Ep 005 - Samantha Kourtis, Soil as an Anti-Depressant, Fairies and Garden Therapy.

In this episode Averill and Bernadette interview local high achiever, Samantha Kourtis, who is as passionate about gardening as she is about healthcare.  Samantha is the owner of Capital Chemist Charnwood, voted best pharmacy in Australia and was also voted Telstra business woman of the year.  Samantha talks about the mental health benefits of gardening and takes us through her refreshingly simple approach to gardening. 

Transcript

Before we start, Seedy Chats would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the Ngunnawal and Ngambri country. The land on which we garden, our land's first gardeners and caretakers, we pay our respects to Elders past, present and emerging. Welcome to SeedyChats, the podcast where imperfect gardeners, Avril, that's me, and Bernadette. Hi, that's me. Chat about our favourite topics, gardening and life. So whether you're new to gardening, a seasoned pro or somewhere in between, join us on our journey to be mindful in gardening and life in general. So Avril, have you got a story for me today? Do you know what I was thinking about this after our last podcast and... reminiscing about being at home and potatoes and all that. And then and the tip X, like the double meaning. Like white out and liquid paper. So obvious. Well, in my past career, I was a rep for a company. And one day I was in a store. So I was a pharmaceutical rep. So I was in a store and the pharmacy was looking for something from me. And I said, all right, OK, yeah, that's fine. I'll just go out and I'll have a root in my boot for you. And then I'll come back in. I'll just give me five minutes. And they were like, OK. And I thought nothing of it. Off I went. It's hot like outside. I'm fumbling around in the car. Little did I know. So you've come back disheveled. So I've come back in a little bit disheveled. My cheeks are red. And everyone is congregated at the counter. And I was like, wow, OK. And I was like, do you know what? I'm so sorry. I don't because back then, so as we're talking about 15 years ago, you wouldn't know what you would have now. Reps don't carry. I would think they don't carry anything in their car. I could have had anything in the back of my car from a flat screen telly to God knows what. Warming tablets. And anyway, I came back in and I said to them, I'm so sorry. I don't have that. I will put an order in. I'll get it to you. Not a problem. And I was thinking, why are they they are all congregated and they're all like staring at me, kind of smirking? And then the pharmacist said to me, can you just say that one more time? What you said to me? What what what did you go and do in the car there? And I went, I just had a quick route in the boot. And they were all like, ah, this is hilarious. Not knowing that route for me meant rummage around, a look around. Not what a route in Australia means. There we go. Oh, love it. So Seedy Chats would like to welcome Samantha Curtis for a chat. A passionate pharmacist known for making a difference through healthcare. To mention but a few, Samantha's career includes winning Pharmacy of the Year, ACT Telstra Businesswoman of the Year, a finalist in the Telstra Awards judging the Telstra Businesswoman Awards, expert member for venous leg ulcer and wound care guidelines and the pain advisory board. And have we forgotten Martha? of three wonderful children. Mother of three and a pharmacist, I did mention that, but I mean, like, yeah, that's in there. And that comes with also being a therapist and everything that owning a business comes with. And most of all, Samantha Gardens. So welcome and thank you for joining us. I'm very excited to be here. SeedyChats is my favourite podcast. That's so lovely to hear that isn't it? I know, we've never had any positive feedback. a little bit. Yes we have, we have. Miss Positive over here, glass always half full. I am blushing though. Samantha, tell us about your relationship with gardening. I actually didn't really start gardening till 2020 and of course a lot of things happened in the world then. However what also happened was we moved in, we'd lived in our new home for about 18 months by that stage so we did a knockdown rebuild. and we had this blank canvas out the front. So 2020 came on the back of drought and bushfires and pandemic and- Great year to be alive, wasn't it? Just an absolute ripoff. We're just waiting, you know, still waiting for the plague of locusts, right, to come through. Yeah. Which would be terrible for the garden. Yeah. So what happened was I needed something to kind of break up my life a bit and something to help get me out of the house. It was almost a form of therapy for me and bless my husband. I'm married to a man. His name is Dmitri and he actually is a professional gardener. Not only a gardener, but he has a bit of culture degree. And he's right into horticulture. and he builds vineyards and into biodynamics and organic horticulture and all these things. He's a wonderful Greek man too. So the backyard is his domain and the veggie gardens down there. But he kind of grew up knowing that the land is to produce produce. And the front garden thankfully hadn't been overtaken by pumpkins and zucchini and tomatoes. It was this blank canvas. And he very graciously handed it to me in 2020 and said, off you go, honey, you just get in the dirt