Episode 9: Pro-Tips for Hiring a Food Forest Designer or Installer

Should you hire a permaculture designer or simply do it yourself?  Both are viable options, but it's important to understand the journey a bit before getting started.

This podcast episode explores the benefits and drawbacks of Homesteading DIY vs Hiring.   If you want to do it yourself, we have some really practical strategies on how to streamline the process for your homestead.  Not to mention...a few pro-tips!

If you are interested in hiring a designer (or installer), we also offer some practical tips, tricks, questions, and considerations to weigh before hiring someone.  In this episode, we'll cover practical questions to ask your designer, how to spot designers that are not going to be a good fit, common pricing concerns, and how to explore mentorship after your food forest is planted.   

Whether you are just getting started with a homestead design or you already have a food forest and need to be mentored on how to maximize production - this permaculture podcast episode will give you some gold-nugget tips.  And a few interesting bunny trails (i.e. a rant on growing apples in Florida).

Link to the food forest designer website! 
https://permaculturefx.com/how-to-plant-a-food-forest-part-4-installing/

Link to the food forest designer website! 
https://permaculturefx.com/how-to-plant-a-food-forest-part-4-installing/

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

And welcome to the Obsessed with Plants podcast.

SPEAKER_01 0:02

I'm David. I'm Obsessed with Plants with my co-host. And I am Chris, and I go by permaculture FX online. We got our tea ready. Now, secretly, I have tea. What do you have in your cup, David? Don't do this. Is it the dew that comes off of a mountain somewhere by any chance? They're not sponsored, so they don't get to know. They don't get to know. You all chemical tea. You're left wondering, who knows? I needed the caffeine. So today's episode, gonna be a lot of fun, I think. Um, is when do you hire someone versus do it yourself? And how do you vet a designer? How do you vet or tips in vetting an installer specifically, someone that's gonna actually put in your food for us? And I will say, um, in full disclosure to everybody, I do design work, I'm, but I'm primarily an educator. Um, I do like two installs a year, and it's like friends and family, like maybe doing a church here in the next couple weeks, and it's like my good friends, you know, little tiny Baptist church or like I don't I don't do that. So, full disclosure, you know, I'm not telling you to hire me to install because we don't install.

SPEAKER_00 1:15

Yeah, I'll I'll help out with people occasionally on doing their installs. Like there's one next month that I'm helping, but it's like spreading mulch and stuff like that. It's like I'm really just helping out friends with their installs. I don't professionally do this. Yes. So we're not telling you to hire us to please don't ask us to food forests of the time.

SPEAKER_01 1:33

Got too many chickens, too many, you know, ducks and horses and a new wife. Congratulations. You are married now.

SPEAKER_00 1:40

So very a lot of stuff does not, I don't have enough time to take care of my own food forest and install my own stuff, let alone do somebody else's. Do somebody else's, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:48

So for me, like my passion is the education side. I love the long-term mentorship and relationship with my clients. And there are definitely clients that I feel like installing it on their own is the right choice. Like it's actually good for people sometimes to install their own food for us. And you did most of or all of your food for us yourself, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:11

Yeah. And that was that's kind of like I'm a perfect example of like the benefits and the negatives. There's definitely, I think I learned way more than if somebody had just done it for me. I don't think I would have learned nearly as much, but that learning did come from me making a lot of mistakes, me having to put way more time than I would have if somebody had showed me how to do it right the first way the first time. Yeah. But I do think that there's a lot of value in just you can save a little bit of money, you know, because you can spend either just less money on it or you could, you know, just spend more money on plants like what I did. Oh, totally, totally. But the problem is that if you don't do it right and you have to, you know, have that learning experience, it may not even be that much cheaper. Because if you lose all the fruit trees, then all that money you saved spending on buying more fruit trees, well, then you have to buy them again. Right. And it's like, okay, well, if I had just installed them right the first time, I'd be eating fruit now instead of you know planting my third.

SPEAKER_01 3:04

And I will brag on you a little bit in that, like for you, you did a lot of things before you just threw things in the ground. You were researching, you were watching videos, you did a permaculture design course. I hear your design course was awesome, by the way. It's a good teacher. It's a good teacher. It's a good teacher. You know, so you did a lot of stuff beforehand.

SPEAKER_00 3:21

But I also did just kind of like I mean, I say did research in general. Like, I do spend way too much time on YouTube watching something before I buy it because I'm a cheapskate. Um but you did a lot of trial and error too. But yeah, I also did kind of like, okay, I want to put something in the ground. I'm excited about it. So I did kind of just rush into it at that because like I think I was already planting stuff for like almost a year before I took your design course. Right. Six months almost a year, something like that.

