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Reasons We Grow (Other Than Money)
168 Plays2 years ago
Join us on this episode of Hort Culture as we talk about the many reasons we have for growing plants other than for money. Plants are more than just a source of income for many people. They can also provide food, exercise, beauty, comfort, and even companionship. In this episode, you’ll hear from your podcast regulars as we share stories and insights on how plants enrich our lives in different ways. So, grab your headphones and join us as we dive into the wonderful world of plants.
Questions/Comments/Feedback/Suggestions for Topics: hortculturepodcast@l.uky.edu
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Transcript
Introduction to Horticulture Podcast
00:00:03
Speaker
Welcome to Horticulture, where a group of extension professionals and plant people talk about the business, production, and joy of planting seeds and helping them grow. Join us as we explore the culture of horticulture.
Spring Season Banter
00:00:20
Speaker
Hello, everybody. Welcome. It's Hort Culture in the afternoon, and we're here just laughing it up and giggling behind the scenes. How's everybody feeling today? Giggly. Giggly. Oh, happy, hungry. We're kind of laughing not to cry, I feel, is how I'm feeling today. It's a really busy time for plant lovers now, isn't it? I mean, there's a lot going on in the plant world. There is. I feel like the line between
00:00:50
Speaker
I was going to say genius and insanity. I'll go with that. The line between genius and insanity is very thin and thinning every day for me. It's springtime, so it's burning the candle at both ends essentially. It's what we're doing. Nuclear explosion in the future. But that's not what you came here to hear about. You came here. Are you sure? Not you. You may have come here to hear about that, but I certainly didn't.
00:01:19
Speaker
No, no, we have fun.
Mood Reflections
00:01:24
Speaker
So this is a little bit different kind of, it's actually really great timing that because I think we're all in a little bit of a goofy, but also maybe stressed and tired and different sorts of moods. Maybe you find yourself in that sort of scenario currently. And so it seems like a good opportunity for us to think a little bit about this
00:01:47
Speaker
This is less topical.
Conversation with Jonathan Larson
00:01:48
Speaker
We talked to Jonathan Larson last week. What a cool guy. Can I just say? You can. He is. I echo. The dopest. Man, so cool. We talked to him about IPM. I hope you're listening, Jonathan. This week's a little more discussion-based and thinking about, as someone who works on the marketing side of things and I'm
00:02:12
Speaker
housed in the Department of Agricultural Economics.
Love for Horticulture: Beyond Profit
00:02:14
Speaker
It's really easy for me and you've probably heard it on the podcast. It's easy for me to be a buzzkill about something not being profitable or not wanting to go into something expecting to make money because that might not be the best avenue to take. All those types of very mercenary and tactical decisions around money making and the reality is
00:02:39
Speaker
For the most part, people that I come across, the money is often an afterthought or it's something that they think that they need to think about. But the initial spark, and if you're a home gardener and you aren't trying to sell or somebody is not trying to sell, you just get to savor that spark indefinitely, is about what is it about this world of horticulture, this world of growing plants and interacting with them that
00:03:04
Speaker
that we love? What is the reason why we love it? Or what's the, what are the good things about it that have nothing to do with making money, has nothing to do with maximizing productivity or any of that kind of fun stuff. And I think for people who spend a lot of their time in very utilitarian fields, us in extension, it's good to kind of reflect back on that, especially if you're feeling a little down, feeling
Nostalgia and Family Farms
00:03:26
Speaker
a little tired. And so that's the setup for today.
00:03:29
Speaker
And I'm, you know, I'm talking a lot here just to kind of frame it for everybody. But what do you all think? Did you all have a chance to think about that a little bit before this and share some of your thoughts? It could be you personally, it could be people you've come across over time. What's the point of it all, Ray? Well, I have my own personal reasons, but it's interesting that
00:03:53
Speaker
I work with a lot of people and you said that work in different fields in their jobs at a certain point in their life. They come to do activities like gardening where they may have been gardeners when they were younger, or they may have never been a gardener. But work with people all the time that kind of get, I don't know, they frame it as getting back to the land. And it's just really interesting to me that
00:04:20
Speaker
that this is sort of a phenomenon. Yeah, yeah, it's a real thing. Yeah, absolutely a real thing. There's elements of like nostalgia and a calling back to some sort of connection with the land and with... Yeah, 100%. And for me, I guess even I'm experiencing a little bit of that because we grew up on a farm, we had animals and plants on the farm, cattle and
00:04:42
Speaker
tobacco fruits and- Where was that? Eastern part of the state, the Eastern foothills kind of very hilly region. So we have these little plots. Can you get these specific? Yeah, just outside of Paintsville and Johnson County. So far Eastern part of the state. But, you know, we had all these activities going on and the days were hot and long and, you know, we spent a lot of hours in the tobacco stripping room or in the field chopping out weeds at the time. That was a thing back then, you know, we did a lot of manual.
00:05:09
Speaker
weed control. But I said, you know, someday I'm just going to go to school and I'm, you know, going to do something different, you know, try to, you know, go to college and do something different. And I got to college and had this reflective period where I was like, but do I really want to go away from that? Because I realized that I loved it.
