spk_0:   0:01
Hello, everybody. Hello,

spk_1:   0:03
everybody. And welcome to the show The Big Show, the most important and critically acclaimed podcast that is courted in our car and anywhere in the red studio as usual. So it's a little quieter. We apologize about any road noise you might care, because we're driving in a car and we're wearing headsets, and this is not a studio quality rig, but it's what we could do. So welcome to the show. Today we have a mystery episode

spk_0:   0:30
done. I wonder what it's about.

spk_1:   0:33
We call it a mystery episode because I know what the episode about, but my lovely and talented co host does not, and even if she doesn't know anything about the subject, she'll be glad to talk about it anyway. Truth,

spk_0:   0:48
It's what I do.

spk_1:   0:49
It's what you d'oh. So today we're going to actually talk about something that you do know something a little about. We're going to talk more about spring gardening and spring preps and preps that you can make for your garden, even if you don't plan to plant one. Uh, we're talking about what we just recently did. A podcast on manure and preparing soil of the garden and that got us to thinking, Always got me to thinking about some of the things that we can do to get ready to grow a garden in a stuff hits the fan emergency that we can have all ready to go but not implement, because you maybe have, ah, situation where you can't grow garden due to time constraints due to, uh, neighborhood rules do do all kinds of things. But that doesn't mean you can't prepare to grow garden, because here's the truth. Anybody who has never garden and who does not have area appropriately prepared for gardening is wasting their time storing a bunch of seeds.

spk_0:   2:07
Uh, Cole at an overstatement. But you're not gonna get what you hope for. Expect out of it. Okay, Were yield is gonna be a lot less than if you knew what you were doing and had a prepared spot,

spk_1:   2:17
and you're gonna have a lot of failures of things that are things that you would learn if you tried it once you'd learn that that's not going to work.

spk_0:   2:25
Yes. And you would you try and plant some things at the wrong times or

spk_1:   2:30
in the wrong

spk_0:   2:31
in the climate where they're not gonna work because you can read a lot of things on the Internet and some of them were actually true. You gotta test out which one's which.

spk_1:   2:41
Right, But if you've never actually growing a garden, then it's just not what you think. I go garden before. When I was a kid, we didn't really garden, but I had a potato patch for years and, uh, group really a lot of potatoes over these. But that was really about all idea. I was not really my family were into garden fresh vegetables, stuff like that. Uh, they were more meat, potato type people, but part of meat potatoes are. That is so, Yeah, I grew up. I had about. I want to say my patch was about 30 feet by 30 feet, which doesn't sound like much, but it's That's a lot of potatoes.

spk_0:   3:22
You can get a lot of tears, a lot of

spk_1:   3:23
a couple, £300 of potatoes out of there. It was not an unusual dig for me in the fall, so that was my now. Her family was completely different. They had a big guard,

spk_0:   3:34
big family, big garden girl kinds of stuff. Couldn't afford the grocery bills if we hadn't.

spk_1:   3:39
The guard was about an acre, which is a pretty good sized art. At least it was when I saw it.

spk_0:   3:46
That was about part, of course.

spk_1:   3:48
Yeah, it was pretty, well, diver scarred. I mean, your mom grew a lot of stuff

spk_0:   3:55
and dead

spk_1:   3:57
your dad. Yeah, but then he was retired, and he did a lot of the garden.

spk_0:   4:00
Yeah, he always did a fair share of it.

spk_1:   4:02
Both of them had a pretty A pretty good, uh, green thumb percent, Many, many years of experience. You're

spk_0:   4:10
not born with green thumbs. You grown developed over time.

spk_1:   4:14
Is your thumb green yet?

spk_0:   4:16
It's a lot better than it was. I started out okay. When I was a kid. I worked a lot in the garden. But I was a worker bee in the garden. I knew what to do because Mom provided the tasks for the day. And I didn't pay a whole lot of attention until it was time for me to start doing my own gardening.

spk_1:   4:33
Don't you wish you had? Don't you wish she had her knowledge?

