Latest / The Shed Organics Show / #59 - Inspiring Beginner Gardeners Towards Success | Tash [Garden_Tastic]

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#59 - Inspiring Beginner Gardeners Towards Success | Tash [Garden_Tastic] · The Shed Organics Show

0:00
Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of the Shed
0:03
Organics show. My name is Jordan and today we
0:07
are joined by our first guest from across the Tasman.
0:11
Over in New Zealand. We have the wonderful Tash from
0:15
Gardentastic New Zealand and New Zealand's got a special place in
0:20
my heart. I grew up there as a child.
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I lived in Auckland and for many years, for probably 1012 years,
0:27
something like that of my early schooling and childhood.
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So I have a very fond recollection of what it's like
0:33
to be in that country. And it's very close to us
0:37
obviously here in Australia. And for those international
0:39
listeners who have not heard of New Zealand, I highly go
0:43
recommend going and checking it out because it's a beautiful
0:45
place. And if you're going to be making
0:46
the trek over the side of the world, New Zealand is definitely
0:49
a place to visit. Now, that's not all we're
0:52
talking about obviously, because Tash grows an incredible amount
0:57
of produce on her small block and is doing incredible things,
1:02
sharing that knowledge with everybody in her community that
1:05
she is building. Not only her community locally,
1:08
but also her community online. When we speak about the
1:11
importance of this community, obviously something that I'm big
1:15
on and you may have heard in previous episodes, me harping on
1:18
about, but bringing this in person connection as well, I
1:21
think is something that we're we really touched on in this
1:24
conversation about how important that is and moving forward, how
1:27
gratifying that can be to connect with somebody and really
1:31
share the joy, which I think is a really important message that
1:34
Tash gives us today in this episode.
1:37
But we cover what she grows. We cover mindsets, we cover
1:40
sharing content online. Tash is such a deep personality,
1:44
similar to to I in terms of the way she thinks, and she's got
1:48
this, such a broad spectrum understanding of life.
1:51
And I feel like life and gardening metaphors seem to
1:54
merge very beautifully. And I think Tash really
1:57
summarizes a lot of those for us today.
2:00
You're definitely going to learn something from this episode.
2:03
You're definitely going to be leaving inspired.
2:05
So without further ado, here is Tash from Gardentastic NZ.
2:28
Like your garden is super abundant from what I can see
2:31
online. And you know, I know it's all
2:34
like there are some ups and downs with gardening behind the
2:38
scenes that we don't. Always all see, but what's?
2:40
What's it like growing in the Bay of Plenty compared to
2:44
someone like myself who's in a subtropical environment?
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And a lot of the listeners that listen to this podcast are in
2:51
Australian climate. So what's the climate like in
2:54
the Bay of Plenty? What sort of challenges do you
2:56
find in terms of growing and is there any benefit to being there
3:01
over where we are? Yeah.
3:04
So I think in the, in the standard like growing zones, I'm
3:09
a zone 10 AI think. And then King seeds, which is a
3:13
seed provide supplier here in New Zealand, they also have
3:16
their own zones, which I'm, I think I'm like a zone 2 or
3:18
something, I don't know. So it is like I think Bay of
3:22
Plenty has somewhat microclimate.
3:25
So we do get very warm and quite humid here in the summertime and
3:31
our winters aren't terrible. Like we don't go to 0 in winter.
3:36
So I think our coldest we might have like a three or 4°.
3:42
So we do get some frost, but we don't get a lot of frost.
3:46
So we do have true seasons where you do see the full spectrum of
3:51
summer, autumn, winter, spring. And I would say like our growing
3:55
season here. And I would say similarly in
3:59
Northland, they call it the winterless N, which is like
4:02
quite a long, almost like a subtropical up there as well.
4:05
But we've got, I would say we have quite a good long growing
4:09
season. So cool, our frosts tend to end
4:13
probably early October and then we can, it can stay warm and
4:17
grow well until probably late April, early May.
4:21
So you've got a good 6 to 8 months of growing time, which is
4:25
really great. So I'm just about to do like
4:28
I've just planted like my second lot of tomatoes.
4:30
Like I'm experimenting for the first time to see if I can do a
4:32
second batch for the second-half of summer into early autumn.
4:37
So yeah, I think the benefit is here.
4:39
What I've really liked is the genuine season.
4:42
So you actually get to have full, you get to have a good
4:45
winter crop. Although like, I don't, I don't
4:48
find winter gardening is exciting.
4:49
Like I really have to amp myself up to be like, yeah, I'm
4:52
gardening in the winter because it's just so green.
4:55
Like, I mean, the green is beautiful, but you just don't
4:57
have like the the red and the yellow, you know, you don't have
5:01
all of these like other beautiful colors.
5:04
And yeah. And then you can also reap all
5:07
the benefits, right? Like a lot of winter crops love
5:09
that cold snap. They love, you know that for
5:11
their growth and development. So you get really good winter
5:14
growth here. But then at the same time, it
5:18
can just be quite finicky because sometimes you'll start
5:21
your winter veggies, but it will still be quite hot or you'll
5:23
just have like unexpectedly hot days.
5:25
And so my stuff will like start bolting or things like that.
5:28
So yeah, it's. But overall, it's a really
5:31
great, really great climate. Like, my mom and my sister live
5:35
in Brisbane, and I just couldn't imagine growing a garden there
5:39
in the middle of summer. Like, it would just would I have
5:42
to like, live under shade cloth or something?
5:44
I don't know. Totally, Yeah.
5:45
Well, that's, that's what I was going to say.
5:46
Is this that like what you mentioned about winter, trying
5:50
to prep yourself up to, to garden in the winter, But here
5:53
in Brisbane, it's the summer and it's like, you know, all through
5:56
January is just like it's, I'm watering twice a day for some
6:01
stuff. It's just, you know, it's so
6:03
difficult. And yes, we have different
6:05
plants that you can grow here in the summer and and that kind of
6:09
thing. But we don't have that huge
6:12
drastic shift of seasons. And in the winter, that tends to
6:17
be our tomato growing season. Yeah, that's your nice summer
6:20
time. Exactly.
6:21
Yeah. So we've got these beautiful
6:22
winter growing season that we can go through, but it's like
6:25
it's not a traditional winter. There's no cold, cold snaps.
6:30
It would barely ever get into signal single digits.
6:34
So it's kind of like, you know, we're pretty lucky with the
6:38
tropical side of things. We can get tropical fruits and
6:41
and all of that, which is amazing, but we miss out on so
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many of the other things that need like you say, that cold
6:48
snap or just like being able to have a little bit more
6:51
consistency in not crazy heat and all of that kind of thing.
6:55
So tell me about like, have you, have you got any experience with
7:01
your family in Brisbane with growing?
7:03
Like do you talk to them? Do you try and help them grow?
7:06
Do they ask you lots of questions, or is it very much
7:09
like they know what they're doing, you know what you're
7:11
doing? No, I'm definitely the only
7:14
grower on my side of the family. So my, my husband's brother's
7:20
wife and his stepdad as like he's fully into like
7:24
permaculture and like did agroponics and hydroponics and
7:28
all of those things. So they're, we're going to move
7:31
there in the next 12 to 18 months and start home like a,
7:34
build a big homestead and do like communal gardening with the
7:37
family because there'll be three families on the land.
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But my, you know, my, my mom and my sister are in Brisbane.
7:42
They're not in the gardening space.
