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    Home & Garden

    GREEN Organic Garden Podcast

    The GREEN Organic Garden Podcast will inspire, teach, and promote earth friendly techniques by interviewing organic gardeners who share their journeys, tips, and tricks to simplify the process of growing your own delicious healthy food. Whether you want to have a small bed in your backyard or a full grown farming operation, our guests will help you reach your gardening goals and offer you resources and solutions to everyday gardening challenges, and inspiration to dig down in the dirt and get growing!

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    Latest Episodes:
    332. Flower Farming • Bokashi Composting • Worms | Matt Arthur | BLH Farm | Missouri Aug 09, 2020
    Show notes

    My Garden JournalWelcome to the GREEN Organic Garden podcast. It is Saturday, July 18, 2020, and I have an amazing guest on the line. You have to check out their website is so beautiful and just full of lots of great stuff. And here to share with us today from B L H Farm is Matt Arthur. You can find BLH Farm on Facebook here.So welcome to the show, Matt.Hi, Jackie.And we'll talk, I mean, I want to ask you about yourself, but I really want to know what B L H stands for.1 (1m 41s):Yeah, so it stands for Boone's Lake Heritage Farm. I grew up in central, Missouri on a family farm. It still had the wagon ruts from Daniel Boone's trail West from Missouri through to the Southwest. So I grew up playing on a Creek and in the field with those wagon trails so visable.So we started our flower farm now on some of our land that wasn't being used for row crops. I wanted to let everybody know that this is just a real part of our, our history here is seeing these, this trail and thinking about people who came before us.So how, so this is your family farm. So, you know, I guess if you said you listened to my podcast, that my first question is always about, like, what was your first gardening experience? Like, what'd you grow? Who were you with? I guess you were probably with your mom and dad?1 (2m 32s):Yeah, yeah. With my mom, mainly we always had an orchard and a garden and always had tomatoes and beans and apples and other stuff going. So I just have always grown flowers and vegetables at the house. And my mom grew a lot of things that her mom grew. And so I just always looked back and think about growing, you know, the flowers that she got from her mom or apples that she was trying out and I've always done it.And is that how you learned how to grow organically? Were they organic too?Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. My parents for our vegetable garden and an orchard, I've always been a hundred percent chemical free, a hundred percent organic, always heavy mulchers never, never spray for anything and, and always grew up just knowing that that was how, how one should farm and garden.Well, awesome. So do you have any tips? Like I was just going through all the questions I've been asked in the Facebook group and somebody was asking about what do I do about apple scab, and just like any tips for growing an orchard? Our orchard. The other problem we're having is the grass is full of this weird bind weed, which is totally irrelevant.Bind weeds tough. Yeah. Bind weeds tough. I mean, I've two quick pieces of advice.The first is that the, in the rows between your apple trees, you need to have a mix of species that you choose. A, you should have a grass, you should have a legume and then a forb to take the place of, of those weeds. Weeds really are telling you that there's something missing in your species mix. They're filling a niche that should be filled by something that you consider beneficial. So trying to keep a pure grass row in your orchard is going to be really hard, but if you can toss down just a three or four species mixing you comfrey or Clover and grass, and maybe oats in the spring, tailored for your area, get a few things in there to keep the space busy. So that things like bind weed can't get a foothold. We also, I would say for scab, you know, apples.Apples have a lot of blemishes on them and they still taste great. So comparing apples, you grow at your house in appearance, to what you could get in a grocery store is a wrong way of thinking about it. Focus on the taste and the texture and how fresh they are, and just, you know, try to scrub off some of the scab and that the mold that gets on them.Wow. All right. Now, what did you say? Oh, I knew I should have wrote down a grass, a lagoon and a, what?A forb: F O R BForbs are other pasture plants that aren't either grasses or legumes.and yeah, I think of, of kind of traditional wild grassland. There's not just a couple of things there, there's a few things there. Forbs are a category that basically are everything. That's not a grass or a legume, that's not a weed. So just try to find a couple of few things that you can put into those paths that you can, obviously you can mow down and also are perennial. So you are not putting in every year and that'll hopefully keep the, the nasties out of the way.2 (5m 56s):Awesome. Well, show Patti Armbrister came and visited and she told me to get some comfrey and I got some comfrey, so it's going to be slow taking off, but hopefully by next year. and then we have a lot of Clover we're trying to get Clover to grow in, but, and we'll have to look for that other stuff. So we'll tell us about something that did grow well this year what's growing. I'm also excited to hear about your flowers!1 (6m 22s):Yeah. Some of that grew well, well, we've been just loving some of the ornamental alliums. We try to do as many perennials as we can on the flower farm. We really like having these little perennial ecosystems where we have maybe a tall, early perennial, and then we'll put some annuals into that row and then have maybe a third, low growing late perennial or perennial herbs that we use as filler. So very excited about some of the alliums the ornamentals with maybe three or four inch purple heads, really like those, and been very excited about seeing Sage really established itself and use as a filler ornamental, aromatic filler, that's a perennial plant that grows really well here in Missouri. So those two things are highlights for us.0 (7m 8s):I love growing stage! My sage is blooming right now and it's so pretty. I love all this toes. Like how did you get started in the flowers? Oh, well, I guess you did kind of house your mom always grew flowers. Like, I dunno, I guess I just want to hear a little more about your flower business, because somebody asked me way back in the meeting. They're like, I want to hear more stories about flower farmers.Yeah. So my wife and I met outside Missouri. I'd left Missouri to go to school and we lived away from Missouri for a long time and I really wanted to get back and I wanted to farm and we're looking at ways to get back into agriculture and row crop agriculture is really, really neat, but it's also a huge capital investment to start. And my family doesn't have the thousands of acres that you need to be profitable in this particular commodity market.And it's also, you know, maybe not the type of agriculture is really excited about, and we were, you know, just drawing up different farm plans for, in a winter and going over again and again.And they always included some flowers because we both always loved growing flowers and our parents have always grown a flower garden.And the more we ran through the species selection and the marketing mix and thought about what we would be excited about growing that that might actually be profitable.Flowers took an ever larger piece of that. And now we're doing almost all flowers with some vegetables that are really just for us.We really enjoy having a mixture of species and all of our beds and vegetables and flowers do super well together. Both do much better together than they would individually. And so we now have settled on, on flowers and we have about a half acre of, and then an apiary. And along with that, we have a composting business where we provide composting supplies and we do make a lot of composts that we use on the farm for our soil, fertility.What kind of composting supplies?So we, we sell Bokashi kits and we sell worms and worm towers. Bokashi, I'm not sure how familiar you are with it. It's a method of indoor composting that came out of East Asia came from Japan and Korea. It's a traditional method of composting, agricultural surplus. Anaerobically so no, no air. And unlike, unlike hot piles where you, you know, you're taking a green nitrogen, heavy food waste, and you're taking a Brown carbon heavy addition, adding water, and then mixing hand turning or turning with, with the machine for, you know, weeks or months until it forms that black crumbly beautiful humus. Bokashi is anaerobic so there's no air at all. It's done in a closed container and you inoculate the food waste with these effective microbes. Some soil microbes that are really good at tearing through food in a, in an airless environment. And we just really love it. We used to make about a thousand pounds of aerobic compost a week, or probably a little bit more with the wood chips added. And we now make about a thousand pounds of Bokashi a week in sealed containers. And it's just, it's just super,So, but do you like out of like your food scraps or what are you putting in there that you're giving a thousand pounds a week? Are you getting stuff from other places like the grocery?We are? Yeah. So we started really thought about how to get our soil healthy enough to grow beautiful flowers and herbs. We realized that we would need a pretty good source of, of compost. And so we started a small business that collects residential food waste from houses in the St. Louis area. And then we take the residential food waste and we make compost from that. Or if you did to our worms. We've been doing that for maybe two and a half years now, and this spring we started making and selling like home Bokashi kits because the more Bokashi we, we made, the more we thought this is really a super method of making organic matter available to the soil microbes, but we would just talk to people about it and people were obviously unfamiliar and, and it's yeah so we do that now.Well, you know, I love that. So how about, is there something you guys are excited to do different either next year that you're trying this summer? I mean, we're like right smack in the middle of July.Yeah.The big, big push on our farm is that to get more things in the ground in September.Our first frost date here is mid to late October so I don't know where that is for you. It's probably coming up pretty quick, but we still have some time before frost heads. And our goal is to get as many even Hardy annuals in the ground in the fall, and then put them under a permeable cover, like an Agra bond row cover so they can overwinter in the soil. And then when spring comes, there'll be established and ready to go.We're trying to put a lot more Hardy animals in, in the fall than we did last year.So that means like right now you're planting seeds in containers that you're going to put in the ground. This is so exciting. What kind of what's hardy annuals? Like lavender?So like, snapdragons, Larkspur lavender perennial. We'll put some of that into, but we use soil blocks. So we don't use plastic seed trays. We make everything in three quarter inch or two inch soil blocks. So we'll start, you know, thousands and thousands of these little soil blocks under lights, they're out, you know, outside under a shade cloth until they're three or four inches tall and then transplant them, hopefully starting in five or six weeks so they can get established and rooted as the weather starts to cool.And then all of those snapdragons in larkspur and perennials like echinacea and lavender and arnica and on and on we'll, we'll have a chance to, to be like the dominant plant in that bed in the fall. So it, when spring comes, there'll be already taller and more robust than the weeds that might be in the soil. So that come April when it's really thawing and warm, they have a huge jump on competitors. And we don't have to worry about, you know, either hand weeding a lot of stuff or, you know, trying to prepare that soil surface when it's cold and rainy and snowing, maybe that there'll be already growing quite well.And then when the last frost date hits, we just take off the row cover for the last time. And then they are already hopefully fairly tall and robust and we get a few weeks or a month early for cuttings.How did you come up with this plan? Did you guys just make it up yourselves? Are you following like, is this what it Erin does?Well, no. Yeah. Lisa Zieglar out of Virginia who wrote the book,Cool Flowers: How to Grow and Enjoy Long-Blooming Hardy Annual Flowers Using Cool Weather Techniques andVegetables Love Flowers: Companion Planting for Beauty and Bounty She's a huge proponent of this.And the first person that I've heard really talk in detail about how effective it could be.She's a big flower girl obviously. And I see her at the flower conferences and I thought, this is absolutely the way to go, right? I mean, it's everything we love. It's, it's it's reduction of, of weed pressure. It's, you know, kind of early blooms and it just really worked well.She makes soil blocks too. So it really works well for our system. And we did last year and we're gonna do a lot more of this year. Cause it's, it's great!0 (15m 5s):Awesome. I finally got soil blocks at the, they had this Free the seeds workshop and there was like this tool swap. I couldn't believe they were there. And I saw, I traded a book for them. I was so excited, but we didn't actually try them this year because I don't know, Mike didn't do a lot of starts. And I think the ones that he did here, he had in the ground before I brought those home are not in the ground, but like in the plastic next year.. But we're definitely going to try that next year. I love Lisa Ziegler. She was my episode number two, and then she came back and then we're supposed to speak after her third book, the one Flowers Love Vegetables.And we've never connected since then, but yeah. Awesome. Well, good for you for putting all of this into practice because like I still go out, like she told me, she's like, well, Go out in the spring and take pictures of, of what is coming up naturally in the spring. And then that's what you want to plant in the fall. And I still take those pictures, but I haven't like taken it to heart like you have, this is so amazing. So tell us about something that didn't work so well, what didn't go the way you thought it was gonna?1 (16m 8s):Well, we, we, we had planned to do a lot of direct seeded sunflowers, so a real deviation from our soil block routine.And so I had a nice, a nice set of beds and direct seeded, Oh, you know, a pretty good batch of sunflowers. And I mean, between birds and, you know, field by, we probably had like a 3% survival on those. It was just, it was just so eyeopening. I mean, because we transplant almost everything when they're really past, past the time that birds want them, I just was not clued in to how much pressure birds can provide on these, on the seeds and seedlings.And it was, it was just astonishing failure! I mean, you, you have a, a row, you know, 150 foot row that has like four sunflowers. It was really terrible.Aww, do you think that will happen like every year or was that just this year? Because like all the animals are like in the stages of doing all sorts of weird things with like no airplanes in the air and stuff?Well, part of it is that we have done a really good job of attracting birds to the garden for insect control. So there are just a lot of birds around all the time. And so we've, we've done that to ourselves, but also I went back in a week later, tried again and this time I did what I should have done, which was take up again, Agrabond row cover and, and lay it directly on the seeds on the soil surface and then wet it. And then when the seeds emerged, you know, a couple of days...

