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Steve Wood - Past, Present & Future of Horticulture
31 Plays3 years ago
Steve Wood is an award winning horticultural communicator and podcast host with over 40 years of experience in the wholesale nursery business . Steve and host Mykal chat about the the wide range of aspects of the horticultural industry that Steve has been involved in throughout his career from retail to wholesale right through to his media work.
CLICK HERE FOR PATREON
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Episode Links:
All The Dirt Podcast
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Growing Media Links:
GROWING MEDIA WEBSITE
Instagram - @Growingmediaaus
Facebook - @Growingmediaaus
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Mykal's Links:
Instagram - @mykalhoare
Facebook - @mykalhoare
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Transcript
Introduction to Growing Media Podcast
00:00:03
Speaker
Growing Media is a proudly independent podcast produced by me, Michael Hall, with zero corporate or network interference in our content. But this means we are running on the smell of an oily rag over here. So if you like the show and would like to make a small contribution, you could head over to our Patreon. You can find the link in our show notes.
00:00:28
Speaker
The producers of growing media recognise the traditional owners of the land on which this podcast is recorded and pay respects to Aboriginal elders past, present and those emerging.
Opening the 'Bring the Jungle' Boutique
00:00:43
Speaker
Hello, my name's Michael Haw and welcome to the very first episode of Growing Media for 2022. I know it sounds a little weird saying that when we're almost in April already, but I have had an absolutely manic start to my year. All my own doing, of course. I have opened a houseplant boutique in Katoomba in the Blue Mountains. It's called Bring the Jungle. If you're in the area, pop on in.
00:01:07
Speaker
But from now on, I am back with you recording these episodes, which I absolutely love to do. And we have some amazing guests coming up this year. But without further ado, let's jump straight in to this week's episode. My guest today is none other
00:01:25
Speaker
than a horticultural shapeshifter using his green thumbs through all different facets of the industry, from being a passionate horticultural communicator to his long career in the wholesale nursery industry.
Steve Wood's Unexpected Horticulture Journey
00:01:38
Speaker
In fact, I bet in your garden right now there's a plant that Steve introduced to Australia. Please welcome personal hero of mine and co-host of the All The Dirt podcast, Steve Wood.
00:01:51
Speaker
Hi, Steve. Oh, Michael. Hello. And what a beautiful introduction. Thank you so much, mate. Oh, geez. No worries at all. Thank you so much for being on the show. I have been so excited to chat to you. But before we hit in too hard, let's wind the clock back a bit. Have you always been a West Australian man? Yes. Born and bred. Yeah. We go back to the 1850s. My great, great grandfather came over.
00:02:19
Speaker
as a convict, he'd served his last day when the boat arrived in Fremantle. So he picked up a wheelbarrow and headed up towards 2J. He set up a little shop up there. It was actually a cobbler. He was only very young, but a cobbler by trade. Set up a first little shop and then went on to build the town's first hotel, which still stands today, the Victoria Hotel, and became the
00:02:49
Speaker
the Lord Mayor up there and became quite an honourable position. But that's where the Wood Heritage sort of starts in WA. How fantastic. It was good to know that. I mean, a lot of people probably don't know a lot about their kind of history. Yeah, I didn't find out until later, you know, later in life. And it was, I think it was going back a few decades, that convict connection was sort of, you know,
00:03:16
Speaker
a bit shameful or whatever and was held in, held back, but I loved it. Fantastic history. I raced up there as soon as I found out and found where his grave was and his wife and their children and quickly went down the rabbit hole of his history. It was quite incredible. How did you get started in horticulture?
00:03:43
Speaker
Well, it's a funny thing. So I did horticulture to kill a little bit of time, to tell you the truth. My father was already third generation car dealer.
From Backyard Nursery to Retail Outlet
00:03:56
Speaker
In fact, my great, great grandfather came over who was a cobbler. He ended up trading horses and his elder son,
00:04:04
Speaker
uh, became a mechanical fitter and then had sort of like the first, I guess, uh, car dealership in, in Western Australia back in, you know, turn of the century. And then, so he trained his sons, which was my grandfather and then my father went on. So I just naturally thought I'm going in the car business. Yeah. And family trade. Yeah. A lot of history there. And, and we all loved our cars and actually.
00:04:32
Speaker
I know not all car dealerships have a perfect reputation, but Dad and his brother had a wonderful reputation in the industry, even with the RAC and that sort of thing. One of the few recommended car yards in Western Australia, if people were asking where to buy a car from. And they had a Mazda dealership. So, yeah, grew up with a love and a passion for
00:04:54
Speaker
for cars and motorbikes and planes and still have, you know, I still love all that stuff. But yeah, so I thought, okay, let me, you know, dad was a mad keen gardener and a wonderful landscaper out on his home property. We grew up in the foothills of Perth in a little town called Darlington. And on two and a half acres there that ran down to the old railway line and he landscaped this property exquisitely. So I developed
00:05:23
Speaker
a passion and an interest in that area there. But I've just finished my apprenticeship. Dad was in partnership with his brother. And I said, I'm ready, you know, I'm ready to come in and he goes, look, we've decided to sell the business. Yeah, it's getting it's getting too hard to sort of break this down. You know, his brother had had children and of course, dad,
00:05:52
Speaker
you know, my other siblings as well. He said, we just can't see how we can keep dividing this down, you know, watering it down further and further. So we're selling the business. Okay. Well, better get on with it back. I'd already had a bit of a nursery in the backyard and, you know, we're selling stock and, and, uh, so I guess we just took it to another level and, and started to take the nursery industry, uh, head on and, um, never regretted that.
