Welcome to the GREEN Organic Garden. It is Saturday, December 11th, 2021. Today I have the most amazing guest on the line. She's going to drop tons of golden seeds already in our pre-chat I've learned a ton from her, from Sun Sugar Farms in Northern Kentucky, here to grace us today is Linda Fritz. So we'll go to the show Linda!

18m 0s

Linda Fritz

Well, thank you so much, Jackie. How are you today?

18m 4s

Jackie Marie Beyer

I am awesome. So tell us, well, I'm going to tell us, there's just a quick little story. I found Linda because I was in the market gardening success group, I think, and somebody had posted, they were looking for some of Linda has these awesome food packaging things. And the person was looking for someone to share an order with them. And they were talking about how wonderful they were. And as soon as I looked him up, I was like, oh my goodness. I have to connect with this woman and have her come on the show and tell us about these are because we all, hate buying food and clamshells, we all hate having that extra plastic. I know you do and so here is a solution.

18m 44s

Jackie Marie Beyer

And so even you could encourage your market gardeners, tell them about it, share this website. And we are all going to learn so much from her. So Linda, I am going to be quiet. I'm literally going to mute my mic so I can't say another word and go ahead and tell listeners more about you.

19m 18s

Linda Fritz

So when I moved to Kentucky, I started growing edamame a because I didn't really like vegetables and it led to a whole new world of products in terms of, you know, replacing grocery bags with collapsible crates. And then I also started growing sun sugar, cherry tomatoes, and that led to creating a produce box that was a replacement for plastic clamshells. Prior to that, I was an engineer right out of college. And then I also started my own marketing company when I stayed home with my child.

19m 60s

Linda Fritz

So now it's kind of come full circle because when I was growing up, I hated the garden, I hated working in the garden and now everything I do is, is about the garden and about getting good food to people and doing it in a way that honors the earth and keeps it well.

20m 22s

Jackie Marie Beyer

Okay. Well, my listeners know what's coming. So are you a rock star millennial born between 1980 and 1995?

20m 32s

Linda Fritz

No, actually I was born in 1961, so I am way I have a millennial.

20m 39s

Jackie Marie Beyer

Yeah. You're older than I am.

20m 41s

Linda Fritz

I'm old, I'm old, but people, people don't think I am, but I think that's because I love being outside and I love, you know, I don't love vegetables. I hate vegetables, but I love the ones that I've found and they've actually grown my appreciation for eating vegetables. And I think that really helps people to try to focus on the things that make you feel better, even though they're not the, like, I would love to just, I wish I could sit down and eat a box of donuts. No problem. But is that good for you? And does that, is that good for your body? And it's not, you know, a lot of the food, you know, the vegetables that we have eaten in the past, don't taste that good.

21m 26s

Linda Fritz

But when you grow your own, you know, you get a chance to really taste what they should taste like and they do taste good. So I said it vegetables are good!

21m 41s

Jackie Marie Beyer

I'm so baffled because like I like, I'm sure I'm part rabbit. Like I love vegetables. My one that I struggled with is getting myself to eat fruit. It's not that I don't like the fruit. It's just so messy. No, it's like you buy a pear and the juice is dribbling down your chin and like oranges you try to peel them and like if your at work and you're a teacher in the classroom and you're trying to do stuff while you're eating. And then what's the other one. Just, I don't know, you know, berries are super expensive. Like those are my preferred fruit, strawberries I love, although I struggle the grow them, I'm really struggling to grow fruit. Like I've been trying to grow blueberries for two years now.

22m 24s

Jackie Marie Beyer

Totally unsuccessful strawberries. I mean, I got all these strawberries starts from this woman last year and none of them made it. The only thing we've been lucky with is raspberries. Anyway, I'm going to ask about your very first gardening experience. Like, were you a kid, were you an adult? Who were you with and what did you grow when you hated the garden? I did too! My mom was like a, how do you have a garden podcast?

22m 52s

Linda Fritz

Yeah. So, yeah. And we were growing up in Pennsylvania in the country. My dad was big into being prepared for anything and, you know, growing his own food and being the oldest of four kids, the, a lot of the responsibility for weeding and planting and harvesting fell on me and I hated it. And so we, my sister and I used to push the big squash over the bank, hoping he wouldn't see it and just think that maybe some wild pigs ate it and then he'd find it. And he'd be like, we're going to eat that tonight, girls. We'd be like NO! So that was my first experience gardening was trying to hide the big squash cause they were gross.

23m 38s

Linda Fritz

So, but I do remember like tomatoes actually tasted really good growing up. And as I became an adult and had a child and you know, you'd eat a tomato from the grocery and it was gross or a salad at a, even a restaurant, it just didn't taste that good. And I thought, well, I could grow a tomato plant, you know? And that's how I kinda got started when I got older. So, but that was my first experience was not very happy about working in the garden.

24m 11s

Jackie Marie Beyer

So tomatoes, the gateway drug, right? Gateway garden fruit? Right?

24m 17s

Linda Fritz

Yeah, because tomatoes are a fruit. If you could count those as a fruit and the thing I love about the Sun Sugar variety that I grow and I actually sell it to Kroger here in the Cincinnati area, is that it's sweet. It's almost like a, like sweet, like a grape, but not like a grape tomato, but like a, a grape itself. And yet there's, it just feels like you're eating sunshine. And so if there's people out there looking for a variety to grow, I would highly recommend trying the Sun Sugars because you really won't find them in grocery stores unless the grocery stores using somebody local because you can't ship these very far, the skins are kind of soft.

25m 1s

Linda Fritz

They're you know, they're not as tough, but not tough, but they don't break it. They break easily. So it's easy to chew them easy to eat them. It's not like breaking into tomato. And then, you know, there's juice squirting all over the place because you just pop the whole thing in your mouth. They're very good. So, and I can tell you where the best places are to get the seeds too, because I've done different seed companies. So, or do you want that? Do you want that kind of information?

25m 31s

Jackie Marie Beyer

Yes my listeners ask me repeatedly, where's the best place to get seeds? And you see that question all the time and like Facebook different things.

25m 38s

Linda Fritz

Okay. Well, in my case, I'm growing a thousand tomato plants on average each season.

25m 44s

Jackie Marie Beyer

I do want to ask. And so like, how big is your place? Like.

25m 47s

Linda Fritz

Oh, not very big.

25m 49s

Jackie Marie Beyer

I didn't want to interrupt, but I was gonna ask that.

25m 50s

Linda Fritz

Yeah, I know it didn't make it easier to edit. Yeah. So I grow, I grow probably a thousand pounds of edamame and I grow a thousand tomato plants on basically an acre of land. So that's all.

26m 16s

Jackie Marie Beyer

Okay. And where's the best place to get these seeds?

26m 20s

Linda Fritz

So the seed company that I've had the best luck with is H P S I forget what they stand for, but HPS seeds, because they ship in HPS, they ship in like a foil envelope. And I think it keeps him fresher longer if you don't plant them all in the first season. Yeah. HPSseed.com and you can buy, you know, different quantities. But in other years when I've gotten other seeds, some of the seeds turned out to not be some sugars.

27m 4s

Linda Fritz

The sun sugar is a hybrid. And if it's not, and so you can't, you know, use the seeds, you have to buy new seeds from the companies that actually do create the hybrids or create the plants, sorry, create the plants that give you the seeds. So if they don't do it right, then you're not going to get Sun Sugars. So HPS Seed has been the most reliable in terms of the seed.

27m 39s

Jackie Marie Beyer

Do you know where they're located?

27m 39s

Linda Fritz

I believe in the Midwest somewhere because there's a lot of seed companies, but if you want to hang on, my Internet's being really super slow.

27m 48s

Jackie Marie Beyer

My internet's been super slow lately too. Like, I wonder if it's because of this 5g thing going up, like, my phone is super slow. It's been like, I don't know if my phone is kind of old. Yeah. 2018, the whopping three years old.

28m 10s

Linda Fritz

Yeah. I gotcha. I had a six up until a couple months ago and iPhone six up until October. Yeah. I would highly suggest getting a phone before you can't get phones because of supply chain issues. If you were at that point. Cause that's what I finally broke down and did. Cause there was like, you know, when this thing breaks totally breaks, you know, I'm not probably not going to be able to just run out and get a phone. If things keep going the way they're going. That's a little offside thing about supply chains.

28m 42s

Jackie Marie Beyer

No we've been talking about that kind of stuff a lot lately.

28m 50s

Linda Fritz

Yeah. You just have to get what you can. You know,

28m 51s

Jackie Marie Beyer

My husband's still using his iPhone six from 2016. I keep think his going to go out and mine is going to go out the same. Mine went out and I had to replace it. And so I just bought like the cheapest one I could get, which was an SE, which I love my SE because it's small. I feel like for women of me, if it's my pocket, it's easy to carry it's I liked my six, but I prefer the smaller one, but I don't know if either of these, because I use my phone all the time. I try to get my husband to go to the iPad, but he just, just kind of, he likes his phone so whatever, if it works Anyway, I can talk about Apple all day.

29m 34s

Jackie Marie Beyer

Let's get back to those. So let's see what's our next question. Tell us about something that grew well this year.

29m 49s

Linda Fritz

Let's see. Sorry. I was still for HBS Seeds to pull up.

29m 59s

Jackie Marie Beyer

Oh, okay.

29m 60s

Linda Fritz

Something that grew well this year I would have to say weeds. So

30m 6s

Jackie Marie Beyer

I love that answer.

