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Cultivating Community: Urban and Community Gardens with Bethany Pratt
75 Plays13 days ago
Join us as we dive into the vibrant world of urban and community gardening with our special guest, Bethany Pratt, Extension Specialist for Food Systems. Bethany shares her experiences and expertise on working with different community gardens projects and the different roles that they can play in communities. We'll discuss the challenges and rewards of gardening in urban environments, as well as tips for starting your own garden, no matter how small your space.
Steps to Creating a Community Garden or Expand Urban Agriculture at a Brownfields Site
How to Organize a Community Garden
A Guide to Starting a Community Garden
Questions/Comments/Feedback/Suggestions for Topics: [email protected]
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Transcript
Opening and Host Energy Exchange
00:00:17
Alexis
Hi friends, how's everybody today?
00:00:19
Jessica
Good.
00:00:19
Plant People
Just fine.
00:00:20
Jessica
How are you?
00:00:20
Brett
Not as peppy as you a apparently.
00:00:21
Plant People
It is a beautiful fall day, but yeah, you are your energy.
00:00:21
Bethany Pratt
Hello.
00:00:23
Alexis
um You know what, seeing your beautiful faces on here has just brought me back to life.
00:00:25
Plant People
Shoo.
00:00:28
Alexis
so um
00:00:28
Jessica
It's been, it's been like a week.
00:00:30
Plant People
Do we give you energy? Do we build you up?
00:00:31
Jessica
I don't know.
00:00:32
Plant People
I hope we do.
00:00:32
Alexis
You build me, you fill, you fill my bucket.
00:00:35
Plant People
Good.
00:00:35
Alexis
Yeah. Yeah. Jessica knows what that is.
00:00:36
Plant People
That's it.
00:00:37
Jessica
I know.
00:00:37
Plant People
Yeah.
00:00:37
Jessica
You should know, Ray. That's a, that goes way back.
00:00:39
Plant People
Yes.
00:00:39
Alexis
Ray's like, he's like, sure.
00:00:39
Plant People
It is good to have those that add.
00:00:41
Alexis
I know. I totally know. Yeah. Yeah.
00:00:43
Brett
philly want Fill the bucket.
00:00:43
Alexis
You fill my, fill my bucket.
00:00:43
Plant People
Yes.
00:00:45
Alexis
Leaving with
Memorable Swag Stories
00:00:46
Alexis
the full bucket. But I do have a self-serving question today, uh, for, for those on the pod and well, so it's, it's chill.
00:00:49
Plant People
Oh, no. What?
00:00:50
Brett
Oh gosh.
00:00:52
Plant People
Here we go.
00:00:54
Alexis
Okay. Everybody calm down. All right.
00:00:56
Jessica
yeah
00:00:57
Alexis
What is when you.
00:00:57
Plant People
we're We're bucket fillers, OK?
00:00:58
Brett
Are you turning over a turn over a new leaf with chill stuff?
00:01:01
Jessica
Be quiet, let's hear what it is.
00:01:02
Brett
Sorry, sorry, sorry.
00:01:02
Plant People
Oh.
00:01:03
Alexis
Just because like, let's hear. OK. So when you go to a super cool event, that could be a wedding. That could be a you know dinner. It could be just a random party. It could be something work-related. And you know occasionally, you get to leave with something, right? You get like some swag, or you get some you know you get something small.
00:01:27
Alexis
What is been something that you remember that you're excited about and you're like, that was a good thing. And if I ever did it again, I would do that. Just random.
00:01:34
Plant People
Hmm I'm gonna hold up something now.
00:01:35
Alexis
I know, but it's self serving.
00:01:35
Bethany Pratt
Hmm.
00:01:36
Jessica
Oh, man.
00:01:36
Brett
Hardy favor swag.
00:01:38
Alexis
Yeah. Party favor type thing.
00:01:43
Plant People
I realize that now the the people listening can't see this but the people recording can I'm holding up a little wooden basically a clothespin It was a 4h project about 25 years ago.
00:01:51
Jessica
What?
00:01:54
Plant People
Okay, and it was at a 4h event It was a make it take it event and it's a tiny clothespin attached to a block of wood.
00:01:59
Brett
So it's ah it's two blocks of wood. that would sit on ah on a table and on top there is a close pin for those listening without a visual reference.
00:02:01
Plant People
Yes but I
00:02:03
Jessica
but it
00:02:05
Plant People
Yes, it's very, it's very rustic. Okay, it's very rustic. Some young 4-H'er made this on a make it, take it event. And we were, ah you know, we were all given these.
00:02:16
Plant People
But this strange little wooden block item has stayed with me 25 years and I clip all of my notes to this thing. And it reminds me every day
00:02:23
Jessica
Oh, sweet.
00:02:26
Plant People
you know, of that event. ah Not a day goes by, but just a random little clothespin has been with me all of these years. Would I have ever thought that? No. But that that's my thing.
00:02:38
Plant People
It's a make it, take it wooden clothespin note holder. So there you go. What do you guys have?
00:02:43
Alexis
Now, no one can compete with that now.
00:02:43
Jessica
I was, no, I'm drawing a blank.
00:02:45
Plant People
Yeah, you know.
00:02:45
Bethany Pratt
No.
00:02:47
Alexis
So self, yes.
00:02:47
Jessica
I'm like.
00:02:51
Alexis
and anybody I'll tell you.
00:02:52
Plant People
I'm trying to think of all the cool events. I mean, is this something you have to be given?
00:02:54
Alexis
Yeah. Well, it's it's something that like everybody who's there might get one of.
00:03:00
Plant People
Yes, yes, okay, gotcha.
00:03:00
Brett
Yes, like the silverware that you put in your pocket is not included in this, right?
00:03:01
Alexis
Yeah.
00:03:02
Jessica
whole I went to like wedding like like wedding favors right like I have I've received some plants but before at a wedding that I remember um it was her um we gave out honey and sorghum at ours and little honey bears yeah and little honey bears
00:03:03
Alexis
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:03:03
Plant People
Yes, I was thinking like, yeah, other things are like suspects.
00:03:04
Alexis
Like the to-go box of cake and cookies you stole.
00:03:08
Plant People
Oh yeah.
00:03:10
Alexis
Mm-hmm.
00:03:15
Plant People
Ooh, nice, nice.
00:03:17
Alexis
It was me. It was mine.
00:03:20
Bethany Pratt
Oh.
00:03:23
Alexis
Mm-hmm.
00:03:24
Plant People
Oh my gosh, sorghum, holy moly, that is a, you gave that out to others?
00:03:24
Alexis
Mm-hmm.
00:03:27
Alexis
Yep.
00:03:30
Alexis
Ray's like, how dare?
00:03:30
Plant People
Oh, I missed that event.
00:03:31
Alexis
How dare you?
00:03:31
Plant People
I missed that event.
00:03:32
Jessica
So we're going to Honey Bears.
00:03:33
Plant People
I missed that, yeah.
00:03:33
Jessica
I'm trying to think of like, you know, been to a lot of conferences and places. Like we got a great from our agent association one year when Courtney Jenkins was the president and we didn't get to have it because of COVID.
00:03:45
Alexis
Mm-hmm.
00:03:45
Jessica
Our, she sent out a fantastic like swag box of like extremely useful tools, ratchet straps, yeah right?
00:03:49
Plant People
Yes, I remember that.
00:03:50
Alexis
h Ratchet straps.
00:03:53
Plant People
Yes, Heavy Duty brand name Ratchet Straps, yes.
00:03:55
Alexis
Those are the best ratchet straps I've ever had.
00:03:57
Jessica
So it was like a variety of things.
00:03:58
Plant People
Gosh, those things are legendary. Yes, good one.
00:04:00
Jessica
Right? ah Like you would use your job. And I mean, I have mine under my desk and I still use that.
00:04:03
Alexis
and
00:04:05
Alexis
So useful things, useful things so far is the theme.
00:04:06
Plant People
the
00:04:07
Jessica
Beautiful.
00:04:08
Alexis
All right, Brett, what about you?
