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Grow What You Eat: Realistic Home Food Production
33 Plays1 hour ago
In this episode of Hort Culture, Brett, Jessica, and Ray explore the exciting question of how much food you can really grow at home. While social media often shows impressive gardens producing huge harvests from small spaces, the hosts remind listeners that success looks different for everyone. Growing your own tomatoes, onions, peppers, squash, and other favorites can be incredibly rewarding, even if you are not producing every item on your dinner plate. They encourage gardeners to focus on what their families enjoy eating, start small, and celebrate the wins—whether that is harvesting your first pepper, building gardening memories with your kids, or enjoying a meal made with homegrown ingredients. The episode highlights that gardening should be fun, realistic, and personal, with the goal of finding joy in the process rather than comparing yourself to perfect gardens online.
Resources for Home Growers: Vegetables
Plate it up! Kentucky Proud Recipes
Questions/Comments/Feedback/Suggestions for Topics: hortculturepodcast@gmail.com
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Transcript
Introduction and Weather Chat
00:00:17
brett
Greetings podcast fam.
00:00:19
Jessica
Hello.
00:00:19
brett
What's going on in your all's neck of the woods?
00:00:19
Plant People
Greetings, greetings. Another beautiful day in the neighborhood.
00:00:22
Jessica
It is a beautiful day, actually, outside.
00:00:24
Plant People
Yeah, I went outside in between episode recordings and I was like, ohoh it is a very nice day out. It's warm, little bit of sunshine, the buds are budding and doing buddy things and
Greenhouse Effects at the Extension Meeting
00:00:39
brett
I was at an extension meeting earlier today, giving a little talk and it's one of those, those swings in temperature and the building hadn't really caught up yet. And it was so humid in the room that I was like, I felt like I was in a greenhouse.
00:00:40
Plant People
good day.
00:00:48
Plant People
Yeah. Yeah.
00:00:53
brett
Um, so I had to put on a put on a sweat band and everything else.
00:00:54
Plant People
sama the The bigger buildings struggle.
00:00:56
brett
Uh,
00:00:58
Plant People
I mean, especially in here lately, we've said it time and again on the podcast, these 50 degree shifts. I mean, these big commercial systems, 40, 50 degree shifts just don't keep up.
00:01:08
Plant People
By the time they switch over, then the temperature has done something different. So Kentucky is just saying, nope.
00:01:13
Jessica
Right.
00:01:15
Plant People
You can't keep up with me. This is a race you're not going to win, at least in the transition season. Yeah, it's tough.
00:01:21
brett
Well, I got a question. So that the warm, sunny days inspire all of us to get outside and hopefully not plant things before the last frost date if they're frost sensitive and all of those things.
Starting a Backyard Garden for Kids
00:01:31
brett
Don't get ahead of yourself.
00:01:32
brett
But um i wanted to see, are you all trying anything new in your gardens this year?
00:01:38
Jessica
Yeah. ah We are.
00:01:39
Plant People
Always, huh, Jessica?
00:01:40
Jessica
Yeah. yeah
00:01:41
Plant People
Yeah, you guys always have fun projects going on in your garden.
00:01:43
Jessica
we Yeah, we have our big commercial production garden, but the kids and I are now going to have a small little garden in our backyard um that's just going to have a variety of random things that we don't grow on a bigger scale.
00:01:59
Jessica
for a farmer's market and more things of just, uh, for the kids to play with basically, you know, start them young things they enjoy. So they'll enjoy gardening. Right. So it's not like a, Oh my gosh, the garden.
00:02:12
Jessica
Right. Um, so things that they like, so we're doing some onions because my children love onions. They eat raw onions all the time. So, so we're planting some onions.
00:02:20
Plant People
Fun. Fun. Just ah don't get ahold of the spicy onion. Some onions, not all onions are the same.
00:02:25
Jessica
Oh, that they like those.
00:02:27
Plant People
They like the, they like the hot onions.
00:02:27
Jessica
Yeah. Yeah. They'll eat
00:02:29
Plant People
Wow.
Exploring Spicy Onions and Heirloom Varieties
00:02:30
Jessica
it.
00:02:30
Jessica
They'll be like, hot! I need a drink of water!
00:02:32
Plant People
Yeah.
00:02:32
Jessica
And then they run in and chug some water.
00:02:33
Plant People
Yeah. who h
00:02:35
brett
Raw onion with a honey chaser?
00:02:35
Jessica
maybe
00:02:37
Plant People
yeah
00:02:39
Jessica
I yeah should introduce them to that.
00:02:40
Plant People
I've seen those in combination before.
00:02:40
brett
Yeah.
00:02:42
Plant People
it seems like I've seen ingredients that combine the two. Definitely garlic and honey.
00:02:45
Jessica
Yeah, garlic and honey.
00:02:46
Plant People
I've seen before. Yeah. Garlic and honey is more common, but I've seen it tried with onions, but not as commonly as garlic.
00:02:51
brett
I've seen garlic and and onion before.
00:02:54
Plant People
Yeah. have Yeah. Garlic and onion.
00:02:55
Jessica
yeah
00:02:55
Plant People
Yeah. i'm ah Honey and all the things, not the garlic. Garlic and onion is quite good together though. My son has figured out if you caramelize those things, especially the onion, a sweet onion becomes even sweeter.
00:03:07
Plant People
He's like, dad can you just caramelize up a skillet of onions? I'm like, do what? Yeah, he asked me that yesterday. And I was like, I'm impressed you use the word caramelize.
00:03:16
Jessica
Lots of butter.
00:03:17
Plant People
Yeah, it's the butter and the the magic of caramelization, that bringing that sugar out. A good onion is hard to beat. that's That's a crop, I mean, newer crop for me that I've not done in many years is would be a potato onion. It's one that is an heirloom onion. I'm really surprised...
00:03:35
Plant People
that I don't see more. And it's one that we grew um as I was growing up. And the real benefit of that onion was, is that the bulbs are dividing. It's a perennial onion. One bulb becomes four or five. They're not huge. They're sort of elongate.
Growing Potato Onions: A Deep Dive
00:03:50
Plant People
They're not a real round traditional onion, but it's a little bit different in that it's planted like garlic. You plant it in September or October, It grows through the winter really, really closely to garlic. And then um ah you harvest it June, July in Kentucky. And then you just save the biggest bulbs and replant those and keep three quarters of the bulbs, you know, and then use those. But it's a really interesting onion in that once you have it, you have it.
00:04:20
Plant People
And they're really winter hardy. They have, you know, they're being and being an onion. They don't have a lot of pest problems for the most part. But there were families that had potato onions for, gosh, 30 plus years, kind of like asparagus patches. Once you had them and you knew how to manage them.