00:05:30
Speaker
you know, more than I thought. And I've given that a lot of thought over time. And one thing that I really missed as soon as I got away from, you know, producing things, like a tomato crop or, you know, a crop of sweet corn, was that, it's kind of really, this is getting deep into the weeds on the topic, no pun intended. But the weeds you haven't chopped yet. Yeah, the weeds we haven't chopped yet that my dad would say, go do that if you are bored, son, go do that. Long days, remember, long days.
00:05:59
Speaker
There's this whole thing of seasonality and connecting me not only to the land, but to the seasons.
00:06:06
Speaker
And that has just came back to me over time and only gotten stronger. Because when we were doing that, not only were we doing that as a family activity together, that was a model of our farm as we kind of did that almost everything together as a family, but there was also this really close tie. And I remember in the fall, the smells and the hay that would go in the barn and around Halloween time, what the farm looked like. And this dad would always make us, you know, kids a fodder shock. And I remember all of that and just,
00:06:35
Speaker
growing plants and being a part of that process connected me so closely to the land and seasons that that feeling has come back, you know, 200% for me. And I think that's one of the reasons I still have like a little garden plot out back and not only do we, you know, deal with these things professionally, but it's different. I want to do it personally now.
Gardening's Personal Connection
00:06:57
Speaker
I still want to go back and do that. I want to see that tomato is going to mark time for me. It's going to grow.
00:07:05
Speaker
and get larger in a blink of an eye. I turn around and I get it, and that's easy to forget. Even in our jobs, we're looking at things every single day, but it's easy to forget how quickly time passes unless you have a marker for time. That's why I grow a garden in the back. Yes, I love fresh produce, and there's many, many other great reasons, but it's connectivity for me, and it's a marker of time. There's lots of other things that mark time.
00:07:29
Speaker
But that's a big one for me and that's really abstract. But I've thought a lot about it over time. Yeah. Wow. That's one of the reasons that I do that. What a fantastic answer. I just, you know, I just thought I would go deep into the weeds and said- No, that is so good. There's a lot of that that I felt. But it's hard. It was hard for me when I was younger and I was about a sophomore in college and trying to make up my mind whether I was going into biology or agricultural sciences. And there's some weird shift started happening in me that said,
00:07:58
Speaker
You know, those were really hard times, but they were good times. Yeah. For me, that's one of the reasons I stayed close to my roots. So to say is, uh, I love that marking and connectivity marking of time. So yeah. What about you, Josh?
Urban to Farm Transition
00:08:15
Speaker
Yeah, that's interesting. His answer made me think a lot. But I'd have to say, I mean, I sort of had a different path to agriculture. I was a late comer, a late bloomer, if you will. I grew up in a very urbanized suburban area of Orlando and worked in information technology, right? Like call center sort of works, regimented cubicles, concrete, asphalt, every direction and ended up
00:08:46
Speaker
around the age of 27 to go and work on a 12 acre kind of mixed fruit and vegetable farm in South Georgia, which is very warm compared to Kentucky, but compared to Florida, it wasn't so bad. And one of the things that drew me to it was I had a friend that had gotten into it maybe about six months prior. And we were talking about kind of the limited
00:09:15
Speaker
the stress that you get in that kind of work is very much physical.
00:09:20
Speaker
and outdoor farm work. And I was coming from an environment that was very sedentary, but was very kind of just a constant putting out of fires that I didn't start, you know, very abstracted, you solve one problem. Yeah, exactly. And it just keeps burning even without me there, you know. But after getting onto a farm, you know, which
00:09:47
Speaker
My parents thought this was nuts. I had dropped out of school to go into information technology, which at least made sense because there's money in it, theoretically. But then I had switched to becoming like kind of a seasonal farm worker and making, you know, kind of close to or sub minimum wage depending on the circumstances without health benefits. So they were like, you know,
00:10:09
Speaker
Our child has lost his mind, I guess. Whereas their parents had grown up on farms and they all found it very relatable what I was doing. Like suddenly I was in with all the grandparents. It was just their kids who thought I was nuts.
00:10:26
Speaker
You start to have closeness and conversation with a totally different group of people at some point. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, that's awesome. We can sit around and talk about the weather in depth. Nice. And be very emotionally invested in conversations about the weather. Passionate conversations. Yeah, sure. Yeah. I have to say one of the things that has kept me wanting to always be around it and wanting to
00:10:52
Speaker
keep my foot inside that world and to eventually kind of retire into a lifestyle that's more surrounded by agriculture and plants is kind of the mental and physical health benefits,
Stress Reduction through Farm Work
00:11:05
Speaker
right? There's like, I remember trying to describe it to somebody that like working on the farm, I mean, there's stress to it and there's a physical stress to it.
00:11:15
Speaker
but your body can adapt to that. Whereas the adaptations you make for mental health stuff aren't always productive in our personal relationships. And how I would describe it in those days was that this work is like negative stress. I would go out into the field with all the issues that somebody might have and just be
00:11:41
Speaker
anxious about anything, but you know, spend five, six, seven, eight hours in the sun. Suddenly a lot of those things aren't really bothering you anymore. You're worried about like, well, let me get some cold water to drink and I can take a nap at the drop of a hat.