    Full show notes at the publisher

    330. Playing in the Dirt: The key to sustainable health! | Pastos Verdes Farm and Wellness Farmer Podcast | Dr. Benjamin Page D.C. | Argentina Aug 02, 2020
    Show notes

    Benjamin Page from the Pastos Verdes Farm in ArgentinaPlaying in the Dirt: The key to sustainable health!My Garden JournalJackie Marie Beyer (8m 17s):Welcome to the Green Organic Gardener Podcast. Today is Friday, July 10, 2020. And I have an awesome guest on the mic who's written a fantastic book called Playing in the dirt. He's a chiropractor. He's got an awesome Instagram channeland just, I know we're going to learn a ton today. So here to share all sorts of golden seeds with us is Benjamin Page. So welcome to the show. Ben Ben, right?Ben Page (8m 46s):Yeah. It's been yep. Most people call me Ben, Benjamin is my real name, but Ben is what most people call me. I think there's three people in the world that call me Benny and two of passed away. So it's down just one, but yeah, most people call me then. Yeah. So it's great to be on the show. It's great to be with you.Jackie Marie Beyer (9m 1s):Well, thanks. Well, I'm so excited. Oh yeah. And you also have a podcast, the wellness farmer podcast. So listeners like I've been like jonesing for some good podcasts. Listen to this winner like at that kind of has changed lately. Cause I think I've been to over a thousand podcasts websites in the last month working for this new podcast or I'm just doing research, trying to find podcasts where she would be a good fit as a guest. And it's just been fascinating, but even still out of like the thousand websites, I've only found, I think four that I've actually added to my phone and less than a dozen that I've checked out and been like, Oh, this might be good.Jackie Marie Beyer (9m 39s):So I am excited. I am been thinking, I wish more people would share more podcasts. Like people that I listen to would share more. So the Wellness Farmer, I know listeners are going to love that.Ben Page (9m 53s):Yeah, that's what I tried. I mean, it's more of a wellness farmer at the moment. But at the, when I started the podcast, I was a farmer. I actually raised a meat on pasture. So chicken, sorry, chicken on pasture. And that's why that's where the podcast kind of got its name.Jackie Marie Beyer (10m 10s):Well, do you want to tell us about that or I want to kind of hear a little bit about that was that down. So you're in Argentina. Was that down in Argentina or like where was that?Ben Page (10m 21s):And that was before we came to Argentina, we opened, so I was working with a chiropractor for about five years and then I've left and opened my own clinic. And at the same time I started a farming enterprise. And what I did is I raised chickens on pasture in a place in Southern Utah. And that's where I was raising the chicken on pasture and at the very end imagining.Folks, This Ain't Normal: A Farmer's Advice for Happier Hens, Healthier People, and a Better World And, but some of the books that helped me were, I mean, some of the books I recommend are that books by Joel Salatin and who has a great enterprise and he's done great work, but I basically did what Joel Salitan does.Ben Page (10m 52s):I made my own version of coops with as domes. I didn't use his version. I made a don't coop and I would just, I would let the, let the chickens run, run on pasture while every day I moved the move to the coop to fresh green grass and tell you the truth. That was probably my favorite time of the day. I worked in the, in the farm on the morning. And then I worked in my clinic in the afternoon and waking up and going, moving those, those coops and watching those chickens run forward and eating all that fresh green grass and the bugs that were present was just beautiful.Ben Page (11m 24s):I loved, it was such a great time that I'll never forget those times. And I'd like to actually get back into it because it was so much, it was so neat to be able to do that and work as a chiropractor at the same time. We did that for about a year though, because the sales weren't that good. So that's kind of why I stopped doing it, but I would like to get back into it for sure. When it was, it was a great time.Jackie Marie Beyer (11m 48s):So you were selling the chickens for meat or the eggs?Ben Page (11m 52s):The chicken. Yeah. So we, yeah, so I did all the processing on form two. That was, those were busy days. Processing is we're very busy, but yeah, we, we raised chicken for meat.Jackie Marie Beyer (12m 6s):Well, that's good because the, you know, the big Purdue ones are so bad for our planet and just, you know, these giant chicken farms, you just, and I feel so bad for those chickens. So we lost our chickens. There's like a grizzly bear problem in our area for slate. They kill off all the grizzly bears and then they like relocate them. And so many people are moving in. I don't know what's going on in the mic. And I have lived here for 27 years now. We've been married and out of those, like 25 of them, we've had chickens.Jackie Marie Beyer (12m 36s):We've never had a problem until the last two years. And one chicken survived last spring, we finally had baby chicks and one of the baby checks, minister escaped like showed up 30 days after the grizzly bear had been through. And we thought the whole thing, everybody was gone. All of a sudden here comes this chicken and she made it all the way until this spring. And we got a rooster and two days after the rooster, boom, they both here came the grizzly bear again. But like everybody in our neighborhood has been posting pictures of this bear. And it's just been like, I don't know. Anyway.Jackie Marie Beyer (13m 6s):So kind of like I, so miss having chickens and fresh eggs, it's driving me crazy. I want to get some new ones, but we have to fix fence. I mean, he just is amazing how big this bear was. I'm always picturing what he must have look like. And I've seen pictures now because other people have posted on Facebook that did get a picture of them. But just like them image of him, like tearing down this chicken house that we had, he didn't tear it down, but he like took the roost and like shoved one of the poles from the roost, right through the particle board wall.Jackie Marie Beyer (13m 39s):And I'm like, Mike cannot get it out. Like this bear had to be huge. And just that, if he got, it was so sad that after all these years, we finally had BB chickens that hatched and we're growing and we're doing good. And then only one of them survived. And then she made it through a year, all by her lonely self. And then as soon as we got the rooster, two days later, they both,Ben Page (13m 58s):Oh, that is terrible. Ate by a bear. I'm like, good. That's even worse.Jackie Marie Beyer (14m 4s):Oh yeah. I know. I just, and I didn't even get to see the bear. That's the worst part. Like, I mean, anyway, but we're not here to talk about us. The other thing I wanted to say is, and this is totally off topic, but I just like keep a story I saw on the news the other day, it keeps going through my head about these poor people that they're worried about. They're going to get COVID like, I don't know, in Africa or somewhere that these people are so poor that they have to keep the chickens under their beds because they're worried that people will steal them and they're sleeping with these chickens and it's not that they're going to get COVID they get some other bird disease.Jackie Marie Beyer (14m 39s):And like, it's just so sad to me that there are people living in conditions that they are show worried they have to keep the chickens under their beds.Ben Page (14m 47s):I know that's terrible. I mean, yeah. The amount of that can understand that because what the chickens leave behind is probably a lot worse than a contact in COVID 19. And that's probably for sure. That's one of the things I talk about in my new book is that dirt is beautiful, but you want to kind of stay away from dirt that's got poop in it. That's that's the dirt you don't want to be close to.Jackie Marie Beyer (15m 12s):Well, I didn't realize, like, since I started my podcast, like I had no idea you can't put like chicken manure or any kind of like manure, like if you're a market farmer, there's like 120 days you're supposed to wait between when you like apply them a manure. And when you can plant your vegetable seeds or whatever, or before the produce, I don't know. I know there's like that 120 day rule, so,Ben Page (15m 35s):Oh yeah. I always, I always compost on manure first. I was throwing in my compost bin before I actually throw it on my, my garden beds.Jackie Marie Beyer (15m 43s):Yeah. So anyway, I'm going to stop talking and let you tell us, but I do always start the show. Ben asking you about like your very first gardening experience. Like, were you a kid, were you an adult? What'd you grow and who were you with?Ben Page (15m 57s):I'm going to talk about my first experience I had as an adult, because there's another, there's another question that talks about where I'm going. Actually I'll talk about as a kid, but my first gardening experience as adult being a married adult was that was when I was in Palmer College of Chiropractic. I was in my lastyear and I was studying about what's called modern survivalism and the garden kept on coming up and I've gardened my, basically my whole life as you as I'll talk about later. But I had stopped since I had moved in it hasn't had been many years since I'd done it.Ben Page (16m 32s):And I wanted to get back into it more than anything, grow food for my family. And I was at college. We were very poor and we hadn't no way to buy any materials. So what I did is I won't go on walks with my wife. Every time we fight, find planks thrown out in the trash, we'd ask the owner for, take them. And we got enough plugs where I could build a planter box. And we also found two, no three flower pots that were thrown out. And I asked if I could take them. And they said, yes. So my very first garden as adult was a planter box, that was two feet by four feet by a foot deep and three flowerpots.Ben Page (17m 11s):And they were full of tomatoes and peppers. And that's it.That was my very first garden as adult man.It was, it was those 15 minutes a day that I took just to, just to be with those plants. I mean, it was such a calming experience. It helped me so much and, and leave the busy life of school, which was insane at that time. And just be in the present moment and do something good by taking care of some plants and then eventually enjoying the tomatoes and peppers that, that came from those plants.Ben Page (17m 44s):So that was, that was my very first garden as an adult, one little teeny planter box and three flower pots full of peppers and tomatoes. And that was in Davenport, Iowa.Jackie Marie Beyer (17m 58s):Well, it's amazing how starting small like that, especially when you're super busy, like, I think that's like super encouraging and some golden seeds you're dropping for my audience because they know I'm always super busy like this summer, even though I'm working online and I'm home a lot, like I'm just exhausted. Like you tried to spend six hours on a computer and see, like, I don't want to go for a walk. I don't want to do anything. And I am so lucky cause I go sit in the garden and read a book and water and just like, I'll set the water thing out for like six minutes or nine minutes on my thing and just sit there and just unlax after staring at a computer and still ideas are floating through my head and things that, but yeah, it's amazing how coming and then college, right?Jackie Marie Beyer (18m 42s):Like I remember when I was in college to get my elementary degree, like I can tell you how long everything took, whether it by the second, like I was like, this is a 62nd task and this is a two, you know, two minute task. And this is like a 92nd tasks. Like I just like, you're so busy when you're in college. It's crazy. I don't know how you do it with a family.Ben Page (19m 1s):Oh, it was, it was, those were very long days. I mean, I, my first year at Palmer, it was, I would go to bed. This was an average, I'd go to bed at eight o'clock at night, wake up at 12 or one in the morning studying until six or seven, then go to school. And we were school for all day. I mean, we had about like the average is about 32 credit hours a week for basically at a full time job. All, we also had to study for tests and take the test and then I'd come home at six or seven in the afternoon on hanging out with my family for a little while.Ben Page (19m 34s):Then I'd go back to bed at eight o'clock and I'd get back up at one o'clock in the morning. I mean, it was, it was, but that was before I started the game. Once I was in the third year, it was a little bit more relaxed on a little bit more time, but yeah, it was, it was not easy. I'll tell you that for sure. It wasn't easy, but those moments, like I said,Playing in the Dirt: The key to sustainable health!and I write about it in my book because the book, my book playing in the dirt, which it's called playing in the dirt, I talked about how the, not just the soiling gardens, but how nature is so important to our health as human beings. And we're in it's we're involved.Ben Page (20m 4s):I mean, we need to be involved with her to, to truly reach our health potential. And it's one of the things that, that garden data's that helped me be in the present. It was, it was kind of a type of, there's a meditation there's meditation at its best. It just brought me back to the present. I forgot about them like tests. I forgot all of the anxieties of the future. All the, all the times I missed a bone test on in, in the past. I mean, it just brought me back and it just felt great. I remember it was just that little teeny, teeny gardens. So starting small is, is a great way to go.Jackie Marie Beyer (20m 35s):I agree. Whole heartedly. So how did you learn how to garden organically? Did you please do that? Did your family do that or,Ben Page (20m 46s):Yeah, that's, that's what I was gonna talk about.My parentsMy parents they've always, I mean, it was before he was in college, they did it before it was called organic garden. They just gardens and they didn't use pesticides or anything like that. And we did, I mean, in the, during the winter, we'd go get the manure, put the manure on top of the, on top of the garden, all the cut down, all the, all the, all the partners that we don't eat and let it decompose. And then we take the rotor tiller and roto-till it all in. And then we plan our garden every year. And that's what I did with my parents until I was until I was 10 years old.Ben Page (21m 18s):I mean, these gardens were huge to me, it felt like the rows of corns were never ending. Cause that's the, those are the roles I had to weed, but of course I was a little kid at that time. I don't know how long they really work, but was a kid. I was like, does this ever end, am I ever going to get done with this?And that's, and that's how we lived for the first 10 years of my life, organic garden, but without the organic in front of it, it was just gardening. And that's how it was when I was a kid. And I looked, some of my fondest memories were of those times to tell you the truth. I mean, when I was an adolescent, I do have other nice memories, but those memories of, of the garden and being outside or some of my fondest memories that I love…

