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Warning - Will talk to wall about garden
18 Plays1 year ago
Just a little filler' in episode talking about everything I'm growing right now coming into the summer season here in Florida. I continue to be surprised at just how different gardening can be, moving, and trying new plants and techniques.
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Transcript
Reflecting on Past Episodes
00:00:00
Speaker
All right. Welcome to episode two of The Travelist Podcast. I had so much fun doing that last time. I have to be honest with you. I'm sorry. I'm going to say so many times, but I promise I'm consciously thinking about it. I'm trying to stop saying we are working on it. But I did have so much fun recording this last week.
The Power of Storytelling
00:00:28
Speaker
started thinking about it more and more about, I was like reaching out to people to ask them if they want to be on the podcast. And when they asked like, you know, what's like, what do you, you know, what would you like me to talk about exactly? And I was like, Oh, I just like want to hear like the story. And I realized how important like storytelling was to me and like reaching back and thinking about like more of the details of like, why is that so important to me? Like storytelling, like,
00:00:54
Speaker
I don't know, something about it just really calls out to me and like hearing people's stories is so important. And I was just, I like mentioned so briefly last time that I like went, like mentioned college in a matter of like four seconds.
Challenges in Learning Sign Language
00:01:10
Speaker
But the first college I went to, I went for sign language interpreting, which was honestly, I feel like at the time I did not connect the dots that I was like going to go to college for what is basic, like, or what is.
00:01:23
Speaker
like a foreign language not a foreign language is maybe not the right word but like another language like yes it's sign language so it's on your hands but at the end of the day like
00:01:31
Speaker
I did not process that I was leaving high school, which like was not so hard to get through, but like was not fun to get through and then putting myself into like foreign language learning. And I was rocked by it. Honestly, I had like practiced some beforehand, but like I knew the most minimal amount of sign language and was like, so sure that I was going to go in here and be like, this is going to, I'm going to like crush this. And I was like, so taken aback by how
00:02:01
Speaker
like difficult is not the word but I was like wow this is like your brain is racking the whole time like watching language on someone else's hands was just like so mind-boggling to me and the
Storytelling and Deaf Studies
00:02:17
Speaker
part of it that I did love and I did fall in love with because I did not obviously I didn't end up like continuing there. I only did my first year there. The part of it that I loved was with the program is that it's not that you were just learning sign language, it's that you were truly learning like deaf studies was the actual like title of the associate's degree. And
00:02:39
Speaker
You're studying the actual culture and within that culture, something that was so important on the topic that was talked about so much was storytelling and the importance of that, not only in their culture, but across so many cultures. I just saw so much beauty in that and the way that stories can be lost if they're not told, if they're not written down or recorded somehow.
00:03:01
Speaker
And that's when I was like, ah, that's why I like doing this podcast so much. Like I'm so excited to like tell stories and to learn so much more. I thought this week I would honestly just give you guys, I give you like my background of the meanness last week, which was pretty dope.
Gardening in New Climates
00:03:16
Speaker
Um, and I thought today, maybe, I don't know, maybe I just talk about like the gardens, what I got going on here at the, his house. Um,
00:03:27
Speaker
I thought that might be interesting. I told you guys last time that I moved from Rhode Island down to Florida. I'm like central Florida. Um, I love it. It is warm. I've said this last week. It is just, it's always warm here, but it's summertime, which the weirdest thing here that I'm trying to adjust to. So like being a new Englander, like you guys are all starting to garden or like are like,
00:03:50
Speaker
yeah you're like getting rolling on gardening now things are happening in your garden and things are like done so here right now which is just the weirdest thing ever it's hard to get used to i used to like live for the months of june july and august the whole year it was just me looking forward to like the warm months every year and now here it's hilarious that like june july and august are offensively hot
00:04:15
Speaker
I still love it like I'm still out there every Saturday and Sunday I'm cutting grass I'm out there doing yard projects like I still love being in the sun but like dang these are some hot months I'll tell you it is no joke out there and not a lot is like down that's not true
Tropical Gardening: Peppers and Tomatoes
00:04:32
Speaker
the regular things that you would grow in a garden are like not super down to grow at this time of the year, which is just wild to me. Like my tomatoes are done. My peppers, I have my habanero. My jalapeno is like happy still. I don't know if there's actual correlation, but from what I understand, like hot peppers do well.
00:04:53
Speaker
in the hot, I don't know, but my jalapeno is definitely doing well. And then my like sweet little light yellow golden bell peppers, like please, please leave me alone. I do not want to grow anymore, but I just keep giving her food and begging her to last until it cools down again. I don't know if she's going to, but it would be pretty sick if she did.
00:05:14
Speaker
But yeah, I guess I'll keep going with the veggies. So yeah, my jalapeno is rocking out still. I got like a decent sized harvest off of her. I feel like she probably gave me like eight to 10 jalapenos. We were putting them in our shakes in the morning. I was, Aiden wasn't.
00:05:32
Speaker
I was putting those in my shakes in the morning. I know that sounds absurd, but dang, is there a way to get your day started? Staking a jalapeno in your morning breakfast shake. I am ready to go. Bring it on. That was awesome. There's some on there that probably have two, maybe three more weeks left. I harvested all those and then I just trimmed her up probably.
