COMPUTER GENERATED UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT:

Welcome to the GREEN Organic Garden Podcast . It is Tuesday, January 25th, 2022. I have an awesome guest on mine. She wrote a book. I know you're going to want to get, you're going to want to leave it a five star review on Amazon. It's called grow. Now go beyond organic rewild Julian sequester, carbon and support bio-diversity. So here to talk to us from past the pistol.com is Emily Murphy.

10m 1s

JackieMarie Beyer

So welcome to the show, Emily.

10m 3s

2

Hi, thank you so much for having me. I'm really looking forward to our conversation today. It's one of my favorite subjects.

10m 10s

JackieMarie Beyer

Well, Emily, I just got off the line with a rock star Maloney on. So I'm going to ask you right off the bat where you born between 1980 and 1995.

10m 19s

2

No, no I wasn't but I, I was a teen in the eighties. That helps. Okay,

10m 26s

JackieMarie Beyer

Cool. Well go ahead and tell listeners a little bit about yourself. You said you're in Northern California.

10m 32s

2

I'm in. Yep. So I'm in Northern California. I grew up on the coast and I happened to live by the coast now. And coastal Northern California has its own microclimate if anyone's visited here or from here, but I've lived all over Northern California, not all over, but I've also lived in the mountains and, and pull from the various regions I've lived in for my, my writings and my teachings around growing and, and my struggles and my challenges around growing as well. Cause we all have them. And so it's, it brings, you know, living in the mountains where it's own, it behaves like zone five, a five B is in stark contrast to living in coastal Northern California, which is basically zone nine ish depending upon the micro climate and the, and the how Northern or Southern urn in that region.

11m 29s

JackieMarie Beyer

Hey, you have your own podcast. Oh Yeah. I'm just looking at your website. Somehow. I missed that when I connected with you. So there's a little bit about that. Yeah.

11m 44s

2

So the growing you love podcast was born in a 28 teen late 2018, no 2019. And I got it started as a followup to the grow. You love book, which was published in 2018 with Firefly books. And I really wanted to consider to continue this conversation around food and growing and nature and meeting people who were, you know, incorporated growing as part of their lives, but they might not consider themselves first as gardeners.

12m 27s

2

So I spoke with musicians and artists and I spoke with a woman who actually has a natural skincare line. And she grows a lot of the ingredients for her, for her products. That's botany, a skincare. I spoke to a number of people and with each conversation I went to that person's home or garden or shop wherever it might be. We would prepare a meal or have a conversation in the garden. And it was very much based on location. I wanted to create an experience for people. And then that was 2019 and then 2020 happened. And I had to shelf that because it was dependent upon the, you know, the on location part, which with the pandemic that was no longer possible.

13m 15s

2

And around the same time and 2019 beginning of 2020, I went into contract to write, grow. Now the book you were mentioning, and that became all consuming between writing the book, my regular work, which is design work and photography and the pandemic. There was a lot, there was a lot going on at 2020. So I shelved the, the podcast temporarily.

13m 49s

JackieMarie Beyer

So when you say D do you mean like graphic design or garden design

13m 53s

2

Gardens design? Yeah. Garden design. Oh, well

13m 55s

JackieMarie Beyer

Tell us a little bit about that.

13m 58s

2

So I I'm my education base stems from my childhood experiences of growing gardens and being in gardens with my grandparents and my parents and other mentors in my community. My grandmother lived on a homestead. My parents lived in a college town. So I had this wonderful experience of living between places. Follow that with studying ethnobotany was, seemed like a natural transition, cause I was already deeply infatuated with nature and plants and, and I really wanted to figure out, well, what is the human connection with plants?

14m 41s

2

And yeah, ethnobotany is the study of the human relationship with plants. And, and it can that particular study like studying medicine can have its own air is specific areas of study. And my particular focus was really understanding, again, this broader connection with nature and specifically plants. And within that, I studied environmental ecology, social ecology, taxonomy, soil, science, physics, you know, th that whole larger spectrum, but really it was the, the human component that pulled together this natural environmental component.

15m 28s

2

And that's what I take into my, my work today. And that Vince, that then became a launchpad for, okay, how am I going to, how am I going to actually bring my learnings and my studies to fruition and, and helping people and, and creating landscapes that are in, in concert with nature. And that's when I started studying garden design, I actually went to the California school of garden design and was certified in garden design there. And that is essentially one of my day jobs. I wear many hats and all of it again is focused towards this human connection with nature.

16m 10s

2

And for me, gardens are one of, for most of us, I should say, gardens are one of our most immediate touchpoints with nature that the places closest to home, whether you have a garden or not those of us who were lucky to have a home garden, I'm sure understand this, but even if you have a set of containers or you live in the city and your nearest garden is a community garden or a park nearby, or the health strip, or, you know, a tree lawn between your, your sidewalk and your street, they're all valuable spaces. And so in my work, I try to rewild these spaces, I share ideas on rewilding and, and growing good, healthy food, flowers, native plants in these spaces to really do all the things that I talk about in grow now, which is how we can save our health communities and planet one garden at a time.