30m 7s

Linda Fritz

Yeah, because I had, it seems like every year, some major, major thing happens to interfere with my, my weed strategy. And this year, one of my husband's relatives moved in with us because of the job issues and pandemic and all that. And so I was busy getting the basement ready and I didn't get a chance to really focus on the pumpkin patch that I made and so it was just a giant weed patch. That part of the garden was just a giant weed patch. And usually I put pumpkins and sunflowers together. And so I had these nice sunflowers. They grew, they grew tall, but then I never checked on the pumpkin's.

30m 51s

Linda Fritz

I never went out there. I'm like, that's not my main crop. I don't care. But not only did the weeds grow really well in the pumpkin slash sunflower patch instead of great big pumpkins. I got all these tiny baby pumpkins, these really cute little baby pumpkins because the pumpkin plants were social shutout by the weeds in the sunflowers that they couldn't, they couldn't get very big. So that was my other interesting little crop that grew well was after weeds.

31m 21s

Jackie Marie Beyer

How big of a baby pumpkin and like it can fit, like it's the size of a tennis ball or like bigger than a softball, like a basketball?

31m 30s

Linda Fritz

It was about as big as a softball. So if you want to grow baby pumpkin's my advice to you is to let the weeds go and put them in with the sunflowers. I bought a 30 pound bag of black sunflower seed, not for microgreens, but for, you know, gardens. And so I had a lot of that and I just, you know, made a bunch of rows of sunflowers. And then the pumpkins were, you know, every other, every so often there was a hill. But then in between this, for the ground, the weeds got out of control. So between the weeds and the sunflowers, the pumpkins just didn't get that big. I've never had a crop like that.

32m 11s

Linda Fritz

I've always had like, you know, nice big pumpkins and give them to friends and family this year. I'm like, you can basically table gourds, table pumpkins. You know, they were just really cute little pumpkins so.

32m 27s

Jackie Marie Beyer

So I just went to New York to visit my mom. And she had like four of those and I wanted to cook them for her. And I was looking for all these recipes. I never did get to make them because all the recipes I found came with mushrooms and we never bought the mushrooms. So,

32m 45s

Linda Fritz

Bought any mushrooms or pumpkins?

32m 47s

Jackie Marie Beyer

We never bought the mushrooms. So I never cooked the pumpkin's while I was there, I got home and I have these two pumpkins that I have bought here and I cook the pumpkin, but I'm waiting to make, cause I have this delicious pumpkin casserole. It's called Chilean Squash from the Molly Katsen's Moosewood cookbook recipe that I make every year. And so I cook the pumpkin and hopefully I'm going to get that made today. I thought I was going to get it made yesterday and I didn't, I didn't make a pumpkin pie. I am always amazed. Cause I think pumpkin, like, is it easiest thing to make? And I am just baffled by people that buy canned pumpkin because it's one of the, and it just makes a great pumpkin. I did make a pumpkin pie. And when I first got home, because I was going to make it before I went to New York, so my husband had one for Thanksgiving, but I did.

33m 40s

Jackie Marie Beyer

But anyway, I'm curious about your black sunflower seeds. So like I bought a giant package of edible black sunflower seeds. I am notorious for planting the bird seed. I love to buy the bird seed and just plant those because I think they do really well. They're super easy. They give me nice blooms. I don't worry about selling the flowers cause I know if you're going to sell them, you want to do the pollenless. But this year I actually bought edible ones, which means like after they grow, they're the kind that you would like get at the store. So were those the kind that you bought?

34m 17s

Linda Fritz

I bought them at like a tractor supply type place. I bought them at a tractor supply type place and they were, you know, they were what you could plant for fields. Obviously birds could eat them too, but it's not like they said, bird seed.

34m 34s

Jackie Marie Beyer

Did you harvest the sunflower seeds, like, what are you doing with them?

34m 38s

Linda Fritz

No. I use them purely, these were really small ones, that's the type they were, they weren't the big ones. And I use them for two reasons, one as a pollinator, as something for the pollinators, something to attract the bees because that's really important to get as many pollinators as you can to your garden and flowers always do that. And then the other reason was I was trying to create some sort of of fence per se. Cause I did plant the rose really close together and it was supposed to be some sort of a fence to keep the deer from entering the garden on that side, they just scaled it.

35m 21s

Linda Fritz

It didn't work, but every year I try something new to keep the deer out. So that's why I bought a 30 pound bag of sunflowers.

35m 26s

Jackie Marie Beyer

That's so funny. I try, I'd love to grow some flowers. They're like my favorite thing to grow. I love the fact that the seeds are big. Like I would love to have enough sunflowers too. And we usually always feed the birds and then like, I, and then like you said, you know, they bring it in the pollinators. They bring in the ants that eat the aphids like they're great. And my husband did plant me like this huge border on two sides. And it was like having like these little friends waving at me when I pulled up the driveway, but I struggled with the harvesting and then also

36m 5s

Linda Fritz

You have to dry them it's horrible,

36m 6s

Jackie Marie Beyer

Yes, I dried them wrong. I thought putting them in a box was going to be great.

36m 11s

Linda Fritz

No that will mold them.

36m 14s

Jackie Marie Beyer

They all molded Just so tiny. I couldn't even imagine. And then I looked like, how do you process all these sunflowers? Everything was like, take a half a cup at a time.

36m 28s

Linda Fritz

Great. No, I I've done the same thing where I had like great big heads and you know, then I made the mistake of putting big head.

36m 39s

Jackie Marie Beyer

Yeah. They weren't the biggest heads but the seeds besides like seeds work, just the tiniest sunflower seeds I ever grew. And I was just, gosh, on top of that, I'm going to like try to crack these shells off of these itty bitty seeds?

36m 52s

Linda Fritz

Sunflowers It's way too much work. I made the mistake of putting it on my website because I had huge heads. You know, she had great big ones in people and these bird companies called and like, oh, can you mail, can you ship us those? Because we can't get them out of Nebraska anymore. The guy, our supplier equipment quit doing it. And I'm like, okay, I'll try. They all molded on the way. They're terrible. Yeah. Sunflowers are tough. They're not, they're definitely not my main crop. They're just for, like I said, the pollinators and a poor attempt to keep the deer out. In addition to the fence I had fence. And then I also had sunflowers, you know, trying to create, this border

37m 35s

Jackie Marie Beyer

Keep the sunflower seeds, right. Our deer eat the leaves right through the fence there.

37m 39s

Linda Fritz

Yeah. They must be very aggressive deer then cause edamame is another deer bag it's kind of like crack cocaine for deer and they will literally go through netting and fencing, under electric wire. They just love it. So scaling back on that next year and just focusing more on the tomatoes, cause I'm ready to concede to the deer.

38m 2s

Jackie Marie Beyer

And you have a good market for your tomatoes it seems. How did you like, can we hear that story? Like how did you get Kroger to be a client?

38m 12s

Linda Fritz

Yeah, that was definitely a blessing and kind of a weird thing. Cause I started growing out of mommy, like I said, because it was finally a vegetable I found that I liked and eight, 10 years ago, you couldn't just go into the store and buy it. And so I found some seed. There's a lady in north, north or South Carolina that grows it. And I bought five pounds and grew 400 pounds of edamame, you know, okay, what can I do with this? And so I sold it to a few markets and there was like a farmer's market that was near our area and I set up a little table there and a guy just happened to come by that loved it.

38m 55s

Linda Fritz

And he said, you should get this into Kroger, here's who you need to talk to and I pursued that person. And then they found the right person to actually make the decision. Cause there's multiple layers of management within the Kroger company. And then when I talked to that person, I said, well, but at that point I also have Sun Sugars and I'm like, well, you got to take the Sun Sugars too cause the whole reason I did this was to help kids eat healthier. And these are two things, two vegetables, well tomato's a fruit that will really make it easy for kids to eat less junk and more good stuff. And he did.

39m 35s

Linda Fritz

And so it's actually, I sell way more of the tomatoes now than I do the edamame. So that's really where I've been focusing is the sun sugars. But that's how I got it.

39m 46s

Jackie Marie Beyer

Is the edamame frozen? Because when I see it in the store, it's frozen. Is it fresh?

39m 53s

Linda Fritz

Right? Oh yeah. If you look at the book that I drew, that we were talking about earlier, there's a page that has the edamame, a picture of the edamame. And it's very fuzzy when it's fresh and it's more, nuttier. More flavorful. If you do have a garden and you want to grow edamame, I would definitely encourage you to do it because you'll be amazed at how great it tastes, but it will attract deer and rabbits and they will try to eat. I mean, you might get away with the first year, but once they know it's there, it's like they, I dunno, they text their friends hey come the edamames at this girl's land, you know, but it is fairly easy to grow because it's soybean, but again, it's way more expensive than soybean and way more attractive to the animals.

40m 55s

Linda Fritz

So.

40m 56s

Jackie Marie Beyer

We've never grown that here. I love edamame.

40m 60s

Linda Fritz

Where are you at? Oh, you, oh, you're in NW Montana.

41m 3s

Jackie Marie Beyer

We're almost to the Canadian border.

41m 5s

Linda Fritz

All right. So you might be too far north to actually grow it because it is more of a tropical thing. I mean, it's huge in Japan and in China and they actually get two growing seasons out of it. If you're in the South or Southeast or Southwest, you could have a really good shot at growing it. I'm probably like the farthest north, because people are surprised when they find out that I grow it and sell it live.

41m 30s

Jackie Marie Beyer

Well, to be honest with you, I'm not sure I want something like that. We had like last year for the first year ever, we had a huge problem with like either moles or voles or Gophers or something. They ate all of Mike's peas, his problems last year that we have never had before. I'm curious before, like I need to ask this question? Who is helping you with this, like you're not doing this all by yourself are you?