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My sister would love to, but she, I mean, she's a lot younger
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than me. So she's not in her, she's not
7:49
in her Granny Hobbies era just yet.
7:52
That's fair, yeah. Because it's like it is, I mean,
7:55
it does tend to be that kind of thing that when you're ready to
7:58
slow down and you kind of like, you're like thinking more along
8:02
the lines of that plant time, you sort of tend to go into your
8:05
gardening era. But I'm hoping to inspire more
8:08
people that are younger to be able to get into it and get
8:11
excited. That's why you know, with a
8:13
young 1 now and like, you know, obviously you relate with a
8:15
young one. It's like you, you want to teach
8:18
them everything. You want to show them where your
8:20
food comes from. You want to get to the end and.
8:22
What real food actually looks like, but it doesn't.
8:24
That cucumber doesn't grow in a plastic seal.
8:27
At the supermarket exactly right can well, let's let's just touch
8:31
on that for for a second. What's that been like for you
8:34
with with a little one trying to introduce them to the garden and
8:39
what you do and that excitement of a long growing like growing
8:45
process to get to that harvest to eat it at the end with that
8:48
gratification. What's that been like for you?
8:50
It's been really cool because I mean, I didn't have that growing
8:54
up. Like gardening wasn't a big
8:55
thing and my family growing up. So I'm very, I'm probably like,
8:59
I guess like first generation gardener, like if we wouldn't
9:02
say that. But what has been interesting,
9:05
we, I, we moved into this house and I built this garden probably
9:08
a year and a half before I had, well, no, I, I built all my beds
9:12
probably just as I got pregnant with Jake.
9:15
And so his first year I like wasn't really present in the
9:18
garden because we had a really tough time in the first year.
9:21
But when I got back into it and he started crawling and walking,
9:25
it was really cool to like see him like play in the soil and
9:29
like watching things grow. But the biggest challenge was
9:32
getting him to not eat things that weren't ready.
9:34
So like picking green tomatoes more, just not like, I mean, he
9:38
could eat them and realize that they're not nice.
9:40
But it's, it's more like my control of like, it's not ready.
9:44
And I've been waiting months for this moment.
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And now you're like taking it or strawberries, like, you know,
9:50
they're just like, got a slight tinge of red.
9:52
And he's like, oh, I'm there. Yeah.
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But he's older now. He's 3 1/2.
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So he knows. And, you know, he's like, that's
9:57
not ready. We can't eat that one yet.
9:59
We gotta wait. But what has been amazing is I
10:04
love that he can go into the garden and he like the other day
10:08
he just picked a snack cucumber and he could just eat it.
10:11
Like he could just eat it straight away.
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He didn't have to worry about, I mean, I still wash our stuff
10:16
anyway. But you know, he can just, and
10:18
he picks strawberries and just eats them.
10:20
And that's what I really love. And being able to show him that
10:24
a cucumber isn't always straight.
10:25
Like some of my cucumbers grow crooked and grow round and, you
10:28
know, some of my carrots have split or they're stubby or
10:31
they're long or they're, you know, they're cool thin.
10:35
And also just like teaching him, you know, we need the bees to
10:39
come and pollinate the food. So we watch the bees, you know,
10:41
go into all the flowers. And, you know, teaching him just
10:44
the symbiotic relationship of, of the garden, which has been
10:47
really awesome. And that's what I want for him.
10:50
I want him to understand what it also just what it takes to grow
10:54
food that it's, you know, we are so privileged to be able to go
10:58
to a supermarket and buy food, but that takes months.
11:01
And and, you know, at the supermarket as well, we don't
11:03
know how old that food actually is.
11:05
We don't know how long it's been, you know, been flash
11:09
frozen. We don't, we don't know all of
11:11
those things. And so, yeah.
11:14
And being able to be like, we need to go and get this for
11:17
dinner, Let's go out to the garden, let's pick it, you know,
11:19
and he watches all of that. And so that's what's been really
11:22
fun and that's what's been really rewarding, being able to
11:25
show him all of those things now for him to.
11:28
Learn. Well, like even at 3 and like 3
11:31
years old, you know, that's amazing that he can recognize
11:35
when things are ripe and the delayed gratification of
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thinking, you know, we've got to wait, we've got to be patient.
11:42
And then, you know, the symbiosis that you mentioned,
11:45
like really getting to understand all of it because as
11:49
you say, with the supermarkets, like we could have had, I've
11:52
heard things like apples are sitting in cold storage for a
11:55
year before they're even on the shelves or they've probably
11:57
travelled halfway across the world to get.
11:59
There. Or what's put on them to stop
12:01
them sprouting. You know all of those.
12:03
Things or even just what's put on them in general, it's like
12:06
these, these types of things that unfortunately, like we've
12:10
seen with kids in schools, they just think that it comes from
12:14
the supermarket and they don't, They're just so disconnected.
12:16
Everything's in a packet or brightly coloured.
12:18
And all of this and being able to, to have our children have
12:23
that exposure. I feel like we're having more of
12:25
that now, which is really promising.
12:27
But having that exposure and having that real connection from
12:32
the get go is like what sets people up for a healthy and
12:36
happy life and, and will, you know, protect our environment
12:39
and our countries and, and the globe in the future, which is
12:43
really, really great. Absolutely.
12:46
And I think also like the biggest thing as well is showing
12:49
him what food naturally looks like because I've heard stories
12:53
of, you know, I'm in face, I'm in gardening, Facebook groups
12:56
and things like that. And you know, I've, I've seen
12:58
stories of what do you do? Like I've grown this cucumber,
13:01
but it's not straight and my children just won't eat it
13:04
because it doesn't look, because it doesn't look right.
13:06
And I'm just like, that's so sad.
13:08
And I mean, that's what's, you know, you see videos of kids
13:11
being asked like, where where does, where does your meat come
13:14
from? And they're like from the packet
13:15
in the supermarket. You know, we're so distanced
13:17
from the origins of our food and what we're putting into our
13:21
bodies. So yeah, and that's definitely a
13:23
big driver for us wanting to do homesteading and preserving and
13:27
things like that. And, you know, doing home kills
13:30
and, you know, if we do do meat and things so that we can be as
13:33
closely connected and be more appreciative of, of what we're
13:38
eating, you know, rather than just having this distant
13:40
relationship and thinking that it's unlimited and.
13:43
Yeah, I absolutely love that. I very much relate to that as
13:46
well. That's definitely something we
13:47
try and do in our family. So then you said that you didn't
13:51
come from a gardening background or didn't have that as a kid.
13:54
What? How did you get to this point
13:55
where what sparked that little initial kind of desire to go and
14:00
start growing things for you? I honestly can't even remember.
14:04
It was it was just after my husband and I got together.
14:08
But when we started dating, we moved in and I must have seen
14:13
something. I can't honestly just can't even
14:14
remember. I must have like come across
14:16
something on social media and I was like, I just want to grow
14:19
something. And we didn't, we were renting.
14:21
So I couldn't, you know, build like build anything and also
14:24
didn't want to invest a lot of money in something that I
14:26
couldn't easily move. So I just started with pots on
14:29
our balcony and I, you know, grew my first cherry tomato.
14:32
I grew some capsicums, I drew some, grew some lettuce and
14:35
herbs. And I was like, Oh my gosh, this
14:36
is so fun. Like just the, the, I don't
14:40
know, just the like excitement of watching something get bigger
14:44
and then, you know, being able to eat it.