00:04:12
Brett
I think for me, it's a a cheap pin with a crop insurance logo on it. It would be pretty high.
00:04:18
Plant People
I mean, if you find that useful, Brad, if you find that useful,
00:04:19
Brett
It's rare. You don't come... What's that?
00:04:22
Jessica
Do you like a particular color of ink?
00:04:24
Brett
Yeah. yeah
00:04:27
Jessica
Are you more excited when it's blue versus black?
00:04:27
Alexis
Are you a blue, a blue, black?
00:04:29
Brett
as long as it As long as it stops working within a couple of weeks, that is really checks the box for me.
00:04:33
Plant People
Oh, well, that's, that's a given, Brad.
00:04:33
Jessica
Oh, okay.
00:04:34
Plant People
That's a given.
00:04:35
Brett
When we have at our wedding, the the what the favors on the table were um bottles of ale eight for the children and little bottles of bullet bourbon for the adults.
00:04:35
Plant People
That's a, that's absolutely a given.
00:04:47
Jessica
ah Oh, nice.
00:04:48
Alexis
Oh.
00:04:48
Brett
But people just started popping, popping the bullet after like during the reception and it just went to the moon.
00:04:48
Plant People
Let's not get those confused.
00:04:50
Alexis
Yeah.
00:04:54
Alexis
South.
00:04:55
Jessica
That's what...
00:04:55
Plant People
The energy went up.
00:04:56
Brett
ah Well, yeah, I don't know it was which way was up but it went that direction.
00:04:56
Alexis
We're north?
00:04:57
Plant People
Yeah.
00:04:58
Alexis
It was a good thing?
00:05:00
Jessica
That's what happened with us and the sorghum and honey. People just started popping those honey bears and it went wild after that.
00:05:02
Brett
Yeah, whoo. just like in that blood sugar.
00:05:04
Plant People
Yeah.
00:05:05
Alexis
Yeah, I took ah I took Jessica's leftover wine from her wedding, so that was my party favor.
00:05:06
Plant People
I'm thinking.
00:05:13
Jessica
That is true.
00:05:13
Alexis
Nothing like chugging a bottle of wine in the parking lot, but and we have a guest on today.
00:05:17
Plant People
Okay. Okay. You supporting the local economy.
Introduction to Bethany and Urban Agriculture
00:05:21
Alexis
We have a guest on today, Bethany. What what is something that you have received?
00:05:26
Bethany Pratt
Oh man, like conference wise, there were an event.
00:05:29
Alexis
Or just, you know, any type of event, it's memorable.
00:05:31
Plant People
Anything.
00:05:33
Bethany Pratt
So one thing that is coming to mind is this random like bandana that has um like ice packs things in it.
00:05:43
Alexis
oh yeah
00:05:43
Bethany Pratt
So you can like wet and then like put it in your freezer and then like put it around your neck in the summer or like on your forehead or like when it's frozen and heavy, you can hit people with it.
00:05:43
Plant People
Okay.
00:05:43
Jessica
Oh yeah, that was nice.
00:05:43
Alexis
yeah
00:05:49
Plant People
Oh yeah.
00:05:55
Plant People
Nice.
00:05:55
Jessica
Nice.
00:05:55
Bethany Pratt
But it's also cooling, it's like an ice, you know, like ah an ice bomb.
00:05:58
Plant People
Very useful.
00:05:59
Alexis
Very, yeah, useful, many different ways.
00:05:59
Bethany Pratt
Yeah, it's very useful.
00:06:01
Alexis
I like this.
00:06:02
Bethany Pratt
Many different, yeah.
00:06:02
Alexis
Okay, so useful items. Useful items and edible items is what I'm hearing out of you all. So, okay, all right. Putting that in my notes, filing that away. Thank you for your input, friends.
00:06:13
Bethany Pratt
Invite us to your next party.
00:06:15
Plant People
Yes, please.
00:06:15
Bethany Pratt
That's what it, you know, like, says since you've gotten all these good ideas.
00:06:16
Plant People
And I want one of each of these things.
00:06:18
Alexis
its
00:06:19
Plant People
Yes.
00:06:19
Alexis
Yeah, it's a CCD event. So, you know, I don't know about the bullet. We might have to go with Jim Beam, you know, since they're like the UK peeps, but, uh, yeah, we're working on it.
00:06:25
Plant People
The Institute.
00:06:27
Brett
We will not.
00:06:28
Alexis
We're working on it.
00:06:30
Jessica
No, he says.
00:06:30
Plant People
Brett says, absolutely not.
00:06:31
Brett
I would rather have nothing. Thank you. I'm just kidding. I don't know.
00:06:34
Alexis
Class.
00:06:35
Brett
I'm just being polemical at this point.
00:06:36
Bethany Pratt
An empty box, please.
00:06:37
Plant People
hey He's just being antagonistic, yes.
00:06:38
Brett
good You know, I'll have some apple cider, I guess.
00:06:40
Jessica
yeah
00:06:42
Alexis
but Whatever, fine.
00:06:44
Plant People
ah People listening to this, to this point are like waiting on beta breath to see what the heck that the topic is.
00:06:44
Alexis
Well, wonderful.
00:06:49
Jessica
They're like, why is Bethany here?
00:06:50
Plant People
They're like, why is Bethany here today?
00:06:52
Bethany Pratt
Who is she?
00:06:52
Alexis
Yeah, who's Bethany? Why is she here?
00:06:53
Brett
Bethany herself is thinking, why, why is Bethany here?
00:06:56
Jessica
Why did I agree to this?
00:06:57
Plant People
Yes.
00:06:58
Alexis
So Bethany, tell us about yourself. You've been around doing some cool stuff over the years. So tell us tell us all about you now. Tell us about you in the past. Tell us tell us about Bethany.
00:07:08
Bethany Pratt
Oh, thank you. Love talking about myself.
00:07:09
Alexis
ah so
00:07:11
Bethany Pratt
um um Well, I'm Bethany Pratt. I am currently a food system specialist with nutrition education and extension. um And probably my area of expertise within that is all things urban. So I live in Louisville, work in Louisville, where in a past life I was the horticulture agent and in the county.
00:07:33
Bethany Pratt
um So I've been around Extension for a while doing things related to planting, growing, food, people um in pretty small spaces for a lot of years.
00:07:45
Bethany Pratt
So I think that's maybe the summary.
00:07:45
Alexis
One might say the culture of horticulture.
00:07:48
Bethany Pratt
Perhaps.
00:07:49
Plant People
I see what you did there. Very nice, Alexis. Yeah.
00:07:52
Alexis
I was channeling my inner Brett.
00:07:54
Plant People
Yeah. you were You just had to get that in. But it's true. All the culture behind horticulture and all the circles therein. So, yeah.
00:08:03
Brett
Well, I think that it's also that over the last, I mean, 30 years probably in in real, the the real world where people were doing it, but over the last 15 or so,
00:08:14
Brett
People like USDA have been paying more attention to urban agriculture and thinking about urban agriculture and less ah rigid boundaries around what ag is and isn't.
00:08:25
Brett
and I think it still has a long way to go you know conceptually, but in the yeah out in the real world, it's been happening for a long time. and i think that was
00:08:33
Alexis
Mm.
00:08:35
Brett
I would say within UK extension, you were one of the one of the you know pioneers of of thinking and and really investing a lot of time and energy into urban agriculture and that ah space. And that that's kind of how we how I knew knew you originally.
00:08:51
Bethany Pratt
because I pestered you a lot about why aren't there resources and other languages or for personal scale farmers.
00:08:55
Brett
Yeah.
00:08:58
Brett
Yeah, you you advocated in a way that that we should be advocating.
00:08:58
Bethany Pratt
Yeah.
00:09:03
Brett
And yeah.
00:09:03
Jessica
Yeah, I would agree with that. She's like, you were like one of the leading community garden people in the state at one point, I felt like, um and are very knowledgeable in all the community garden background and making those work and making them be efficient for for everyone, right?
00:09:20
Alexis
It was no easy task and a lot of the people you worked with did not speak and a language you were familiar with.