42m 2s

Linda Fritz

No it's. So I have a group of part-time people that sort of ebbs and flows depending on how, what the kids are doing to say, I volunteered at the school, our local school a lot. I run a chess club. And so I've met. And plus when my daughter was growing up, so I I've met parents and kids and like, Hey, if you need a summer job, let me know. And so, I'll have kids that, you know, start working for me when they're 13 years old, you know, just helping plant, helping, you know, we'd lay down weed control and that sort of thing and harvest. And then they will work through, you know, high school and college and then they're off in their lives.

42m 44s

Linda Fritz

And then maybe their grandma's come help me or you know, or their moms. So I have a lot of part-time help this, and it averages about 12 people a year that helped me out planting and weeding and harvesting.

43m 3s

Jackie Marie Beyer

And do you pay them or you treat them for food?

43m 10s

Linda Fritz

Oh Yes. Oh no, no, no, no. I pay them pretty well. I mean more like started at $10 an hour when minimum was like six and then people who, you know, there, like some of the guys that moved to trellis, and that sort of thing, they work a lot faster, so they make a little more money. No, I believe in a fair wage. I think that's part of the problem where our food is so cheap. It comes from places where they're not really getting a fair wage. And so that's pretty important to me.

43m 43s

Jackie Marie Beyer

And when you say our food is so cheap. Do you mean like our super processed junk food is so cheap and our healthy, nutritious food is maybe not as cheap because I, that's what I find like it's super easy to buy a box of macaroni and cheese as compared to a thing of blueberries.

44m 6s

Linda Fritz

Totally yes, totally agree with what you're saying that, you know, the processed food is a lot cheaper than the fresh food, but the fresh food, if it was all like a lot of it comes from Mexico or, you know, places where the labor, they're not getting paid, you know what they should be getting paid. I mean, there was a big deal in Florida where tomato workers wanted to get like one penny more, you know, and they're working to try to fill these 32 pound containers, you know, for a penny or something. It was just ridiculous how little they were getting, you know, in Florida!

44m 49s

Jackie Marie Beyer

I saw this on Facebook the other day of like this celery harvesting video. And it was like to watch these people just constantly chop the bottom off.

45m 0s

Linda Fritz

Constantly.

45m 0s

Jackie Marie Beyer

Bottom, the box right in the tractor. Like there was this giant tractor going through. And then there were like a dozen people just, just harvesting celery, cutting, putting it in, like as it was going. And there was like, there's no bathroom breaks. There's no stopping. I think. And then the other crazy thing is I read this article in the New York times about farm workers. Don't even have to be paid overtime after 40 hours a week. They're exempt from the overtime thing. And they just made it work where after 60 hours they pay them overtime. They don't have to have like a day off a week. Like, I don't understand why are ag workers not considered the same as every other? Like, it's just crazy.

45m 40s

Jackie Marie Beyer

Usually the people doing the hardest work out there and then this poor dairy farmer was whining. She's like, but, but my cows have to be milked at six in the morning. Well then you have a shift that works at six in the morning and you have a shift that works at six in the afternoon was my thinking like, I don't know. I just was, I don't know, Ill be quiet now.

46m 4s

Linda Fritz

But I mean, it is, you know, it is a problem because part of the process food, you know, a lot of things like wheat and corn are subsidized by the government. And so it makes the process foods cheaper. So that's not really a fair advantage. Sure.

46m 24s

Jackie Marie Beyer

I'm nodding my head because that is part there's this movie called Kiss the Ground. And that's a huge thing we've talked about is we have to change the subsidies. Subsidize local organic farmers like you.

46m 45s

Linda Fritz

Manufacturing are big, big farms, big farms. Yeah. And the other thing too, it's very helpful that, you know, is sort of coming to life and this is actually a customer on heavily involved in creating a box for them, for their strawberries is greenhouses. There's a guy in Virginia, GlenMary farms, and they're building a greenhouse to grow strawberries in and they're going to be using my box to put their strawberries in. And I designed the whole outside of the box, tell their greenhouse story to them, their family story, to have a picture of, you know, the strawberries on it.

47m 27s

Linda Fritz

And actually the guy's daughter is an artist and she drew a watercolor of, you know, Virginia Hills, the Appalachian Hills, and that's on the box. So this box that I created, even though it's not like 360 viewing like a plastic clamshell, you know, it can tell a story of, for farmers so that they can sell, you know, not only their produce, but what they're about, and, you know, approach it from a different angle. But the greenhouse, the idea of having the greenhouses will allow us to have food closer to, you know, the, the places that needed that, you know, could cut down on the shipping and, you know, then you don't have all the problems of being out in the field, you know, and all the disruptions that way and the losses that you could have because of the weather.

48m 20s

Linda Fritz

So that's something I hope governments help encourage, you know, not these big, giant sprawling fields of wheat and corn that gets up to subsidize, but maybe, you know, let's get some greenhouses in there and start growing some strawberries for Montana. You know?

48m 40s

Jackie Marie Beyer

I'm totally nodding my head.

48m 42s

Linda Fritz

I hear that!

48m 42s

Jackie Marie Beyer

Tell listeners about the boxes.

48m 43s

Linda Fritz

So when I started selling the cherry tomatoes, the sun sugars to Kroger, you know, a lot of farmers they can get by with just having a paperboard, you know, that green pulp board kind of container, and maybe they might put a red netting over it to keep things from falling out. But I couldn't do that. I had to have something with a lid where I could put a label on it that would have a barcode, you know, to be in a grocery store. And so I found the plastic clamshell that the strawberries come in. So I would sell by the quart of centuries, cause I very, I'm not just selling you a pint. If I'm going to give you plastic, you know, with these, these lovely tomatoes that I haven't put any chemicals on, you know, and I have to put them in this plastic, you know, I'm going to sell like a quarter instead of a pint.

49m 32s

Linda Fritz

And, in the meantime I started looking for alternatives and I literally could not find anything. And so I was at an ag show and one of the packaging companies there had a five pound blueberry box and I was like, wait a second. This is kind of a little box. What if it could be smaller and have more holes in it? You know, because produce needs to breathe when it comes in, you know, hot off the field or there's temperature, transit actions going into the refrigerator, but don't refrigerate your tomatoes. But anyway, so I mocked up a design that included all the elements that went into making the produce. So when you look at my box, you know, there's the sun, there's the plants, there's the rain.

50m 19s

Linda Fritz

Some of the bigger boxes have stars and a moon because I plant by the moon. And I also, I'm a believer. So I considered that the heavens please, God, let there be a good harvest.

50m 35s

Jackie Marie Beyer

Awww.

50m 35s

Linda Fritz

And then my early design even had worms on the bottom because you have to have good soil. And then I just thought, I probably called five different paper companies because the packaging company and they made the blueberry box, they just didn't get it. They were like, here, what about this? And they gave me a little box and it had like a big hole on top. And it looked like a hamster box. Like, no, no, no. I want these, these little vents. I mean, I think, you know, we should be able to do this. We can't do little tiny vents with any kind of cardboard, you know, where like a corrugated cardboard, I should say, but you can with paperboard. And so then it was a search to find the paper company that could do that kind of intricate folds.

51m 16s

Linda Fritz

And I actually went through two different paper companies and they produced sizes for me before they said, no, it's too hard or production people hate us. And so now I've found I have three different production companies, paper production companies that make the different sizes for me, and they're good at it. And it's great. And, you know, I'm ordering hundreds of thousands because I thought when I first ordered, you know, from the first company, I had to go get 30,000, I thought, well, this will do me for the next five years, if nobody else wants them of this pint, this low-profile pint that I created. But then, you know, I went, I was already at ag shows with my collapsible grocery shopping crates that you can also use for harvesting.

52m 1s

Linda Fritz

And I just displayed those and people were super interested. And so I went from just having the pint to having the quart and then the half pint. And then the two quart, actually a farmer and a mushroom farmer, a mushroom grower in Kentucky contacted me and he's like, I really like your quart sides, but can you make it in a two quart? And I'm like, mushrooms, really? I thought much of me to be like, totally wrapped. And he's like, no, they need ventilation. And I'm like, okay. So I created the two quart for him and that's really taken off. And then microgreen growers were calling me because they find my website. I have two websites, one, the sun sugar farms website, and then one sustainable produce container website.

52m 42s

Linda Fritz

And they would find it. And they're like, do you do these work for micro greens? I'm like, well, not if they're cut. And they're like, well, we sell live and I'm like, okay. And you know, different paper that I can use, like one is a reversible paper, it's got a higher wet string. And I'm like, yeah, let's try that. And I'd never even grown microgreens or I didn't even know what they were. And so I had to go, I had to buy some seed and I bought some lights and I grew some, so I have something to take pictures in and something to do testing in. And I was like, well, micro greens are great. Another vegetable I love. And I made the boxes.

53m 21s

Linda Fritz

I actually made a three quart box that can hold three pounds of grapes, but it can also hold live microgreens not grow them, but they grow on pads. And then you take the pads and you slide them into the boxes. So there's the three quart that'll hold the live microgreens on the pads. And then there's also a one and a half quart. That's like a tall quart. So you can take your 10 by 20 tray divided into six or six pads and then slide it in. And then the way they unlock is people can, you know, open them up, open the side up and just cut them and put the side back up. So it's not like their former clamshells that they were using, where either you drop the pad into the clamshell and you don't have to like squish all his plants to get it out.

54m 11s

Linda Fritz

So that's what I have now is eight different sizes and a master cart, and to carry them all to grocery stores, if you need to. And I was just at a trade show in Michigan and had them all on display. And people were really excited because, you know, number one, they're cute. They are cute, I do like the cuteness about them. And number two, they can stack, you know, with clam shells, they slide around, you know, but these stack and then they can handle the temperature transitions. And then for the growers who are, you know, getting up there in the volume, they can be able to print with just by ordering one pallet of the containers, be able to get there, put their whole farm story on there.