00:04:36
Plant People
But I would love to try those again. I've just seen no local sources for those where I'm at in central Kentucky. But I was encouraged to find online that you could easily find potato onions. That and there's another, you know, the onion that falls under the perennial onion family, and that's the Egyptian walking onions. And they actually fall over and seed. They're kind of cool, too. But we never grew those on our on our place. But I would like to get into potato onions again.
00:05:04
brett
Ray, that but that beautiful soliloquy on onions answered the question for me, what would happen if a hobbit became an extension agent?
00:05:12
Plant People
and There you go.
00:05:13
brett
Because that was very Samwise Gamgee's like talking about the different types of potatoes and the different, yeah, beautiful.
00:05:14
Plant People
You would have some.
00:05:14
Jessica
so potatoes yeah yeah that's cool
00:05:17
Plant People
Yep.
00:05:20
brett
um i don't I never heard of potato onions, so that's new to me.
00:05:23
Plant People
Yeah, they're really cool. And i think they were popular because well they're almost, they're an heirloom, considered an heirloom, but you didn't have to keep buying seed stock. And that's why my grandmother said they were so popular is that you never had to go the store to buy any more.
00:05:38
Jessica
yeah makes sense
00:05:38
Plant People
You just, they always made more of themselves. They were, they're a dividing, a dividing perennial. So very cool. Very cool type of onion. Look it up.
00:05:45
brett
That's really cool.
00:05:46
Plant People
Yeah. What about you, Brett?
00:05:46
Jessica
Thank you.
00:05:48
brett
I'm not doing anything crazy new.
00:05:49
Plant People
Yeah.
00:05:50
brett
i mean, in the, the bonsai stuff kind of becomes new every year. You do things differently and move it. I've moved a bunch of things to smaller pots. Um, I'm trying to start some, some pitch pine seeds.
00:06:02
Plant People
Mm-hmm.
00:06:02
brett
Um,
00:06:03
Plant People
Special process there, I'm assuming, to start pitch pine seeds.
00:06:06
brett
not Not crazy.
00:06:07
Plant People
No burning involved or anything.
00:06:07
brett
ah No, no burning.
00:06:09
Plant People
no oven.
00:06:09
brett
A little a little bit of a, they've they've been kind of passive, just cold stratified for a while. And then I drop them in some water and soak them but right before seeding. um But other than that, not like some of the other crazy things where I had like a 60 day cold or 60 day warm strat, 60 day cold strat, blah, blah, blah.
00:06:29
Plant People
to layer it.
00:06:30
brett
um And those are cool too, but these are much more, supposed to be much more, uh, simple to, to get to pop up. But, um, we're also, we're not starting our own a, we're doing it.
00:06:44
brett
We do annual plugs so we can put them exactly where we want them to go rather than just seeding them out. Um, some of our flowers, we're having a, um, a flower grower that we all happen to know, grow some of those out for us and buying them from her rather than, ah
00:06:57
Plant People
Nice.
00:07:00
brett
Yeah, rather than trying that ourselves. So we're going to do that. But a lot of it's the cool thing with the perennial, mostly perennial backyard is that each year you just see this development of the theme rather than a new thing every year.
00:07:10
Jessica
Yeah. and
00:07:12
brett
So that's cool.
00:07:12
Plant People
something I love about the perennials for that reason is that they either come back or, you know, that they're there.
00:07:21
brett
Yeah.
00:07:21
Plant People
there's ah There's a certain ah element of permanence to it that I've always enjoyed with perennial gardening.
00:07:25
Jessica
Yeah. I'm excited to look for, I planted a couple of things last fall or the end of the summer, found like a cool native grower locally. and so I purchased a couple of things and now I've been going around ah checking the spots that I can remember.
00:07:40
Jessica
i already had some things pop up that I was like, I don't remember putting something there, but I guess did.
00:07:43
Plant People
hi How did that get there?
00:07:45
Jessica
Right. so like, even though I've realized like so far, my early spring goal is a lot of like vegetable and fruit, like just small things just for, you know, enough to play with at the house for the kids mostly.
00:07:46
brett
Mm-hmm.
00:07:58
Jessica
um i am definitely excited about like what you said i've seen the perennial beds that i've started to install how um you know last year they may have been like a single little stick like a phlox with just like one little stalk one little flower and how how it'll be this year i have some baptisia that is starting to come up but i'm very excited for when that comes up and blooms this year so
00:08:22
brett
Yeah, it's like ah almost is like reading a novel compared to reading a poem or a short story. You know, you get these different chapters of the same book across time and it's really nice.
00:08:32
Plant People
opinion based
00:08:32
brett
um So it's been cool. But, you know, as we talk about this gardening stuff, this is going to get a little, of this might little contentious here. So strap in. um So one of the things that, so we, we before we told the story on the podcast before, there's an episode where Annie and I talk about the evolution of our our backyard garden space.
00:08:41
Plant People
based
00:08:52
brett
One of the things when we had our whole backyard in essentially a very so ultra small scale commercial horticulture operation, as far as the technology that was there, we weren't selling anything, but we were putting
The Reality of Self-Sustaining Gardens
00:09:02
brett
it out there.
00:09:02
brett
People would come and ask us, they'd look at that and they'd say, oh my gosh, do you all grow all the food you eat here in the backyard?
00:09:02
Plant People
Mm-hmm.
00:09:10
brett
And I would sort of, you know, not mean spiritedly, but I would sort of laugh and say, who no, ah no, we do not. We grow a lot of produce. we We will grow all the tomatoes that we will eat in the course of a year. um And that includes canning, but and we'll eat we'll grow all the butternut squash that we'll eat in a year.
00:09:30
brett
But this Adonis body was not built on tomatoes and butternut squash alone, my friends. And so i was always a little skeptical of that. And so I went, I went digging on the internet as I am want to do and came across, there's this kind of, I'm not going to, you know, shout anything out specifically about it, but there's a particular story that is circulated on Facebook and Reddit and other places a million times over. And it's this this group or this family, I guess, that, that claims that they are able to grow all of the dietary needs
00:10:02
brett
of a a family of four on a one-tenth acre plot. And I think the claims, they may not be claiming it themselves, but there's definitely that claim is then made on their behalf in you know the Facebook comments that are like, why isn't everybody just do this?
00:10:19
brett
Because the world would be a better place if we grew all of our food.
00:10:22
Plant People
I
00:10:23
brett
And so it got me thinking about this idea of like, not necessarily how much food can you grow on a one acre or you know a 10th of acre plot. And just for reference, a lot of suburban plots are about a quarter acre. You've got your house, you've got probably some other driveway or something else that's taking up some space. And so a 10th of an acre is a reasonable amount that you could have under cultivation in those spaces. And so I sort of thinking like, what do we think about this idea why is it so popular or so like compelling for people?
