Forget the Groundhog. . . I'm ready for Spring

a jade plant to a pathos. There are a lot of green things on our shelves that are pretty and hardy and have somehow managed to survive the weather. But the backyard garden, I think it's safe to say we'll have some serious replanting to do. I'm still new to the gardening life, and looking out a window at the snow covered yard, I'm not hopeful that everything is thriving out there. But if I've learned anything from last season is that you've got to start planning a lot sooner

than you think. So as we finish out February and enter March, spring is definitely on my mind, even though it still feels like January in Brooklyn. Hey there, I'm Mongais Articular, co host of Part Time Genius, one of the founders of Mental Flaws, and this is Humans Growing Stuff, a collaboration from I Heart Radio and your Friends and Miracle Grow. Our goal is to make this the most

human show about plants you'll ever listen to. Along the way, we'll share inspiring stories, tips and tricks to nurture your plan addiction, and just enough science to make you sound like an expert. On today's show, we're going to get ready to spring ahead and start planning for planting. I'm going to talk to some new experts and some old friends about the most resilient seeds for early spring and how to keep them safe from late snowfalls. Chapter nine,

Forget the Groundhog, I'm Ready for Spring. Last season on this show, we had everyone's favorite plant influencer, Jade the Black Plant Chick, give us her tips for moving your plants indoors ahead of the fall in winter chill. As we get a jump start on spring planting, I asked her to share some of the good habits around plant care that we should bring into spring. Hello, everybody is Jade the Black Plant Chick and These are my three

good habits to bring into screen. Number one, clean your windows. Give your plants all the light they deserve. They gain a lot of dirt over the months, and it's important to give your plants the light they need to thrive. So get in there, wipe those windows down, even clean the blinds a bit. Trust me, your plants will love it. Number two, welcome new growth with repotting. Yes, get rid of all of that old dirt and give your plant a fresh start with new soil. Number three, develop new

watering habits. Last year, the plant community saw a tremendous amount of new plant parents coming in and a lot of us struggled with over watering. But this is the opportunity that you have now to start fresh. Try using a moisture meter or even bottom watering. What is bottom watering? It's simple. You get a tub filled up with water, place your plant, which is still inside of that planter, into that tub, and it drinks the water that it requires. It won't take too much or too little, it will

drink exactly what it needs. You'll be amazed at how happy your plant is after bottom watering. Until next time, you guys, love peace and propagate years ago, when I was on a study of broad trip to Nepollon, Tibet, my friend Dave and I decided to try our hands at brewing a local barley wine. It's called chong, and there's a superstition. Once you put the grains in big containers and let them sit to ferment, you're supposed to tape this large chili pepper to the top of the

bin to stop evil spirits from ruining your brew. We followed the directions to a t and we taped a whole bunch of chilies to the top, and sadly, the wine still turned out terrible. But trying to follow all these superstitions it made the whole exercise so much more fun. So I've been thinking about all the myths and superstitions in the garden and which ones we might want to

indulge as we move into spring. Like sure, we could use science to explain the world and all the seasons around us, but isn't it more fun to think about the Greek goddess Persephone sneez picking up from the underworld for half a year and bringing all the great weather

and harvests with her. Or to wonder how much truth is there to some of these old sayings, Like my producer Molly told me about one that goes oak before ash, We're in for a splash, but ash before oak, we're in for a soak, Which I guess is this Northern Irish lore that claims if the oak trees bud before ash trees, it will be this dry spring. But if the opposite happens, you need to break out your ponchos

and wellies. Of course there are tons of these, but which of these will actually signal to start a spring? Should I look for a robin or trust the groundhog? Should I plant my potatoes on St. Patrick's Day or is it better to wait till Good Friday? And do I really need to hose these crops with holy water to get them to grow? Probably not, But I wanted to hear which spring traditions to put some stock in if aenny, So I called up my friend Aaron Shannon.

She's a Master gardner, volunteer, and creator of the blog and YouTube channel The Impatient Gardener. Aaron's no stranger to cold winters as a gardener in Wisconsin, so I wanted to ask her the skinny on early planting strategies and how she knows that spring is around the corner. Aaron, are you there, I'm here, Hi, Hi, it's so nice to have you on. Thank you so much for having me. So I am such a fan of the Impatient Gardener site.