00:06:22
Speaker
So moonlighting basically in your parents' backyard. Uh-huh. What kind of plants were you growing? Herbs. Herbs. Yeah. I had to grow something that was fast and quick turnover because they had limited space. And yeah, and then they would just trade them down at the local markets. And yeah, it was fun. It was good. Good introduction. So how then did you build that up into opening your own retail outlet?
00:06:52
Speaker
Well, what happened is that it's fairly young, was in my early 20s and bought a house up in Glen Forest, which once again is just in the foothills here in Perth. And I was on an acre and a quarter there. And I just set up a bit of the backyard, you know, collected bush poles and
00:07:13
Speaker
saved up for about six months for a roll of shade cloth. And it was like that in those days. It was tough, especially trying to pay off the house and all that sort of thing. But I did that and I was together with my gorgeous wife and we would take cuttings at night. I was working for the city of Perth at the time and as a tech officer in council house there. And my wife was trained to be a school teacher and
00:07:43
Speaker
But we'd take cuttings at night, and then we'd take the plants down to the markets on the weekend. And we saw whatever we got, we'd put back into the nursery. But we came across this little plant called Rips aldopsis, which is sort of a spring flowering hanging basket cactus. And great little, bit like the zygote cactus, but flatter leaf and a bit more stunning in its flower.
00:08:13
Speaker
So we got onto these and we were taking them down and found that the demand for them was really high, limited flowering period. But we decided to grow a lot of them, you know, like I'm talking. It was a lot to us in those days. It was about five thousand of them. Yeah, right. And we
A Breakthrough Order with Woolworths
00:08:30
Speaker
got them already.
00:08:33
Speaker
They grow easy from leaf cutting. We put them all in the same size pot. So they looked incredibly uniform, grew the batch all the same age. So it was, it just, they look great. You know, they all came into bud and dad happened to be playing golf with the, um, one of the buyers from Woolworths. And, um, he was telling it, and cause dad was retired now here, mum would come up and give us a hand taking cuttings and looking after the baby while, while we were potting and stuff like that. And, um, anyway,
00:09:03
Speaker
The Woolies buyer sort of, dad was telling him what we were up to and he said, mind if I pop up and have a look? He came up and had a look and he goes, I'll take the lot. And so we were going to, we were going to sort of try and sell them at all the different markets around Perth. You know, we'd lined up friends and people take him out for the weekend for the next sort of four or five weekends to three or four different markets and sell them. He said, no, I'll take the lot. You know, he wrote out an order and
00:09:33
Speaker
And that was the beginning of, I guess, of really a commercial sense of growing. And then on that, because Dad had sold the business and that, he was about to buy a little house down in Sooby for rental. And I think the house at the time was, I don't know, it was about 30 grand or something back in those days. And I talked him into, I said, look, how about if
00:10:01
Speaker
We buy this property in High Wycombe. There was two and a half acres down there that zoned primary producing, which was a real bonus. Perfect. And yeah, and I said, I'll pay you the same rent as you get as you get for the house in Sooby. And he and mum agreed on that, which was wonderful. And so we set up a little nursery down there that became Woods Cottage Nursery. And we spent the first three years of that little business open.
00:10:30
Speaker
as retailers. That taught us a lot about the retail industry. It taught us a lot even more about the wholesale industry in many ways, because we realized that the net profit coming in, we'd be working on around 10% net, let's say, of turnover. And if we bought in 10 plants from a wholesaler and say eight of them were excellent,
00:10:58
Speaker
One was okay and one was a bit dodgy. If we didn't sell that last plant, we'd sold the first nine plants for no return. And it taught us as growers because we were doing a little bit of wholesaling on the side. We were as well at the time. And what had happened is that we'd gone, it was very much the native plant era that went through the late seventies and early eighties.
00:11:23
Speaker
But I had a bit of a bent from, because of working with the city of Perth and working in old world gardens, I had a keen interest in perennials and European trees. But perennials was my passion. So we were importing perennials from Norgates over in Victoria and the Dandenons there. They'd send them over, they'd dig them out of the ground, send them over bare rooted.
00:11:50
Speaker
And we'd pop them up, grow them a little bit, split them again and then sell them through the retail outlet. And so what happened is that we had this beautiful little cottage garden nursery that was in its infancy as far as cottage plants went or perennials went at that time. But as the native interest in native plants started to wane a little and people were looking for a little more color in the garden,
00:12:16
Speaker
A lot of other growers started coming, sorry, a lot of other retailers started coming to us and growers, I might say as well. But the other retailers would come to us and say, look, we can we buy some stock off you? So you were kind of perfectly positioned there to kind of jump on that next trend, really. Yeah, it was it was cool. It was really great. We're in the right spot at the right time.
00:12:41
Speaker
So we realized that if we delivered 10 plants to a garden center, there had to be 10 perfect plants. And that helped us enormously in establishing our wholesale arm. And then my little boy was five years old by about this time now, and he was just starting primary school. And so I wanted Sundays off.
00:13:09
Speaker
And whereas before Sundays were our busiest day when we're retail. So we went pure wholesale after that. Yeah. Okay. So that's when kind of Woods Cottage Nursery as the retail outlet just went by the wayside a bit and you just started servicing. Was it just WA or was it Australia-Wired at that point? At that note, it was just WA and that kept us pretty darn busy, I've got to say, because yeah, in those days,
00:13:36
Speaker
there was a lot of garden centers, Michael, you know, and all through the country as well. We had a, had a significant customer base and, um, you know, up to a couple of hundred customers towards the end. And, and, um, uh, yeah, it's not quite like that these days, but that's just, as you just kind of alluded to, I suppose like big businesses sort of come in a little bit and we're not a little bit, a lot bit. And, um,
00:14:03
Speaker
really taken over, you know, the bunnings of the world have gotten into the nursery game, which I suppose has been a positive in some aspects, but for the smaller retailers and for, I suppose, you know, smaller wholesalers as well, really kind of destroyed their businesses a little bit. How did that kind of, you know, is there, is there still a place for the smaller nursery?