00:10:57
brett
Um, and what are some of the things that may be, we don't have to tear the, tear the narrative apart, but what are some things, some, some issues that we see with the idea of just grow all your own food in your backyard and you won't have to buy any food.
00:11:12
brett
Um, I'm just curious, have you all seen these, these types of posts and things before at all?
00:11:15
Plant People
Yeah, yeah and i think and I love reading about those stories, and I love people's passion that goes into those stories because they tend to be avid, passionate gardeners.
00:11:16
Jessica
Bye.
00:11:24
Plant People
But you know one of the first things I you know start start to look for is, well, what zone makes that possible? And a lot of times I find that people, is it a climate that they can grow year-round?
00:11:34
brett
What do you mean zone?
00:11:38
brett
Like a USDA zone.
00:11:39
Plant People
Yeah, USDA zone. We're here in Kentucky. We tend to have ah was six and seven of transition zones, so we get not the best of anything for the most part, except for a short period of time. Our zones are not conducive for growing year-round unless you have protected you know structures, protected growing conditions. Some parts of the country, um you know they have a much longer growing season or they have a growing season that's pretty much almost year-round.
00:12:04
Plant People
for common garden crops, you know, if you're very far South or, um, in and areas is like that. But that's the first thing I look for because I question, i'm like, Oh, that's awesome. But you know, how are they doing that? And are they using structures? Are they using, you know, vertical systems or, or what allows for that? Because, one person, I mean, we were just kind of chatting before the podcast, uh, you know it can take a lot of square feet for people to grow a you know pretty good amount of the food that they're going to eat. Now, when people say they grow all of the food that they need, it comes out of their garden. That can mean a lot of different things. And I've heard people make the comment when I really talk to them, they're like, oh, but that doesn't include like the the meat or doesn't include the peanut butter if you're in Kentucky or some of the other common protein sources. So it's really just a matter of, you know, first of all, i love the passion. But then I start to drill down and say, you know, what are we really talking about here?
00:13:03
Plant People
Just to kind of see.
00:13:06
Jessica
I can't think of the word that I'm looking for right now, but like when you look at your plate at dinner, right? I think it's the, um, You know, like the dream or like you hope, you hope, like you look down and you're like, wow, everything that I'm feeding my family right now, I grew.
Personal Gardening Experiences vs. Online Myths
00:13:23
Jessica
Right.
00:13:23
brett
Mm-hmm.
00:13:23
Jessica
And I feel like that kind of drives it And I know I've had that personally myself of like during the summer.
00:13:27
Plant People
oh
00:13:30
Jessica
Right. Definitely not during the winter or fall or even early spring. But during the like middle of the summer, I've had those moments where I'm like, wow, almost everything on this plate, ah we have grown ourselves.
00:13:43
Jessica
Right. with some help with some other like additives, right?
00:13:45
Plant People
ver
00:13:46
Jessica
Because if I make rolls or whatever to go with it, I'm obviously, I'm not making my own flour. I'm buying flour, but you know, I made them myself, right?
00:13:52
Plant People
Turning the butter.
00:13:54
Jessica
I'm not churning the butter, but like the meat that's there, the the veggies that are on that plate, if we can provide them that nostalgia, I don't know exactly what word I'm looking for to see that and be like, wow, I could actually provide stuff.
00:14:06
Jessica
I think that's what drives a lot of people And they see that online too.
00:14:09
brett
m
00:14:09
Jessica
They see like where people post about like, oh, we harvested all this from our garden.
00:14:15
brett
Sure.
00:14:15
Jessica
And that encourages people too that, you know, they want to, they want to do that.
00:14:15
Plant People
Yeah. Yeah.
00:14:20
Jessica
And I feel like that fuels a lot of it as well.
00:14:20
brett
Yeah.
00:14:22
Jessica
Just being able to feed your family.
00:14:23
Plant People
well
00:14:24
brett
I think that's a super gratifying feeling.
00:14:25
Plant People
yeah
00:14:25
Jessica
Yeah.
00:14:26
Plant People
yeah
00:14:27
brett
But just to be clear real quick, um you are not producing all of that food on one-tenth of an acre. Is that right?
00:14:33
Jessica
Right. I mean, i also I'm also considering the pork and beef that's on my plate as well. And I definitely don't have a cow or a pig on a tenth of an acre.
00:14:43
brett
Sure.
00:14:43
Jessica
So, yeah.
00:14:44
brett
And so that's an example where you, you do have, you are providing a lot of your own food, um, as you know in tandem with a commercial operation that's selling some portion of that food as well.
00:14:54
brett
And, but I think that is amazing and it's like captivating and it's the idea of a, you know, a meal that everything you is there.
00:14:55
Plant People
Yeah.
00:15:02
brett
Something you grew is really, really cool, um, to maybe make a, uh,
00:15:02
Plant People
Or
00:15:05
Jessica
Thank you.
00:15:07
brett
a kale quiche or frittata or something with kale and onions that you grew in the spring with some eggs from your layers that are back around.
00:15:14
Plant People
or eggs. Yeah.
00:15:16
brett
And ah I mean, that's, and maybe some dried tomatoes that you have from last year or canned tomatoes or something like that. Like that is really, really cool. And and that's what I'm saying.
00:15:26
brett
I don't want the tone of the episode to be, these people saying that they can grow everything. blah blah But there there is a and I'll just put a little bit finer point on it. I think I hope and maybe I'm just projecting, but I hope that people seeing that don't think, well, if I can't do that, I shouldn't do anything.
00:15:45
brett
Or if I can't do something close to that, doing the little piddly whatever is.
00:15:45
Plant People
Hmm.
00:15:46
Jessica
Right.
00:15:50
brett
not necessarily is not worthwhile. I mean, why not? I'll just buy everything because a couple of tomato plants and a you know couple of pepper plants is just silly or something like that. And again, I'm not, I don't know that people feel that way, but it can be kind of intimidating.
00:16:02
Jessica
I think it's like it's like a for us as as a family, it's a progression through the season. And Kat already mentioned about like the zones or season of what you can grow, right? So like early in the spring, our system that we have, we don't really grow ah coal crops or lettuces or anything like that.
00:16:19
Jessica
But we do. We love to eat those and enjoy those. you buy them from other farmers or at farmers markets or things like that. But then as the summer goes on, i can start to see where, okay, we were growing our own sweet corn and we're growing our own tomato, you know, and it kind of supplements out until, you know, going, you know, following through the season again.