SPEAKER_01 3:46

You had a pretty good sized food forest already in by the time you took the course.

SPEAKER_00 3:49

Yeah, but like I already had like stuff got sick. I just, you know, there's a lot of learning experiences, and even to the point of I don't think I would have actually learned what the problem was without taking your design course just because I didn't know what I was looking for. I just saw plant is sick. Okay, well, maybe you know, bad plant. No, it's bad design.

SPEAKER_01 4:07

Now, how long have you personally been doing? I'm not even gonna say permaculture because that includes regenerative egg growing organically. How long have you been growing?

SPEAKER_00 4:17

Um, me personally growing since the end of 2019. So, like right before that whole COVID era um stuff, which that gave me a lot more free time to do that. Um, but then of course I grew up on a citrus orchard, so that's kind of my motivation and like getting into that was you know, I want more fruit, more stuff like that. But yeah, but yeah, definitely like I didn't have a whole lot of experience into it. I just knew what like the orchard was supposed to look like. I knew what some of this was, you know, some of the setup was, but I didn't actually know anything. Right. I just you know that makes sense, saw it.

SPEAKER_01 4:48

Yeah, and for me, it's kind of similar. I grew up, you know, growing. My mom was a huge gardener, grandma was a gardener, you know, started doing more professional, like training, receiving training, um, probably now close to 25 years ago. So please don't do the math. Anybody on how old I am, you know. So I've been doing you watch this, it's a different time. So yeah, I've been doing this for a while, you know, and it's I did the earlier PDCs, you know, with Jeff Lawton. And back then, you know, you could go to Zaytuna Farm or um Tagari Farm in Australia. Both of those were incredible. Um, and then I also did his instructor's design course. I but you know, both of us were big nerds. We love to keep learning, we love to keep growing. And there are some people that are big learners that installing a food for us is gonna be right for them. So, real quick, before we get into how do you hire it done, tell me a little bit about what are the benefits of you doing it yourself.

SPEAKER_00 5:42

Yeah. Well, I mean, there's a different there's lots of different learning types too. Um, you kind of have like kinetic learners, visual learners. Some people need to be told, some people need to do it themselves. I'm definitely like a I learned best by just doing it. Um maybe someone showing me once, but so if you know, just getting your hands dirty, just you know, some people just want to do that. They don't really care about like, oh yeah, I want this fancy design. That's maybe what they want. They want to play in the dirt, but yeah, they want to play in the dirt.

SPEAKER_01 6:08

And so that's one big benefit of doing it yourself, is you get to learn. You get to play in the dirt, you get to make the mistakes, and that's legit. Now, you said earlier about money. So talk a little bit about the benefits of doing it yourself and how does that save practically Gen Z teenager?

SPEAKER_00 6:26

It's not like I'm exactly rolling in money to start my you know he's not a teenager anymore, not anymore. No, no, no. I mean when I'm started, when I started, um, definitely like okay, I only have you know a handful of dollars to to get this, so you know that's always limits your budget, and so it's yeah, get creative and just trying to you know eke out every dollar. And we've talked about that topic before, but you can also just you know, because at the end of the day, if you're hiring a designer, you're not just paying for the trees, you're paying for the trees, you're paying for the experience, all the time they take to do the design. If they're installing it, that's insurance, their truck payments, their gas, any heavy equipment if it's a larger install, paying a lot of workers if it's a small install. Yeah, you know, there's a lot of costs that come in with that, and you get a good product at the end. But you're not just putting your money into fruit trees. So if you're doing it yourself, you are definitely paying for it in your time. 100%. But in my case, I had a lot more free time, I didn't have a lot of money. So that's where that kit kind of you know comes into effect.

SPEAKER_01 7:23

And I think that's important to recognize that some families do have the flexibility financially, they've got the flexibility in their time. And so uh, you know, it really is a cost-benefit analysis of how do I set my house, my yard, and my family up to win the best. And may maybe not the fastest, but how do we grow together as a family and as a household?

SPEAKER_00 7:47

Well, and in and bringing back to like if you make mistakes and stuff, I mean, depending on how much time you have to be able to sink into it, maybe having someone design that for you correctly the first time or installing it the first time may be the best way to save money on it. Cause even though the cost up front is gonna be way bigger, you know, you're not having to spend all that time weeding. You're I mean, you're still gonna weed, you're still gonna do all that stuff.

SPEAKER_01 8:09

But like my not taking 20 years to learn either.