14:46
And then we moved into a new rental and they had in ground
14:50
beads that were completely overgrown and the owners cleaned
14:53
it all up for me because I was like, I'd really love to plant
14:55
in there. And they cleaned it all up.
14:57
Then they, yeah, it was so amazing.
14:59
And that's when I really got into it.
15:02
There was 3 massive in ground beads and I started growing like
15:06
tomatoes, zucchini, pumpkins, potatoes, like all of those
15:09
things. And that's just, I just got
15:12
became obsessed. And so every year it was, you
15:15
know, and I don't actually experiment a lot with different
15:19
things. So like, I might do a few
15:20
varieties of tomatoes, but I'm very much a boring kind of
15:27
grounded gardener where it's like, I want to grow what I know
15:30
we will eat so that nothing goes to waste.
15:32
Like, and, and I want to, you know, I do experiment with some
15:35
types of tomatoes because they're easy.
15:37
If I don't like them, I'm just like, oh, I'll just blend them.
15:39
I'll freeze and blend them and put them into a, a sauce.
15:43
But I'm very much focused on growing what we'll actually eat
15:46
because I want it to benefit us pocket wise rather than like,
15:50
oh, I'll just grow all these like really nice fancy exotic
15:53
things, but like, I wouldn't eat them.
15:55
So 1, I don't have a lot of space, like I have to make use
15:58
of the space that I have and to I want to make sure that, you
16:03
know, we're like have the basics to set up for winter.
16:08
So I've got, you know, my freezer's following up with all
16:10
the with all of the produce as well to use over winter.
16:13
But also, since having Jake, it's getting him to just enjoy
16:18
the basics. Like, he loves beans.
16:20
He loves cucumber. He loves tomatoes.
16:22
Like, still not like, fully sold on zucchini, but I just, like,
16:26
shove it in there so that he can't see it.
16:29
Yeah. And so and so that's what I
16:33
really focus on in gardening is what can I grow that will
16:36
actually eat and use to make the best use of the space that I
16:40
have. Because I've literally just got
16:41
my garden in my one section of our front yard.
16:44
That's yeah. Well, I have.
16:46
I think I read somewhere on your Instagram it's about 10 square
16:49
metres. Is that right in your front?
16:51
Yes, well, actually that's 10 in the brick beds and then I've got
16:54
another bed that would probably make it about 13 square metres.
16:57
OK, Yeah. And then?
16:59
I mean, it's not a lot. Well, it's not, but it's been
17:02
proven. I actually had a wonderful lady
17:04
lives near near me on the second episode I think of the progress
17:08
ever and she is on a really tiny block and she's, I think she's
17:15
saving something like $1500 a month.
17:20
She keeps track of this. She keeps track of how much
17:22
produce comes out and what the equivalent value is in the
17:25
supermarket. And she's knowing like $1500 a
17:28
month worth of produce, which is crazy, you know, and on such a
17:31
small block. And she's, I think she's
17:34
expanded into her neighbor's yard and everything now.
17:36
But it's like, it's amazing that, you know, once you make
17:40
use of some of the vertical space or you've got some
17:42
different canopy layers and things, you can grow so much
17:46
produce in a small, small square.
17:50
Yeah, I noticed as well. You like, you do some workshops
17:52
and things. Is that some of the things that
17:54
you focus on trying to help people with?
17:56
Just demonstrate, hey look, this is what we can grow on such a
18:00
small patch, so you can do it too.
18:02
Yeah, well, this is only my first one, so I haven't actually
18:05
run. Yeah, I haven't run gardening
18:07
workshops before, so this will be my first one to do a winter
18:10
prep. Yeah, because I think winter is
18:12
the most, I guess underutilized and underrated, you know, season
18:18
of the garden, whether you whether you like winter veggies
18:20
or not, it's also a good time to just like or just rest your
18:23
garden or prep it for spring. So yeah, I think I'm still
18:28
trying to figure out like what my, because I would love to turn
18:32
my garden into a business. So do some garden coaching,
18:35
garden consulting. So I come from a coaching
18:37
background. I've been my I've had my own
18:39
business for the last six years. So I would like to shift into
18:43
this. But yeah, I really want to focus
18:45
on beginners, really on, you know, how to start even if you
18:49
think you have no space to do it.
18:51
So whether it's in bags or pots, but also, yeah, like how to make
18:58
it accessible and easy and not even if you want not, not even
19:03
just to save money, but just to connect back to something that's
19:10
in a lot of ways outside of your control.
19:11
Like we, there's a lot of gardening that we literally can
19:15
do nothing about. We can influence it through how
19:18
we prepare our soil and how we feed our plants and how we
19:21
water. But ultimately, like Mother
19:23
Nature can just screw you over tomorrow, which it has number of
19:27
times this season. This has to be my worst summer
19:29
so far, all the cyclones and the storms that we've had.
19:33
But yeah, just to help get people to connect to something
19:37
outside of like achievement, you know, quick dopamine, because
19:46
gardening just isn't that, you know, like you're waiting,
19:48
you're waiting, you plant at the end of October and you're
19:51
waiting three months minimum to like harvest your first thing,
19:57
you know? So yeah.
19:59
And, and yeah, I just really want to help people build their
20:02
food resilience, food independence.
20:05
I'm part of it. I've just been.
20:07
Appointed A trustee for a new charity here in, in Katikati
20:11
called Grow on Katikati, which is a it was a community
20:15
initiative which is now forming into a charity to help build
20:18
food resilience in the community.
20:21
Because when COVID hit, we realized like how reliant we are
20:25
on ex of importing food to our, to our region and how difficult
20:30
it became. And so they started the
20:33
initiative to help people grow from seeds.
20:36
They do seed swaps, they have a seed library, they run workshops
20:40
and things like that. So that's, yeah, really what I
20:42
want to do is like help people connect back to themselves, but
20:46
also just build some independence and resilience.
20:48
Like, I don't know if you've been following what's been going
20:51
on in New Zealand around the GE technology bill and wanting to
20:54
introduce GMO, and that's going to be the worst thing ever that
20:58
they do in New Zealand. But it's things like that where
21:01
there's so much we can't control with our food systems.
21:04
So where can we kind of become empowered in our own food
21:08
system, you know, in our homes, in our gardens?
21:11
Because you just never know. Like you never know what will
21:14
happen. So that one of my biggest aims
21:16
this year is seed saving. So I'm trying to seed save as
21:18
much as I possibly can. And so I'm doing a lot of
21:20
content around like what I'm seed saving and how to do it and
21:24
just to help people. Yeah, build some of that, build
21:26
some of that knowledge. That's incredible.
21:27
So high. Highly important high value as
21:30
well because as you say, like we no one expected what happened
21:35
and we, you know, we're having people that like you weren't
21:39
allowed out of your house to go and do certain things.
21:41
And then like people are just ramsacking the old bots in the
21:45
shelves and we just got like literally people going hang on
21:49
like I don't have access to any of the stuff that I normally
21:52
would, but I also have nothing. I don't know how to grow it.
21:55
I don't know what am I going to do?
21:57
And it gets people really thinking, which I probably would
22:00
say is one of the small amount of positives that came out of it
22:03
was that, you know, there was like you couldn't buy seedlings
22:07
or seeds anywhere. Like they were sold out and
22:09
everyone was kind of just going, Oh my goodness, I need to get
22:11
into this. But it also sparked these
22:15
initiatives to have a bit of the food sovereignty and, and
22:18
independence, as you say, because it's again, like
22:23
nutrient density. We're talking about like the
22:25
food miles and all of this type of stuff.