00:11:55
Speaker
Nice. Gosh, I think my coping mechanisms are working out just fine. Okay, so my mental health. Got it under control. It's very caffeinated in case anybody was wondering. So you say that Josh seems like I heard you say like you could also see
00:12:13
Speaker
kind of like the results of your efforts. Oh, absolutely. Is that part of it? I'm always curious about that, yeah. Yeah, I mean, because if you're just putting out a series of like fires or dealing with abstract problems all day, it's hard at the end of the day to say like, what did I even do, right? Like I kept some institution rolling forward, maybe, in some small way. Whereas like spending all day out in a field, you can look back and say,
00:12:40
Speaker
hey, there's no weeds over there anymore. Or like, all that's picked and in the fridge or you know, whatever you can, you can you're actively doing it and you can see the accomplishments that you're performing throughout the day, you're less alienated from it. I think that might be part of the reason why people
00:12:58
Speaker
gravitate toward the production and hate talking about the marketing is because the marketing falls into that. Great point. That's a great point. So just everybody know, I understand why you don't want to talk about record keeping and marketing. He's looking you up right now, targeting.
00:13:16
Speaker
Alexis, what about you? You've spent some time in the fields recently. Just a little while ago. I could say exactly the
Military to Horticulture Journey
00:13:29
Speaker
same thing that Josh and Ray both said. I think for me, progress and efficiency are my love languages. I need to read that book. I am who I am.
00:13:43
Speaker
So, I enjoy stepping away like Josh said from sort of those abstract things, those fires that we did not start and actually accomplishing something and seeing it and then
00:13:58
Speaker
seeing the fruits of my labor is really nice when I'm harvesting it and getting to sell it. Yeah, I know that comes back to money making, but just looking out in the field and seeing that I have color this time of year that I might not have had another time of year and just seeing the progress that I've made not only in a week or a day or an hour, but also over the years.
00:14:27
Speaker
I don't remember that and I had to have that moment with myself this morning where I was like, hey, yes, you're stressed out because you're trying to do a lot of things right now.
00:14:38
Speaker
look at where you've come and this is what you dreamed of. You've accomplished that. I haven't dreamed of being super stressed, but I have dreamed of being able to do the things that I'm currently doing now. That's good. It's something that as I walk back into the house with really sore muscles and I'm sweaty, I can remember that I've come really far.
00:15:06
Speaker
I feel like that's one of the things that is why I grow and continue to grow and continue to sweat and continue to be stressed, I guess. Well, so what if we step away from just the, like those cut flowers in the business and the farm stuff because you're an OG plant lover from a day one or if you will.
00:15:30
Speaker
What drew you in the first place? I met Alexis when she was, she would have been still a student and I was working at UK and she and her friends were turning the Horticulture Club into something truly spectacular and doing some really cool things and propagating stuff.
00:15:49
Speaker
flexing about difficult propagations. And I was like, I don't know what that means, but congratulations. So what's, what, what about that? Like if you step back to that time, what, what do you think is the, that spark, that initial spark?
00:16:02
Speaker
Yeah. So why, kind of why I have a Hort degree, I guess. Yeah. My parents also thought I was like, and my, I grew up with gardens and, you know, farms and my mom was really, is really great. You know, she knew Latin names of plants. So I just, you know, could go around and that was very normal.
00:16:21
Speaker
for me, but it was never something I thought I could make a career out of. So I actually started when I got out of college, I went to a military academy and was going to be a civil engineer. And then I was like, Oh, right. I don't really like to be on the ocean. And I also don't really love math. I have trouble being civil. So I spent a summer, so I left school.
00:16:48
Speaker
and was applying to other school colleges, left the academy and was applying to other colleges and spent my summer working at Lowe's in the lawn and garden section. Just moving plants around, answering questions. And- You can leave cuttings propagating in your pocket.
00:17:04
Speaker
I mean, what falls on the ground is what's on the ground. So I was like 18 and I had a plant, the guy who ran that part of the Lowe's actually had a lot of background and plants and ran commercial nurseries for years and years and years. So he was very educated and kind of
00:17:25
Speaker
clued me in that I could have a career working with plants and, uh, something that, you know, other than being like a landscaper, my, to my parents said, my mom was like, what are you going to do? Go be a landscaper. I was like, no, there's a bunch of landscapers. I mean, which is fine. If you're, if you're a parent, if you're a parent, you got to kind of try to scare the.
00:17:56
Speaker
To them, it was kind of like I was going to art school, not that there's anything wrong with art school either, but there's that thought to it. I started in horticulture, started to learn all of the ways that I could be involved with plants.
00:18:12
Speaker
I was very lucky to have someone who taught me a lot of great hands-on skills. Sherry, shout out to you. Yeah, I think plants focus me. I can sit down with some cuttings or some seeds or whatever it is, some weeds, some plantings in the ground. It doesn't matter where, but
00:18:36
Speaker
It's a task that I can focus on and all the other anxieties just kind of go because I have a purpose and I can see my progress instantly and there's just something else to think about. I may put on a good podcast and just kind of zone out. It's a different podcast from this one then.