54m 56s

Linda Fritz

Or if they're a smaller growers, there's some custom stamps that you can make that are ink padless,, padless so you can just stamp your information on the flat container before you fold it. And then it looks like you've got this really professional box. You know, if you're looking at doing farmer's markets and, you know, having a way to look more professional in your presentation and, and they're also great for CSAs, oh my gosh, there's a company out in California that buys pallets of the half pints from me. And all they are as a delivery of a produce delivery company in California.

55m 39s

Linda Fritz

And they put all the berries and the tomatoes in these little boxes and deliver with all the other produce to their customers. So, it's really taking off. And I'm really excited to know that there's that much less plastic clamshells in the landfills because, you know, if I can continue, everybody thinks, oh, well, there's a recycling symbol on the bottom of the plastic clamshell. I'm like, well, no, that's actually a resin code to help, you know, plastic recyclers tell what kind of plastic it is. And even though a plastic clamshell is a number one, like a water bottle is a number one, a water bottle is made differently.

56m 27s

Linda Fritz

It's made being injected, mold injection molded versus thermal formed. And when it's thermal formed, like the clamshells are, they're more, they become either more brittle, they're not at the same consistency as the plastic water bottle. Plus the clamshells have a very sticky adhesive on them because they're going into for refrigerators and that sort of thing. And that's almost, it's really hard to get off and so it contaminates the rest of our plastics mixed when it's being recycled. And so those are two of the reasons why the clamshells even if your recycling center says, they take them, they probably throw them away because they have no buyers, nobody wants to mess with that.

57m 9s

Linda Fritz

Whereas a water bottle, the label comes off easy. It's, you know, a plastic that's easy to meltdown and recreate new things out of. So that's the story of why, what I've done with the box to help reduce plastic clamshells in the world.

57m 31s

Jackie Marie Beyer

And I hope we see these everywhere in the future, like near soon future, because the guilt from buying those just, and we don't recycle in Montana, like plastic recycling, anyway, you wanted to, you couldn't do anything. And so then trying to not buy things it's so I just love this, but anyway, so I'm not taking up your entire Saturday morning. I think listeners, are going to start looking for these. Hopefully they will be promoting them, asking your produce people in your grocery store. I guarantee you, if you go and ask them, they will look into it.

58m 9s

Jackie Marie Beyer

They really will. Like, I have asked my produce people or people at the grocery stores to do things for me. And, you know, they will try to find that solution for you.

58m 19s

Linda Fritz

Yeah. Well, it's either going to happen. It's going to happen one of two ways either. It's going to be like seatbelts and smoking, where it becomes a law and they have to do it, or it's going to be, it's going to be pushed by leaders like this guy in Virginia, who's doing the greenhouse. I mean, he could get a plastic clamshell for, you know, by the time he puts the label on it, you know, probably 10 or 11 cents, you know, he's paying twice that much for these boxes, but he believes in, you know, what he's doing. He believes that he doesn't want to contribute to landfills. You know, he wants to make a difference.

59m 1s

Linda Fritz

And so he's going to be a leader, but it's at a cost. You know what I mean? It's a dime more for the volumes he's at knowing the really high volumes. My boxes will totally be almost like within a penny of the, of the clamshells. And it's been very frustrating deal with trying to deal with like, doing the cold calls with, you know, Kroger, Walmart, Meyers, trying to get to the right people and saying, look, I can be within a penny, you know, and you'll have a totally recyclable biodegradable compostable package. And they're like that's too much. Our customers won't pay that.

59m 43s

Linda Fritz

It's gotta be the same. I'm like, okay,

59m 46s

Jackie Marie Beyer

The ones that packages, is it Walmart? Or do you need to talk to like the farmers?

59m 51s

Linda Fritz

Yes. But see the grocery stores won't give the farmers any more money. In fact, the grocery stores have mandated to like blueberry growers, you know, look, we want this particular package and you're going to do it. And that blueberry grower, I mean, these are big guys, you know, they've had to spend $750,000 on equipment to fill it into these plastic punnets, I'm sure you've seen it with the seal. You know, the, you peel back the seal, that's supposed to reduce. That's supposed to reduce plastic by 30%. I'm like mine will reduce plastic by a hundred percent and it's going to cost, you know, the equipment to fold. Because if you are a big guy, obviously you don't want a handfold.

1h 0m 31s

Linda Fritz

We have machines that are, you know, very reasonably priced that will fold this full day, produce containers for and drop it right into the fill line.

1h 0m 40s

Jackie Marie Beyer

I feel like if listeners will go to their produce people or go to their Walmart and talk to the manager and be like, Hey, I will pay a penny more or two pennies more, or a dollar more. If you get me something, you know, just complain about the plastic, just go, and say you don't want to buy this plastic. You know, what else can you, and then I think that's, to me, I always feel like I talked to my audience a lot about, like, it seems like Congress doesn't listen, but whether Congress is on your side or not on your side, they need to hear from their constituents.

1h 1m 20s

Jackie Marie Beyer

These people, you know, seeing they want this, that's how you get stuff done, whether they're on your side or against you.

1h 1m 27s

Linda Fritz

And I know that there are in California, some groups that are trying to push for legislation that says the retailers are going to in essence, be responsible for the packaging that they're selling. So they either have to go to the manufacturing people and say, stop doing this, or change your packaging because I'm going to get penalized. You know, if you want me to buy your tomatoes or whatever, you know, you have to go to a package that's more sustainable. So there are laws that are trying to be put into effect. But to me, I'd rather, you know, try to get people on board, just listening to their customers, you know, not having it to be legislated.

1h 2m 7s

Linda Fritz

And you know, some of the more progressive stores will, you know, and there'll be, they'll lead the way.

1h 2m 17s

Jackie Marie Beyer

I'm nodding.

1h 2m 19s

Linda Fritz

Hopefully. I mean, if, I mean, it's really awful, but I heard a podcast or not a podcast, it was a video presentation or whatever. And one of the guys from Driscoll's strawberries that I'm sure you guys get there in Montana too.

1h 2m 40s

Jackie Marie Beyer

Yes we do.

1h 2m 41s

Linda Fritz

And they're all over just strawberries alone they package 1.5 billion of those quart containers. And every year those go to landfills, probably I would say a hundred percent. Cause I don't believe, I don't believe the ones in California are actually being recycled because of the reasons I said, but yeah, 1.5 billion. And that would be, if you do the, like I said, it was an engineer. So I was like, what would the volume of that be? If you took 1.5 billion, strawberry clamshells it would fill at least three Superbowl stadiums every year that's going into landfills.

1h 3m 27s

Jackie Marie Beyer

That's awful.

1h 3m 29s

Linda Fritz

I know. So that's why I made my sustainable produce container. My little attempt and I have to say, I've done this for really well, two years solid now, and I've sold over a 1 million to other, other farmers. So one that's 1 million less plastic clamshells yay.

1h 3m 47s

Jackie Marie Beyer

Are we gonna see you on shark tank one of these days?

1h 3m 50s

Linda Fritz

You know, they're not really, they're more of a retail end, so I don't know. So I was considered for the crates, but I, the margin wasn't enough or they're very greedy and my margins just weren't enough on the grade selling. I got so far on that, but, who knows? I mean, I don't know if we're doing a good cause again, they're all kind of they're not really wholesale. They're, you know, they're not that far upstream. You're more at the end. So I trust that God will open some doors somewhere that'll make a difference.

1h 4m 32s

Linda Fritz

And we could, we could put a stop to all this crazy trash generating that we're doing and still be able to enjoy, you know, fresh strawberries. So maybe from a greenhouse near you.

1h 4m 44s

Jackie Marie Beyer

I'll say with less guilt.

1h 4m 46s

Linda Fritz

Yes. Guilt sucks, stop. I know I quit buying mushrooms because they switched from plastic or from paper cardboard to paper at the, at the grocery stores. If you go in now, they're no longer a little cardboard tills they're in plastic tills.

1h 4m 60s

Jackie Marie Beyer

And then do they sell ones that you can like put in your own bag?

1h 5m 5s

Linda Fritz

No, not usually, not at most grocery stores, they're already all switched. And they did that because of a penny. They could save a penny. So they went from the little cardboard cups to the plastic cups.

1h 5m 17s

Jackie Marie Beyer

I thought maybe it was because of like the virus. They didn't want people grabbing them.

1h 5m 21s

Linda Fritz

No, it was hard.

1h 5m 23s

Jackie Marie Beyer

We still have much like you can, you can buy either way at our store but they're expensive.

1h 5m 29s

Linda Fritz

Oh, that's good. Yeah. Yes. And I have to save like mushroom growers, like the gourmet kind of mushroom growers, the guys that are going to grow in the shitakes and the oyster and the lion's mane. I mean, they absolutely love these boxes because you know, they do it, especially if they get the reversible ones they're white on the inside. So they make the color, but you know, the color, the mushroom pop more and then they could stamp their logo and their photo on their info on the outside on the brown side. And it looks really, you know, homey and natural and professional at the same time. And plus it keeps mushrooms can't eat their way, they can sometimes eat their way through a paper bag, but they can't eat their way through paperboard.

1h 6m 11s

Linda Fritz

And then, you know, and they could stack them so they don't have to worry about a paper bag, stacking, paper bags of mushrooms, mushrooms, and microgreens. Maybe that'll change the world slowly. And they're both really healthy things for you too. So if there's any farmers out there gardeners out there that want a garden indoors, I would highly recommend, you know, researching like what you can do with mushrooms and what you can do with microgreens cause you can grow them inside.

1h 6m 43s

Jackie Marie Beyer

I love microgreens the sunflower ones, but I have not been successful getting them to grow.

1h 6m 47s

Linda Fritz

Oh, they are a little more challenging than like the brassicas, the broccoli and the kale.