17m 9s

JackieMarie Beyer

But I guess like, she'll like, like a client says, I want you to come to my house and design my Gar, like, I guess, like, that's what I'm wondering, like what is like the everyday, like an example of like what actually Gordon designed.

17m 27s

2

Okay. Yeah. So as a garden designer, it, the scope of work depends upon of course, the needs of the client or community. And oftentimes it can be, I have a blank slate. I need to start a garden from scratch. Can you please come help me conceptualize what this could be and how it would look. And then I asked a number of questions to really get to the heart of the story that the person really wants to tell what their landscape and what I mean by story is that our homes and, and the things we surround ourselves with are really a reflection of who we are as people and our gardens can, can do that as well.

18m 9s

2

They can be that as well while being of service to the community as these ecological systems. And so I listened to the client, I asked lots of questions. And from there we create a design approach that can, or may or may not include heartscaping may simply include a planting plan. And I, I, so I, I do garden design. And what gardens owners do is they can come up with these plans from, from tip to tail, from, you know, the root of the radish to the, to the leaves of the radish. So to speak where it's the, the entire process, or it can be one component part of the process because many people are actually starting with some, some form of a garden and it might be a garden renovation that's in need.

18m 55s

2

And so then I can give recommendations for that. And one of, one of the, one of the areas I tend to focus on is educating people as to how their gardens can better serve them and their, their health, the health of their family, and how their gardens can better serve the health of their community. And therefore, again, the global community, because what is local is global and what we do on our home plots matters. And, and so I try to infuse that into all of my work, so that something that might seem mundane is actually quite meaningful.

19m 38s

2

And, and, and you would know, you mentioned before we jumped on our call, I'm sure you understand, having been a teacher, how important these ideas are for helping students and people understand the meaning behind whatever it is you might be teaching. I like to think of this conversation in some ways as, as those, those, I'm sure you remember, as a student yourself that the, the days of learning algebraic equations or, you know, math in general, like, okay, how am I actually going to use this in real, the real world? Why, why am I learning this? What's the point? And, and we can translate that same, those same questions to anything we do in life to really get to a deeper meaning or a sense of purpose.

20m 27s

2

And that's in a nutshell, what I try to do with gardens and growing, because they can be really powerful places for healing and discovery and joy and growing some of your own food, whatever it might be, that is your goal or your story. And, and I try to uplift that to a whole other level.

20m 47s

JackieMarie Beyer

What, like, is there anything that you feel like, like a common thread that like, you wish, like all your clients, like if they would just do this one thing would be like a game changer.

20m 59s

2

Yeah. That's so there's a few things. So there's to that question off the top of my head, I would say, yes, there's amending your soil with compost, caring for soil, with the no dig approach. That would be one of the first things to consider, at least moving towards the soil. Biology is what feeds all our plants and the biodiversity of both ground. And so whether you're growing a vegetable garden or you're growing flower garden or native plants, caring for soil will actually decrease the amount of water you need to use it all, you know, so increased water-holding capacity because you are protecting the soil ecology, you're protecting the organic matter and soil by adding compost, you're actually adding organic matter to soil.

21m 53s

2

And this feeds the microbiology of the soil in ways that then feed our plants because of the connection with plants and soil and nature. And then because the soil ecosystem is thriving and robust. There's this push pull between biodiversity above ground and below ground. And this translates into then supporting biodiversity above ground. One of the gardeners added an adage of gardeners. You may have heard, or some of your listeners may have heard is this comment of what, what is above so two below or vice versa, what is below so two above? And we can assume that if your plants look healthy above ground, then there's probably, there's probably some good things happening below the soil that, that the soil ecosystems probably pretty healthy.

22m 44s

2

And if your plants are struggling above ground, you can assume that there's some larger issues at work. And that is true with soil ecology. And if we feed the soil and take care of soil ecology, it will inherently feed the, again, the bio-diversity above ground and allow our plants to be healthier with less work from us, because they'll be less stressed and they'll have all of the, all of the, what's the word I'm pulling for everything they need to thrive and grow. So there's supporting soil with composting and the no dig approach, which I talk about and grow. Now, my book coming out February 1st, and then planting natives, native plants are essential for again, supporting biodiversity.

23m 36s

2

And why do I keep talking about biodiversity? Well, at the moment, the UN has released a report and that this is supported in research across the globe telling us that we are facing, as we know, I'm sure your listeners know this too, or they've heard it on the news. We're facing the sixth mass extinction. And with this comes the loss in the coming decades of nearly a million plant and animal species. And that's 25% of all, all the plant animal species on earth, which is so huge and massive and scary.