It is truly funny and charming and informative. So I know over time you've become a master gardener master gardner volunteer, and we hear that term a lot on the show. Can you explain what that is and how people get that title? Oh, it's such a good question because there's so many people sort of misunderstand that and it's kind

of gotten all misconstrued. So master gardener, the Master Gardener program is a program that has run through public university extensions and there's an education component to it, but at the end of the day, it's really a volunteer program. And then you can volunteer on behalf of a Master Gardener organization. Then your job is to help the public become better gardeners. And what's your favorite advice for frustrated gardener? Oh gosh, you're etically asking, because like I'm just asking

for a friend friend. So, so I think that there is a tendency to get a little too serious and to bog down in details with gardening. I mean, at the end of the day, plants really want to grow, so we don't have to jump through so many hoops. I mean, certainly it's good to have some information, know what's going to grow aware, but I think this sooner in your gardening journey that you accept that every gardener kills plants and probably kills a lot of them, and

like you're just you're just part of the club. At that point when you start killing plants. I think that that makes it I'm a little bit more accessible. So this episode is about getting excited for the spring. And I know you're located in Wisconsin, which I think is still in the middle of some heavy snowfall. So one of our questions is when do you know it's spring there.

You know, it's really interesting because if I was in like a coma, I could wake up and I could look outside and I would tell you pretty much within a couple of weeks what time of year it is, because you know, there's all these little clues that we're all paying attention to, even if we don't realize that we're paying attention to them. So there is something with the first robin, although there are Robin's kind of around your round sometimes, but Robbin's more bird activity for me.

I walk out into our little wooded area outside her house, and when I see the skunk cabbage coming up, which will be in only about a month or so, skunk cabbage is is really cool plant that actually produces heat, So it has this ability to melt the snow around it and create its own heat. So when I see the skunk cabbage coming up, I know, all right, we're all good. We're gonna make it through another winter. So what should we be doing in this in this period

right before the spring happens? What should we be doing to prep for our gardens? So I think the number one thing you can do is actually something you can do regardless of the weather, which is just planned for your garden. Anytime you have a plan going into a gardening season, things go a lot smoother and you're not running out trying to find seeds which you can't find somewhere.

If it's a vegetable garden, planning out where you're going to plant everything, what varieties you're gonna grow, what I'm going to start inside, what I'm going to direct. So in a perennial garden, it's sort of identifying places where I need to change things a little bit, or um I need another plant. Pictures from the previous year's garden

come into play big time on that. For me, it helps me so much to be able to go back and look at pictures to get a feel for what it looks like and what I can do to make it better. Even though that was only not even six months ago, four months ago or whatever, I've already forgotten what last year's garden looked like, So it's a it's

good to have those photos to go back to. As soon as the snow is gone and the sort of top very top layer soil starts to loosen up, you can actually get out there and start doing some weeding. I know that's not a fun job for anyone, except that after a long winter, even weeding is fun to do.

Somehow that goes away quickly. But once you have that plan ready, then you get right into moving on to especially vegetables, because there are some things that can go in really quite early and you don't want to miss that window. Yeah, so you've described yourself as having a seed stash and I'm curious, what's in your stash right now and what are you most excited about growing. I can't even adequately describe my seed stash to you because

it's it's completely it's completely absurd. I I actually have to They're almost like suitcases that I keep these things, and one for flowers and one for vegetables. I am always excited to grow. In terms of flowers, sweet peas were sort of my gateway plant to growing flowers from seed. To me, they're just this old fashioned hour that I take a lot of pleasure in growing those, and so

those are always very fun for me. In terms of vegetables, I mean, I have my tried and truths that I always have to grow, and I'm always going to have tomatoes. I am perpetually in search of the world's perfect tomato. But I also love to try new varieties. This year, I'm going to grow ginger in the vegetable garden because I figured, I mean, I have grown that in a pot before, but I thought, well, that would be kind of fun to grow in vegetable garden and see how

that goes. And it's a very pretty plant. So I'm always in for anything that's beautiful as well as productive when we're in the vegetable garden. What are some of your favorite beautiful and productive plants. I would say top of the list for me is Swiss shard. I actually think that Swiss shard is one of the most beautiful plants there is, regardless of whether you're talking about vegetable, ornamental,

or flower or foliage. It's just beautiful. Especially there's a variety called bright Lights that has all these it's a mixture of shards with all these different stem colors, so you can have have this rainbow of colors and they get these bright, glossy shiny leaves, and I think you can't beat that. In fact, I think that's a plant that I have seen that planted in ornamental containers, and I think it looks beautiful there because big bold leaf,