and get your hands dirty and connect with mother nature. And so I did, and I'm all about immediate gratification. And so there's about maybe, look, there'd at least be a thousand different species in my front garden. And then they were all planted really close together. because I can't handle having spaces between bushes. So did Dimitri just, would he just walk out and wince and cringe? Go, great job, darling. So, and then he'd come over dinner, he'd say, did you read the tag? I'm like, what tag? Is it a plant with tags? And did you read the part where it says, grows to four metres by two metres? And you're like, yes, but I also can prune. Yeah, and actually, pruning is my favourite thing. Yeah, because it's quite therapeutic, isn't it? Like you're in your zone. You're right there with your tree and pruning and yeah. I like pruning. I love that Dimitri got you into that. It's the equivalent to me. I think of, you know, if your partner says, come on, let's go out for a walk. Like they know what they're doing and how, he would have known how good for your soul that would be. And I bet he must love that you're, that you took to it so much now as well. And do you do it together? No, not really. He has to do the heavy lifting and he digs big holes for me when I need big holes. Perfect partnership. We do actually have a plum tree and an olive tree and a blood orange tree in our front garden and the blood orange tree is for gin of course. Of course, yes. And Chris's decorations. Oh yeah, well we aren't doing too well producing blood oranges. We've got a couple of orange blood oranges but not blood yet offer to teach me how to prune them and I politely decline. you set up the podcasting gear you can fine to tell me it's done. sees me going out with a pair of He has a couple of friends who are landscapers as well who've said to him, what has your wife done? Because there is so much diversity in our garden. And he just says, look, it makes her happy. Yep. So he's very generous and graceful with his appreciation of my garden, our garden. I love, so Samantha, you sent me a photograph of some of your plantings once and it was like. these beautiful wild flowers along your pathway or slung stones from memory. And I was like, what is that? What's that planting style? Like that is amazing because they were just randomly. And I think you were like, I just went out and I flung a few seeds and up they came. Like, oh, well, like I said, I actually don't read very many tags. I would walk and during the pandemic. So this all the garden got pretty crazy in lockdown and what was happening. So working in healthcare and running a business and big team, we split into two teams and I would have four days on, 15 hour days, and then three days off. And then three days on and four days off. And the first 24 hours of off was sleep, pretty much. And then the next day was all I could do because you couldn't leave home. All I did was I just played in the garden, but you couldn't go buy plants anywhere. And even when you could leave the house, Back in those early days, I was so scared too, because I was terrified of bringing the infection back to my community as a pharmacist. Absolutely. So how amazing were all those local businesses that started doing online delivery? Amazing. So I've never looked back. No, I know. It is amazing. And it's great for them because it introduced people into their business probably that they'd never had before. on online and hopefully made it back into store now since we're, you know, allowed to do that. But yeah, yeah. You sort of talk about the gardening at that stage being therapy. What do you mean by that? I needed something that wasn't at all related to health, wasn't related to being a business owner and didn't involve talking to people. Like I was just so like sensory overload really. So I found I do have three beautiful children with absolutely no interest in gardening so it meant that I was still at home but I wasn't, sounds terrible, but I wasn't interacting with them. But it meant I could just have that really quiet no people space. I could get, and I do really think getting my hands in the soil connected me to to earth and reminded me of how vulnerable we are and how simple life is. And it really slowed me down. And you know, from a person with two science degrees to think that here I am saying having my hands in the soil was actually quite spiritual. For me, there's definitely something there. Yeah, well, funny, you know, you should bring that up because I have written down in front of me that soil is an antidepressant. Yeah. And the smell of the micro bacterium vacchi or vacchi, I'm not too sure the pronunciation, a micro organism found in soil, compost and leaf mold lights up neurotransmitters that release serotonin. That came up on a social media post. So it was just a poster and a beautiful gardening picture on the background. And then when I actually put it into Dr. Google, all this information started to come up and I just kind of thought to myself, because I know I'm also very aware that soil does bring a lot of moles and people say that you should wear masks and, you know, and protecting yourself with breathing a lot of those microorganisms in. But then I just kind of started to think like years ago, we never had gloves or masks or, you know, and just slowing it down and back to basics. And I just thought the whole