Transcript
Plant People: Well, hello, friends, and I hope it's a sunny day wherever you are because it is a sunny and warm day.
Brett: bit steamy bit steamy.
Plant People: a bit steamy. I think some thunderstorms are about to roll in here for the next day or two, but, you know, it's nice to see the sun, and i feel like it's been an appropriate spring.
Plant People: It's been a respectful spring. We say that about the rain, like, a lot, but it's been ah correct spring of what we're used to versus, like, the wild temperature spring ah swings we tend to see.
Brett: Alexis liked it. Therefore it is appropriate and correct.
Plant People: Where's the lie though?
Brett: Yeah, that's what I'm coming to understand. I tried to do appropriate and correct behavior as much as I can.
Plant People: i I'm by the book, ah so...
Plant People: if and anybody who knows me goes, wait, what?
Brett: Which what book?
Plant People: Who? Which book exactly are we referring to?
Brett: What is the book that we're talking about?
Plant People: the ones the plants also read or pretend that they read, right? So...
Brett: We are not and I'll note we are not talking over Jessica and Ray, though that would not be much of a stretch.
Plant People: Ah, yeah.
Brett: They are they're not here um for for various reasons, and we are here and we're just going to we're just going to but we will we will rock you with some discussion coming up.
Plant People: What up?
Plant People: if We will riff at what we are good at.
Brett: What's what's new in your in your neck of the woods, Alexis?
Plant People: Um, well, uh, from a more personal farm thing, I know we talk from it more of a professional standpoint most of the time, but it's, it's on.
Brett: You're a professional farmer.
Plant People: Yeah. I'm a pro well, I'm just mean like a UK professional, but it is on topic today for what we're going to talk about.
Brett: Mm-hmm.
Plant People: So, uh, from a farmer point point of view, we just came off of mother's a day ah weekend slash week slash year of my life is what it feels like ah because we plan so far in advance. But yeah, so just coming down off of the high slash roller coaster of that. And I want to say for if any of you are farmers who, whether it's Mother's Day or any other event where you kind of plan for a long period of time,
Plant People: And then it's go, go, go, you know, 4 a.m., 5 a.m. till 11 p.m. every day for a week type situation. It's okay to not know how to feel the week after.
Brett: Mm-hmm.
Plant People: um Coming down off of that and then going back to like things are normal. Things still have to get done. All you want to do is rest. But like you still have the everyday norms of orders and planting and stuff.
Plant People: you know yada yada yada. I just wanted to to throw a little you know lifeline out there and say it's okay. Things will reorient themselves in the world and if a couple plates fall, some balls drop, ah it it's all gonna be fine. So you did great.
Brett: As Tom Petty said, it'll all work out.
Plant People: It'll all work out. It always does, yeah.
Brett: Eventually. um So did you celebrate? Did you celebrate the end of Mother's Day?
Plant People: I was a potato on Sunday and it was glorious.
Brett: Wow. Like a costume kind of party of one.
Plant People: I was a spud. ah
Brett: These are my eyes.
Plant People: i ah Which my potatoes are sprouting, fun fact. You brought them up. But no, I just, i well, you made it.
Brett: You brought it up.
Brett: It's fine.
Plant People: I thought about eyes on my potatoes.
Brett: It's fine. It's fine. It's fine.
Plant People: But ah yes, I was a couch potato. i um I don't like to say I rot couch rotted anymore. I prefer to say i'm I fermented on the couch because, you know, fermenting makes everything better.
Brett: it
Plant People: So I love it.
Brett: It's restorative, it's transformational, it's probiotic, professional biotic.
Plant People: Love it. All about it. Probiotic. I probiotic. So that was, it was lovely. i think I needed one more day, but the farm ah orders had to go out. So, ah but I did get one full day of being sweatpants. The only thing I had to do was water the greenhouse, which, you know, is okay. And that's soothing. and I don't mind to do that.
Plant People: And the peonies wait for no man or woman. So, or perand so man per per San.
Brett: woman, man
Plant People: ah So we did, I did,
Brett: no human.
Plant People: I know he man, I did have to harvest that morning, but very briefly and only the minimum. And then I was in sweatpants the rest of the day. So that was my celebration. It was glorious.
Brett: That's awesome. That's great. Well, you also celebrated this week. You've got a new friend there in your office with you.
Plant People: Oh, yeah. If you're I would show i can't. Will my thing go down? I can't show you. Well, I'll show you before the end if you're watching on online. But there is a sweet little baby kitten in my arms right now when she is asleep and I shall not wait.
Brett: TBD on name.
Plant People: ah TBD on name. We had to let the husband pick that out because he's going to call her something no matter what I call her. He will come up with his own name. So it's just better to.
Brett: Alexis's husband is like the cutest cat person. He loves cats. It's so cute.
Plant People: We ah I told you I've probably told you guys about the cat at our tax lady's office. um Well, I don't know if I've talked about it on the pod.
Brett: I don't know if you talk about it on the pod or not.
Plant People: There's a my our tax lady has a cute, very small, like it's an adult cap, a very small. And apparently she's not very friendly to most people. But of course, she loves my husband. And ah so every year we go, um she crawls up into his lap. and lays there during our taxes and just, I guess, soothes him during tax time.
Plant People: And we last time we went, he was sitting there. And the man who hates taking pictures with me in general for pretty much everything except for maybe fishing looks over at me with a big smile and he goes, are you going to take my annual cat picture?
Plant People: And so I did. And it's the biggest grin, bigger grin than I think any of our wedding photos.
Brett: Oh.
Plant People: But ah that's okay because he's happy.
Brett: So he has a knack for appealing, appealing to hard, hard to cajole small adults.
Plant People: Who's a cat whisperer?
Brett: A cat, a cat, a cat, a cat.
Plant People: yeah.
Brett: I don't know.
Plant People: yeah
Brett: not talking about anyone.
Plant People: Not me, not anybody in particular, yeah.
Brett: Yeah, well, I celebrated ah Mother's Day by almost rupturing my appendix and then subsequently having it removed by some medical professionals. Uh, so that was pretty cool.
Plant People: Woohoo!
Brett: My mom got to drive to Lou or to Lexington to see me instead of me taking the flowers I had for her to Louisville.
Plant People: Your mom was like, yes.
Brett: Um, so that was cool. And ever since then, I've just been just wandering through life. Um,
Plant People: Appendix free. One organ short.
Brett: But, but it, yeah, yeah. You picked up a cat this week. I lost one appendix this week. It's just the way of things. It's like Indiana Jones with the little golden monkey and the sandbag.
Plant People: One in, one out.
Brett: It's just like that.
Plant People: Yeah, it makes sense. It makes sense.
Brett: But it did not prevent us from brainstorming a fun idea for this episode.
Plant People: We think so.
Brett: You will have fun listening or else. um
Plant People: Threat.
Brett: I'm just thinking about, I think about seasonality, this concept that lots of people talk about in local food and local agriculture, learning how to eat seasonally, purchase seasonally, ah December fresh red rose, not probably coming from the state of Kentucky, a ripe red vine, ripened tomato, likely not coming out, you know, for your New Year's Day bolognese that you're making.
