Gardening

Life and How to Live It Podcast with Dr. Rocco
Season 2, Episode 1: Gardening with Kathy Smith
Host: Dr. Rocco | Guest: Kathy Smith

Episode Overview

In this episode of Life and How to Live It, I begin Season 2 with a conversation about something that seems simple on the surface, but is actually full of wisdom, patience, beauty, humility, and life lessons: gardening.

My guest for this episode is Kathy Smith, and together we explore not just how to garden, but why gardening matters. This conversation is about soil, seeds, plants, flowers, vegetables, planning, patience, and trial and error. But more than that, it is about what the garden can teach us about how to live.

Gardening invites us to slow down. It teaches us that growth takes time. It reminds us that we are not fully in control, even when we plan carefully. We can prepare the soil, choose the seeds, water the plants, protect them as best we can, and still have to accept that weather, timing, insects, disease, and nature itself all play a role.

That, to me, is one of the great lessons of gardening. It is an act of hope, but also an act of surrender.

Why Gardening Is More Than a Hobby

One of the things I appreciate about Kathy is the way she understands gardening as more than simply planting things in the ground. Gardening is physical, mental, emotional, and even spiritual.

When we garden, we use our bodies. We bend, dig, lift, carry, weed, water, prune, and harvest. It gets us outside and connects us with fresh air, sunlight, movement, and the changing seasons.

But gardening also does something for the mind. It gives us something to focus on that is real and alive. In a world where so much of life happens through screens, schedules, notifications, and noise, gardening brings us back to something basic and grounding.

There is a kind of peace that comes from putting your hands in the soil. There is satisfaction in seeing something grow because you cared for it. There is also humility in realizing that even with all your effort, nature has the final say.

Getting Started Without Being Overwhelmed

A major theme in this conversation is that gardening does not have to be intimidating. You do not need acres of land, expensive tools, or years of experience to begin.

Kathy helps remind us that a person can start small. A few herbs in pots, a small raised bed, a container garden, or one corner of a yard can be enough. Sometimes people avoid gardening because they think they have to do everything at once. But like many things in life, it is better to begin with what is manageable.

Start with a few plants. Learn what grows well where you live. Pay attention to how much sun the area receives. Learn how water moves through the soil. Notice what thrives and what struggles.

Gardening is not something you master in one season. It is something you learn by doing.

The Importance of Soil

One of the practical lessons that comes through in this episode is the importance of soil. Beginners often think gardening is mainly about the plant, but Kathy points us back to the foundation.

Healthy soil makes a tremendous difference.

If the soil is poor, compacted, lacking nutrients, or not draining well, the plant will struggle no matter how much effort you put into it. That is such a good life lesson. What is happening beneath the surface matters.

In life, we often focus on visible results: success, achievement, productivity, appearance, performance. But underneath all of that is the “soil” of our lives — our habits, relationships, health, values, rest, and spiritual grounding. If those things are neglected, growth becomes harder.

In the garden, we may need compost, organic matter, mulch, and time to build healthier soil. In life, we also need to tend to the conditions that allow us to grow.

Patience and Timing

Gardening is a wonderful teacher of patience.

You cannot rush a seed. You cannot force a tomato to ripen before its time. You cannot demand that a flower bloom because you are ready to see it. Growth has its own rhythm.

That is difficult for many of us because we live in a world of speed. We want quick answers, fast results, instant delivery, and immediate change. Gardening gently pushes back against that.

It says: wait, watch, tend, and trust.

This is one of the reasons I think gardening fits so beautifully with the theme of this podcast. Life also has seasons. There are times of planting, times of waiting, times of pruning, times of harvest, and times when things appear dormant but something is still happening beneath the surface.

Kathy’s experience reminds us that timing matters. Planting too early, too late, too much, or in the wrong place can affect the outcome. But even when things do not go as planned, we learn.

Learning From Mistakes

Another important part of gardening is accepting mistakes.

Every gardener has had plants fail. Every gardener has planted something in the wrong place, watered too much or too little, underestimated pests, misread the season, or expected more than the garden could give.

But that is not failure in the deepest sense. That is education.

Kathy’s approach encourages us to see gardening as a learning process. Each season gives feedback. The garden tells you what worked and what did not. You adjust, try again, and grow along with it.

That is a lesson for life as well. We do not get everything right the first time. We make decisions, we see the results, and then we learn. The mistake itself is not the end of the story. What matters is whether we are paying attention.