Google search just. went wild, like it was amazing what actually came up. And pretty obvious stuff as well. So it's great that, you know, that you said that out loud because. If I do put my scientific hat on, and I very proudly declare and own that I do take an antidepressant, a serotonin reuptake inhibitor, and it's a really important integral part of my mental wellbeing. And so from that perspective, we know that serotonin is really important. for mood stabilization. We also know that when we're treating people's mental health, medication is not the only solution, should never be the sole piece of the puzzle. And people get best results when they address their mental wellbeing from other areas. And gardening is one way, just the act of gardening, just as getting sunshine and going for a walk, there are ways we can naturally increase our serotonin levels just by that activity. By doing that, yeah. Yeah, so then if we add those microbes from the soil, I don't think it's that far fetched. It's just hard in that how much soil do you need to inhale? I know. I'm talking about that. It's interesting what you say about the SSRI because I remember I was talking to a GP of mine and she was telling me a story of a client of hers who was on an SSRI, a serotonin, what is it again? Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor. Yes, and he was a comedian. And so on and off during the year, he used to have periods where he would travel a lot, not be eating well, not be able to exercise, be on the road, be presenting. And during those periods, he would need increased medication. And then in those off periods, he would get more time to walk, exercise, garden, and do those sort of things, and his dosage would change. Yeah, right. That's very, I would never, yeah, never think of something like that. But yeah, I suppose it makes sense. I don't know. Yeah, so, you know. potentially the soil there is nature's antidepressant. Hmm. Yeah. I mean, good piece of puzzle. It is, yeah. It is, I mean, I had written a list down because when I had done that search and then the list came up like, it helps build self-esteem and it's good for your heart. It lowers blood pressure, burns calories, reduces stress, and improves your hand strength. Like I was, I never thought of that. Gets you out of the house. Yeah, like vitamin. Gets you into the sun. Vitamin D, boosts your vitamin D. You grow your own produce, which in turn can make you healthier. Gives you something to look forward to. When I plant a seed, you know, I'm hopeful for tomorrow. That's right. And sense of achievement as well, because when you start to grow something and you probably experienced that in your garden, even if you didn't read the label. But if you start to grow something, you're like, wow, I can do that. Like I can. Yeah. That's that's a sense. Do you know one thing I started to do for some of my friends, because we all missed everyone, right? We couldn't see people. And so over the years, you start to learn what flowers people like, whether it's a tulip or a rose or a daffodil or a viola or something. I don't know how many varieties I have in my garden but I walk out my front door and I see one, I take a photo of it and I send it to my friend. So it's free, didn't cost any money, didn't have to send them a bunch of flowers but I feel like I have little pieces of my friends scattered throughout my garden. And then... On top of that, when you do start seeing people, every time, and I love springtime for this, but every time I catch up with someone now, I love picking a little posy of flowers from my garden as a little gift. And I love it. That's so beautiful. That is so beautiful. It's the sense of growing, the slowness that it's actually grown, you know, in your garden. You've hand-picked it, you've touched it. It means something. My neighbor had her mom come down from Port Macquarie. And she was taking her to Floriad and she said, I just have to pop to the shops to pick up some flowers. And I was like, pardon? No, you're not. I have some awesome daffodils and just I had some beautiful green. There was calendula in there. I was trying not to say calendula because we talk about calendula a lot. It's everywhere here. And so I picked calendula daffodils and everything. All my brassicas that I'd gone to seed. So there was beautiful yellow little pretty flowers. My rocket that I'd gone to seed like flower. And they were beautiful white ones. And I had some lavender. It was just I just popped them in jam jars and I dropped. I put some twine around there with a label saying, enjoy your time here and welcome. And I just dropped them around to my neighbor and she was like, Oh, my Lord, thank you so much. And how much more personal? Oh. And you know what, I love doing it. It was beautiful being out there picking them and then popping them in the jar. So I completely understand where you're coming from. And there's definitely a lot more. I think it probably made me more happy knowing that, you know, that I they were going to be handpicked and they were local. And yeah, it's beautiful to do that. And have you found as you've gardened more and done that more, that you've learned more about different varieties and flowers and that journey? When I first started gardening, I'm knew about hardly anything and now I'm growing zinnias and lupins and all. So has that opened your eyes? I'm still buying