00:14:29
Speaker
Well, look, I truly believe there is. Absolutely.
COVID's Impact on Gardening Trends
00:14:33
Speaker
Yeah. Because what comes with a smaller nursery and not taking anything away from from the Bunnings stores or even the Bunnings staff, because there's some wonderful, passionate people out there in horticulture working there.
00:14:47
Speaker
But when you do go to a smaller garden center, you'll see the staffing numbers are higher. It's just the way that it is and the way that it must be. And so I find that there's more support in there. And normally, if you're running a garden center these days, you're doing it out of passion. It's not a high financial return business.
00:15:14
Speaker
it's something that you do because you love. And if someone's owning and operating a small garden center and they're sharing that passion with their customers and sourcing unusual plant varieties, I believe a small garden center these days has to have a theme. It doesn't have to be limited to that theme of what they're growing or
00:15:37
Speaker
But a theme is, you know, it might be something like rare and unusual plants. And on top of that, they can have lots of just normal common plants as well. But if they've got that theme, something to draw people so that a garden center these days must be a destination.
00:15:54
Speaker
And within that, I think there's a lot of potential and still room for growth in the future to return into that area. It's an interesting point there. I suppose the Bunnings is a bit more of like a generalist, whereas, you know, a smaller centre could and should be sort of a bit more specific, a bit more tailored to a gardener's taste potentially. Absolutely. That's where, you know, and people get
00:16:20
Speaker
can still get a real thrill out of going into small, passionate little garden centers like that. I know I do. I sure do too. Even I was thinking about the resurgence during COVID of the small garden center being available online.
00:16:38
Speaker
I found that fantastic. Ordering plants online and finding all of these little niche nurseries and wholesalers popping up online and being able to like audio stock in that way as well has been kind of a joy over the last couple of years. It's a really interesting phenomenon, Michael, because a good mate of mine who started horticulture the same time I did
00:17:00
Speaker
He actually runs an online plant nursery and it completely and utterly blows my mind some of the pricing that he gets with online plants. And his passion is indoor plants, which of course is a great theme to follow at the moment. But he sells plants in five inch pots
00:17:27
Speaker
on the odd occasion for in excess of $2,000 a plant. And I just find it fascinating, even in my wildest dreams, you know, I would never imagine that a 125 mil or a five inch pot selling for over $2,000. And he's done that a few times. So it's a really exciting world because you haven't got those overheads of, you know, having a property, you know, like a big retail outlet and all the rest.
00:17:57
Speaker
And yet he still has a lot of fun and a lot of pleasure and brings a lot of pleasure to other people as well. You know, supplying really unusual, rare and unusual stuff and encouraging that whole wonderful indoor plant theme that's going on. Phenomenon, yeah. It is a phenomenon, but I love it. I love seeing it come back.
Indoor Plant Popularity and Accessibility
00:18:18
Speaker
Oh, so do I. Indoor plants is actually kind of where I really got involved with plants. And I think that's how, you know, a lot of people are getting into hort and gardening these days is via that. I mean, I'd love to have $2,000 to spend on a $500, but I don't think that'll happen for me.
00:18:36
Speaker
I think it's been a wonderful, the indoor plant trend has been a wonderful way to bring younger plant lovers back into the fold too. Well, absolutely. And it's also what I found when I was renting, it was really the best way to be a gardener when you had no real way of putting anything in the ground. It kind of made sense. And I think the way
00:19:01
Speaker
You know, a lot of people in my generation are worried that they won't be able to buy homes. Well, hey, that's how you get a garden in the future. Exactly. Yep. And it's a great deal of pleasure. A lot of fun. And as you say, fully transportable. So that's it. Yeah.
00:19:16
Speaker
Touching back on, I suppose, the wholesale industry. Obviously, you're not in that game anymore, but I did have a question around sort of the sustainability methods that are used in the industry and where you think it's going to go in the future. So, you know, I'm thinking about the problem with plastic pots and fertilizers that are derived from fossil fuels and things like that. What's the future of that?
00:19:43
Speaker
It's a big one because to work in horticulture is one of those jobs where you wake up each morning and you look forward to going to work. Yeah. At the end of the day, you look at your watch and if it's five o'clock rather than waiting for five o'clock to come, you get frustrated. Oh, it's five o'clock. I've run out of time. Yeah. You know, so you cannot ask for any more than that. If that's your job,
00:20:11
Speaker
That's the industry you work in, and that's how you feel about your working day. It's the ultimate. However, yin and yang is in every aspect of our lives. The negative, the positive, the light, the dark. And within horticulture, the dark, number one for me, is the chemicals. And we've been through over, I guess, 45 years,
00:20:40
Speaker
I've seen many chemicals come and go, and the ones that have gone, when we were using them, we were told they were safe.
00:20:50
Speaker
They no longer are, you know, and within that is phenomenal negatives. I'm talking, you know, particular disease and of all descriptions. And so it's devastating to see something that you're working with on a daily basis taken off the market. And that happens a lot in our industry. How things get past and we're told they're safe.
00:21:16
Speaker
are perfectly safe to use and then further down the track, uh-oh, we made a mistake, breaks my heart. So with the chemicals still out there, there's still obviously within general horticulture, including the way our food is grown, the way our plants are grown. There's a lot of things that are used in the commercial industry that are no longer available to the retail market, they're no longer on the shelf.