The Joy of Growing Food

We also talk about the special joy that comes from growing food.

There is something deeply satisfying about harvesting something from your own garden. It may be a tomato, a pepper, lettuce, herbs, beans, or a handful of something small, but when you grow it yourself, it feels different.

You understand the work behind it. You appreciate the taste more. You become more aware of where food comes from and how much effort goes into producing it.

Growing food can also reconnect us with family traditions. Many of us have memories of parents, grandparents, neighbors, or relatives who grew things, cooked from the garden, shared produce, or had a deep respect for the land. Gardening can become a way to remember, preserve, and pass on those traditions.

For children especially, gardening can be a wonderful teacher. It helps them see where food comes from. It gives them responsibility. It lets them experience wonder. A child who watches a seed become a plant may begin to see the natural world differently.

Beauty, Flowers, and the Soul

Gardening is not only practical. It is also beautiful.

Flowers, trees, shrubs, and ornamental plants add something to our lives that is hard to measure. Beauty matters. A garden can lift the spirit. It can create a place of peace. It can become a space for reflection, conversation, prayer, or simply quiet enjoyment.

Kathy and I reflect on the fact that gardens do not have to be perfect to be meaningful. A garden does not need to look like a magazine photo. It does not need to impress anyone. It simply needs to be alive, cared for, and connected to the person tending it.

That is another life lesson. We often chase perfection when what we really need is presence.

Gardening and Community

One of the beautiful things about gardening is that it naturally leads to sharing.

Gardeners share seeds, cuttings, advice, tools, stories, vegetables, flowers, and lessons learned the hard way. Gardening creates conversation between neighbors. It brings generations together. It encourages people to ask questions and learn from one another.

It is also a reminder that we are part of something larger. The garden is not only about us. It involves bees, butterflies, birds, worms, insects, microbes, rain, sun, and soil. When we garden, we participate in a living system.

That awareness can make us more thoughtful and more grateful.

What Gardening Teaches Us About Life

For me, the heart of this episode is the connection between gardening and life.

Gardening teaches us to prepare, but not control everything.

It teaches us to be patient, but not passive.

It teaches us to work hard, but also to wait.

It teaches us that pruning can lead to growth.

It teaches us that some things need to be removed so healthier things can flourish.

It teaches us that beauty can come from dirt.

It teaches us that small seeds can produce abundance.

It teaches us that even after a difficult season, another season can come.

These are not just gardening lessons. These are life lessons.

My Takeaway

My biggest takeaway from this conversation with Kathy is that gardening is one of those ordinary activities that can become extraordinary when we pay attention.

It can feed us, calm us, humble us, strengthen us, and remind us of truths we easily forget. We are living beings in a living world. We need light, nourishment, patience, care, and room to grow.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Do you sometimes feel like life is passing it? How would you like to get more out of life? We explore all things life on this podcast. Welcome to the Life and How to Live It podcast with Dr. Roger.

SPEAKER_03 0:20

Life and how to live. Dream, create, connect, just live.

SPEAKER_01 0:29

Welcome to another episode of the Life and How to Live It podcast with me, Dr. Rocco. Welcome to the first episode in season two. In today's episode, we will be discussing gardening. Gardening is an extremely popular hobby with about 150 million Americans who garden on some level. It is popular with people of all ages, with about one-third of all gardeners being part of the millennial generation. I am excited to be joined for today's episode by a fantastic guest, Kathy Smith. Kathy's family has lived and farmed in Duchess County, New York for centuries. As the first non-farming generation, she has turned her roots into a passion for ornamental gardening, focused on creating beauty while being a steward of the land. Her former career was at an international technology company where she worked on mainframe and subsystems design. Later in her career, Kathy led architecture projects across the US, Canada, Europe, South America, and Asia as vice president of global projects. She has master's degrees in both mathematics and computer science. Now in retirement, she is involved in nonprofits with her vision to be a part of preserving the natural beauty of the Hudson Valley. She is a master gardener, a national program sponsored by the state's cooperative extensions, and has taught numerous gardening classes and designed several local gardens. Continuing to love the creativity found in math, she tutors fourth and fifth grade math in the city schools. In addition to gardening, she enjoys biking, hiking, kayaking on the Hudson River, cross-country skiing, reading, and spending time with her grandchildren. Kathy, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_00 2:37

Thank you, Rocco. Thanks for inviting me, and it's a pleasure to be here.