Plant People: um
Brett: But there's a other component to seasonality and the flow of things that partially reflects the seasonality of of production and seasons and stuff like that. but it also reflects our social seasonality.
Brett: And so it's like this kind of marketing and markets side. What kind of got me thinking about it initially was ah seeing Alexis and the other flower farmers that we know and work with ah just unravel, you know, over the last few weeks leading up to Mother's Day.
Brett: It's a really fun time where we celebrate celebrate mothers.
Plant People: unravel feels accurate
Brett: And it's ah it's a big day in the floral industry in general. And so
Plant People: we call it our super bowl like like that's like the word used in the floral industry it's the super bowl hmm
Brett: Yeah.
Brett: And so in the same way that the literal Super Bowl, I think, is the day when the most wings are eaten in the United States, and therefore the chicken industry literally plans around that and prepares for that.
Brett: The horticulture industry has some of these demarcation points throughout the year. And I just thought some of them that we I was going to run through the list and then maybe we'll take a little closer look at some of the particular touch points throughout the year.
Plant People: Love it.
Brett: that sound all right to you?
Plant People: Sounds great.
Brett: So and just go so i'm going to start with our, you know, all time is arbitrary. so I'm going to start January 1. The first kind of big day is Valentine's Day.
Plant People: Mm-hmm.
Brett: Do you have any, like, I think those that's ah that is the time of year when a lot of the CSAs are targeting to really get folks to sign up.
Plant People: Yeah, yeah.
Brett: You know, Community Supported Agriculture, the the subscription-based service. There's a lot of preparation going. It's right in the heart, or maybe a little bit late, actually, into the unofficial gardener holiday of seed catalog season.
Plant People: yeah yeah
Brett: um But any other, you know, Valentine's Day? Is there any bold moves that people will try to make in the flower world?
Plant People: Yeah. In the flower world, a lot of growers are switching to hydroponic. I say a lot. I mean, growers who are wanting to switch are so are going to doing some like hydroponic tulip production ah to hit the Valentine's Day market. So that's definitely been a growing trend.
Plant People: And then thinking about value-added stuff that people will do, you know if they're doing goat's milk stuff or they're doing jams jams and jellies, like um which might seem kind of random, but you know you give chocolates for Valentine's Day. So you give like a box of you know, chocolates and, uh, with, you know, some good jam and, uh, some, you know, goat's milk soap or something like that. So I think people are offering that as well as, um, maybe not having a product, but a lot of people target Valentine's day is like a CSA, um,
Plant People: push and so trying to get that you know those funds in early so that they can purchase some things is always helpful but it's nice you know they say okay you're not getting a bouquet now but here you can give um your human your person a box of strawberries and a voucher for you know a six-week csa that starts in april or something and um that's been pretty good from a marketing standpoint
Brett: So next year in lieu of a box of chocolates, Annie is going to get a jar of jelly and a spoon.
Plant People: Honestly, will she be mad? Like she won't.
Brett: Say go off. Here you go.
Plant People: Sauerkraut. give her a jar, a big old tub.
Brett: ah jar of sauerkraut and a jar of jam. It feels very old world. Show her parents that I am a good husband that I can provide.
Plant People: I'm here for it.
Brett: ah
Plant People: You're providing.
Brett: I can provide these nutrients to even during the darkest of days. ah So, you know, the next, I guess, through spring, there's various things coming out. That's kind of the development of the early season, both for vegetables and for ah flowers and for a whole lot of other stuff.
Brett: And then we talked about Mother's Day and we're going to come back to that in terms of for the flowers to just think about what was the actual when did when did Mother's Day prep actually begin?
Plant People: but when did mother's day start
Brett: ah may It may help to uncover why it felt like the year of the mother in the floral calendar. um But Mother's Day also, this this time of year tends to be when ah kind of, I would say, early to late May, sorry, early to mid-May.
Brett: when stuff starts warming up. It's when we can put out our tomato plants. It's when people like to overhaul their landscaping.
Plant People: Betting plans.
Brett: And really interestingly, there for for a lot of our large bedding plant producers, so things like the impatiens and the petunias and the geraniums and other stuff like that, a lot of the annuals and things that go into beds,
Plant People: Mm-hmm.
Plant People: Mm-hmm.
Brett: ah it it's like the big time of year because and some of some of the large ones will will sell a huge volume of the amount that they're going to make in the course of a year during this window of time.
Plant People: Yeah.
Plant People: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Brett: So if every Saturday is not very good weather and people don't want to go to the garden center and get you know spring fever and buy a bunch of stuff for that that six, eight week period, it can be kind of bad, ah bad news.
Plant People: Yeah, because that stuff is, and I mean, living plants definitely have more of a window, but it's still in a way perishable because if those things get too big, you're also spending a lot more money to grow, you know, keep growing them for weeks because they didn't sell.
Plant People: um So yeah, it's even with live plants that are, you know, in a pot, it can be costly to have to keep them for, you know, another three weeks because it's been rainy. Mm-hmm.
Brett: Yeah. and I mean, we're talking hanging baskets. We're talking about stuff for the planters. We're talking about stuff for in-ground beds um and even a little bit in the um the perennial plant world.
Brett: you know that this is ah I think that that kind of goes into fall as well.
Plant People: Yeah.
Brett: um But it it really is a huge time of year where we can grow petunias and and and impatience all summer long, but people really think about those things in terms of this time of year. And so as a result,
Brett: it's a It's a market driven seasonality to that industry that is, you know, it's a really, it's kind of interesting.
Plant People: Yeah. yeah
Brett: We'll talk about another one of those here in just a few minutes. So we're going to come back to Mother's Day from the floral perspective. um But I think ah also shout out to veggie transplants for this time of year, because that's what a lot of people are are also getting those to put in their veggie gardens.
Plant People: Yeah.
Brett: And then we have this period over May, June, where for me, at least time seems to hit warp speed and oh my gosh, I can't believe it's almost the solstice.
Plant People: Mm-hmm.
Brett: Oh, there went the solstice.
Plant People: and hu
Brett: And now here we are at 4th of July. i think this is another inflection point of the year.
Plant People: know
Brett: what do you What do you think about in terms of the the market side for specialty crop products in July?
Plant People: Yeah, when I was working as an agent and helping with a multi-farm CSA that had veggie as well as dairy and ah meat products, 4th of July kind of, even though it was a CSA where people purchased way ahead, see ah even the growers planned around 4th of July being something that they wanted to really do up for that week for their CSA and they had more like meat options available. and They had their goal was sweet corn for 4th of July because you know people were grilling out. That's when a lot of people have parties and get togethers and pool parties is kind of the week of or leading around. There's like you know 14 day period kind of all right around that area where people
Plant People: tend to be home and doing stuff, you know, they're probably home from vacation. And so I think that that is another touch point for people who are doing, you know, market garden size, the livestock people wanting to have things processed by then.