SPEAKER_00 8:12

No, yeah, and and like my biggest mistake when I first started was I learned just enough to get me into trouble. I mean, it wasn't wrong information, but I was missing a lot of context to that knowledge because it was kind of sporadic and all over the place. So I grabbed I bought a bunch of fruit trees because I'm like, oh, that's the first thing I need to put in the ground, yeah, which is technically true, but I also failed to consider that if I plant them 40 feet apart or 80 feet apart, yeah, that max size of 40, 80 feet is eventually how big they're gonna get. It's gonna take 30 or 40 years for that. In the meantime, there's gonna be 30 or 40 years worth of weeds popping up because I didn't do anything else. Correct.

SPEAKER_01 8:48

Yeah. And so when let's go back to, you know, you got to think about what's right for me, what's right for my family, what's right for my house. And if someone decides I want to go on the full journey of learning how to design, learning how to lay it out, learning how to pick out the trees, learning how to install it, that is an incredible journey. Yeah, I'll say, as someone who is a designer, I do 40 to 72, I think is the most designs I've ever done in a year, you know, design work. Um, many of those families, they don't have the ability to go on a 20-year journey. They just need to hire it done initially because that initial design gives them a delivered product where they go, okay, here's a plan. I can do this.

SPEAKER_00 9:32

Well, and and then some places too, if you live in certain HOAs or whatever, they may be okay with you putting in a food forest, but they may not be okay with you having a weedy lawn for five or six years. You need to have it aesthetic and getting somebody to do it all at once. Yeah, I mean, it's hard to put in an entire food forest with just yourself or just your family.

SPEAKER_01 9:50

Oh, yeah. And one that's gonna appease your HOA, you know, as well. And it is possible. I mean, I designed for PGA communities and football players and the villages all the time. And it's like you can do a food forest there. It needs to look a certain way. It's got to have a certain vibe. And so sometimes you can do it yourself. Sometimes it's better to hire it done to launch you into it. Now, for those of you that are looking for like, I want to do this myself, I don't charge you to teach you how to do a food forest. So David's gonna bring up a little screenshot here. Free article on permaculturefx.com. And I'll just say this real quick is it gives you a step-by-step process of how do you install a food forest from selecting the location, clearing the soil. It gives you text, it gives you videos, it gives you links to the articles if you yep, sub-articles. So there's a whole article on how do you get rid of you know the grass, a whole article on how do you compost. If you can't install your own food forest from this, you're an idiot. Like you, you can do this. So I share this, not to say, hey, go to my website, but I'm saying, hey, I'm not making any money for you reading this article and doing it yourself. You can do it yourself. Your family can do this yourself. It's gonna take some learning, it's gonna take some experimenting, it's gonna take time, and that's okay. And for some families, it's the right choice to DIY. It just is.

SPEAKER_00 11:15

Well, and and even if you're not gonna use this as your reference to installing it, I still think it'd be very valuable to definitely sink your teeth into this. I actually didn't know this was that in-depth. It's scrolling through your holy cow, it's like sorry. It took me a year to do the full thing. You just did a lot of time on it. I never actually read it. I should have. Yeah, it's pretty a lot, but again, I'm we're the nerdy people. Yeah, but you but I would say you even just use this kind of like a like a key or a reference point if you're gonna be going with another designer too. Like just you know, you it's like it's like designing a house. You have an inspector come in, you know, and you want to you know make sure you that you look through it yourself and make sure everything's going, maybe learn some of it and then just you know use it as a key. I mean, you got to know what you're buying at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_01 11:57

And I I really actually like that analogy. We didn't talk about that in the beginning of like if there's a house inspector that's coming in and you're you know, you're getting that outside view. One of the major benefits, I think, of that outside view coming in is they're not, they haven't looked at it before. They haven't examined your yard, your house, your whatever before. So you're getting a third-party perspective with some really good expertise that's neutral. You know, the house inspector is not your lender, it's not your banker, it's not your mother-in-law.

SPEAKER_00 12:30

They have no skin in the game. None. They're there just to cross-reference everybody, and help you determine is this a good house?

SPEAKER_01 12:38

Is this a good fit for me? So for those people that cannot or are not able to DIY it and need to hire it done. Now, when I say it, it could be the design, it could be the install, it could be the mentorship afterwards. Maybe they design it and install it their self. Great, and they just need mentorship afterwards. I think it's important to know how do we become like that home inspector and go, who is the best designer for me? Who is the best installer for me? Who is the best person to mentor me along the way? We're gonna give in the next few minutes now five major tips on if you're hiring any part of this process, whatever part of it it is, what are five things that you should look at when it comes to picking a designer? And I will say, Florida is a very saturated market, for better or worse. There are many new nurseries, many new designers, there are many new installers, and their varying levels of experience and price ranges is vast.

