Hey friends, welcome back to the Old Fashioned On Purpose Podcast. I am so excited for today's interview. It's been a long time coming. So as you know, I am a huge fan of organic gardening methods. We've talked a lot about that over the years, we've had on different guests, I've shared with you some of my techniques, you know, trying to keep the chemicals out of the garden, trying to grow food in a way that's good for me and the plants and the soil.
And it works together in just a beautiful synergy most of the time, but maybe one of the aspects that we don't talk about enough in this world of, you know, romantic organic gardening is some of the struggles that come when we garden outside of this idea of the industrial gardening complex, if you will. And so I wanted to hit some of those issues today, talk through some solutions, give you guys some ideas. And I have the very best guest I can imagine on to discuss this with me for this episode.
I'd like to welcome Joe Lample. You might know him as Joe Gardner. He is the host and executive producer of the PBS show Growing a Greener World. He's also been on NBC Today, ABC's Good Morning America, The Weather Channel. He's basically all over the place. And he also has a really popular gardening podcast. And so Joe, welcome. I cannot wait to hear What you have to share with us today.
Thank you very much. I'm glad to be here and I'm, I'm all yours. I'm just looking forward to this conversation.
Me too. Yeah. So as I was going through your website a little bit and your podcast, you have so much gardening content. I know you've been doing this forever. I mean, how long exactly have you been chasing this world of organic gardening?
Well, you know coming out of school, I really started with it part time because I ended up with a suit job full, you know, a full time suit job. And I thought, what am I doing? But it was paying the bills while I was looking for that, you know, full time horticultural revenue stream. And that, that didn't happen until.
2002 which sounds like a very long time ago because it was but There was some time before that where I was still doing my thing earning a living But I knew at some point when the opportunity presented itself I would leave the suit behind and get rid of the tie And wear my jeans and t shirts and that's what i've been doing now for I guess coming up on three decades Thanks to my first show on H on a DIY network. When I was hosted, picked a host, a show called fresh from the garden.
So that really launched my opportunity with a large public platform to build my audience quickly and, and create the brand Joe Gardner and then start educating people with what I knew and how I wanted was hoping other people would start thinking in terms of more environmentally responsible, organically minded, not only organic gardening, but just. Stewardship in general, environmental stewardship in general.
So my ethos is really kind of meshed together between gardening in a kinder gentler way while also being mindful of your environment as well because It's all connected and there's a lot of us out there So I I just wanted to kind of get the word out just one last thing, you know When I when I started doing that especially when I created Growing a Greener World, the show you mentioned a minute ago, which is now, you know, 12 seasons in those shows that show a show like that didn't exist.
And that was featuring people, other people that were doing good things through organic gardening and their stories needed to be told, told. So, so. We could see people all over the country successfully gardening and growing and being environmental stewards and being successful at it, showing that it wasn't complicated, trying to take the fear factor out of it and let people see it's accessible and doable. And, and, and you can be, like I said, you could be
Yeah. It's so needed and so important. I love what you said just about everything being connected. And I think as I've kind of grown in my own homesteading and gardening journey, you know, you start off as a beginner and you, you start figuring things out and then all the pieces start to kind of mesh together. I think that phrase, everything is connected, has been my mantra for the last I mean, I knew it before, but I'm like really digging deep into that now.
And it's really informed how I'm doing everything on my home. Instead, it started to shift my perspective of so many things And just being more mindful. I think it's, it's such a good place to be in and such an important thing to consider as we grow the food ourselves.
and you feel good about it too. You know, when you're out there doing it, you're, you're growing healthy, organic food to share with your family and yourself and your friends, and you don't have any of these nasty inputs. I mean, that's a good feeling. And you also know that you haven't done any harm to the pollinators or the birds or the wildlife around, but you can sleep well at night knowing that you, you've done your part in that.
Yes, totally. Yeah. It changes the dynamic for sure. That it goes from this idea of only taking. You know, taking the harvest, but also giving back. I think it just is a compl it's a small shift, but it's actually, you know, it's a big shift ultimately. And it's, it's definitely made me enjoy it more.
I love that point that you just made. You know, it isn't, it isn't just about taking. In fact, for me, it's about whatever you do, making what you do better than how you found it, you know, improving everything you go, especially the planet, the earth, our, our little ground under our feet, wherever that is, that we have some domain, we want to improve that, and I love that.
Totally. How have you seen the organic gardening movement change over the years? I'm just curious.
That's a great question. And having been involved with it over a long, you know, pretty long time now, when I started sort of preaching my message, you know, I wasn't the first to talk about organic gardening that we can give credit to the Rodales here in the States, going back to the forties and, and actually beyond over in Europe. But As, as we have more of a front facing profile publicly where we can get the word out to the masses.
When I started doing that, you know, I think the norm was still with a bit of an older generation who may be grown up watching what their parents and grandparents did, and that was really just synthetic fertilizers. You know, what's the quick fix. What's the most, the least expensive. quickest way to get the results that we're after without thinking of the ripple effect or the unintended consequences. And so what I was trying to do is help people understand that you can be successful.