Plant People: um You know, you can even be doing like baked goods, people who are, you know, maybe doing strawberries in the spring, and they made, you know, jams or different things, and they're going to put them into cakes and cookies and have those available at the market for those Fourth of July parties. And so I definitely think it's a summer touch point for a lot of growers because they just kind of expect more people to want stuff um during that time.
Plant People: What have you seen in your experience like with farmers markets and stuff?
Brett: I think that's that's exactly right on. I think i think they often the around those times, not to say people go completely buck wild with their spending, but for parties, they might be willing to spend a little bit more, get something a little bit special.
Plant People: Sure.
Plant People: Mm-hmm.
Brett: they're going to be buying a little bit larger volume.
Plant People: Mm-hmm.
Brett: They may be feeling patriotic and want to support their local farmer.
Plant People: Right.
Brett: um But I would say all around that 4th of July, and it might be several weeks earlier or later, depending on the year, depending on the ah crop and the area, but
Plant People: Weather.
Brett: thinking about the kind of first tomato, first field tomato, the first sweet corn. People don't get as excited about watermelon. I get pretty excited about melons.
Plant People: i Which is so weird because everyone seems to want it, but they don't seem as excited about it.
Brett: Yeah, it's not like, ah I need that.
Plant People: It's the first watermelon.
Brett: um I also think of July, late June, early or late June into July is kind of the first window where a few of our local apple varieties start to pop off some of those June apples and
Plant People: Mm-hmm.
Brett: um And it's just, it's also like the countdown in my mind. It's also tends to be this June, July window is berry season. um So that's, that's more, i like that because that tends to be that the, the production window is so narrow that we can form around that in the local food production economy.
Brett: compared to some of these other things where we're we're trying to, you know, hit the, you can grow flowers pretty much almost year round, but Mother's Day is a special day.
Plant People: Right. Right.
Brett: Berries, it's like, you got this window, those flowers flowered, they got pollinated, they formed berries, get them if you want them, otherwise you're out of luck, sorry.
Plant People: Yeah.
Plant People: See you next year. Yep.
Brett: So that June kind of the blueberry into Blackberry season is another part of this year that I think um is is pretty exciting and it it tends to draw people in. and i just think of a lot of of our direct markets are at the probably at the peak of what they're going to have as far as variety goes.
Plant People: Yep.
Brett: around this time.
Plant People: Yep.
Brett: um
Plant People: yeah
Brett: You might have a little bit of the cooler season stuff that's still hanging on or even a little bit that you've planted late that um maybe just coming on.
Plant People: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Brett: there's There's a whole other second act to the farmer's market and other direct market season in in the fall in the fall where you still have summer stuff and you start getting some really good fall stuff. But
Plant People: It's interesting that, sorry, well, before we jump to the next, how it's it's the inverse in like the floral bedding plant, basically the visuals, where I want to say like, quote unquote, like the visuals, um where, so, you know, if they're having people over, they've probably already planted all those annuals from that early spring.
Plant People: um They've gone out, maybe they've planted their own little cut flower garden and they're not buying flowers as much, but So it feels like the inverse ah for that season. It's like flowers are in in the spring, out in the summer, back in in the fall type situation.
Plant People: And I always find that interesting to see happen because it's the opposite for like tomatoes and and things like that. It just depends, I think, on where people's priorities are. Mm-hmm.
Brett: Yeah, and even with some of the markets, um so some of the farmers markets, for instance, so with the Center for Crop Diversification, we work with a lot of farmers markets across the state. Some of them in larger population areas, ah they will have growers who will have produce in some cases year round.
Brett: But like, let's just say from March 1st through November 1st, they will have produce.
Plant People: 10, no. Yeah.
Brett: Other markets, that in either case, the epicenter of the farmer's market year is around fourth of July.
Plant People: Mm-hmm.
Brett: So there's some markets that are only really open June, July, and maybe a little bit of August.
Plant People: Mm-hmm.
Brett: There's other ones that are open May, June, July, little September.
Plant People: Mm-hmm.
Brett: There's others that are open again. And so I just think of it like as the kind of the epicenter, the peak. It also tends, at least for me, to be when the plants go from like a lot of those summary type plants go from like their ascent and their youthful.
Plant People: Yeah, it's like the bell curve. yeah
Brett: Yeah. To like, Oh, it's, it's like, i don't know, 37 or something.
Plant People: Yeah.
Brett: They ate for humans. It's like, Oh, I was on my way up and now I'm just going to try to gracefully.
Plant People: but Now my knees are starting to hurt.
Brett: I'm going to try to gracefully he go down the rest of the curve here.
Plant People: Yeah, the disease starts to sit in.
Brett: Uh, we'll say 40, we'll give us both some time and say 40 about that. Um,
Plant People: Thank you. I appreciate that
Brett: But but there's this interesting dynamic where, ah in my opinion, maybe the best time of year for produce in Kentucky. I'm curious what your take is on this.
Brett: Is September.
Plant People: oh yeah because like the i swear the few cooler nights i swear make a huge difference in like taste and like you said you're getting that you're bridging that where you can have like a fresh tomato and then like some kale sat like on a fresh kale salad you know what i mean like those types of uh instances okay
Brett: You could do a kale salad, grilled broccoli, grilled peppers next to the grilled broccoli and tomatoes on a nice burger with, you know, whatever, you know.
Plant People: Yep.
Brett: and And so, however, this is yet again an example where the seasonality is determined not just by our plant zone and weather and all those things, though that does really impact it.
Plant People: Totally.
Plant People: Our weather and yeah. Yeah.
Brett: There's nasty little thing that happens in August called back to school.
Brett: And I'm telling you, it is it is one of those moments. it's It's not entirely like the end of farmer's market season. There's a lot of folks who still go, but it does radically change the dynamic of a lot of our markets and the number of people who attend them.
Plant People: Sure.
Brett: And it tends to drop off.
Plant People: Well, but all and also the growers, you know, a lot of they have kids and the kids back, you know, soccer games have started back up or what, although I feel like sports are year round now. And if you're a parent of a kid with a year round sport, I am so sorry.
Plant People: um But ah yeah, I mean, they're, you know, they get busy. And so the amount that they can plant and take care of and having a Saturday open to go to market is also changed. So it's kind of from both ends, but definitely the consumer is just busy.
Brett: And so I think ah we real quick shout out or the opposite of a shout out, negative, shameful shout out to the month of August. if the If the Mother's Day window unravels you as far as tasks go climactically, August, if you're in agriculture outside, even if you're doing all the smart things, it will...
Plant People: Yeah. Yeah.
Plant People: Yeah.
Brett: It'll wear you down in Kentucky.
Plant People: it yeah
Brett: that's In Kentucky, it's August.
Plant People: ah
Brett: in the In further south, it's July through September.
Plant People: yeah
Plant People: and When, ah yeah, if you're in Kentucky in August and you know a farmer, it doesn't matter what they farm. I don't care if it's row crop. I don't care what it is. If they farm in general, just, you know, maybe maybe bring them a cookie or, you know, a really nice cold glass of water at some point and just be like, hey, thinking of you, bud, it's all going to be okay. ah Fall is almost here because they are dead. Like you said, no matter if they've...