00:18:57
Speaker
No, definitely this podcast. You said a good one, Rick. Oh, okay. My qualification is humility. It seems like that's a theme with you guys, yeah, as far as the garden therapy. I mean, you and Josh make, like you're doing things that you can kind of see and bring tactile kind of result kind of driven sort of things. It gives you the perception of purpose, like my life has meaning because that thing happened over there and I did it.
00:19:24
Speaker
It's so cool. I mean, it's really that's very real. It feels very real. I remember it gives me a sense of like, no. I was going to say, I remember being an undergrad with Alexis and her also talking about trying to catch her talking about. Don't talk about it.
00:19:44
Speaker
liking working with plants also because they don't really talk back, do they? They're easy to work with. Yeah, they're not even like animals. To be nice and quiet.
00:19:56
Speaker
If you listen hard, they communicate. Uh, Stevie Nettle definitely talks back. I'm here to tell you, there's plants. I talk back to seeing Nettle too. Yeah. That sounds like a mafia hit to me, guys. Brett, we don't want to miss you, Brett. You've not, you've not added in, you definitely want to hear. I will, I will share, share some of that here in a little bit, but I was thinking about just reflecting on what you were saying about the, um, the sometimes that term therapeutic.
00:20:24
Speaker
gets thrown around as sort of anything that's enjoyable or whatever. But I think in this sense, we've had a number of partners and folks that we've seen where whether that be refugees who are coming out of a really, really troubling place and they're able to come and find a space, whether in a community garden or through a refugee garden program like they've done in Louisville,
00:20:50
Speaker
or something like a really traumatic event like the folks at greenhouse 18 that have dealt with that kind of stuff that these horticultural engagements, just engaging with plants, having something that grows, having something that is both within and outside of your control.
00:21:07
Speaker
does actually have extensive positive effects on our mental health and managing and working through, of course, in in tandem with all the other types of support that folks working through trauma need.
Therapeutic Benefits of Plants
00:21:20
Speaker
And I think that that is again, it's it's something that we if you if you lump it in with the kind of stereotypical wine mom Instagram therapy meaning
00:21:35
Speaker
It can get lost and I know that's not what we're talking about here, but I think that is just a really important part of that. It's not just necessarily a distraction, but there's something really fundamental there that.
00:21:46
Speaker
I'm sure that there's been explorations of that. There's some cool research on that, Brett. And I worked with an Alzheimer's unit years ago, and they came to me with this concept. And I was like, well, I'm going to have to see the scientific underpins to see if we can build something from this. And lo and behold, there was using textures of plants and colors, not only that, but smell, but engaging the different senses as much as possible. There's pretty decent research on this.
00:22:14
Speaker
from a true therapeutic standpoint, bringing science into that and quantifying that and the way that it engages your senses in ways that we're just beginning to understand because it engages so many senses at one time. The colors, the shapes, the smells, the feel, it does it all at one time if you put that into the design of a garden. And we're currently working with, it's a little bit different focus, but a local community gardens, I won't name any names,
00:22:42
Speaker
It involves a multitude of residents with some different issues, but we kind of incorporate some of those, you know, science-based concepts into the garden. So yeah, there's a lot to that in a pure terminology standpoint therapy. Yeah, it's really cool. I mean, there's some good research out there on that.
00:23:02
Speaker
I think I shouted them out as greenhouse 18. It's greenhouse 17. I promoted them for some reason. But yeah, a lot of friends who have worked with that organization and yeah, really cool stuff that they're up to. But I think for my general answer is a little different maybe from what you all have said. So I didn't grow up with an ag background at all. Had an aunt who had a pretty extensive garden and I did a garden at my grandma's house when I was a kid
00:23:32
Speaker
somewhat, but it was just a little thing to keep the kids or keep me occupied. But you remembered it. You remembered it though. And then I went away from all that for a while and my background, I went to college and when I came into college, I studied Spanish and German and sociology and that's what I got my degrees in.
00:24:00
Speaker
And then after that was all done, I decided to go and get a job, which to that point, I didn't, I had, you know, jobs here and there, but as far as a full-time job. And that happened to be at the Horticulture Research Farm at UK, growing some vegetables and that kind of thing.
00:24:20
Speaker
Eventually transitioned away from that into doing more extension work. And we were doing some, I guess, cause I missed that small scale horticulture production.
Backyard Farm to Landscape Design
00:24:33
Speaker
We basically set up a little mini horticulture farm with long rows and drip tape and everything else in our backyard. And spoiler alert, it's a lot of work and can turn something that's supposed to be fun into something that's stressful.
00:24:48
Speaker
And so we recently, as in last year, decided to kind of go in a completely different direction. My wife had been moving that way already, but decided to move things into more of a landscaped
00:25:04
Speaker
designed space built around plants, but also some hardscaping other stuff like that. And that has gone hand-in-hand with a developing interest in things like bonsai and a little bit broader interest in, I would say, non-edible horticultural experiences. And so I think now my relationship
00:25:27
Speaker
is much more about embracing the lack of control or embracing the limits of my control on that, that you can intervene and you can do certain things and it may produce the result that you're after. But a lot of it is this, people describe bonsai as a collaborative art form in the sense of a collaboration between you and the plant.