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    329. DeerBusters | Garden Deer Management Solutions | Jennifer Smith | Waynesboro, PA Aug 02, 2020
    Show notes

    DeerBusters Jennifer Smith is here to tell us how code "fences" can save us 10% when we solve one of the biggest garden challenges there is especially in 2020! Intro (2s):Welcome to the Green Organic Garden Podcast. It is Friday, July 10, 2020. It's my mom and dad's anniversary. If my dad was still alive, I think he'd be married for probably 55 years, something like that. And I am excited because I have a guest who's back in the line to talk to us about something that when I went to Free the Seeds of this year, do you number one out of 40 people? I talked to you. I think 36 of them said the biggest challenge they have for growing their garden is deer and keeping the critters out.My Garden JournalJoin us on the Listen App using invite code: GREENJackie Marie Beyer (39s):And that's certainly like something that people talk about a lot. So we have somebody here with a solution. I think she even has a 10% discount for GREEN organic garden podcast listeners. So I'm here from deer busters is Jennifer Smith. So welcome back, Jennifer.Jennifer Smith (57s):Thank you. It's glad to be back.Jackie Marie Beyer (60s):Hey, did you know that I found this podcast? So I'm working for this podcaster and one of my jobs is to like find shows that he be really good guest on, and there's actually a show that's called. I think it's Patient Zero. That's all about Lyme disease.Jennifer Smith (1m 16s): I have not heard of that.Jackie Marie Beyer (1m 18s):It was listed as Apple, one of Apple's top podcasts in 2019. So I'm really curious to check it out because it has to be more than just basic science and stuff. Like I don't know what it's about, but anyway, we're here to talk about what we can do to protect our gardens, that we work so hard to grow from the deer that are beautiful and lovely.And I love to see deer in my yard. I just don't want to see them eating my flowers and vegetables.[caption id="attachment_137102" align="alignnone" width="768"] Mike built these little tents that worked for years back in the beginning. Look at that lawn, boy we've come a long way. But really in the beginning these two bed provided a lot of food.[/caption]Jennifer Smith (1m 42s):There are graceful animals. We love them. It's a love, hate relationship rally, and there are beautiful from afar, but the minute they start eating our plants, AKA our hard work. Then we don't like them so much and we need to humanely get rid of Bambi and his friends and I have the solution to make it happen. So what I recommend is growers need to look into installing an deer offense.Jennifer Smith (2m 16s):It is the most reliable means for deer management[gallery ids="137099,137100,137101" type="rectangular"]But then they got serious. We have over 260' of fence around the house and another 260' around the minifarm. It's essential!But there are a number of factors to consider such as other animals that are destroying the garden. As well as height requirements. We, we have experienced a lot of changes this year, being the dreadful 2020 that we know of with COVID-19. COVID-19 has also madechanges in deer movement. And so we need to discuss that for, for the spring.Jennifer Smith (2m 48s):We know that stay at home orders. It was great that gardening allowed us as home growers to be able to do what we love outside and enjoy the, the warmer air that we, that we were wishing for in the winter time. But now we have to worry about the deer that were traveling onto our landscapes. They were destroying our plants because they were fearless of human encounters. So the deer in the spring, they were,JackieHey, lost you...Because of COVID-19 deer became fearless, traveling on to lawns and gardens in search of food.Jennifer Smith (4m 3s):They knew that they weren't going to see any humans at all. So they would do this and they would continue to do this moving into the summertime as we know. And so we have a problem. We have a problem that deer patterns have changed. They have not only traveled on to rural settings, but they've now traveled on to urban settings, which they typically tend to avoid. So what gardeners need to do now in the summertime moving into fall, they need to consider installing a deer fence.Jennifer Smith (4m 39s):Here are a few requirements for deer fencing.Deer fencing is going to be seven and a half to eight feet tall for best results.Deer have core vertical vision after seven feet. So seven and a half to eight foot tall is the sweet spot for deer fencing.Furthermore, there are a couple of different types of deer fences. There areplastic deer fences andmetal deer fences.Plastic deer fences should be used for light to moderate deer pressure.Jennifer Smith (5m 10s):If the deer are more curious than anything, a plastic fence is going to be a great fit for deer control.If the deer are more aggressive, they made sure dig, or maybe you have rabbits on your property or groundhogs or coyotes that shoe as well, and may be a detriment to the garden.Consider a metal fence, either way plastic or metal deer fences will last about 20 to 30 years outside. And these are what you need for deer management in the summertime moving into fall.Jennifer Smith (5m 46s):It is critical for keeping out deer throughout the year.And this is something that we need to consider following the COVID 19 orders.Jackie Marie Beyer (6m 0s):And I mean, especially where I live in Montana, it's so essential.I mean, it's just so heartbreaking because you think you're getting away with it. And then here comes August and dry summer. And then the next thing you know, the deer are just eating everything in sight that they haven't touched in July and just I've had my heart broken several times.Not that they wouldn't sneak into the garden right now, if they could, but I'm telling you, once things really started to dry out in the grass and the woods starts to get, you're going to find deer coming that you didn't expect.Jackie Marie Beyer (6m 32s):And then yeah, moving into urban areas where they've never been before, right? It's just the essential, I mean,Jennifer Smith (6m 41s):It is, unfortunately, and once you learn, you've had enough with the deer damage and getting on your fence is essential. And it's a way it's a way to keep the peace with wildlife.We're saying that we know you have to eat, but it doesn't have to be from our gardens, go somewhere else to find food.Deer have plenty of food to eat in, in forest areas and other landscapes. It doesn't have to be your garden.I would consider looking into deer fencing this season.Jackie Marie Beyer (7m 15s):So do you want to talk a little bit about Lyme disease and why it's not just protecting your garden vegetables, but it's also kind of protecting you. Did we talk about that once before a little bit?Jennifer Smith (7m 26s):Lyme disease and White Tail DeerIf you're aware of Lyme disease affects over 300,000 Americans each year, it is a debilitating disease that is caused from a tick bite ticks are usually on white tail deer and other wildlife, but notorious white tail deer. And when we allow white tail deer onto our properties, they tend to drop deer ticks onto the yard, which is a concern for homeowners, especially those with pets and even small children.Jennifer Smith (8m 7s):It can affect pets, dogs and cats, both. And it can also affect children of all ages and adults.It is something that can be controlled, but it can only be controlled with the use of a deer fence.Jackie Marie Beyer (8m 26s):Yeah. I mean like you not want to get one to tease is not, is it, it's a really bad thing. You're going to be in the hospital and just, I had a friend in college that got it. So definitely not just little kids.Jennifer:Yes you're right.Jackie:So what else did you want to talk about? Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt. You throw your train of thought off.Jennifer Smith (8m 51s):No, that's fine. We could talk about deer moving into the fall. Just tips to look into. Okay.Deer Velvet and Deer RuttingSo as we wind down summer, what's going to happen in the fall with deer damage is this: Deer by the end of August, we'll develop this thick dried velvet on their antlers. It is uncomfortable and it is unsightly.Jennifer Smith (9m 22s):It is very unattractive. So the box are going to try to remove this dried velvet from their antlers, by rubbing against trees. This is known as deer rutting and they do this in preparation for mating season in early September. So once the deer do rub up against the trees, they remove the cambium layer of the tree, which is where the nutrients flow throughout the whole foliage.Jennifer Smith (9m 53s):And this essentially ruins the tree, not just the look of it, but the tree's growth. And so if we want to protect trees on our properties. We also need to get tree guards and a look into deer fencing as well. This is a year round problem, and a deer are desperate to eat moving into the fall season.So they are going to turn to home gardens as well as trees for food and a relief from the dried velvet.Jennifer Smith (10m 26s):So these are things to consider moving into the fall season.Jackie Marie Beyer (10m 31s):We saw a giant buck one night who would like the velvet was just like coming off of his horns in the Moonlight. And it was just like one of the most amazing things I ever saw just dripping there. But part of the reason they're doing it right then also is because they're sharpening their antlers, right? Because they're going to start fighting when they go into meetings season, like isn't that some of it?Mating SeasonJennifer Smith (10m 52s):Deer become very aggressive and territorial. And so they are in fight mode. And so that is a, that is a good point. Especially hikers and campers. We may, we may be tempted to walk up to a deer and maybe snap a few pictures for, for, you know, Instagram, but we need to keep our distance. They are very territorial and they're also when they rub up against trees, they're also marking their territory.Jennifer Smith (11m 22s):And it's a way of saying, this is where I am, do not go near me, do not go near my, my doe and my family essentially. So these are, these are all important and notes to consider in the fall season. For sure.Jackie Marie Beyer (11m 37s):So do you want to explain to listeners what a tree guard is and like that's for like fruit trees or any kind of trees that you have in your lawn?Tree GuardsJennifer Smith (11m 45s):A tree guard for those that don't know is essentially a plastic wrap that you wrap around the base of young trees, typically young fruit trees. And this is to protect the base of the tree from any deer rubbing that will occur in the early fall season. It is a plastic polypropylene material that will last about 30 years outside.Jennifer Smith (12m 19s):Yeah. And just, you don't want to have your little Bebe Apple trees or anything, or just any kind of trees. I mean, you want to be protecting them. So anything else that we haven't mentioned today? No, I don't think so. Cool. Well, this could just be a short little bonus episode for the listeners. Well, tell everybody how to find your website and how to get ahold of you because am I remembering right? Are you in Pennsylvania, but you ship everywhere.Jennifer Smith (12m 50s):Right? We do, yes were good like that. You can find a deer fence supplies on deer busters.com or locate in Waynesboro, Pennsylvania. We ship nationwide for free. And if you want 10% off type in the word fences at checkout ondeerbusters.comand save yourself some money while you're getting deer fence.Jackie Marie Beyer (13m 18s):That was perfect. I can use that little clip for a promo right there. Woo Jennifer, thanks so much for coming back and sharing with my listeners about this super important topic and offering my listeners a discount because especially now that we're pretty much all ordering, almost everything online. I can't believe the things I've ended up having to order online. I was doing so good. Like March, April, may. I didn't order anything. June and July. It's just been one thing after you had another, I go to the store to buy something.Jackie Marie Beyer (13m 48s):They don't have it. They didn't have a pitch fork. They didn't have chairs for my kitchen. I had to order those online and I got the nicest chairs. I got to say, I love him, but I never thought I'd be in,Jennifer Smith (13m 58s):Who would have thought that this would have come to this? Especially months later!Jackie Marie Beyer (14m 2s):I even went to target, but cheers brought them home and was just like, Oh my gosh, I can't believe how much I just paid for these chairs that I don't even like and took them back the next day and was just like, Oh my gosh, I can't believe I went all the way to a store and took all that and drove targets like 60 miles from my house. And like, I just, when I got home, I was like, Whoa, I wonder what they have online. And I couldn't believe I was like, Oh my gosh, these are so much nicer. And like half the price and blah, blah, blah. And I don't know. And then again, the Pitchfork thing, I went to three hardware stores in the fire ahead.Jackie Marie Beyer (14m 32s):End up here. No, no. They only had like one handled pitchforks and I wanted a short handled Pitchfork for the compost pile that I can just, I don't know. That's what we've always had. And just, yeah. It's, it's amazing. I don't know. Anyway, thank you so much for sharing with us today and stay safe and have a great weekend.Jennifer Smith (14m 56s):Thank you. I appreciate it. Bye bye. Okay.DeerBusters use code "Fences" for 10% off at checkout!Get your copy of the Organic Oasis Guidebook and get started building your own earth friendly garden today!Let’s take a minute to thank our sponsors and affiliate linksPlease support us on Patreon so we can keep the show up on the internet. It cost close to $100 a month just to keep it up on the internet for the website etc so if you could help by supporting it with an $8/month contribution or $10/month to join the Green Future Growers Book Club where we can delve deep into some of the best gardening books that have been recommended on the show! GoDaddy even is bugging me for dollars just to have the domain name…https://www.patreon.com/OrganicGardenerPodcastThe Good Seed CompanyNow Let’s Get to the Root of Things!We’d love if you’d join Organic Gardener Podcast Facebook Community!The Organic Gardener Podcast is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.comIf you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we’d love it if you’d give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.and don’t forget if you need help getting started check out our new Free Garden Course.com Free Organic Garden Course Remember you can get the 2018 Garden Journal and Data Keeper to record your garden goals in ourYou can