00:16:36
Jessica
But I don't think you have to do, if you can do the whole thing, that's amazing and awesome. But as long as you, you know, you're doing some of it, that's still pretty cool, right? To be able to be enjoying like half of, um maybe half your plate or even a quarter of your plate have something on there that you've grown yourself.
00:16:46
Plant People
Yeah.
00:16:53
Jessica
Yeah.
00:16:55
Plant People
Yeah, it can definitely get to skewed a little bit. And I encourage people, and and I've had conversations with people that are like, oh, well, I'm not a ah really advanced gardener like so-and-so that I saw online. And then we get to talking to somebody from Southern California, which is amazing. But you know that's why I try to stress geography and you know not looking. It's great ah to to get online or look at social media, and i and I do that myself. But it's great to get on there and get ideas and get motivated.
00:17:24
Plant People
But don't, you know, be careful not to benchmark yourself against other people. Number one, they're not living where you live and they don't have the solere same soil resources. ah You may or may not have the same soil resources.
00:17:36
Plant People
But not only that, but your family's different and your tastes are different.
00:17:39
Jessica
Mm-hmm. huh
00:17:40
Plant People
Let's say I love corn and corn is kind of, if you're really constricted on space, very, it poses a problem, but that person may love tomatoes and their four tomato plants are hugely productive in tenth of the space.
00:17:52
Plant People
So, I mean, it's not just about what you can grow, but it's about what you want to kind of preserve and eat fresh and all these other things. and And I like your comment, Brett, is i guess the theme of this episode is, you know, don't do do too much comparison because every situation is really different. That's why when people come into my office and And we're talking about local food production, their personal food production. I love to talk with people.
00:18:18
Plant People
I mean, some people have a a high tunnel and they can really increase, you know, two or three weeks on the front and back end of their season and grow so much more for their families if it's for personal consumption. But everybody's situation is so different.
00:18:31
Plant People
It's hard to compare. Yeah, you can produce it, but what if your family doesn't like kale and you've produced an eighth of an acre of kale? I mean, you know, there's so much goes into it.
00:18:39
Jessica
My example that I probably said on here, I know I say it in all of my i like gardening 101 classes.
Growing What Your Family Loves
00:18:47
Jessica
um always talk about like planting what your family likes. Try something new every year, right? Try something new because you never know try what you might start liking.
00:18:57
Jessica
But my example always give is ghost pepper plants. One plant produces 75 peppers. So speaking from experience,
00:19:07
Plant People
They go a long way too.
00:19:08
brett
a lot of ghosts.
00:19:08
Plant People
They go a real long way.
00:19:09
Jessica
like Speaking from experience, you probably don't need 25 to 30 ghost pepper plants, right?
00:19:11
Plant People
Spooky good.
00:19:15
Plant People
But they're easy to grow, Jessica. They're easy and you can have great success with them.
00:19:17
Jessica
Right?
00:19:19
brett
And nothing wants to eat them because it almost kills them to eat it.
00:19:21
Plant People
Yeah.
00:19:22
Jessica
Yeah, same thing with scorpion peppers.
00:19:23
Plant People
They're very hot. Very hot. Yeah.
00:19:24
Jessica
So lesson learned, we only grow like five now. And that's plenty.
00:19:29
Plant People
Yeah.
00:19:30
brett
Mm-hmm.
00:19:30
Plant People
Well, I have a the similar scenario in that I love fresh tomatoes. And, you know, I made an assumption a long time ago. when my wife and I, you know, we first, you know, purchased our first home. I was like, well, she loves sauce and things. But little did I know she does not like fresh tomatoes. And I grew like eight tomato plants for two people. I should have grew one half a tomato plant, it sounds like. But I love to grow tomatoes. But.
00:19:54
Plant People
It's now I don't grow it just for our family because neither my son or wife, they like to eat fresh tomatoes and we don't can a lot now. It's just not part of our workflow and, you know, at home. But I give, you know, away to neighbors. They're highly productive. I do it because I enjoy it with the knowledge of knowing I'm going to overproduce. If I grow four plants, that's probably too much.
00:20:16
Plant People
of the variety that I grow, but I have people and food banks that I can give it to.
00:20:16
brett
Mm-hmm.
00:20:21
Plant People
So it does not go to waste because I grow it because I enjoy it. It's a different kind of way to measure success there. um You know, and stuff like that comes into play, but yeah, they don't, they don't eat fresh tomatoes, but I still enjoy watching them grow.
00:20:28
Jessica
Mm-hmm.
00:20:37
brett
Yeah. I think what kind of what you're touching on, Ray, a little bit is the the values behind whatever you're doing. And when I see things like that that sort of talk about the scale of whatever that people are doing,
00:20:50
brett
um The first first thing that comes to mind is like the Instagram flex or the Facebook flex or the Reddit flex or whatever it is where you're you're just sort of trying to demonstrate how awesome you are or how
Rethinking Success Metrics in Gardening
00:21:01
Plant People
Yeah.
00:21:01
brett
whatever you are.
00:21:03
brett
The other thing that's interesting is you'll always or you'll often see this like curious set of metrics that are included with how much they grew. And it's something that people have a hard time um wrapping their head around. So like it'll be like, you know, we grew 5000 pounds of food on this space.
00:21:22
brett
And that is cool. It's impressive. That's whatever. um It sounds like something that someone would include in a grant proposal or report or something or like a report to, you know, ah if I say if I'm if I'm working on a project and I'm having to go to report to legislators about the impact of the project, they don't want to hear a 10 minute story about how the how the community member felt fulfilled in growing that stuff that was supported.
00:21:44
brett
They want to hear five thousand dollars went in their pocket instead. And it's this weird metrification of this process. But that aside, which is more than most people want to probably get into, even 5,000 pounds of produce, that's that's a weird metric.
00:22:03
brett
It's kind of hard to, it it's useful it's useful for comparing year to year.
00:22:05
Plant People
It lives in a vacuum, the kind of.
00:22:08
brett
And I think like food banks and other people use this as a metric to show the impact that they're making, you know hundreds of thousands of pounds and all that kind of stuff.
00:22:12
Plant People
Yeah. Hmm.
00:22:14
brett
And that's great. I'm not trying to rain on that parade, but um 10 pounds of watermelon and 10 pounds of green beans and 10 pounds of beets that have the green stripped off are, are three very, very different things.
00:22:29
Jessica
Yeah.
00:22:30
brett
ah And, you know, so if you cut, you know, you cut the rind off, you, you, a lot of water in there that, you know, is if you're really, really thirsty and like you need a snack in the summertime, watermelon is amazing. If you haven't eaten all day and you have a dinner of watermelon,
00:22:47
brett
you're going to be having second dinner thrown back to ah the Hobbit a reference.