and my whole life is very eclectic, spontaneous, experimental, magical. So I can't name anything in my garden other than daffodils, tulips and roses really. And yeah, I can't name anything. I can't tell you how it grows. I know that I've killed a lot with frost. and I don't know if it looks like that don't buy it again. I have learnt to be just give it a go. It's a real source of joy for me just that spontaneous and it's probably dopamine really it's that spontaneous instant gratification that I get when I see something, I like it and that's why I like to buy plants local. I'm like if they're selling it local it's got a pretty good chance of living in my garden. That's right. I buy it, I pop it in the garden, I get instant gratification from that and then yes as it grows I get more gratification. I walk out my door every morning and this is why I love springtime because of this. I walk out my front door and it probably it can take me probably on average 15 minutes to get to my car 10 meters away I love it. Getting the tracks and just standing around going, this is awesome. I love it. That is beautiful. Well, it's great because you're just being. You're looking at your project like you're what you've planted. It's the old adage of taking time to smell the roses. That's right. It is that mindful practice of that. I do think the garden is great for that, for stopping you, for drawing your attention to things and that 10 or 15 minutes in the morning, I do the same thing. That's also my little inspection time. What's going on? What's happened? Definitely. And interestingly, so every morning I have, we have chickens, so I have fresh eggs and I wander down. It's really funny my relationship with the veggie garden because I have to go through two gates to get to the veggie garden so that the dogs and the chickens don't get in there and it's too far for me. So bless my husband, five meters from the back door he's let me pop some spinach in a little garden so it's not officially in the veggie garden. but it means that I will personally exit the back door and go down and pick myself some spinach to have with my eggs. What often happens, I'm in my pajamas, I'm at my finest moment really, I haven't even had coffee. Sometimes it's two hours later, I'm still out the back in the garden, haven't eaten breakfast, hadn't had coffee, still in my pajamas, my unboots and my nightie. And what's happened is I've been totally distracted and I've seen weeds or I've seen something that needs pruning. I've got a pocket full of spinach ready for my eggs. And I've just been so taken and consumed by the garden that I haven't even noticed time slipping away. They're obviously not the days I'm expected to be at work. Yeah. No, obviously. But that's beautiful. And really resonates with me, what you were saying about, it's the, you know, the simple life. The more I garden, the more I get involved in gardening. I do think how complicated we have made life and how complicated the journey of even food. Like, you know, I was cooking lunch today and I just went out and got some herbs from the garden. Like it shouldn't be any harder than that, should it? No. Yeah. I love getting stuck in the garden. Not like hours go by and I don't even know that they've gone. And what keeps me busy now, I have 68 staff in my pharmacy and my love language is giving which is why I think I get so much joy from giving flowers. My house has started looking like a rainforest. So I haven't learned anything outside but inside I have learned how to propagate inside flowers, inside plants. Yes. And I make lots and lots of baby plants and I... root them, I get roots growing. I don't even know all the words. So how do you do that? So you take a little cutting. I pop it in water on my window sill. Yeah. And so do you put like a rooting powder? Is that? No, you just put in? Yeah, yeah. That's awesome. And they just magically, they do what they don't. Because they're happy. Yeah. And then I pop them up in little pots and I take them into work. And there's this, it's almost like people waiting for the for the Boxing Day sales to open, the staff, they can see me coming in with a little tray of baby plants, and they're like, I could get mobbed. But they all fight over the baby plants. And sometimes I have to give forward warning to some staff so that they can secure one in advance. But I make baby indoor plants for my staff at work. And that's my love language. Your love language. And you know what, I done a bit of stalking of you last night. And just when you said love, love, love language, your LinkedIn profile does actually have them hugs and drugs on there. And it does actually say love, I think love language as well. And I thought the hugs and drugs was a perfect way to describe Samantha, the pharmacist, because, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's yeah. So 68 staff running your own business, three kids. Where, how do you get time to garden? I'm very, I consider myself very fortunate in that the man I am married to understands what I need in life, which is coffee. A strong coffee. He irons my shirts for me. He is the most remarkable father and he understands that, Sometimes when maybe other wives and other business owners would be doing other things that might make his life easier maybe or contribute to the family different, I just need to be in the garden. Because you need that