00:25:48
Speaker
And I think of that in general as, you mentioned seasonality, Ray. I think seasonality, weather in general, but seasonality in particular is one of those like foundations of the lack of human control. Like the crushing winter is on its way. It's going to be what it's going to be. And the, you know, the hot summer is coming and like that's, this is the thing that we react to. And so a lot of my interactions with horticulture, relationship to horticulture, and I think
00:26:18
Speaker
horticulture as a field is about this dance between humans and plants, trying to get them to do what we want them to do, them pushing back or going along with it. I was talking to
00:26:38
Speaker
with Annie about this. And I think that when people spend time in the space or they see a plant that you've worked with and it makes them happy or moves them or otherwise, that's another part of it for me. But that's kind of my very heady answer to that question, I think.
00:26:58
Speaker
Very interesting. My dad, who is more of a poet than I ever would have thought when I was younger, he would say that agriculture and working, doing fieldwork and working with plants and even animals to a certain extent, is one of the few endeavors in life where the longer you do it, the more you realize, the less you know.
00:27:18
Speaker
And he was speaking to all those external factors. You know, we talk about like planning programs and, you know, doing impact statements and all this. And there's a little slot on the logic model that says external factors. Well, I feel like all of agriculture and exactly what you just said, Brett, has so much to do with external factors. But, you know, I think a lot of my dad would say something very similarly, probably 100% agree with.
00:27:41
Speaker
Some of the things you said, one of the things he loved about it, he said, it's always going to be a challenge. There's always going to be things outside of your control. You do the best you can. And that's all you can do. Yeah, that's cool. Look at it. Oh, sorry. Go ahead.
00:27:55
Speaker
Oh, I was just going to say, as someone who self-identifies and has a control freak, that I think is one of the
00:28:12
Speaker
things that is teaching me to let go is is plants and nature. I mean, there's like an element of control, of course, that I have. And as I stare at weeds, I'm kind of like I have the ability to get rid of these. But there's just some things that I cannot control.
00:28:28
Speaker
I think that that is almost a relief. It's the ability to let go and being forced to let go. Slowly, I think as I age and the more I'm farm, teaching me that that's okay and I can adapt that to other areas of my life. It's been a good, Mother Nature is the best teacher.
00:28:51
Speaker
You're reminding me of something Jonathan was talking about last week. He was talking about those, toward the end, he was talking about those distinctions between control management and suppression. And it reminded me of like, control is like perfection. And then the middle one management is sort of like what you believe is your optimal thing that you can achieve. And then suppression is like doing the best we can.
00:29:18
Speaker
Uh, kind of a similar thing. Like your whole field is not overgrown with weeds. You're, you're generally heading in the direction of suppression in that, but that sometimes there's going to be ones that grow and we're just kind of walking hand in hand with this land and with this place and with this field and, um, doing the best we can. And I, yeah, I'm glad, I'm glad to hear that mother nature is teaching you a little patience Alexis, cause you're an amazing person.
00:29:44
Speaker
And you are too hard on yourself sometimes, often, all the time. Nature's the only one she's going to listen to. Yeah, that's true. Nature's the only one that can make her listen. Nature doesn't nurture she punishes. I am punished regularly by Mother Earth. Mother Earth punishes. I think if humility
00:30:07
Speaker
is a muscle. Mother nature will work that muscle sometimes to the point to where it's too strong. In other words, I think it's just a humbling experience. Sometimes when you think you have a handle on things, you develop this mechanism. When you're a producer, it seems like producing things. Whether a home gardener, home gardeners know this, doesn't matter the scale of production, but it strengthens that muscle in you of humility and being adaptable, I think.
00:30:34
Speaker
and develops that because, you know, someone said excellence is not a act, it's a habit, it's a habit rather. Well, that's kind of like humility and being able to roll with the punches.
00:30:44
Speaker
that creates that muscle in you. Mother Nature does, and working with the elements, and working outside, and working with plants that should live, but they die, and pests that should not destroy your crops, but they do. And now that's not a good thing. I don't know, I'm not a real strong subscriber to the philosophy of what doesn't make you, what doesn't kill you. What doesn't kill me is, you know, a good thing, but yeah, some of that thing, some of that thing, yeah. It is, it's a harsh master sometimes, but yeah.
00:31:13
Speaker
you develop this certain attitude and i know some older producers and they got such a chill attitude when it seems like the world's burning down around them as far as their production operations and stuff but. They're like what we've done the best we can we're not always in control and that's that's a hard place to get to believe in my mind because i am sort of a control freak and i love managing and manipulating systems and.
00:31:36
Speaker
making them do what I want, but it doesn't always work like that, does it? Does it, Alexis? She's like, why did you have to swing back to me? Doesn't always work that way. Does it Alexis?
00:32:03
Speaker
I'm not talking about economics today but another angle of this is somebody said one time it could have been my father you know he's always saying something because we had to
00:32:10
Speaker
chop leads together. That's a great thing about is togetherness until it's not a great thing and you're like I'm sick of you people.