SPEAKER_00 13:38

Well, and I think especially with Florida, I'm not super knowledgeable about how designers from other areas, but we definitely went from a everybody thought you couldn't grow to then you had like COVID where everybody was growing and wanted that knowledge, that it just this huge void space was realized, and then everybody tried to fill it, and now there's you know so many options, which is a good thing. It it's a good thing, but it does mean that with the more people doing it, the more likelihood that there's gonna be somebody who may not jive with what you're needing.

SPEAKER_01 14:07

Oh, totally. And I I do think we need we need 10 more nurseries in this area. I I want 10 more designers that do exactly what I do because there's so much demand, there's so many people that need this. And I mean, even if you just market it to your neighborhood, absolutely like let's start growing food together.

SPEAKER_00 14:26

And it's I mean, at the end of the day, I think designing a food forest is equal parts science and art, you know, because you do want this aesthetic function and everything needs to jive and flow together, and then there is uh like this science of these things require this, these things require you. So it's like that understanding, and you know, but every but you know what you need is gonna be different. Yeah, you know, if you want something that's like the shire and you have that well, hiring a designer who's never seen Lord of the Rings and has no idea what you're talking about, they'll get they'll give you a good design, but it may not be that shire vibe. But if you have somebody who loves Lord of the Rings and they love the Shire and you want that Shire design, they're gonna give you something that's like truly inspired artistically for that design.

SPEAKER_01 15:07

Every designer's got their own unique take and their own unique vent uh bend, you know, to it. And their own passions, and their own passions.

SPEAKER_00 15:14

If you were asking me to come up with a design, I'd probably come up with something more agroforestry where you have your rows designed to produce like an orchard. I like the you know, foresty design, like but that's just how I I naturally look at things. Yeah, that's your gravitation. If you have like you, I've know that you always lean more towards the how the ecosystem blends together and you can get the color sciences of it. And oh yeah, so it's just all those different combinations.

SPEAKER_01 15:39

Yeah, oh, totally. So let's get into these tips. So if people are gonna be hiring a designer, what would be the first thing that you would recommend that people consider if they've decided I want to hire a designer, an installer, or someone to mentor me along the way?

SPEAKER_00 15:53

I would just first of all know your designer. Look at what you're getting into, you know. And how do you get to know them then? Well, there's multiple ways you can in most of the time they're gonna want to put pictures up of their designs. That's the easiest way they can share it. So maybe looking at their social media, reading reviews, obviously, with any kind of sale of a you know business, you gotta see the reviews and how other people like them. But I would honestly then also look at how close they are to you. Have they lived where you are? Have they designed stuff where you are? Those are very important because you need to know is there experience for your area? Yeah, and do they actually have experience? Because you can say that you're a good designer, but then like it doesn't mean you necessarily are. I'm not throwing shade at anybody. I get it, but you know, if someone were to come up to me and like a friend and be like, hey, can you design me something? I'll be like, Yeah, I'll design for a friend. But that doesn't mean that my design is as good as Chris's, you know? It's different. It's different. I learned from him. Obviously, I have less experience, you know, and everybody's at that different level. And that doesn't mean they do bad designs, but you need to know where they are at in their training.

SPEAKER_01 16:56

Yeah, yep. And I think knowing their experience level, where did they get their training? You know, did they do a design course? Have they been to college, you know, or university setting? Did they have post-secondary schooling stuff, or did they get a you know, a certificate of soil biology from somewhere? Have they or did they just work with somebody? Did they just work with somebody?

SPEAKER_00 17:15

Were they with an established designer for many years and are now you know and how long is many years?

SPEAKER_01 17:20

Is it three years and now I'm an experienced designer? Or is it 10 years and you're an experienced designer? Because those years matter, because especially with food forestry, it takes five years to get to a semi-mature tree, and you're looking at seven to ten years before it's a mature system. So if a designer is designing for you and they've not installed or seen a system come to maturity somewhere yet, just know their experience level. It doesn't mean they're a bad designer, they might still be a good fit for you. Um, and they might still be a good fit for your budget. I know several designers who are fairly new that they're, I mean, fairly new, they're like less than five years old and they do phenomenal designs, fantastic design work, and they're very new in the game, you know. So the the less years, I'm not looking down on somebody because they're young, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 18:10

And that might be where um finding somebody that may have worked with somebody previously might come into benefit.