Plant People: planned or if they're marketing a lot in the summer you know or not but the plants are still probably in the ground in the summer and have to be taken care of and that's enough you've probably we've talked about that on some other episodes of like the draws of august
Brett: Yes.
Brett: Yes, but August gives rise to September. We said, in my opinion, for annual production, at least one of the best times of year. But September and moving even into October, yes, we are back at school.
Brett: Maybe some of the markets are cooling down. But one of the markets market types is just heating up.
Plant People: Oh yeah.
Brett: And that is put on your flannels. Uh, don't have to wash your hair. We're going to a farm.
Plant People: Put on your hat, your cute hat.
Brett: Yeah. And get ready for agritourism season. Get ready for apple picking. Get ready for corn maze.
Plant People: um
Brett: Get ready for donuts, apple cider.
Plant People: a
Plant People: Yes.
Brett: Get ready for all of that stuff.
Plant People: Apple cider slushies. Yum.
Brett: Um, if your kids in school back to school, yes, but maybe they will go to a pumpkin patch to pick up a little pumpkin.
Plant People: Oh, 100% believe that.
Brett: Locally grown pumpkin. So as far as the market side of things, I saw, so I was looking up, I saw some estimates that 80%, something around 80% of the fresh market of pumpkins in the United States is sold in the month of October.
Plant People: oh hundred percent believe that like
Brett: I'm kind of surprised that it's not higher and it probably is. I don't know. That was probably just a, one of those nerd academics being conservative, but, um, Yeah, so so you you think about pumpkins, we think about them, often people think about them as a commodity, but they are a product that has been growing on a vine that was transplanted back way, but now that that's kind of the idea of kind of what we're getting at, and we're going to come back around to that.
Plant People: Early June,
Brett: So I won't stay too too long on this we can get to the little bit slightly deeper dive, but all of that fall item decor, all the corn shocks, all the bales of straw, all of the ornamental gourds,
Plant People: yeah.
Brett: um All that stuff is kind of, again, we we probably or we definitely could produce pumpkins that would come out in August, September, October, November even.
Plant People: Yep.
Plant People: August. Totally.
Brett: and But we don't.
Plant People: The value is, you know, basically zero November 1st.
Brett: The value goes way, way down just because of those market dynamics.
Plant People: Yeah.
Brett: And it's it's just a reality. that you know Try to sell corn shock on August first
Plant People: A mom, a potted mom. Yeah. Yep.
Brett: Yeah. Moms is a great example of another one of those products that, you know, it's not necessarily just October per se, but it is like very much that fall window.
Plant People: September. Yeah.
Brett: And there's all kinds of prep work that's ahead of that. We, as consumers, or even as, you know, as marketers thinking about, okay, we, you just get us the product and we will market it.
Plant People: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Brett: There's a whole lot of things that happened before that, that, that but we'll talk about, but this weird dynamics where these strange little traditions of like Halloween, like we have Halloween now for all of these weird geopolitical reasons across a long period of time.
Plant People: and
Brett: And the result of that is try to sell a pumpkin on November 1st. See what happens.
Plant People: yeah Unless it's a pie pumpkin, yank, it's not going anywhere.
Brett: yeah
Plant People: And that's probably why pumpkin pie became a thing because someone was like, I got all these pumpkins I didn't sell and like brilliant marketing right there.
Brett: And so then the last stretch of the season will event will lead us back around to what we talked about in January. So it's the Thanksgiving era of the year. um I'm in my Thanksgiving era.
Brett: And that's ah again, i i think of that as the that we have certainly a lot of high tunnels and other types of production systems that are able to extend the season so that you could have some.
Brett: you know, nice greens or spinach for a spinach casserole for Thanksgiving. Or you might be able to have, even in some years, you might be able to have a couple of tomatoes that, you know, you're able to nurse along until almost around then, or or you pick them and then let them ripen.
Plant People: potatoes, different things like that.
Brett: um But I also think of it as value-added season.
Plant People: Yeah.
Brett: And that's not a new thing.
Plant People: Mm. Mm-mm.
Brett: Canning, fermenting, freezing, all of that, except all of those things, maybe with the exception of fermenting, all of those things didn't necessarily happen in at you know in November.
Plant People: oh They've been happening all summer long.
Brett: Yeah. and And I think, yeah, that that's again what we're we're trying to get at here is just long term, my vision for this conversation is we might think about developing it into some graphics or something that might show.
Brett: So you want to market here.
Plant People: Yeah.
Brett: and now at this particular time, this particular product, here's all the things you're going to need to do you know a year ahead of this.
Plant People: Leading up to it, right.
Brett: So for instance, um with the bedding plant world that we talked about that has that really narrow window in May.
Plant People: Correct.
Brett: So they they, now this will come out probably toward the tail end of that window, maybe still somewhat in the middle, but closer to the end. So once they do that, yes, they are still going to produce some stuff and put some out stuff out and sell, but they're already thinking about 2026.
Plant People: correct
Brett: They're already trying to get their media, get their plastic trays, get their contracts set up, all that kind of stuff. um and And that's something that if you haven't done this before, or you're a consumer and you're not you know you haven't really thought about this much before, you don't necessarily think about that for forward progress. And we've we've had some recent conversations with folks about tariff impacts and imports and all this kind of stuff. and And one of the big things we think about with the tariff, potential tariff impacts is the cost of the inputs.
Brett: But the reality is for some people, they aren't going to buy their inputs until January of 2026.
Plant People: Right.
Brett: And so who knows how that's going to happen. but Other people are buying them now. Some people will be buying them in the fall. um So anyway, it's just the this idea of like, we think of seasonality as this harmony with nature.
Brett: But if you are trying to do commercial horticulture, it's harmony with nature while also respecting these human these human milestones.
Plant People: Harmony with the market. Right. Yeah. I mean, ah you know, we didn't you didn't we didn't mention Christmas necessarily, but, you know, your if you're going to make wreaths, for example, or garland or anything like that with live product, yeah, it's probably not getting harvested until around Thanksgiving. Yeah.
Plant People: but you're ordering it in August and trying to basically assume how many you're going to sell because you can't, it doesn't matter if you put it out. Very few people are going buy pre-order a Christmas wreath, right? In August.
Plant People: So you're kind of going to have to just figure that out based on maybe something you've done in the past or, you know, you'll never get it exactly perfectly right. I don't think. um So you're pre-ordering that in August ah You know, it's being cut in November ah and pretty much, you know, we say for, you know, in in that realm, pretty much anything after December 5th from a strictly, you know, um ah wreath or what's the word I'm looking at, like the decoration.
Brett: Décor, yeah.
Plant People: Yeah, from a decor standpoint, at least, your market is done really by, you know, we say December 1st, maybe you push it to the 5th. But if you don't have that stuff in people's hands and out, you know, to see them by really that first kind of weekend, so to speak, you know, if you go do a Christmas market or something like that and can sell them there, like you're done. So your market window, because nobody's really going to buy one before Thanksgiving. So really, you have the day after Thanksgiving till...