00:32:23
Speaker
probably appeals to you economist in the room here and on the podcast, Brett, but he said that, and this really kind of shocked me. I was like, you know, he said, well, why do you think we do all this one day? And I was like, I don't know, to make money, dad, you know, we need the money. We never had a lot of economic resources. He said, that's the reason we do it. It's not why I do it. And I was like, what are you talking about? He said, one of the cool things about
00:32:44
Speaker
working with plants is, he said, so much of the world is about adding on wealth to a certain product or moving wealth in the world from point A to point B. But he said, when you involve yourself in producing plants, he said, you're not moving wealth from point A to point B, you're creating it. You're a steward of that. I'm like, my dad hits me with these things. We're out chopping the back on 14 years old. I'm like,
00:33:08
Speaker
Okay, but yeah, I'm thinking about it still years later trying to digest that comment. But yeah, stuff like that. I mean, when you really think about all these reasons, you know, all of our experiences, it's really neat hearing from you guys. Well, I think that that idea, it's something that
00:33:24
Speaker
brought up in a slightly different context, but the notion of stewardship or the notion of connecting with a place or with a piece of land or with soil or however you frame it linguistically, this idea of
00:33:43
Speaker
A lot of stuff happens because this star a perfect distance away from the earth interacts with these little crazy creatures that happen to really like growing in the mineral and life mixture we call soil to produce their own sugars that we eventually eat and otherwise take advantage of.
Magic of Planting Seeds
00:34:04
Speaker
That is a pretty crazy and existential piece of our relationship to even being alive.
00:34:12
Speaker
And so the idea that, I mean, it should run, it does run through, I think, most of our, you know, spiritual and religious traditions and other, like, there's something very, very deep and profound there. And so the idea that, like, it is, it's not magical in the sense that we don't understand it, but the idea that, yeah, you're going to take care of this land, you're going to put this little hard rock-like thing in the ground, and then, like, in a couple of weeks, there's going to be green stuff sprouting out of the ground.
00:34:41
Speaker
is insane. It's a really wild part of being a human being that- You can know all the science and it's still miraculous every single time. It's incredible. Yeah. Incredible. I've been germinating a lot of seeds and a lot of different stratification and other things. Again, Alexis and I kind of nerded out on it quite a bit, but it's a captivating experience. I think that idea of
00:35:06
Speaker
Having this relationship with the land and having long-term relationships with the land either as communities or as people is another part for me of what I find so captivating about this stuff. It perpetuates itself, this love or this connectivity of people, even folks that I talk to that are maybe they're retiring, moving to the country.
00:35:29
Speaker
They may have had these experiences in the past, but they're wanting, there's this, I don't know, this feeling of reconnecting. I mean, my own feeling is a little bit different. I have a nine year old and at one point I thought, you know, I don't, you know, I want him to see, you know, have some of these.
00:35:44
Speaker
you know experiences because you know they are sort of profound to me and transformative but that's that's another reason I do it is I kind of it seems like it's a special experience for me and I kind of want to pass it on but even people that have never had these experiences when they were younger you know I often wonder what brings them back they and they can't explain it to me or verbalize it either sometimes they're just like well you know it's just something we feel we want to be a part of something we can see you know and
00:36:09
Speaker
you know, do so. Interesting. There's something very, I mean, as Brett was kind of talking about this, and you know, you had mentioned there's something sort of universal about it. And I remember I traveled in undergrad to do like a study abroad in Southern Japan, which is like a culture that I'm not
00:36:28
Speaker
super filled in on. I don't speak really any Japanese. I definitely am not literate in like kanji and stuff, but in my time there working on this farm, the easiest part about it, the easiest way to like generate relationships with my co-workers, because I was the only non-native person there. There was a guy from Nepal, but like me, a guy from Nepal and a bunch of Japanese nationals,
00:36:54
Speaker
you know, was like doing the work of working in the garden and doing farm work because it's so similar, you know, across very wide cultural gaps, the problems and obstacles are all the same. And people think about them sort of in similar ways and do that work. And it was very gratifying and exciting to kind of have that
00:37:16
Speaker
entryway into this very different culture, whereas going to the grocery store was completely alienating and confusing. I didn't know what was going on, but when I was on the farm, I knew what needed to be done. I knew what to look for. Didn't really require much direction, and we could communicate much easier. To paraphrase a mean girl's quote, plants are the same in every language. Indeed. The quote is,
00:37:53
Speaker
Make it awkward. Keep it weird. They say math is the same in every language and they're like, that's beautiful, but for us it's plants, you know? And the Latin name is a Latin name, no matter where you go. Like I had a similar experience with Josh, like studying abroad and in Indonesia, like we didn't necessarily call the plants the same thing, but if you could spit out the Latin and you know, I was with a bunch of, you know, plant people and we knew, I knew what plant that was because they, you know, they were like, Oh, that's a capsaicin. I was like, Oh, it's in the pepper family. Right?
00:38:03
Speaker
No, you're good. I'm taking this very sentimental thing to a weird place of awkwardness.