00:09:23
Jessica
No, which yeah, that is not easy at all.
00:09:23
Bethany Pratt
It is still not an easy task.
00:09:23
Plant People
No.
00:09:26
Plant People
And no two community gardens, yeah.
00:09:27
Bethany Pratt
I know, maybe I should shamelessly plug forthcoming workshops on community garden management for 2025 happening in for sure Bowling Green area and Eastern Kentucky area, maybe online to come.
00:09:33
Brett
yeah
00:09:33
Alexis
Yeah.
00:09:34
Plant People
Absolutely.
00:09:35
Alexis
Please.
00:09:35
Brett
perfect
00:09:43
Bethany Pratt
So open to both extension and community um folks who are
Equity and Policy in Urban Agriculture
00:09:48
Bethany Pratt
interested, but no dates yet, but just wanted to throw that out there. If you are someone in the world who's dabbling in the community garden world or loves the idea of it and the cute pictures of children eating vegetables.
00:09:55
Brett
Yeah. Perfect
00:10:02
Bethany Pratt
We'll talk because it's a lot of work and all the things that go behind it.
00:10:04
Jessica
thank
00:10:04
Alexis
and all the things that go behind that yeah
00:10:05
Brett
We, we can, we could delve delve into the community gardening thing more specifically here in a second but you know you said all all things urban and I know that it, you know, like with a lot of things we do an extension and just in our lives there's multiple different components so what What are the other, like what are other things that you found yourself engaging with through this urban world, urban interface with horticulture and agriculture and community and nutrition and yeah, just other kinds of big buckets of information or but buckets of ah approaches that you find that you've been working on.
00:10:38
Bethany Pratt
Sure. So I think the most interesting thing for me is how much when you're growing in an urban area or you want to grow in an urban area, you like have to get almost immediately engaged in policy work, either like on the local level or, you know, your neighborhood or your homeowners association or, you know, something, right? Because on a farm kind of out in a rural part of Kentucky, no one's, no one's looking at your farm, like on a regular basis, right? Or if they are, it's maybe the 10 feet that are on the road.
00:11:08
Bethany Pratt
Um, but you know, like where I live in Louisville, my entire, you know, 10, you know, three tenths of an acre is visible from a pretty busy street. So people are always looking at it. And I've got like in my own yard, I have chickens, I have 60 feet of raspberries and blackberries and asparagus and like all this stuff, but everyone can see it.
00:11:32
Bethany Pratt
um you know so then you have to kind of think about well how do I manage this space so that in some cases you don't get fined by your homeowners association or the city or whatever or someone doesn't you know come and try to vandalize it like or just because they're curious right like if you've had bees or chickens somewhere in an area someone are like what's that box let's go open it um it's like a whole different level of like surprise interactions
00:11:57
Jessica
And we'll have a nice surprise.
00:11:59
Alexis
Mistake, mistakes were made.
00:12:02
Bethany Pratt
Because things are just more visible because they're close together in a city. So that's always been an interesting thing. So I've gotten to do. Some policy change work here in Louisville. Over the past three years, I helped rewrite property maintenance codes for this city.
00:12:18
Bethany Pratt
um And so rewrite some zoning ordinances um to increase agriculture usage and allow ability in the city.
00:12:21
Alexis
Wow.
00:12:25
Jessica
Nicole.
00:12:26
Bethany Pratt
Yeah, pretty cool. um And then I'm now doing train trainings with our property maintenance enforcement team for the city on how to identify plants.
00:12:38
Bethany Pratt
um which right sounds pretty crazy right but like um kind of the interesting intersection of like plants and culture there is that um as places got urbanized this kind of white aesthetic of like lawn care and maintenance and wealth right became enshrined in city ordinance in terms of what your property could look like
00:12:39
Alexis
but Wow. Yeah.
00:13:03
Bethany Pratt
um And so, and in some place, it's all complaint based, right? um Which is what it is. um But obviously not very equitable. But with that, you know, like people who tended to be poor or not white or live in kind of transitioning communities, if they were growing food or keeping animals to supplement their diet could get fined out of their homes because their properties were unkempt.
00:13:31
Bethany Pratt
um Which basically meant they had plants growing in their yard that were over six inches tall How many plants can you name that are like edible that are over six inches tall?
00:13:36
Jessica
Wow.
00:13:42
Alexis
All of them are over.
00:13:43
Plant People
Yeah, just about all of them, yeah.
00:13:43
Bethany Pratt
All of them right yeah the Anything that's tasty useful or nutritious Right.
00:13:43
Jessica
Yeah. Right.
00:13:44
Plant People
um
00:13:46
Alexis
Creeping time is the only one I can think under six inches tall.
00:13:49
Bethany Pratt
Yeah, the list is very short for the under six inches tall um So we partnered myself um a bunch of urban farmers and a lot of native plant people actually all partnered together and worked with our property maintenance code folks here in Louisville to rewrite the language of their codes um to allow both food production in all areas and also native plant production. um So it was kind of a cool moment of coming together. um The thing that we learned now it's probably two and a half years after this got passed this was passed, ratified by our city government,
00:14:28
Bethany Pratt
was that right the city government enforces these things. We have property maintenance codes enforcement people. So if I'm driving down the street and I think Alexis's yard looks like trash, whether it does or not, right it doesn't matter.
00:14:40
Alexis
It does.
00:14:42
Bethany Pratt
It's totally subjective. I can call the city and be like, Alexis's yard looks like
Community Benefits and Stereotypes in Urban Gardening
00:14:47
Bethany Pratt
trash. And then they have to send somebody out to her property to look at it.
00:14:53
Bethany Pratt
So the reality is, is right, Alexis is growing these beautiful native plants, like, and right, they're beautiful and they're lovely, but they also kind of look like weeds.
00:15:04
Plant People
Her Joe Powie, it is out of control.
00:15:04
Bethany Pratt
Maybe you've got some, yeah, like some Joe pie or some, you know, some of the different grasses or like, I have goldenrod in my front yard, which people kept asking me about all year because it doesn't bloom until now.
00:15:05
Jessica
Right.
00:15:17
Jessica
Right.
00:15:17
Bethany Pratt
um
00:15:17
Jessica
Yeah.
00:15:19
Bethany Pratt
You know, but like all those things, right? And so we started doing, I worked with the native plant folks to do trainings for property maintenance codes about like, what, what is this stuff?
00:15:30
Bethany Pratt
Like, what are the tools that are available to ID stuff? Cause like Louisville's 20% of Kentucky lives in Louisville. There's no way we can go out and there's a billion plants in the world.
00:15:42
Bethany Pratt
Like there's no way everyone's going to know what all these plants are, if they're invasive, if they're native, if, you know,
00:15:45
Alexis
Mm hmm.
00:15:49
Bethany Pratt
blah, blah, blah. So we we were doing trainings on how to identify some basic native plants, some ones that are definitely invasive, things like honeysuckle and kudzu and Japanese knotweed, anything that's listed on our state and invasive species list.
00:15:58
Alexis
Mm hmm.
00:16:07
Bethany Pratt
um And then we're kind of like, go forth and try it out. see if you like come with come with things from the lens of like hey maybe this was intentional maybe you know maybe these weeds are intentional how many property maintenance code violations are there and the the reduction of like finding from the city has gone down a whole bunch um this year the reporting is still about the same but in terms of residents getting fined it's decreasing a lot just from those kinds of trainings so it's been an interesting
00:16:20
Alexis
Mhmm.
00:16:31
Alexis
Wow.
00:16:43
Bethany Pratt
An interesting and and unexpected thing in the world.
00:16:46
Plant People
Is all of this ah the couched, all of this work kind of couched in like a food network landscape, or does it go beyond that, Bethany? I mean, if what's the broader perspective if you zoom back out? um All of this work, what umbrella or what bucket is it in? I mean, in a broader sense.