SPEAKER_01 2:42

I am really happy that you're here with me today to talk about this really important topic. Now, a few months ago, I was having a conversation with a common friend of ours, and they mentioned to me that you are a Master Gardener. Now that's a term that I really hadn't heard before. Can you explain what that is?

SPEAKER_00 3:05

Sure, that's that's quite a title. The Master Gardener Program is actually a national program, and it's sponsored through a partnership between the state's land grant colleges and the local cooperative extensions. So, for example, in New York State, the land grant college or university is Cornell. In New Jersey, it would be Rutgers, in Connecticut, it would be the University of Connecticut, and every state has a land grant college. And the curriculum consists of courses that are research-based, horticultural nature. Things we were taught are things like the soil health. It all starts with the soil, and uh plant botany, plant pathology, composting, pest management. And so it's several months of coursework followed by several years of volunteering. And the volunteering is really community service, things like participating in gardening projects, teaching classes, answering emails on gardening questions, answering the phone on gardening questions, etc. So in my retirement, it was a perfect mix of my continuing my horticultural learning and giving back to the community.

SPEAKER_01 4:24

Yeah, I mean, that sounds like quite a rigorous program. You know, I guess someone with your background and with two degrees and, you know, mathematics and computer science, you wanted something with rigor.

SPEAKER_00 4:37

I did. And I wanted something outdoors.

SPEAKER_01 4:40

Yeah, I I think that's it, that's a good segue. I I had this question for you because, you know, I just alluded to this computer science and mathematics and all the the kinds of work that you did in the past. And and, you know, that's pretty different from gardening. So what was it that attracted you to gardening and how did you get started?

SPEAKER_00 5:02

Well, I guess I'd have to look back way back to um my youth. I grew up on my family's dairy farm where my brothers and sisters and I were outdoors all the time. And in the warmer seasons, not only were we outdoors, but we were running around in our bare feet. Um, you can't get more grounded to the earth than that. My father used to say he could plant potatoes between my toes. And actually, he did plant potatoes because he had a huge vegetable garden. And when I was young, it seemed like it went on and on forever. And before we could play on the weekend, we all had to weed four rows each. And if you were conscientious, you could finish a row in an hour. Well, of course, we were never, ever, ever conscientious. And especially during the harvest season, we did a lot of fooling around. We would hide among the rows of corn, we would throw rotten tomatoes at each other. And it was during this time that I vowed I would never ever garden. I would never vegetable garden. But now looking back and looking at those geometric patterns of the rows and eating all those wonderful vegetables, I grew up my whole life eating only the vegetables from that organic garden. Back then we didn't know anything about chemicals. It was the kids who weeded and picked off the ugly bugs. Um, and I am very fortunate to have been in that situation where it was outdoors in the air, eating these vegetables, which I think so contributed to my health. Um, I have to mention I never missed a day of school or college or work due to illness. And I was very fortunate. And so when during actually I went away to college, I came back, joined this big tech company, worked many more hours than I ever should, traveled the world, and every single day I wanted to be outdoors. I didn't think I was gonna make it the first two years because staying in an office, mostly without windows, in front of a computer screen, um it was hard. But I did make it. And during the time that I was working, my husband and I did buy an old farm, 250-year-old farm with lots of land. And we said, oh man, it would be really great to plant a vineyard. We both are wine connoisseurs, and with my farming background, I thought, hmm, we can do this. Little did I know that growing fruit was absolutely no different than growing a vegetable. You still have to plant, you still have to weed, you still have to harvest. Harvest is much longer. And the worst part was that in the Hudson Valley, you must spray chemicals. And I hated that part. I got my pesticide license and I did it. But as soon as I retired, we pulled out every single vine.

SPEAKER_01 7:58

You pulled out all the vines, all the vines with great cheering. It must have taken a lot to put the vines in in the first place.

SPEAKER_00 8:07

Oh, it did. It was definitely a labor of love.

SPEAKER_01 8:09

And everyone, but but you just said you were cheering as you were pulling the vines out. I was yeah, okay. So so you pulled the vines out because why?

SPEAKER_00 8:21

It was the work was too hard and the reward was too little. Five minutes down the road is a fabulous wine store. Our wine was not good. You know, one of the things we learned along the way that in order to grow red wine, you need a longer growing season and you need to spray more often. I did not spray more often, and our growing season was short. And our last two harvests, harvests, we lost everything to birds and to um mildew because it was a very rainy season. So the reward wasn't there.