00:38:23
Speaker
It was a, that was such a cool moment for me when we could talk about plants in broken English and kind of know what each other's talking about because we had the Latin and I thought that was super cool. Yeah. And I just very briefly, you know, we're in the touchy feely side. So my sociologist comes out and just to say that
00:38:45
Speaker
I, when I say, you know, talk about the universality, I do understand there are people and cultures whose experience more recently has been one where agriculture was a representation of their inferior status. I'm thinking about particularly African slaves in the shuttle slavery system that like, that is not the universal, that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about something a little bit more broad and I can understand that not everybody's
00:39:10
Speaker
champing at the bit to get back into the soil for a number of reasons. But I think in general, as we look across cultural contexts, there does seem to be some shared pieces there. A couple more like nuts and bolts components of why I think I like interacting with plants and interact with them in the ways that I do is, I used to say that we used our garden or that our garden was designed to provide food for us and for the,
00:39:39
Speaker
things that come and live here. So things like pollinator habitat, lots of cover for birds, bird baths, water, that sort of thing. And as I've gotten older, I guess, I don't know if it's older, maybe just the passage of time. I don't know that I'm getting any more mature, as you can probably tell. But with the passage of time, I'm just realizing how much more important that is to me because the reality is a lot of our land development
00:40:08
Speaker
that we have done across time and continue to do and expand at a rapid pace is just decimating wildlife habitat. I don't know that the solution to intervening on that is to just have a backyard garden or a monarch way station, but I think on a more like maybe spiritual or personal or philosophical level, doing that, it does feel like a little bit of a gesture to the animals and creatures that we live
Gardening for Wildlife Support
00:40:38
Speaker
around.
00:40:38
Speaker
I don't know, I see a lot of, I've never seen so many different types of bees and wasps and in just a little backyard, little suburban yard. But I don't know if you all think about that explicitly about interacting with the birds and I may be sitting and look at the birds and plants more than you all do. I don't know, maybe. No, I mean, just being around plants, it doesn't matter if it's in my backyard or that's one of the reasons I get into the forest.
00:41:05
Speaker
same love for a tree as I do a tomato plant. You know, one thing that's always been a part of my family, you know, from going way back and I still do and during this conversation, I kind of realized, you know, some of the you said sociology, but building community, but it's one of the angles that I guess, you know,
00:41:23
Speaker
didn't have a lot of resources growing up but my father gave away more food than anybody I can ever think of he would give away like excess you know beans tomatoes all of this stuff to the community and to this very day you know what I grow in the backyard it's more than we can put up and we only have so much freezer space but giveaway to the community and Reed's got this little wagon he literally goes down the street and he's got a bunch of neighbors we know that they
00:41:44
Speaker
They're not so lucky to have plots around their home that's suitable.
Community Bonds through Plants
00:41:49
Speaker
But yeah, this whole idea of even plants as a builder of community and connectivity, it's so many angles and so many ways you could look at this. It's pretty amazing. And it's making me think of all these things on this kind of conversation we're having today. We were somewhat recently just on that community aspect. I'm so glad that you mentioned that because I think that it's multifaceted
00:42:11
Speaker
in the sense that yes, there's the sharing directly of stuff with community, but also like gathering and talking and sharing information about that stuff. We all work with master gardeners and just the communities in general, but one that I didn't just kind of, I don't know, I guess it's more common maybe for you all, you who are in, spend more time in the horticulture culture, if you will, because a lot of my time is spent more in the economics and campus and all that kind of thing.
00:42:44
Speaker
recently went, my wife and I recently went to this community gardener club thing. They were having this plant sale, which happens a lot all over the place, but almost everything there was divided off of things that the people in the club had in their yard. You know, the hostas and the peace lilies and everything, all the other components, the irises, either they started it or they divided it to create that
00:43:01
Speaker
grow up or come up with propagating stuff
00:43:14
Speaker
plant that was then sold and I think that the benefit, you know, goes back to the club or goes to, I don't know, somewhere.
00:43:20
Speaker
But in addition to the fact that there were a lot of people of an advanced age with a lot of animosity in their hearts, throwing elbows to get to the best lilies and get to the best available plant stock, mood was electric. And despite that, it was just this really beautiful moment of, and you talk about that kind of subdivision and
00:43:47
Speaker
that the one plant gives life to another plant that then is going to go and have a life in my backyard. And in the future, maybe that'll happen. I'll divide it and give it to somebody else. And that's a whole component of the community thing that I hadn't really, I hadn't considered or valued it as much as maybe I could have at a different point in time. Jennifer brought me this Lily that's been in her family for like
00:44:11
Speaker
five generations. They've all got a piece of it, but she said, no pressure, but if you kill this, you're dead to my family. I'm like, I'm in the process of dividing this thing now. I'm like, it has kind of like mealybugs. I'm like, ooh. But yeah, Brady kind of goes with what you're saying.
00:44:27
Speaker
That's a part of their history. And it's this plant that they all, and they divided it up so that no one person would kill that legacy of this plant. But it's tied to their family in some small, it's some small piece, but kind of what you're saying, Brett. Yeah, it can be kind of a part of you. Plant. Are you still with us?
00:44:52
Speaker
I am. I'm just soaking in all of this connectivity issues aside. Emotional. Emotional stuff. I know sometimes you don't have the best reaction to emotions, Alexis. I'm not throwing rocks or anything. I'm very good at the emotion anchor. I don't know what you're talking about. It's just not all of those. We know it's not an emotion. It's a social movement, Alexis. I've told you this before.