1h 6m 53s

Jackie Marie Beyer

Oh really? So I should maybe some different ones. I tried peas and sunflowers and they failed.

1h 6m 56s

Linda Fritz

Those are hard. And plus you need a lot of you, you really need, you know, a lighting set up.

1h 7m 5s

Jackie Marie Beyer

I did put them under grow lights.

1h 7m 6s

Linda Fritz

Okay, good.

1h 7m 7s

Jackie Marie Beyer

Cause I had like, my stepdaughter had, she was going to try and start a microgreens business and she came out and got them all started for me. And I just did not. They just wouldn't. She gave me a tray of them all grown. Oh my gosh, I love them. And like, she gave me like a big tray that I kept on my window. So on, that lasted me, like a month, of course, like she probably wants to sell that tray for like $45 and I want to pay like $12. So if you're, again, again, another winter without any microgreens, I mean, I know like, so I, you know, in the back to like trying to buy my own.

1h 7m 44s

Linda Fritz

Yeah. Well they're very, they're labor intensive in terms you do have to babysit them a lot. You to like, okay, water I'm in the morning, check them in the evening, water up again. If they need it, don't water them too much, you know, make sure they got some.

1h 7m 59s

Jackie Marie Beyer

And harvesting them, the biggest trouble they were having was keeping the shells out of like when they were putting them in and then yeah, the shoe burns on him and she would like, she would give me like her trays that weren't good enough to go to market.

1h 8m 19s

Linda Fritz

Yeah.

1h 8m 19s

Jackie Marie Beyer

That's what I've heard from people that it takes like an, I do not have that personality. Yeah. Anyway, tell us about something that didn't work so well last year, besides your weed problem?

1h 8m 31s

Linda Fritz

We had a lot of rain.

1h 8m 34s

Jackie Marie Beyer

Something that didn't go the way you thought it was gonna.

1h 8m 38s

Linda Fritz

Yeah. Well last year, since I, since I bought the stuff for the microgreens, I thought, well, I'll try growing my own plants and that didn't go so well. I have like, I get the seed from HPS seeds for the tomatoes and then I would take them to a greenhouse and they would grow them into baby plants and they do a much better job I do because they grew half the seed. And I grew the other half. It's probably my half that didn't make it very well through the rain. So because we had copious amounts of rain in the spring, it was ridiculous. So that, didn't so if you get to the point where you're like, oh yeah, I'll be growing a lot.

1h 9m 24s

Linda Fritz

Unless you have your own greenhouse and you're in there all the time. I would highly recommend getting a greenhouse to grow them for you into the baby plants. We always start the edamame made from seed. But yeah, me growing my baby plants for the tomatoes did not work so well. The greenhouse guys are much better at it. So I'll probably, yeah.

1h 9m 50s

Jackie Marie Beyer

Interesting.

1h 9m 50s

Linda Fritz

So I'll probably have them do it again, just because they have the right temperature and you know, I was in the basement and you know, right humidity and so you get a much healthier plant from a greenhouse. I mean, if you're growing large quantities and I just,

1h 10m 9s

Jackie Marie Beyer

I've heard that from several different growers that I've talked to.

1h 10m 13s

Linda Fritz

Yeah.

1h 10m 13s

Jackie Marie Beyer

Like plugs or plants and trying to grow your own.

1h 10m 18s

Linda Fritz

From seed the tomatoes. I mean, cause mine look kind of spindly and I wasn't sure was that because the lighting was it because of the, you know, I know I'm sure I use good soil, but did I not use the right amount of fertilizer that they would have added? So yeah.

1h 10m 40s

Jackie Marie Beyer

And when do you put your tomatoes in the ground in Kentucky.

1h 10m 43s

Linda Fritz

So if I use a low tunnel, like a little hoop fabric, I can do it as early as April, but that's taken a lot of work to uncover it when it gets hot and then cover it back when it's cold. And I have to say that the bigger you can let your tomatoes get the butter before you put them in the ground and then bury them halfway bury the plants halfway because then the bottom part of the plant will become roots. And the other thing that is that I've learned that's really good too, is to disturb the soil as least as less as possible is yeah, don't disturb the soil as much as you can.

1h 11m 28s

Linda Fritz

And so we actually just mark out the row, we dig the holes into the soil, you know, Or if it's, if it's too rock hard, we'll, you know, run a rototiller a little bit to break it up. But then we buried the plants halfway up so that they have a really good root base. And if they're a big plant, it doesn't matter because you've got this, you know, really good size plants and those did the best. They had the best yield. Cause I do them in sections and you know, I have like four sections of 50 plants and dang it if the greenhouse didn't win again, this year?

1h 12m 7s

Linda Fritz

Their's did the best. And I put them in the earliest because I, with all the rain we had, I had to wait until may to plant because we just had so much rain. It was, it was unbelievable. But every year it's different.

1h 12m 21s

Jackie Marie Beyer

And then how long are you harvesting from like, if you, if you put them into May, when do you first start to harvest and like, and how long does that last? Like, do you just get one harvest like in August or harvest all summer?

1h 12m 41s

Linda Fritz

Yeah. So we here in Kentucky. Yeah. Here in Kentucky, we start seeing fruit. Like if I put them in an April, I can sometimes get them as early as mid July, but we start full production harvesting end of, end of July. And we'll go good solid production until September. This year I had, I was still delivering up until November, you know, smaller quantities, but yeah, we had such good weather in the fall. It was awesome in the fall. It was nice and warm for a lot of the time.

1h 13m 21s

Linda Fritz

So yeah. So about July to September.

1h 13m 23s

Jackie Marie Beyer

Wow.

1h 13m 24s

Linda Fritz

Yeah, I know you're in Montana. I did see this. I did see this video on this old, this old guy that used to be like a postal worker. And he came up with this idea for doing a greenhouse, like in the ground. And he was growing oranges in Nebraska. Did you hear that?

1h 13m 39s

Jackie Marie Beyer

There's a guy that lives like 50 miles from me that I tried to get to do an interview with me, but he didn't have Zoom and I couldn't get the Skype call his number, but yeah, I guess there's several people that are like, if they dig it, if you dig it under the ground. And then like I was doing this research the other day or somebody sent, I can't remember how it went, but like apparently there's a lot of grants in Montana for geothermal, which is where you like dig down into the ground.

1h 14m 17s

Linda Fritz

Take advantage. Yeah. To look into.

1h 14m 19s

Jackie Marie Beyer

But yeah, I guess people in like my stepdaughter last year grew a lemon and an olive tree. I mean indoors, but here just right in town. So we're kind of figuring these things out, but I don't, you can take that on large scale Production. I think.

1h 14m 35s

Linda Fritz

No,

1h 14m 35s

Jackie Marie Beyer

That's what most of my listeners are, you know, your home gardeners.

1h 14m 39s

Linda Fritz

Right.

1h 14m 39s

Jackie Marie Beyer

And people may want to maybe, you know, at some point go to market or trying to figure out different things that they could get involved with. So This is the kind of the part of the show we call it, getting to the root of things. Do you have a least favorite activity to do in the garden? Something you've got to force yourself to get out there and do?

1h 15m 6s

Linda Fritz

So we is part of the effort to not use chemicals for weed control or anything like that. We, at least with the edamame, we would roll paper out. Like I'd get a roll of craft paper and roll it out and then put hay on top of the craft paper. And then that way you not only create a weed barrier, you create something that by the end of the summer, it's going to biodegrade, decompose back into the earth. And so it gives you kind of a nice compost at the end of the season. And I hate to pay for a huge bale of hay.

1h 15m 49s

Linda Fritz

And so I'm always like telling the farmers around me that, yeah, if you got some old hay, you don't want, bring it on over. And I need about five bales of big round bales. And so they're the bales that the cows won't eat. And sometimes they're kind of dusty and a little moldy and you know, so we have to dig through those, you know, break those down and use those. And that's probably the worst job is doing the mulch laying out the mulch.

1h 16m 20s

Jackie Marie Beyer

Oh, I'm just trying to picture this in my head. So then do you, like after you get that all laid down, then you dig the hole to put the edamame plant in?

1h 16m 31s

Linda Fritz

No, no. So what you do is, you know, you do the rototilling to get the earth broke up and then you hoe the rows and then you plant the seed. And then when the seedlings start coming up, they just start popping up. Then you get the role of craft paper. I used to use paper bags back from the grocery when I first started, but then I've found that just buying a roll of craft paper is actually easier. And I used to use newspapers, but nobody reads the paper anymore. So by the role of craft paper and then unroll it and as we're unrolling it, we put the hay on it to keep it from blowing away.

1h 17m 13s

Linda Fritz

And then that is in between those little baby rows of edamame or whatever you're growing. You can do it for anything, carrots, broccoli, you know, and then that way the hay keeps the paper from blowing away. And, then around the

1h 17m 28s

Jackie Marie Beyer

How wide is the paper like craft paper?

1h 17m 30s

Linda Fritz

Is like two feet wide.

1h 17m 32s

Jackie Marie Beyer

I'm thinking it is like, it's how wide?

1h 17m 36s

Linda Fritz

Two feet.

1h 17m 37s

Jackie Marie Beyer

Two feet wide. So was it two feet in between your rows or like?

1h 17m 44s

Linda Fritz

For the edamame I used to, I would do two feet between the rows. This, these past couple of years the other thing I've tried, I tried it both ways is I've done that for some of the edamame patches. And then I've also used an African grass called teff grass. And I've planted that in between the rows of edamame and then we've mowed it with a real mower because that way the kids won't hurt themselves. So I don't give them a real mower, but real mower, you know, when that's, you know, is doesn't take gas, you know what I mean by a real mower?