00:05:55
Speaker
she's probably like got no leaves on her from like a foot to like a foot and a half up her stems but then she produced like all these beautiful new extra like tops from where i harvested previously and she has fruit coming off of her now too so it's pretty dope i'm really stoked about that that she's still going she's strong i saw um
00:06:14
Speaker
Aseka Hoseholder posted their peppers at the beginning of this year and they were literally trees. Trees. Like peppers the size of trees. I swear to God, they're huge. And I was like, I am doing, like I'm getting the biggest pepper plants I can. I swear to you. They will grow for three years. I don't know if that's true, but that's, I'm going for it. I'm stoked about these things. That is not a fact. I have no idea how long I can keep a pepper plant going, but I'm going to try.
00:06:40
Speaker
And the golden bell peppers, like I said, are like a really light yellow, like the lightest, sweetest color yellow, just little, little babies. And they're less than stoked in the sun, I have to be honest. I've read previously and seen on Instagram too, it was like peppers like,
00:06:56
Speaker
some relief in the afternoon from the sun so the first half of the season they were kind of set behind the tomatoes so those were giving them their shade but now the way that the sun has shifted and the tree in my yard filled in they actually are getting some relief from shade from the tree in the afternoon but yeah that bell pepper is not too stoked so i'm just hoping she makes it through to when it cools off again i have no idea if she's going to but
Vegetable Growing Adventures
00:07:23
Speaker
I don't know, we'll give her a shot, why not? And then the tomato plants, like I said in front of it, there's like a little cherry red tomato that was so good. They come off literally like the size of Skittles. They were absolutely amazing. Nora was hysterical and she was just ripping tomatoes off like constantly. That's all she wanted to do out there. She'd come out there and just rip tomatoes off. And I still had hundreds of tomatoes on this plant. So like, wow, that one was so sick.
00:07:51
Speaker
And then next to it was like a little, like just a normal cherry tomato, but yellow variety. And I love those. They're like less acidic and I just like them so much more, but those both got like started to get yeeted by tomato hornworms. Those, those guys, those are, they're not terribly freaky. I sat out there and like stared at them for a while and I was like, okay, you guys are actually like pretty cool. You move in a pretty cool way. Like they're just like little tiny elevators just inching up
00:08:20
Speaker
boop, boop, boop, one piece at a time. Totally wild. They eat so much. I can totally understand how if you don't catch them, like they annihilate a tomato plant. It is absolutely insane. But they started getting eaten by that. So I just decided to cut off like all of the vegetation. And I pulled them off and put them, this probably sounds horrible, but I like couldn't bring myself to like kill them myself. But you also need to like get rid of them somehow. So I was cutting the branches off and putting them
00:08:52
Speaker
in a wooden box and leaving it in the middle of my yard and the birds were just like coming and taking them. It felt like the right thing to do. They had to get gone. Something had to kill them. At least a bird got like an awesome juicy meal out of it.
00:09:08
Speaker
and they didn't just die for no reason. I'm laughing because I felt so bad about it, but it just like was the right thing to do. So, anyhow, I cut all the vegetation off of those, harvested the rest of those tomatoes, saved seeds from those, which was pretty cool. I can't wait to see if those...
00:09:24
Speaker
are actually viable seeds. I'm not gonna pop them again until it's colder or getting towards our winter season here, but I'm pretty excited to see what happens. However, I did not cut them all the way down. I left the bottom stems and anything that was actually new growth on them. And they, same thing, have continued to grow, which is pretty cool. There's actually been a couple of tomatoes that are still coming off of them, which is sick. So again, I'm just gonna leave those. I'm not in a huge rush
00:09:52
Speaker
to put anything in for a summer crop just because it's hard to grow stuff here anyways. The grass is so absurd that I just don't really have a lot of time to do any other gardening besides cutting the grass, which is fine. I freaking love cutting the grass.
00:10:09
Speaker
But yeah, I'm just letting the peppers and tomatoes hang out. And I'm just curious to see if they make it through the summer and hurricane season. And then if they'll get me more produce by the end of the year, I'd be sick if they do. And then behind those, I had my purple onions. Those are still on the ground.
00:10:31
Speaker
We'll be really excited if I get like one full size purple onion from it. They're doing fine, not great. Right when I think growing season would have started.
00:10:43
Speaker
really picking up for them the cucumbers were behind it on that trellis and they got so big and crazy that they were definitely shading out the onions for a while so I think I kind of stunted them out for a while and they definitely didn't uh plump up like I thought they were going to a few of them did that were on the outside that weren't getting so shaded out but
Innovative Gardening Techniques
00:11:03
Speaker
They definitely will try again next year, but I started those from like a pack of started bulbs that I got at Lowe's. I think I've seen people have a lot more success supposedly with seeds, but something about starting an onion from seed just seems so absurd to me.
00:11:22
Speaker
a seed turns into a whole onion. I don't know why that just baffles me, but it just absolutely does. But again, those are still just vibing in the ground. I feel like you know when something like that is done, because it looks like the size that you would buy it, I think. I have no idea. We'll see what happens with those. And then I also did
00:11:42
Speaker
Not exactly a side by side, but like I planted a few of them in a pot just to see what the difference was between them being a raised bed versus a pot. And I got to say the ones in the pot look a lot better.