opportunity to recharge yourself for all of those other activities. Yeah, that's been the hugest learning curve for me over the last three years. And I did actually, I've just come back to work after six months off, after experiencing medically diagnosed burnout. So despite the fact that I was gardening really hard for a couple of years and it was an incredible source of joy and strength and recovery for me, the thing about burnout, proper burnout, is it doesn't matter how much gardening you do or how many massages you get or how many SSRIs you take, it doesn't fix it. It's not necessary. A lifestyle change that can fix and prevent burnout has to happen in the workplace. So I don't know how I fit everything in, but I'm very blessed that I have a partner, a life partner, that understands that that's important to me and how much joy it brings us. And I guess the wonderful thing about gardening is you can come and leave and come and leave and, you know, when you do have little pockets here and there, if it's a long time or a little time, sometimes even if I've just got 10 minutes with my little one, where I can put a seat in the ground and feel like I've done something, you know, you still get that sense of achievement. Yeah. Yeah. How are you going being back at work? Is it like, yeah, is it fitting in? Are you fitting, like how are you feeling? I'm really excited to be back in the healthcare system because we all know that we're short. The whole healthcare system in Australia is struggling. And I know I'm very good at the work I do and I know that I make a great difference. to my community and my industry and I do a bit of work in policy and a few different hats. So I am very happy to be back in that space. I'm finding the workload and the pressure still very challenging. The world is different. I don't think it's ever going to go back to normal. It's busy and it's different. And have you had to set different boundaries? Yeah, I'm trying. Definitely, I think we all need to set, I think COVID and the pandemic, everything that's happened in the last three years, we've all had to change everything. We've had to change how we get our produce. And that wasn't even a pandemic. That was even just last month when lettuces were $12 a head. That's right. Yeah, it's continuing on our supply. Earlier there, you described when you had to set up two teams in the pharmacy. So even that, because I used to look at pharmacy during the pandemic and think my heart, because I spent a lot of time working in pharmacy and my heart really went out. Because people didn't understand that those two teams where if a team came down with COVID, then the other team would step in. Like you couldn't all work together, really, really affected. And then pharmacies had to put security in place as well to protect the staff. I remember you having to do that. And I just, my heart really went out to such an integral part of our community. In fact, if you think about COVID, where was the places that you did go during that time? Yeah. Bunnings and the pharmacy. Yeah. So the pharmacies got, I would imagine, busier than ever. Yeah, right. They did, they did. And it was so hard to see that change. And probably for me, having that more of an understanding of pharmacy, I could understand how stressful that... And even though we don't have that... kind of two team, you know, process happening at the moment. It's still there in pharmacy, like you're still having to support patients that are experiencing COVID and yeah, it's... All of the industrial relations things that you had to get your head around as a, you know, as a business owner during that time that, you know, you just, you can't practice for. No, you can't. And it's still, it's still affecting people. you know, mentally as well. Like I, yeah, it's still, I am one of the few that have never, I haven't had COVID. I'm surprised. I haven't had COVID either. I haven't either. I haven't had it either. Really? Yeah. Well, think of the three of us, yeah. I think it must be the microbes in the soil. Oh, maybe. No. You need to claim that. Is that a claim? That's a scientific claim from Samantha. Yeah, it's just interesting. It's definitely hard times and you kind of, you do have to look at life and try and change if that's possible, like work workload wise. That's why talking about all the extra pressures on pharmacy, we were one of the only things that didn't close. You're right, Bunnings and pharmacy, we didn't close, we didn't ever stop opening our doors. And so that's why coming home to the garden, it was no people. And it sounds almost cruel, me saying that as a community healthcare provider. I just wanted no people. I wanted no talking, I wanted no feelings. I wanted no problems. And I got all of that peace and tranquility and space in the garden. And I don't think anything else in the world could have given that to me. And were you worried less about some of those produce shortages knowing that you were more self-sufficient potentially than others? Oh, yeah, my husband was all over that. Yes. We were. Yeah, we had pumpkins for decades. So but we were and bless him. We were and being that European culture. That's how my family we've always eaten that way. And my daughter is 17. And when she was born, there was no paid mat leave. And he was having he had his own viticultural consultancy business. and so he was self-employed