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    328. White Homework Podcaster Tori Douglas Williams Bonus Episode Jul 31, 2020
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    Books Tori Recommends:When Affirmative Action Was White: An Untold History of Racial Inequality in Twentieth-Century America by Ira KatznelsonDying of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment Is Killing America's Heartlandby Jonathan MetzlLinks we mention:https://acestoohigh.com/got-your-ace-score/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95ovIJ3dsNkI'm Tori Williams, Douglas and I am a writer and anti racism educator. I actually grew up in, was born and raised in Portland, Oregon. That's where I live now. I've lived in the Pacific Northwest, my entire life, mainly in Portland and Seattle. And yeah, I didn't really, I kind of came to this work. I sort of fell into it.A lot of, a lot of different things sort of brought me to this place. But I mean initially like, gosh, there's so many, there's so many places I could go. Did you go to Portland State University to their conflict resolution program. Like, do you know that they have a program there? I applied to go there and then I could never come up with the funding. And it's really hard to find a job in Portland. Yeah. Oh my gosh. It is so hard to find a job here. I hear that for sure. You can't even be a substitute teacher without a master's degree or at least that's what they told me. I don't know That, that, that sounds right. No, I did not. I have not attended that program. I've heard about it. And I think that like, conceptually, it seems really good. I have a lot of friends, obviously you've gotten to Portland State, so yeah. How did you get into this work?I might end up there. I've been talking to the Dean of the School of Public Health about like going into that program.So yeah, it was, it was journey. So I think that the thing that really kind of kicked it off for me was when I got pregnant with my oldest child, I started doing all this research around birth outcomes for black mothers and they were abysmal. So essentially finding out black mothers are three to four times as likely to die from pregnancy related complications than white moms.And black infants are like twice as likely as white infants today. And like the first 30 days of life. And that really kind caught my attention, made me really nervous for obvious reasons. And then when I was pregnant with my second, that is when the Ferguson uprising happened as a response to Michael Brown being murdered.And that was kind of when I was like, okay, this seems important. Like I need to start speaking out about this issue and then fast forward another two years or so two, three years. I'm trying to remember, I guess it was probably two years. I ended up getting a job at a, in a neuroscience lab at OHSU here in Portland and it's a super diverse lab and the PI is black and a lot of the post-docs were, were people of color.And a lot of the work that was being done there was around racism and implicit bias. And it was just a really incredible learning experience even though I was working and not like in the, in the actual med school program. But that gave me a lot of, a lot more information and sort of, kind of, it started to like back up what I had been learning sort of on my own. And yeah, so I just sort of, I just sort of like fell into this. I had been very vocal on Twitter and like after Michael Brown was murdered. and I ended up losing like probably 60% or so of my Twitter followers. Cause people did not like what I had to say. So, but yeah, eventually over time people started paying attention to like what I was putting out into the world and yeah, I've actually been able to transition and do this full time now.White Homework Podcast So I do, like, as you said, I did the White Homework Podcast which is a lot of fun and that was kind of the point, right. Was to be able to make anti racism, education, not something other than this kind of like a dull, boring shame or guilt inducing conversation. I wanted it to be a little bit more fun, a little bit more accessible because I think it's easier to learn that way. It's easier to learn when you think that the person who is teaching you actually likes you. Right? And go ahead and I liked the way that like action steps. You actually have homework for people to do where they can learn and grow. Like I've learned so much trying to finish. I have listened to about mass incarceration and I have. You know, a little bit of background in that. And I took a trauma informed class and some of the websites I went to, I was like, I've been here before, but then a ton of other stuff, I'm like, wow, I had no idea. And I love that. You're all about restorative justice, which made me want to talk about and explain what it is. Like, I just love the way you have all these ideas. Like you have solutions, whereas so many of you were like, Oh, can we do? And this is what we've always done. And like, you know, the way that you talk about punishment, doesn't work! like thatWe have solutions for our prison systems that we can, or maybe we don't have the solutions right now, but that there's a way to change it. And that, I don't know. There's just so much. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that was definitely and aspects that I wanted to bring to the conversation was like, again, I know it wasn't supposed to be hopeful necessarily, but it was supposed to, I wanted intentionally to create an environment where people felt like the work could be done. Where people weren't going, Oh my God, this is way too big for anyone to ever solve.And they just throw it on the towel and walk away. I wanted it to be. And like I said, people tend to, when it comes to racism, I think white people tend to go either like the shame guilt side, like ditch, or they go to the like kind of reactionary dismissive. That's not real ditch. And so I wanted to be able to keep people on the road, right by talking about restorative justice and how restorative justice is good for everyone. Right? It's, it's necessary for restoration to occur for people of color. And that work primarily falls on, on white Americans or any white people who live in it like a colonized country.But restorative justice is also good for white people. Like it's good for your humanity. It's good for your empathy. It's good for your body, right? Because it like lowers stress. You know, there's a lot of talk around like police reform and abolition and, and it's like, you know, something that I keep trying to bring up is just like policing. Isn't good for police officers either. Like we have a system that really wears people down, it causes massive amounts of emotional and mental trauma. There is a huge crisis of, of suicide among police officers. And like, it doesn't have to be this way as my friend, Andre Henry always says, so it was like trying to give people space to imagine what the world could be like, if we are just brave enough to leave what we've always known behind. So yeah.War Is ObsoleteExactly. Like imagine can be different. We can do this. Like I have this big poster on our driveway on our pump house that says war is obsolete because I believe we can get to a peaceful world. And like, I teach my kids over and over when I'm a teacher at school, like there's this book by Todd Parr called the Peace Book.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRovkkt52tkAnd it talks about peace is not just an absence of war. Peace is everybody having shoes, everybody having a home, like the kids always love when it's like everybody having pizza, but I'm always like, do you know how many kids in the world would give anything to have a pizza once a week?Like they can't even fathom what a pizza looks like. Like when all our kids get to go to school, like everywhere, like I'm always, my mom's always like, well, that's their country's, you know, job to figure out. I just don't feel that way. I'm like we're humans. There should not be kids on our planet that are hungry. That don't have access to clean water for cooking or surely for drinking, but also for cooking for cleaning themselves for, but this is 2020. And that's why I love millennials so much because I think you guys, you're not going to accept it.And you're not like I see the actions you kids are taking every day. I call you kids because my husband is 14 years older than I am. So his daughters are both millennials, my stepkids. So I always call them kids, even though I'm just in my fifties. But to me, I just think like, you're, you're gonna make this change. I feel like my generation I'm generation X and we, we might have, you know, protested and digital, a little bit of stuff, but you know, we've obviously become complacent.Yeah. I mean, I think that you're absolutely right. I think that a lot of people, a lot of millennials and the younger generation that TBD zoomers or whatever, we're calling them right now. I'm not really sure. Yeah. They're, they're pretty impressive too. I think coming from them. Yes. And I think that it's, it's really, we have been told that the system works.If you know how to work it, if you can pull yourself up by your bootstraps, if you can, if you have grit and determination and don't let anything sidetrack you. Right. And we're like, okay, but we have the data now. It doesn't work. It works. It works for a few people really, really well. And it doesn't work for most people at all. And yeah. Being able to say, okay, it's really, it's not okay to live in a country specifically where there are billionaires and there are kids who don't have enough money to have a lunch at school.Like those two things cannot coexist in a moral country. And so really kind of being willing to wrestle with these ideas of like, what does justice look like for the most marginalized people in society? What does it look like for everyone to have access to fresh, healthy food?Right? And trying to imagine, and creatively come up with solutions for, to help people survive in a system as it is, and to create a new system that works for everyone, instead of just working for the people that was designed to work for, which is not everyone. And, you know, I'm really, I'm really grateful for, you know, a lot of the people, you know, my age, who were, who were doing the work, I mean, I'm great, but I'm grateful for anyone who is willing to learn, right?Who's willing to listen and learn and examine their own lives, motivations, behaviors, thought patterns, assumptions about the world and, and really kind of sit down with that and like apply a critical lens as opposed to going well, again, this is just, this is just how we've always done it. And it kind of works for me or, you know, aspiration. Like I don't want to tax billionaires because maybe one day I'll be a billionaire. It's like, no, you won't come on.Like, let's make this work for more people. You know, something that I keep telling people on social media mainly is like, okay, there's, there's five, there's 550 billionaires in the US and 550,000 people will go to sleep outside tonight. So you are basically a thousand times more likely to become homeless than to become a billionaire.That's a great way to frame it. And now they're saying there were 615 billionaires when Corona started and now there's 630. So there's 15 new billionaires in the world since the coronavirus started. But how many people have lost their jobs and their means? And I just don't feel like people are looking into the future and seeing the impact that like, if we don't get this country together, we don't have time to waste. Businesses are not going to be able to go backwards and survive through next year.And I don't know, there's so much about the pandemic. I, I can't, and I'm married to a news junkie, so it's on over and over and over in different formats. And, and I understand the point of watching different formats and seeing it. So you know what this person is saying and what this person's learning and that, but for me, it gets a little intense. I just am baffled by like I'm in rural Montana. So people don't believe it here. They're out. Like I'm almost scared to go out in public, certainly in the late afternoons, I would not go out with a mask on because I'm looked at as a radical liberal where I live. Like, I'm just, it's just kind of, I don't even know what to think. Anyway, let's talk about solutions. I feel like you are, you know, that's like one of your greatest things is you have solutions for people, but I also feel like, like, so when George Floyd first happened, I am a lot of the podcasters that I was listening to were like, we'll read White fragility, White fragility, but I didn't feel like a lot of it came through to me until I started listening to your White Homework Podcast .Like I realized how white of a lens I was looking through that violence, that what I consider violence is what white people consider violence. And it's, what's acceptable based on the society that we have right now, but that there are other, like other people might be like that. And like, even I argue with my English teacher about reading the hunger games, I'm like the hunger games is so violent. Don't you feel that violent? And she just kind of looks at me and he's like, really? I mean, I guess like, she doesn't think it's any more violent than anything else, but to me, I am so appalled by all the violence in that book.And just, I guess we all have different frames of mind. I don't, I'm getting off topic. Go ahead.Yeah. I mean, there, there are, we do have lots of research. We have lots of data. We know how to, we know how to improve the system. And I, I mean, I think that's the thing that kind of ends up being the most frustrating, probably up until up until the end of May was it felt like we have all this information. We, we know all of these things in terms of, you know, improving outcomes for people and, you know, crime reduction or whatever, whatever the thing is that you were concerned about.It's like we have all of this data. We can improve, even if we don't, even if we don't destroy the whole system, right. Even if that's not what happens... We can still improve outcomes for people by huge amounts. And we have all this information, we know how to do it, but it's like, how are we going to get people's implement this? And I, you know, recently in the last, you know, since, since George Floyd was murdered, so you know about seven, has it been seven weeks now, six, seven weeks, somewhere in there.I feel like people are taking these not new ideas because a lot of these ideas have been around forever. It's just, now we have the data to prove that they work. So taking these ideas, these like abolitionist ideas and saying, "Hey, how can we implement this in our city?" It's it's at this point, I don't think that there's been a lot of movement on like the state level for most places. I mean, especially when we talk about something like policing, you know, we can, we can pass all the laws. We can make all of the reforms, but there's no way to enforce them, which again is intentional. That that option doesn't really work. I mean, last night, Seattle cut the, the Seattle city council cut the budget for Seattle PD by 50% voted to cut the budget for Seattle police department by 50% and put those funds into mental health care and housing and social work. Because again, we know that these programs work…