00:11:55
Speaker
So growing purple onions might be something to do in a container. I don't know. We'll find out. I'm interested to see, but right now those ones are definitely looking better than the raised bed ones. They're not, they're like not getting too much different of sun. I don't think just different, slightly different soil. And yeah, they're in a container. They probably stay a little bit wetter as well than the, um, the raised bed soil, but I don't know. We'll find out by the end of the season and then.
00:12:24
Speaker
Cucumbers I got ripped out first. Those were on the same trellis as my Beans or peas They're like these are really pretty pea tendrils and those came out first if you've ever planted beans or peas I don't know what the difference is the beans or peas if you've ever planted those you literally plant them they sprout personally for me always so fast and then you like immediately need to get them on a trellis because they just start climbing like crazy and if you don't they kind of just like flop around and it's not
00:12:54
Speaker
awesome but if you give them trellis like they're gonna go for it so the peas popped up first started climbing got to like a good spot in the trellis and started flowering and producing which was awesome but then cucumbers same thing once those come out and once they get themselves going like they go for it and eventually the cucumber like um stems are like much more like a straw as opposed to like
00:13:21
Speaker
the bean tendrils stems you know what I'm saying um are like a cocktail straw if you had to compare and I planted them all in the same line so like the cucumbers just totally
00:13:36
Speaker
like just completely took over and the beans just got choked out and just like stopped producing, which is fine. I still was able to pull off like six pods, I think, and save them. So I definitely still have seeds for next year, which is always what's the most important thing for me is that I got enough seeds to go for another round. Cucumbers, saved a couple of those, saved seeds from those. Again, having to try them or pop them or germinate them, whatever.
00:14:02
Speaker
But interested to see how that turns out for sure. So that concludes. Oh, and then I just planted, I got okra seeds from the sweet, sweet woman who we, we go to their farm, we get eggs from them and we get cinnamon rolls. They're the best cinnamon rolls.
00:14:19
Speaker
the whole entire universe. No one can argue with me on this. These are the best ones. It's Wingspread Farm. They are amazing. Oh my freaking God. But she also is a crazy guitar gardener and she gave me ochre seeds. So I planted those and I have one ochre plant that's coming up, but it only has like four leaves. It's like three inches tall. It's just a little baby, but they do well in the summer sun here. I think I'm a little behind when I planted them. I've definitely seen peoples who are more mature, but
00:14:46
Speaker
It's just, I don't know, I've never done it before, so it's all good. Something's gonna happen. Like, there's an okra plant that's further than I've ever gotten before, right? That's how I look at everything. Like, at least I tried it, I don't know. Whatever happens happens, it's all good. But that, uh, yeah, I think that concludes the veggie bed that I did this year. And then I just posted too that I finished up the zinnia bed.
00:15:11
Speaker
pulled all those out. That was really hard to do. I like don't like pulling flowers out but they were definitely done. They had had enough. I harvested like three times off of those to save seeds. I have so many zinnia seeds. I'm so stoked about it. I never need to buy zinnia seeds again. But wow, that was really cool. I didn't top those. I'm a big fan of like
00:15:37
Speaker
I appreciate the way that the internet tries to steer people in the right direction and we try to be like, don't do this, do that, don't do this, do that. But at the end of the day, if you don't, how do I word this correctly? If you don't learn what happens when you don't do something, I think you don't fully ever understand why you are doing something. So zinnias is something that everyone always says to top them.
00:16:02
Speaker
And I needed to grow them without topping them because I want to understand why topping would be a successful thing for zinnias and why it would be better for them. And I'm glad that I did that. So like I said, didn't top them. So as they come up and out, they just keep going straight up. So you end up with one lead bud. And that one comes out beautiful. My first flush of flowers was insane. They were all so big and beautiful and just full, full, full.
00:16:31
Speaker
And then like side buds start happening, like lower down. So I would harvest the tops of first flowers and save those for seeds. And then I noticed that progressively as I kept doing that, so the next two side shoots kind of like continue growing, but they're definitely smaller flowers.
00:16:46
Speaker
And then I did a second harvest of all of those. And then the third ones that came out were even smaller. So I'm a home gardener, so does this actually matter for me? No, at the end of the day, I just have a bed of flowers. It's all good. But if you were a flower farmer, definitely you wouldn't want to go through this beautiful first flush and then progressively get worse flowers, right? So I can understand how if you had, and next season I will, if you top them, you're definitely going to get more
00:17:16
Speaker
all similar size buds instead of getting progressively smaller buds. So I definitely understand that. But I'm like so glad that I just like threw them in and like saw what happened. That for me is more important to like learn something for sure. Yeah, it's just hard for me to like justify
00:17:33
Speaker
reading something and being like oh don't do this and then just be like i'll never know what happens if i do do it but i'll just not do it like i don't know in some situations sure but i just love to know the other side of it like okay there's a better and there's like the best way to grow something and i now i understand that maybe the best way to grow zinnias is to top them but like i still want to know what happens if i don't i don't know that's just me
00:17:57
Speaker
But yeah, I just finished those out. I just clipped them out from the ground. I'm going to refill that bed with, they're definitely needs, like there's nothing left out, so I was so depleted. And I only filled both of those beds, actually I only filled with six bags each of raised bed soil, like just from Lowe's. I didn't put any other amendments in the soil because I just wanted to see like, what do you get if you just do like the bare minimum? Again, like
00:18:20
Speaker
OK, yes, you should add like a billion different things like the soil can be so alive, it can be so rich and so nutrient dense. Like if you give it the bare minimum, like what happens? I need to understand like what zero is before I add in like eight other elements to it. You know what I mean? And I still got like I said, did I get a great harvest off of all that stuff? And that was just regular old raised bed soil like from the hardware store. Nothing crazy. But I am going to now amend the soil.