SPEAKER_01 18:17

Yeah. And I think working with that other person and also working with other people in other growing zones cultivates and develops different experience. So for me now, of course, I mean, obviously, I live in Central Florida right now and I have for uh several years. But, you know, looking back, I mean, I lived most of my young adult life in Michigan and 17 years in Kansas City, like I know I know my growing zones, you know. I can I can, you know, farm in the snow or I can farm in the sugar sand, you know. But I think asking a designer, what is your experience theoretically? That's important. What's your experience in the textbook? What's your experience in the field? And where have you designed? Have you designed in Norway or in South Korea or whatever? You know?

SPEAKER_00 19:03

And and leaning into the where you design, it I think is very, very, very, very important that your designer has designed place designs in your area because what works in another area may not work in another. Now that just because they design other places doesn't mean they don't know how to design yours. Right. Because one benefit is that if you like your case, you've had very vast climate differences of where you've lived, you know all these methods that are different than what you do in Florida. That doesn't mean they're not applicable here because you know those methods in depth, so you know exactly why they don't work here or how they would be applicable here.

SPEAKER_01 19:37

So I can help those northerners coming down here learn how to adapt.

SPEAKER_00 19:41

Well, no, because a lot of people who are in New York, especially. I talked to somebody two weeks ago and they were talking about they just moved down from New York like under a year ago, and they were like, Yeah, it just growing here sucks because they are used to their vegetables, they grow annuals and they try to do it the same way, and of course, it all it just don't work. It don't work. And so I was ex- I was explaining to like the different types and stuff like that, and it and you know it it helps, but you have to know why it's not working. Yes, yes, just as importantly as what does work.

SPEAKER_01 20:14

I don't know if you see that, but that's here's a rant incoming. I can see this, I can see this rant incoming. Can I just can I have like one to two minutes to go on a small rant? We're good. Um this is a long episode. I know one of my one of my pet peeves is when there's an out-of-state designer that does not have experience, especially in the state that I'm in in Florida, and you know, they try to do things here that don't work somewhere else. And we're not gonna say any company names, like no installer, no designer names, but I will say I've redesigned other people's designs many, many times. And some of these design companies will hire someone from out of state, one of them in particular that is very well known in Florida, has people out of the country doing their design work and putting in northern Michigan apple trees in central Florida. And I'll walk in and look at this design and go, who did this for you? Oh, yeah, it was this company. And I was like, oh, it's a Florida company. And the more I look into it, I'm like, oh, they hired someone from France or from Puerto Rico. Now, could someone from France or Puerto Rico design here? Sure, if they've got the experience, if they've got the background, if they've ever touched Florida sand, I think it's very doable. But it goes back to what you were saying before of know that there's a danger of hiring someone who's out of your state, but there can also be benefit if they have the experience level. But the experience has to be able to back it up in some way, you know?

SPEAKER_00 21:37

So and yeah, that's why I kind of lean towards like trying to find somebody. I mean, obviously you want to support local business when applicable, and obviously it's a case by case basis, but I always try to lean towards somebody who I could drive to their their house theoretically if I wanted to, comfortably. Mainly just because they're living in the same climate um and they're just experiencing the same weather, so they can give a little bit more insight. Because even here in Florida, the climate's kind of swung a little bit back and forth the last 10 years of it used to be very subtropical. Now I'm saying it's more like Mediterranean in the inlands because it's just so dry now. Yeah. And it's like, okay, well if you're going off of historical records, that may not even be helpful for you. Right. Even if you've lived in Florida before, now you kind of have to like, okay, well you're not here. You don't know what's happening. Boots on the ground type thing. That doesn't mean everybody's going to be like that because if you're well learned and you know all of this. Then you can adapt. Then you can adapt just fine.

SPEAKER_01 22:29

But so I think so tip number one is know your designer. Tip number two is make sure they know the growing zone. Like are you familiar with the growing zone that you're designing in my suggestion would be tip number three is look and see if they're a mad scientist because there's a good part of them that's a mad scientist and there's a dangerous part that's a mad scientist. I love nursery owners that are a little bit mad scientists because they encourage you to try a new variety and a new species. And you know it's like daisy tree. We've never grown daisy tree in Florida and it smells like chocolate chip cookie dough. Fantastic plant by the way I'm obsessed with it. You know we've never done it before I love getting those new tips from mad scientists. I don't want to put all my eggs in the basket of growing mangoes on a property where it probably is not going to work. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:16