00:17:05
Bethany Pratt
I mean broader sense this is food systems work because we're looking so we're yeah food systems but the thing you know the thinking behind it is if you now have permission to grow tall edible food producing plants and or pollinator-friendly native plants in an urban space what are you
00:17:08
Plant People
Yeah, oh, food systems. Okay, so it's all under food systems. Yeah.
00:17:17
Plant People
Gotcha. Gotcha.
00:17:18
Jessica
Right.
00:17:19
Plant People
Yeah.
00:17:26
Bethany Pratt
potentially promoting, right? You're promoting food personal food security.
00:17:28
Plant People
yeah
00:17:30
Bethany Pratt
You're promoting an environment in which more people can be personally food secure.
00:17:35
Plant People
Kind of the victory gardens.
00:17:35
Bethany Pratt
So like, even though Alexis may only be growing flowers, right?
00:17:37
Plant People
Yeah.
00:17:39
Bethany Pratt
Ray, your house five, you know, five you know three streets over is probably benefiting from all the flowers with your now 30 foot tall tomato plants, because she's brought all these pollinators in.
00:17:47
Plant People
Yes.
00:17:49
Alexis
You're welcome.
00:17:49
Jessica
hu
00:17:49
Plant People
Yeah.
00:17:50
Bethany Pratt
You're welcome, right?
00:17:50
Plant People
Yeah. Thank you so much. Yeah, the web. Yeah, it's part of the web. Yeah, the system.
00:17:55
Brett
So when you when when when you started,
00:17:55
Bethany Pratt
It's part of the web.
00:17:59
Brett
you and and whoever else you're working with, you know started these conversations to try to change change or address or intervene around these these policies that weren't working. um was the, what was the response from the people who were in a position to make the change?
00:18:14
Jessica
Ha ha ha.
00:18:14
Brett
Was it sort of like, oh, we didn't realize that this was so jacked up or we realized it, but you know, you're making some good points or was it, was there resistance or what, like, what was the, what was the vibe, you know, in those conversations?
00:18:25
Alexis
No.
00:18:27
Bethany Pratt
It, you know, it was actually surprisingly open from the city. We also were able, we had been looking at some of these things for a couple years and then um the city decided to do an equity review of all of their codes and regulations. So we took that as an opening to kind of start to start it and started approaching this from an equity lens um because statistically the properties that have violations most often are people of color, people in low income, and truly most of the time it's actually for food production.
00:19:02
Bethany Pratt
um Because we got some data back and it was like someone growing corn in their front yard had a whole bunch of property violations.
00:19:02
Alexis
Wow.
00:19:08
Jessica
Hmm.
00:19:09
Bethany Pratt
Corn happens to be a fairly tall plant.
00:19:11
Alexis
and so
00:19:12
Bethany Pratt
um you know like But like was it neat and well-kempt? Yes, absolutely. But it was eight feet tall and in their front yard.
00:19:20
Alexis
and
00:19:21
Bethany Pratt
But their front yard was a shotgun lot in the middle of a neighborhood. And somebody on the block really didn't like it. um
00:19:32
Alexis
Mind-boggling.
00:19:33
Bethany Pratt
Yes.
00:19:34
Jessica
And that's not like a plant that like, you're like, what is that? Is that an invasive?
00:19:38
Bethany Pratt
right
00:19:38
Jessica
Right. Because we grow corn everywhere.
00:19:42
Bethany Pratt
Yeah, right now you can see it everywhere.
00:19:42
Jessica
Like, you know, it's a very easy to identify place. Right. So that's like.
00:19:46
Bethany Pratt
Yes.
00:19:47
Brett
It'd be, it would be cool if there was like a, like an inverse complaint option where you can like call and be like, I saw this in their front yard and I caught a huge vibe off of it.
00:19:47
Bethany Pratt
Yeah.
00:19:55
Brett
I would like to give it a, you know, Reddit thumbs up against the negative thing that somebody else is going to be saying about it.
00:19:59
Bethany Pratt
I know.
00:20:01
Alexis
Yeah.
00:20:01
Jessica
Yeah.
00:20:01
Alexis
Yeah.
00:20:01
Jessica
so Yeah.
00:20:01
Alexis
And you just weigh how many thumbs up or thumbs down.
00:20:01
Brett
Cause yeah, like there's more, there's more people who think that's cool than there are people who, but there's only really the option for the people who think, who don't like it to voice their.
00:20:04
Alexis
Yeah.
00:20:04
Bethany Pratt
Right.
00:20:10
Bethany Pratt
Right, I know. Worth just the culture of like calling neighbors to complain whenever they like fog their yard for like bugs or you know herbicides or something.
00:20:21
Bethany Pratt
um Just be like, I don't like that. We should, I don't know, go find them.
00:20:27
Alexis
Yeah.
00:20:28
Bethany Pratt
like How much would that change things?
00:20:28
Brett
and
00:20:30
Alexis
yeah
00:20:30
Brett
I love how silent this spring is.
00:20:33
Bethany Pratt
Yes, exactly.
00:20:36
Alexis
oh Just got like creeps.
00:20:38
Brett
Shout out Rachel Carson.
00:20:39
Alexis
I did a ah home visit one time when i ah when I was in the county for a ah like a retired living type place. and so they sort of had some you know They had ah some very simple landscape you know homeowner association e type thing, but it wasn't like overly strict.
00:20:50
Bethany Pratt
No.
00:21:00
Alexis
and They had one house. and like when we We walked up and down the street and they wanted to talk about it, every house and every tree on the place. you know and so We went through everything and then we stopped in front of this one house.
00:21:11
Alexis
And, you know, they had big grasses out front. They were probably one of our native species and, you know, day lilies that had just died back. So they kind of look crappy because they had just bloomed out and, you know, some traditional stuff.
00:21:24
Alexis
But they just had stuff that was cycling through, right? We know plants die back and they go dormant. And it was just the time of year for the spring things so to leave.
00:21:33
Bethany Pratt
who
00:21:33
Alexis
And they go, well, what did you what would you do about this house? And I just looked at these women who are very, very sweet. And I was like, I'd probably just mind my own business. They were like, what?
00:21:43
Bethany Pratt
Yeah, pretty much.
00:21:44
Jessica
Yeah.
00:21:44
Alexis
And I was like, there's nothing wrong with anything that they have. They have perfectly good things. It's just a weird cycle right now. And it'll be fine. And they just could not.
00:21:53
Bethany Pratt
Yep.
00:21:54
Alexis
I was like, I'd probably mind my own business.
00:21:59
Alexis
It's, but you know, you do have like, and you do see those, uh, uh, homes. I know I live, it was from a very small community where I worked with the code enforcer. So I mean, fraction of what Louisville is, but you know, Danville had places, but most of the time the places that were having trouble were abandoned.
00:22:16
Alexis
You know, it wasn't, it didn't have it.
00:22:17
Bethany Pratt
Okay.
00:22:18
Alexis
It was the owner doesn't even live in the County. Doesn't come to look at it. And you know, that's where code enforcers can really come through because things aren't taken care of.
00:22:23
Bethany Pratt
Okay.
00:22:26
Alexis
And you know, it's dangerous and things like that. But. to imagine someone being mad about corn in their in someone else's yard. It's just like, what?
00:22:35
Bethany Pratt
Yeah, and here at least, our code enforcement, they do all of that.
00:22:35
Jessica
Yeah.
00:22:39
Bethany Pratt
Whether you're reporting like an abandoned home or like a dumpster that's been flipped over or, you know, like, you know, somebody's, yeah, they just cover like, like all, it's a catch-all, you know, there's a tree that's been on a house for eight weeks.
00:22:47
Alexis
Yeah, it's a lot to cover.
00:22:55
Bethany Pratt
um What's happening? Maybe do people live there? We don't know. Like they cover it all.
00:22:59
Alexis
Mm-hmm, right.
00:23:02
Bethany Pratt
So it's kind of a wild thing to think about.
00:23:05
Alexis
So have, go ahead Brett.
00:23:05
Brett
Yeah. So for the, oops, sorry, I was going to take us in a different direction.
00:23:07
Alexis
Yeah, no, go ahead. Oh yeah, me too.