24m 18s

2

And, but when we support biodiversity and hobby, no it right, right. It doesn't need to be. And I mean, it does it, it does. I think the alarm bell needs to sound loud and clear so that we are encouraged act, but we don't need to walk down this road. And when we treat our own home scapes landscapes, cityscapes, wherever your listeners might find themselves as these centers for biodiversity, these biodiversity hubs, then we're fostering biodiversity home. You might find that there are insects coming to visit that haven't come in a long time, or may have thought to be extinct regionally extinct in your area, whether that's certain types of bees or butterflies, it might be different in Montana where you have these large landscapes where nature moves through the landscape uninhibited.

25m 16s

2

But when, but when we're looking at this situation globally, not everyone lives in these, in these expansive landscapes. And so looking at

25m 25s

JackieMarie Beyer

No, and we have huge problem, like I've been noticing just on our road, these beetles are like killing the trees and you can literally see the bark on the driveway on the way home. And I'm so worried. Cause I'm like, it just keeps getting closer to my house. So no, we were experiencing here just as anywhere.

25m 43s

2

Right? Right. So if there's some imbalance that's happening, most likely due to climate the climate crisis and any number of factors, but by supporting ecology, then we have an opportunity for more balanced ecology, which is only good because the more biodiversity you have with a more ecologically rich, and bio-diverse the greater community, which then could help offset or counterbalance something like this beetle, infestation that you're witnessing. So planting, planting natives is a really easy way to support biodiversity and help mitigate species extinction at a regional level. And what happens, what I think is really cool, what happens is when you begin to embark on this really simple process of caring for soil and planting for biodiversity, such as growing natives, and you take the time to pay attention and as gardeners part of being a gardeners, just paying attention and well, what happened?

26m 47s

2

Why didn't that grow? Oh, well it died this year. Maybe I watered it too much. I'll try doing this next year. Or, oh, it was eaten. I wonder what ate it. And those are all, those are all good questions. And those are places we start. And as you begin this process and then involve yourself in this process through time, these discoveries become more and more self-evident. And I think then this larger narrative, this conversation can grow, which can only benefit this larger narrative that we're having globally with the climate crisis and species extinction, which are things I talk about and grow now, which might seem like a big leap to your listeners.

27m 31s

2

But in reality, they're very much interconnected. And then the third thing I would suggest is planting perennials. So not all native plants are perennial, perennials benefit our communities, our plant communities in our gardens, because one, if they're, if their vegetables or their perennials that provide fruit, whether they're fruit trees or artichokes or asparagus they're plants, you can plant once and you can benefit from year after year after year with minimal effort, that's a huge win. The, and if they're, they may or may not be edibles, they may be plants that are native or ecologic.

28m 12s

2

What I like to call these, these high powered non-native plants that still have a lot of ecological benefits. But what perennials do is they provide a food source to the soil ecosystem, a continual food source year after year and day after day. And, and so that's part of feeding the soil ecology, and that's part of the regenerative process of growing. And so I actually consider myself to be your regenerative organic gardener, which looks at these principles that I was just referencing, which is growing with a no dig approach, tilling your soil as little as possible, disturbing your soil as little as possible.

28m 56s

2

Applying compost to the soil surface, growing organically, skipping pesticides, and herbicides and synthetic for fertilizers, which is easier to do with this process. Planting natives, planting, perennials. It's just this really simple set of principles that allow us to grow a better gardens that then grow literally begin growing themselves with less work from us. And that benefit our, our families and our communities. What big is your garden, where you are now? So I'm really lucky. We moved a year ago. It was part of my 2020 madness that made it difficult for me to continue with my own podcast.

29m 43s

2

We moved, I guess, yeah, one year ago in January into a property that has a half acre. But before that I was gardening in, in a community garden. I had a community garden plot that was nine by 15. That was my box. I was working with a borrowed garden and I was working with the deck garden. All of those gardens are featured in my first book, grow what you love. And that was where I grew that. And before that, I, I was actually, I was actually an education myself for a period of time. And I was lucky enough to run some school gardens.

30m 25s

2

And we had 22 raised beds and one of them was a big garden. So I, I worked in a number of gardens, but those were the gardens I worked with before moving to this property. And now if, if anyone follows me at past the pistol, P I S T I L is in part of a flower on Instagram or Twitter or Pinterest, you might see that I'm been working slowly. This last year on my garden renovation, the garden here was a complete blank slate. Nothing was on it. It was basically all lawn that had been abandoned and with a perimeter of trees. And most of those trees are non-native, they're Pittosporums and a few other things, but mostly Pittosporums.

31m 9s

2

And I'm slowly beginning to replace some of those trees with native trees. And I put in a vegetable garden and I'm beginning this week, a process of creating a meadow garden. So I'm really lucky and blessed to have as much space as I do to put to the test, the ideas that I write about and grow now, this regenerative organic process. So what is something that grew well this summer or last year? So here a vegetable wise, we were talking about kale before we hopped on, on the, on your show.