22:26
Like it's so much better to do it homegrown.
22:31
You're demonstrating on your on your Instagram at least like
22:34
that's where I've I've followed you is that you're doing so much
22:38
to help the beginner grow. I just to understand like this
22:41
is these are the kind of things that you can do to to.
22:45
Grow your own. Produce and to focus on the soil
22:47
and well draining soil. I think I saw one of these
22:50
things recently that you'd posted about and what is it?
22:54
Do you think then that like unfortunately times like this
23:02
motivate people, right? Where it's like it gets to rock
23:04
bottom and then people are like, Oh my goodness, I need to do
23:06
something. But how can we?
23:09
And this is kind of a little bit of a big question because I like
23:12
to just open up ideas like this. But what sort of things do you
23:16
think we can do as people, gardeners ourselves and, and
23:20
people that are sharing information and, and showing,
23:22
what can we do to inspire more people to actually take that
23:27
step themselves before it gets to that dire point of going, Oh
23:32
my goodness, we need to do this? What are some of the things that
23:34
you think help inspire people? I think firstly would be
23:39
sharing, you know, so grow like sharing the produce that you're
23:42
getting. So like that, that has been one
23:45
of the biggest ones for me because, and that's why I always
23:48
have two zucchini plants and like, I think I've got 5
23:50
cucumber plants, which is just outrageous for a family of
23:52
three. But it enables me to then share,
23:57
you know, inside of a conversation, be like, hey, I've
23:59
got, you know, I grew these cucumbers.
24:00
Would you like some I've got spare and they're like, oh wow.
24:03
So sharing absolutely. And, and just being willing to,
24:07
to talk about it. I know some people are like, oh,
24:10
like I don't want to like annoy people.
24:12
Whereas I'm like you're, you can choose to be annoyed.
24:14
I'm going to talk about it anyway.
24:15
And you can go and talk to someone else if you want to.
24:17
I don't care. It's not my job to like make you
24:20
feel comfortable. So I'm going to talk about what
24:22
I want to talk about. Yeah.
24:24
So sharing, talking about it. I think for me, like I, I also
24:30
have a, it's also probably in some ways a little bit easier
24:33
for me because my garden's in my front yard And so people walk
24:36
past and they see it, especially when it's in full growth.
24:39
It's like big and green and you know, and I've got quite, I've
24:43
got quite like a range of, of neighbors around here.
24:46
But so many people will walk by and especially when I'm working
24:49
in the garden, they'll stop by and they'll be like, oh wow,
24:51
what are you growing? Your garden looks amazing.
24:54
What have you got going on? You know, and I've got one lady
24:57
who walks past every day and she's like, I tell my daughter
24:59
all about what you're growing 'cause she's trying to start a
25:01
garden. So it's like her daughter isn't
25:03
even seeing it, but she's walking past and she's stopping
25:06
and chatting to me and, and then she's passing that on to her
25:09
daughter. And, you know, and I think also
25:13
like finding, just finding ways to like use your garden is like,
25:21
like a source of conversation, but also like a source of, of
25:24
gift giving as well. Like I've just done my first set
25:26
of relishes that I've never done relishes before.
25:29
And, and I took it to our family and we had friends over and so I
25:32
gave them a little puddle, you know, and so it's just, and then
25:35
they're like, oh, wow, I never thought about relish before.
25:37
And they've just started a garden for the first time this
25:39
year, some friends of ours. And so they're like, oh, I can't
25:41
wait to grow cucumbers, more cucumbers next year so I can
25:44
make my own relishes. So, you know, I, I think, I
25:48
think we sometimes put the idea in our head that we have to
25:52
convince people or it's like, oh, like I need you to do this
25:55
thing, especially if we're doing it from a place of, well, I
25:58
don't want to be eating the food in the supermarket.
26:00
I don't, you know, I don't necessarily agree with where
26:03
it's coming from, etcetera. You know, our own kind of value
26:05
systems underneath it. But that doesn't have to form
26:10
part of the conversation. It can purely be, hey, Oh my
26:13
gosh, I did this. You know, I try.
26:14
I experimented with this plant in the garden, the season, and
26:17
this is what happened. It can just literally be a story
26:19
like that, because then they can just be like, oh, that's really
26:21
interesting. Or oh, you failed, like, oh, I
26:24
failed once, but you're trying again, so maybe I'll try again.
26:27
Yeah. So yeah, I would think that I
26:29
would say that those are kind of the most easily accessible.
26:33
It's just sharing your joy and your fun and sharing your
26:36
produce and sharing your stories and using it as a way to
26:40
connect. Like I even, I did a post on
26:43
LinkedIn last year about gardening and I said I'd taken a
26:49
break from doing my leadership content and I posted a picture
26:52
of me with my garden, like with, with a, like a harvest that I
26:56
did with like my, my 900 gram cucumber and all my tomatoes.
27:02
And like, it was one of my high, like a high performing post just
27:05
in terms of people like, oh, wow, look at your harvest.
27:07
And that's so amazing. You know, so it's like, that's a
27:10
business platform, you know, it's like a professional
27:12
platform. But I was like, this is
27:14
something that makes me feel good.
27:17
It it grounds me, you know, it's really good for my mental
27:21
health. I'm going to share it on there.
27:22
And so many people were like, wow, I love gardening.
27:26
I'm going to check you out. I'm going to, you know, I want
27:28
to learn how to do it. So I'm going to follow your
27:29
content, you know, and so it's like I didn't do that as a
27:32
convincing. I did it because I shared
27:34
something that I really enjoyed and something more about myself.
27:38
And then I had people following me and, you know, now they're
27:41
engaging with my gardening content.
27:42
So doesn't have to be complicated.
27:45
Yeah, I absolutely love that. It's not.
27:48
You're not in the convincing business.
27:49
It's more about having conviction, Eric, about like
27:52
what you're doing. But I love the joy and sharing
27:56
the joy because I've been guilty of this.
27:58
I've spoken about it before. Is that, you know, like I'll be
28:01
like, Oh my goodness, you know, our food system's so broken.
28:05
Like we just all need to be gardening.
28:06
And then people go like, whoa, you know, like, that's so heavy.
28:11
Like I'm just trying to get by my yeah, like I didn't need to
28:16
know all about all this. But if you go and like you said,
28:19
take a little bit of produce or you just go and go look how
28:21
exciting this is. Look how I made this.
28:23
And oh, wow, it tastes delicious.
28:25
Then they just their eyes light up and they get a little bit of
28:28
that positivity and they get drawn to it rather than.
28:34
Yeah. So you want to pull people in,
28:36
right? Not push them towards.
28:37
You want to pull them in. Yeah.
28:39
And your energy and your energy will do that, right.
28:42
So it's like if your energy is joy, excitement, also love, you
28:48
know, it's love for the environment.
28:50
And not from a, not from a, what's the word?
28:56
Not from like a activism point of view, but just like love for
29:00
like being in the soil and connecting back to nature and
29:04
you know, and helping people to distance from the phones and
29:07
distance from inside. And, you know, all of those
29:10
things like people are energy is what moves things, right?
29:13
And where energy goes, energy flows.
29:15
So it's like when we put the energy into inspiring people,
29:19
bringing the joy, sharing that passion, like that's what
29:22
they'll get pulled into. And yes, activism is important.
29:25
And I, you know, I don't disagree with that.
29:28
It's, it's just that fighting fear with fear is not
29:32
necessarily going to get us where we want to go.