Plant People: what, December 1st, 2nd maybe, ah to get that in front of people and in their hands.
Brett: Yeah.
Plant People: um So that window is really small ah from that point of view. ah just, and then, you know, you maybe have the month, again, you have the Black Friday till mid-December to sell a CSA as like a gift because usually those are more expensive.
Plant People: And so if you're wanting to sell a CSA, you know, you kind of have to get that in front of people before they go buy, you know, little smaller things. And then there's not enough money to, you know, maybe give someone $150 voucher. fifty dollars csa voucher Um, so yeah, the window there is really small as well, but, uh, yeah, thinking of like how people think about that. It's easy to talk about it from like a flat cut flower perspective, but you know, I like the bedding plant one just like to, to go back on that because it's such a big thing where they're making most of their money within that six week period.
Plant People: And you know, the soil and the media, yeah, that all might be bought a year in advance, but if we just even think about the plants themselves, um, Most of those places are, ah those large operations are buying in what they call calloused cuttings.
Plant People: And so those, the there's another operation that starts that stuff from seed or from tissue culture, and they grow them up just big enough, and then they take them as a cutting. They leave them in a very specific kind of humidity chamber to callous over that edge so that they can be shipped ah kind of overnight or within a couple days.
Plant People: And then
Brett: Very brief aside, I selfishly would like for Alexis to lead us on a podcast propagation series.
Plant People: I would selfishly love that.
Brett: W's in the chat if you want Alexis to do that.
Plant People: Comment with five stars that you want propagation, but that was my...
Brett: I just think it's really, there's, the propagation is both, I find, is like more simple and more complicated than you think.
Plant People: It's an art form. It's truly an art form. like
Brett: And maybe maybe we could get Sherry on to talk about you know some some of her trick tips and tricks.
Plant People: Yes, oh my gosh. The woman who taught me everything that I know about propagation... um
Brett: Sherry Dutton, right?
Plant People: and can she can she's an yep sari dutton she will be ah really oh yeah the dutton family
Brett: i've been I've been watching a lot of clips from Yellowstone, which this is the Dutton family. And I was like, am I just making up the Dutton thing? No, Sherry Dutton. All right.
Plant People: Yeah, she will be a new extension associate. So we're going have, we'll have her on ah to talk about that, but she is brilliant. But anyways, not to like get over it, but so they're going to get that stuff in and let's say they're trying to target that, you know, Derby Day, Mother's Day, like that's the prime window, maybe a week before that's kind of, you know, right in that area.
Plant People: They're getting those shipped into them probably around February and they're sticking them and you know pumping them up and getting them ready to go you know January, February for that six week window. And then they're going to start with poinsettias and mums if that's like kind of what their operation does.
Plant People: And poinsettias or something they're going to start in like August. ah and they're going to do kind of the same thing over again. But then all the all the things they needed just to grow those items are ordered a year in advance.
Plant People: And maybe they've even ordered those cuttings a year in advance because they have to be grown from seed or from tissue culture. And so it's...
Brett: That's a whole component of the, like, ah particularly of the nursery and cut flower world, I think.
Plant People: Yeah.
Brett: I mean, it's it is for other places too, but is the sourcing of the plant material itself?
Plant People: Yeah.
Plant People: Yeah.
Brett: Because really what you're actually dealing with is like two or sometimes three or more nesting growing years in a row. that like the plants got wiped out, there was no seed last year.
Brett: And as a result, you have no seed this year or the plants got some sort of problem and the bulbs that they produced that you're going to then plant can't be used for some reason.
Plant People: ah Yeah.
Plant People: Right.
Brett: And so that that aspect of it, I think it can be really interesting and and yeah, it's it's risky. But but part of like part of what I want to convey is there there are some businesses, large businesses where they primarily market through just one channel and that's one time a year and it's ah it's it's what you would call risky.
Plant People: who
Brett: But they're large enough to mitigate the risk and they're experienced enough to mitigate the risk or they just have a high tolerance for risk. A lot of our smaller producers tend to diversify their markets
Plant People: isn
Brett: But as a result, they have all of these timelines that are overlapping. And so when you are, we talk about this with like the fall garden, for example, where you're just trying to keep up with your tomatoes and pick them on time and, you know, spray them to keep the fun fungal pressure down.
Plant People: Yeah.
Brett: And you're telling me I'm supposed to be starting broccoli and starting lettuce and starting this other stuff. And I'm like, yes you are
Plant People: Yep.
Brett: And that that is a little bit of like the microcosm of the bigger picture.
Plant People: Mm-hmm.
Brett: And so when people talk about off season marketing or diversifying their markets, I on the one hand, I'm very supportive of that. But on the other hand, it's a hold on a second.
Plant People: Mm-hmm.
Brett: while you're delivering the thing that you've been working on for the last year here, you're going to need to be thinking about this next little bit.
Plant People: You also.
Brett: So maybe, maybe we'll stick with the mother's day window and Alexis, we can process your recent um recently, recently scarred over ah wounds.
Plant People: Mm-hmm.
Plant People: Trauma.
Plant People: My recently calloused wounds.
Brett: Yeah, so so maybe take me tell tell me what is what is in a typical diverse bouquet that ah that a florist in Kentucky might be delivering on Mother's Day, flower-wise.
Plant People: Yeah. So I would say for most of Kentucky, if the weather has been, you know, pretty normal, let's say a pretty average, we're just getting into peonies, which is an awesome timing for Kentucky. And if you're a northern grower and your peonies miss Mother's Day by like a week or two, I'm so sorry because they are.
Plant People: usually prime ah for us around these parts thank goodness ah so you're hit you're getting peony season you know a commercial florist might do you know roses and stuff like that but let's just say for the sake of it we're going mostly local um so we're looking at peonies snapdragons companionula ah Some of your perennials are going to be hopefully starting to bloom that are going to bloom around the same time as peonies. So mock orange is a great one.
Brett: Mm-hmm.
Plant People: Obsessed with mock orange. Baptisia, surprisingly, I think a lot of people think of Baptisia later. And it does depend on variety, but some of those early native ones are going to start blooming when peonies are blooming.
Plant People: ah So Baptisia Amsonia, another native that's, um I forget the common name of it, but it's a beautiful light blue. If you've not heard of Amsonia, highly recommend it. It's just bomb-proof plant.
Plant People: ah So, you know, you've got some of those things. And then if you've got a high tunnel, you're looking at Ranunculus.
Brett: Blue Star.
Plant People: Blue Star. Yes, Blue Star.
Brett: i didn't I wanted to say it, but i didn't look an idiot.
Plant People: namecon yeah I know, I wanted to say, I was like, Blue Star. It's like what it looks like. But then I thought, yeah, that's too simple. Yeah.
Brett: So I have a very brief side note. My mom and my brother called me a couple weeks ago from they were shopping at a nursery for plants. And my mom had picked out a juniper cultivar named Blue Star.
Plant People: Uh-huh.
Plant People: Uh-huh.