31m 52s

2

I actually did really well with kale. Now that could change, but I fat because I've found that that sometimes when you grow something, it can take insects like aphids, awhile to find, oh, Hey, there's kale growing here where it wasn't growing before. Hasn't been imported at a famine blown in by, by a neighbor's garden. But my kale grew really well. I have these kale trees that are tall as me and I absolutely love them. I had, I know I was crazy. And I, and I grew some incredible tomatoes. If anyone knows coastal California, I'm pretty close to the ocean.

32m 35s

2

It can be difficult to grow tomatoes of any size of oven, sweet one hundreds, pear tomatoes, early girls. And this year, gosh, I grew one tomato that was so delicious. I glue gruesome black crims, which is my first time growing some larger heirloom tomatoes, but I grew the Swan tomato called indigo apple. And they were so good. They were so prolific too. And just so tasty. I grew some midnight Romas and a whole bunch of pear tomatoes. Cause I love them. And some paste tomatoes next year, I'm going to grow more paste tomatoes. One of my goals is to grow enough tomatoes that I can can, and keep enough tomatoes for use throughout the winter.

33m 22s

2

So I don't have to buy canned tomatoes. If anyone knows when they read the label, can it says BPA free. It means because it, that that's listed there because the cans are lined with plastic and tomatoes are acidic. So you can imagine some of that plastics leaching into our tomatoes, which is why I was in one of my goals is to decrease the amount of plastic my family's consuming and using for, for things like winter soups. So if I can grow my enough, my own tomatoes, I can, I can ensure that they're not in cans or in glass. But

33m 60s

JackieMarie Beyer

Yeah, I'd be wondering now because, so that's been like one of the things I grew last year and what did I do? I froze them all. And they're in like plastic yogurt containers and they're in plastic in my freezer. And now I'm wondering like, is there like, you know, did I just like defeat the whole person? No, it's like sitting in a freezer in a plastic container.

34m 24s

2

So my, I actually, I think that's okay. I'm not too worried about. Yeah, I think that's okay. And the reason I say that is one you're you're reusing plastic that otherwise get, just get recycled or go to the dump. And to my understanding is that plastics are worse or they leach more when heated and that's, I think that's out there in the research or when foods that are acidic have an opportunity to sit in them for a long time, but in a frozen environment that is rendered basically inert. So if it's tomatoes, whatever, it might be, the, you know, the, the plastic isn't nearly as bad as when it's heated or just sitting in something,

35m 12s

JackieMarie Beyer

I feel better. Cause I've been like digging into them and like digging one out, like once a week, this like really lately. And I was like, Hm. Anyway. So how about something you're excited? So I guess that would go under something you're excited to try new this year is like a piece tomato. Is that it? Or just more,

35m 32s

2

Yeah, more paste tomatoes. And I have time. We literally moved last January and there only so much I could do so this year I'm looking forward to putting in more perennial fruit trees. I'm lucky enough to grow citrus. I'm adding a bears line, bears lime. If anyone has had a bears lime, they are incredible. They're truly remarkable. They're yellow when they're ripe. That's a little bit deceiving, I guess they're kind of like a Mexican lime or a Persian line there, but they're just so flavorful. So I'm growing one of those. I'm going to add a Kiwi vine and have a bunch more berries. I really, I just get so much satisfaction out of these.

36m 14s

2

Again, these plants that are perennial that keep providing fruit or produce year after year. And I I've always wanted to have my own mini mini to me, Berry farm. Not that it will be a farm on any, on any scale, but it will hopefully be enough berries for my family to enjoy through the Berry season and raspberries blueberries and some thornless blackberries, maybe some boys and berries loganberries. So we'll see how far I get with that. Some of that might get pushed off to 2023.

36m 50s

JackieMarie Beyer

I know that goes, that's been like another, my listeners know I've been struggling for four years now to try to like get blueberries to grow. And then last year I did get the raspberries to take off, but we've also struggled with strawberries forever here. I just, but yeah, berries are just invaluable. I feel like so much of what you said is near and dear to my heart and especially the perennials. Like I often think if I read another garden bucket, it will be about like pollinator borders and, and border and perennial fruit type of, a lot of the same things. Anyway. Tell on something that didn't go the way you thought it was going to.

37m 35s

2

Oh yeah. Aren't there so many of those things that happen every year.

37m 40s

JackieMarie Beyer

I definitely had more than my share. We have like so many problems last year that we've never had before.

37m 46s

2

You mentioned that your kale had all kinds of bucks.

37m 49s

JackieMarie Beyer

Yeah. And then my husband got like these weird bug Blakey. He's always grown green beans and he didn't harvest any, like he just, they were so covered in a bug. Unlike in his mini farm was weird. And then we also got critters came in, he had moles and voles that we've never had before. But anyway, yeah.

38m 15s

2

Gosh, besides just getting the garden started, what has been the, yeah, I I've had challenges. I think my challenge is not having enough time. I would love to be able to like still on my list is getting a three bin composter in, I have a worm bin in a calm, composting more. I wish I had composted more last year, but with moving, there's only so much a person can do. And I was still finishing my book, which is hugely time consuming.