00:21:44
Speaker
And that disturbs me as well. But so that's one of the gray areas or the dark areas. And of course, the other one is the one you touched on, the plastics. And plastics was always a devastating thing to have to purchase and to use. There are recycling
00:22:08
Speaker
initiatives that have come into the industry, but I think they need to be embraced a lot more. For me personally, we still grow. We grow on a much smaller basis these days. We sell at our local farmer's market, but we grow everything in paper pots, recycled paper and peat pots. And these are
00:22:36
Speaker
They're made by the company Jiffy. They're imported from the country Denmark. So obviously travel miles involved there. And maybe there's a potential for them to be manufactured more locally in the future. But I love these things. They are absolutely wonderful. We grow in an eight centimeter plant, a pot that you plant straight into the ground and the roots come out
00:23:03
Speaker
As you're growing the seedlings, we specialize in vegetables and herbs, but the roots come out through the paper pot and you just plant the pot and all. So within that, people are buying these little plants for $2 each, taking them home, putting them in their veggie garden. They're ready to start picking often within a week or two. No root transplant shock, taking them out of pot and teasing them out and all that sort of stuff.
00:23:33
Speaker
They just go straight in the ground and I am seeing a lot more commercial growers use them in the production stage. So they're not using them in the final sell to retail stage because they are very fragile. We're able to do that because we nurture them and we sort of make sure that our customers know that they are fragile and
00:23:59
Speaker
but our customers love them. They love the fact that they're not buying plastic and we love the fact that we're supplying them. But a lot of the growers are using these in the various growing stages within the nursery and which would have normally been
00:24:16
Speaker
they would have normally utilized plastic pots and then they're finishing them off in a plastic pot just for resilience in the shop. However, we're seeing things starting to change and I believe that product will come out in the future.
00:24:36
Speaker
that will be more biodegradable. And if there is product out there now, yes, but it's deemed unaffordable.
Sustainable Innovations in Horticulture
00:24:44
Speaker
So, you know, whether we have to pay a little more for our plants and have them in a pot that can withstand being in a shop for maybe three to six months without breaking down, but eventually does break down, that's where I'd like to see the industry go in the future.
00:25:02
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, me too. That's a quite an interesting thought that, yeah, these things are being implemented and you may not be able to see them on the shelf, but maybe there's a little tick that you need or something on the tags or something to let consumers know that it's a good product and that, you know, before this one pot, it has been sort of a problem. I like your thinking, Michael.
00:25:26
Speaker
There's a lot of merit in that. Absolutely. Yeah, I can. Yeah. Maybe, you know, look, we have to go down this path. We just have to. We cannot continue.
00:25:36
Speaker
you know, polluting this precious planet of ours. We've got to nurture it and brilliant idea. Yeah. So as a part of your career, you got together with a group of other growers from interstate and started to form a network that enabled you to share plants and discover plants overseas, bring them back and then share them throughout the country. How did that start?
00:26:06
Speaker
That was one of the most wonderful things that happened to us. We what happened back and we're going back now into the mid 80s. OK.
00:26:20
Speaker
And at the time, things were starting to color up a little bit in the industry. So we were starting to see plant labels that would take on a bit of character and a little bit of life, you know, and tell more than just the basics. So before it was just sort of like common name, botanical name, very, very simple basic information.
00:26:44
Speaker
But all of a sudden, it popped up a label for a particular daisy, in fact it was, and it was a lovely, big, bright label, yellow in colour, sort of mimicked the flower in many ways. And when we were growing these particular daisies that the label had been made up for,
00:27:08
Speaker
And I had to look at this label and thought, wow, that is going to really set this plant off. And and then actually thought, what about if we were able to put it in the same color pot as the flower and the flash label? So I contacted the owner of that label in Victoria and he invited us to come over and visit him, which I did.
00:27:38
Speaker
And as it turned out, it was the beginning of a concept that he was working on of more and more of these colourful labels. At the same time, he was being contacted by other growers around the country as well.
00:27:53
Speaker
And we decided at that time, we started to get introduced to each other because a couple of the other growers from New South Wales and Queensland and Tasmania, they wanted to start making colourful labels and something that had a bit of character as well. As it turned out, we were all perennial growers. We were all riding this wave, this new perennial wave that was going through the retail industry.
00:28:22
Speaker
So we decided to form a group. We formed this group called Australian Perennial Growers, and we met quarterly in a state. So whichever state the meeting was held that quarter, Tassie's, you know, Sydney, Melbourne, Queensland. And it turned into something very, very special because what we decided to do in conjunction with Norwood Industries, which is the label manufacturing company,
00:28:52
Speaker
is that for every label that we shared amongst each other, and the fact that we're all growers from different states, we could share not only the labels, but we could share
00:29:05
Speaker
intellectual property, you know, and also knowledge. Yeah. So if someone had a protected plant, they know that they could share it with someone in the group that could, that could, you know, that wouldn't sell it and take their market. And with the labels, what happened is that we, when we shared a label, we would put 10 cents from every label back into a kitty. Okay. And that kitty was collected both very, you know, it's a great help to us by the label company by Norwood's.
00:29:35
Speaker
And that kitty started to grow really, really fast. And that enabled us to not only share plants amongst each other, but to, so there were six directors in Australian perennial growers, but for also for the directors to take money from that kitty to travel overseas and to source new plant varieties.
00:29:57
Speaker
And it was a dream. It was an absolute dream. And each of us secured on our properties our own quarantine facilities. So we each built a quarantine house in accordance with all the quarantine regulations at the time.
00:30:19
Speaker
And then we would travel either individually or two directors would go to a particular place.