00:23:11
Brett
Okay. Well, and we'll let the power struggle play out and behind the scenes and I'll just say the, uh, the, so for the people, for people, some people who don't have access to a yard or space or, uh, to grow stuff that one of the things that ah we mentioned earlier was this idea of community gardens.
00:23:15
Jessica
Mm hmm.
00:23:16
Plant People
They're arm wrestling right now off camera.
00:23:28
Brett
And have you been able to continue any work with that?
00:23:28
Bethany Pratt
Mm hmm.
00:23:31
Brett
Have you seen notice changes with that over time? Any of your other, you know, perspective on that would be really cool to hear.
00:23:38
Bethany Pratt
Yeah. I mean, I think what I've learned about community gardens is there are so many right ways to do community gardens.
Community Garden Models and Challenges
00:23:44
Alexis
Mm.
00:23:44
Bethany Pratt
Um, and there's probably just as many wrong ways too, but they're really, the wrong ways are truly about the people, not about the garden. Um, and I think that's kind of right.
00:23:52
Plant People
Yeah.
00:23:54
Bethany Pratt
Again, that culture and horticulture, it's like from the beginning, finding your core group of people who are really dedicated to what, whatever the goal of that community garden is.
00:24:06
Bethany Pratt
I mean, I like I directly managed when I was a county agent 10 different community growing spaces. Um, some were community growing spaces where people had their, had their own garden space and were growing strictly to feed their family.
00:24:22
Bethany Pratt
Some were community gardens where people had a, an individual growing space, but were growing to both feed their family and to sell food.
00:24:29
Jessica
Thank you.
00:24:31
Bethany Pratt
Um, a couple of them were communal as in they were, it was like one big garden plot managed by about 10 people who all worked it out somehow. Um.
00:24:42
Jessica
that's amazing
00:24:43
Alexis
Yeah, honestly.
00:24:43
Bethany Pratt
Yeah, yeah, it really was. ah You know, and then there were some places where I would go and just do like kind of visits for like plant advice type things, which would be community gardens.
00:24:45
Plant People
Impressive That core group is key.
00:24:55
Bethany Pratt
A lot of churches here do community gardens, but it's managed by like a core group of church volunteers. And then all the produce goes to their food pantry, which is a lovely thing.
00:25:05
Jessica
That's amazing.
00:25:06
Bethany Pratt
um We have a couple groups that core group, right?
00:25:08
Plant People
It seems like that core group you said a keyword there the core group.
00:25:10
Bethany Pratt
Super key.
00:25:11
Plant People
Yeah
00:25:12
Bethany Pratt
Yeah. Yeah, they have a core group of garden managers who do all the planning and stuff. And then they do work days with their youth groups or you know the different church groups and all of that.
00:25:22
Bethany Pratt
um There's a couple groups here in Louisville who do anarchist gardens, which I kind of love. They just go and plant stuff and hope.
00:25:29
Plant People
Gorilla gardeners.
00:25:32
Bethany Pratt
Yeah, exactly. They just hope for the best. Yeah. um But they're really, it's kind of funny though, because those a couple, some of those are super public, but that same kind of anarchist group has some that are more private anarchist gardens.
00:25:47
Bethany Pratt
As in, if you like stumble upon them, then totally help yourself, right? But they're not on the beaten path. So I think they, those folks kind of come back to them pretty
00:25:56
Alexis
I was like that's rad.
00:25:58
Bethany Pratt
You know, for their own personal use which is again totally fine. Um, and then kind of in between we have some organizations who do community food for us, which is the if they plant it they will come model.
00:26:07
Alexis
Mmhmm.
00:26:11
Bethany Pratt
um which which is the probably the model I like the least um because the concept we've all seen this right the lovely idea of I'm going to plant an apple tree and then the first graders are going to pick apples and all this stuff and so the act of planting the apple tree was awesome but
00:26:13
Alexis
Mmhmm.
00:26:32
Plant People
But they're going to be eighth graders when they pick that first apple or fifth grade.
00:26:34
Jessica
But as as and as as we all know.
00:26:35
Bethany Pratt
They're gonna be eighth graders.
00:26:36
Plant People
Yeah.
00:26:37
Bethany Pratt
And then what happens between first and eighth grade to that apple tree?
00:26:37
Plant People
Yeah.
00:26:37
Alexis
Mhmm.
00:26:40
Bethany Pratt
Does anyone water it? Did anyone remember not to hit it with the lawnmower? um Did anyone tell the lawnmower guy that they planted an apple tree?
00:26:49
Plant People
Yeah.
00:26:49
Jessica
Right.
00:26:49
Bethany Pratt
Like, all those things.
00:26:52
Jessica
Yeah.
00:26:52
Brett
yeah the Do the people in the surrounding area love the smell of rotting apples?
00:26:56
Bethany Pratt
Right, yeah, or all of the yellow jackets that will descend on that area.
00:26:57
Alexis
um
00:26:57
Jessica
Do they love to see fireblights?
00:26:58
Plant People
Or yellow jackets. Yes.
00:27:00
Brett
Yeah.
00:27:01
Plant People
Yeah.
00:27:01
Alexis
Has everybody seen the like thing that goes around social media once or twice a year of like, why don't we just plant all of the sidewalk trees should be fruit trees?
00:27:13
Alexis
like Instead of planting a maple or you know whatever street tree, they should be fruit trees.
00:27:13
Jessica
guests.
00:27:14
Bethany Pratt
Uh huh. Yeah.
00:27:17
Alexis
and i'm like No, that way the homeless always have food. And I'm like, no, I just this is so wrong. And so and there there's so much that could be done with like that, like you said, planned it and they will come sort of idea like, you know, are there landscape plants that could also be edible? Sure. But like, no.
00:27:39
Jessica
I've recently have been dealing with that with our local community wanting to update one of our parks to plant an apple orchard to feed children when they come to play baseball games as a thanks for coming.
00:27:54
Jessica
Here's your apple. But thankfully, um, thankfully I crushed dreams and also cause I'm yes, and have a great tree board that I work with and we have,
00:28:00
Plant People
The children are throwing the apples.
00:28:01
Alexis
That's what you are, an extension, a dream crusher.
00:28:08
Jessica
made a transition to ah planting some native fruit trees.
00:28:13
Bethany Pratt
Hey.
00:28:13
Jessica
So, which people, you know, are not going to be like, some people might be like, what the heck is that, right? But I know a mulberry is going to be more, you know,
00:28:19
Bethany Pratt
ah yeah Oh, yeah.
00:28:23
Jessica
it's going to be hardier than an apple tree is.
00:28:24
Alexis
Resilient.
00:28:26
Jessica
And we were talking about you know some other like different nut trees and things like that. ah Still trying to win over some of of our like local officials on this, but you know trying to give examples of like what Bethany has shared.
00:28:36
Alexis
says
00:28:40
Jessica
and she had You had shared that with me before um about how some of those plants, and they will come orchards or plots, will what ends up happening with them in the long run.
00:28:43
Bethany Pratt
Oh, yeah.
00:28:52
Bethany Pratt
um so
00:28:52
Jessica
so
00:28:53
Brett
Well, when I did sports, we always had orange slices. So have you guys thought about orange trees?
00:28:57
Plant People
Yeah, I think you should.
00:28:57
Jessica
You know, I mean, we are a warmer zone, right?
00:28:59
Plant People
And lemon trees.
00:29:01
Jessica
Our zone has got, you know.
00:29:03
Alexis
I recently learned
00:29:03
Bethany Pratt
True.
00:29:03
Brett
Yeah, we'll be you'll be ready or a banana tree.
00:29:03
Bethany Pratt
maybe Maybe some small ones, then you can install some greenhouses over them for the winter.
00:29:06
Plant People
Yeah, would be perfect.
00:29:07
Alexis
Yeah, yeah, just individual ones that will heat with the coal.
00:29:08
Jessica
Yes. And those will not, those will not get vandalized at all, right?
00:29:09
Bethany Pratt
Glass, obviously.
00:29:11
Plant People
with
00:29:13
Brett
Solar geothermal.