00:45:18
Speaker
If anybody has a, um, Oh, what is the name of that movie? Um, where they have the little emotions or like little characters you don't talk about. And there's one called. Yes. Uh, the white and the seven dwarfs.
00:45:33
Speaker
No, that's another movie. Happy? Yes, I am grumpy. No, there's one, and it's like anger is an emotion where he like blows his top off all the time. That's how I feel sometimes. Inside something. Inside. Inside out. Inside out. Yeah, that's it. It's inside out. Which emotion are you? You know, most of the time I'm anger. Well, you make my emotion happy.
00:46:00
Speaker
Oh goodness. I do. I love sharing plants and I love, so like we've said a hundred times in here, I'm growing flowers and like, I just got to drop off.
00:46:10
Speaker
to faces of flowers, to some friends, and that was just a good moment. For no reason whatsoever other than I know they enjoy it and it makes them happy, so I brought them flowers. A lot of reasons. And you made that. It's not like you put it together, but you
Flowers as Soul Food
00:46:26
Speaker
made that. Yeah. I mean, I started with the feeder. Soil and the sun and all these other concepts. You made that.
00:46:31
Speaker
A labor of love. Actually, that's what I give is Christmas gifts to my staff. And I always say, I hope that they understand that this is giving a piece of me. I give them two weeks of flowers. I bring them in a week of like a CSA, mini little mini CSA, essentially. And from the staff and the book. The folks at the extension office. Is that what you're saying? Yeah, the folks at the extension office for Christmas, I give them flowers and I just- Oh, that's so nice.
00:46:58
Speaker
Yeah it's probably more about me. I feel like I'm giving them a piece of me. I think I always kind of like to cut flowers but I have come around to it so much in the last few years and just like the
00:47:18
Speaker
the effect of like beautiful, but ephemeral, there's something, yeah, again, there's something about that that is really moving, it's really emotionally moving. And I think I've shied away in the past from thinking like, hungry or not hungry, that's pretty clear, but like,
00:47:36
Speaker
fulfilled and like whatever it is that feeling I get when I see the beautiful flowers like that you've grown or that Anie's grown in a vase and like, man, there's just something really valuable about that.
00:47:49
Speaker
We say in the flower farmer world that, you know, tomatoes are food for, you know, you nutrition wise for your body, but flowers are food for the soul. And so that's, that's how we market them at least. That's our marketing technique, Brad. How do you, how do you feel about that? Workers organizations of the world would say bread and bread and roses. Yeah. You know, we need bread, but also roses. We're not just struggling for a baseline of, of a light livelihood here and survival. We're talking about thriving.
00:48:18
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's I think it's an amazing thing. And I have grown just in addition to appreciating how much time and energy and skill goes into growing them just the baseline appreciation for the gotten and dip my hand a little into the arranging side of things that always helps you very talented ladies and gentlemen.
00:48:37
Speaker
Art and science folks, art and science. Arts and sciences, hello. Yeah, both together. Greetings. We love it. We love it. We love it. It's a good thing.
Year-Round House Plant Experience
00:48:47
Speaker
Do you all have any other lingering enjoyments of plants or engagements with plants?
00:48:52
Speaker
We didn't even talk about house plants as a... No. As a thing. Oh, those are the winter garden, right? Oh, yes. That's the plants that I have to bring in that are unhappy all year until I take them back out and then they get happy again. I have those seasonal house plants. I don't have full-time house plants. Snowbirds. I have full-time house plants because I shock them too much when I bring them in and out.
00:49:23
Speaker
If you just not use the taser, it would be... Yeah. If you quit reading them tales of terror... How else do I take care of me about the problem? I really understood why you did that. Oh, my. I knew this conversation would be a good one today, but I had no idea it was going to be...
Listener Interaction Invitation
00:49:43
Speaker
Oh, so good. Well, we want to hear from you guys.
00:49:47
Speaker
Yeah, so we're not we usually do a little wrap up, but there's been we've covered way too much ground today. And I think we've all we've all shared. I've learned things about each of you that I did not know, which is very fun for me. And so we'd like to learn some things about you all that we don't know. It's a little bit bigger field out there. And also, we don't really know many of you at all. So it's easy for you to share. Please get in contact with us. Let us know why you love this stuff. Let us know if you like this style of episode.
00:50:15
Speaker
us pinning Alexis to a wall and asking her about her feelings, me leaning all the way in on smooth jazz, NPR host voice. Let us know if this is something that you'd like to hear more of. But for real, you can reach out to us on Instagram at hort-culture-podcast. You can DM us there. You can also email us.
00:50:40
Speaker
You can email email any of us. I'm Brett dot wolf at uky dot edu and let us know What brings you joy? Why are you doing all this crazy stuff? There's all kinds of work and worrying about money and worrying about Profitability and all that kind of stuff. But what about that initial joy that thing that brought you to this crazy Horticulture world in the first place. We would love to hear from you about that Yes with that Alexis take us home. I
00:51:06
Speaker
All right, awesome. Well, we hope that as we grow this podcast, you will grow with us. Thank you for joining us today and we hope you get a little time to reflect on the joy that is horticulture. So thank you and we'll see you next time.