and we only ate what we produced for a long time. Wow. Yeah. Or his grandparents. That is amazing. That's a dream for me. In fact, a goal of mine is to eat what I've grown for a 30-day period. Oh, that's amazing. And then was there, is there anything during those times that you lived off that you could never eat again? No, like he would fish. I do have a very funny story about living that way though. So when Madeline was about four, she was in preschool, I came home from work and, and this is all legal by the way, there was nothing illegal here, it might sound illegal. I came home from work and Madeline, this four year old says, mommy, come out to the garage and see Bambi. Oh. So, I went out to the garage and she opens the fridge and inside the fridge is a headless, gutted deer. And she goes, Mommy, do you want to pat it? And she starts patting the deer and got me to pat the deer. And we ate the deer the next day on the spit. We had a big Greek. You see, I love that because I'm very much about snout to hoof eating. Yeah, I think if you're going to, you know, slaughter. like an animal that you need to make most of everything. Like, I love that. Yeah, one of my favorite chefs is Colin Fassange, the Irish chef on, is it My Kitchen Rules or? And he's from Dublin and he's very much like hoof to snout eating. And I've often been at his restaurant where he has a whole pig and that's what you order and it comes to your table and... just all the veg around, it's very kind of medieval style eating. But yeah, I think that's a great story to have. And for Madeleine's understanding in life as to where, you know, your food comes from. Yes, I remember when we moved out to my stepnep's farm when we were younger and he had chickens and I remember my sister saying, I thought eggs came from the supermarket. Like she was... blown away. She didn't understand that connection. And you're right, when you have that connection, you respect the animal more. Same with produce. I'm sure you would would find that that when you've grown it and worked on it. Yeah, I don't waste the scrap. No. Oh, yeah. When we're growing potatoes, I peel them. Like this, the skin that comes off is only half a mil thick. Potatoes. I'm ruthless. Like half the potato can go in peelings. That's nice. Yes, true. I don't even peel the potatoes like the ones that I grow. I don't even peel them like I'll just in they go. And that's it. I eat the skin and all. I was listening to a podcast this morning and it's all about food, like, you know, not wasting food. And they were talking about even your your skins, your potatoes, still cooking them, giving them a good wash and having them as potato chips. Yeah, I know. Yeah, yeah. And in the air fryer. Yeah, yeah, that'd be great. Food, food wastage. And then another one was any of your greens, they green green sauces. There's a cookbook, I think, called Green Sauces. And even I never thought so. I make a lot of pesto with carrot tops, but they were making it with celery tops as well. And like, I think I know a good bit. And then there's so much more that you can learn. Is there anything that you had never grown up eating that you eat now because it was grown in the garden? Radishes. Yes, same? Rhubarb. Oh yeah. Yeah, radishes and rhubarb I'd say. The rest is pretty stock standard. Hmm. Hmm. Yeah right. And what's your favourite thing to grow? My favourite thing to grow is flowers. I feel it's quite an indulgence. And certainly my husband feels that way as well because he grew up, you just grow produce. So the flowers, you know, it's an investment of time and money that doesn't give you anything you can eat. But for me, the visual joy and then the way I share that joy with photos and with being able to pick little flowers for people, that's my favourite thing to grow. And I still don't even understand what the difference between an annual and is it biennial? Perennial, biennial, and annual. So an annual, flowers once dies in the year, that's it. For example, a zinnia. A biennial, twice. Is every two years? Yes, every two years. So for example, honesty, I believe is a biennial. It'll grow just its leaves, and then the next year it gives you the beautiful pods. And then a perennial is like your rhubarb, your rosemary, those things that keep going and going and going in your garden, and you don't have to do it every year. It start again. So I know you did, you did disclose when you came on first that you hadn't listened to our latest podcast. You're going to love it. Cause it's all about flowers and yes, perennials, biennials and annuals. Yeah. And even about pinching them and making them produce more. Oh, no way. I can guess why. Yes. Yeah. You can give it a go anyway. Cause I have just planted some beautiful paper daisies and I didn't realize the whole pinching. It's similar, I suppose, to like your basil and to my... You would love it. It's pruning. Yeah, it's pruning. You would love it. Yeah. So, and our, Wildly Abigail explained that we should be picking our flowers. A lot of people are scared to pick them, but the more we pick, they will, it'll send a message to them and it'll, they'll produce more. You know, though, when you said it's a little bit like rhubarb, I was like, I thought you were going to say it's a little bit like breastfeeding. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, same. Yeah, the more, yes. The more milk you take out, the more milk you produce. That's where my mind went. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not rhubarb. Yeah. And have you grown cosmos? No, I don't. Or maybe. That's what I said. I don't know what they're... I don't know what anything in my garden is called. I'll send you a picture because I'd never grown them until last year. I actually saw them at an animal farm and I took, you know, that picture. This happened. You're like, what is that? And so I grew them and they're so generous and they're these, and they're so prolific and so many of them. I'll share a photo with you after this, but if you haven't tried it before, keep your eyes peeled. There's heaps of beautiful varieties too. Samantha, do you have, I know you started gardening only in the last few years, but do you have a gardening memory? Like, can you? Oh, yes I do. What's your first gardening memory? And I think this is where the magic comes from. And what I failed to tell you was when we moved into our new home, our beautiful home which we built, the first thing I did in the garden was I built a fairy garden. So I went out and I bought, I had a few pieces already and I bought a few more little mushrooms. And so my children, my youngest child was six and not into fairies. But I built this garden thinking it was for my children. And my children have always told me that the garden has always been for me. But what's centered in this garden was one of those antique glass baubles, the floats. Yeah. So my earliest memory is I was three and my grandmother lived in Yass and her mum, she cared for her mum, so my great-grandmother. And I used to sit with my great-grandmother and there was this atrium. in the back of their garden that was all white pebbles and scattered amongst them were these antique floats and my great-grandmother told me that they were the fairy houses and and then there was it was this great estate and there were all these amazing gardens but my introduction and my earliest memories of garden was fairies and magic. Oh that's so beautiful. And so when my grandmother who's the most amazing woman in my life. If my grandmother left anything with me for my whole entire life it was the magic of fairies starting with those antique bobbles and then moving on to gumnut babies. And then they moved to the south coast and they had this vast bush behind them and my nan used to take me walking through the bush looking for gumnut babies. And I still believe I have a niece who's six and her and I are the greatest fairy believers in the world and even my children who are now 17, 15 and 12 believe that I have seen a fairy. Yeah. So I have a fairy garden. I'll send you a photo. Oh, we'd love a photo of the fairy garden. That'd be great. Avril set up a fairy garden at our community garden and my one year old daughter loves it. Kids love it. Yeah. Fairy gardens are very special to me because when I bring my children home to Ireland, so myself and Ava on Wednesday were... hopping on the big aeroplane and off we go. And there's a lot of fairy trails. And you just go for a walk and you just see fairy doors, like in a random spot. It's just so magical and so beautiful. And people, similar to, I suppose, maybe, you know, the stones, like the beautiful garden stones, like people write messages on and leave them in places and people find them similar to that here, but just with fairy doors and fairy gardens and... I think I've remembered the girl that set up the fairy door. It's just a fairy. It was a wooden fairy door. And she started to sell them and became so popular. I think someone like a big multinational company bought it from her. Something like random, like Disney, like the fairy doors. And that was a huge story in Ireland. But I'm like, people love that magic. It's so special. I had a we even so at the pharmacy, we embrace automation and technology. So we have a big robot that carries out dispensary stock. So when you dispense a script, the drug comes out of the robot. There is a fairy door on the side of the robot. And if you came into the pharmacy with your children to get a medication, I'll often take the kids behind the dispensary and they can have some smarties dispensed from the robot. But I show them where the fairy door is and I explain to them that at night when the lights are turned off, all the fairies come and they clean the inside. They live in the robot. They clean the inside of the robot and they put all the medicines back and the smarties back. And and that's all because when I was three, sitting with my great grandmother, looking out at the garden with and with glass floats, which were the fairy homes. That's such a beautiful memory. I love it. Thanks for sharing that. It's so nice to hold on to that. Bit of imagination that we, I don't know why, but it goes away when we get a bit older, doesn't it? It does. It's nice to remember. Yeah, and I think if you mention a few things, like when we're driving past certain fields and I see a single tree in the middle of a field and it's on that's a fairy tree in Ireland. So my kids always look and they find fairy trees and fairy rings, like if there's a ring of flowers. Should we set some fairy trees up in Gookahong? fairy tree and go go. I feel like it'd be hard because we're quite they densely plant here don't they? We could find a nice tree that would be amazing for the kids to walk past and