00:22:50
Plant People
the Hobbit paradigm.
00:22:52
brett
But um so I think that that that's a, it's just an interesting metric. And I found myself falling into this with our garden. And that's kind of when we transitioned it over to perennials was like, am I just doing this for like clout?
00:23:06
brett
Am I doing this so that people think that I'm cool
00:23:08
Plant People
You feel like you're in the business, so you should kind of thing, Brad, I mean, you but back when you were making considerations.
00:23:11
brett
um A little bit, i mean a little bit of that, but more more, it was more just like expectations, this idea of like the personal brand that I'm not, I'm not capitalizing on it, but yeah, yeah.
00:23:14
Plant People
Yeah.
00:23:17
Plant People
Yeah. Oh, gotcha. your Your vibe.
00:23:23
brett
Oh, you're the, you all are the one that have the crazy garden that does this thing.
00:23:24
Plant People
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:23:26
brett
And I was like, man, I'm like getting into my ego here and this is really, really weird. um So I think that the, the yield concept in general can kind of be misleading, especially if talking about produce.
00:23:38
brett
Um, but there's other things too, that have like, I could probably eat 10 pounds of produce in a day and not come close to my caloric needs or my protein needs or my fat needs.
00:23:51
Plant People
I know you could eat 10 pounds of peaches ah day.
00:23:52
brett
And, uh, and, and have what again,
00:23:54
Plant People
We've well established that, Brad.
00:23:58
Plant People
And would would recommend 100%, huh? But yeah, the the metric stuff, is easy it is it is ah very interesting.
00:24:01
brett
um
00:24:06
Plant People
it's It's not straightforward, is it? Not really.
00:24:08
brett
No, I don't think so.
00:24:10
Plant People
Yeah.
00:24:10
brett
And and ah again, if you're trying to demonstrate like we're feeding hungry people and this is how much food we put in there, like I'm not, I'm not trying to rain on that parade, but if it's just sort of a ah flex, it can sound like, I don't even have a reference point for 6,000 pounds of food.
00:24:25
brett
You know, I don't, cause I'm thinking like, well, I mean, I couldn't eat more than a pound of food at a given meal. And that's, so that means you know, 6,000 pounds would be enough for me to have, you know, but it's, it's not necessarily exactly that you, Jessica, you brought up the, the nature of the things that are being produced. So you have some, some meat or maybe somebody has some legumes or they have ah grains, all those things that are, frankly, you just kind of have to have some space.
00:24:56
Jessica
Yeah. Yeah. And it depends, like, I know I keep going back to, like, what your family likes. If you're going to feed, like, how much variety are you going to have in that garden, really, in on that smallest space?
00:25:09
Jessica
going to have, you know, to produce the amount you need, right?
00:25:09
Plant People
Mm-hmm.
00:25:14
Jessica
When you think about it that way, like, are you going to be better off planting, like, three main crops in that garden that you're going to produce a lot of from those to be able to feed, you know, but you also want that variety, but they all might not produce them out.
00:25:20
brett
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:25:27
Jessica
We've already kind of all touched on this. So a lot, a lot more goes into it ah versus, i don't, i can't remember what you said, what you called it, Brett, about like just the, the Instagram and Facebook wow factor.
00:25:38
Jessica
Like you see these pristine gardens. That's the other thing, pristine gardens, a real garden, you know, um you know, if you can make them look beautiful, but there's challenges with them as well that you hit, you know, along the road that can, you know, that can play into um what you get to feed your family for that full year. As, as I have just freshly tilled up that spot in my backyard and my kids were planting onions and they want to plant potatoes and,
00:26:08
Jessica
And in the back of my mind, I'm like ah like, gung-ho, yes, I want to do this and build this memory with my children. But then in the back of my mind, the horticulture entomologist in me is like, oh, there's going to be a lot of wireworms there because that's that's that's freshly tilled.
00:26:19
Plant People
Dato bugs, sod turned over. Yeah.
00:26:22
Jessica
So I was like, so we'll see what we get, right? They're just excited to play in the soil and plant, you know? But I think that's a lot of it too. It's just like, there's a lot of just like the wow factor that you see online
00:26:36
brett
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:26:37
Jessica
a n like what you can really put in there and get get out of it.
00:26:41
Plant People
There's a certain factor in the United States, uh, You know, that we we have a pretty amazing food system and I'm amazed at how good it is. Transportation is pretty good. That we have this luxury of, ah you know, stepping back and doing garden math. You're like, is it worth it to grow the potatoes because I can get them fair to ah fairly affordably, you know, good quality quality, good affordability. for the most part, you know, in comparison to some other things, but you know that's kind of a luxury. And not only that, but I've always thought our access to seeds, I mean, a pack of seeds holds such tremendous potential. If you would get a pack of tomato seeds and, You want to throw that out and grow your own little group of transplants. That's fairly straightforward to do. may not be your jam. You may want to do that. But I mean, we have access to all of these tools and products to help us grow.
00:27:32
Plant People
You know, and I've seen folks be so successful that we started having a conversation before we started the podcast. that they were so successful that they were not interested in canning. They just produced too much. Then they didn't have anybody to give it to. And they were like, okay, this has just been so much work for what, you know, and that, but that's on the complete flip side of the kind of the conversation, but they were very successful, small family.
00:28:00
Plant People
And I've seen it multiple times and they're like, what do I do with these 2000 pounds of tomatoes in this case? And, you know, There might to not have been a food bank to take that too close enough. And all of their tomatoes or all of their neighbors, when one person has tomatoes, usually everybody starts having tomatoes. If there's a bunch of home gardeners in the area, at a point you can't even give them away. That's when I get frustrated. If I'm growing something.
00:28:26
Plant People
I can't consume it fresh, which is my preferred way. If I have an abundance of it, the next year I guarantee I'm not going to grow as much of that. I'm like, why did I do that? I always kind of feel this this wasteful aspect, and I'm very sensitive to that.
00:28:35
brett
Mm-hmm. Mm.
00:28:40
Plant People
I don't want to be wasteful of my time that I spent, my fertilizer, the water that went into that, the effort. So that's something that and it sounds counterintuitive, but watch out for the success.
00:28:52
Plant People
I mean, be realistic.
00:28:53
Jessica
There's only so many zucchinis, right?
00:28:56
Plant People
Oh gosh, yeah.
00:28:56
Jessica
Or so many squash.
00:28:58
Plant People
Yeah.
00:28:58
Jessica
if he's If it's the right time of season and, you know, they're thriving, you you pick them and then you come back the next day and you're like, what the heck?
00:29:02
Plant People
Oh, and they will all come at the very same time. Yeah.