00:18:51
Speaker
And you should probably test in between. I don't know. I've never tested slow before. It's definitely not something I can speak on. I'm sure if I tested it, I could be a lot more intentional about what I was adding to it, but.
00:19:03
Speaker
I'm probably just going to, I'm thinking compost. I have a ton of eggshells that I saved at the beginning of the season, um, that I processed through and saved, uh, in the oven. You can just like rinse them out and you throw them out at like 400 for like 20 minutes and they just dry them out really nice. Crunch them up, throw them in there. It's calcium for your plants.
00:19:25
Speaker
But yeah, I'll probably throw that in and then maybe some more topsoil just to fill it up. It's also not super full, but in my first season, I also didn't want to spend like an arm or a leg and making like a fully full bed.
00:19:38
Speaker
So I only filled it like halfway, and you know what? My plants still grew. They grew into the sandy, sandy soil of Florida, and it's all good. It got a decent harvest off of them. I'm not mad at it. Maybe the next one will be better. We'll see. Who knows?
Pollinator-Friendly Planting
00:19:54
Speaker
And then in front of the zenia bed, I planted marigolds. Now, when I initially planted these, I truly thought that I was planting
00:20:04
Speaker
like the regular marigolds like what everybody's thinking of right now just like the little cute little peanut ones no no your girl planted giant marigolds i had no idea they're receiving both and then actually it was golem that messaged me i was like did you plant like regular marigolds or did you plant gigantic marigolds i was like you know what
00:20:24
Speaker
I actually don't know. And then it turned out they are the giant ones, which is sick. And they were humongous. They were absolutely amazing. I did pinch those because they grew. When I tell you like giant marigolds and cannabis grow like the identical structure, it's like insane. I was like, I know that these need to
00:20:45
Speaker
They have to be topped. And I topped them, and they were crazy. If you saw it on my Instagram, the marigolds went off for the whole entire spring. It was amazing. It's like pollinator highway. The bees loved it. The moths loved it. The amount of butterflies in my yard was absolutely absurd, and it was from these marigolds I am telling you. I also have so many marigold seeds. If anybody wants some, please just hit me up. I literally will send you seeds in the mail. It is no big deal.
00:21:13
Speaker
But oh my god, so many of them. And I just harvested, harvested, harvested, saved so many seeds. It was such a fun process. I probably never need marigold seeds again, but I'll probably still save them every single season.
00:21:28
Speaker
But I just finished those out, chopped those down. They were, yeah, just a crazy. And oh, those weren't even in raised bed soil. Like those were straight up just like in the Florida ground and just absolutely crushed.
Future Gardening Plans
00:21:39
Speaker
I'm going to plant them again, but behind that zinnia bed because they wicked overshadowed like six or six, maybe eight inches into the bed. They were so tall that nothing grew.
00:21:50
Speaker
along that edge because there's just no sun was getting to them. So they're going to go behind it next time so that they can get as tall as they want. And they're not messing with the bed in front of them. And then I might add like a little cute little curved bed in front. We'll see. Yeah, so that is those are the two raised beds. That's what's what's up with them. They're getting replanted probably this weekend after I cut the grass if I have time. We'll see. And then what else we got going on? We have. Oh,
00:22:20
Speaker
The tall flower bed. I love it, but also hot take I am like not You guys might hate me for this, but I am not overly impressed with sunflowers sometimes
00:22:33
Speaker
That's a hot take, but I planted mammoth sunflower seeds. I planted them last year and they totally crapped out. They like did not get enough sun. And these things are like, no joke. Like they're like, they need the sun. Obviously they're sunflowers, but like, I don't know. I was giving it a shot, whatever. So planted them again this year, mammoth sunflowers.
00:22:53
Speaker
In my head, these are the ones that have the absolutely gigantic faces on them. They're not like they just got tall in the sunflower size. The actual bloom is like the same as any other one, which is fine. But like, I don't know, I'm five feet tall. So like, I can't even see.
00:23:11
Speaker
To be honest with you, it's pretty dope that they got over the fence. You can see them from the front of my house into my backyard, which is pretty fresh. But at the end of the day, I don't know. Okay. That's a big old flower. It's pretty tall. Sick. I wish it was the giant ones. I don't know what those are. If anybody knows, please let me know. What am I looking for in seeds? Because this was not it.
00:23:33
Speaker
Um and then I have Solosia in that bed. She's just chugging along. I thought that I messed them up like severely last year. I didn't give them enough sun so they're getting a lot more sun this year and then I also didn't top them last year and I did this year so they're looking different but still progressing at the same rate and they seem to
00:23:53
Speaker
take a lot longer to bloom than I expect every time. They were blooming pretty late in the season. I think I actually harvested those right before the hurricane, if I remember. So they definitely still have like the whole summer to grow, but they are topped this year. So I'm definitely gonna get way more plumes and they give off.