Building a Growers Network
00:30:27
Speaker
And we did many trips through North America and China and New Zealand and Europe. And it wasn't uncommon to bring back between 100 to 150 plants per trip, which we would then put into our own quarantine houses.
00:30:49
Speaker
and care for those plants. On average, those plants would stay there for around three months, around 12 weeks. They'd be inspected by a quarantine officer on a fortnightly basis. And if after three months they were deemed to be free of disease, they would release them. But it would often give us the opportunity in the quarantine house to start at a little bit of propagation within the quarantine house. So as long as the plant stayed within there, it was considered okay.
00:31:19
Speaker
So then what would happen is that when we attended our quarterly meetings, after trialing, getting the plants out of quarantine and trialing them over a period of time, normally 12 months to make sure that they were, you know, had good characteristics, we would share them amongst each other. So before we knew it, we had
00:31:44
Speaker
more access to more plants than we almost knew what to do with. But within that group, there was a couple of members there, Minica Collins in particular, who was a marketing guru, absolutely. And so we were able to take out fantastic adverts in the different magazines, the gardening magazines.
00:32:14
Speaker
you know, local newspapers and things like that, and launch these plants to, you know, to sort of giddy heights, really, and plants that would become ultimately sort of household names. And so it was, it was fun. It was a really, really great fun. And it was fun for all the staff as well, because having new plant growing, sourcing, growing and
00:32:41
Speaker
you know, rocking up to, we'd have a sales van. My brother, I was in partnership with my brother, which was just fantastic. And my brother did the sales run and dispatch and he'd take the sales van out each week and he'd slide the door open and they're staring at the, you know, going from garden center to garden center.
00:33:02
Speaker
and staring at them would be these, you know, plants they'd never seen before, colored pots with the most incredible labels that it, and they'd seen the ads appear in the Your Garden magazine or in, you know, the newspapers and they were hungry for them, they just wanted them. And so the plant sold themselves in many ways and it was so much fun.
00:33:25
Speaker
Well, let's be honest here. I mean, this, so this basically including yourself, this core group of six people literally revolutionized the Australian nursery industry. Well, look, that's a very, that's a very kind thing to say. Um, but I've got to, you know, look, in many ways, these guys were the top, you know, they were top growers in their state and, uh, they were held in very high regard and, and, uh, yes, you know, in many ways they did.
00:33:54
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. So how does it work today? Are there scouts out there still doing this sort of work? Obviously, we've got breeders in Australia kind of developing plants and whatnot, but are there people still out there searching for those rare plants?
00:34:14
Speaker
The world's become a smaller place. With the internet, it's different. And quarantine laws have tightened. In those days when we were importing plants, we were basically able to import a plant that was not on the weed list. Today, it's the other way around.
00:34:40
Speaker
if you're importing a plant that isn't known, you basically have to prove that it has no chance of becoming a weed. Which makes sense. It's absolutely fine. And so it's become a lot harder to import plants than it was for the 20 years that we were hard at it. So that's tightened up.
00:35:05
Speaker
As I say, the Internet's made the world a much more smaller space or connected. Yeah, more connected. And if there is something new out there, nearly everyone in every country finds out about it pretty quick, whereas we had to really go and hunt them down.
00:35:25
Speaker
We've established very close relationships with plant breeders overseas as well. So we would take plants from Australia over that we knew that they didn't have and trade them with plant breeders and plant collectors over there. So we established sort of solid relationships like that.
00:35:44
Speaker
And but you know, look, it is definitely happening in different ways, shapes and forms. But it's it's a different it's it's playing out in a different format. A different world. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. One of the plants that you brought into the country was Sylvia Hotlips.
Introduction of Salvia Hot Lips to Australia
00:36:04
Speaker
Oh, yes. Yes. Um, I actually have, when I moved into the house I live in now, I found a really sickly looking one that, you know, just not sickly, just shaded out, out competed. Yeah. And I saw it and I went, you know what, I'm going to propagate that. And now I have, God, I couldn't even tell you how many I've gotten to get your garden. Too many. My partner's always like, okay, enough. Um, but you brought that into the country.
00:36:33
Speaker
Well, there's a funny story about that in fact, because my mate and one of the other directors in Collins from New South Wales, he was flicking through a garden magazine, an American garden magazine. He subscribed to all the American journals and he saw a picture of Sylvia Hotlips and it was down, I'm pretty sure it was UCLA anyway, one of the universities in California.
00:37:04
Speaker
And it had been found by a cleaner at the university. It was a mutation, the sport of Selvia Gregi. And it was a sport where instead of just being pink, it had pink, this pink and white, you know, combo.
00:37:20
Speaker
And the uni had an annual plant sale. And the big news was that they had, I think it was about 20 cuttings of these plants up for sale at the annual plant sale, which was coming up in a fortnight's time. Anyway, Ian rings me up and says,
00:37:44
Speaker
There's this Sylvia hot lips, you know, there's only 20 plants of it available. It's going to be, you know, released for sale at the uni. Book a ticket. We're going to be there when the garden show opens. So we did that. And we raced over and we got there, got into this to California the day before and went up to to the uni and and
00:38:14
Speaker
We went out to where the garden show was going to open the next morning and had a chat to a couple of people there and they said, oh, look, there's a little bit of a problem.
00:38:26
Speaker
The garden show is open, the first hour is open to members only. And, um, and we said, Oh no, but we're here for the Selvia hotlips. They said, well, it's restricted to one plant per customer, but he said they won't last the first 10 minutes. So right. How do we join? You know, how do we become members? So they signed us up, became members.