00:29:13
Jessica
Nobody's going to mess with those at night.
00:29:15
Brett
I read about it. There was, it I can send you the Reddit thread.
00:29:18
Alexis
I mean, the Jessica, the pool at that park is always leaking. So what if we just like drain it, put the trees in there and then put glass on top of it? Boom, walk in underground greenhouse.
00:29:29
Plant People
visionary, visionary.
00:29:29
Jessica
No, that sounds like the best way to spend the money that our town has.
00:29:29
Brett
Drain the Pool, 2024. war
00:29:33
Alexis
I feel, you know what, I'm going to put my tax dollars towards that because like I vote in your county, so you're welcome.
00:29:36
Jessica
Okay. Thank you.
00:29:40
Plant People
Yeah. So many of these projects, ah you know, and we're, we're, we're kind of, you know, lag cause we've all, you know, worked in situations that have been challenging, you know, because there's different phases of these projects.
00:29:51
Plant People
There's a, you know, a lot of times there's installation when there's lots of energy with groups.
00:29:52
Bethany Pratt
Mm hmm.
00:29:55
Plant People
with installation, but that maintenance phase, what was planted in April and May, it's really hot to take care of, even when we're talking about annual garden crops.
00:30:03
Jessica
Mmhmm.
00:30:04
Plant People
And when nobody's in school, I mean, there's a certain rhythm to community gardens, especially if we get into talking about school gardens, but just community gardens in general, there's a rhythm to them.
00:30:16
Plant People
There's installation and maintenance phases, and especially the perennial gardens. like We're talking about ah perennial trees. We were just talking about that. But that's a long term sort of commitment. And you really need kind of some plans in place that fly by the seat of the pants is not always the best plan of work for perennial community garden plants.
00:30:36
Plant People
And I'm sure you've probably seen some of that. And I know you've worked through a lot of those processes, haven't you, Bethany, in the past as far as installation and maintenance?
00:30:44
Bethany Pratt
Oh, yeah, I mean, that's probably my number one question when I start with any group is who's taking care of this?
00:30:45
Plant People
Yeah.
00:30:50
Plant People
Yeah, you're the bad guy, Bethany.
00:30:51
Bethany Pratt
Not who's planting it, but who's coming back every week to water the trees, right?
00:30:56
Plant People
You're a killer of dreams also.
00:30:58
Bethany Pratt
I am. I like to think of it as a giant reality check.
00:31:02
Bethany Pratt
um You know, because that's the thing is if you know, Jessica's native plant orchard, which sounds awesome, it could still be installed and do really well. But
00:31:02
Plant People
Yeah, yeah.
00:31:12
Alexis
Mmhmm.
00:31:13
Bethany Pratt
Who's going to water it, right?
00:31:14
Alexis
Mmhmm.
00:31:14
Jessica
Great.
00:31:15
Plant People
Yeah, for the establishment phase, yeah.
00:31:15
Bethany Pratt
And is it, is it going to be the, yeah, yeah. And what I love is to have, make sure people put a name with that volunteer because so many times you'll hear, Oh, like if this, guy if you're orchard, right, Jessica is coming into a city park.
00:31:30
Bethany Pratt
Oh, the park will do it.
00:31:32
Jessica
Great.
00:31:32
Bethany Pratt
But then like, who?
00:31:33
Plant People
Will they?
00:31:35
Bethany Pratt
Right.
00:31:35
Jessica
Who at the park is going to do that?
00:31:35
Bethany Pratt
Will they?
00:31:35
Alexis
Who at the park?
00:31:36
Bethany Pratt
You know, who is the park?
00:31:37
Jessica
Yeah.
00:31:37
Plant People
Yeah.
00:31:37
Brett
Park and employee number three.
00:31:37
Bethany Pratt
Is anyone going to talk to?
00:31:39
Alexis
Do they know they're going to do this?
00:31:41
Plant People
Build it, build it and know.
00:31:41
Bethany Pratt
Right, did they know that they're gonna do it?
00:31:41
Jessica
Great.
00:31:43
Bethany Pratt
Did anyone call Brett and say that, hey, he needs to spend, you know, get off his lawnmower two days a week to water all these trees?
00:31:51
Brett
I don't get off my lawnmower for nobody.
00:31:51
Bethany Pratt
Maybe they did, maybe they didn't. Exactly, right? Like, so there's a problem, right?
00:31:58
Alexis
Yeah.
00:31:58
Plant People
The ongoing stuff is less glamorous than the installation phase of these projects.
00:31:59
Bethany Pratt
So this
00:32:04
Plant People
And, you know, having worked with different projects over time with different themes and you you mentioned earlier, like different purposes, you know, every project has a different purpose that needs to be stated up front. I found out the hard way.
00:32:16
Plant People
But yeah, people are less excited, Bethany, about this, at least the ones I've worked with, about this maintenance phase, especially the perennial stuff.
00:32:21
Bethany Pratt
Mm hmm.
00:32:23
Plant People
And and I like to work with both annuals and perennial type plantings. But yeah, that's an issue and that's that's something that it seems like if you give a group or individuals a reality check up front and you explicitly state all of this, things, at least for me, have gone much smoother in projects in the past.
00:32:40
Bethany Pratt
For sure. Or the project maybe get gets redirected, right? It moves from apples to to mulberries and persimmons and things that don't, you know, can take a little more neglect.
00:32:44
Plant People
Yes.
00:32:44
Jessica
Right.
00:32:46
Plant People
Yes, yes, yes.
00:32:47
Jessica
hu Right.
00:32:51
Bethany Pratt
um is that right Because that that's really the reality of it.
00:32:51
Plant People
Yes.
00:32:55
Bethany Pratt
I feel like with plants in all cases, unless you've got a human being attached to that plant that can easily access it.
00:32:57
Plant People
Mm hmm.
00:33:02
Bethany Pratt
Because I see this with community gardens too, right? The excitement of I've rented this community garden plot in this garden because I love I love driving 45 minutes to this park on the other side of town so I'm definitely gonna put my community garden plot there and grow all my tomatoes and whatever but then all of a sudden 45 minutes in the opposite direction of your home or your work just becomes a lot especially now that it's hot or
00:33:13
Alexis
Yeah.
00:33:20
Plant People
Yes.
00:33:25
Alexis
Mm-hm.
00:33:30
Bethany Pratt
you know, maybe UK is playing tonight or your you know your kids have a so baseball game.
00:33:37
Plant People
Yes.
00:33:37
Bethany Pratt
So then ah we're not going to be any mosquitoes this year.
00:33:37
Brett
I thought there weren't going to be any mosquitoes this year.
00:33:41
Plant People
Who said it was going to be hot? I mean, 90 degrees in the shade.
00:33:43
Bethany Pratt
Right?
00:33:44
Jessica
I have to water so much because it's a drought.
00:33:45
Bethany Pratt
It happens every year. It's hot in the summer.
00:33:48
Alexis
Yeah, hasn't rained in two months, yeah.
00:33:50
Plant People
but But you know, even saying all of this stuff, and you mentioned earlier when you said core group, that always rings with me.
00:33:51
Bethany Pratt
Yeah.
00:33:56
Plant People
It seems like every successful project, a community project that I've ever been involved with, starts with like one or two passionate people that are really the the They're the cat wranglers. they If they're working with a larger organization, they're the ones that are are supremely motivated and they keep everyone else on task within that organization. Because when working with these groups, you know yeah it's almost like you have to say, well, I can't be out there doing it all. I'm working with you. And those groups that are fun to work with are the ones that have one or two just really, really motivated people that get everybody else hopped up and motivated, seems like.
00:34:31
Bethany Pratt
Oh, totally. I always tell people, and I still tell people, I'm not your personal gardener. I'm only my personal gardener. um Which means that you, right? But the point right to you, right, is that you've got to find who's the personal gardener for this space.
00:34:45
Plant People
Yes, yes.
00:34:46
Bethany Pratt
And, you know, what what does that look like? And then for some of our community gardens, where they were more like allotment, where like all five of us had our own garden plots that we were taking care of.