00:24:11
Speaker
absurd amounts of seeds. Literally absurd amounts of seeds. One plume has like three or maybe 400 seeds on them, I swear to God. And they come out so easily. It's like the easiest harvest ever. You clip them off, you dry them, and then you just like gently shake them and just hundreds of seeds fall out. It is incredible. So I'm stoked about those. I can't wait to see them. And then there's a
00:24:34
Speaker
Another tomato plant there that for the longest time, Aiden was like, it's a tomato plant. I was like, it is not a tomato. I did not plant tomatoes over here. It's not a tomato plant. I'm telling you it is not. It is a tomato plant. I forgot that I sewed a ton of seeds into different containers.
00:24:53
Speaker
and put them over in that back corner over there. And then I completely, sauce came in here, my sweet, sweet baby sauce. Sauce got into the garden and ravaged them and just destroyed all the seeds that I had started and nothing had popped up as far as I knew. And I was like, oh, whatever, it's all good. So different seeds, like no big deal, moved on from it. And then, yeah, this plant popped up and I was like, what is this thing?
00:25:15
Speaker
Not thinking. I'm trying to figure out which flower it is that I planted over there. I'm like, what is this? This is crazy. It's a tomato plant. Just a tomato.
00:25:26
Speaker
I don't know why I was so positive it wasn't because I was like, it does look exactly like a tomato, but it just isn't one. It is. That's what it is. I initially did not put a cage on it either. So that thing is a monster. It literally is taking over like a whole corner of my garden over there. It's absurd. It's probably four feet wide and like three feet deep. It's just a, it's insane.
00:25:49
Speaker
But I can't figure out what they, I guess I can understand. It's just been raining so much they just keep splitting on me. I cannot harvest them at like the right time to not have them split. They're always split.
00:26:02
Speaker
I don't know if it's something to do with like the heat or whatever, but, or if it's just straight up just the amount of rain we've been getting. But yeah, those are just split constantly, but they're delicious. I still eat them. I don't even care. It doesn't matter. Um, yeah, those have been sick. Those are just hanging out over there. I threw a few, uh, a few tomatoes out in the front yard. I'm not going to lie. So maybe there'll be tomato plants out there next year too. I just, I love the chaos of that, to be honest.
00:26:28
Speaker
Where are they going to go? I don't know. We'll see. We'll see if there's more flowers next year, won't we? And then I have my hydrangea still chilling.
Vision of a Backyard Fruit Grove
00:26:40
Speaker
I have a beautiful pink hydrangea. I thought they'd be a lot harder to grow down here. It seems like, again, I just need to understand the concept of the flip-flops of seasons. Things like that do not bloom at this time. They're going to bloom probably at the end of the winter coming into our spring.
00:26:56
Speaker
But she had some beautiful blossoms on her when I bought her. I ended up cutting those off pretty quickly because just like with the Florida rain and humidity, they were getting like super, I wanted to leave them on to dry, but they were getting so like mold, not moldy, but like just decomposing basically on the plant, which was not dope. So I cut those off. Oh, there's so many, um,
00:27:22
Speaker
There's so many new bud sites on it. So I'm so stoked about that. I think I'm going to plant it in the ground, but to do that, it requires me building a small, um,
00:27:34
Speaker
I gotta like pull out the grass, I gotta add soil to that area, I gotta make a little, I wanna keep saying a wall, oh my God. I gotta do a wall around it to make like a little bed for it, so I don't know. That's on the back of the project list, because I just have so many other things I gotta do before I build another bed, honestly. But yeah, she's just chilling over there, she's good.
00:27:56
Speaker
And then that brings us to, let's see, the fruit trees are all hanging out. I have a row of fruit trees along the back of my yard. I don't know what it was, but right after we saw this house and we moved in, I made it. It was like I have to have like a fruit grove along the back fence of my house and needs to like
00:28:15
Speaker
fall forward. I want to walk under just branches of fruit trees. I have a vision. I have a vision and it's gonna work, okay? That's what gardening is. You have a crazy vision of the future and you're like, well, gotta start somewhere. So our somewhere was our orange tree. We bought that first when we moved down to Florida. It was like, I mean, I guess it's a little cliche to be like, we're in Florida, we bought an orange tree. But like,
00:28:39
Speaker
I don't know, man, we moved to Florida. We bought an orange tree. It is what it is. And it lived at our rental and was chilling there. And then we moved in and I swear to you, nothing else was in this house. Aiden like comes inside. I had no idea where he went. He like came, comes inside. I'm like, what are you doing? And that was the first thing that he did was like, go plant the orange tree, which is so sweet. So we planted that in the corner. And then next to that is the pomelo.
00:29:06
Speaker
pomelo is the largest, I just read about this the other day, but it's like the largest citrus fruit. And I guess pomelos and oranges crossed is what a grapefruit is. So like, am I going to be able to create grapefruit in my backyard because those are next to each other? I don't actually know if I'm being honest, but that'd be sick.
00:29:27
Speaker
And then I said, and then so many times you guys hate me. I hope not. But then next is the pink guava. She's doing lovely. I finally fed her and she was like, thank you.
00:29:46
Speaker
Oh my God. She was not having a good time. And then I started feeding her and she's like, oh, thank you. I'm doing great now. She's probably doubled in height already, which is pretty sick. And she's got the whole summer to grow. So I'm looking forward to how far she makes it before it starts getting cold here again. She's doing incredible.