38m 47s

JackieMarie Beyer

That's what I was like. I was thinking, I was like, oh my God, you got a book. I mean, that alone is just a huge feat in itself. And then all your other work that it sounds like you've got going on. And I'm excited to hear that a three bin compost or because I just, I'm so passionate about composting. And I get frustrated when people are EMT, composting even more than I would think. And in

39m 13s

2

Interesting. Well, I think that people can, I think it's easy to get discouraged with composting. If you don't get this rich, earthy compost within three or four months of trying to hot compost and, and something that a friend said to me who was one of those people, he, he was resistant to composting. He tried it once and, and not, he didn't fail miserably, but it was definitely challenging. And the challenge has caused him to rethink, does he really want a compost? You know, do I really want to do this? It's really hard. And a friend of his said to him, you know, Robert, just think how good you'll be a composting if you just try it for a year and you have an opportunity then to work through three or four batches of compost, if it's hot compost, depending upon your climate, of course, cause really hot composting is best for the warmer months, but just think how good you'll be at it.

40m 8s

2

If you stick with it for one year and give it a go and allow yourself to experiment and fail. And I think through that year, just like earlier, when I was talking about creating this conversation, when we allow ourselves to create this conversation with growing our plants, creating compost, interacting with nature, asking ourselves who's visiting, what insects are visiting today, what birds are passing through? Oh, maybe I should cover my new new lettuces. So those don't get meat. Don't go get eaten by, you know, the finches that are passing through or the Robins, whoever it might be actually wouldn't be the Robbins.

40m 48s

2

It would probably be the towhees that are eating your lettuces. Then you can, you can really start this larger narrative with your relationship with plants and nature and, and compost. And I think that's where things get really interesting actually is with compost because it's this full circle, incredible way of looking at our gardens. You know, what comes out of the garden goes into the compost. If we don't eat it, whether it's green waste or, or the tips and tails of plants that we're preparing in our kitchens, but don't get eaten. It goes in the compost along with Browns and greens, maybe it's Lees, maybe it's bits of cardboard and paper.

41m 33s

2

And he goes in there and it makes new soil that then you can put back into your garden. It's just really, that's how life should be. We should have these compost hubs in every community so that it can be regionally based. And I mean that alone composting loan would be a huge solution for the climate crisis because if food, food waste by itself, I'm sure you've heard this, this statistic, but if food waste were a country, it would be the third largest climate driver after China and the U S and for just composting our food waste. I mean that, I mean, that's incredible how much greenhouse gas emissions we can decrease.

42m 18s

2

And then also how much compost goes back into our, into our ecosystems and our yards and our landscapes, which then helps the quest for carbon and has all these other benefits besides just being in touch with soil and nature. I mean, that alone is, is good for us. So anyway, I could talk about that

42m 36s

JackieMarie Beyer

Back to like what you started out your whole beginning, you were talking about, you know, it's all about the soil and it just, it just frustrates me to know because it is like, you know, people are always asking me like, yeah, but what can I go to the store and buy on the shelf in the, you know, fertilizer aisle? And I'm just like, don't see if your scraps like anyway. So if we were going to get to the root of things, what is it called? Getting into the root of things, which is kind of like my lightning round in like a podcasting world. Do you have a least favorite activity to do in the garden?

43m 16s

JackieMarie Beyer

That something you've got to kind of force yourself to get out there and do

43m 20s

2

Deadheading sometimes. Yeah. Deadheading. I have to, you know, with, with anything maybe like if someone's new to running or someone's new to, I don't know anything, it doesn't have to be something new, something that you don't want to do. It takes a little bit of time, like walking uphill. It takes a little bit of time to get your stride. Once I, once I get into the process of pruning and deadheading for, I like crooning, actually, it's the deadheading. Once I start, I mean, dead end for about 10 minutes, then I can get into a groove, kind of becomes meditative. But that first 10 minutes is painful.

43m 57s

JackieMarie Beyer

That is like running the field. Then once you get into the groove after the first mile

44m 4s

2

Exactly. Then you're like, okay, now I'm in the groove kind of becomes meditative. And

44m 9s

JackieMarie Beyer

How about on the flip side? What's your favorite activity? New?

44m 17s

2

Oh, I kind of like all of it, except for the deadheading. Honestly, I do. I do. I do really. I really enjoy the composting. I have a worm bin as well. I enjoy, I enjoy that process. I enjoy harvesting of course. And that's kind of the fruits of your labor. I enjoy the process of garden making. I enjoyed just being in the garden. I mean, being in the garden it's it's, it makes it's like medicine. It's like church was just going and tending this or that and saucing and moving volunteers around and planting new seeds and staking plants that are tipping over whatever it might be.

45m 6s

2

I just love that process. And it it's like, like anything. I think that's good for us being in nature have talked about that a bunch, you know, it decreases your stress level, increases, all those, all those good nude hormones that start firing and, and everything becomes peaceful. What's the best gardening advice you've ever received. Best gardening advice I've ever received. Well, I'm sure there's more than one tidbit, but this might even not be related to gardening in particular.