SPEAKER_01 8:55

Yeah. So there, so okay, you you guys decided to pull out the vines. Well uh what was in your mind at that time? What did you already know what you were going to put in in its place?

SPEAKER_00 9:07

No, no, I I did know though that I wanted to be educated more on horticulture because we really struggled with the vineyard, and I still wanted to grow something. Well, actually, I wanted to landscaping our property so it was even more beautiful than it was. So I figured if I could learn more about horticulture, I could um be better at figuring out how to landscape. And when I took the courses, I I just fell in love with ornamental gardening. After taking the classes and visiting gardens and being with so many people that were enthusiastic about gardening, flowers and vegetables, um, I fell in love with the flower gardening. And it gave me a sense of purpose, gave me a sense of accomplishment. Um, it was beauty to the eye. I was getting back to the earth, and you mentioned my math background. I'm still solving puzzles every day, still today. It's all a puzzle. You have to figure out what plant goes where and likes what part of the earth and what part of the soil will give it nutrients. So every day I'm solving some problem in my garden.

SPEAKER_01 10:24

Yeah, I love that. I love that you're you're still using that math background and that passion that you have for gardening, which I think the average person wouldn't see the connection between math and gardening.

SPEAKER_00 10:37

Probably not.

SPEAKER_01 10:38

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:39

But you don't have to be a mathematician to love gardening. Um, actually, most people start, as did I, with just loving some plant that we saw in a nursery or some plant that somebody talked about being so awesome. And you just stick it in the ground without a lot of thought to design. Hopefully you had some thought about sun or shade. But in the beginning, I did not think a lot about design, but I did as I went further and further into the project.

unknown 11:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:10

Yeah. Well, you have alluded a little bit to my next question, you know, which is is what is it that you love about gardening? You know, like I know a lot of people who garden. Um my parents were were avid gardeners, you know. I I grew up not quite the way you did, but you know, my father had a pretty large vegetable garden, and he loved his vegetable garden. You know, he had a pretty, kind of a pretty stressful kind of job. Um, and it seemed that his vegetable garden was really therapy. You know, he would he had a a little stool and he would sit out in his garden amongst all like the uh the green beans and the tomatoes and stuff like that, and uh and and just think and relax, you know. My mother was um someone who had an incredible green thumb for for um flowers, and uh she had a lovely herb garden, and she had a lot of houseplants, and you know, and that's just my parents, you know. I have I know a lot of other people who garden and and love it and would never imagine a life without gardening. Now, I do not share this passion for some reason. So tell me what you love about gardening.

SPEAKER_00 12:32

Well, Rocco, we'll get back to that, but I think you actually you do love an aspect of gardening. Gardening has a lot of benefits. One of them is more mental and emotional, which we were relating about your father de-stressing in the garden. You know, gardening awakens all your senses, you know, your sense of touch, you know, smell, sight, sound, taste. You know, when I'm in the when you're digging in the soil, the soil has a texture of its own. In everybody's garden, it the soil is different texture. Um, the smell, you know, if you grow mint or right now with the peonies are just filling the air with fragrance. And lilacs, everybody knows the smell of lilacs. And for me, I love lavender. I grow a lot of lavender, and you just have to brush by it, and the scent just lifts your day. And the sight for me of the colors and the textures, um, they just make me happy. And the sounds, you you you get you may not be a gardener, but when you're out there, you're hearing the birds and you're hearing the bees and the squirrels chewing on something and the hawks in the background. So the sounds are wonderful, and if you're growing vegetables, there's nothing better than a fresh tomato. And all these senses are part of raising your neural transmitter of uh serotonin and uh dopamine, so it really lifts your spirits, and that sense of purpose that you have in gardening. You talked about your father being around the green beans and the tomatoes, that was his sense of purpose and accomplishment. He was growing something that was there was a reward for him. So, also for me, I'm an environmentalist at heart. My mother was a huge conservationist before I even knew what that term meant. And I feel like I'm giving back to the earth. I I do not use pesticides, I do not use any chemicals, and I'm trying to leave the soil better than I found it. You know, being on a 250-year-old farm, the land was compressed. So planting anything in the soil loosens the soil, makes room for more moisture, microbes, etc. etc. And when you're out there, there's a lot of other benefits too, besides just the mental. It's almost like you're in a mind, a mindless state almost. You're weeding, you're deadheading, and all of a sudden that's all you're thinking about, and your troubles kind of go away and you de-stress.