00:30:03
Speaker
And then she's kind of a shorty. So what we did was move like way down to the other end of our fence when we got the peach tree because the peach tree is really, really tall. And if I had put her next to the guava, she would the way the sun comes over the yard, she would just like shaded her out really badly. So I want to give the guava some time to grow and like establish its own space of sun that it needs. And then we can start planting next to that again. But the peach tree is down on the opposite end. She's doing lovely as well. She's got like four or five inches of new growth on her. Her inner
00:30:33
Speaker
The leaves that were on the beginning of the branches closest to her stem almost immediately like yellowed and fell off. But I truly just think that she was in a lot more shade at the garden center and then came here and was like, I cannot hang on to all of these leaves. So she dropped all those, which is totally fine. She's been so happy other than that and has a ton of new growth on her, like I said. So she is definitely chilling. She's really, really happy over there.
00:30:58
Speaker
palm trees would be next. We have a, I think they're Queen Majesty for palm, which is just like your classic palm tree, basically, and a fox sale palm, which is my favorite ones. I think they're so stinking cute. The frills come out from all around each stem instead of just off the sides, if that makes sense. I have no idea if that was a good description, but I love both of them. It's so absolutely insane looking out to see my backyard has palm trees in it. I just like,
00:31:28
Speaker
What a life. Someone who lived in New England and always wanted to live somewhere warm, it is so absurd to look out my window and see palm trees. What a dream. And then the banana tree is just, oh my god, the leaves have doubled in size since we planted her, I swear. Everyone that comes out, I'm
00:31:49
Speaker
Shocked that they can just get that big like oh my they're humongous They're like from the center out to the side of the leaf is like over a foot long It is insane how big they are. I don't know a lot about them fruiting yet That's definitely on my like list of planes my yard that I should probably know some more about but either way like oh my god a banana tree in my yard so freaking cool and
00:32:13
Speaker
what? What? So sick. For real. And then that brings us to the front yard dude, which is also just I'm so excited for the front yard.
Cottage Garden Transformation
00:32:24
Speaker
So the front yard is my
00:32:26
Speaker
like kill your lawn kind of vibe area because I love that movement so much. I love the idea of not having traditional like yards because there's absolutely no point to them at the end of the day unless you have like like I do like I have four dogs and like a kid and we just like love to play like sports and stuff in the backyard so like
00:32:46
Speaker
We do have grass. It's fine. It goes all the way around the pool. There's a decent area of grass, but it's also now riddled with trees. We've planted so many trees, and there's obviously plants for so many more beds. There is a right way to do grass, which is what I'm trying to do. Then in the area in the front yard where we don't hang out out there, it's just too close to the road and stuff,
00:33:08
Speaker
Like there, I'm just removing as much lawn as I can. It's just become like this sweet little like, I call it my like cottage garden. I don't even know if it truly gives cottage vibes, but like it does to me. That's all that matters in my opinion. And yeah, out there we have like this row that has become kind of like an edibles row.
00:33:27
Speaker
There's a blueberry bush that I just planted there. Right now in the summer heat, it is definitely not getting a ton of sun. But the way that the sun shifts for the wintertime, that panel, like going down that fence gets so much more sun. And I think that that is actually when that is going to fruit. I don't know that for sure, but it seems like it to me. So I'm interested to see when the sun shifts again.
00:33:51
Speaker
I think after the solstice, like where, like how that does. So I'm interested to see on that one. The monstera is, or one of my monsters is next to that. She's rocking out. She's got new growth on her own time. And then there's my strawberry patch that has, I say nastarium. It's apparently like nasturtium or something like that, but what an odd word. I'm going to say nastarium. I don't care. I don't think it matters. Say whatever you want.
00:34:17
Speaker
And my strawberry patch who is not producing fruit so much so right now because it's so hot out, but it's definitely sending out lots of little like babies. And I hope that that just fills in like crazy with strawberries. That would be so cool. Florida strawberry season is like the winter time is insane.
00:34:34
Speaker
But they're so cool, dude. Literally, there's hundreds of strawberry fields around where we live and it's just insane. The strawberry festival of the world happens a few towns over from where we live. It's just wild. The strawberry festival of the world. That might not be 100% factual, but
00:34:55
Speaker
That's what it is to me. I don't know. I come from freaking Apple Valley. So now I live in strawberry land, apparently, and it's wild. And then there's my sweet little. This patch is just so wild, just it's just living its own life over there. It.
00:35:15
Speaker
is underneath the tree but the tree does not fill in until Easter was the first time I saw bloom or like new leaves on it this year so the whole spring season it is full sun in that era which is so sick and then it becomes like mostly shade when the heat comes in so all the plants they are like so they just are so happy it's amazing
00:35:33
Speaker
And it was all just grass underneath it. I started ripping it out because I had originally put my raised beds under there thinking that I was crushing where I was going to grow vegetables. And it was just the wrong spot for so many reasons. It was a terrible spot. So I ripped those raised beds out and I spread all that soil out and finished ripping all the grass out and made this huge bed right there. And when I tell you, the Florida natives just appeared. They're just there.