29:34
So instead, like, and that's why I just share like, I share so
29:38
many of the good things. And I also share the fails
29:40
because also as a beginner gardener, you fail all the time
29:44
and you just want to give up. And then you're looking at these
29:45
Instagram, you know, and I've had people message me being
29:48
like, your garden's so amazing. I could never do that.
29:50
And I'm like, that's why I'm trying to show like all the
29:54
things that don't work, Like I'm having my worst tomato season.
29:58
But you know, and, and I look at that when I get messages like
30:01
that and I'm like, this is a privilege.
30:03
It's a privilege to be able to show the potential of gardening,
30:07
but also the realism. It's like, yes, my garden does
30:10
look amazing and my tomatoes suck, you know, like I'm having
30:15
my best cucumber in capsicum season, but I'm also having my
30:18
worst tomato season. And they all can be true.
30:22
But I've, I've definitely found that that's been like the
30:25
biggest drive for people engaging in the content.
30:28
It's like I'm, I'm purely just showing the joy of what I'm
30:32
doing and, you know, and the frustration, but also the fun
30:36
that comes with it. That's honestly, that's such
30:38
great advice. I think you you've nailed it.
30:41
Hey guys, really quickly jumping in.
30:43
I just want to remind you, if you are not subscribed to this
30:46
show, that is the number one thing that you can do to show me
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Finding value from this conversation and you're deeply
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30:58
Do you think like social media makes it harder in that way?
31:02
Like obviously it's, it's much more accessible for gardening
31:05
content. Like we've got so many people
31:07
like yourself sharing some incredible tips and insights.
31:11
But because of the curated nature of our social media, do
31:17
you think that it can potentially put people off
31:20
because they're like just going, oh, you know, I'm seeing all of
31:23
these amazing gardeners. And like you said, there's no
31:26
way that they can be able to do that.
31:30
Do you think it's up to us? To be able to try and dispel
31:32
that myth a little bit more. Yes and no.
31:36
Like I think I have a lot of thoughts about about social
31:40
media and our relationship with social media.
31:42
It's it's not our responsibility to make people, I want to say
31:50
this, it's not our responsibility to make people
31:53
open minded, you know, to things and to make sure that they are
31:57
objective in their perception of what they're seeing.
32:00
That's not my job. However, if my mission is to
32:05
help gardeners be excited about starting gardens, then part of
32:11
my content pillars should be trusting myths because that is a
32:16
barrier to entry for, for people.
32:19
So, you know, although it's not my job to make you feel better
32:22
when your garden fails, it's it I do see it as part of my job to
32:26
go. I'm going to show you the
32:27
spectrum of what gardening is because I want to show the
32:31
reality, right? Because I, I didn't see enough
32:34
of that when I started. And so I want, I want to be that
32:36
for someone else. However, in saying that, you
32:41
know, it's still my choice whether I show the good or the
32:46
bad. Like it's still my area of the
32:49
Internet. I still get to decide.
32:50
Like if I wanna just show all the glorious aspects of
32:53
gardening, that's my right. I'm entitled to do that.
32:56
It is my social media. If you don't like it, unfollow
32:59
and move along. Like, you know, you have that
33:01
autonomy. So I guess it's also like
33:04
there's, there's, there's, there's both sides of it.
33:06
You know, I, I do, I do follow some accounts where it is the
33:10
Instagram, it's the highlight reel, it's the beauty.
33:13
But I think actually in the gardening world, so much of it
33:16
is quite real. Like a lot of the, a lot of the
33:19
creators that I follow really do show the spectrum of what works,
33:23
what doesn't, what's done well, what's failed.
33:27
I think what makes it harder from a creator's perspective is
33:31
when you do share some of the fails and just sometimes the
33:35
comments you get like, you know, I shared like the fail around
33:39
planting my corn and not having enough nitrogen in the soil.
33:42
So I had to pull it all out. And someone literally commented
33:45
what a dumbass you are. You should have known better.
33:48
And I was just like, like, I literally say my failure and
33:54
growing corn, like, I don't need you to also like say that, you
33:58
know, just. And so like that.
34:01
I like when I, I ended up blocking them because I was
34:03
like, I'm just not, it's not worth the energy.
34:06
But that, you know, sat with me and I'm like, and so the next
34:09
time when I, you know, did my video about powdery mildew and
34:11
the fact that I had to hack back half of my pumpkin patch that
34:14
looked so beautiful like a week before, I was like, do I even
34:18
want to post this? Like, are people going to be
34:20
like, you should have known better.
34:21
Why did you get powdery mildew? You know, you've been gardening
34:23
for so long, but I'm like, but this is the reality.
34:26
Like, I'm, I've been gardening for how long?
34:29
I know what I'm doing and I still get powdery emoji
34:31
infestations because guess what? I can't control that.
34:34
Like it's just going to happen. That's so true.
34:37
So yeah, I think that's the tough part about social media is
34:39
like, I think in a lot of ways, people do want to be honest
34:42
about what's going on, but they're also scared.
34:44
Like, what are people going to think?
34:46
What are people going to say? And, and I guess like the, the
34:49
commitment I'm making with myself is if I want beginner
34:52
gardeners to keep going, I need to be willing to keep going.
34:55
I need to be willing to share the shitty times so that they
35:00
cannot feel alone in that. Yeah.
35:02
Yeah, I totally agree. And it's funny you mentioned
35:07
that about the negative comment because I just shared literally
35:09
yesterday and I'll bring it up on my phone because I shared a
35:14
story and I think it's kind of relevant to talk about this now
35:18
that you've brought it up. Is that like I had a, someone
35:20
commented, you're an idiot on one of my posts.
35:24
And it happens from time to time when you put yourself out there.
35:27
I'll read what I wrote on the the story because I think it's
35:30
kind of it's relevant. But I said I wanted to share
35:32
this comment I received recently on one of my posts.
35:35
Obviously, it's not nice to receive negative comments, you
35:37
know, like we're all human. But when you put yourself out
35:41
there, it's inevitable that some negativity will come your way.
35:44
I wanted to share my thoughts on this and where my thinking goes
35:47
when I read something like this. Immediately I deploy compassion.
35:51
How bad must it be in this person's life for them to feel
35:55
the need to try and drag someone else down?
35:57
I genuinely do feel bad for them, and I'm really grateful
36:00
that I'm not in such a terrible place myself.
36:04
I don't try and fight it or argue or let it slow me down or
36:07
even occupy my thoughts for any longer than a few seconds
36:11
because if I let every negative comment get in the way of what
36:14
I'm doing, then I would have stopped doing what I'm doing a
36:16
long time ago. So to anyone else out there
36:19
who's sharing parts of themselves online, like you
36:21
attach, which you know you will inevitably receive negativity,
36:26
unfortunately, then the best thing to do is deploy love,
36:29
gratitude and compassion because these people just need more love
36:33
in their lives and we are the ones that can demonstrate it.
36:36
Fortunately, I get so many beautiful comments that far
36:38
outweigh these ones. But if you're struggling with
36:40
negativity, I hope this helps. So that's like, that's a
36:44
snapshot of how I think about the negativity because you do
36:47
get it. And you're right in thinking
36:50
like you go next time you go hang on that one niggly comment
36:55
that's like sitting in my mind about do I share this next time?
36:58
Because I don't want that reaction.
37:01
I've had to really teach myself to just kind of almost block my
37:05
ears from both the positivity and the negativity and just.