it's it's gorgeous. Last I think there's also ornamental ways to plant things. So last year I made sort of a design out of basil plants. I grew a tall, skinny basil called Everleaf Emerald Towers, and then I surrounded that with a Greek basil, which is a real short, squatty basil around it in like a diamond pattern and it's just basil. By planting in an interesting way. It

just was very beautiful to look at as well. And what's what's the difference in the flavors of this The everleaf emerald towers basil is a very sort of traditional sweet basil. The Greek basil is a much sharper, very strong sort of Italian flavor to it, even though it's

Greek basil, but it's a stronger, more pungent flavor. M So, one of the things we were wondering about is whether you have to start your garden from scratch every winter since the weather they're so destructive, or if you have any tricks that keep things safe through the whole winter. I really like to rely for my ornamental garden. I really love to rely on perennials. These are the plants that will come back every year. They die to the ground and then they come back with fresh new foliage

every year. You've also got annuals, and those are the plants that do their whole life cycle in one year. So they're going to grow leaves, they're gonna grow flowers, and then those are going to die at the end of the year. Now, sometimes some of those annuals will produce seed, and those will actually do you a favor and spread that seed around your garden on your behalf. You don't have to touch them. And then there's this really crazy type of plant. I say crazy, it's not crazy.

It's just kind of a an in between category called a biennial. And biennials are plants that will grow just their foliage the first year and then they flower of the second year. So one of the biennials that I grow is Angelica gigus. It gets these big flower heads on it. It will produce seed in those flower heads, which then falls to the ground, and that seed becomes the next year's little plants, which will grow foliage that year.

The following year they grow flowers, and after a couple of years of this, you have that plant in your garden because you always have different plants in different stages of growth, and so it just sort of works its way around your garden, and in that way, it sort of behaves like a perennial in that you always have it. So perennials are great, and that lowers the workload because really most perennials are not that much work. And obviously it lowers the budget, and it's just less you have

to do in your garden. And then, as far as vegetables go, there are perennial vegetables that I think people forget about, things like rhubarb, asparagus, horseradish. You have to be a little careful with horse rash. It can get a little carried away on you. But those are all things that are perennials, and so you can plant those once and then you can harvest from those forever. Basically,

you're saying asparagus made me think back. Our dog used to jump into our vegetable garden and eat all the asparagus. It was a regular thing that, oh my god, sneaky. For some reason, she was very attracted to it. Thomas Got Fancy Taste. My producer, Molly and I are obsessed with your two new fees that you have, your your puffs that keep showing up on your Instagram and YouTube, and we're wondering, how do your dogs add to your

gardening experience? Well, you know, I wish I could. I wish I could say they were particularly helpful in some way, um which they aren't really accept that. When I'm outside gardening, if I spend a whole day in the garden. It is so great to have a companion out there. So I love just hanging and they just hang out and you know, follow me around the garden. Do they ever chase the rabbits out of your yard? You know, if

only they would be so helpful. They do a very good job of recognizing that there are rabbits or deer in the yard, but I wouldn't say that they are particularly effective in doing anything about it. In fact, I fear that the deer that frequent our yard are actually mocking them. At this point. They can get within like twenty ft of a deer, and a deer will just stand there and look at them like, I know you're

not gonna catch me. It's fine. They are adorable. So are there any other spring gardening myths you might want to depunk on the show for us? There are a lot of spring gard There's a lot of spring gardening myths out there. I think some of them are kind of warm and fuzzy, and it's sort of nice to

think about them. But I think anything that involves an animal telling you what the weather is going to be, you should probably just take that for amusement, and not whether that's a squirrel or a groundhog or anything else. Generally speaking, that's not going to tell you a lot about what's coming. I think that most of these myths, you know, there's some truth to them, but rarely for the reason that the myth sort of perpetuates. So April

showers bring main flowers. It's true in that you need water in order for flowers to bloom, but what you'd rather have is a warm april to really get some good may flowers. There's also things like, um, there's a saying out there that you should plant your peas on St. Patrick's Day, and that is absolutely true for some place

in some years. You know, like there are somewhere where the day that you should plant your peas is St. Patrick's Day, but that obviously the climate is much different across all these places where people are growing, so obviously that doesn't hold true. So you know, all these things are things you can kind of take into account, and there's some truth behind all of them. But you know, I would say, apply a grain of salt to most

of them. Yeah, that makes sense. So last fall I got way too late in the gardening, and I learned that you have to plant pumpkins in spring or early summer to have them in time for Halloween, Like you can't plant something in September and expected by the end of October. But I saw that you were attempting to grow one of the world's largest pumpkins on your site, and I was curious what your experience with pumpkins was this year and what it takes to grow a giant pumpkin.