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    Happy Birthday To Me Episode and don’t you want to leave a review on iTunes Jul 31, 2020
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    My BiRtHdAy wish this year is that anyone who has listened to my podcast and thinks I’m not the worst host in the world will leave me a review because apparently even though I have 90 five star ratings-I guess 4 out of the last 6 reviews I got said I love the content but I wish I cld mute the host I knw I’m not the best host but ouch that was a bit of a shock the other day when I went to find what my listeners say for a pdf so if u think I do an ok job and I know my guests always rock the mic I hope u can take two minutes to give me a review on iTunes!

    https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/organic-gardener-podcast/id962887645?mt=2


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    Happy Birthday To Me Episode and don't you want to leave a review on iTunes Jul 31, 2020
    Show notes

    My BiRtHdAy wish 🎁 🎂 this year is that anyone who has listened to my podcast and thinks I’m not the worst host in the world will leave me a review because apparently even though I have 90 five star ratings-I guess 4 out of the last 6 reviews I got said I love the content but I wish I cld mute the host 🙃 I knw I’m not the best host but ouch that was a bit of a shock the other day when I went to find what my listeners say for a pdf so if u think I do an ok job and I know my guests always rock the mic 🎤 I hope u can take two minutes to give me a review on iTunes!

    https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/organic-gardener-podcast/id962887645?mt=2