Brett: And my brother had picked out an amazon Amazonia
Plant People: Uh-huh.
Brett: Blue Star.
Plant People: Blue star.
Brett: And they referred to both each of them as Blue Star going back and forth, asking me the same question. it was like kind of like a who's on first kind of thing. Like, well, where should we the Blue Star? I'm like, you should put that by the house. Well, where should we put the Blue Star?
Brett: You should put that by the house. But you just said we should put the Blue Star by the house. And yeah it was a Blue Star Juniper.
Plant People: Like, you do realize both of you are saying blue star, right? Like...
Brett: Yeah, no, they do not. And it was it was pretty awesome. It was a fun it was a fun experience for me.
Plant People: Yeah, i mean that's something my dad would do. he asked me right like, Dad, what do what? Which, again, as plant people, we tend to think it's more simple than I think it actually is, but whatever.
Brett: Blue star, who's on first?
Plant People: Yeah.
Brett: What you asking me for?
Plant People: um
Brett: um so So you have some perennials.
Plant People: But yeah, so Mother's Day tulips are another big one. Yeah, perennials.
Brett: You have some biennials.
Plant People: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Brett: Snapdragon a biennial?
Plant People: Fox glove. No, fox glove is, though. Mm-hmm.
Brett: Foxglove. Okay.
Plant People: Mm-hmm.
Brett: And you have some some ah annuals, of course.
Plant People: Yeah, annuals and like overwintered annuals.
Brett: And so when when are those various things started or or touched on?
Plant People: Yeah. Yeah. So the perennials, if you're, you know, let's say, you know, if they want them to bloom in 2025, I'm most likely going to have planted them at least by spring 2024, depending on the type of perennial.
Plant People: and But you know generally, let's say for bloom in spring 2025, that perennial might have ah been planted or ah more likely in fall of 2023.
Plant People: So it's like ah you've got basically a year and a half at a minimum. Those peonies, three years at a minimum is usually what we're saying for that, um for the for the perennials and the woodies and things like that. So, you know, two to three years, depending on the type of perennial it is.
Plant People: For those annuals, it is still early for Kentucky to have annuals blooming around Mother's Day unless you have a high tunnel. And so for those things that are in a high tunnel, most of the time those are planted October, November.
Plant People: And then sometimes there's another wave in January coming in, but that's going to be like a small amount of things that are very specific. ah But most are going to be October, early November.
Plant People: And then bulbs. So tulips are one that a lot of people want for Mother's Day and hit for Mother's Day. And of course, we know those are planted ah typically in the fall. ah So, you know, you're looking at for even for annual production around six months of care.
Plant People: six to seven months of care to hit the Mother's Day window. um Very few times, it really depends on the weather, but very few times can you get away with seeding in, you know, let's say early March, some stuff you can seed, but usually those won't hit that May window. It's just not enough time with the cool soil. So So yeah, you're looking at a minimum of six months to create a Mother's Day bouquet.
Plant People: And for a truly ah robust bouquet, I would say, then you know you're looking more at like a three-year time. Not to say you can't make a pretty bouquet of just ranunculus, but they tend to feel a little bit smaller.
Plant People: And so if you really want that gorgeous peony bouquet, you need that, that you're going to hit that higher price point and, you know, kind of that market that you're looking for.
Brett: So one of my one of my underhanded reasons for wanting to do this podcast and to talk about this stuff is to to make a pitch for thinking creatively about collaboration.
Brett: um This sounds like I'm setting up for like an ad read or something, but I'm not. um Not that we don't have lots of people knocking down our doors to sponsor us, but we're trying to stay.
Plant People: fun
Brett: we We are owned by no one. Okay. We're one of the last free media.
Plant People: although we have had requests for merch and I'm here to figure out how to make that happen
Brett: Yeah, we have to figure that out. um But I think what i what I just heard is to produce all the things that go into a single bouquet diverse like that.
Plant People: Mmhmm.
Brett: is a long-term project. It's complicated, it's complex, it can be difficult.
Plant People: Mmhmm. Yep.
Brett: And on top of that, you then have to also market it. And so that's a shout out to like our Soaky Floral Exchange or Kentucky Flower Market groups that do some really great work to like, let's say you grow really great peonies, but you would like to have your flowers be part of a more diversified bouquet.
Plant People: Yep.
Plant People: Mmhmm. Woo-woo!
Plant People: Mmhmm.
Plant People: Mmhmm.
Brett: there is opportunity for some either you can buy from them, you can sell through them, yeah that kind of thing. But it's, you know, it's complicated. So maybe we'll maybe we'll anything else you want to say about the the spring side of things?
Plant People: yeah
Plant People: No, I just, if I guess the thing it I like to say is if you're wondering why like Mother's Day bouquets or, you know, flowers around that time are really expensive or you feel like they're really expensive, um it they're not gouging you.
Plant People: It's because they have been growing those items for, you know, sometimes three years and they were scraping snow off the tunnels and ice and they were, spending hours covering and uncovering things, you know, twice a day, every day, all winter long. So ah trust me, it's not as expensive as you think.
Plant People: And maybe that's just not the bouquet size for you. Go with something smaller if you feel it's too expensive. But I just I like to throw that out there because like you said, people see something in front of them. It's been warm for a month. So it's easy to feel like, well, they just grew these.
Plant People: No, they've probably been growing for six months to three years to get to this point. So just that's why it costs $50.
Brett: Yeah.
Plant People: But yes, I'll get off my soapbox.
Brett: Yeah. I think that's, yeah, that's spot on.
Plant People: We appreciate you.
Brett: And then another aspect of like the produce and flour and any of these is that you're also paying for the cuts that got frost damaged or got some sort of a blight or weren't the right, you know, that got damn, you know weren't marketable and rotted on the vine or whatever it may be.
Plant People: Yeah.
Plant People: Or the right color. Yeah.
Brett: Two, and our large systems of food and floral distribution, which do some amazing things logistically, have have made us lose a little bit of sight of some of those those other costs associated.
Plant People: Mm-hmm.
Brett: So let's just flip real quick over from spring to fall.
Plant People: Mm-hmm. Sure.
Brett: I think a lot of people have a general sense of that gardening window, typical 4th of July.
Plant People: Yeah.
Plant People: Yeah.
Brett: But if if you like this style of episode, we can talk more in depth about any any of these. But I'm thinking about like the the orchard, apples and peaches and pears.
Plant People: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Brett: Oh, my. um I'm also thinking a little bit about pumpkins. And I'm thinking about looking beyond that or even during that period, even to the the value added stuff.
Plant People: Just
Brett: So we we just came out of ah spring window where All in all, as Alexis said, it was appropriate and acceptable and good. um
Plant People: a respectable spring.
Brett: But not that not that being said, we did have a couple of days that were pretty chilly in um in April in particular.
Plant People: Yeah.
Plant People: Mm-hmm.
Brett: And as a result, so during that window of time, a lot of our fruit trees are in at some stage of putting out blooms, putting out their little but flower buds,
Brett: And the magic of that is that flowers eventually become fruit. They only become fruit if they don't get damaged and knocked off by one thing or another in the course of their existence.