So I actually just tried to grow a regular size pumpkin. But it was the first time I've ever grown a pumpkin. For whatever reason, I have never grown a pumpkin. And I too planted mind too late, except that I planted mine at the end of June, so you were really late if you were in like September. So I got one pumpkin. It was approximately the size of a tennis ball. But I did do a little research as part of

this into what goes down into creating. You know, you see these these world's biggest pumpkin competitions, and it is amazing. These people spend up to like six hours a day taking care of their pumpkin. Those pumpkins are putting on as much as what is it fifty pounds a day or something. It is unbelievable. They it's water and nutrients, and then you have to shade them a certain way from the sun or also gets scourged and it is like having an infant. I think it's about the level

of care that goes into growing these giant pumpkins. Yeah, the fact that they're spending six hours on this, and also that they're so secretive about their techniques, it's really fascinating to me. Well, yeah, this. People who grow the world's biggest name the vegetable, are very interesting people and they are extremely dedicated. But yes, I think there are secrets that go to the grave with those people if they don't have some errors to pass them down to.

And certainly the seeds that come out of the vegetables that they grow are probably locked away in like a safety deposit box or something. That post was so funny that you wrote, and the fact that the pumpkin only turned out the size of a tennis ball is is so wonderful to me. I hate to say, I mean,

this is an easy way for me to say. I totally flubbed that, but I do think it's helpful for me to talk to gardeners and say, look, I can't grow pumpkin, but you've probably growing a pumpkin, so you know, don't worry about it. If not everything is a success, it's not the end of the world. It was just a pumpkin. It's really nice to know that you make mistakes.

To oh, I think and everybody does. And if that's one message that I want to get across to everybody all the time, it's just that everybody screws something up, don't ever take it personally. So, speaking of messages to new gardeners and people who are going to give this gardening thing a shot for the first time this year, where and how do you recommend they get started, like, no matter where they live. So I think the thing to do is to start a start at a reasonable size,

starts small. It's really easy to get overwhelmed if you plant a garden that's too big right from the get go, because all of a sudden you go from never spending any time in the garden to like suddenly you're like, I need to spend an hour a day in the garden. Are you getting me? Where am I going to find that? Even if it means a few containers. You can grow anything you want a container, and then after that I would go for varieties that don't ask a lot from

a gardener. Even though we all love a tomato, I don't think tomatoes are necessarily the easiest thing to grow. Now, if you love a tomato and that's what you want on your garden, by all means, plant yourself a tomato if you don't love it. I mean, that's what you should be doing, is planting the things that you love. But things like lettuce are so simple to grow. Anyone can plant them anywhere. Basically, um, you have to pay a little bit of attention to how warm it's getting.

Lettuce isn't gonna love hot areas. You can always push lettuce into a little bit of shade. Actually appreciates that a little bit. In a very short period of time, you're eating lettuce that you grew, and it tastes nothing like the stuff you buy in the grocery store, and you wonder what you've been doing all these years. That really sounds delightful. You know, this show is called Humans Growing Stuff, And I'm always curious, what do you think

plants can each is about being human? I think that the biggest thing that we can kind of learn from a plant is that plants are tough. Plants are resilient plants and want to grow. And I think that's a good lesson for humans because I always think that we are more resilient and tougher than than maybe we think we are. Sometimes even a delicate flower, if you look at what that had to do to grow and become that,

that's resiliency. And so I think that that if you look at a plant and you realize it just kind of was programmed to do that and it's going to do that same thing for humans, that's a really nice answer. How does gardening make us better humans? Or do you think gardening makes us better humans? Oh, gardening makes us better humans. Certainly. There is something about first of all, being a part of nature, playing an active role that I don't know that you can get in very many

other places or other hobbies. Understanding at and understanding that you're part of this larger world, part of the larger ecosystem. When you look and you see, you know, whatever, butterfly come to visit your flowers, I mean, I am still sort of honored when I see a monarch butterfly come through my garden and it wants to stop in my garden, or a little tree frog sitting on a little dahlia in my garden because that means that I'm doing something right.