put a little door on it. It would be beautiful we should do fairy doors actually here. There's a worry worm tree here where we live where someone has little worry worms in the tree and if anyone's got a worry they can go and get it. They can go and get it and tell the worm. And then there's worm wee they leave them because they've got worms so obviously they have the worry worm and then underneath the tree they leave cartons of worm, Yeah. I have planted and propagated some sunflowers. Ooh. So they're in little seed pots, little tiny balls of whatever dirt. I suppose we call it dirt, don't we? Yeah, soil. They'll go into the ground soon and I have been, when I have my eggs every morning, I collect the eggs and I bake them and then I crunch them up and so when I plant those sunflowers I'll sprinkle the eggshells around them so the snails don't eat them. Fantastic. And that's what I'm doing. That's very exciting. You did say that you had a story about seedlings, about the sunflower. Do you want us to share that? So my husband did buy me a little plastic greenhouse stand-up thing. And I spent days and days and hours and lots of money buying those special little, are they corbels or something like that? Oh yes, that's right. Yeah, pellets. The pellets fund, yep. Yep. And then I went on to diggers and I bought all these random, beautiful seeds that they showed the picture and you got the seed packets. And then I spent days putting the seeds into the little pellets. And some of them had started to sprout and some went moldy and I'm trying to control everything in this little greenhouse. And while I was out one day, the wind knocked the greenhouse over and they went everywhere. And then my dog, ate most of them. They ate them and swallowed them. I was so sold astrung. I've had the wind take mine too. Oh, that was the end. And after that, I put so many hours into it. I'm like, that's it. I am never, ever, ever doing that again. And so now the only seed I personally grow is sunflowers. Otherwise, I have just sprinkled, you know, you get those little bee mix, bee friendly seed mix. Oh, you're the bee mix, yeah. I will sprinkle them on the ground and see what happens. But... That was just such a waste of energy for me. But I would say that that that exact scenario has happened to me. But I often think of it like my my corporate life. I'm very confident in what I do career wise, but I didn't get there overnight. And sometimes, you know, you've got to start somewhere. So maybe just give those seeds a go again. I don't know, maybe not starting with 100. But look, those little greenhouses, too, the smaller they are. Oh, they're a bit. you know, they can get very hot, those little pellets dry out very, there's so many different variables there. The wind just gets under them as you really have to wait it down right as well. I lost mine in the wind. I had to go to the neighbors and knock on their door and say, excuse me, my greenhouse is in your backyard again. I'm so sorry. I mean, the wind's so strong here, you even see trampolines flying across people's backs. So like, I mean, yeah, that's funny. Was it a buzz? I'm very happy though that you continued on with Seated Chats even though it triggered you a little bit. Thank you for that. It was for any of the listeners who haven't listened to the first episode, I downloaded it and then listened to it on a plane and I was actually laughing out loud with headphones on so I'm this random passenger on a plane who would just burst into laughter. I do the same when I'm editing. My husband sits here and I just, it's so, it's the weirdest thing, because I laugh, every time we laugh on the podcast, I laugh at us. You're laughing. And I was getting my hair done the other day and I had my ear pods in and I was doing the same thing and I don't think the apprentice knew I had ear pods in and she was like looking at me as if to say, because I'm like editing, so I'm there obviously, editing ear pods in and just writing things down to send to Bernadette because that was the extent that I could do there, but. Um, yeah, she was a bit worried about me. I'm so glad you've come and spoken to us. You know, people think you have to have a green thumb. You don't have to have a green thumb. You just have to give things a go, get out there, find what works for you. I love your style of just, I do what I like. And getting on with it and doing it. Couldn't have it. Take it too seriously, but I get it. I get a tremendous amount of joy. Samantha, thank you so much for joining us today. It was such a pleasure to have you. Thank you for inviting me. So how was that? Oh, it was so refreshing talking to our guests because they all have different aspects of their gardening experience and what it means to them. So I think, yeah, it was great. That's really exciting. Yeah, it doesn't have to be complicated. Do what you like when you like, prune what you like when you like. That's right. And also that wonderful. reminder on how good gardening can be for mental health and the soul and it's like the holistic approach isn't it it's not just one angle it's yeah it's looking at everything and yeah I know it's fantastic and just for everyone listening Samantha is a partner at Capital Chemist and is out in Charnwood. Yes and I hope you have a very safe travels back to Ireland and Slán láth, go raibh maith agat. Oh! Slán láth! Bye, Renata. Bye!