spk_0:   4:37
Yeah, of course. We all like that once we passed the age of 30 and realize how smart our parents were. Really? My mother,

spk_1:   4:45
my mother, was just the dumbest person on the planet till I turned about 30. Then she became smarter and smarter. Every year she got smarter retroactively.

spk_0:   4:53
Funny how that works. Yeah, but it turns out I had learned a few things just accidentally along the way. A lot more things. I either refreshed my memory or learned through mistakes when I started doing my own gardening. So I don't make nearly as many now just because you start to deplete the supply of available mistakes after a while and take fewer. I'm good at the thing. A lot of the things I know how to do, because I've already done most of the ways you could do it wrong and tried them. And now I don't anymore. So there's that. Yeah, So you learn a lot about how to do it and what suits you and what works in your area that you won't learn by reading. You won't learn by having that garden book on your show. You won't learn by having that can of seeds in the freezer. Those are all worth doing, but they're not alone.

spk_1:   5:46
The good news is you don't have to to devote a whole ton of space for learning. You can do it in a very limited space, a couple of boxes that you can kind of hide from hide from a couple four by four boxes or four by eight boxes. You could do a lot of learning in those

spk_0:   6:02
even a little container. Gardening can be useful to you

spk_1:   6:05
on pretty much everybody, no matter how strict the H H s are Homeowners association h away whenever they call it. How are strict? They are. You know, unless they're flying drones of your property, you could pretty much do a little something. So you know, and there's other things you could do to prepare for gardening. If the stuff hits the fan that you may or may not have considered

spk_0:   6:31
one of those things we brought it up. The end of the last podcast is making big prepared beds in which you grow perennial beautiful flowers.

spk_1:   6:43
Yes, that's one of the best way. Put him alongside fences, put alongside houses and make them look all butin. Ornamental

spk_0:   6:51
decorative flower islands in the middle of your yard. No homers. A Shi'a shin in the world objects to those

spk_1:   6:58
songs that really pretty and and and they're appropriate for your for your neighborhood. You know what I'm saying, but you want to do perennials because you don't want to plant a memory. And you also want to do things that don't mess up your soil if you have to grow

spk_0:   7:15
roses, for example, like a soil that's more acidic than most other plants like, so I wouldn't necessarily make it a rose garden. But many flower species like the exact same kinds of conditions. As a matter of fact, I plant what are actually decorative flowers around the outside of many of my vegetable gardens because a lot of those decorative flowers to her insect pests

spk_1:   7:36
actually rose roses or rose hearts are edible.

spk_0:   7:39
Yes, rose hips,

spk_1:   7:41
rose hips, hips not hard edible so you can actually grow roses plan. That's another thing, too. If you're in an H. S, a. R a. H. Here in the neighborhood, really picky. There's a lot of these plants that are out there that are decorative plants that are edibles. Yeah, so

spk_0:   7:59
you'll find these beautiful purple and pink vain things called flowering shards. Well, those are charged. You can eat him up. Tried it. They're not quite as tender as the ones that are grown for the garden, but they're the same species and they're quite edible lot cabbages, some of the herbs. Oh, my goodness. The bees love some of the herbs. So you're making this little pollinator friendly garden spot right? And you've got fresh herbs which, by the way, tend to run several dollars for a small bundle, at least in our part of the world when you buy in the grocery stores. But believe me, you plant oregano or something like that. You're likely to have a superabundance make friends of all your Italian living, make all your Italian loving friends love you,

spk_1:   8:48
and you could put it like that. But a lot of, ah, lot of herbs, long fence lines around corners and stuff like that, like we should probably ever Everybody should have a minute to play.

spk_0:   8:57
Many Arabs are perennials,

spk_1:   8:59
and there's several of those there. Very good, very healthy for you. Gets a lot of micro nutrient, too. Yes, you do. Now another thing that you do

spk_0:   9:08
and prep foods or planned. So having extra herbs to put on him makes them much more pleasant.

spk_1:   9:15
We're talking about container guarding things like tomatoes worked very well. Don't water the heck out of it. But they work very well and you could grow committed. But growing tomatoes in a container teaches you how to grow tomatoes flat out. Okay.