It wants to be in my garden. And I think that's kind of a privilege to be able to see that part of the world right in your own backyard, right in front of your face, and you created the opportunity for that to happen. Yeah, I love that. I love the way you talk about both the importance of the diversity in the backyard and how all of that contributes to make a more beautiful environment, and then this understanding of your place and sense in the world. And

there's something really lovely about all of that. Yeah. I think this idea that we can just kind of get out of our own heads for a little bit, that is again another one of those things that is harder and harder and harder to find in this world. So I think working in the garden and being a part of this bigger system and a bigger world and recognizing them what you're doing is making a difference. All those are all good things to carry over to other parts

of your life. That's really lovely Aaron Shannon, the Impatient Gardeners the website, thank you so much. I really enjoyed chatting with you. I was wonderful to talk to you. Thank you for having me. Humans growing stuff will be right back after a short break. And now for another poetry corner. This poem is called groundhog Day. When the groundhog sees a shadow, we complain how the te pictures will go low, but that little vermin can't predetermine a

polar vortex or El Nino. Thank you. Hello everyone, I'm Ja the Black Plant Chick, and I'm here to share with you three plant affirmations to get you through this spring. Get into a comfortable position, close your eyes, take a deep breath in and now out, and repeat after me. Spring a time where, no matter what's in my wallet, my home will be filled with plants. Take another deep breath in and now out. With every new leaf that grows in the spring, my heart is filled with joy

and abundance. M take another deep breath in and now out. The more plants I have, the happier I am. Take these with you, say them whenever you need to, and like seeds, they will grow. And until next time, Love, peace and propagate. I don't know about you, but this winter wasn't easy. My family got COVID, the kids kept getting their hopes up about going back to school in person, and like Charlie Brown's football, it just kept getting yanked away.

I've missed my parents and my in laws deeply. I missed Thanksgiving and Christmas and just getting to hang out with my friends. And to be honest, gardening just feels like a bright spot right now because I've just been looking forward to having something to get excited about. There's

snow in my backyard, but I'm ready for spring. And after hearing from Aaron about all of the joy she gets from planning her garden out early, I've been dreaming of all the possibilities, dreaming of what we might plant. Do we have enough light to grow veggies? What sorts of perennials can we find at our local nursery? Now? What sort of birds will the kids and I attract with this birdhouse we just built. What sorts of flowers

would bring his joy and perfume the air? In my haste for spring, I was also thinking about how little I trust the groundhog and his Groundhog Day predictions. According to mental floss punk satani Fils accuracy rate is a dismal thirty nine per cent. What's worse is all the leash we give him. We let him live in a town library for free. He has a staff of fifteen people serving him paw and foot. Can we feed him a special groundhog punch to make sure he's in great spirits?

And even when he's wrong, and he's clearly wrong all the time, we claim that he's always right and that we've misinterpreted his groundhoggiaes. Seriously, that's the language. The town claims he speaks groundhog ease, So groundhogs aside. What's a better way to know when spring is coming? In the book The Gardener's Year, author Carol Chpeck suggests two truly foolproof methods. Look for when the gardening catalogs arrive in the mail, and then slightly look across the fence for

any sign of neighbors. When you see them sporting old trousers and waving their gardening spades in the air, talking about the weather, that's when you can be sure spring is here. I'm excited for a new season, I'm excited to be in the garden and I'm so I did to be here with you. That's it for today's episode. Don't forget, no matter what season it is or where you're at in your gardening journey, there's some incredible resources

waiting for you on the Miracle Grow website. Next time on our show, we're going to explore bringing the farm to table experience to your backyard. If you like what you heard, don't forget to rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts. Also, we want to hear from you. What are your inspiring plant stories, relatable struggles or growing questions. Tag us in your post or tweet using the hashtag Humans Growing Stuff, and don't be surprised if you hear

your story featured on an upcoming episode. Humans Growing Stuff is a collaboration from My Heart Radio and your friends at Miracle Grow. Our show is written and produced by Molly Sosha and me Mongy Chatiguler in partnership with Rhinovadia, Daniel Ainsworth, Haley Ericsson, and Garrett Shannon of Banter. Until next time, Thanks so much for listening. Two