Plant People: Woohoo!
Brett: And so a late frost can cause all these problems. And so that's, that's one example of, okay, so you're picking this apple, you pick apple. Yay. John gold. We love it. Arkansas black. We love it.
Brett: Picture with the family in September, October, Well, that little individual fruits journey began at least back in March, April when that bud was emerging.
Plant People: right right if you don't take into account yeah exactly if you don't take into the account just like the health and the sprays of the tree itself to be able to produce those blooms if you just say that apple started yeah in in march and april mm-hmm
Brett: But beyond that...
Brett: But the tree on which the apple grew, in many cases, what's what's the, do you all have, did you all have like a specific like general timeline for planting to fruit bearing for fruit trees?
Plant People: Yeah, it depends on what you start with. But let's say you ah the average size of an apple tree going in, um even if you're just getting it from a box store, ah we say is like five years. um But if you're putting in, you know, if you're an orchard that's putting in something much smaller because you're putting in hundreds, it's probably closer to seven, just depending on the rootstock variety. But yeah, five to seven years.
Brett: And breeders are constantly trying to push how fast it can fruit, you know, balancing that with long term health of the tree. And so, again, you've got this longer term thing you've got. and And if it just so like if it so happens that every Saturday and Sunday from September 15th to November 15th is rainy and gross and nobody wants to go out and play on the mud farm.
Plant People: ah
Brett: Then suddenly that market, that that's the market window for a lot of our agritourism operations.
Plant People: Yeah.
Brett: How about so pumpkins? We said October is go time, peak time of year. What's the what's the backstory on that? As far as um I was just looking at some and there's different varieties of pumpkins, some of them.
Plant People: Yep.
Brett: um Again, breed plant breeders are thinking about markets and they're also thinking about if you can have a plant that has all the, or so you you can have a fruit that has all the characteristics that you want, but it can get there, get out there sooner or quicker.
Brett: that's fewer times you have to spray it, less time for it to be in the field for disease and insects to get to it.
Plant People: Right.
Plant People: Right.
Brett: More time you theoretically could use that field for something else.
Plant People: Correct.
Brett: um But I was, I was looking in it like one of the early jack-o'-lantern varieties is 95 day. day to harvest. I tend to think of pumpkins and somewhere around the 100 plus or minus 10 day window.
Plant People: Yeah. Yeah.
Brett: So can you Alexis, can you do the plant math for me there?
Plant People: So we the rule of thumb is sometime in June is usually what we're saying.
Brett: hmm.
Plant People: Again, depends on the variety. Some are going to be early June. But, you know, if it's a 95-day, a smaller, you know, little pie pumpkin or something like that, you might be able to push it to the end of June. But, yeah, that's the rule of thumb is June is pumpkin time. Mm-hmm.
Brett: and so you're putting those in as little tiny plants. ah they look They look very similar to like a cucumber when you put them in the ground. And then they grow and they grow and they grow and they set fruit. And and many of you all have grown these before.
Plant People: And you're seeding them in probably mid-May, you know, ah for that window too. So.
Brett: and And so hold on a second, Alexis. So you're telling me if I were going to grow bedding plants or cut flowers, I would be having to seed seed pumpkins at the same time that I'm trying to go going crazy, trying to sell my flowers, get my bedding plants out, staff the farm stand, get tomatoes in the ground.
Plant People: Yeah.
Plant People: Yeah, mother if you're selling for a Mother's Day, ah you also have to get tomatoes in the ground and seed your pumpkins. And yes, that's exactly, it goes right back to the diversifying your market is very helpful, but you have to sell it at the same time you're growing something else, at the same time you're harvesting something else.
Plant People: And all of that rolled into one. Mm-hmm.
Brett: Yeah. And you're, you may be harvesting beets or carrots or lettuce or whatever, if you're selling those. So like diversification, we're center for crop diversification is very conceptually cool.
Brett: It's very exciting. You will never be bored, but it can be a whole lot. And this is why there are some people who hear some, you know, people who are crusty and think that they're funny.
Brett: Like our old friend, Josh Knight, who used to be on the podcast, who hear the term season extension
Plant People: Uh-huh.
Brett: And they say, why?
Plant People: Yep.
Brett: season is long enough. It's hard enough, you know, and, and this idea like, okay, these are times where I can either rest or I can plan or I can do these other things. And you want to extend into that window so you can sell more understandable. There, you know, there are things that go along with that.
Plant People: Yeah.
Brett: Um,
Plant People: And there's a reason why a lot, big companies have gone into, you know, one area, right? They're they're less diversified because to expand, ah they had to, you know, have less.
Plant People: And so, you know, you often do less things if you're more diversified. You do less carrots because it's a space constraint, but it's also just like a brain constraint.
Brett: Right.
Brett: Yeah. and And you'll hear you'll hear some producers um who talk about. Starting out with a like, let's do everything. And then they realize these are the things I'm good at.
Plant People: and
Brett: These are the things I can sell, which is a big one. I'm going to focus on that. And so I think, again, while I'm.
Plant People: Yeah. Or they pick a market to focus on. It might not even just be a crop. It could be Like I hate summer. So I'm not trying to be out there in the sun and growing a bunch, yeah having to harvest. I'm just going I want to be out there to care for stuff, to get it through till fall. And then when I have to be outside more, then that's the window. And you know, some ah high tunnel growers growing in a high tunnel in the summer is miserable.
Plant People: So they're kind trying to hit those um windows so and,
Brett: Yes.
Plant People: Then they but instead of having a winter break, they have a summer break kind of thing. um It's not quite the same, but it's a little bit more. So, ah yeah, you can also have less markets, still have a lot of crops.
Brett: Mm-hmm. Yeah. and and And I think um the ah the only other thing I wanted to mention was we have we have talked about and lots of people love to talk about value added products.
Brett: And there's for good reason.
Plant People: Mm-hmm.
Brett: Often that is where you can make a whole lot more money because you are adding value to the crop through some sort of processing, whether that be putting in a jar so it can sit on a shelf instead of
Plant People: Nailed it.
Brett: You know yeah have strawberry, epic strawberries. You can either eat them within four days or we can can them in some sort of a jam or jelly or freeze them and they can sit in a freezer on the shelf till whenever you want.
Brett: you know for you For Christmas morning, you want to have some strawberry preserves on your pancakes. You can do that.
Plant People: nailed it
Brett: um But that process of adding value to the crops that you're growing, if you're talking about you're going to grow the crops and do the value adding happens while you are harvesting that stuff and probably selling it other places too.
Plant People: Mm-hmm.
Brett: So like the reason you want to harvest that you, you know, and you want to can those things when they're at the peak of flavor, you also want to sell those fresh to people when they're at the peak of their flavor, then that means you're going to have to be doing some either arranging for or yourself doing some value adding in the middle, in the middle there.
Plant People: right
Brett: um And that's why there are some some businesses who decide we actually are going to move away from growing any of the stuff. We're going to buy it from people and we're going to do the value adding, the canning, the whatever.