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    327. Focusing on the Things I do Want (to Grow) Instead of What I don't Want | Integrity Soils | Soil Expert Nicole Masters | For the Love Of Soil Jul 26, 2020
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    Nicole Masters fromIntegrity Soils is here today!Intro (0s):Hey There! Green future growers. Thanks for joining us today. If you're new to the show, I hope you'll subscribe on iTunes or your favorite Android app and let's get growing!Get your copy of ourblank garden journalfrom amazon today!Jackie Marie Beyer (19s):Welcome to the Green Organic Garden Podcast! It is Friday, July 3rd, 2020. And I have one of the most awesome guests ever to come on the show. She was recommended by Robin Kelson and Patti Armbrister. Robin actually went all the way to New Zealand to work with her!For the Love of Soil: Strategies to Regenerate Our Food Production SystemsJackie Marie Beyer (1m 11s):She is a soil expert and she is here to talk to us. She wrote a book for the love of Soil Strategies to Regenerate Our Food Production Systems. You might've even read it already. And now you're going to hear from the master herself, Nicole Masters. So welcome to the show Nicole!Nicole Masters (1m 28s):Thanks for having me, Jackie, that's like the best introduction lead in of all time. Yeah. I really appreciate being here. Thank you.Jackie Marie Beyer:We are so excited to have you, and I know you are going to drop golden seeds.That's what I call like golden nuggets of value bombs. You're where people say on other podcasters. I just know, like I told you in the email Soil health is without a doubt, the key to my show and show. And then Patti Armbrister has her own little fan club, like one of my, like I'm the president. And like, they just love her.And she was like, how come you haven't had Nicole Masters on your show yet? I'm like, what did happen with that? And I guess I never sent you the email show. I meant you last year when I first heard about you and I dropped the ball.Jackie Marie Beyer (2m 13s):So thank you so much. And go ahead and tell listeners about yourself. Like what time is it where you are? You're in New Zealand, right?Nicole Masters (2m 20s):No way when COVID hit, I got on a plane and I got to Montana. So right now I'm in Idaho.Jackie Marie Beyer (-): You did?Nicole Masters (2m 27s):Yeah. I have a trailer in a horse here in Montana. And so yeah, I just, yeah, just kind of really looked at what I was doing and you know, is it the site of a book tour? And you know, my schedule was pretty much the most I was staying anywhere was like three days traveling through Australia and New Zealand and Canada and, and yeah, I guess COVID hit and I was so grateful cause I was like, I need to stop. I need to reconsolidate. I need to, yeah. Just not be rushing around the planet Which I think a lot of people have that same experience. So yeah. I feel like I'm a lot more settled now.Jackie Marie Beyer (3m 9s):Isn't that interesting. You did not want to be in New Zealand and wanting to be in the United States for the pandemic. I mean, I guess I said repeatedly, if you have to be in it, Montana is like the best place to be. But New Zealand seem to be on top of things, like aren't, they one of the best countries,Nicole Masters (3m 28s):Well, they are in terms of like total lockdown and quarantine, but I don't have a house or a base in New Zealand. So I was like, where would I quarantine? Where had I totally locked life down? And if I was going to lock down, I want to be with my horse. I want to be able to be out in the mountains and, and working cows. And, and I just didn't have that set up in New Zealand.So it seemed much more, I mean, all my friends do think I'm insane. Like, and you know, the media certainly overseas, isn't putting very good light on America, but I knew that, you know, ranching life would pretty much continue as usual, which is what's happening anyway.Nicole Masters (4m 7s): Yeah.Jackie Marie Beyer (4m 7s):Fascinating. Well, I always kind of start my show asking about your very first garden experience, like on a ranch, like where, like, who are you with? What'd you grow? Where did you?Nicole Masters (4m 21s):I grew up, I grew up on air force bases. So my father was a pilot. I was an air force brat, but my very first earliest memories out all of gardening. So my, my father and my grandmother, you know, we always had home gardens, but my mom always tells me stories of when I first learned to crawl, she couldn't find me. And she found me in the garden with my little pinky finger inside a snail shell, eating snails, which she's teasing me about.Nicole Masters (4m 53s):But yeah, I mean, I just, I, you know, I used to follow my father around like a puppy dog and you know, so planting radishes and planting my own radishes probably, I don't know, it must've been three or four, you know, really, really little and eating a lot of soil.I'm a big advocate of eating soil.So yeah. So I think my father was really enjoyed camping and really enjoyed, you know, being in the New Zealand Bush. And so I think, and I think in New Zealand, we don't have that big rural, urban divide that seems to exist in, and maybe we do now, but certainly growing up, you know, there were horse paddocks, cattle paddocks all around. And I had relatives that were deer farmers and dairy farmers, and just always felt very connected to agriculture. And it wasn't till I was 24 that my father brought a farm and I went with him and we basically started from scratch planted 700 avocado trees. Re-established a wetland put in, you know, different types of orchard species.Nicole Masters (6m 0s):And yeah, it was both of us had knew nothing. I had been managing community gardens when I was 24. It was what I did when I left university was I'm very lucky to kind of strike that job. And at the same time, you know, I've been gardening for a few years and was just very lucky to have a position like that because you know, you really do get thrown in the deep endAnd you need to be researching and experimenting and figuring out what works.And what was interesting with those community guidance was they were given to us, they were set up in the middle of a low socioeconomic community that didn't want them.Nicole Masters (6m 38s):And hadn't asked for them and didn't appreciate people basically coming into the community. So we had a lot of vandalism. We had a lot of, you know, people coming in and smashing everything up and tipping out all the seedling trays. And it was sort of some of my early thinking around you don't force change on people. You need to engage with communities. You need to invite and bring people along with you, not go, Hey, we know this is the best thing for you and we're going to have it happen. So it was an extraordinary time of learning.Jackie Marie Beyer (7m 10s):I was in New Zealand where you, yeah. And then, so when did you go to,Did you go to college for agriculture?Nicole Masters (7m 21s):I went to university for, I did an ecology degree actually wanting to be a great white Shaq researcher. But when you, you know, if you want to get into zoology or anything like that, you need to do basic cell biology.We did botany like did conservation science did all sorts of like, I love ecology degrees in terms of so varied. And through that, I really got excited about plants. And then I really got excited about soil and it was like, I ended up majoring in soil thinking that I wanted to be a great white shark researcher, which is fascinating still because soil is just, it's the new frontier!Nicole Masters (8m 3s):You know, it's the more that we learn about it, the more that we learn about our own human microbiome and the connections with like how we evolved as human beings and how much of that microbiology actually comes from soil. And how much of it has to say in terms of health and wellbeing that they've developed a vaccine for PTSD, for instance, it comes from a soil bacterium. So it's like, yeah, it just never, never gets dullJackie Marie Beyer (8m 34s):That's just fascinating to me.And how anybody like goes into soil in collegeTo be honest with you. I took a lot of botany classes in college for somebody who was like a liberal arts major. Cause I liked plants and flowers. I wanted to get a job for the forest service here, going around in the forest. And like you did like these surveys of, you know, like how many wild flowers, how many trees, how many of us are that?Jackie Marie Beyer (9m 7s):Which I lasted all of two days after all this work to get the job. And I got lost in the woods and I was like, I'm done, There were some factors in there. I did not like fire school either. I was like, why fighting forest fires? That is so not me. Anyway. Well tell us more, tell us about your book.Integrity SoilsNicole Masters (9m 32s):Yeah. So my book came about really from people. So I with our programs, soIntegrity Soils is my company being basically self employed for over 20 years. We manage, we work alongside land managers that cover over 1.2 million acres. And working with these people,I have quite a specific triage or process that I go through in my mind that actually, I didn't realize how specific it was until people started going. Well, explain how,How did you get to that diagnosis?How is it that you figured out that my cows have as like a phosphate deficiency, because there's not enough active fungi like in the soil?How did, how did you come to that?And so the book really goes through the triage process or the coaching process in terms of how do we identify what enabling factors are in soil and what's putting a limit to full health and production and how do we really build soil and build organic matter as quickly as possible on large landscapes as well as in home gardens.Nicole Masters (10m 40s):So, you know,I work with some of the largest market gardens, vegetable production, horticulture, bison, beef, sheep, you know.We work in hugely diverse environments and it it's like, well, what works well in these types of ecosystems and what works well?You know, if you think about going from the New Zealand environment to Montana, they're almost the polar opposite. So it's, how do you diagnose in those environments and what are we looking at? So I came up with a process that I call the five M's, which is looking at what is, what is, you know, what's potentially involved in, in what we call the enabling factors.The Five M'sNicole Masters (11m 20s):So is that your, is therean issue with microbiology?Is it a mineral imbalance?Is it low, organic matter?Is it your management is it your mindset?So the five M's. ,And through going through that process, we go through a diagnostic of how well is that plant photosynthesizing that's number one, you know, like if yourplants are not capturing adequate sunlight energy and converting that into everything that happens in the plant and then feeding microbiology, then the system's not going to work very well.The next step is what's happening with water and water infiltration.Nicole Masters (11m 52s):No, that's not. The next step is before that. So before water, comes air and most people think of water because we're so connected to, if it doesn't rain or we don't have water going, you know, then you know, your garden's going to fail, but actually before that, it's actually an movement.So the same in the human body, if you don't, you're not breathing, you're not going to last very long. If you're not able to get water, you know, maybe you'll live for three days. And if you don't have food, maybe it's three weeks.So it goes through this process of diagnostics so that you can figure out what is it.What is happening on your own property and how do we really take that to the next level?Nicole Masters (12m 30s):And, yeah, so it was a pretty awesome process to go through writing the book. I use a lot of case studies and people's stories to convey sometimes what can seem very technical, but trying to keep it in a way that makes it really readable.I didn't want people just going, Oh, this is a good reference book, or this is good technical book, or this is something we're just going to read once and then shelf, or maybe just read half of it and shelf. And I've had so many messages from people going, I've read your book four times have highlighted all of this.Nicole Masters (13m 1s):And they've sent me photos. And I'm like, who reads a book four times? You know, like, and just being so blown away that, that my intent, which is to kind of try and keep it very engaging, I feel like was pretty successful in the end.Jackie Marie Beyer (13m 17s):Yeah. I think Patty and Robin were both telling me they've also listened to the audio version several times. Yeah.Nicole Masters (13m 23s):So they can be fluent in New Zealand.Jackie Marie Beyer (13m 27s):I am a elementary educator by trade, like taught K through fourth grade for many years and, you know, rereading, rereading, rereading is something.Nicole Masters (13m 39s):We teach them all the time. So I don't know. I kind of get it. Yeah. Yeah. But I think people's lives are so busythese days, you know, we're lucky to kind of push anything into our heads at all. And I think that's why audio books is so powerful is, and I hadn't even realized. I started talking to people and they're like, yeah, I listen to an audio book while I'm vacuuming or while I'm going for a run or I'm in the car. And I'm like, I didn't even realize there was this whole world of, and maybe it's you know, we're totally spinning our wheels because we haven't got any downtime to just contemplate.Nicole Masters (14m 12s):Cause you're listening to audio books all the time. But yeah. So I've been excited about the audio book.Jackie Marie Beyer (14m 20s):Well, I, you know, there's times, right? I like peace and quiet, but when I'm driving or when I'm walking, like nothing's better for me than an inspiring. I like to listen to podcasts myself being a podcaster. It's kind of how I got into it. And then I just got a job this summer working for another podcast. And I've been to like over 600 podcasts websites in the last two weeks.Nicole Masters (14m 42s): So wow.Jackie Marie Beyer (14m 43s):Kind of neat. I feel like I'm connecting and making new friends again and listening to new shows. And, but also, yeah, I've been trying to get a little more quite time when I'm in the garden. Yeah. SoNicole Masters (14m 58s):Yeah, I think that's how we balance it, you know, we can balance it out. Yeah.Jackie Marie Beyer (15m 5s):So what would you tell listeners? Cause my listeners are probably more backyard gardeners, although they do have surprisingly large gardens for backyard gardeners. You know, they're the kind of people that are, you know, growing a fair amount of their own produce. Like maybe like what's the thing they be most surprised about. I know like Patti keeps talking about how organic gardeners sometimes have some of the worst soil anymore because they're just, they keep tilling it and they keep doing things.You know, she's talked a lot about ways that you can not have to deal with weeds by just not tilling your soil and just different things like that.Jackie Marie Beyer (15m 43s):Like what would you say backyard gardeners maybe would be something you see them surprised?Nicole Masters (15m 53s):I think asking those questions, you know, why is it that maybe you have weeds why do you have pests or diseases? and how to really work with that underground livestock in microbiology because they are the ones that's providing nutrition and health and disease resistance and insect resistance. So yeah, I think it's one of…

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    326. Grow Nutrient Dense Food | Cultured Biologix | Tim McCormick | Westminster, CO Jul 20, 2020
    Show notes

