them to rot. Like, what's up with that? Organic Oasis: I'm not Crissy and Marie: They're not rotting. Yeah. Organic Oasis: Mm-hmm. Which is strange. Yeah, it is strange. Crissy and Marie: Uh-huh. Yeah. Very kill me. Organic Oasis: Button. I don't we used to go to a a farmer's market and we would sometimes get some customers and they'll be like, Wow, your head of lettuce is still good. It's been, you know, a week and a half and I was like, Yeah, I'm surprised you haven't eaten all of it yet. But it's because we harvest it so fresh. Like we harvest it the day before we would sell it to you or give it to your bag and we don't have to log in the transport time that like like lettuce in a grocery store is coming from. Yeah. It's a fresh long train, it tastes better. Crissy and Marie: Or like or tomatoes tomatoes that turn red in a truck when they're supposed to turn red from the sun, right? There's gotta be some Organic Oasis: man. Crissy and Marie: healing aspect and some phytonutrient. Like we don't even know. We've only touched the surface of nutritional science, right? So we don't Organic Oasis: Mm-hmm. Crissy and Marie: know what's happening, all the different processes that are happening in our body when we actually pick it and eat it, right? Mm-hmm. I love it. Organic Oasis: Right. Mm-hmm. That's a favorite garden snack of ours, little cherry tomatoes. Go by and eat Or snap peas. Or snap peas. Sugar snapp peas are another great garden Crissy and Marie: Exactly. Organic Oasis: snack. Yeah. Crissy and Marie: Well, I can't wait to meet you girls in person and come and visit and spread the love and the knowledge and just, you know, about you guys because you you're seem fabulous. So Organic Oasis: thank you. You too. Appreciate it. Crissy and Marie: Thank you so much. All right. Well, thank you guys for just coming on and sharing all of this with our community and even the people that don't hear l l live locally. I can't talk. something local. Exactly, exactly. And I think that's part of it too, is right opening up To other local farmers in your area because this definitely opened up my eyes for a lot of things. I'm excited. I want to go home and cook. I'm starving now too, after Organic Oasis: Yeah. Crissy and Marie: all this conversation. I'm gonna go eat. Yes, yes, exactly. Organic Oasis: Cook some lunch, yeah. Crissy and Marie: All right, guys. Well, thank you again, and we will see each other soon. Thank you so much. Organic Oasis: Soon. Yeah, you're welcome. Thank you. Bye.