1h 18m 24s

Jackie Marie Beyer

The kind with a blade that you push?

1h 18m 27s

Linda Fritz

Push, push, yeah. Push mower. So that way, yeah. Called R E E L you can get them at tractor suppliers and they're like 90 bucks or 60 bucks or something. And so that worked kind of well, because then the teff grass is, keeps the weeds out. It's not super fast growing and it's, it can be very lush and then you can just mow it, you know, in those rows. And then the grass clippings fall back into the earth to nourish the earth that way with the nitrogen, from the ground, from the grass clippings. And it didn't compete too much with the edamame.

1h 19m 8s

Jackie Marie Beyer

Where do you source the African grass? So the Tuft grass I got from a seed company, again, like if you get with a tractor supply place or, you know, a seed supply company, they can usually get it and they can usually get it. It's kind of like the teff grass is expensive. So what I do, what I've done now, because I used to also put the paper and the hay between the tomato plants.

1h 19m 39s

Linda Fritz

But now what I do with the tomato plants is I plant clover in between those rows, because those rows are wider.

1h 19m 43s

Jackie Marie Beyer

I was wondering about that.

1h 19m 45s

Linda Fritz

Yeah. And I do still use the paper around the plant. Like we'll dig the holes, we'll put the plant in and then we'll roll out the paper, cut little, push little holes into the paper and then set it on top of the row and then put hay down again to keep the paper from blowing away. And then that way we have the weeds under control around the tomato plants, you know, down the row of tomato plants. And then we have the clover in between, and those are like four and a half feet apart. Those rows are, and the Clover is nice. All the, everybody likes the clover better than the hay, the hay and the paper to, to walk on into, you know, just be out in the garden with, and again, you mow that so that you put the nitrogen from the clippings, you know, back in the ground.

1h 20m 48s

Linda Fritz

And then we use to trellis our tomatoes. We got some, I got some trellises, I got some cattle panels to use as trellises. And they're heavy, but we just use 'em a T post to hold them up and kind of do a bungee cord, not they're tractor trailer, bungee cords to keep them with the T post. So they don't fall over. And then the plants grow up the cattle panel.

1h 21m 13s

Jackie Marie Beyer

Golden seeds, Linda, you are dropping golden seeds. I've seen quite a bit of those cattle panels on, on like, it seems like on Instagram and places.

1h 21m 22s

Linda Fritz

Yeah. I mean, even if you had a small garden, it's not a bad thing to have because you know, you could, you, can we take it down and at the end, cause we have to take all the plants out of the cattle panels and clean them up. I mean, people use strings and you know, especially up here on our hill, I mean, while we were talking, I was like, am I going to have to run to the basement? You know, are we getting that tornadoes year now? It's super windy here. And I just, yeah. And so I can't like, I really liked the cattle panels. Cause you know, you put them in with the tipos and you know, bungee them, you know, strap them down or strapped into the t-posts and they don't go anywhere and your plants grow up and they hold down, you know, the paper that you put down that you rolled out, you know, to keep, do we control around the plants and it makes it easier to pick cause you can see everything really easily.

1h 22m 32s

Linda Fritz

Gives it, makes it a little harder for the deer because they can't just crash through things. I like to give them a little bit of a challenge.

1h 22m 39s

Jackie Marie Beyer

Yeah. We have to have a big strong deer fence in Montana. Our problem's been the bears keep breaking in.

1h 22m 47s

Linda Fritz

Oh wow. Yeah, we did see. Yeah. That is a problem. So, but yeah. And then the, you know, you can take the cattle panels and store them somewhere and they're pretty durable.

1h 23m 1s

Jackie Marie Beyer

Yeah. I think, I think we're going to see more of those. So on the flip side, what's your favorite activity to do in the garden?

1h 23m 8s

Linda Fritz

It's just really fun to be out there and sunny and you can, you know, if you get one that's not perfect, you can eat it. And just having.

1h 23m 16s

Jackie Marie Beyer

How do you harvest edamame?

1h 23m 17s

Linda Fritz

So with edamame there's two ways you can do it. You can pick it off the plant. If the whole plan is not ready to harvest that way, you can kind of get two pickings out of one section of plants and you just go out with a little, little block of wood or something to sit on or one of those little step things. And so now your little basket or Cresbicrate, and you just drop the pick, pull the beans off the plants and drop them in. And then you can also, if your plants are already at the same time, like everything, you know, all the beans are filled out. You can just cut the plant and then just pull it off, you know, take it back to the house where it's cooler and just pull the pods off that way.

1h 24m 10s

Linda Fritz

We have videos on our website on how we did it in on the sun sugar farms website. You can just go to the shop edibles and fresh edamame if anybody's interested in growing it and just quick click on there, there's videos on how to cook it and how we grow it and challenges.

1h 24m 37s

Jackie Marie Beyer

What's the best gardening advice you've ever received?

1h 24m 40s

Linda Fritz

Well, let's see. I would have to, I mean, I really like all the, you know, all the good organic advice as far as like I, and I'm not sure where I got those ideas from, but you know, like using cardboard for weed control and or paper, you know, because it biodegrades and, and helps helps the earth in the long run. I would say those are the best pieces of advice that it picked up, you know, because you've got cardboard. I mean, if you save all the cardboard you get, I mean, if you, especially, if you don't have recycling.

1h 25m 12s

Jackie Marie Beyer

More with people ordering online and stuff.

1h 25m 14s

Linda Fritz

I mean, how many boxes can you keep in your basement or your closet, you know, like just break them down and use them in the garden next year, you know, and they're going to keep your weeds down. They're going to be easy to walk on. I mean, you may have to get some bales of hay to kind of spread over them, to keep them from blowing away, but that's all we're going to create a really nice, a nice thing to walk on or to put it around your plants, you know, like, and not put up a fence.

1h 25m 47s

Jackie Marie Beyer

And then decomposes into the soil!

1h 25m 48s

Linda Fritz

Exactly. And I put up a fence around the whole garden and what did I do there is I use cardboard under the fence. So all the cardboard I save, I put a strip of it down and then we put the fence, you know, we put this little temporary fence up and then we keeps the weeds on either side of the fence. Cause it's the other thing that drives you crazy. Well, I hate weeds. I really do. But this last year they want certain areas they want in the pumpkin.

1h 26m 21s

Jackie Marie Beyer

That's a great idea though. I would never, I wouldn't, I have never thought of doing that. I don't think anybody's recommended that before. And that might also help keep like some small critters out.

1h 26m 36s

Linda Fritz

Oh yes. So with the edamame board

1h 26m 38s

Jackie Marie Beyer

along the bottom of the berries, like in the ground, like

1h 26m 44s

Linda Fritz

To keep the moles and stuff? yeah. So what I've done in the past, because the, the edamame really is like crack cocaine. They will not stop to get it. So what I've found it worked the best was a first kind of a chicken, a rabbit fence. So I put a rabbit fence in that has, you know, lower grids or tighter grids at the bottom and higher grids at the top. And then I install that with the fiberglass rods. And then at the top of the fiberglass rods I put electrics will run electric at the top. And then I had the rabbit or the, yeah, the rabbit fence as the fence. But then I also put up a C panel or a C fence.

1h 27m 26s

Linda Fritz

And so this was done with chicken wire and I attached it to the rabbit panel. And the reason I call it a C is if you look at, look down the side of the fence, you very part, you don't vary, but you, you make sure that the, the bottom of the chicken wire is on the ground or in the ground. You could cover it with dirt a little bit too. And then it's, it comes up the rabbit fence. And then it hangs down off the top creating like this c looking thing. If you look down the fence and what that does is if you have gophers that have been scaling your fence and have been ignoring the electric, when they try to climb up the c it drops down, you know, the top of the c kind of, it makes them hang there and they can't get over the fence because I had gophers that were going over the electric fence.

1h 28m 24s

Linda Fritz

They didn't even care. And then, then I would also run for the deer because they could kind of hop that I would also put in like bamboo six foot, six or seven foot bamboo rods, and then run electric wire, or just wire three, two layers of two strands of wire between those. But that's edamame. You know, that is what I had to do. Was that contraction of fence. Yeah, it was crazy. So I'm really, I'm really looking at not growing as much, maybe like just a little patch for myself because edamame is so common now that it's hard to get the prices for, it's hard to get the price to justify what it takes us to grow it.

1h 29m 3s

Linda Fritz

So, whereas the tomatoes are more, you know, they're still unique cause that's how you get into the store. I'm not sure if I answered that question as well as I could have. I had a unique offering, which was edamame and that's how I got into Kroger. So if there's an up and coming fruit or vegetable and you're getting good at growing, it, that's how you could get into a grocery store was by having that. So, but like microgreens, you know, that's kind of up and coming or mushrooms.

1h 29m 37s

Jackie Marie Beyer

Yeah, for sure. My listeners, I've been trying to get somebody to come on. I actually got somebody to come on and talk about mushrooms and I had never hit record and I lost and I just like, I'm still, they said, they're going to come back on January. It was like nightmare of nightmares, but yeah mushrooms are something my listeners are interested in and I'm kind of getting more interested in growing them because like the more I go to farmer's markets, the more you see people and it looks kind of cool. Like at first my husband was like, learn how to grow mushrooms. It's like right up your alley. And I was like, no, I don't want to have anything to do with it. Like, but now after seeing some mushroom farmers, like I'm kinda more interested in it.

1h 30m 21s

Jackie Marie Beyer

Anyway, Linda, what's your favorite tool if you had to move and could only take one tool with you, what could you not live without?

1h 30m 28s

Linda Fritz

I would take my walk behind tractor. I know it's not, it's not a tool tool, but.

1h 30m 32s

Jackie Marie Beyer

Oh yes it is.