00:29:06
Jessica
There's 20 more.
00:29:07
Plant People
How did I miss those 30?
00:29:07
Jessica
Like, where did they come from?
00:29:09
Plant People
Well, I'll tell you what, the squash vine boars will fix that for you.
00:29:12
Jessica
yeah as the season Yeah, as the season goes on they will, you think you're good at growing them.
00:29:12
Plant People
They're my nemesis.
00:29:12
brett
I'm sorry.
00:29:13
Plant People
Yeah, Brett and I were talking about that.
00:29:17
Jessica
They'll be like, ha, thank again.
00:29:20
Plant People
Yeah. And when I first ah came into Extension, i was so excited about succession planting and convincing home gardeners, you know, to have a three season crop. But I learned over time that that is not a lot of people's realistic goals because they're like, wait a minute, buddy.
00:29:38
Plant People
You know, we're going to do the spring garden, we're going to harvest, but in between there, we're going to have vacations and baseball practices and all of this other stuff. And it's almost like most, the vast majority of home gardeners I've ever worked with.
00:29:52
Plant People
are you know Brett talked about maximizing production on small spaces. They're really, that's that's in the minority. That is not a lot of people's goals that I've worked with when I tell them, hey, you've got two more seasons here.
00:30:04
Plant People
Do succession plantings and you know do a fall, summer and you know planting and all the things. And they're like, no, we kind of want to keep this simple. That's how we've been in it for 30 years.
00:30:13
Jessica
Right.
00:30:15
Plant People
We want to keep it simple.
00:30:15
brett
you
00:30:15
Jessica
I'm always very impressed, even with, you know, market size gardens, right? When they have the succession plantings, because that's hard.
00:30:25
Plant People
Yeah, it is.
00:30:25
Jessica
It's hard. It's hard to do that, especially because if like your crop isn't really finished in the spring, you know, spring, ah but you need to go ahead and put your summer stuff in or vice versa. Like, you you know, we all often think of fall gardening, right?
00:30:39
Jessica
We're going to like people think, oh, it's going to be like September or so when I plant that. But you're really planting a lot of things right in July, right?
00:30:46
Plant People
Yeah, the heat of summer.
00:30:46
Jessica
Or you're starting things in July, right when a lot of our summer stuff is just in full production. So I always myself, I'm always impressed when people can do that because it does take a lot of time at commitment.
00:30:57
Plant People
I am. I've been to. For homeowners, yeah. When I see homeowners doing that, I'm always kind of impressed. I'm like, wow, they are planners and they they they work their plan and plan their work.
00:31:09
Plant People
And they are really, there's an objective behind those people, I think, that do that. And they may be they may be preserving a lot of stuff.
00:31:17
Jessica
you
00:31:17
Plant People
So they want that extra production or they may have a high capacity soil that can take that intensity of production. You know, whatever the case, but I've always looked and I was like, wow. Because me, I'm a kind of one season gardener myself.
00:31:29
Plant People
I'll plant some things, pick some things, but I don't do just personally now at this point in my life, I don't do a lot of succession planting because, you know, my wife and child, they don't eat fresh tomatoes and I want them to, but they won't, you know, but they do love bell peppers.
00:31:42
Jessica
it
00:31:43
brett
I think
00:31:45
Plant People
So like I keep them in bell peppers for as long as I can. So goes back to objectives.
00:31:50
brett
two Two of the things I'm hearing you all talk about, ah one is is labor and the other is skill or or abilities. And I think that goes with with passion as well.
00:32:01
brett
But on the labor side, i think it's really easy to underestimate how much time and energy it's going to take to manage. And and so in the world of agriculture, we generally talk about education.
00:32:14
brett
intensive and extensive systems. So intensive systems are relatively smaller footprint and you use a ton of, you put a ton of person and otherwise energy and focus into that to try to maximize the production from that space.
00:32:30
Plant People
Mm-hmm.
00:32:30
brett
Extensive systems tend to rely on ah a larger, um, a larger footprint as far as you know space, and they don't necessarily use as, intent you're not managing it as intensively.
00:32:42
brett
And so you think about like grazing land for pasture, you're going to have a more distributed model as opposed to like feedlot or something like that, where you have lots of animals packed in and you're feeding a lot in that intensive space.
00:32:46
Jessica
Mm-hmm.
00:32:53
brett
Think about a greenhouse versus a field environment, the intensiveness. Anyway. the more intense you do it, this is how you can turn a one acre farm into way more work than a 300 acre farm, which sounds insane, but that's the truth is that if you're heavily mechanized and efficient at scale and you're not as intensive at scale, you can actually end up spending more time on the more intensive thing.
00:33:05
Plant People
Oh my
00:33:17
brett
And and then because it's a little bit economic-y, whatever, but There's a lot of time and energy that goes into this. And it's one of those really, it crosses over into the social realm when I hear um it proposed that like poor people who can't afford ah high quality nutritious food or maybe food at all should just grow their own food.
Labor, Skill, and Food Scarcity Myths
00:33:39
brett
um Is that there's there's as anything other than a triage, like, yes, people should, all these people should have access to do that. But The growing your own food is not some, you know, trivial thing. It requires labor and time. And if you're working multiple jobs or you have multiple kids and or multiple kids and all these other things going on in your life, um the the labor side of managing and highly intensive, constantly rotating succession planted garden across the whole year is a full-time job plus.
00:34:10
Plant People
When does fun become work? Yeah.
00:34:11
brett
Yeah.
00:34:12
Jessica
Right.
00:34:12
Plant People
Yeah.
00:34:12
brett
And so it's like, okay, so you quit your job and then raise your own food that you could have bought for a fraction of the price by keeping your job.
00:34:21
brett
This is a tension that runs through agriculture and overall. The other one i I would bring up is the skill thing. So not only does it require time, but it requires skilled time to manage all that stuff, keep an eye on pests, keep an eye on when stuff's ready to harvest, when things need to be succession planted, et cetera.
00:34:36
brett
And um as I was looking around, it is this idea like in there's this thing with businesses, too, and and other things, too, called ah like a survivorship bias. And what that is, is when.
00:34:49
brett
you have these people or businesses or whatever that make it through and succeed. it what you What you don't see is all of the other people who tried and didn't succeed. And you start to have this sense that the people who made it through, well, it's doable. See, you can do it. You can easily do it. This is replicable.
00:35:08
brett
And the the replicability of these intensive systems is a real challenge. And that's, I think, where the disheartening part comes, where it's like I put out like, a small amount compared to them and my stuff got wiped out.
00:35:20
brett
I must be a total moron.
00:35:22
Plant People
Or year three, your soil gets very tired and your success rate starts starts to go down.