SPEAKER_01 15:12

Yeah, I um I had an episode in season one about flow state, you know, and and I think that you know, weeding, you know, all gardening could, you know, could put you in a flow state. But something about weeding, I think, specifically, because it is kind of mindless and and right? Would you agree with that?

SPEAKER_00 15:34

Absolutely mindless, and it's repetitive, and that rhythm, as you talk about the flow, you get into, you're soon into the flow and you're not thinking about anything else. You go, ah, there's another clover, there's another nightshade, oh, there's that worst weed ever, creeping Charlie, and you're just that's that's your mind is off and running, and the troubles that you were thinking about yesterday aren't there at the moment.

SPEAKER_01 15:58

Yeah. And and so, you know, I think, you know, if if you are listening and you haven't checked out that episode, look for the episode on flow state in season one. It it kind of will talk about what's going on neurologically when you get kind of in that weeding and you're and all you're focused on is finding that next weed and not thinking about, you know, does some, you know, what does somebody think of me or what is my schedule like or something like that. So um, okay, so we've you've talked a little bit about um kind of mental health and peace of mind and that stuff. What about physical benefits?

SPEAKER_00 16:38

Oh, there's a tremendous amount of physical benefits. You know, as a as a youth, all through high school and college, I played every sport imaginable. I was always active. I was a competitive runner. Um, and now as you retire and start to slow down a bit, you I still want to be active, but I know I can't do that high impact that I used to do. So gardening is a way that I can stay physical and active. You know, your doctors tell you keep moving, keep moving. And in the garden, you're always moving, be it planting, be it weeding, be it deadheading, being just walking through to enjoy it, you're always moving and you're always stretching. And you mentioned your dad and his stool. You know, you're if you're using a stool in the garden, which I highly recommend, you're you're balancing, you're keeping your balance on that stool. And the doctors are always telling you, you know, keep your balance, keep things in, keep your mobility, and garden does all that for you. Um, your hand, your eye-hand coordination is there, you know, with your clippers, you have to be very careful of what you're cutting. So the physical aspect is uh is uh a side benefit. And you're out there in the sun, you're absorbing vitamin D, which, as you know, as a doctor, is essential for calcium absorption. And it also is uh helping your lifting your hormones of your happy mood and your your reward system, so it's elevating your spirits. Um, they've also been recent studies that um make a lot of sense now that I go back and think of all the times I ran around barefoot. That the microbes in the soil, I try not to say dirts, it's really soil, is really good for you. In a teaspoon of soil, there are more microbes than there are people in the world. And they're both mostly beneficial. And they get absorbed in your skin while you're gardening, you inhale them while you're gardening, and now studies have shown that that helps raise your boost your immune system, and again, those dorfit your your uh serotonin levels again to bring out happy your mood. And if you're eating any of the vegetables that you're growing in an organic uh garden, it will all uh that translates into the vegetable that helps your gut biome. So who knew that all this was really healthy for you from a physical point of view as well?

SPEAKER_01 19:15

Who who knew that people needed to be connected to nature?

SPEAKER_02 19:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:19

Who knew? Right? Yeah, but but this thing that you're talking about with the microbes in the soil was something that I hadn't really heard before. You know, when we were talking before doing this episode, you had mentioned that, and that was really the first I had heard that that there are microbes in the soil that um can increase your serotonin level. That's and and as I was looking at it after we talked, I saw that and online. And and so that's very interesting, you know. That you know, we all know there are microbes in the soil, and we all know they may have benefits. You know, there's I think that there's a certain fear of of microbes that'll make you sick or whatever, but but they're so far outnumbered, like millions to one, you know, it's like so much more beneficial. But but that particular aspect of the serotonin increase. So serotonin, for listeners who are not familiar, you know, is really important for for mood and and um, you know, it's it's kind of what um drugs like Prozac act on is serotonin to increase your serotonin level. So why why not just do it by gardening? Right? Wouldn't that be um, you know, as a as a rehabilitation doctor, I I would also say physically, you know, you didn't explicitly say about you know all of the different types of lifting, different kinds of twisting and and and range of motion that you do when you're gardening. You know, there's a certain amount of um occasional heavy lifting and moving things from one place to another. There's a lot more sort of light to moderate lifting, there's body weight, everything, because you're squatting and kneeling and standing up and you know, twisting or whatever. So so there are a lot of um a lot of benefits to keeping your your body um limber and strong.