1h 30m 33s

Linda Fritz

My, I went through rototillers.

1h 30m 35s

Jackie Marie Beyer

BCS, is that what it is?

1h 30m 36s

Linda Fritz

It's a beast. The BCS. And the reason I laugh is because we are on a hill and when I would get to the end of the row and try to turn the rotor tiller and it'd be angled and the wheel would fall off and you know, it just, and the only thing that I could do was rototilling. Whereas now I did grow up. I dropped the five grand on a BCS tractor, but that's a lot less than, or maybe there's three, maybe it's three. It was only three. It would have been five grand to get a hay baler because they have attachments to the BCS tractors.

1h 31m 22s

Linda Fritz

And so I got the tractor, I got the rototiller attachment and I got the Bush hog attachment. And that thing is a beast. So now if weeds get out of control, I Bush hog it, I brush out and some people call it the brush hog. They it's, it, it just cuts down everything in its path. And that's an attachment you can get for the BCS tractor. So I would, I wouldn't go anywhere my BCS Tractor, because as well as I've been developing the soil, it still gets, it can still get super dry and super hard. And because it's clay and we have a lot of clay here.

1h 32m 5s

Linda Fritz

And so the tractor is just awesome to be able to break things up. And, and then, like I said, well, that's how I, I got rid of all that the sunflowers are ready to be taken down. And I just went out there with my attachment for the brush hogging and bushwhacked it all down. So I don't know what I would have done without it.

1h 32m 27s

Jackie Marie Beyer

Yeah it is not easty those things are like, they can be tough to go out on the ground.

1h 32m 32s

Linda Fritz

Yeah.

1h 32m 32s

Jackie Marie Beyer

I have not talked to anybody who has one of those who didn't talk about it as like their favorite, for sure.

1h 32m 43s

Linda Fritz

Yeah. Yeah. It's just really solid. And you know, like I said, it's very versatile and you know, I don't know. I love it.

1h 32m 54s

Jackie Marie Beyer

What's like your favorite recipe. Is there something that you really liked to cook for eat from the garden? I'm so curious being, not a vegetable fan.

1h 33m 3s

Linda Fritz

Yeah. So in terms of like what I like to cook from the garden, I love and it's on my website too. So I make, I take the edamame, I cook it and shell it, and then I take the sun sugars.

1h 33m 25s

Jackie Marie Beyer

Wait a minute, you shell it after you cook it or you shell it first?

1h 33m 29s

Linda Fritz

No, you shell it after you cook it. It's really, really hard edamame. Yeah. You boil it or you can steam it or you can microwave it. So all on my website, how to do it. So sunsugarfarms.com. So, but yeah, it's all. If you go to the sun sugar page, there's the recipe for what I call a sun sugar edamame Mediterranean salad. And it's the sun sugars. The edamame after you've cooked and sun sugars, roasted garlic, feta cheese, fresh basil from the garden and then extra Virgin olive oil. So, and you can actually get the feta cheese in olive oil at some like grocery salad bars.

1h 34m 13s

Linda Fritz

So that saves time. And it's usually more flavorful anyway. And man, I can just eat that all day. I, you know, I mean, I eat the sun sugars like candy, but I guess if you're asking for a recipe, I really liked that because it's it's so it's just got a lot of flavor and it goes great with chips or, you know, pita type bread. And then there's also in case you have green cherry tomatoes left after, like you don't, they, you don't have enough time to harvest them before everything gets cold. And you know, you're going to have a frost. I found a, it's a <em></em> recipe that I adapted, but it's green sun sugar, cherry tomato cake.

1h 35m 1s

Linda Fritz

And it's actually pretty good. It tastes better than like a banana bread kind of thing. So get raisins and walnuts in it, cream cheese icing. So, so there's my desserts. It's healthy though. Cause it's got tomatoes. Yeah. So anyway, but those are both on my, on my website, under the sun sugar cherry tomatoes page. So yeah. And they're really good for you and a fun to eat and fun to make and cute. Good, good for taking to a party in the summer

1h 35m 37s

Jackie Marie Beyer

How about a favorite internet resource, where do you find yourself surfing on the whim?

1h 35m 43s

Linda Fritz

I think I like YouTube the best just because I'm visual and I like videos. And so, you know, that way you can listen to it if you don't have time to read something, you like, the Farmer's Almanac is also really good. Cause I do try to plant by the moon and there was one I was trying to find out more about <em></em> okay. It's a pain sometimes. Cause just like it's perfectly sunny day, but it says it's barren. Don't put anything around it.

1h 36m 28s

Linda Fritz

But like when I was looking for microgreens I found on the grow is a video channel video or a microgreens company and they, they did some really great videos, watched some videos, Nate brown on his methods out there in your area. I think he's out in Nebraska,

1h 36m 46s

Jackie Marie Beyer

HE's in North Dakota,I think.

1h 36m 48s

Linda Fritz

South Dakota. Yeah. Yeah. Nate brown. I watched some of his videos.

1h 36m 52s

Jackie Marie Beyer

Or maybe I'm thinking of Gabe Brown?

1h 36m 55s

Linda Fritz

Gabe, sorry youre right, Gabe, Gabe. I didn't have that handy. Gabe Brown and his regenerating landscape ideas and then

1h 37m 1s

Jackie Marie Beyer

Just amazing what he's got going.

1h 37m 3s

Linda Fritz

Yeah. And you know, it's funny because all the things he's doing now are because of all the bad things that happened to him. And so it was a really strong argument for taking the negatives in your life and treating them as potential positives, you know, because he wouldn't have, he wouldn't have let the fields go if he hadn't ran out of money and couldn't afford fertilizer or chemicals or pesticides. So yeah. And I think I, I definitely did not want to move to Kentucky cause I, we had been living in Arizona, sorry, not Arizona, Alabama and growing up in Pennsylvania, I'm like, I hate cold cold. And I'm like, this is the farthest north I'll go.

1h 37m 44s

Linda Fritz

And it was just a really hard transition, but you know, in the end it's like I never would have started growing a garden and I would have just been carrying on my life in the suburbs in Alabama and you know, so you gotta believe it's, it's all for good and all. And so it's all good. So,

1h 38m 14s

Jackie Marie Beyer

Well, that's awesome to hear. You're so inspiring. I know, listeners, if you're going to love this interview, well, we got to get it done because we've been on the phone almost two hours. What's your favorite reading material, like you have a book or a magazine or anything you want to recommend?

1h 38m 30s

Linda Fritz

I mean, there's so many books that I've read. It'd be hard to, you know, just pick one, you know,

1h 38m 39s

Jackie Marie Beyer

Well let's promote your book, what was it Garden Buddies?

1h 38m 44s

Linda Fritz

Oh, garden, garden buddies.

1h 38m 45s

Jackie Marie Beyer

I love that.

1h 38m 46s

Linda Fritz

Yeah. I read my book all the time. Actually. I did learn a lot writing a book because I've always, even though I went into engineering, so I knew I'd have a job when I got out of college, I always had a gift for art. And so I just felt like the need to draw and create something. And so somebody suggested something about the garden. And so I thought, well, that's cool. And so I wrote the garden buddies book so that kids can see different little creatures, bugs and bees and things like that, that help in the garden and not to be afraid of them or kill them, you know?

1h 39m 23s

Linda Fritz

And that's,

1h 39m 24s

Jackie Marie Beyer

But I don't think you have to be a kid to like that book because like talk about on my show a lot of time, like how to know the difference between beneficials and you know, pests. And I think your book, like just from what little I've seen of it, not only that, but it has like this little rhyming scheme it's going to help you remember it better with the pictures and you know, that whole thing, like I remember Patti Armbrister last summer, we were doing this YouTube grow live thing and she had a photo of the wasps on the, I don't remember if it was a , it was on something. And she was talking about, don't get that out.

1h 40m 6s

Jackie Marie Beyer

That's the, you know, the class

1h 40m 10s

Linda Fritz

Work

1h 40m 10s

Jackie Marie Beyer

And, and just like that visual is worth like, you know, a thousand words or whatever they say, like being able to see that. And that's heartening, you know, people ask, what do I do to get rid of former forms? Well, if you can bring in some, you know, what, you know, get these brands or, you know, lure them in and then let them do their job. That's gonna be your best. Cause that's the number one question I get is, you know, if I'm going to go organic, I'm worried about pests, you know, decimated crops and you know, it's too hard because you have those pests and diseases and you know, these are some of the great solutions. So I love your garden buddy. And then also, because I am a teacher I'm in tons of Facebook groups with other teachers and there's teachers in the spring and saying, you know, what can I do to engage them in the garden?

1h 41m 0s

Jackie Marie Beyer

What can I do? You know? And so this is a great book for that.

1h 41m 3s

Linda Fritz

Yeah. And actually, if there are teachers that wanted to get, you know, more of a quantity, I do sell wholesale too. So they should just contact me directly and, you know, get, get it to them for a really affordable price. Cause I, I self published, you know? And so if I, if I'm selling a lot of them and I can at least make what, I've, what it costs me to get them printed, then I'm happy. So

1h 41m 41s

Jackie Marie Beyer

Like, is it on Amazon? Did you go pdf?

1h 41m 45s

Linda Fritz

No, it wasn't. It was a company called out of Michigan. Oh. And that seed company by the way, was out in Wisconsin, HPS was out of Wisconsin. But the, I think it was, I think it's called TPS, total printing solutions. I believe they're out of Michigan and they had a really good price for you want to print so many to get a good price and they had the best price and the best service. So they were really good. Yeah. There, oh, they're in Illinois, Illinois,

1h 42m 11s

Jackie Marie Beyer

But you don't want to do like on demand where people can, I know we can do like, cause the one book that my husband and I wrote, that's what we did. So people can just, you know, you don't have to buy any of it. You know, there's no cost to it, but I have not had good luck with like the children's book samples that I've sent to them. And also they don't horizontal, which drives me crazy. And I can't seem to like, remember that when I'm doing the paintings to make the paintings vertical, but yeah. And then I, and then I finally like was like, oh, well if I do it, so, you know, the paintings like a double, like takes two pages to do the spreads and then like the horizontal painting will fill up two vertical size. But there's the, quality's just not there for children's books. Well, good to know.