00:35:22
brett
Mm-hmm.
00:35:28
Plant People
If you're managing like a succession type scenario with three crops a year, you're like, oh goodness, my soil needs to rest. And on those small spaces, you know, if you're dealing with food production, you know, you may need a little bit of rotational area and diseases are going to crop up.
00:35:41
Jessica
Thank you.
00:35:44
Plant People
Insect pressure is going to crop up. you know, these long-term issues that we don't always talk about. You don't always get that from a picture. um You know, i guess I'm in the business of really encouraging people.
00:35:57
Plant People
It's like, well, you know, oh great.
00:35:57
brett
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:35:59
Plant People
You're thinking about growing something. What is success for your first year of ever growing anything? What does that look like? And let's go for that. You know, is it two peppers? Is it one ghost pepper plant that's going to be amazing and have a bajillion, you know, flames on it that's going to burn you up? um You know, what what does success look like? I mean what are you going to enjoy? What's going to encourage you you? know, and we're not talking about, I guess I'm not talking about market gardens or commercial scale production. If it's personal food production, it's like, what do you find joy in? I mean, you know, there's lots of reasons why you grow this. You tell me what success is and we'll try to work with you on that.
00:36:38
Jessica
Right. I try to talk to people about, we've already mentioned how like the size of things. And like you said about people being busy in the summer and everything like that, like, are you going to be around to water and like, and thinking of like our own little tilled up area our backyard, Um, it is not that big at all.
00:36:47
Plant People
Yeah.
00:36:56
Jessica
And this past weekend, my father-in-law was there and he had his tiller and he was like helping like finish tilling it. And then he was like going to keep going. and Like he was going to keep adding rows. And I was like, no no, no, no, no.
00:37:06
Plant People
No, no, no.
00:37:07
Jessica
Like that's big enough.
00:37:07
brett
That'll be enough.
00:37:08
Jessica
And he's like, oh no, you're going to need more. And I'm like, no, I'm not going to be more with three small children. Right. Because, This time of year when you're doing that and you till it all up and it looks all nice and you plant, you know, you, you know, you put your little transplants in it's like, oh, look at that.
00:37:20
Plant People
It's kind of addictive. Yeah.
00:37:25
Jessica
Like I can take care of this. Well, then you get to like July or August, it's 90 degrees outside, feeds the bugs, like everything like that.
00:37:29
Plant People
This stuff won't die.
00:37:33
Jessica
So I think it's like, you want to dream big. Right. You want this big and that that's awesome.
00:37:37
brett
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:37:39
Jessica
And you should, you should have that be like your ultimate goal. But if it's your first time doing it, like the reality of what is your social life like? Right.
00:37:49
Jessica
Like, are you, if you're single or whatever, are you going to be around? You plan to travel a lot. Are you going to be, have somebody can come water for you? you know, all of those things to, yeah. you know Maybe it's better if I start off with some containers or a raised bed or i just do like a little spot and like Ray said, I'm just doing a few plants because maybe I have this idea in my mind that I want to grow things.
00:38:13
Jessica
It would be fabulous, wonderful. And then I do it and then I absolutely hate it. It would be better off just to start small and, you know, or maybe you realize, man, I'm just going to buy it from ah the farmer's market or maybe my neighbors and I can go in together, on you know, a shared thing.
00:38:18
Plant People
Yeah.
00:38:32
Jessica
But I think starting off there, and keep those big dreams, right, of that huge garden or whatever you imagine. But just the reality of it has all the things that go along with a garden.
00:38:42
brett
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:38:45
Jessica
you know Thankfully, um it's not like bringing you know an extra cat or dog or something home. But you know you have to think about those before people impulse get those. Same thing impulse in your garden or plants.
00:38:54
Plant People
Yeah.
00:38:57
Jessica
You have to take care of them too.
00:38:59
Plant People
Grooming is expensive on golden doodles. Just a word, word of caution, people. Everything involves, I guess, ah I mean, lot of the lot the stuff we do for objectives or whatever specific reasons, there's a cost involved, you know, some kind of cost. I mean, either time or monetary resources. And I guess at the end, Brett, you know, you've talked time and again about, you know, you used to do Food production, you guys kind of took stock of why you were doing that and the opportunity cost of doing that versus something else. And now you guys are doing some really cool projects and all this cool stuff in your backyard. That's not necessarily food production, but it's still growing things because that matches your current vibe, it sounds like. ah Maybe a little bit better after taking stock.
00:39:42
brett
Yeah. we're And we're also bougie white people in Lexington with some money. And so we pay other people to grow our food who are really passionate about it.
00:39:48
Plant People
Yeah, yeah.
00:39:49
brett
You know, I mean, that's a nice thing that we don't have any kids. So, in yeah.
00:39:53
Plant People
That's a win too, that it it makes you appreciate if you've ever tried to grow a garden, you may still be growing a garden or you may not, but it, I find that people that no longer, you know, grow their own, a lot of their own food, if they've ever grown their food, they really have an appreciation for
00:39:54
brett
Yeah.
00:40:09
Jessica
Mm-hmm. h
00:40:10
Plant People
producers that grow food because they're like, I know how much work it is to keep the, you know, corn earworms out of this sweet corn, or I know these potatoes didn't grow themselves or whatever.
00:40:22
Plant People
So there's value in that too.
00:40:22
brett
Yeah. I think you all have put have put your finger on ah why this irks me kind of when I see this stuff. It's not for the people who are doing the thing like do your thing, go off.
00:40:33
brett
I'm a strange person. You're a strange person. we're doing really odd.
00:40:37
Plant People
Be weird. Grow ghost peppers.
00:40:39
brett
That's right. But but i think what bothers me is the the influence that social media has on so many spheres of our life. And I see this as like the example in this space of that it's, but it's the same as, you know, Hey, uh, young mom, I know you're, you know, you can have abs again, 12 weeks postpartum, if you follow my plan or you can lose, you know, that, that kind of thing.
00:40:51
Plant People
Yes.
00:41:05
brett
Or like, uh, you know, you, you,
00:41:07
Jessica
Yeah, if you want to die.
00:41:08
brett
use the use this use Use my word ah my ah you know financial plan to become a millionaire by fourth of July or like those types of vibes that get put out where it's not so much like an inspiration that you can use to inform your vision.
00:41:27
brett
It's more like this unrealistic expectation. So inspiration versus expectation that gets gets created in people's minds.
00:41:30
Plant People
Mm-hmm.
00:41:34
brett
I think it also creates a class of people who are hyper skeptical of stuff that we say from extension or say from experience about like, well, the person on Facebook said that they grow, you know, dense apple tree plantings and they never spray anything and they they grow in wherever. i mean, it just creates these, these like strange, unrealistic expectations that, that land really pain in really painful ways in real life.