SPEAKER_00 21:26

That's absolutely right. And there's also wonderful tools available to help you with that lifting and moving mulch or soil around. Um so I expect to be gardening when I'm in my you know 90s, approaching 100, because of all these great tools that are at my at my disposal to make my life easier. But as you, you know, during the summer, I don't need to go to the gym because I'm doing those squats and I am lifting those bags of um uh compost. So it's great for the um what do they call weight training. Your weight training is in the garden.

SPEAKER_01 22:10

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. There's so much, you know, body weight, you know, movements that you're doing. And some with increased weight, like if you're lifting a bag of mulch or or or whatever, you're moving a pot or something in your garden. And I like that you pointed out that um that's all part of gardening. However, there are ways to kind of uh help yourself if maybe you're you've got really bad knees and it's really hard to get down. So like say you do what what if a listener is hearing this and they would love to garden but they're afraid because their knees are bad. Like what what's a kind of way to get around that?

SPEAKER_00 22:49

Well first of all you everybody needs a garden stool. Then you don't have to you don't have to bend down very much at all. And um my friends like to say my stool is my geriatric stool which I'm fine with but it's those stools that you buy to in the shower because the legs are adjustable. So you can go as high as you want or as low as you want. And if you're on a little bit of a slope you can put the front legs up a little and the back legs down. So I love my stool I use my stool every day when I garden. And it again it also helps you with your balance because you're sitting on the stool and there are wonderful small wagons that you can pull with all your gardening tools in them or to transport a pot from one place to the other. There are also wonderful gardening tools they make them very light these days shovels are lighter um holes are right lighter and I love my garden tool I it's called a Hori Hori H O R I H O R I it's about a six inch blade wide knife with a wooden handle that you can use to dig out weeds you can use to dig out a hole to plant a plant. It's just the most universal gardening tool every one of my gardening friends have one. But there are definitely ways to get around physical limitations and also there are people that love to help the garden um there are volunteers who will come and help you and also you can pay people to do the hard work I actually pay people to if I have to transplant a rather large bush or shrub I will hire someone to do that. There's ways to get around it. So I was not aware that there might be volunteers that is that an organization or something or is that just local kids or so yeah it's it's local kids and um we as a master gardener we would sometimes get calls for help and we would just put it out in the community and as one of my friends say why do you always put up your hand because you know somebody I hear that somebody's sick or somebody broke their arm and they just need to help for an hour and I was like okay I'll do it and all of the gardeners are the same they want to help they want to help people because they know what the joy you get out of gardening.

SPEAKER_01 25:18

Well that's great. So if you're listening and and you feel like you know oh I'd love to garden but I I don't I can't do it physically well maybe you can you know maybe you can with some of these tools or uh or with some help from somebody else the for the more heavy parts. Right. Now um Kathy I'm curious um do you have some tips or recommendations for people who are just starting out or people who are already gardening but would love to take their themselves to the next level?