00:38:51
Speaker
Needless to say, we're up at 4.30 the next morning and first in line. Yeah. So we got our hands on two very small cuttings of this, of that little Selby hotlips. And there genuinely were, there was one mother plant, which we got showing, and there were 20 cuttings for sale that morning off that mother plant, all sold within the first five minutes.
00:39:19
Speaker
So we nurtured that our cutting each back to Australia, picked up a few other plants while we're over there.
00:39:27
Speaker
And yeah, that was a story of hot lips. And now it's in almost everyone's garden. Absolutely. It's funny how it happens, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was a great plant. I was so glad that it survived quarantine. So many of our plants don't, you know, you bring them, of course, you can't bring them back with any soil on. So you have to wrap them up in an inert substance, you know, like
00:39:53
Speaker
coco peat, peat moss, something that hasn't got soil. Something to keep them moist, I suppose. Yeah, and you wrap them up all in alfoil and pack them into your suitcase and bring them into the country. And of course, everything we declare, we've never smuggled a single plant in our lives and we never consider it in our wildest dreams. We'd always, because quarantine was so good to us. No, it's just wonderful. They supported us. We'd simply fill out a form
00:40:20
Speaker
the day before we came back, fax it over, what we were bringing in. They would fax back a permit to wherever we were, and we'd come in with our permits. And, you know, it was it really was quite easy and very supportive. And, you know, we had great relationship with quarantine.
00:40:41
Speaker
Perfect. Well, I suppose, yeah, it's like the, you know, don't bite the hand that feeds you type thing, you know, you've got to kind of play the game the best you can to, to get the best result out of what you're trying to do there. Yeah, absolutely. It's just mutual respect, really. That's it. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I suppose let's, you've obviously, you know, you're into the science of growing plants.
Sustainable Vegetable Growing Practices
00:41:03
Speaker
Obviously that's basically what your entire career has been based on. But what about veggies? I know you're a passionate veggie grower.
00:41:12
Speaker
I am. I am. You are. Why don't you give us the lowdown on what is the Steve Wood recipe for a successful veggie patch? Does it start with soil? It certainly does, Michael. It really does. And look, I'll just go back half a step as to why I'm so passionate about vegetables and growing is because
00:41:36
Speaker
When you do work in our industry, you do realize the volume of chemicals and the freeness at which they're used. And there's a reason for this, and I think it's important for people to be aware. When we go into a supermarket and we pick up an apple or a cucumber or zucchini or lettuce, whatever it might be,
00:41:59
Speaker
We pick up the most blemish, free, perfect looking piece of fruit that we can. We push the oddities, the things that are scarred or marked or pitted or pecked or whatever to the side and we only want what's best. The only way you can grow a plant and a vegetable to immaculate presentation is with heavy use of fungicides and insecticides and initially with herbicides as well.
00:42:30
Speaker
And they start from day one. They start from the day the seed goes in the ground right through the whole growing process. And a lot of those chemicals, you know, sadly, even within Australia today, we're using chemicals that other countries refuse to use that have been taken off the market. And so you know that there's a toxicity of some level in the vast majority of vegetables that are sold that are on our shelves. Yeah. And within that,
00:43:03
Speaker
And the sad thing is that when you leave that vegetable section, it's pretty much downhill from there in a supermarket. Apart from the dairy and the sort of meat areas, you go into very processed foods. So the healthiest food that we can eat, sadly, is often contaminated.
00:43:25
Speaker
So within that, I've always had a great desire and a great passion. I've been a big follower of Rudolf Steiner since I was a teenager of all his teachings. And he was the founder of Biodynamics as well, an organic farming technique and method.
00:43:45
Speaker
And the idea behind that method is to avoid chemical use in plants. And so, yeah, I've just had that love and just the sheer joy of going out and picking food, bringing it back into the kitchen. And my wife Audrey is the most incredible cook. Her mother was the most amazing cook. And
00:44:08
Speaker
And I've developed a passion for cooking as well. I've got a bit more time on my hand these days and so I love cooking as well.
00:44:15
Speaker
But that great joy of bringing food from the garden into the kitchen and preparing it for the family, for ourselves, is just an absolute sheer joy. There's nothing more satisfying, is there? Absolutely nothing more satisfying. It truly is. And we still, you know, rave. I think last night we had some beautiful fresh asparagus in a sorrel sauce, a French sorrel sauce. And we just,
00:44:44
Speaker
raved about it, you know, for 20 minutes afterwards, telling each other how good it was. And woke up this morning. And the first thing I said was, how good was that asparagus in sorrel sauce last night? You know, so that's that that's how passionate we still are today. The soil, it's all about the soil. And it's all about nurturing the soil. And this is another thing that I feel very
00:45:11
Speaker
Well, I guess passionate's an overused word, but I do feel passionate about this because soil is our lifeline. This is what keeps, this is, you know, it's the air that we breathe, it's the water we drink, and it's the soil that our food's growing in. And if we're using herbicides, insecticides, fungicides, we're killing off the life in the soil. You know, when people say a handful of soil's got three billion living organisms in it,
00:45:37
Speaker
It's a mind bender, but it's real. It's amazing, isn't it? And those organisms, it's amazing. And those organisms, and especially the mycorrhizal fungi, the hyphae that goes out, they collect nutrients and they feed them back to our beautiful vegetables. A plant only needs 16 different elements to grow. But if we're growing plants in rich, healthy soil, the plants will on average take up around
00:46:03
Speaker
40 to 45 different elements from the soil, different nutrients. So when we're eating plants that are grown in a rich, organic based fertilizer, you know, soil that's been fertilized with good organic based fertilizers, we're eating food that is vitamin packed.