Brett: There's some people who move away from we're not going to we're not going to sell into fresh markets. We're just going to do value added.
Plant People: Right.
Brett: And that's because they feel like they can make more money on, ah yes, those jams and jellies and canned goods and frozen stuff, but also on even baked goods and other things where they can incorporate their products in.
Plant People: right
Brett: And so I think that that's just another side of the of the marketing angle is if you're going to, you're just sort of just adding another thing. Every time you're doing this, you're adding another thing.
Plant People: yeah Yeah. Well, it's lot like a flower. i I know it's easy for me to talk about flowers, but flowers, you know, it's, you could, there's a, there's the bouquet, which is the added value, or you sell wholesale and you, so you sell straight bunches.
Plant People: And it's so easy to package up 10 stems of the same thing You put it in a bunch, you wrap it up, you forget about it versus curating a bouquet and having to pick, you know, 10, 12, 20 different items and then put them all together. Make sure it all looks good. You know, it's the same thing across and, you know, these different markets, the same as a jam or a jelly. You know, do you do a seedless raspberry and a seeded raspberry jam? do you have to do both? I mean, it's one, you know, you can even get in depth and I just, and those are all decisions that happen.
Plant People: Pretty much while or very close to while the harvesting is happening, while the spraying is happening. I know you just said that, but I just like I'm reiterating the importance of that when you're thinking about branching out as well as as a consumer, you you know, why things cost what they cost and why things are just not available.
Brett: No, totally.
Plant People: And like so far they're tired.
Brett: Yeah, because when we when we consider a new enterprise or we consider a new crop, the main question that's asked is sort of like, is this possible? Is it possible for me to do this given the constraints of weather and climate and my own knowledge and and you know expertise or experience or whatever?
Brett: And there are many, many times where the answer to that question is yes. And the answer should I do this is no And and i remember I remember working back when i I worked in some of the high tunnel stuff and and just thinking about people who were doing research and trying to push and and push the limits of seasonality of local products.
Plant People: Facts.
Plant People: Yeah.
Brett: And there was a year, the several years actually, where we had kale that we were producing from the research tunnels that would be available literally year round.
Brett: And now what that's a whole angle there, the whole thing there where you're actually growing most of the leaf prior to like December. And then it just sits on the plant in a, like almost in a form of arrested development um for a period of time.
Plant People: yeah
Plant People: yeah
Brett: And then you can harvest harvest what's there. But anyway, but the question would then be, if you are primarily marketing into farmers markets and maybe a CSA and It's kind of tricky and challenging to to grow these things for over the winter.
Brett: You're having to cover stuff.
Plant People: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Brett: You're having to take care youre to hit the snow off all the other things you mentioned. Do you just because you can, does that mean that you should? And some people offer the answer of the institutional market, you know, sell it to a school, sell it to a ah a university or a hospital or a restaurant.
Brett: And in some cases it can actually work. I think restaurants are an example where yes, it can work, but sometimes they're not going to buy the volume that you might need. Or conversely, a school might be able to buy the stuff, but they're going to buy it at a price point that may not make any sense for you doing this, all of this crazy extra stuff to,
Brett: bend the seasons to your will and say, I am, I am the victor here.
Plant People: and Yeah. When really, you know, you could probably be putting a cover, a different crop or even a cover crop in there to be improving your soils that you have healthier, better plants that you're putting less into down the road.
Brett: Yep.
Plant People: And so, yeah, that's the the opportunity cost, right, of ah growing maybe when you shouldn't be or could.
Brett: Yep. Or you canned a bunch of tomatoes that you grew in the field and you spend your days instead of tending to, you put in your cover crop and instead of tending to your greens and keeping them alive, you go and set up some holiday markets and you sell a bunch of that stuff, you know, during the off season.
Plant People: Right.
Brett: And so this is this is this I don't know this interesting tension and nexus between the markets and the human cultural extensions of how we celebrate things and think about things and how how horticultural products and are just woven throughout our lives.
Brett: There's also this whole economic component of how and when people spend money. And then there's the seasonality and the production stuff that all the plant nerds are excited about and are fun. And don't get me wrong, it felt very powerful to have great eat greens on January 1st that I grew and harvested you know that day.
Plant People: Mm-hmm.
Plant People: Mm-hmm.
Brett: But um there's more to it than that. and And so, yeah, so I appreciate the indulgence that Alexis indulging me with this concept of the kind of deep dive through these cycles.
Plant People: Yeah.
Brett: But and if you are interested in that, like this, I'm i'm thinking of it almost like a some people do what's called lifecycle analysis and they'll do it for something like carbon or energy or something like that, where they.
Plant People: Mm-hmm.
Brett: follow a product through every stage of its development and they figure out how much carbon or whatever.
Plant People: Mm-hmm.
Brett: Something almost like that, like a product cycle analysis or market cycle analysis or something for different products.
Plant People: Yeah.
Brett: And so we we would, you know, we could take ah
Plant People: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Brett: I don't know what a zinnia and a peony and foxglove and kind of explore that a little bit more, or maybe even like a strawberry jam, you know, that I'm going to do annual strawberry, annual style strawberry production.
Plant People: yeah
Brett: So I'm planting it in September, harvesting the following May, canning it and then selling it, you know, through that next year.
Plant People: isn
Brett: It could be an interesting one to an agritourism full of those.
Plant People: A life cycle of product analysis. Like, yeah, a product market analysis or something like that.
Brett: Yeah.
Plant People: Yeah.
Brett: And even try to see we can find a producer to like talk about a little bit how they're thinking about the timelines of, of their, of their processes.
Plant People: Yeah.
Plant People: I kind of want to call this episode just because you can doesn't mean you should.
Brett: Yes.
Brett: yes
Plant People: um as As a ah from a vibe check.
Brett: That's like, ah that's like from mom Jurassic Park.
Plant People: Yeah.
Brett: they were too but They were too busy asking whether they could to stop and think whether they should.
Plant People: Oh, yeah.
Plant People: Whether they should, yeah.
Brett: Or I guess he's more like ah they were too busy. It's like the Jeff Goldblum.
Plant People: Perfect.
Brett: That was a terrible Jeff Goldblum. I'm sorry, everybody.
Plant People: it's it I mean, it's a was, but we knew where you were coming from with it.
Brett: Hey, well, okay.
Plant People: So, well, ah if you're interested in that, definitely feel free to shoot us an email, a message on Instagram. ah You know, you can, if you're not follow following us on there at Hort Culture Podcast.
Plant People: ah We do our best to post ah regularly and throw up some cool things and share cool things from other partners that we love and work with that might be you know interesting and useful to you so follow us on there you can always shoot us an email with just you know questions ideas for other podcasts love if you just want to also if you don't mind to rate us five stars it helps other people find us makes the algorithm happy and feel free to leave a comment on maybe what you could do but you know that you shouldn't do that sounds like a good idea to me we'd love to hear it so
Plant People: We appreciate you guys being here today and we will chat with you next time. Have a great one.