00:36:02
Speaker
I did not plant a single thing over there. Florida natives wise, like I just like let it happen and it is the most incredible, beautiful undergrowth and like, I call it like a first story. I don't know if that's right where it's probably all just undergrowth, but like all my, it is insanely beautiful. It looks like a forest floor. It is gorgeous. All these different types of little like wild florals and like, oh,
00:36:27
Speaker
It's just like absolutely fantastic. And I grew zinnias in there last season, like in the previous winter season. And at the end of that season, I just spread those. I just like took the seeds head, crumbled them up like all throughout that bed. And now there's just zinnias popping up everywhere. I cannot wait to see that when it's in bloom. It's gonna be insane. Tons of cranberry hibiscus going on in there. I actually don't.
00:36:54
Speaker
Love it all in there. It looks very crowded. Those things grow like crazy. They were like six or eight inch cuts when I planted them at the end of last year and they are, I already cut them back twice and they're like three or 14 feet tall. Like, I don't know.
00:37:12
Speaker
Very cool to get cranberry hibiscus flower. They're beautiful. They are amazing in tea if you dry them But I don't know if that's like the vibe for my yard to be honest There's like monster bushes and I'm not really too into it very intense and there's a deep deep purple so they're like really stand out like your eyes very drawn to them and they're just these like giant leafy bushes, so I don't know they're pretty but
00:37:37
Speaker
We'll see if they make it to next year. There's semi, what's the right word? Semi perennial, I think. So after two or three years, they die back regardless. However, I've already seen it happening. I didn't pull all the flowers off last year. So they become seed pods. And when those drop, they like clearly propagate like crazy. So I also have a ton of like very small new cranberry hibiscus that are in there.
00:38:02
Speaker
So, I might be stuck with cranberry viscous in there for the rest of my life, but we'll see. And what's left to talk about? Oh, my sweet little pollinator patch. This patch is really not terribly done yet. There's a tropical milkweed plant in there.
00:38:23
Speaker
that I should have pruned back before winter set in and I didn't. So it kind of just looked like wild sticks growing out of the ground. But I did prune it back in the springtime. Like I said, I probably should have done it in the winter, but I still did it in spring and they still have now created a ton more shoots. So it's becoming a lot bushier, which is awesome. And those are a really important food source for monarch butterflies. So that's really dope that that's in there.
00:38:52
Speaker
And then there's some false heather, which are just small, sweet little shrubs with these very delicate flowers. I have a white one and a purple one in there. Again, the pollinators are obsessed with those. I love them so much. I have bee balm in there, which I planted last year and was like, what is going on with this plant? Nothing is happening. I looked up the flowers. This should be a beautiful little plant. And it just didn't do anything. And I asked my friend Tana about it. And she was like, oh, I found out that those don't bloom even until their second year.
00:39:21
Speaker
I was like, oh sick. So it is their second year. It's back. They, oh, they're so cool though. They spread via like rhizome. So they spread underneath the ground and then more shoots come out from like the rooting area. So there are so many like shoots this year. So if this really does flower this year, it's going to be absolutely absurd. But I mean, I haven't seen a single thing that looks like a blossom on it yet.
00:39:45
Speaker
But we'll see. I don't know. Never say never. We'll find out. And then I have a yellow lantern in a purple lantern that I'm really trying to grow up a trellis, but they are so heavy.
Garden Maintenance and Aesthetics
00:40:02
Speaker
And I don't have it tied to anything. I was just trying to let the plant kind of like weave, like work with the plant and weave it together and get it up onto the trellis. But it doesn't seem too into it. So I think I'm going to have to actually try to use string and like tie it up and get that to climb. It's not really a climbing plant, but it just like it grows insanely. So I think that it'll work. I just got to kind of try, you know. And finally in there, I have a beautiful blanket flower plant.
00:40:31
Speaker
give seed like crazy but it doesn't seem like mine is like letting go of its seed heads very quickly so I have a ton of dead seed heads on there that I really really need to go through and prune because now there's like almost no flowers on it because it just is like hanging on to so much dead weight but
00:40:50
Speaker
I don't know. We'll see. Definitely need some time out in the yard this weekend after cutting the grass to just like prune some stuff and give some stuff some like a level of room, if you will. But yeah, man, I think that's most of it. I think I just went through mostly garden. If I miss anything.
00:41:07
Speaker
I couldn't amend that and pour in, right? In theory. Um, I hope that wasn't obnoxious to listen to, but that was like, I guess episode two is a good place to tell you what I actually have going on in my garden. Um, I definitely am a, I wouldn't call myself like too structured of a gardener. Like, yes, I have like raised beds, but I just like, I would rather throw seeds in and just have more like.
00:41:36
Speaker
I guess I prefer what looks more like landscaping, not so intentional, like not the like, which I love this, by the way, I'm not like knocking it at all, but it's not so much the like structured like three plants and then one in the middle and then like the lines and rows like that, like I really like it to be kind of crazy and chaotic and wild looking, but
00:41:56
Speaker
Even the raised beds and the vegetables this year, like I guess I just do that more to like learn. And it's like for fun with the vegetables as opposed to planting and growing for like.
00:42:08
Speaker
I don't know. I wanted to just look so much more natural here. We moved in and there was literally nothing was planted. There's no plants in the ground whatsoever. There was a few out in the front of the house and they had just put them in the ground and they looked terrible. They're the worst plants someone could buy from Lowe's. They were like, these ones.