SPEAKER_00 25:51

Sure as you know with my vineyard my I had a friend who knew something about vineyards and she she said to us whatever you do start small. That was the best advice ever so if you're just beginning gardening start small because when you start small then you see what you like and what you don't like what you can do and what you can't do. So start small and actually do some thinking about what is it that you think you like. Do you think you want a flower garden? Do you think you want a vegetable garden because you love eating fresh vegetables do you want to do more landscaping with more shrub type plants so kind of do a research on in your mind of what you might like. And then also do some assessment on your own physical limitations which we've already talked about. You know if you do have trouble bending there are ways around that just realize that and that also is a good idea to start small to see what you can do and you can't do and we also talked about tools there's a right tool for everything. And there's lots of information online about the right tools to help you if you want to lift or if you just want to move things from place to place. So the right there's always a right tool for the right job and use the right tool for the right job that will put less stress on your legs and your back and never use your back to lift always use your legs and your shoulders uh don't use your back and once you start picking out plants you know do a little research on the plants I've had a lot of failures because I just love the plant I love hydrangeas but not all hydrangeas love 100% sun. So you need to know if they like sun or shade and you know some like certain parts of the soil. So I highly recommend a soil test. I did not do that for the first several years. I did a pH test is it acid is it alkaline but that does not tell you the mineral content of your your soil and I learned that the hard way the farm that um I garden on you know for 250 years people use stuff that I don't know anything about fertilizers and chemicals and I learned the hard way that my soil needed amending so you can it's easy to send away a soil sample for just a few dollars and then they tell you not only what's in your soil but they give you recommendations of how to amend it to be the right type of soil for planting. Where would you where would you send your soil to you you can start with the your local cooperative extension they will have an absolute recommendation of where you can send it and then they'll also have alternative options for you if you don't want to do that specific laboratory. But that's the the best place to start okay all right any other suggestions yes oh and this is everybody knows this when you're gardening where your sunscreen hydrate and listen to your body I don't always use do that last one but listen to your body take breaks you know take water breaks your garden is if it's a flower garden you have lots of bees and you know bees won't sting you unless they're surprised or feel threatened. So I always garden with bees around it's just a matter of being very slow and deliberate in your motions um and they most likely will just move out of your way bees are not as active in the morning or in the evenings so you can pick your time of day I did learn a trick just last year if you if you do get stung which I did one evening when I was rushing out to cover something because it was raining and I surprised a bee, you can use a plant to take away the sting the plant's called plantain. I have it everywhere because it's a weed in my grass. So if you're a person who uses chemical on your grass you won't have any plantain. But if you don't use chemicals you've got plantain you can go look it up and as soon as you see it you'll recognize it oh I have that weed. Plantain that sounds like those banana things plantain P-L-A-N-T-A-I-N plantain weed and you'll find it okay plantain weed all right and so you take the the leaf which is an old oval leaf you take it and you screw you crush it in your fingers I actually chew it I don't use chemical so I'm fine with chewing it and you immediately put it on the bee sting and it immediately it's an astringent it sucks out the venom I I didn't believe it I I was visiting a gardener a garden and the gardener got stung he did this and he pretended like it was gone and I'm thinking sure sure sure but it actually works so okay yeah and so you know as a as a doctor I feel like I should say you know make sure that you're not allergic to bees you know and if you are you know you you need to have your epi pen with you you know so because there is that there is a small part of the population that does have a real problem with bee stings as opposed to just it hurts.

SPEAKER_01 31:24

So what about what about ticks? Ticks is something that I I particularly have a kind of a phobia about ticks.

SPEAKER_00 31:33

Yeah thanks for that question. Yeah ticks are definitely a problem and especially where we live and a couple of suggestions first of all a lot of my gardener friends people look at us and think we're you know little dorky if I can use that word long pants with the pants tucked into the socks and long sleeve shirts and the shirt is usually a light colored shirt so that you can see any type of tick because some of the ticks are the size of a poppy seed. And then after you garden do a tick check you can also spray um I'm I'm not one to spray DEET or permethrin um those are chemicals. So what I do is I spray with an organic spray um you can buy it anywhere it's usually a eucalyptus oil or a cedar wood oil or a lavender oil or a mint oil and I find that works really well. The the challenge there is you need that kind of a spray has to be done every two hours or so because it wears away the smell wears away quickly. I've taken to always use lavender soap when I shower I haven't been knock on wood I haven't had a tick bite in eight years and I'm a hiker too and a biker. So I don't know if it's a lavender soap or I'm just lucky. The other thing that Rocco you had asked me this question earlier when we were chatting and I thought you know how come I don't seem to have ticks in my garden and ticks love to live in leaf litter. I don't have any leaf litter in my garden. Under my shrubs I always clear that out during gardening season they so they're not there because they like to be wet and it's not wet under my shrub and I also mulch all around the back edge of my garden. So there's always a barrier between my grass and my my garden. Ticks do not like to climb over mulch mulch is dry they dry out quickly they want to stay in the grass and they love to stay in grass that's nine inches or higher so if you keep your lawn cut um that also deters the ticks but if you are hiking they love tall grass they kind of just hang out on that nine inch range and wait for you to pass to jump. So those are my tips on on okay that's that's very helpful.

SPEAKER_01 34:00

So lavender soap think about that you know light colored clothing and everything else that Kathy just said so any any do you recommend any I don't know any podcasts websites books things like that?

