Latest / Good Morning From The Chicken Coop! / Season 5 - Episode 135 - The Zinnia experiment

Transcript

Season 5 - Episode 135 - The Zinnia experiment · Good Morning From The Chicken Coop!

• 0:01
  Hey everybody, welcome to the good morning from the Chicken
• 0:04
  Coop podcast. My name is Kim Johnson and I am
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  a mastermindset coach, creative strategist, and also happen to
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  be a farmer. This is my chicken coop and I
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  come out here every day to record a podcast to teach
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  distinctions, possibilities, new ways of thinking, and just bring
• 0:20
  some joy into the world. So welcome to the coop and let's
• 0:23
  start your day off in a fantastic way, hey?
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  Everybody, good morning. So a few months back, probably,
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  I think it was about March, I made this decision that on the
• 0:35
  edge of our water garden, I was going to do some flowers.
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  I wanted to test it and see if I could make it because that area
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  is really tough. It's the part where when we were
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  building the house on the farm that they dumped a ton of sand
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  and nothing particularly grows really well over there.
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  They had, you know, that was the part where they were bringing
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  the lines across underground. They, it, it was, it was just a
• 1:01
  problem area. And there's a lot of contractor
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  stand now, fortunately, I, I say we have a lawn, but it's not
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  really lawn. It's just what grows weeds kind
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  of looks lawnish. I would say if you didn't know
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  it, you'd say, oh, that's a lawn.
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  But it's not like what I know from New England lawns and how
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  they looked and whatnot. So it's been challenging to
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  plant over there, but the water garden has where we dug the hole
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  down. So there's like a dip.
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  So if you picture the lawn is flat and then there's a dip on
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  the edge and this catches all the rain.
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  So that it didn't, we realized we had a lot of runoff that
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  would cross actually the whole walkway into the front, cross
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  the next patch of lawn and go down into the pond.
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  So we figured, OK, we'll do a water garden here and then that
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  will be a great place for, you know, frogs and toads and you
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  can put plants that need more boggy conditions.
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  Obviously not this year with our continued extreme drought, it's
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  been very difficult. Even the like all the milkweed
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  is behind and whatnot. So it's kind of interesting
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  because I made the decision that I wanted to make it more
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  inviting for more pollinators to come.
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  So I would do Zinnia all along 1 edge just to test it.
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  But again, soil is incredibly crappy.
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  What do you do? And we've got this weed lawn, as
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  I like to call it the weed lawn. So I had to come up with
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  something. So I saw a few other people
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  doing research say just put cardboard down and then you can
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  put soil on top of it and Zinnia will grow anywhere.
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  And I was like, you know, I, I love the idea of that because
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  again, mindset wise, you look at something and you say, can it
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  really go into these conditions? So I was like, all right, I'm
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  going to give it a shot. So I got all the cardboard I
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  could from my neighbor Ashley and I, we, I took all of it and
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  cut it, stripped it and like put it right along the edge about
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  probably 4 feet wide and about 40 feet long around this area
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  and maybe 5 feet wide in some spots, but mostly 4 to 5 feet
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  wide, I would say is pretty accurate.
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  And it bends around the edge of it and comes right up towards
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  the front door. And then I had the boys help me
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  to truckloads of topsoil from the garden center.
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  I got really good topsoil so that it would they would take
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  off and I put it there. I put a chicken wire fence
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  around it on both sides so that the girls would not go in and
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  eat it. And I planted it and I watered
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  it and it was very slow to start.
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  But I think that was because it was cool, but it was, it was
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  very slow to start. And so I was like, OK, I'm just
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  going to wait and see. OK, I'll wait and see.
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  And we just, we just kept waiting, waiting it out, seeing
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  what was happening. And lo and behold, it took off
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  and, you know, watering it, putting the sprinkler water on
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  it, make sure because it's not raining.
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  And all of a sudden we had this really big downpour, like a
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  really big downpour. And lo and behold, everything
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  jumped at that point in time. It was crazy.
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  And I was like, wow, isn't that amazing?
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  That one little condition changes everything.
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  But just like human beings, 1 little condition changes
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  everything. So I, I kind of got like very
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  aware of the watering situation. So I started watering it more
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  and more frequently every day, getting out here, putting water
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  on it and seeing what could happen.
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  Well, now we have this full wall of flowers.
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  It's stunning. It's absolutely stunning when
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  you see it. It's a mix of all different size
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  of Zinnia. I bought a bag of mixed Zinnia
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  from Eden Brothers. Not a paid endorsement to them
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  by any means, but it was amazing how they showed up.
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  Like it just boom, they went crazy.
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  And I have to say, coming out in the morning and seeing it has
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  just made me go, Oh my gosh, I need more of this in my life.
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  But it's also just astounding. It's astounding to me how
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  conditions matter. And I know I've talked about
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  this a lot, but give it enough water.
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  Look what happens. Put it over the right soil.
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  Look what happens. Look how it changes and the
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  visual of it, just the environment of it.
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  So now the fall is going to bring it to making this whole
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  thing a doughnut around it. I'm going to clean up.
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  I'm going to take out some of the grasses that I had planted
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  in there that just seemed to attract nothing but fire ants.
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  I'm going to fix some of the things that I had in there.
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  And I'm going to create like this enveloped area of just
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  flowers and a border. This will keep the chickens out
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  from going in there and getting any of the baby tadpoles.
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  And it just makes me think about, OK, now where else can I
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  do this? Where else can I do this?
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  Now I'm looking over at the circle and I'm going, oh, I
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  could do it in the circle too. Now, it doesn't get quite as
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  much bright light, but it's worth a test.
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  So I don't know, we're going to see.
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  But point is, when you see something and you know it's got
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  problems, try it, give it a shot, whatever it might be.
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  Think of it differently. Try something different.
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  Because boy, can you be surprised.
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  All right, my friends, I hope you have a blessed day and I
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  will see you tomorrow. Bye.