37:09
And everything's neutral. Yes, and, and have the
37:11
conviction in myself to go look, I know what my intention is and
37:15
what I'm trying to do and put out there that no one's other
37:20
opinion is going to dictate how I want to live my life.
37:23
So I really, I really relate to that and I know that it's it's
37:26
never nice hearing negative comments, but is that something
37:32
that you relate to in that instance in terms of like, since
37:36
putting yourself out there, has it been a few of those moments
37:39
where you go like you didn't have to say that, you know, like
37:43
and it really sticks with you that one negative comment or it
37:45
seems to over. All the positivity that you get.
37:50
And like and has that, have you had to sort of get past that a
37:54
little bit or? Yeah, absolutely.
37:56
I mean, my my other business, my leadership coaching business is
38:01
I do mindset work, right. And I do mindset coaching.
38:04
So, you know, so much of our experience is the story we tell
38:07
ourselves about the experience. Like often every experience is
38:11
actually neutral. It's our story in the meaning we
38:13
give it right that, you know, and yeah, like I, I know all of
38:18
the mindset steps, you know, compassion.
38:22
I know it's not about me. I know it's projection.
38:25
But you know, I'm a human and I'm just like, this fucking
38:27
sucks. Like, I don't want to hear this.
38:29
Like, I'm just trying to make a video about something that went
38:33
wrong and how you can fix it. Like, you don't have to be an
38:35
ass about it. And I think like for me as well,
38:39
well, it depends like if I have other like if I'm tired or I'm,
38:44
I'm not well looked after, those things linger and they really
38:47
invest and they really, you know, feel harder.
38:50
Whereas, you know, if my cup is full, like I'm on a roll and I'm
38:55
taken care of, then those like I can just like it is just like a
38:58
water off a duck's back. It's like, oh, whatever, like,
39:00
you know, delete, move on. But I think, I think like is in
39:06
a way to like relate this to gardening is you're going to
39:10
have really great winds in the garden.
39:12
You're going to have incredible harvest.
39:14
Things are going to go really, really well.
39:15
And then you're just going to have stuff that doesn't work and
39:17
you don't know why you're like, but the soil is good.
39:20
I did all the things I did all the feeding.
39:22
My watering's good. And it's still just died or, you
39:24
know, it's still broke or, you know, things like that.
39:27
And and this is just the practice that I have to keep
39:31
coming back to. It's nothing is consequential in
39:34
that moment. It's, it just is, you know, like
39:38
the plant did die, like, okay, what can you try and figure out?
39:42
But sometimes it just, it just happened, you know, maybe the
39:45
plant itself wasn't healthy and, you know, maybe the seed wasn't
39:49
healthy or, you know, maybe it did have some disease that you
39:51
just couldn't control. And that's kind of not that I'm
39:54
calling people diseases. But, you know, that's kind of
39:56
the thing with like people on social media.
39:58
It's like you can't control them and you have no, you have no
40:02
control over what's going on in their life.
40:04
You just happen to be the person that activated it in that
40:07
moment, you know? You know, like when people say
40:10
that it got triggered, it's like that trigger didn't happen from
40:13
this moment. It triggered something in the
40:15
past that's being activated right now.
40:17
So it's like it's very rarely what's happening here in this
40:21
moment. And that's also another thing
40:22
that I need to always come back to.
40:23
It's like this isn't about me. You know, we're, we're a goic by
40:28
nature. You know, our brain is wired to
40:30
be negatively biased. It's what helps us survive, you
40:33
know, So that's why we can hear one negative comment and
40:36
discount the 99 positive comments and we can still fester
40:39
on it because that's how our brain is wired.
40:41
And so it is just that practice of what am I making this mean
40:47
about me? And do I want to make it mean
40:49
anything? Like when I got that dumb ass
40:51
comment, I was like, what an like, just I was just like, what
40:53
an ass I was like, and this means nothing about me because
40:57
and not to like, you know, connect to external validation,
41:01
but it's like other people was like, Oh, I think this might
41:04
have happened to me as well because my corn doesn't seem to
41:06
be growing. So this is really good for me to
41:07
know. I'll make sure I put more
41:08
nitrogen in next time. So I'm like, that's what I'm
41:11
doing it for. You know, I'm willing to share
41:13
this uncomfortable moment for the people who are there for it.
41:17
And it's like, and if people aren't there for it, block and
41:20
move on. You know, and the same thing in
41:22
your life, like if, if there are people that aren't helping you
41:25
to be who you want to be, who don't love you for who you are,
41:28
who don't support the journey that you're on, block and move
41:31
on. You know, like find the people
41:33
that want to be there and support you.
41:36
And I think that's, I think that's what I've what I've found
41:40
actually the most beautiful thing about the gardening
41:41
community, it has to be one of the just the most generous kind,
41:49
you know, with other gardeners who are sharing their, their
41:51
gardening online. Like, you know, the amount of
41:54
people that has sent me seeds because I'm like, wow, this
41:56
tomato looks really great. And I can't find any.
41:58
Would you be happy to send me some?
42:00
You know, and I send seeds to people and, you know, and just,
42:04
yeah, like, just created really good friendships just from this
42:07
community. And I think that's just really
42:09
powerful to hold onto as well. It certainly is yeah, you're,
42:13
you're absolutely right about that beautiful like sentiment to
42:16
think about. But we are lucky in this
42:18
community that I guess garden is seem to, to understand this
42:24
reciprocity that goes on in nature and, and can they can
42:27
kind of really work with that or they just get it a little bit
42:31
more deeply. And you know, I, like you said
42:34
with the just hoping to help that one person that really does
42:37
get some value out of it. It's I'm very much thinking
42:39
about one person at a time. It's, it's only speaking to that
42:43
one person. It's very easy to just be like,
42:45
Oh, my post only got 10 views, but then I go, if I had 10
42:48
people in the room and I could help all those 10 people, that's
42:50
like that's a massive win. Yeah, we've really discounted,
42:53
like, reach. Yeah.
42:55
With social media, it's like, do you really want 100 people in
42:57
your yard, like what you're doing?
42:59
Like that's a very different feeling from 100 random
43:02
eyeballs. Yeah, exactly right.
43:05
But you're right in terms of like, you know, bring it back to
43:07
the garden as well. Again, how you're, you know,
43:12
there's things that you can't necessarily control and you know
43:16
it, you said it beautifully. It just is, it's just what is
43:20
going on and you just go, OK, cool.
43:22
And then you just move on, try and take a lesson out of it.
43:25
And that sort of thing, one thing that like I'm really big
43:29
on soil, right? That's, and, and it's becoming
43:33
increasingly evident to most people, most gardeners that
43:35
we're not necessarily growing plants, we're growing soil.
43:38
And, and to have a thriving living ecosystem underneath the
43:42
ground that supports all of these plants can minimize a lot
43:44
of these pest and disease issues, that kind of thing.
43:49
I, I want to get to understand your soil in terms of like what
43:55
you were originally working with, how good was it when you
43:58
first started and what sort of things do you do to help build
44:02
your soil and to, to support your garden in that way?
44:06
Yeah, so I made a massive mistake early on and I actually
44:09
had this on my pinned my pinned posts of like like 5 mistakes.
44:14
I actually started growing only in compost because I completely
44:17
misunderstood of like soil makeup and I was like compost is
44:21
just what you need. And so some things did really
44:24
well because the compost was like really rich.