spk_0:   9:30
Those flowering P varieties, Some of them are considered ornamentals. You give him a nicely shaped trellis to grow up, and they actually are quite pretty. And they do attract bees and things. But then if you leave them there, they grow the seed pods on them and then you eat them. That's kind of a split between an ornamental on a food plant. And those sorts of things are stealth. Perhaps, too. That also helps you get the tools. It gets the ground worked, it gets the soil amended so it can grow plants. And all of those things are gonna be important if you ever need to grow food for real. Like I don't know how it's gonna work out this summer. But at the moment, I'm guessing that fruit prices we're gonna take a spike this summer because as we speak Nebraska and Iowa just lost a whole bunch of their corn crop from floodwaters of quite remarkable dimensions for those places getting into their silos and spoiling their silos. So, yeah, we can afford to buy food. Even food gets a lot more expensive this year.

spk_1:   10:33
That won't affect its quite as much. Use a lot of products, Cornum. And frankly, we don't start on me.

spk_0:   10:39
So meat is tthe e thing. That'll go most also some dairy and eggs, because that's what they

spk_1:   10:45
are. But we don't meat, so corn prices are not going to all yeah, effect. It'll be better for Ari because we've got corn growers that didn't lose.

spk_0:   10:57
Still, prices are likely to go up, and if we were having trouble buying groceries to start with, that could be a problem. But not if we can grow our own. So

spk_1:   11:08
anything that pre prep your garden that has nothing to do with. Actually planting right now is to go ahead and buy yourself bunny fencing. E. You could put it in your basement shed. Not expensive. They're not difficult to get the get the little mesh fencing, chicken wire, whatever. They didn't have to be that high. It could be 18 inches high and get some polls that you can actually cut in half and use Have a pole like electric fence. Post holes are fine and just wire up your bunny fences because you were depending on living on some of your vegetable that you're growing, you don't want. The money is,

spk_0:   11:52
and early in the season they can trash the garden because they'll eat sprouts down

spk_1:   11:57
and also keep out things like turtles.

spk_0:   12:00
In some parts of the country, you have to worry about things like bowls. And for those I believe, they use what's called a hardware cloth, a small square wire mesh. They put him on the bottom of their raised bed gardens so the bulls don't dig under and come up underneath and eat the roots. Thankfully, that's not a problem we've had so far.

spk_1:   12:25
You know, if you really, really, actually want to prep a gardener, all kind have. If you have shed, you could get her get at the end of the season. It's dirt cheap, literally. You can get all kinds of soil products. That's good store.

spk_0:   12:42
What do you mean my cell products,

spk_1:   12:44
soil, topsoil, potting soil. Soil product?

spk_0:   12:48
Yeah. They take a relatively large amount of space, but you can often get him for buy one. Get one free or way less than that.

spk_1:   12:57
Yeah. I mean, I've seen I've seen literally seen it, pennies on the dollar

spk_0:   13:01
and we went home with a whole trunk full.

spk_1:   13:03
And we does the block since been used yet. They went into our storage container out of place

spk_0:   13:09
briefly. And then the next spring, they went into the all the trees I planted the next spring.

spk_1:   13:14
Why not?

spk_0:   13:15
That was the idea.

spk_1:   13:16
You know it zzzz. Much as you have a place for stuff that we have to keep that in mind, not everybody has, You know, an extra 30 acres in store fencing, that we had a bunch of fencing free. A lot of our trees were fenced because somebody wanted to get rid of the deer fencing they had around their trees that grown beyond the need for them. So we got 12 tree bertha fencing for no cost at all, other than picking him up, including the T post to put him in.

spk_0:   13:44
And that was several $100 worth of materials.

spk_1:   13:48
A key post driver is something that you can prep ahead of time. I mean, I think you need one, but they're really have anything for all kinds of things.

spk_0:   13:56
If you don't know what a T post is, the toll steel posts that you see holding fencing up in many parts of the country. It's also the same kinds of posts that holdup road sons in many places

spk_1:   14:09
fencing wire enormously handy to have for many, many, many

spk_0:   14:14
players encounters to go with them.