You know? Well and that's and that's where I think you really need to find a designer who's willing to say no to you. Yeah. You want a mad scientist because they're going to be super knowledgeable and they're going to tell you you know what's what's that push you know because I I love pushing the edge. But like in the last you know couple months we've had we've had a lot I've seen a lot of people on social media who've been encouraging pushing the edge and no judgment to them because I'm doing the exact same thing. A little bit in certain areas. But they're pushing the zone and then you get that one in a million hundred year flood 100 year freeze type situation and then boom all the stuff that you were kind of you know pushing the edge on I'm good because most of the time it doesn't get cold and most of the time it doesn't get dry. Well you just lost it. Yeah. Because you were already pushing it on an on a stable year and now you're on an unstable year and then boom you just lost it. But having said that you also need somebody who's willing to say hey don't do that. Don't do that. Because like as much as it's good to have them as a mad scientist, you yourself can also get tripped up in that you know like I'm saying like I'm doing you I will say and I know you got a story for this.

SPEAKER_01 24:22

Yeah I will say the biggest question that I get usually from newer clients is so what kind of apples can I grow in Florida? So and I I hate to say it but it's like I usually start with something like do you want me to lie to you or you want me to be honest with you? And I let them choose. And some of them are like just tell me what kind of apple and I'm like okay do Anna or Dorset. Now if they say tell me the truth I just say skip apples in Florida because the truth is is like when you go to a grocery store you know and you get an apple and you bite into it and you're like oh it's not a good apple. That is Florida's best apple year ever. Yep. You know and so it's like you gotta you gotta kind of know this a little bit. So talk to us a little bit about your experience with apples because I know you have it. Well yeah I know you have it.

SPEAKER_00 25:07

So we were talking right before the right before the show and I had I was discussing with uh a client I will say client for you know ambiguity's sake um and they really wanted some apples. And I I you know I'm my goal there was to sell them some plants. They were you know but I looked them dead in the eye and I was like are you sure? Because I I'm like I I wouldn't I wouldn't because they were here with their family and they were you know it was a family day for them. And I said I don't think you should and they were they were like North Ocala area so they're significantly colder than where I was having a discussion with them. Not that it's that much better but you know it's it is it is quite a few degrees difference. And um I was like I I mean yeah that's good but uh you're not gonna get good apples. I'm like you're gonna get them once every eight years potentially because it's really dependent on how cold it gets they're not gonna get the chill hours and um I I think it's a waste of your money and a waste of your time. Yeah. And they were like well we don't care. We just really love apples. Our kids are obsessed and we really care about where our apple where our food's coming from which is their whole reason for their garden. And they said we just really love apples and we don't care that it's gonna taste like the worst apple in the grocery store because we know exactly what's in the apple. Right. And I'm like you know that's fair enough. Yep. And if they're gonna do that in front of it if they're happy with it I mean that's what matters is they're happy. You're happy. And so yeah if they were cool with it and I'm like cool I don't have any problem with selling you this apple. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:26

And I think it's important to look for those designers that will be honest with you and say that is going to give you a great fruit or I don't think you're gonna be as happy with that as what you thought.

SPEAKER_00 26:36

And honestly regardless of which way you go both are right answers. It's just the fact of you just have to know and you have to have somebody who's willing to say this is a bad idea but I will support you in that but I want you to be as in as much knowledge as you can get about this is why this may not be the best option.

SPEAKER_01 26:54

Yeah and I think that's the difference between a good designer that can make it work and an excellent designer that will help you thrive. You know and so I I'd like to even use the example of bananas and avocados. Yeah I was flipping through Instagram today and I saw this designer that has four to five four ish years of experience you know good designer and was zooming in on the food for us because I like to just see okay what exactly are they putting in and within 10 or so feet of each other they have an avocado and a banana tree. Now is that technically going to work yeah technically technically sort of yeah sort of they will survive will they both give you fruit yes it is an acceptable practice I would say barely acceptable primarily because over time what that designer is going to learn is that um avocados like it high and dry they love to dry out thoroughly in between those waterings they don't like damp moisture and all it takes is as soon as the taproot hits the water table the whole tree's dead the whole tree's dead yep so we got our avocados up here bananas are the opposite they like it low they like it continually moist they want all the food so can they survive on the same playing field? Sure. But should they survive? No. And so it's like can you have a designer who's gonna give you all those things on your property? Sure. Is it the best practice? Probably not and there is a way to have them both on the same property but with good design.