45m 49s

2

But some of the best advice I received was to be generous and yeah, I just, it was, it was that advice came to me from another gardener. Her name's Fran Soren. She's an author as well. And she was in a TV and I don't know if she was a journalist. She was mostly in TV. And she said, Emily, the best advice I can give you is to be generous. And I think that as gardeners, it's important to remember. It's not all about us. It's all about, yeah. I want my tomatoes. I would like more blooms. I, but if I leave blooms Sam growing, cut flowers, do I need to cut all of them?

46m 35s

2

No. Can I leave some of them? Yeah. Do I need to make the garden perfectly tidy at the end of each fall? No, no. I can leave. I can leave habitat for insects and wildlife and, and insects that need pithy stems and or birds that need seeds. That if they're left there, I give that generosity and forgive my possible need. I'm using myself as my, as my scapegoat, but to make everything perfectly tidy and be generous with nature. There's, there's something wonderful in that. So, and that's not, that's not the only way to be generous.

47m 16s

2

Of course I, one of the things I'm setting up soon is a lending library for seeds, a little seed library. I produced so many seeds and I'm constantly trying to give them away. So that will be one way to be generous with the,

47m 31s

JackieMarie Beyer

Have you seen those, like, you know, those little like book libraries that are like on corners, like it's like a little box with a glass door, like a seed library, like that, is that what you're talking about?

47m 41s

2

Yeah. That's exactly what I'm talking about. I think the biggest challenge with a seed library here and maybe where you are as well, and probably for most people is the heat of the summer and possibly just not putting any seeds in it and in the summer, unless there seats that people can use right away. So they don't turn. But I think it's kind of a fun though. It's one of my experiments this year to see how it goes.

48m 3s

JackieMarie Beyer

You could probably put it like on a north side of a building maybe or something we are, you wouldn't have to worry about, you know, if you put it like I'm in the north side of a building or something. That's good. A good thing to think about because I kept thinking about putting one on the back of where those little libraries are. And so I guess you wouldn't want to put it where it would be hot in the summer.

48m 27s

2

Yeah, not in the direct sun. I do have a place on my, by my front gate where there's some tree limbs hanging down and that could be a perfect spots kind of under those tree limbs, but still where you could see it. If you're walking by

48m 42s

JackieMarie Beyer

How about a fever tool, if you had to move in, could only take one tool with you. What could you not live without?

48m 50s

2

That's really hard because you need Clippers or some kind of sheer, right. I use my Whoppers and my Clippers often. And the, and then I actually use a pencil and a chopstick. That's kind of one of those tools that it's kind of a non-standard tool that maybe I could double up on. I used pencils and chopsticks for small seedlings that are tiny. Typically you'll see in gardeners, handbooks or

49m 25s

JackieMarie Beyer

Advice.

49m 25s

2

Yeah. You'll, you'll see advice from YouTube or whomever where not whomever, but wherever people saying, okay, you know it, if they're just the seed leaves, you see the, the plants, the sprouts are too tiny to, to transplant. They're too tiny. And minute in reality, if you pick up a seedling by seed leaves, first tease out the roots with a pencil or chopstick, very gently. It's just the right tool and tease them out, lift the plant by seed leaves. If you can imagine those two little leaves for most die cops that we grow everything but corn, right, which is a monocot. And then you, you move it to wherever it's going to go to its new home, to its new container.

50m 7s

2

If you're potting it up where it can grow a little longer in your greenhouse or on your grow lights or wherever you're growing your seedlings, and you can use your pencil or your chopstick to make a little divot, you can pop it in and tuck the soil back in. I find that little tiny seedlings. If you're relying on your fingers, we just have a, a way of gumming up works and breaking stems and leaves and things. So pencil chopstick. That's one of my go-to tools. And for all that dead heading that I love so much Clippers.

50m 45s

JackieMarie Beyer

I didn't do a lot of that last year. That's a great tip. My husband was always on me about being gentle and transplanting them. How about a favorite recipe you went to cook or eat from the garden?

50m 58s

2

Oh gosh. There's so many. One of the favorite things. My on my favorite recipes for summer is to make a mix and match pesto. So I always try to grow enough. Bazell for pesto every year, I plant more and more and more basal. I, I, wow. The summer garden can't have enough Bazell for me maybe. Cause we eat it so much. Not just in pesto, but in salads and everything else. But if I don't have enough Bazell for pesto, you know, I might put some Bazell in, you can put some parsley in, you could put some cilantro in, you could put leaves from greens like kale or, or chard even with your nuts and your oil.

51m 41s

2

And if you choose to put cheese in Parmesan or something, mix that all up can never go wrong. One of the recipes that I kept falling back to this last summer was I'm not a galette. I have a savory recipe in my grow, what you love book, but this one is a tart with phylo dough. And gosh, it's so simple and it's really light. And I fell back to that recipe quite a bit because I was like so much zucchini. I grew so much bikini. It was incredible. And I was so happy.