spk_1:   14:15
Pliers and cutters. Absolutely so all the stuff.

spk_0:   14:19
Here's something that doesn't take any storage space at all to speak of knowledge of what works in your area. And if you don't have the time or the space to develop that yourself, you can still go to Farmer's markets. And farmers like to talk about growing their stuff. Gardeners like to talk about growing their stuff

spk_1:   14:38
absolutely in love to talk about how my tomatoes really didn't come in this because blah, blah, blah, but we

spk_0:   14:44
look so good.

spk_1:   14:46
Last year we had not very good tomatoes. We had a weird spring, but the thing that people always can't get rid of enough of our zucchini last year was a very bad zookeeper.

spk_0:   14:59
Except for us. We did better than usual.

spk_1:   15:01
Well, we did personally because, well, we don't grows. Who keep the way, bro. They got hit by really bad by a fungus. A zucchini just wither last year for a lot of people. Well, I think we've really taken to rotating, so the fungus is way down

spk_0:   15:22
so you can talk to people about what varieties grow in your area. And if you talk to the organic growers, you find out the things that don't need a lot of chemical sports. Because those chemical sports of people are having to grow gardens for food. The chemical supplies there gonna be a lot thinner on the ground than they are now.

spk_1:   15:43
Some of these chemicals you just can't store. Thank you. They don't last more than so. You can't put him in long term storage. Ah, lot of the organic stuff in store for basically ever because it is organic and really break down.

spk_0:   15:56
And some of it you can't like me. Boil breaks down.

spk_1:   15:59
Meanwhile, breaks down pretty

spk_0:   16:00
quick, and the bacillus products break down pretty fast because they're live bacteria. But something there are

spk_1:   16:07
storm forever.

spk_0:   16:08
Yeah, like Epsom salts. Will would still be good if the Egyptians had put them in their pyramids. That still be good today because they're Epsom salts is, turns out, are a rich magnesium source, and they're a common cure for ah, frequently occurring tomato malady. You feed your tomatoes Epsom salts, and you don't get that particular kind of well, So you talked to the organic growers. They know a lot about those kinds of things. They know a lot about companion planting and dispersed planting and other things that discourage the pests. So you don't have to have the chemical methods to discourage the pasts. You can learn a lot from him and pick up a few fresh vegetables for dinner at the same time before not much cost. And that's a prep worth doing.

spk_1:   16:56
Yeah, more information is something always used. You obviously want to have some gardening books information in your library. You can. One of the things about gardening is it doesn't change all that much here over you. There are some future for the most part, you know, farmers were able to 80 years ago. Garden grows good gardens as they do today, for the most part, so really, old information doesn't really matter. So if you want to find very, very, very inexpensive bunch of resource for gardening, e going to the library, and every time you go the library, pass a lottery, check out there, discard books, the ones that cost the pace of diving. You can have the ball kind of books. There's often all kinds of gardening books is guarding Books Regents Library.

spk_0:   17:48
There's also tons of free information on the Internet, which, of course, isn't hard copy,

spk_1:   17:53
right? But I'm a big fan of hard copy wins, too. Some things, But you know,

spk_0:   17:57
a lot of times they've got you can read through him and learn a lot. And then they'll have this, you know, brief Chief Cici kind of thing that you could save hard our print out hard copy and keep

spk_1:   18:10
one of the things you really, really, really into. Stone cold know is exactly what's so much of the information is tied two zones. You really need to know something that will take two minutes to find out. But you need to know it.

spk_0:   18:25
Yeah. Gardner, friend of mine is moving one state away and his biggest concern about the move was he was moving two zones and he didn't know what would grow up there. And that was a big uncertainty in his life. Changing jobs, changing houses? Yeah, whatever. But my garden wouldn't grow. I don't know that responds colors to more angst and

spk_1:   18:50
make a big difference to.

spk_0:   18:53
And you could have micro climates in areas where the zone in the bottom of a fairly well shaded valley at the place is probably one's own different than what we see on the hilltops on the place, just because of the lack of light in the increased humidity from all plant letter at the bottom and things like that.