00:34:59
Bethany Pratt
Well, then what happens to kind of the common spaces? And we always had to have those conversations too.
00:35:03
Alexis
and
00:35:04
Bethany Pratt
Like, because we, yeah, those shared use spaces, you know, the pathway from the parking lot to the garden, you know, who's who's taking care of that?
00:35:06
Alexis
Shared use areas, yeah.
00:35:14
Bethany Pratt
Do we care if the grass grows to be seven feet tall? Maybe we do, maybe we don't. Some places do care.
00:35:19
Alexis
If it's native grass, nobody cares.
00:35:21
Bethany Pratt
eight Right?
00:35:22
Alexis
that's Thanks to you, Bethany.
00:35:25
Jessica
Yeah.
00:35:25
Bethany Pratt
yeah but that Although that is not always true, right? Because everyone has their own opinions on that.
00:35:29
Plant People
Look, who let this garden go? Who let it go?
00:35:32
Bethany Pratt
Yeah.
00:35:33
Plant People
Get in this state.
00:35:33
Bethany Pratt
Yeah. So like we honestly doing a lot of work for me with Community Gardens at the beginning was helping people get organized, right? Finding that core group and then working with them to set collective expectations.
00:35:48
Plant People
Love it.
00:35:48
Bethany Pratt
for you know what's acceptable, whether it was like we're all working together on our on one garden or we're all working independently in our own gardens, but we can still see each other's gardens.
00:35:49
Plant People
Yes, absolutely.
00:35:59
Alexis
it
00:36:00
Bethany Pratt
you know We have, there's one garden in Louisville that staked out an organic section because there were there was a core group of people who were super passionate about, and by organic, what they actually meant was no spraying period.
00:36:00
Plant People
Yes.
00:36:13
Alexis
No spray. Mm-hmm.
00:36:15
Bethany Pratt
um They didn't care if it was Omri certified. They just didn't want any spraying.
00:36:18
Jessica
Mm.
00:36:20
Bethany Pratt
You know, no application of anything. And, but there were, they, that group worked it out. There were enough people in that, you know, 55 person garden that about they, they were all kind of able to, few people s switched plots to make it happen.
00:36:30
Jessica
It's huge.
00:36:30
Alexis
Wow.
00:36:36
Bethany Pratt
But then they like, there's like caution tape. I kid you not like down the middle. It's like, it's like, it's like your room in third grade when you shared with your sibling and you put the line down the middle. but everyone agreed with it and respected it and they replaced the caution tape and like you know like do all of that and that's how that group worked it out so no one left the garden but the people who were angry about people spraying and using any kind of chemical went to one side there's like the
00:37:07
Bethany Pratt
the spray people in the middle, but they're probably they're mostly using organic stuff. So they're kind of like the buffer zone.
00:37:14
Alexis
yeah Yeah.
00:37:14
Plant People
Yeah.
00:37:14
Bethany Pratt
And then there's the I'm going to do what I need to do side.
00:37:14
Jessica
Mmhmm. Yeah.
00:37:19
Alexis
I like it. I like the transition there.
00:37:19
Bethany Pratt
And yeah yeah, yeah, no, it was it. It's working out. um
00:37:25
Alexis
How does this, Bethany, so I know you do work also like with recovery
Healing through Recovery Gardens
00:37:30
Alexis
gardens. Can you talk a little bit about that and maybe how it's different or the same as some of the community garden work you've done?
00:37:31
Bethany Pratt
Mm hmm.
00:37:36
Bethany Pratt
Yeah, I think there's lots of overlap actually between the recovery gardening and the community gardening in the sense of a lot of those questions about maintenance um kind of still come up.
00:37:40
Alexis
Yeah. Hmm.
00:37:48
Bethany Pratt
um A lot of our substance use recovery centers in Kentucky are starting to partner with UK's nutrition education program first to offer A program called healthy choices for your recovering body.
00:37:59
Alexis
Hmm.
00:38:02
Bethany Pratt
So it's a, it's a nutrition class geared specifically towards people with substance use recovery so a little, a little nuanced right because there's some kind of specific dietary considerations for people who are in recovery but as with all of us eating fruits and vegetables is very important.
00:38:19
Bethany Pratt
Um, so a lot, a lot of times that kind of leads to a, Hey, we have some space on our property. We have people with kind of free time, you know, maybe we should do a garden. Um, and that's right. That's great. Whether, you know, whether that's coming from your city park or your school or whatever, those kinds of those same questions that we've talked a lot about begin, right? Who's going to take care of it? What's going to happen to it? And all of that, um,
00:38:47
Bethany Pratt
With recovery centers, it's a little more nuanced because you always have you're working with the staff at the recovery center is first and foremost um with kind of that setup phase and the planning phase, which is still a lot of education about what's realistic. The first recovery garden that I ever worked with here in Louisville, their director had a dream of feeding everyone in the west end of Louisville.
00:39:16
Alexis
Oh, well, that's ambitious.
00:39:17
Bethany Pratt
Yeah, it's it's a lot of people, right?
00:39:17
Plant People
that's ah That's a lot. that's a Yeah, that's a big goal.
00:39:19
Alexis
I can appreciate go big, go home.
00:39:21
Bethany Pratt
It's like a half a million people.
00:39:21
Jessica
Yep.
00:39:23
Bethany Pratt
um So, you know, they have a large property for for Louisville, right? They have an acre, um that which includes like the building and the parking lot and, you know, all that stuff.
00:39:35
Alexis
They have an acre.
00:39:37
Bethany Pratt
They have an acre. um you know so we were like okay well maybe let's let's like you know so we we started there with the like let's let's let's scale our dreams down um and settled on what if we just use the produce first in the nutrition classes and then the extra could go to the kitchen And that's kind of where we settled.
00:40:03
Bethany Pratt
And I feel like a lot of recovery centers kind of go through that same phase of, you know, we want to do a garden. It seems like a great idea.
00:40:12
Alexis
Mm-hm.
00:40:13
Bethany Pratt
And those, you know, so we have all of those conversations. um One of the more challenging things about recovery gardens is that your help changes. um So.
00:40:22
Alexis
Yeah.
00:40:23
Jessica
That was a question I had, how you manage, manage that.
00:40:25
Bethany Pratt
Yeah.
00:40:27
Jessica
Cause our SNAP assistant here is very active in our recovery centers and she's always telling me how she's meeting new people constantly and.
00:40:28
Bethany Pratt
Right.
00:40:32
Alexis
Mm
00:40:35
Bethany Pratt
Yes, yeah, yeah, so that I mean that's a that's a challenging situation and there's different.
00:40:35
Alexis
-hm.
00:40:42
Bethany Pratt
There's been different people who have managed a different ways and a lot of it is really getting that buy in from the center staff. um to to help implement. um So there's a ah recovery garden in Taylor County where Kara <unk> Campbell is the agent, Angie Freeman is the NEP assistant, and they have worked it out with their recovery center that everyone does the garden and the nutrition classes when they're about halfway through the recovery program.
00:41:11
Alexis
Mm.
00:41:11
Bethany Pratt
And so they know that they've got folks pretty consistently for about a month. because the the nutrition program is six weeks and Kara can get in for four of those six weeks, like right afterwards.
00:41:25
Bethany Pratt
So they know that they'll have the same core people for a month, but then they got to start, it you know, then she's got to train new people again. um Other centers just say, oh, it's goingnna it's always gonna be like an an extracurricular activity, right?
00:41:39
Bethany Pratt
Like a club, um which sometimes is awesome.
00:41:39
Alexis
Mm.
00:41:43
Bethany Pratt
And you find that core group of folks who's, fabulous and you know they stick with their with the garden the whole time that they are at participating at that substance use recovery center but still that's one to six months um so having as an extension person having some dedicated champions there um with staff or kind of thinking about your own capacity with between with you as extension, like, what can you do?
00:42:13
Bethany Pratt
I i kind of hit a space with the substance use centers that I was working with where I went once a week. own And I did, I did gardening work always with people.