00:46:21
Speaker
really rich and dense and super, super healthy for us. If we go back to, you go back to the year or so, you go back to the Second World War in the 40s. At that time, 70% of all the produce in the UK was grown in people's backyards. In the United States at the time, it was just over 40%.
00:46:47
Speaker
And never in the history of humanity have humans been healthier than during that period. So human health was at a peak. And that was because we were growing at home, we were growing in real soil, we were using natural fertilizers to grow our plants, and we were dedicated to the process. And that came through in human health.
00:47:16
Speaker
And since then, look, I don't want to take anything away from our farmers. I think our farmers are the most incredible, amazing people that work so hard, often for little. But within that, I think there needs to be a greater love for
00:47:35
Speaker
the end result and for its purity and for what that end result is doing, it's feeding the human body. And within that, it's got to be grown in soil that is alive. As much as possible, it's got to be grown with a bare minimum use of fungicides and insecticides, all these different pesticides that are applied to our plants. So it's got to be grown with love. And when people buy it from their local farmer's market, from an organic grower,
00:48:04
Speaker
But when they grow food in their own backyard, they're eating food that's been grown with love. And that in turn is health, human health.
00:48:16
Speaker
And so, yeah, that's what I feel. Well, that's a really good point, you know, because it's, it's growing food is almost more, even though obviously you get all the benefits of such a nutrient dense product. Um, you know, it's your mental health that you get from it as well. It's the passion and the drive that you feel and the agency that you almost take back from, you know, the big corporations and give to yourself.
00:48:47
Speaker
And that mental health is stronger and more relevant than many people are aware of because what we've found out more and more now is that the gut biome plays a major role. It's a significant part of our immunity. And it also has a significant impact on the messages that it sends to our brain.
00:49:13
Speaker
And so if we're eating good, healthy, nutrient dense food and that's feeding that gut by, you know, biome and bacteria, then it has a significant impact on our mental wellbeing, on our depression, anxiety and general wellbeing. So it's not just on the very basic physical level, but on the mental level as well. So yeah, the reasons are many and varied and it's a really important issue.
00:49:43
Speaker
Yeah, it really is. So just going back to, you know, using your organic fertilizers, just quickly, what are a couple of those organic fertilizers that you love to use? Pete Cundell was my teacher. Yeah. Yeah. Blood and bone. Blood and bone. Blood and bone and seaweed.
Promoting Organic Fertilizers
00:50:00
Speaker
The value of kelp cannot be underestimated. It contains over 60 different nutrients and elements that feed the soil, that feed the plant, that ultimately feeds us.
00:50:12
Speaker
Blood and bone is a wonderful source of nitrogen and people need nitrogen, you know, they need to put nitrogen in the soil for plants to grow. Far too often, the home grower that's sort of starting into growing vegetables is unaware of the parts need to be fed. A lot of these plants have only got a life cycle of, say, four to five months, maybe 16 to 20 weeks maximum.
00:50:37
Speaker
And during that process, from the time they go into the ground until the time they're harvested, they've got to be given a constant source of nutrition and food. And we're not really feeding the plant directly. We're feeding the life in those bacteria in the soil. The bacteria digest all that organic material, and then the protozoa in the soil break down and the plants absorb it from the protozoa.
00:51:03
Speaker
But we need good levels of nitrogen going in. So we can't just rely on basic elements like the animal manures like sheep and cow and horse are great for conditioning the soil. So holding moisture, holding nutrition, building the carbon content. But it's when we start using blood and bone, pelletized chicken manure, things that have got a good nitrogen level in them that we see positive active growth.
00:51:30
Speaker
And the other part of that equation is that plants must not starve for nitrogen. If they starve for food, they go to seed quickly. They go under stress. So you'll see plants going to seed very, very quickly. It might be lettuce, it might be rocket, whatever it is. They'll stress and go to seed fast. But if you keep that nitrogen level up to them on a constant basis and liquid feed regularly, then you're going to get
00:51:59
Speaker
fantastic growth, commercial quality food.
00:52:03
Speaker
but incredibly healthy, nutritious, nutrient dense. And get that satisfaction of having done a great job. And not only that, plants that are growing in this way are far more resilient. When we grow plants with artificial synthetic fertilizers, as they're taking up those fertilizers, which they're taken up in the water, you don't need bacteria in the soil to make them available to the plants. If water is soluble, they're taken up.
00:52:30
Speaker
via the plant's roots as they absorb water. But then very salt, got a very high salt content and it causes the cell walls in the cellular structure of the plants to be sort of bloated and weak. It makes them very vulnerable to insect and fungal attack.
00:52:49
Speaker
Whereas when you're growing plants in rich, healthy, nutrient-dense soil and feeding them with natural inputs, the plant cell is far denser. And this contributes tremendously towards flavor, but also towards a plant's resilience into being able to find a fungal and insect attack. So quite often, you can grow plants naturally. The plants that you grow at home or plants that have grown organically
00:53:18
Speaker
our food that's grown like that doesn't require insecticides and pesticides. And if they do, you can get away with something very minor, which everyone should sort of have at hand anyway. Natural soap sprays, you know, natural soap spray is a great way to go. And then, you know, these natural soil bacterias like Dipel to deal with things like Caterpillar.
00:53:44
Speaker
If you've got both of those in your arsenal and a little bit of neem oil, you're going a long way to being able to protect your veggies from many problems that might arise. Fantastic. You know, Steve, I can hear it in your voice. You're just so passionate about communicating these ideas about horticultural and growing and sustainability. Where did you find that passion?
00:54:11
Speaker
I'm not too sure. It's a good question, Michael. I tell you what, Steiner's a great educator.
Steve Wood's Broadcasting Journey
00:54:21
Speaker
In many ways, even the Steiner education system is based on his philosophies.