00:42:26
Speaker
why did you plant these um and i rip those out like in the first week that we lived here i'm pretty sure i was like absolutely not i'm not having this in front of my house they're terrible um but i really am just trying to slowly but thoughtfully
00:42:42
Speaker
Just make it so much more part of nature and more like wildlife friendly and like happy in that way I'm not too into having like a zillion raised beds around I really want them to be like beds that are embedded in the ground and like growing Perennial like plants that are going to come back year after year. I don't want to have to replant a dozen garden beds like every single year But that's just my type of gardening. I'm just saying like I'm not a huge veggie gardener I'm definitely more of like florals and like perennials and stuff like that, but
00:43:12
Speaker
Either way, super sick. Just whatever your vibe is, man. It doesn't matter. Gardening is gardening at the end of the day, as long as you have some things in the ground and you're having a good time. What the heck? Doesn't matter. But yeah, I think that's about it for that. That's all the plants. I have a handful of house plants, but I honestly dwindled down
00:43:33
Speaker
When I got to Florida and I realized that there are plants that you buy, like a specialty garden shop in New England, or plants that people stick in their yards as filler down here, it was just a very odd shift of perspective. And I was like, okay, I probably don't need a zillion plants in my house because I can have a zillion plants outside of my house.
Indoor vs Outdoor Gardening
00:43:53
Speaker
So it was just way too much work to have a huge indoor plant collection and be trying to garden
00:44:00
Speaker
outside. It was just way too much. So I definitely made that shift more outdoor gardening from indoor gardening, but still obviously love all the indoor plants that I do have. But yeah, man, that's my garden. Those are the plants in which I grow. I would love to like, that's what I love to hear from people is like, everyone
00:44:22
Speaker
People talk about them failing at growing a certain type of plant. But I think it's just that you maybe didn't find your niche of growing yet. Or you just haven't tried all the different things that there are to grow. Or you planted the wrong plant in the wrong place. It's not you doing a bad job. Sometimes you're just like, I heard all the stars in the line. Or it didn't work at that time, but it will work next time. It really is just about trying.
00:44:49
Speaker
Gardening is just such an expansive and humongous topic, and there's so much to it. There's so many different things to grow. There's so many ways to grow. There's so many techniques to growing. It's just about getting into it and learning what the vibe is of your area, your type of growing, your environment, what your time investment can be. All of this dude is just so down to
00:45:16
Speaker
what you and individual and individual plant are looking to do or can accomplish. It's so particular to each individual plant in each individual place for each individual person. It's so wild. I could send seeds to somebody else from my plants. They could plant them in almost the exact same conditions that I had here. And at the end of the day, it's going to be a little different.
00:45:42
Speaker
But that's the beauty of it is we're all just creating our own beautiful individual plots of what we're doing. It's so sick. I love it so much.
00:45:52
Speaker
Garden Instagram is the best, dude. I love being on there. I love seeing people growing in just crazy different areas, the type of growing they do, the time of year that they're doing the growing. It's all different for every single person, such an individual experience. It is so crazy. Once you get into it, once you start growing in your area, you're like, whoa, this is like
00:46:16
Speaker
my individual growing and gardening experience, so unique and tapered to me. How I got here, why I grow and I grow, it is all so tapered down to the things that you love, the things that are important. I know everybody else has plants in their yard, but you have them because they bring you back to a specific place or memory or they hold some
00:46:40
Speaker
and wildly individual like representation for you like that's every single person like we all share those stories of like why we do what I do or why we do what we do like beautiful I love that it's just like a whole extra layer to your personality being like and this is my like who I am as a gardener it's like oh so deep and beautiful
00:47:03
Speaker
I love it, I love it, I love it. But yeah, man, that's
Special Guest Appearance and Gratitude
00:47:07
Speaker
just mine. I can't wait until I have my first guest on. It will be with Gwillam. We just chatted for the first time on the phone in like years. We've kept in touch so wonderfully. Like Instagram's such a beautiful thing in that way. I think you can just keep in touch with so many people.
00:47:23
Speaker
probably just had it on the phone for like not even 10 minutes and it was like already so much fun. I cannot wait to have him on it's going to be fantastic but for now just you know bringing it into the into the world of me I guess um everybody that has reached out so far and has listened thank you guys so much I can't tell you how like
00:47:47
Speaker
Like, I guess you guys know, like it to put something out into the world and be like, Hey, this is like me and like how I garden, like whatever, like hope you enjoy. And like the feedback I've gotten from you guys is just like incredible. Like I've had such a fun week. I've loved talking to you guys. I've loved inviting people to come onto the podcast is like so fun and like exciting. And I love planning that out with you guys. I can't wait to have guests on here. Um, but yeah, this has been incredible.
00:48:15
Speaker
Thank you guys. Thank you so much for reaching out. Thank you for listening. Thank you for encouraging if you've given encouraging words. Thank you so much. I can't wait for you guys to hear more. I can't wait to record more of these.
00:48:30
Speaker
And that's about it. I think I'm going to click off now. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I can't wait to talk to you guys next week. I hope you have a fantastic rest of your day. I hope you go out in your garden and kiss a little flower. Go buy some flowers. Dang. You walked by a flower this weekend? Pick that girl up. Buy a flower. Why not? Stick that thing in your yard. Have you not started gardening yet? Get out there.
00:48:55
Speaker
Get out there, girl. Go garden. You already have a garden. Go out there. Get some time out there. Go stand in the sun. Yep. That's all. Enjoy. Have fun. I'll talk to you guys next week. Later.