SPEAKER_00 34:17

Yes my favorite book that I reference all the time because I'm mostly a perennial and shrub gardener. As I get older I use less annuals because annuals mean you have to plant them every year. Perennials and shrubs they always come back so my favorite book on perennials is the well tended perennial garden. It's by Tracy de Sabato. You can find it online it's the well tended perennial garden and it has almost any perennial you can think of it talks about all its characteristics, how to take care of it, how to put it to bed, how to trim it, etc that's my go-to reference material. And the pot there's lots and lots of podcasts out there that are just great. The one that I reference because it has almost every topic you could possibly want is Margaret Roach. She's a journalist she writes the garden column for the New York Times and she has a weekly podcast and her podcasts go back for years so you can find almost any gardening topic and her podcasts are called Way to Garden. So it's Margaret Roach.

SPEAKER_01 35:32

So those are my say the name again Way W A Y yeah way to garden is way to garden okay way to garden yeah by um roach is it R-O-A-C-H?

SPEAKER_00 35:45

Correct yeah okay all right well those those are some great tips any any other tips that you have well maybe it's not a tip but getting back to the benefits I didn't talk about this but as quote we retire and age um one of my benefits that I never expected is socialization. When I took the classes on gardening I met some wonderful wonderful people who've become friends and they'll be friends for life and when we get together it's just joyful it's we talk our own language it's a plant language my husband rolls his eyes you know we're talking a whole different language we tour gardens together we share plant information and of course they're outdoor people too so I have found hiking buddies and biking buddies and then a couple of my friends love what I love in art. So we take watercolor classes together and it's just a joy they'll always always be friends and as friends we since we love to garden we also help other friends to garden and so there's this community spirit we started a couple of our group friends we started two nonprofit vegetable gardens we grow thousands of pounds of vegetables that we give to the food pantry it feels so good to do that and we also help community gardens like church gardens and library gardens so it's a feel good give back to the community so it's just another benefit of gardening.

SPEAKER_01 37:31

Yeah just benefit after benefit after benefit yeah so why don't I do this I maybe I do do it I need to reconsider.

SPEAKER_00 37:40

But I think Rocco I think you do do it you say you do landscaping. Yeah I do a little landscaping gardening and you say you enjoy outdoors so there you go.

SPEAKER_01 37:50

Yeah exactly so well thank you so much for for this great conversation I've learned a lot I'm sure everyone out there has too um before I let you go uh you know I ask all of my guests a question at the end about if you had the opportunity to put a message on a billboard in your town and you knew that lots and lots of people drive by that billboard every day what would your message be?

SPEAKER_00 38:19

I guess it would have to be go outdoors and connect with nature. As gardeners we do that just by definition. And other people I would highly recommend them to go outdoors and look listen smell with intent go with intent find the moment of wonderment once you do that you start to see what a gift we have and it's a gift that needs to be protected so go outdoors and connect with nature that's I love it I love it that's a great billboard go outdoors and connect with nature well Kathy Smith thank you so much for joining me today you're very welcome Rocco again thanks for asking me now it's time for Dr.

SPEAKER_01 39:10

Rocco's Rix Dr. Rocco Drex now it's time for Dr. Rocco's my recommendation this week tied in with the gardening theme is Monty Don Monty Don M O N T Y Don D-O-N is a British um journalist and television personality who has made all kinds of gardening um shows for the BBC so um Monty Don you know I don't know if it's he his programs are easy to find or not I guess if you have like Brit Box you could find it he's on YouTube all the time. His show he's he's had a number of different kinds of shows my favorites were the the seasons where he would go to different gardens around the world so he had like a season which was like French gardens another season was Italian gardens. He did a season of course on English gardens and on uh American gardens and and so he would go to different gardens like different garden each episode and these would be like you know public gardens or maybe uh you know a particular private garden and and the show is just beautiful and you know he's he's an interesting character and so uh Monty Don he also has some some uh seasons on BBC where he goes to people's houses and helps them set up gardens so that's also a topic but I was less interested in that I was more interested in sort of the travel related kind of you know I love the idea of going to parts of the world and seeing beautiful gardens you know which is although I am not a gardener I appreciate gardens so that is my recommendation for today did you know that strawberries are the only fruit that have the seeds on the outside the average strawberry has about 200 seeds well that's it for today's show thank you so much for joining me today I hope you enjoyed the show and learned something until next time so long. Thanks for listening to the Life and How to Live It podcast with Dr. Rocco if you'd like to book a coaching session with me simply visit the show notes and schedule a discovery call. And if today's episode encouraged you or added value to your life please subscribe and leave a review. Remember life is not a dress rehearsal. Until next time