SPEAKER_00 28:19

I and I've seen a few designs that I think worked decently well. There's a few that I've seen where it's like a berm swale situation where it was a dryish area so the avocado wasn't going to dry out but the swale was catching a lot of water so the banana was soaking it up. So I I've seen ways I've also seen some that the banana is not a fruit it's more of a chop and drop chop and drop you still can have issues with that but there there are ways to do it just because they do things like that doesn't mean it's necessarily bad. But you do have to be will you know you have to know okay well is this designer you know you know you give them a list of all the fruit you really love are they just gonna slap them all together and give it to you back or are they gonna say well your property's too wet for avocados or your property's too dry for bananas. Yeah if you have you know a hundred square feet backyard and they give you avocado and they give you a mango and they give you bananas and they give you an apple tree and they give you a peach all of those things together in a that small of a backyard right something's gonna not be happy you know are they going to tell you no that doesn't mean that they don't want you to be happy that means they do want you to be they want you to be happy they want you to be happy in the long term and they care you know about those pieces.

SPEAKER_01 29:26

So to review those we've got our know our designer know their experience number two was are they familiar with your growing zone? Number three is are they a mad scientist in balance? It's okay to be a little bit of a mad scientist.

SPEAKER_00 29:40

You don't want to you know overweigh that too much are they willing to support your mad scientist or are they willing to kind of rein you back in a little bit and that's the number four is are they willing to tell you no like a good friend?

SPEAKER_01 29:50

Like hey I was telling him before this like somebody the other day and my friend Liz downtown she was like yeah I want to introduce you to so and so also you need a haircut. You're looking a little haggard these days and I was like oh dang you know that's a good friend that goes you know you're looking a little haggard these days so she reined me back in you know a little bit so and I appreciate that that's a good friend which is also a good designer that says hey you know you're you're a little bit too off base here. And then our fifth um recommendation is to encourage you to prepare or to compare prices. You know Florida market is one of the most expensive that I know and I have a theory on that. I think a lot of the reason why Florida is so expensive is people come here to retire. And when they come here to retire they don't want to do all of the work. So they're willing to pay the price whatever that is to just have it done to walk away and now I got my beautiful food forest. Well that has caused major inflation in the installation world like I kid you not I was talking to a friend the other day they had the sides of their house done and the front traditional landscape I'm talking palms and like agave and whatever$19,000 to I about crap my pants can I say crapped on a podcast I can always blur it I about mess myself I'm like$19,000 for literally the sides of your house and the front but it's because people in the villages are willing to pay it. These retirees are moving in are willing to pay it I don't think you have to pay that much.

SPEAKER_00 31:22

Well and I also think too because we were in a situation where there was only a couple like maybe a dozen in food forest installers for a long time that they were having to service such a large area and they were giving the I don't want to do this price. And because just because they don't have enough time to do it. So it's like you throw a ridiculous number out there and then people start saying yes because there's no other option well then new people come in and they're like oh well that's how much they're charging I'll just slightly go under than that because I'm less experienced but they're still hugely inflated compared and then I'm not hating on anybody but then yeah the fact of the matter is is that you charge ridiculous prices and you have retirees who have ridiculous money and you end up with this snowballing out of out of control.

SPEAKER_01 32:04

And you don't have to pay it you can and there are some designers I would call them like or not designers installers or some design or installers good that are premium gosh they're premium installers that they do premium mulch premium rocks they do 100 gallon trees that they're and that is worth a bigger price.

SPEAKER_00 32:24

Well and also look at what you're what they're buying too because like everything costs money so where where is the money going in like is it a cheap design because you're getting mediocre plants you know like from you know some growers they're not really careful about what they're growing and keeping things labeled so you're getting maybe a you know uh fruit uh was it fruit punch mango but it may not be a fruit punch mango right now is the mulch you know coming in and it's you know full of termites that's a those those new hybrid termites that are coming into Florida is like oh my gosh they probably came from New York you know are they are they doing you know high quality compost are they doing stuff that like may be contaminated you know there's there's a lot of um organic fertilizers previous years that have had weed killer in them and it's like yeah they're they're giving you a high quality or they're charging you a lot of money but they're also actually making sure that you're getting a good quality product. Correct correct so sometimes the cost and that and then that's I think going back to that um that list of how to install a food for us is like kind of go through there and kind of in your head okay how much should you be spending on each thing so then you can kind of make an in just to kind of match what their quote is yeah a little bit of just where are they spending this money because you want them to get paid well but you also want to make sure that you're getting a good product.