00:42:26
Bethany Pratt
And we just did a ah week by week plan, because I would never see the same people.
00:42:31
Alexis
Right.
00:42:32
Bethany Pratt
Because they were, I would get people when they had their chore for the week was outdoor maintenance. like which included mowing the lawn you know to like all outdoor maintenance. So we would meet together like the second day of their week of outdoor maintenance and we would talk about when you go you know what to do in the garden that week. I'd do it with them for like an hour so that we could people could identify what was growing especially when it was little.
00:43:05
Bethany Pratt
um I, my favorite thing, this was my biggest learning curve. It took us three months to plant the garden that first year because we talked about weeding as being a chore.
00:43:16
Bethany Pratt
Like that was a chore that all of my people identified as very important.
00:43:19
Jessica
Oh.
00:43:20
Bethany Pratt
So what do you think they did?
00:43:23
Alexis
They weeded all your plants.
00:43:23
Jessica
They weeded everything that they saw.
00:43:24
Bethany Pratt
They weeded everything, right?
00:43:24
Plant People
everything, all of the things.
00:43:26
Alexis
Yeah.
00:43:26
Jessica
Yeah.
00:43:26
Bethany Pratt
We'd plant stuff, it'd pop up and they'd weed it out. Um, and it took like a good month for me to figure out what was happening. Cause I wasn't seeing the same people.
00:43:34
Alexis
Why are they disappearing?
00:43:35
Brett
Need to need to get those those folks on code enforcement.
00:43:39
Bethany Pratt
I know, right?
00:43:39
Plant People
Yeah, just weed it out.
00:43:40
Bethany Pratt
They would have been awesome. um
00:43:44
Bethany Pratt
Just weed it out, man. I'm just gonna go do it for you. um
00:43:48
Plant People
It sounds like you have so much experience. And I don't know when we say community gardens, it's a huge Topic and I should have known we were not going to be able to cover even half of it today So not only are you working with individuals you're working with you you have experience currently working or have worked with general community gardens also thematic gardens such as recovery gardens um And that's not even getting into like the therapeutic gardens or the sensory gardens.
00:44:18
Plant People
Have you worked any with those just kind of curious?
00:44:19
Bethany Pratt
yeah I've not done too much with that.
00:44:23
Plant People
Mm-hmm
00:44:23
Bethany Pratt
I've done some programming, like more programming with um folks with developmental disabilities.
00:44:30
Plant People
Oh, gotcha.
00:44:30
Bethany Pratt
So not so much like sensory, but um more like skills type work.
00:44:30
Plant People
Yeah.
00:44:34
Plant People
Yeah. Skill-based. Yeah. Gotcha.
00:44:38
Bethany Pratt
skill-based um We have a fabulous center here in Louisville, Bridge Haven. It's a day center for adults with um medical medically diagnosed developmental disabilities.
00:44:49
Alexis
Mm.
00:44:49
Bethany Pratt
um So they they had they had a therapist on staff, again, that champion, who loved to garden.
00:44:56
Jessica
There you go.
00:44:56
Bethany Pratt
um And so she would come out with me to everything, and we'd kind of we do a little planning before about like what needs to happen. And then she'd be like, Oh, great, everyone needs to work on manual dexterity and control.
00:45:12
Bethany Pratt
So she'd get out pruners or whatever. And I teach people how to prune the roses, you know, the knockout roses in their landscaping, like whatever it was, you know, it was kind of like, it was so cool.
00:45:17
Plant People
Yeah.
00:45:22
Plant People
It's amazing. Yeah. All the angles. Yeah.
00:45:25
Bethany Pratt
Yeah.
Gardening Programs for Developmental Disabilities
00:45:26
Bethany Pratt
Like, but she was super creative and like, like had these skills that she wanted to teach, loved to garden, but didn't necessarily always know like, what do I need to do specifically? um But that was always a fun group to go hang out with because they, I mean, we grew one year, their art the art teacher there wanted to grow sunflowers. So we did a whole like fence row of sunflowers and like learned how to put stakes in the ground to hold them up because inevitably sunflowers fall over.
00:45:58
Bethany Pratt
And because they were right next to the like the parking lot, um they needed to not fall into the parking spaces and onto people's cars.
00:45:59
Alexis
Mm hmm.
00:46:04
Alexis
On cars, yeah.
00:46:06
Bethany Pratt
you know So we taught people to use like head like hand sledges and um no one lost any fingers.
00:46:10
Alexis
ah They did a whole Van Gogh series in art class.
00:46:13
Bethany Pratt
And that was a great success. um had it yeah and then they did art And then they did art with the sunflowers later on, which was really cool.
00:46:19
Alexis
yeah
00:46:23
Bethany Pratt
um What else do we do? they had that That center just has some really amazing staff who are certified therapists who were really, none of them were horticulture therapists, which is its own certification, um but they were really fun to work with because they would say, I have this idea.
00:46:40
Bethany Pratt
How do we make it happen?
00:46:41
Alexis
How do we bring plants in? Yeah.
00:46:42
Bethany Pratt
And then we'd all figure it out together. And then, you know, it would it would go how it would go.
00:46:50
Alexis
Bethany, you're a wealth of experiences. And I think we're going to have to have you back on for all the other cool things you've done because I i want to hear about all of it.
00:46:52
Jessica
Yeah.
00:46:58
Alexis
And I'm like, what have I even been doing for my entire life? Bethany's done all these things.
00:47:06
Plant People
She's done all of the things and we need like an episode for each thematic garden.
00:47:06
Alexis
So that's.
00:47:11
Plant People
I've made notes. So ah sorry, Bethany, you may get a phone call again.
00:47:14
Bethany Pratt
and That's all right, we can, yeah, we'll come talk about more gardening.
00:47:16
Alexis
Yeah.
00:47:16
Jessica
We're going to invite you back.
00:47:18
Alexis
So Bethany, if people want to maybe find some resources ah for Community Garden, we'll share you know those upcoming classes. Once you all have dates with them, we'd love to share them on ours.
00:47:29
Bethany Pratt
Yes.
00:47:30
Alexis
But if people are right now looking for something because they want to start or want to make their current one better, where should they go?
00:47:37
Bethany Pratt
Um, they probably honestly can, they can contact me. Um, and then also their local county extension office too.
00:47:41
Alexis
OK.
00:47:43
Bethany Pratt
Cause we will work, we will work through your county extension office to actually set it up.
00:47:43
Alexis
Yeah.
00:47:49
Bethany Pratt
Um, and, but I'm happy to provide assistance and stuff. That is a thing for, for any extension agents listening. That is something I'm happy to do with you.
00:47:57
Plant People
Awesome resource, awesome.
00:47:58
Bethany Pratt
Um. Yeah, that's definitely still in my wheelhouse, but yeah but I'm happy to help if you're just listening out in the free world um and are like, I want to start a community garden.
00:48:11
Bethany Pratt
I think I live in Scott County, but I don't know um where i what county I live in.
00:48:16
Plant People
ah
00:48:19
Bethany Pratt
We can start there and folks can contact me.
00:48:21
Alexis
Yeah, cool. Okay, we'll make sure to put your contact info in ah the show notes. And also in the show notes, you can find our email if you all have questions, ah or if you're like, what was her name, and you want to ask us, or we'll um we'll help hook you up with Bethany, you can do that. ah Find our email there. You can also follow us on Instagram at hort culture pod.
00:48:45
Alexis
And you can send us messages on there. Keep up to date with, ah you know, what we're doing. We try and share what all of our cool friends are doing. So Snap is one of the places we share all the nice stuff that they're they're doing. So follow us on there. Leave us a review if you want to hear.
00:49:01
Alexis
Tell us what episode you want Bethany to come back for. That's what I want because like we have a huge list, but if you all have something, we want you to put it in the comments while you give five stars because Bethany is awesome. And then tell us, Bethany, I need you to tell me more about XYZ and then we'll know what you want moving forward. So ah we're very grateful to have you listening with us today. Bethany, thank you for being on. And we hope that as we grow this podcast, you will grow with us and we'll see you next time.