00:54:29
Speaker
And I think that his love and passion for nature and for plants and for the soil and for humanity, you know, for the goodness of the world and for the goodness of people's hearts. I think he was perhaps more of an influence on me than I realized. Okay. And when did you start dipping your toe into communications?
00:54:58
Speaker
Well, that was just by default, really. I got asked back in, I think it was about 91, to fill in on a garden talkback show with one of the radio stations here. The regular garden presenter was away at the time on holidays and asked if I'd fill in, which I was honoured to do. And I really enjoyed it.
00:55:29
Speaker
Um, and then, um, the ABC, someone from the ABC must've been listening in and, um, and they offered us a gig. And, um, yeah, I guess that was nearly 30 years ago. Still going. Still going. And yeah, I do a regular little segment on the, uh, on the ABC Southwest show down here and, um, had many, many years of, you know, uh,
00:55:57
Speaker
great enjoyment working with ABC in Perth and filling in for the beautiful Sabrina Hahn, who's an incredible Garden Talk Pack presenter there. And I love it, man. I do. Obviously now you've taken that passion for radio and started your own podcast. I do have to tell you that it is my all time favourite podcast. Thank you. When did you come up with the idea for All the Dirt?
00:56:26
Speaker
That was my son. So my big boy Ben, he's 36 now, he just came to us and said, dad, you've got to do a podcast. And I'm a big fan of a couple of popular podcasts out there. And he said, you can do it.
00:56:48
Speaker
Anyway, I went down the path and started exploring what was involved, all the equipment that I'd need, how to upload podcasts and send them out and that type of thing. And, um, sat down and, you know, put my first show together. And, um, it sounded a bit boring, you know, and, uh, and, uh, I thought, no, what I need to do is, um, uh, I need a partner in crime here.
00:57:18
Speaker
And so I approached Darren, who was writing for the garden section for the West Australian at the time. And Darren's been very, very passionate, known Darren for over 30 years. And yeah, so we decided to sort of sit down and do a podcast together. And Ben, my son Ben came up with the name All The Dirt.
00:57:45
Speaker
And you know, Darren was happy to come on board.
00:57:49
Speaker
And, um, yeah, I think we've got over 150 episodes now. And, and I think I looked at the time of recording this, I just looked before 155, which is staggering. We just get such a thrill out of talking to people. We've, we've learned so much. We really have every, you know, every, every, every guest and, uh, is, is an experience and an education and.
00:58:16
Speaker
and get a lot of satisfaction and joy. And if we talk about a topic, well, of course we've got to do a bit of research before we do that. So we're educating ourselves as well. And so we love it, Michael. And were you surprised by the success of all the dirt?
00:58:32
Speaker
I was. We've been, you know, we're very proud of the fact that for over four years, it's been the top garden podcast in Australia. Yeah, it's had phenomenal downloads. It's downloaded in over 50 countries around the world. And and and we get some, you know, even chart really quite well in the UK and the US.
00:58:59
Speaker
OK. And which I find really interesting because we pitched that initially more towards West Australian because it's it is quite a unique climate here. But at least half of our listeners are from the Eastern states. And so we became aware of that very early and and tried to shift that and shifted that focus to to a more universal sort of dynamic and locations. And
00:59:27
Speaker
But no, we're very honored. It's a really great show. I think I said it on the podcast when I had Darren on, that it really, in my life, has played a massive role in educating me. And I just think it's fantastic. And I did want to say a massive thank you to both you and Darren for
00:59:52
Speaker
supporting my little podcast here. I feel very humbled by the fact that you played my episode with Darren on it and it's been fantastic and I think the response has been really good. So I just wanted to say a massive thank you to you for
Podcast Impact and Schedule Update
01:00:07
Speaker
that.
01:00:07
Speaker
Thank you. Well, it's an absolute pleasure. That was a there was a wonderful interview. I just loved it so much. And thank you, Michael, for allowing us to play that on all the dirt as well, because, you know, we often get some feedback from listeners saying.
01:00:23
Speaker
You know, you interview all these other people want to hear a little bit more about yourself. Absolutely. Well, that's why I wanted to have you both on the show, because I was like, well, I want to know about you two. So yeah, it was so I loved it. So the fact that, you know, that we could play it on all that, it was just wonderful.
01:00:39
Speaker
But congratulations to you, mate, because horticultural podcasting is something that I think is there needs to be more of it out there. It's you know, 80 percent of of the public are interested in gardening in one way, shape or form. And the more information and knowledge and awareness we can get out there of this wonderful hobby, the better. So thank you, mate.
01:01:02
Speaker
No, no, thank you. Well, thank you so, so much for your time today. I think we've been running for almost over an hour now. God, I'm sorry. I really appreciate your time and you being on the show and thanks for having a great chat with me. Oh, mate. Loved it. Cheers, Michael. More strength to you, mate.
01:01:26
Speaker
Thank you so much for joining me today, guys, and a big thank you to Steve Wood. You can catch up with him on the All The Dirt podcast wherever you get your podcasts. You can catch up with me on our socials at Growing Media Oz.
01:01:41
Speaker
or me, your host Michael Haw at M-Y-K-A-L-H-O-A-R-E. I'm mostly on Instagram but I'm sure you can find me on Facebook as well. A quick little housekeeping note for this season, my release schedule will be changing. I am going to be releasing episodes monthly. I know that isn't very frequent but it just allows me the time to be able to run the two businesses that I do and still make this for you and I think it'll be a much more achievable schedule for us all.
01:02:09
Speaker
So stick around with me, share the episode with your friends, rate, review all of that fun stuff and I will see you in a month. Hooroo!