52m 21s

2

Most people like, oh no, there's too much bikini. But I, I grow this ones who Katie zucchini that I absolutely love. It's a costata romanesco. And it's the one with the ripples in it. And when you cut it, it looks like a star hard to go

52m 38s

JackieMarie Beyer

Back. It's

52m 39s

2

Hard to go back. I mean, they, they have, they have this nuance of flavor. It's a tiny bit nutty and then they're so beautiful. They're beautiful on the vine and you cut them open and they have that kind of start shape pattern. Gosh, they're just, just stunning. And they were prolific. And I found every way I possibly could to cook them. And I did give a lot of way, but boy, I was determined to eat. As many of them was like good. And the tarts making a tart with it was a Kini and I would change the cheeses. I'm I'm not afraid of cheese, whether it was goat cheese or a fancy Swiss cheese and a ricotta with maybe some of the tomatoes and Bazell from the garden.

53m 24s

2

And you put that in a phylo dough and pop it in the oven. And it's so simple, tastes so good with fresh salad. So simple, eat it for a couple of days and make another one.

53m 36s

JackieMarie Beyer

Oh my gosh. That does sound awesome. I like those Romanesque goes to, cause I feel like they make Greek zucchini noodles and like, I read a lot of the like, almost like a lasagna or like basically it was just like slices of zucchini, like the long way, like the length of the zucchini with just tomatoes, a little Parmesan cheese, and then another layer. And just, I eat that all summer. Maybe some breadcrumbs, maybe not depending on if I have breadcrumbs, right? Yeah. Romanesco. I did. I totally didn't eat any pasta last summer as compared to other years. How about a favorite internet resource? Where do you find yourself surfing on the web?

54m 20s

JackieMarie Beyer

Oh,

54m 20s

2

Where do I find myself surfing on the web? I wonder gosh, like for a gardening advice or for anything

54m 37s

JackieMarie Beyer

Or cooking or writing or I don't know, line or my all on me F no body.

54m 47s

2

I okay. So now they've broadened it a little. My I'm wrapping my mind around that, you know, for garden design lately, I have been inspired by the work of PA old off. I'm probably mispronouncing his name Rudolph from Denmark, Denmark, Netherlands. I'm not remembering what country, right.

55m 14s

JackieMarie Beyer

Oh, good,

55m 16s

2

Good, good question. It's O U L D O L F PAs, P I E T. I'm a really bad speller unless I actually get a pencil in my hand and try writing it. So let me try writing it really quickly. Yep. P I E T O U L D O L F. And he is, he is, he's remarkable. If, if any of the listeners, anyone listening now has been to the Highline park in New York city. He is the mastermind behind that planting plant. And I believe much of the design as well, but definitely the planting plan. And when you search him, he, you can see as many designs.

55m 58s

2

And he incorporates a naturalistic design, which inherently kind of feeds into my urge to create ecological landscapes and to help others do that. And he does it with such finesse and understanding of plants and design in general. But I I've learned a lot from him, not all the plants that he uses are appropriate for my region or my climate, but I think that's something everyone should consider. So he might be using a lot of Joe pie weed, which is a great plant. If you live in say new England where there's a lot of summer rain and, or there's a lot of wet areas for areas stay wet through the summer or lots of lakes where Joe pie week grow up, but out here in the west, that's just not something I can grow, even if I wanted to, it's not native to here and it's summer dry.

57m 1s

2

So I need to stick with summer dry plants, preferably natives again, but not all of them are natives, but still you can take someone like payload, offs, design work and adapt it to your own landscape and whatever plants might be ecologically appropriate for your region. So he's, he's definitely one of the people I searched for when I'm, I need just a quick bit of I'm when I'm problem solving, I need help with this. What, how can you help me think through it? And I'll look at some of the visit images and go, okay. Yeah, I can, I can solve this problem. And it doesn't mean I'm replicating everything he does, but it definitely helps me think through the problems I'm facing and how I can solve them with plants and elevations and materials.

57m 51s

JackieMarie Beyer

Similarly, if I haven't said this yet, you are dropping golden seeds for my listeners. And just this interview has been just packed full of awesome information. So last one of the lightning round, quick question. How about a book you can recommend, oh, beside you were too amazing, but

58m 11s

2

I would love it if your readers would, of course, of course find my book grow now how to save our health communities and planet one garden at a time, I worked so hard on this book and it is more than a gardening book. It's truly a book that meets the subtitle and all of the bullet points that you mentioned earlier for rewilding and, and going beyond organic supporting biodiversity with biodiversity. It, it goes into regenerative organics and how to grow a regenerative garden, whether you're growing food garden or a perennial garden or a flower garden, which then feed yourself and your community past that, oh, I have so many books.