    Friday June 19, 2020Get a FREE Sample by simply paying shipping from Cultured Biologix HereWe, you know, we were part of a conglomerate with about four other organic companies and, you know, each one kind of has the organic piece of the puzzle, you could say. So they do a lot of like, they take like the organic amendments you would put in your soil and they digest them ahead of time.So when they put them in a bottle also, when you use them, you're using liquid digested, organic goodness. So every time you feed your plants, you're feeding them what would naturally be released in the soil? So it's like a really more innovative, what's a new, innovative way to do organic gardening, I guess, in a more context of who they are to us, their, our, our partner company, where they provide the, the liquid organic nutrients.And we provide the, the easy to use complex to use to keep the soil broken down and healthy. And then in cycling all the nutrients and making them available for the plants...This is perfect. Did you get the email? Yes. Okay. So I'll just introduce you and we'll go from there before you drop any more golden seeds that listeners are going to want to hear. Okay, cool. Welcome to the green organic gardener podcast. Today. It is Friday, June 19th, 2020. And I have someone on the line who I think we're going to really enjoy learning about. They have a, kind of a new green business that they're going to tell us a little about, and also like how you can have better results in your gardens. So it's Cultured Biologix, Is that right, Tim? Yes. Yes, it is. Okay. And I'm not even sure. I know your last name, so welcome to the green organic gardener podcast. Well, I'm glad you're here. So go ahead and tell us there's a little bit about yourself. Yeah, sure. So I'm the president of a company called Cultured Biologix. We make really good organic microbial, fertilizers, natural pesticides, you know, taking essential oils that are harmless to you, me, your dogs, you know, everything good in nature, but you know, detrimental to a lot of the pests that we experienced in our garden. So we started about three years ago. We've been growing pretty steadily here in Colorado. So, you know, originally we kind of started off in the cannabis hemp seed, and now we're kind of moving into home, home and garden kind of teaching people about, you know, the new ways to, to garden organically. Okay. Well, I kind of always start out my show asking you about your very first garden experience, like where you were a kid, were you an adult? Was it recently, or like, what'd you grow? Who were you with? But I've been very fortunate to have a mother that's been a horticulturalist for 35 years. So take your child to work day was to take, take Tim to the, to the greenhouse and have them water plants and pick off bugs. And that leaves up off the plants. So I've been, I've been doing it for most of my life. 29 year olds, 29 years old now. So I've been gardening good 20 years of my life. First gardening experience was probably my backyard with my, with my mom, helping her do annual prenup flowers.That's been her real big thing. So just kind of grew up with it and just kind of involved with, with just probably every, every day of my life. So probably is that how you learned how to grow organically from your mom? Yeah. Yeah. One of our organically, she definitely taught me the conventional ways, you know, in a lot of conventional greenhouses and whatnot, they, they use their super triple phosphate. They do their 20, 20, 20 jacks. You know, they did a pretty conventional stuff and he's not assaults and synthetics.And it wasn't actually, until I, I got into chemistry is my that's my background I'm I have a bachelor's in science and chemistry. And so I got into kind of what the organic, what is to be organic garden. And so the first grad at college, I got brought into an innovative fertilizer company and got into evolve with the really core organizations like United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, and really starting to understand that, you know, there's other ways that we can grow conventionally working with the United nations.We we've, we figured out that, you know, it takes about a thousand years for one centimeter of soil, top soil to build. We, our whole, all of existence of nature is really dependent on the first six inches of top soil. So it really got me into, it was understanding that conventional fertilizer on our conventional foreign land can degrade once in a year of soil in 10 years. So we can destroy about a hundred times quicker than we could the earth naturally rebuild it!Going into organic gardening, you start to really realize that, you know, it's more about how we take care of the soil than just growing a plant. So just kinda going into, I don't know, a lot of the different verticals in agriculture, you can see how a lot of the conventional gardening, you know, it requires a lot more fertilizer than the organic gardening requires a lot less fertilizer!Maybe more, more tending to the soil, maybe more tending to, you know, the aspects of, of a good ecosystem or really what.What steered me into organic gardening was, was just working. We're working within the fertilizer industry and realizing what conventional fertilizers were and, and what, or what the difference between organic was.Well, you know, this is music to our ears. So, so then what happened?We started working with a lot of these different countries that are part of the United Nations, and they started really looking back at what,what is it to be healthy?Where we're at with all these large costs in our healthcare system? What do we really, how do we reduce this cost? How do we improve the system? Do we, do we have more endeavors and pharmaceuticals? Do we have more endeavors and biotechnology? Do we, do we focus more on healthcare professionals? And at the end of the day, what they found is that it doesn't really come down to how much money you put into your medical system and your healthcare system, because you're always going to be kind of fighting uphill battle. What they found was is that the true mutual, the true health to a human and to our, to our bodies is the food we eat. And so that's really what propelled me into making innovative and new technologies is for organic gardening is realizing that the, the nutrition that we eat is actually in our produce.It's, it's how we develop nutrient dense produce. And we do that through growing organically and having a good micro ecosystem! Having a good, good soil health. And if we really want to truly have good medicine to take care of you, me, or kids or family, then we all need to eat organic food. And we all need to be focused on nutrient dense produce. Okay, Tim. So my listeners have repeatedly told me that what they want to know is how can they be more productive? And I have a feeling you have an answer for us. How can we grow more of that nutrient dense produce?What's some of this tech and other solutions that you've come up to help make organic gardeners more successful. Hey, wait, can I just remind listeners? I'm sure you all cut this in the beginning question, but 29, another rockstar, millennial working for the UN ~ biochemistry degree!I love it. Tim. I'm writing a book called rockstar millennials about them. Amazing rock star millennials on my show, because I think you guys are great!Thank you. We're excited. If you can't tell?!.Yeah. The, you know, it really comes down to, you know, the Native Americans have this theory. I'm a quarter Native American. And so I've really grown up with that in my, my, my, my childhood. And, you know, they have a saying that you are what you eat and while the plant is what it eats too. So the, the, the biggest thing I've found and, you know, maybe not a lot of people, I don't know if you guys have talked a lot about this or not, but the bricks level inside the plant it's, it's, it's something not really taught a lot about in conventional agriculture, except for like grapes. You know, when you're making wine, you want the highest grade content. Do you have the artists highest amount of sugar content and not let you make good wine.But really to have a hi. Hi. Hi. Hi, hi bricks con plant. And we do that through reducing the water soluble nutrients inside the plant and increasing more proteins, increasing organic cellular production at the plant. So, you know, nitrates are a good example of that. We can grow more nutrient and produce by utilizing alternative forms of nitrogen. Nitrates are one of the, one of the four forms of nitrogen and conventionally. You have nitrates ammonium, and you have a urea is the three forms of nitrogen. And that's where we find a lot of, you know, inside like jacks or miracle grow, or, you know, a lot of assault based fertilizers. What that does is that the nitrates can only exist inside the plant when there's a large amount of water. So what that does is when a plant takes up the nitrates and use that as a main version of nitrogen, that's good source, the plant has to have a large amount of water as well.And what the large amount of water does is it dilutes the amount of nutrition in your produce. It dilutes the sugar, the SAP content inside your produce. So it's not as packed with vitamins and minerals. So just by simply finding a different version of, of nitrogen, whether the vet, your top dressing with feather meal and putting down accomplished tea on top of that, whether you have some alfalfa or different organic versions of nutrition, we want to, we want to focus on the fourth type of, of nitrogen called protein nitrogen. And you can get that through organic soybean extracts. You can get that through hydro ice fish, just using these more naturally natural versions of, of just nitrogen alone can increase the brix level inside the plant, which means your plants are going to have more, more nutrition in it. Are you saying brinks like the brinks truck?No, you're fine. Brix B-R- I X, brix is a measurement of the carbohydrate content inside the plant.And we find is there's less brix and plants to have a high amount of water in them. And when you use a lot of nitrates are a lot of phosphate salts, the water content goes up really high inside the plant, which immediately reduces the amount of nutrients over trying to get, you know, dense new nutrient produce inside the plant, we want the nutrients to be as packed full per square inch as possible inside the plant. So you, I guess in a simple sentence, it's just a it's it's, you know, knowing what you're feeding the plant!you know, we should try to, we try to sway away from, from salt based fertilizers and go more towards like protein nitrogen, or more towards a bone meal or rock phosphorus source for the phosphorus. And we do that. You can, you can kind of adjust the amount of water in the plant and how much nutrients the plant actually absorbing. And we find that you have higher Brix levels, which means more sugar content type of plant and more sugar content contains also more nutrients and more vitamins and minerals inside of the plant. So how do you know what, like what the sugar level of that plant is? Or like, how do you even, is that like a soil test you're doing to find that brix thing? Yeah, you can, there's a refractive index and that's like the measurement scale of it. And we can use a refractometer and they're pretty cheap online. And you just go through and you can do a chop a part of the branch off of a plant, and you can squeeze the juice out onto the lens and you just hold that up towards light and you can see where the sugar content is on refractometer. So it's a little more the, an experience type of gardening approach, but, you know, if you're really trying to dial things in it's, it's really helpful to see like how healthy the plant is, because what we also found is, you know, higher the brix, the higher, the healthier the plant. And if we have a healthier plant, you can use less pesticides and you have less bugs trying to get to the plant! And that's really overall what it is. You're trying to make yourself, help yourself healthy. And you're trying to make the plant healthy. And when the plant is healthy, you can use less chemicals and less chemicals immediately means healthier plants!Golden seeds, Tim golden seeds! This is the kind of stuff that my listeners want to hear. So, and a lot of this stuff is like, so I just had this, she has her own little fan club on my show. Her name is Patti Armbruster, and she's like a regenerative agriculture expert. And she actually was just at my place yesterday, giving me all sorts of tips and things that we could do.And a lot of the things that I think you're saying is what she's talking about to like helping the plants be healthy, you know? Totally she's just such a soil, like show passionate about, you know, feeding the soil organisms and the ecosystem. So it's a healthy soil. So it feed your plant, like you're saying. And then my husband's been adding like alfalfa meal, and I think, I want to say it was blood meal in that bone meal to kind of like give his plants a little boost this spring, but I dunno. Do you have more to say, or do you want to answer the questions or where do you want to go from here?Yeah, no, I mean, I, you know, I, I'm, I'm really a proponent on making sure that the, you know, we're all picky about the food we eat. I'm a big proponent about being picky about what you feed your plants too. Right? So a lot of it is, it goes into, if your plants are healthy, they're going to have less, less bugs and less bugs means you're going to have more or less pests. I'm sorry, which means you're going to have more predators and you're going to have a plant that releases less infrared. And so really my whole soapbox schpeel I've been getting on lately is, is just adjusting the form of nitrogen, which also was just causing your plant to be healthier. If they plant, when plants take in a bunch of nitrates, they've released infrared radiation, the book, see infrared radiation and see that as like their prime food source and they come attack plant. So we can, we can make plants healthier and actually ward away the pests themselves by just feeding them non nitrate based food. I guess I, the full circle to kind of let them what I've been preaching. Speaker 1 (16m 5s): And so was that what, where my page go, the biologix, the culture biologix is like food that you give the plants to help them be healthier?Yeah. Yeah. Well, we give the, you know, we like to tackle it from a couple of different animals or a couple of different angles. One of the one which is, you know, adjusting the input of the food source.So it makes sure, yeah, we definitely feed them better, you know, create a better organism.The other is, is part of the biologix is using biological organisms to, you know, condition the soilyou know, we had in Colorado, we have a heavy clay based soil, not much sand here, a lot of rock. So what we'd like to do is put down like beneficial microorganisms that, that naturally break down clay and produce some more porise substrates to grow in.So it's not as compact and not as, not at that, doesn't say as waterlogged for as long. So part of it is the inputs lot. And the other part of it is making sure we use the proper organisms at the proper timing to condition our soil.So, like I said, you know, prior to, to working with United Nations, we did this soil degra…

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    July 17, 2020 Garden Update | Composting Webinar | Listen App | JMB Podcasting Double Down Rant Jul 17, 2020
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    The amazing Patti Armbrister is going to teach a composting class for Organic Garden Podcast listeners completely online Saturday July 18, 2020 at 10:00 am MST/12:00pm EST for only $37.00

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    We will be learning how to make not only more compost, but Great Compost and Easy Compost too!

    What's new in our garden, my inability to deal with Facebook anymore and my desire to double down on podcasting, and a bit about the world. Just a typical JMB rant in the middle of summer in the middle of a pandemic in the middle of NW Montana. Stay safe and thanks for listening!

    IMG_3697

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    [caption id="attachment_137019" align="aligncenter" width="449"]IMG_3879 Broccoli Harvest 2020[/caption][caption id="attachment_137020" align="aligncenter" width="464"]IMG_3859 Buckwheat growing in compost and grass clippings on top of cardboard[/caption]

    https://www.democracynow.org/2020/7/17/coronavirus_spread_yemen_us_backed_saudi

    So join the amazing Patti Armbrister and I tomorrow for a composting class for Organic Garden Podcast listeners completely online Saturday July 18, 2020 at 10:00 am MST/12:00pm EST for only $37.00

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    324. Organic Biodynamic Regenerative Farmer | Heart & Soil Magazine | Natalie Forstbauer | Saskatchewan, Canada Jul 13, 2020
    Show notes