spk_1:   19:15
And it can also be a lot, much larger micro climate. Its a certain particular area. For example, I got anything you have. Probably if you ever watch TV weather on, they have the coldest place in the United States. Cut the United States and half the time, literally half the time is International Falls. Minnesota International Falls, Minnesota There's lots of towns around International Falls, Minnesota, but International Falls, Minnesota, is just plain colder than the town surrounding it. It makes you wonder. In fact, you could look at International Falls, Minnesota, and you can look at thunder bag,

spk_0:   19:53
just not for our,

spk_1:   19:54
which, as the crow flies, that's what 35 40 miles not for it all. And thunder bass, actually, little North being in Canada. Not surprising. There's not much talk that's a little north of international fault, but there may be 15 to 20 Reese difference, too. Even though they're that close to

spk_0:   20:10
Thunder Bay's warmer,

spk_1:   20:11
there's some yes, thunder raise warmer. This is something about that particular spot

spk_0:   20:18
where the air masses air impacted by the Great Lakes and the movement down from the north get stalled. And it sits there over international falls and sticks in the deep freeze

spk_1:   20:28
right. And although for those of you who are football pans, the great Bronco Nagurski is a native of the area of international, that's an important If you're ever in international falls, it's got to really you know things. One of which is the bridge between United States and Canada is really weird, because actually, a bridge owned by a company believe it's Boise Cascade, a paper company, because they have plants on both sides of the river So you get a literally cross the border on a bridge that's in the mirror factory, but they also have the Bronco Burger Museum. So everything you ever wanted to know about Nagurski, you learn at the progress,

spk_0:   21:16
and I learned it always. We were just driving past it because salty is a font of information.

spk_1:   21:22
Yeah, I've got it. I've got a Bronco Nagurski story. They tell one of my favorites. There's Ah, Bronco after he retired from professional football, played for the Bears, and then he then he left and became a professional wrestler. Would could make a lot more money as a professional wrestler than the National Football League at the time, and so Bronco became fresh bluster. Then he came back and played football a little bit when he went back and became a profession. But after his athletic curve over, he bought a gas station and operated a gas station, his hometown of International Falls. And there's a story, and I have no doubt that it is apocryphal of somebody coming into town and asking, Where can I go to get gas from a car? That's what we have to gas stations. The one down the road. And then that one over there that eyes Bronco Nagurski ese. And the visitor said, Well, okay, which one is usually better? Listen well, all the locals over Bronco Nagurski, ese. Oh, is it cheaper? No. Now, usually broncos really have a penny or two more a gallon. And the visitors visitor bid on it and asked Well, was he just super nice or something? No. Now Broncos kind of a grouch. Really? If you think about it, he really is the customers. That was so why do all the local scope? A gay told the story Kind of grins as well. You see, once your gas cap is put on your car by Bronco Nagurski, ain't nobody but bronco Nagurski it back off?

spk_0:   22:57
Yeah, Back from the days when somebody actually build your gas for you.

spk_1:   23:00
Yes, for you Gas station. Put on your gas. Caf? Well, we still have self service in our town. You still have two gas stations and full service. Two of the tooth. Three. He had 1/2

spk_0:   23:16
Anna, but anyway,

spk_1:   23:18
it's recording. Go up past that card thing

spk_0:   23:22
any way you can. Uh, I figure out how to actually grow food when you don't have the time or there are other constraints that can't do it the most effective way, which is to practice it. You can still be ready to really do it if you need to do it. And,

spk_1:   23:39
of course, you've got your stealth. Perhaps too gardening. Think of gardening. But sprouting his gardening sprouting is something you could do year round, sprouting his gardening,

spk_0:   23:53
and it gives you fresh and nutritious stuff in the middle of winter, which could get quite welcome. I don't know if you've ever tried to live off prep food, vory along at a time, but I did it for a little while at the place and it gets old pretty fast. You get to be happy to have some fresh stuff in a hurry.

spk_1:   24:14
Okay, well, thank you for listening and we'll see you next time.