58m 51s

2

I love one of the books that I, this is sort of off topic, but sort of on your food topic that we were talking about before we got on the, on our call on this conversation is a book called the Dorito effect. And it's written by and a journalist, his name's mark Schachter and came out several years ago. It was recommended to me by a friend. And it was instrumental to the writing of this, of my book grown out. And the Dorito effect goes into preservatives and processed foods. And it might sound boring, but he is such a great writer.

59m 32s

2

Mark is an incredible writer. Every page I was laughing, underlining phrases, pithy segments information, and it really helps connect the dots with food and our relationship with food and how that relationship has become broken with processed foods and not to beat ourselves up if we like Doritos. But to understand that Doritos were a creation by someone who wanted to create a chip that tasted like a taco. And how can we get this chip that tastes like a taco right? To, to taste that way and all the artificial artificial flavors that had to go into that? Well, what happens is, is that this th these types of processed foods trick our bodies into think that we're eating a taco when we're not really eating a taco.

1h 0m 22s

2

So you're not getting the satiated feeling that you would get when you ate a taco. So you eat the entire bag of chips and in the process, we've lost some of our nutritional wisdom of what's good for us. What am I craving right now? I'm craving the bag of Doritos. Well, because there are somewhat addictive because of these flavorings that go into them. When we begin to eat real food, and our body recognizes that we began to crave those real foods. And, and there's, there's science behind this there's biology behind it. There's microbes behind it. The microbes in the soil are one of them, which I talk about and grown out. I mean, it gets psych. The layers of it are so cool.

1h 1m 2s

2

And you start to realize that, okay, all this conversation I've been having about nature. It's like, well, it's because we are nature. Our bodies are more microbe than human, and we have more genetic microbial material in our bodies and we'd have human genes in our bodies. And when we create composts, we're interacting with those microbes that are in our bodies, but outside our bubble. I mean, it's just, it's just phenomenal. And mark Schachter in his book, he dives into this and he dives into nutritional wisdom. And so much of my work, sort of in a nutshell, if, if listeners can really follow this thread goes back to nutritional wisdom in the sense that we have nutritional wisdom that relates to nature.

1h 1m 45s

2

Like when we go into nature and you walk into a forest or wooded area and your body, your shoulders relax, one shoulder down the other shoulder down, and you start to breathe a little more deeply. And your heart rate decreases that in itself is in some ways, nutritional wisdom, your body's responding to nature in a way that it really needs. And science shows us that that spending 120 minutes a week or more nature does all of these things, but it's, but, but there's, there's a biologic reason for that too. And mark dives into that in this book, I, I mean, it's not a gardening book, but anyone interested in growing their own food and living a healthier life through growing some of your own food really needs to read this book because it's cool and it's fun.

1h 2m 29s

2

And he's a great writer. I wish I could write like him. I think I did a really good job with growing now, but he's incredible.

1h 2m 37s

JackieMarie Beyer

Wow. All right. I can't wait to get that. I love that 120 minutes or more in nature. I feel like that would be a great way for parents or teachers to get gardens in the schools because, well, you know, as well as I do, our kids need it so much of it and that, you know, it's a great way to get, you know, nature and to kids who go to school in the city and just, you know, have blacktops for playgrounds and whatnot. Anyway, Emily, I got to get moving show my final question. If there's one change you would like to see to create a greener world, but would it be, for example, is there a charity organization, your passionate about or project you'd like to see put into action?

1h 3m 18s

JackieMarie Beyer

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 3m 27s

2

I personally support the <em></em> society and the pesticide action network. I love visitor see society project called bee city USA. And there's other organizations that have projects like that, where they're bringing plants opportunities for growing to communities. And with that, it might be food or food for us, places for communal places of, for food growing, but really bringing nature back into communities is something I'm deeply passionate about right now. And, and food, food is nature, right?

1h 4m 8s

2

So food is part of that too. It really depends on the community itself and how that actually might look in the long run. But those are two of the organizations I support most readily off the tip of my tongue, but there's so many, but those are some of the projects I admire her.

1h 4m 26s

JackieMarie Beyer

Perfect. All right, listeners, make sure you go to pass the pistol. P I S T I l.com get Emily's book, get her other book, the Grove, what you love one check out her shop because she is the coolest t-shirts. I love the woman with the heart. That's a Robert you've love. You've got hats. You've got tote bags. You've got all sorts of cool things. You get her book, make sure you leave a five-star review on Amazon. Other people can read it and share this message. I know you have learned as much as I have today and thank you so much for sharing all this, Emily.

1h 5m 2s

2

Thanks so much for having me, Jackie. I really appreciate it. It was wonderful talking with you and I hope we can talk again sometime soon.

1h 5m 9s

JackieMarie Beyer

Oh, me too. I maybe meet in person one of these days. I just, I feel like we have so much in common. It was so fun. And talk with you and I'm sorry. I've got to go, but thank you so much. Yeah. All right. We'll talk, talk later. Thank you so much. Okay. So I'll send you the link when this is perfect. Probably will be like mid to end of February. Wonderful. Okay. All right. Great. Great. Okay. You too. Bye. Bye.