44:26
But then other things like just burnt or, you know, just died
44:29
because they didn't have the, the, you know, the variety of
44:33
what you need in soil. So that was like my big my has
44:35
to be like one of my biggest failings.
44:37
And I've even had people like comment on that post and on
44:40
TikTok and be like, how could you like, how could you think
44:43
that just compost would be fine? It's like I, I was new and this
44:46
just again goes to show like what you don't know and you just
44:49
have to figure it out. And, and I'm not like a, I'm not
44:53
a huge researcher. Like I'm not going to go and
44:56
read 15 articles to like learn about something.
44:59
I'm just going to be like, I read this one thing, this seems
45:03
good enough. And then I just experiment.
45:05
I'm like, Oh yeah, this works. This didn't work.
45:07
And I and I really love, I kind of love that way of learning.
45:10
So like maybe I'll fail for six months, but I'm like, that
45:12
definitely didn't work. So like what's next?
45:16
So what I do now is so when we built these beds, so in my last
45:21
house, it was they were in ground.
45:23
So there were beds that were already there.
45:24
So I just topped up with compost so and then dug it in because
45:28
the soil was already there. So that worked really well.
45:30
But when we moved here, I did a layering of topsoil and compost.
45:36
So I layered like lasagna layering.
45:39
And I didn't know about the, is it the Dutch or the German
45:43
method where you put the trees and then you know?
45:46
The Hugo culture, the. German, the Hugo culture yes so
45:49
I didn't know about that then otherwise that would have saved
45:51
me a bit of coin. So yeah, I did lasagna layering,
45:55
but then also within each layer I put chicken and sheet pellets
45:58
as well. So that's slow, slow release
46:00
manure and then yeah and then finished with the the compost
46:06
compost on top and that has been really, really good.
46:09
So that was the establishment of the beds.
46:12
And then now when I re establish when I build my soil, so I use
46:16
the bukashi system that and so I I've only just started using I
46:21
used it in our last house. So I've started using it again
46:24
and digging every bucket into each one of my beds.
46:28
And so doing that as a breakdown composting.
46:31
And then also just do a light layer of of at the moment I am
46:34
still using store bought compost to layer on the top that I've
46:39
got my compost. Been going as well to to have
46:41
some of that homegrown. It's hard to like, make enough
46:44
compost to spread over your gut, especially on a smaller scale.
46:48
I've been talking about this with a couple of different
46:50
people because like, I don't think people should be ashamed
46:52
of buying in compost. Because it is actually.
46:56
It takes so long to make your own compost, which is why
46:58
bukashi is great. But yeah.
47:01
It is really good. With the bukashi, do you use the
47:06
liquid as well? Like are you using?
47:08
Because I like in the times that I've done it, you know, I've got
47:10
a little tap on the bottom of the bucket and I take the liquid
47:15
out and then I'll kind of dilute that a bit and then use that in
47:18
my soil as well. Because that's, that's often
47:21
quite good as well. Yeah.
47:24
Is, is that something you use? You use some of the liquid too.
47:27
Yes, yeah, I don't and it's interesting like since we've
47:30
been here I don't have as much liquid as when I was in
47:33
Riverhead. I think it's because I there was
47:36
probably more like fruit that I bukashi in our last house.
47:39
But yes, I do or we use it for drains.
47:43
So there bukashi is really good to put down your toilet or put
47:46
down your drain systems as well because it it yeah, it kills a
47:50
lot of the bacteria and cleans it out.
47:53
So that's another good use as well.
47:55
That's right. I'd forgotten that.
47:56
What a cool one. Thank you.
47:58
So then, so then now with your, with your beds and stuff like I
48:05
am a proponent of of cover crops and I'm not sure if you've ever
48:09
used cover crops. It's tends to be for someone
48:12
who, you know, utilizes every bit of their garden all the time
48:15
and is kind of constantly replacing things and and this
48:17
kind of thing. It doesn't tend to always be
48:20
time enough to have a cover crop, but then in those times
48:24
where you are resting your beds, it can be a really useful thing
48:28
to grow up some green manure cover crop and then come and
48:31
smother it, drop and drop, all of that kind of thing.
48:36
What are you doing to maintain your soil health and replenish
48:40
your soil? When you've had a big harvest of
48:44
corn or something, when it's taken a lot of the nutrients
48:47
out, what are you doing to replenish it?
48:50
So I have to be honest, I have not used cover cross because
48:54
I've always, yeah, because I've always been in small spaces.
48:56
So I'm like just need all the beds.
48:58
Yeah. And.
48:58
Yeah, that's. It and also I've just recently
49:01
learned, so my beds are actually built from bricks.
49:03
So this used to be where my gardeners used to be a paved
49:06
area that the previous owners built to put the caravan on.
49:09
And I didn't like it. I didn't want it.
49:11
So I pulled all the bricks up and I actually built my beds out
49:14
of the bricks. And I've just recently learned
49:18
that they that bricks will obviously retain a lot of
49:22
thermal mass and, and make the soil really warm.
49:24
So I'm wondering if that's why a lot of my brassicas bolt in
49:30
autumn or late winter, because the beds, because we still get
49:33
really warm days in winter, especially on clear days.
49:38
And so I'm wondering if my beds heat up and then, you know, it
49:40
causes that stress between the night and the day.
49:43
So, but I think this year I'm going to utilize my back and
49:47
ground bed, which has been my pumpkins are I'm going to do my
49:50
brassicasm there. And then I do want to do a
49:53
couple of cover crops on on a couple of my raised beds, my
49:58
brick beds. I just can't do it with all of
50:01
them because obviously you need to get my, I need to get my
50:04
garlic and my, my onions in at this time.
50:07
So unfortunately they just like you just have to get a dumping
50:10
of sheet pellets, a new dumping of I'm going to do a bukashi
50:14
into that bed where the the garlics and onions will go for
50:17
next season. But yeah, so I think like
50:20
replenishing soil, like bukashi has definitely made a huge
50:23
difference. Reintroducing that back into my
50:25
garden. Having smaller beds makes it
50:28
tricky when I've got a bucket ready because I'm like, where is
50:30
it going to go? Where am I going to dig it in?
50:33
But I definitely do want to bring some cover crops in.
50:36
I just, I think I need to be a bit more strategic about which
50:40
beds I do it in based on what's going to come back into it in
50:43
the summer. And so I think I want to do
50:47
that, especially with the beds that I want to do corn in again,
50:50
because it's they obviously need a lot of nitrogen.
50:53
The other thing that I do as well with replenishing soil
50:56
health is I don't pull out crops.
50:59
So I'll just cut crops and leave the roots in the soil to break
51:02
down. So that's another thing that I
51:04
do. And then also just a lot of the
51:06
times, like when I harvest carrots or things like that and
51:09
I'm not gonna use the tops for pisto, I'll just drop it back
51:13
onto the sauce. I'll break the tops off and then
51:15
just let it break down and go back into the sauce.
51:18
So just do like little things like that.
51:20
Yeah, that's perfect. I mean, and as I mentioned
51:22
before with the cover crops, like it's not every situation is
51:26
designed to, to use all of the different techniques.
51:28
We've got an amazing tool belt of things that we can use to
51:32
improve the soil, but you don't have to use them more because it
51:35
depends so much on your situation, what you're growing
51:38
and all of that kind of thing In Brisbane, like we have to use
51:42
mulch like all year round because of that moisture
51:45
retention capacity. Tell me about mulch for you
51:50
guys. What's the I know that you do
51:52
mulch, but like what's the like? Is it completely necessary or is
51:58
it something that if you don't do it, it's gonna be OK?