    Natalie Forstbauer is a TEDx speaker, award-winning entrepreneur, author, organic/biodynamic farmer and traumatic brain injury (TBI) survivor. She is passionate about human potential and seeing people live their best lives. Raised on an organic farm, trained in Polarity Therapy, alternative medicine, Neurofeedback and Transformational Leadership she brings a wealth of knowledge and life experience to her audiences and clients.In 2003 Natalie acquired a life changing brain injury.Gardening and farming with a brain injury showed her healing is not always about "fixing what we perceive to be broken". Compassion and grace can to turn brain injuries and adversity into brain upgrades and new opportunities. Getting dirty in the fields, taking equipment apart and leaning into the powerful wisdoms of nature, Natalie learned what it is to nurture and harvest one's gifts and to compost adversity into something meaningful and valuable.Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Heart & Soil Magazine she brings together quality information and advice on regenerative agriculture and global health. Free copy of my book, Health in a Hurry, Simple Solutions for the Time Starvedwww.healthinahurry.com www.heartandsoilmagazine.com Social Media:https://www.facebook.com/NatalieForstbauerhttps://www.instagram.com/natalieforstbauer/TEDx Brain Injury to Brain Upgradehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AinF06mBUhsWelcome to the GREEN Organic Gardener Podcast. Today. It is Friday, June 19, 2020, and what a day and the most exciting thing was you can't wait for this. The amazing Patti Armbrister actually came to our place and let me take video footage of her telling us what's going on in our garden, what we can do to improve it and just all the great things Mike's doing right. Also the Apple pruning trips and we're in touch with somebody else.You can see that episode here:https://mikesgreengarden.com/2020/07/12/patti-armbrister-at-mikes-green-garden-with-the-green-organic-garden-podcast-fortine-mt/So we all know Patti Armbrister is an amazing soil specialist. Today. We are going to talk to somebody else. Who's also going to talk about the importance of healthy soil. So my guest today is a TEDx speaker and award-winning entrepreneur and author and organic biodynamic farmer and traumatic traumatic brain injury survivor, which is something super passionate to me because we had a first grader at my school, get hit by a car going 40 miles an hour, crossing the highway, getting off the bus. And she is recuperating down in Texas after being in a coma and had major.1I was born and raised on an organic and biodynamic farm in BC, British Columbia, Canada in the phrase of Valley. So my parents were pioneers in the organic industry in, in Canada and really in North America, my mom was recognized throughout the organic industry and they helped put together the guiding principles for certification and verification of organic farming. And I kind of grew up, you know, the girl who went to school with odd ball lunches and a homemade everything. And I had Apple juice instead of Kool-Aid And I thought Kool-Aid was the best thing until I actually tried it and I was mortified and I was actually really grateful for the, the pressed Apple juice.00:08:390And, and then I'm not sure I should really laugh about that because there are a lot of kids who grow up drinking Kool-Aid because it's affordable and they can't afford that super delicious Apple juice. So that's right. And it's really though Jackie, because00:08:561We also didn't grow up. Like we never had juices in our house. We drank water and Apple juice was huge street. It was only at the end of the season when we press the apples that were kind of, that were, you know, that were seconds. Or, or if we had like an excess amount of apples, then we got to make Apple juice. And then it was really coveted. Like it was not something we got all the time, but it was like our treat. And so we didn't get it all the time, but we were really blessed to have gotten it. And, and that was, you know, that was one of the only treats we didn't have juice or anything like that.00:09:281And I always felt so ripped off until I actually tried that Koolaid. And I was like, what?This is it, it looks really pretty, but it doesn't taste so good.Like the difference between the, you know, it's like party in the mouth when you have something really fresh and, and like living in and full of nutrients. And it was this kind of flat and foreign the Koolaid.So anyways, so that was very similar experience with like Like my mom wouldn't buy that. It was just because she just wasn't going to, she did let us buy soda pop, but not a lot of it, you know, but yeah, I was surprised at Kool-Aid like when you would taste it like birthday parties and be like, I was like totally as such a downer. 00:10:141So super disappointing. So anyways, I grew up on this organic farm and we ran around barefoot and we all worked in the fields. I'm the oldest of 12 kids as well. And so it was it. And we all, I was big family and, and, and super intentional. My parents intentionally, they both wanted to have a large family and they, and they really included us in the farming operations.Blueberry GirlI was like looking after the blueberry fields that you pick and the end looking after the pickers at the age of 11 and, and, you know, taking people's money when they came and picked vegetables and berries and giving them change and all that kind of stuff. So really empowering.And then in 1989, we moved from Chilliwack BC to no, pardon me from Masley BC to Chilliwack BC. And it was really profound because I had grown up on an organic farm. So I only knew organic soil. I only knew weeds everywhere and, you know, having to like, well, my hands are in the dirt all the time weeding.So when we moved out to Chilliwack, we bought a, my parents purchased a farm that had been used for like dairy farming and conventional dairy farming. So it's been sprayed heavily with different chemicals and Roundup and that type of thing. And I remember walking onto the ground onto the farm and noticing the dirt was just like dirt and I will call it dirt was really dry. And I was like, huh, interesting. And then the first thing I did, I was about 18 at the time, was I wanted go and find worms because I wanted to take my little brothers and sisters fishing in the Creek. Well, it wasn't Creek. It was like a ditch kind of a waterway that ran along the property.00:12:011Fishing without worms?And in Matzke where we were moving from wheat, we, we grew up with a stream that we used for fishing, just for fun. We never really caught anything. And, and you know, on this new property, we scoured the entire 110 acres for a worm.We turned over every piece of wood. There was, we dug along the barns, we dug along the house and there was nothing like not one worm on the whole property!And that was super foreign to me because I was used to worms everywhere. And not only were there no worms, but I noticed there were no bugs. And I was like, this is weird.00:12:321I wonder if this is what it's like to like touch the surface of the moon, because it was that it was that vacant.Where'd all the bugs go?Mike and I were talking about how, when you sit, drive in Montana, your windshield would be covered with bugs. You know, you couldn't drive from Eureka to Whitefish, which is like 45 minutes. And that just doesn't happen anymore!Wow. That's amazing because my I'm going, my girlfriend was saying that her friend who's not into like organic, anything really was driving through just, I can't remember what part of it's a States through Seattle, just East of Seattle and through like Idaho or Eastern Washington or Spokane Eastern Washington and she's, and I'd go down there all the time, every year.00:13:301And she was saying the same thing. She said, it was so weird. She said, not one bug hit the windshield. And she said, usually it's covered. And she's like, every, but there's nothing like nothing. Like they didn't have to wash a windshield once on a six hour drive.And so now we have to wash our windshield from like this like film that gets on there! But anyway, I didn't want to throw you off.What you're saying is super powerful because that's what I experienced with the earth, right.00:14:001With the soil. And then as we farmed it, I got to actually see it wake up and come back to life. And before that, I just was like, Oh yeah, organic farming. It's supposed to be better. I'm told it's better. And the food does taste better, even though at the time it might not have been the prettiest.But then to experience the earth coming back to life was probably one of the most powerful and profound things to witness.Like Jackie, it was, it was, it was like an awakening for me on a cellular and ethers level, because I didn't not know.00:14:451I did not understand that the soil is a living organism that the soil can actually heal itself.And it's nothing that we00:14:520Did or didn't do in terms of, Ooh, we made it better. It was just nature taking care of itself and really like leading us to where it wanted to be when it's supported. So anyways, that changed my experience with soil and organic farming. And I got to really witness the power of nature.Right. Well, that is just awesome. And like I said, it couldn't be more timely because yesterday Patti was here picking up our soil and like, I managed to like, turn my phone on video record and just kind of like, cause I could not take notes fast enough for what she was saying, but she really like went into the specifics about what's feeding your soil and how this is like, what's going on here. 00:15:370What's going on underneath here and all the micro organisms and micro, what is it? Or is it nematodes? And just all, exactly all the living soil, things that are going on. And she just explained it so well, like I was like, I could listen to you say this like 25 times before this is going to actually register.And I can still remember like Elaine Dr. Ingham much of this when I interviewed her.00:16:080And, but it does take a lot to, for humans to grasp this. Like we just like look at soil and we think, Oh, it's Brown dirt. You know, we kind of know, I think most people know that you need worms, you know, the more worms, the healthier your soil, at least my listeners. I think a lot of them know that part. But yeah, so much of what you're saying is so powerful! What, I guess I'm sure it's about your brain injury because not only did the student, but like Patty just told me about this guy, Brian. Nope. Jim Kwik, have you heard of him? He has this quick brain podcast and he also had some kind of traumatic brain injurythat's right. When he was quite young. Yeah. So, but you're going to tell us about how, how gardening and things help with that, right? Yes. Yeah. Do you have any questions that you want to start off with there Jackie or?No. I mean like, I'm just curious, like what happened or, okay, well, so in 2003, I was, I had just written my first book.I was published in two other books and, and I just published my own first book is called Health in a Hurry, Simple Solutions for the Time-starved.Get your free copy here: https://www.natalieforstbauer.com/healthinahurryebookAnd I, I set up a special page so people can get a free copy of it. And I'll share that with you later. But anyway, so it was online. Yeah, I was, I had also met an organic farmer and we would just such a good fit for one another. And, and so I was in the process of moving out to Saskatchewan when to, to, to be a part of his farm and to a part of his,00:17:501His business. And we had already married our businesses and we had already planned to merit our life together. And we were on the way back from Saskatchewan to BC to pick up for my book lunch. And on the way there, Jackie, we picked up, I think like 1500 copies of my book from the printer and a few hours after that, early in the morning with a light snowfall, my ground, we just accidentally went off the side of the road and over the side of the mountain.00:18:221And if anyone's listening knows where the spiral tunnels are by field BC, that's where it happened. And, and so the tow truck driver said it took about 240 feet of cable to pull us back up and out. So that's where I landed with the brain injury. And before, before the brain injury, I was interest into organic farming.I, I just, can't not interrupt. And just ask her, how was, how was your partner? 00:18:531Yeah, thanks for asking. He, you know, he was, how was he? He, he got whiplash and like had, I think some type of compressed, like fresher in his lower back. And so he was okay. Like, it's amazing when you see the vehicle, the, when we went to go get some stuff out of the vehicle, the people, the week that at the yard, we thought that people didn't make it because of the back of the truck was appealed. The roof of the truck was peeled back.00:19:231The back cab was completely compressed. It was the, vehicle's a mess. And for us to survive, it was a miracle up like the hands of God and the angels literally had to catch us when we landed A bigger purpose. And you're here to share your message today and in the future and the message that you're sharing. Yeah. Yeah. So, so the brain injury was man, it was, it was probably one of the hardest things I've ever gone through my life because before the brain injury, I had a really easy, I CA I mean, there's lots of things that happened that were hard in life, but I just had that tapestry within which, where I always felt like I was looked after, and if I wanted something, I just go after it and I get it.00:20:201And so I can manifest really quickly and I could heal, like if I was injured, I could heal myself really quickly. And my training was in alternative medicine. So I'd experienced like spontaneous healing and stuff like that. And I just, I had, I had, I had an easy life, but I had like a pretty effortless, effortless existence up until then. And then the brain injury hit and I couldn't fix myself. Like I couldn't, it didn't matter how many visualizations I did or how much I changed my thinking or how hard I focused on remembering something.00:20:591I was still falling on my face. I was still not remembering people. I met, I was still leaving a trail behind me of unfinished things. I was still leaving the burner on and, and, you know, boiling pots dry, even though I would have reminders put around, I would still miss some phone appointments and appointments period, unless somebody called me right before it. And even if somebody called me before the appointment to remind me about the appointment, if it wasn't at the time of the appointment, and it was five minutes later, I'd still miss the appointment.00:21:29Milled Flax Packages1It was just, it was almost crazy-making. And so there came a point and I was still working with our organic farm out in Saskatchewan and, and doing my best with that. And, you know, odd things were happening, Jackie, like we were, we had a, a line of, of milled flax that we sold into stores across Canada.00:22:011And so an example of how the brainer jury was showing up is we had labels, of course, the front and back and on the back is it says how many calories are on the package? And I don't remember what the number was. I think it was like 25 calories per tablespoon or per three tablespoons.And all of a sudden the name, the number was changed to 125 calories per tablespoon. And I was like, and, and the only reason I found out is because one of our custo…

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