1h 43m 7s

Linda Fritz

Oh, I did think of one other thing for the, if you wanted to drop this back into the, what, what didn't work this year.

1h 43m 16s

Jackie Marie Beyer

Okay, cool.

1h 43m 16s

Linda Fritz

And I'll kind of start another thing that didn't work if I can add, and maybe somebody else would have figured out a better way to use this, but I tried netting this year to put over the edamame a section to see if that can keep the deer out. Absolutely didn't work at all. They just stomped on it and kind of got caught in it and tangled up and tore it. And then birds got caught in it. That was awful. So netting was horrible. So my hats off to any people growing blueberries or raspberries, and you're trying to keep things out of those things and you're, you're using netting somehow successfully.

1h 43m 52s

Linda Fritz

Good for you. But it, netting was not, did not work at all for me, for my edamame. Oh, I know it was sad. Yeah. I mean, I guess you've got to use it for like, like when you go pick blueberries, sometimes they'll their whole thing it's shrouded and netting. I'm like, how do you keep birds out? I don't know. But it was something I tried just see if that would keep the deer from going, oh, I can eat the edamame. No I can't. Cause this guy's running all over it. You know, it was kind of stretched out over the rows. Yeah. They just stomped into it anyway. Yeah.

1h 44m 29s

Jackie Marie Beyer

Definitely the only thing that's worked with us for keeping the deer out is a strong fence.

1h 44m 33s

Linda Fritz

Fence , a really high strong, fence.

1h 44m 36s

Jackie Marie Beyer

A fence with bar across the top and then, like I said, the board that's like kind of burried on the bottom.

1h 44m 45s

Linda Fritz

It sounds kind of permanent too. See mine I take everything down because I, you know, get in there with my walk-behind tractor going and plus I rotate the crops too. So one year it's going to be tomatoes here and then edamame over there. Cause as long edamames are good you want the legumes, you know, as part of your soil care. So yeah, but you don't want everything. You don't want to grow the same thing in the same spot each year. So, so yeah. So I take all the fencing down and try again the next year to keep the dang deer out. So

1h 45m 20s

Jackie Marie Beyer

No, our fencing Mike put in, I think in 2005 and then he just, he does this, he just tries to expand it. I mean, some things like, you know, have to be replaced, but for the most part, no, it's pretty permanent.

1h 45m 29s

Linda Fritz

Yeah. That's nice. That's nice with me. I can't, you know, just because of the situation, but yeah, if that sounds like a great idea for anybody, who's like, this is my garden, this is where it's going to be.

1h 45m 46s

Jackie Marie Beyer

I don't want to imagine trying to put it up and down, especially on an acre because like his little mini farm is a 10th of an acre and then she has a huge, we have like 260 feet of fence around the house, which is kind of where the orchard garden beds and things are about. Yeah, no, once it's in anyway, Linda ready for my final question?

1h 46m 11s

Linda Fritz

Jackie, go for it.

1h 46m 12s

Jackie Marie Beyer

If there's one change you'd like to see, to create a greener world, what would it be? For example, is there a charity organization, your passionate about or project you'd like to see put into action? Like what do you feel is the most crucial issue facing our planet in regards to the environment? Either locally, nationally or on a global scale?

1h 46m 38s

Linda Fritz

Was that one of the questions you sent me?

1h 46m 40s

Jackie Marie Beyer

It should be at the bottom of the page it should be number 15 by Business advice.

1h 46m 47s

Linda Fritz

Oh yeah, Because I, yes, if I can do that, like edit all this part out. But when I got your, when I got your thing, I was on vacation. So I did all this on the phone, in the plane. I'm like answering the questions and then I'd get to the point where it'd be like, okay, phone's off or whatever. And he's like, okay. You know, I can't get that 15th question, so. Okay. So ignore all that or edit all that out. Sorry. So yes, I will. If it's okay. I will answer the question with my containers if that's okay.

1h 47m 20s

Jackie Marie Beyer

If it was totally awesome because what you're doing is awesome that's why I reached out to you.

1h 47m 29s

Linda Fritz

Okay. All right, cool. I didn't want it to sound like so centering or whatever, but okay. So you just asked the question and my answer is I hope this doesn't sound too self-serving I know there are tons of things in great organizations out there that are, are doing wonderful things to change the world and make it a better, more environmentally friendly place. But I guess to me, if there were big growers out there or big grocery stores that are serious about zero waste, I would hope that they would use my sustainable produce containers for their produce.

1h 48m 9s

Linda Fritz

So, because that's an easy thing and it really won't cost them much more at all in their volumes. So that's, that's what I hope for.

1h 48m 16s

Jackie Marie Beyer

Me too. I totally, I want to be able to buy them at my local store. I want to be able to use them if we ever go to market or like, just for like, even for what we harvest, like, it'd be cool if we could buy, because like, you know, it's like, what do we keep our stuff in at our house? I just finally started buying those. Like, like when you go to the produce department instead of having to take the plastic bags, but let us in, like I bought the spot fans, but anyway, I love your cardboard containers. And I just think that these are a solution that I heard people talking about and I love them.

1h 49m 0s

Jackie Marie Beyer

I found it in the market gardeners success group or whatever. It's called that because other farmers are using them and they're liking them and they're having success. And I just think this is what we need. And so I'm so glad you answered this question. It was so fun getting to talk to you. I feel like really? What did Aileen come up with? A GFF, a garden friend forever. And just, I hope

1h 49m 26s

Linda Fritz

Someday

1h 49m 26s

Jackie Marie Beyer

My listeners are going to love this as much as I did and everything you're doing and they will try to support you. And hopefully we can get somebody bigger grocery chains to say, yes, we will pay the people who supply us to pay the little bit. Mike, I think what you were talking about with the California day is like, are they making it like, it used to be like Budweiser used to have to, like, they would take the bottles back, like the empty bottles. And that's what I think we needed to see these companies that are like putting all this single use plastic out. Well, if you're going to put it out, then you need to be responsible for taking it back.

1h 50m 7s

Jackie Marie Beyer

And that's the kind of regulations that we, but in the meantime, you know, we're purchasing power and listener more purchasing power than you think. And so if you ask your supermarket to look for these things and people that are you maybe like, like you probably know, you probably have a list of farmers that are buying from you. Like, do you promote them on your website? Like way, like people can go to your website and be like, oh, look this person selling this in my area. I can go to this farm?

1h 50m 45s

Linda Fritz

You know, I'm constantly getting new farmers on board, but that might be a cool thing to do, you know, to just start a list of the, that was,

1h 50m 59s

Jackie Marie Beyer

Are you on like Instagram? Like can people Follow you?

1h 51m 1s

Linda Fritz

Oh yeah, I'm totally on Instagram.

1h 51m 2s

Jackie Marie Beyer

Let's go through your website and tell people how they connect with you and where they can find.

1h 51m 8s

Linda Fritz

Okay. So yes. So the easiest thing to do would be to go to the sun sugar farms website and it will come up Cresbicrate.com because that's the collapsible grocery shopping crates I created to replace plastic bags. So that's the main website. And if you go to the bottom of, and you can go across and you can see the under special pricing, there's a sustainable produce container. And then if you want the edamame may or the cherry tomato recipes go in or shop edibles, then if you go down to the bottom, there's all the links to my Facebook page, my YouTube page, my Instagram page at the bottom.

1h 52m 5s

Linda Fritz

There's a little blog, but yeah, so that would probably be the easiest. I do also have a, a website, sustainable produce container.com, which is just the containers two that people could go to. But the sun sugar farms is the main website.

1h 52m 19s

Jackie Marie Beyer

I'm trying to find the links to, oh, there it is. Oh my gosh. Jack full color. I didn't see them. Instagram, sun, sugar farms. No, it's not that Link's not working.

1h 52m 34s

Linda Fritz

Oh yeah. I'll fix that right now. No, I'll fix that right now. I just checked it myself. Okay. But it should be Instagram. I think if you just go. Oh, because it means the, yeah. I'll fix that. I think I'm worried about that

1h 52m 59s

Jackie Marie Beyer

Hashtag at the end.

1h 53m 1s

Linda Fritz

I know. I just took that off and it didn't change it. Hmm. Yeah. I'll I'll work on that. That's easy. I'm the web site designer. So gosh, no, it broke. Yeah. Delete on farms. Yeah. It should be some check. Your farms just love

1h 53m 17s

Jackie Marie Beyer

Those boxes are so pretty with the food look better like that. Your packaging makes me want to buy the food that's inside of it so much more than the little plastic crate next to it. Like I just think it makes it look pretty like it's a bakery item or it's going to be like with the little sunshine thing there. Like it's, it's just, they just, I love it.

1h 53m 40s

Linda Fritz

Yeah. Let me do I agree?

1h 53m 42s

Jackie Marie Beyer

And the cute little blueberry packets and the microgreens, I'm looking at your Instagram right now. All right. Let's see. instagram.com, sun sugar farms. Thank you so much, Linda, for sharing with us. And you're welcome.

1h 53m 53s

Linda Fritz

Thank you for having me. Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate what you're doing and how you're trying to make the world a better place in terms of people eating better and feeling better and getting outside and enjoying life. So good job, Jackie.

1h 54m 8s

Jackie Marie Beyer

Well, thank you.