SPEAKER_01 33:39

Yeah and I'm not we're not hating on any designers on any installers on any other mentorship programs. The encouragement we're trying to make is know them understand them and do what is best for your property for your body and for your family for your house. Like you are not just a steward of your land you're the steward of your house and your family and your marriage and your kids you know and at the end of the day this is the whole reason you'd want to get an installer is to set your family up yeah for success.

SPEAKER_00 34:09

You don't have the time and you would rather spend your you know your one week day of the week or two days of the week that you have with your family with your family rather than forcing them out into the sun. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:19

Yep and so and I think that boils us down to kind of two scenarios is if you're in the DIY, the reason why you do this is it's best for your family. It's best for your kids and your marriage and your time and your finances to go on that learning journey to do it yourself to go on that curve or is it better for your family to hire the design done or hire the installation done and then you can enjoy it together. You're cooking together you're in the garden together you're picking flowers together you're picking fruit together and there's a growth process there that can only happen then that you may not want to wait for 10 years.

SPEAKER_00 34:55

So I think there's really two scenarios of like is this good for my family to do it myself or is it better for my family you know to be set up a little bit in the process can I can I quick tangent oh yeah I have my my pet peeve and this this may sound very mean considering you do do designs and stuff for people but I have a huge pet peeve of people who buy expensive designs and then they have no interest in actually being in the garden. Huge pet peeve of mine like to the point of like is food forest installations even worth it kind of level because yeah you you have the the technically the third option which is they hire a design they don't take care of it the design then falls apart because you gotta love it. No it's like a baby you wouldn't have a baby and then not take care of it and then wonder why is my baby not doing well. Yes. Like you've got to be a part of it. That's well that's why I love the idea of doing it yourself. Not because I don't like designers is because if you're doing it yourself you know that the only way you're having a food for is if you're working in it. Yep. So if you're with the designer here's another thing I hope would you be would the designer be willing to like let you be a part of the installation if you have time oh yeah because I know some people are like I want to be out here we did an installation and Kristen and uh salt springs I didn't know if I were fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 36:15

Oh man but like we we she is the biggest learner. She wants to be a part of it.

SPEAKER_00 36:20

She wants to be in the garden and we had such a fun time because we filmed the whole thing because this is her like business too. Yeah and so it was like a very much like she wanted to talk about the different aspects of her garden because it's all about wellness and stuff like that. But she was out there I think was it she we didn't have time the first time around but the second time we were out there working whole time she was out there the whole time with us she did like I don't know it was so we were out there like sweating our butts off and she's right there with us.

SPEAKER_01 36:43

She's planting things putting in mulch and she her food forest is one of the most successful for a young food forest it's a year year and a half old it is so successful because she is connected she is a part of that and that has totally set you know that apart and I I I think that's the biggest game changer for her is her connectedness her emotional connectedness her physical connectedness the time that she spends out there. And I'll be honest and I hope this person isn't listening I turned down a client this week I don't know if I even told you this I turned down a client this week because they wanted to know would you design it would you install it and would you come back and do all the maintenance for me and I just said no and and they were like I've had a couple neighbors that were like wanting me to do a design for them but then they wanted me to do all the maintenance. I'm like I can't and also why uh why do you even want this and she was like well we just want to have the food for us and just eat and I just said well I'll be honest with you I don't install trophy food forest I I install food forest for you to be and I you know I declined them I just said I'm not the best designer for you um I they're probably listening I'm screwed whatever you don't give me a bad Google review but I just graciously said but I'm not a good designer for you don't give him a bad review because he wanted you to be set up for success.

SPEAKER_00 37:56

He could have just taken your money I mean at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_01 38:00

I mean that's yeah but honestly it takes we have to be focused on family first family before function my friend Ben used to say that all the time family has to come before the function of it you know we don't want to sacrifice our integrity just to have a bigger check or a bigger fruit tree or a better food for us. It boils down to family and I think that's why we even we do this podcast is to help people do it on your own to help people hire the right parts of it done avoid the mistakes that we've made you know you've made several years of mistakes I've made 25 years of mistakes I'm still correcting mine now.

SPEAKER_00 38:34

I haven't had the time to fully correct every mistake that I've you know just design mistakes.

SPEAKER_01 38:38

So please learn from those mistakes exactly and also my tea is gone. So this was a great chat a great talk. So if you would take a minute do the social media thing for us do the like subscribe the follow the whatever leave a comment for us we've got some new equipment so let us know if it's good if it's bad.

SPEAKER_00 38:56

Yeah it's gonna be all over the place still learning how to run this thing and get these connected so it's but it's been fun it's a learning experience.

SPEAKER_01 39:02

It's been fun all right we'll see you guys in the next one. Talk to you soon later