00:42:04
brett
that either you lose the trees because they get wiped out by fire blight whatever. And now you're, you have to square that in your mind, or you think you're a failure because you didn't live up to the expectations of that, that thing. I think it's almost just this, this weird offshoot of, you know, social media expectations ah that i don't like. I don't like the way that it makes me feel. I don't like the way that it makes other people feel.
00:42:30
brett
um And again, maybe I'm projecting, ah but, And to that, to your point earlier, Ray, about like how difficult it actually is, it also kind of sometimes implies that growing food is really easy. And I find that to be kind of insulting to people who are doing that and really facing these major challenges,
00:42:50
brett
um, that are associated with growing stuff. And so, so that's maybe a part of it too, is that there's, it's, it's anytime that there's a really challenging problem and people are like, there's an easy solution. And like, if you're an idiot, if you're not doing it, look at this.
00:43:03
brett
Um, so maybe I'm just working, maybe this is like a therapy session on the back end of our horticulture, horticulture episode here.
00:43:09
Plant People
It's not super, it's just not super straightforward. And once again, you know, I'm careful to make assumptions if people want to get started doing whatever, you know, ah you want to drill down and find out, you know, first of all, why they're kind of doing it.
00:43:24
Plant People
Uh, and then find out what the resources they have to make that happen. They may be sitting on top of a rock slab and like, wow, that's going to take a lot of, you know, raised beds or whatever. And it's going to take X, Y, Z costs to make that happen. Uh,
00:43:38
Plant People
You know, in years past, when we were on the farm, we had, like Jessica said, we had the, you know, we had kind of garden, truck garden crops that we sold. And that was a different sort of thing. We grew based on what was productive and what would sell.
00:43:52
Plant People
And then we had a significant planting for four children and two adults, mom and dad, you know, that's six people. And we relied on that through the winter time. And and that was really a, you know, that was kind of predates social media. um That was back in the the days of dial-up phone people.
00:44:10
brett
Mm-hmm.
00:44:10
Plant People
It's been a while, but, you know, we really were dependent on that. And that was a different sort of thing because we, mom knew what we would eat. She knew what she could can. She canned a tremendous amount of, you know, things like corn and cucumbers that were highly productive and, had some nutrition like the sweet corn had, you know, carbs and things in there. And, you know, we usually raised our own hogs and we did have cattle, but they were too expensive. We would sell those when hamburgers cheap then and buy those back because we had registered Angus. You know, there's all these metrics that went into food production. It's because that was our main source of food in the wintertime. It really reduced our grocery bills.
00:44:47
Plant People
So that that felt so different. And we did as little as we could, to to bring in a good crop for own personal food production, you know, aside from the truck route stuff that we grew. But, you know, everything was measured in terms of, you know, getting the most bang for your buck.
00:45:06
brett
Yeah.
00:45:06
Jessica
Right.
00:45:06
Plant People
And that was our objective then, which is significantly different from someone that just wants a beautiful backyard patio and, It may be, ah you know, landscape plants ah yeah or maybe edible plants.
00:45:19
Plant People
You know, whatever the case is, you just have to know what people's objectives and resources are ah to get this done. But like you said, no expectations, no judgment.
00:45:30
Plant People
And it's not that other people are putting that on you. Sometimes we put it on ourselves.
00:45:34
brett
yep
00:45:34
Plant People
We really do. We really do.
00:45:36
brett
so It's so easy to look at to look at some of some media landscapes and feel less than or feel inadequate.
00:45:43
Plant People
Yeah. Yeah.
00:45:44
Jessica
The other thing to keep in mind is you're not seeing the whole picture.
00:45:44
Plant People
yeah
00:45:49
Jessica
right You're only seeing what they're choosing to show you.
00:45:52
brett
Mm-hmm.
00:45:52
Jessica
So i can take a great picture of these tomatoes. of a Wow, look at how beautiful these tomatoes look and everything. But who knows, right behind that, there might be Johnson grass surrounding all of them.
00:46:05
Jessica
right you know So keep that in mind. like When we see those pristine gardens or see pristine things that you know it might not all be, they're they're choosing just to show you as as with all social media.
00:46:18
Jessica
right
00:46:19
brett
Mm-hmm.
00:46:19
Jessica
When I always, my quote is always like social media lies um that, um that you know, we're only choosing to show like the best happy things.
00:46:31
Jessica
A lot of times people are not showing all of the other struggles that they're dealing with in their garden. So, so yeah, don't compare yourself to what you see on there and, you know, give it a go and try and and it's okay if it, if it doesn't work out.
00:46:43
Plant People
And that that's a worse effect if you're new. Yeah.
00:46:47
Jessica
Right.
00:46:47
Plant People
yeah Those that have grown know that, you know, they just automatically, their mind just accounts for the fact that they know that, you know, that's just a point of pride. Somebody's taking a picture of a beautiful, you know, bell pepper plant.
00:46:59
Jessica
Right.
00:47:00
Plant People
That's perfect. But it's the ones that may have less experience. It can set a level of expectation that kind of gets wonky, can be a little wonky. So be cautious of that. Yep.
00:47:10
brett
Yeah, I think that, you know, what I what I want to be a part of is providing information that helps people to have reasonable expectations and then help them or support them as they develop their own vision and values for what they're trying to do and then help them get there.
Personal Goals and Values in Gardening
00:47:26
Plant People
Yeah.
00:47:26
brett
and that this disrupts that cycle a little bit because it produces expectations before in it. But I think that's kind of a lot, lot of the reason why any of us want to do this is we want people to be the best version of the person or what a situation that they want to be It's not, we have a vision for you and here it is now take it and go. It's something a little more reflexive and slower, unfortunately, than social media clicking through. And so old man shakes fist at cloud on podcast for one, almost an hour here. um
00:47:59
brett
Yeah. So I really appreciate y'all jumping in and you know talking this through because i and i think that I have actually a better understanding of how I feel about it now.
00:48:05
Plant People
Thank
00:48:07
brett
um If you all have thoughts out there in listener land about this and how we're wrong and urban agriculture is the future, and we would love to hear that.
00:48:14
Jessica
Thank you.
00:48:16
brett
We're not you know we're not unreasonable people. We love to hear some different opinions about this, but If you'd like to do that, you can go over to our Instagram at hortculturepodcast. You can also email us at hortculturepodcast at gmail.com to get in contact with us about future episodes, this episode. If you think you know you had a good guest that you'd like to be on or something like that, feel free to do that. And with that, I'll just say I will see on down the road.
00:48:51
Plant People
Thank you.
00:48:59
Jessica
Thank you.