52:03
Because generally it's not gonna evaporate too much water, or if
52:06
just at least having enough ground cover from plants as well
52:09
Shields it from enough of that evaporation too?
52:12
Yeah, like I, I actually don't use a lot of mulch.
52:15
I use, I think the time that I use mulch and I actually use dry
52:19
leaves at the end of autumn is for my onion and for my onions
52:23
and garlics because they obviously rest.
52:25
I mean, they're quite small across winter.
52:28
So I tend to do it then. But I've been doing more dense
52:32
planting. So on my tomato bed, I actually
52:35
do have pine mulch, pine tree mulch on there because I don't,
52:42
I don't hugely densely plant around my tomatoes.
52:46
But for my other beds, I've quite densely planted.
52:48
So there isn't really the need for mulch because there's enough
52:51
cover from the crops, which has been good.
52:54
But I think it also just really depends like your access to
52:58
mulch. So it's like because it's the
53:00
cost factor of getting mulch, but there's also different
53:03
options like there is wood chips, there is pea straw leaves
53:08
tends to be like my easy one because we've got heaps of trees
53:11
around here. So I literally, I've got these
53:13
two little black wheelie bins without wheels, but I walk
53:16
around the neighborhood and I actually just, I take all of the
53:18
dried leaves out of the gutters and I put them in there and that
53:21
becomes my mulch. And also that's my brown
53:23
layering and my compost bin as well.
53:26
And so I just do that pretty much all autumn and all winter
53:28
and I just stock up. That's.
53:30
That's the benefit of having a true autumn, isn't it, When you
53:32
have all these deciduous trees, like we just have evergreens
53:35
like everywhere and like the there is not many plants that
53:39
drop their leaves ever in, in Brisbane.
53:42
So and also it's like mimicking nature, isn't it?
53:44
Like that's what happens on on the forest.
53:46
It has to die. It has to, you know, and then it
53:49
it breaks back down and it goes back into the earth and all of
53:51
those things. Yeah.
53:52
Yeah, I love that. So just to kind of round out a
53:57
little bit, what's what's top of mind for you at the moment?
54:02
I like asking this question because it really gets sort of
54:05
to the crux of what you're really thinking about currently.
54:08
But like what's what's top of mind for you in terms of, you
54:11
know, in the gardening space and moving forward and what you're
54:13
trying to to be working with and figuring out?
54:17
And then are there any sort of people that you look up to in
54:23
that same region that are helping you to kind of get
54:26
there? I think what I'm, what I'm
54:29
really thinking about is, is that food independence and that
54:34
food resilience. And that's why I think seed
54:36
saving and preserving has really kind of come back for me because
54:39
I haven't really been super interested in it.
54:41
I'm like, well, you know, like I'll free, I'll roast my
54:44
tomatoes, freeze them, and that's kind of my level of
54:46
preserving, but I'm actually doing like cooked preserves and
54:49
stuff like that for the first time.
54:51
And yeah, just like, how can we, how can we get more from our
54:57
food? Like, how can we use it
54:58
differently? I'm freezing a lot more as well,
55:01
you know, and I'm really, I'm putting away all my capsicums,
55:04
my beans, you know, we even got a celery because I, I'm, it's
55:08
too hot to grow celery here now, but you know, we got celery to
55:11
make stock paste and I didn't want to waste the rest of it, so
55:13
I sliced it up and I put it in the freezer.
55:17
Yeah. So I'm just like, I think that's
55:18
really top of mind for me right now is how can I like not that
55:24
we need to, but it's like, how can we reduce costs?
55:26
Because I mean, that's just beneficial anyway.
55:29
How can we reduce the amount that we need to buy from the
55:32
supermarket in terms of fresh produce?
55:35
And also how can I be smarter with the produce that we do have
55:38
like that we do make through preserving, through freezing
55:41
through things like that. So that's definitely been really
55:45
top of mind for me at the moment.
55:46
And again, this comes back to why I can be quite boring in my
55:51
garden because I grow what we will absolutely eat because I
55:55
don't, I don't want to waste the space.
55:57
I don't want to waste. I don't want to waste the
55:59
energy. And so, yeah.
56:02
And in terms of like moving forward, I've just become a
56:06
trustee of this charity and I really want to contribute there,
56:11
really have to build that up more.
56:12
And when we move, because we're actually going to be moving to a
56:14
completely different region about two hours from here, I
56:19
want to set up the same charity there and get, you know, council
56:22
funding and things like that to, to run workshops to, you know,
56:27
to the point where like, I want to have like on my homestead,
56:32
like I want people to come and pick their own cucumbers and we
56:35
make like pickled cucumbers right there.
56:37
And, you know, and they get to do that.
56:38
Like, they get to go pick their cucumbers fresh.
56:40
They get a little jar, they get a, you know, they work with
56:43
another person. And that's, yeah, that's really
56:46
what I would love to do is, is, you know, it's social media is
56:50
like, it's great because it's online, it's accessible.
56:52
But I also want to bring a bit back of bring a bit more back to
56:56
community and connection, like actually doing this with someone
56:58
because I think that's such a big part of what we've lost
57:03
from, you know, from our tribal times and, and being villages,
57:06
you know, being in village with people where it's like you, you
57:11
know, the men went out and they did their thing and the women
57:14
like did the preserving together or they did the, you know, the,
57:17
the tending. And yeah.
57:19
And that's like, I think just coming back to some of that.
57:21
So that's where a lot of my focus is with like, how can I
57:23
create groups? How can I create community and
57:25
connection, but also just show people what's possible in an
57:30
easy way. Yeah.
57:48
Beautiful ladies and gentlemen. How cool is Tash and how
57:51
inspiring is she? I feel like, you know, just in
57:56
that short amount of time of getting to know her, I just feel
57:58
very connected and I feel like she just really understands the
58:02
same sorts of things that I'm trying to do.
58:05
And if you feel so inclined, please go and support her.
58:09
Go and check out her links in the comments and the description
58:12
below. They're always gonna be there
58:13
for every single guest. But you can go and check it out
58:16
and you can follow her and you can ask questions or you can go
58:20
and see what she's up to in the community building some of this
58:23
charity work that she was talking about.
58:25
It's something that, you know, we all need moving forward.
58:29
And with a loss of this connection happening and more
58:33
and more of us just being online, you know, even myself
58:36
included, obviously all of the show and everything is all
58:38
online, which is totally fine. But there's plenty of room for
58:42
more in person connection. And I feel like we know people
58:45
across the world or across the country a lot more than we do
58:48
know our neighbors, which is can be a bit of a sad problem,
58:53
unfortunately. But sharing the joy, as Tash
58:56
points out, sharing your produce, getting people involved
58:59
and inspired, talking, communicating and spreading the
59:02
love I think was a really big message from today's podcast.
59:06
I'm going to be taking away with me for the rest of this week.
59:10
So if you enjoyed the episode, as always, I would love you to
59:14
review the show, leave some stars, leave a comment, share it
59:19
to your friends, post it on your story, but most importantly,
59:22
follow the podcast on whatever platform you're listening to.
59:26
That ensures that I can continue to do this.
59:28
I can continue to bring you great guests every single week
59:32
and it allows more people to find these conversations and get
59:35
value from them. That would be greatly
59:37
appreciated. But anyway, we're on to another
59:40
week. Thank you so much for watching
59:41
and listening. Take care.
59:44
And bye for now.