It is not hard, but you can eliminate a lot of those, the ripple effect of what happens when we're not paying attention to that, you know, When we put down a synthetic fertilizer or a pesticide, you know, we may get the results that we're looking for, but we, we have no idea what's happening downstream. For example, one of my podcasts, I interviewed Dr. Stephen Kress Society and, and we were just talking and I had this curious. I had a question. It was just out of curiosity.
And I said, Dr. Kress, do you have any ideas? Are there any stats of the Audubon Society related to how many backyard bird deaths are related to their, the, those birds eating insects that were killed by a synthetic pesticide? And actually he did have some numbers. And he said, really, I'm going to give you a number that you could add another zero to, but this is a conservative number and we estimate at 7 million, but add another zero if you'd like, and you wouldn't be off.
Birds die each year just eating insects because you know, that's their number one diet. But they're eating them that have been tainted with pesticides. So just knowing that right there, I mean, if that's not enough for most people, I don't know what it is. But that's just one example of many.
Yeah. Yeah. And it's that, that's that connected piece when we just, we just don't, we don't know what we don't know sometimes. And I think most people come into it innocently. They're just trying to grow tomatoes without holes in them. Right. And they're not, they're not understanding. And we've been kind of indoctrinated that the fix is just a chemical. Just go buy the fix. Corporations have everything we need. Just go buy it and you'll fix it.
And it's just so easy to miss all those interconnected pieces, but they have a really big impact. They add up.
they do. And another great thing you just said, they don't know what they don't know. We don't know what we don't know. So, you know, if our sphere of influence or the advertising, you know, sucks us in because it seems like You know, they've greenwashed it to the point that, Oh yeah, that, that, that works. That sounds good. I can do that. But the whole story isn't being told.
And that's why people like you and me and others come into play to help really educate and tell the truth and shine the light on, on the options, good and bad, even with organic. I mean, just like snake venom is organic, but you wouldn't want to drink it. Right. So you, you gotta know that too, but, I believe in just educate honest education and, and hopefully people are smart enough to do their own homework and come up with the right conclusion. And hopefully that airs on the side of organic.
Yeah. Totally. And I think education is so key. You know, I love, I've said it many times, I have a love hate relationship with the internet. There are pieces I don't like. I don't like how it's addictive. I don't like some of the things that are on there and its tendency to suck us in. But like the homesteading movement wouldn't have grown the way it has without the internet. And I'm sure the organic gardening movement, there's awarenesses that have come to place thanks to these platforms.
So I'm thankful for it also, you know, we have to keep it in balance, but the education is so important.
And to that point though, you also have to have your filter, like, we don't know what we don't know. So that person that's seeking information and they go online. And they see this post that's probably a click bait post because they have a great, you know, tagline or lead in and you click on it. And in all due respect, many, a lot of the information that's online, I mean, cause we all know anybody can post anything, anytime, anywhere.
A lot of it gardening related homestead related is written by. And this is what I want to say, and I'll do respect freelance writers who do their homework and everything, but honestly, let's face it, making a living being hired to write on subject X, Y, or Z, so they may not have ever done X, Y, or Z themselves. So they're, so they're relying on information that may or may not be accurate. So that's my real beef is you've got to somehow.
Hit your wagon to those people that you know, like, and trust who have a great track record, haven't screwed up in the past. Clearly they've got authority in that space and you can feel good about that or always seek out an EDU site, you know, an academic site, but please. I'm on my soap box for just a second. Please put those filters on because not everything you read on the internet is true.
Amen to that.
right,
we, we can't say that enough. Can't say that enough. Yeah. And I've even noticed, you know, now we have the whole AI consideration with, you know, places like ChatGPT, which you have content creators now using those. And what I find, like you said, there's like the freelance writers who are doing their best, but they're just kind of parroting information. They haven't done it. And now we have ChatGPT and those engines just taking basically a smattering of freelance content they found on Google.
And then sending Smashing it together. So you just have this weak content with no personal experience. And it's just, it's not helpful. You can see it when you Google something often, you know, the first, however many results, I'm like, this is saying things without saying anything. Like there is actual no meat in this content. So I think it's good though, because it's opening up an opportunity for people with actual experience, people like you who have been there, done that.
You have the, the battle scars to show for it. And I think your information becomes even more valuable because it's real.
It's so funny. You just said that word, because as you were saying that, I was thinking as AI was becoming more and more of a discussion point in recent months and, you know, you can easily type, have it create anything related to anything. So you can have all that AI gardening related content, but I wanted to think. You know, my gosh, how am I going to counter this? So I, I, my, my play on those letters is we they may be AI, but we're all right. Real intelligence. the word
Absolutely.
Yeah. So, all right. All right,
right. I like it. There you go. You better trademark that. It's good. Oh my goodness. Okay. So good. Let's, let's get into some of these. problems that organic gardeners might face. And I think you kind of mentioned a really good one right off the bat a minute ago. Synthetic fertilizers, you know, let's say you have a soil test done or maybe you just have a hunch that you're low in nitrogen or you're low in certain components in your soil.
The industrial gardening fix would be go to the garden store and get a bag of the synthetic fertilizer. But if we're organic gardening, how can we reframe that and come at it from a more holistic angle?
Yeah. whether it's organic or not fertilizer is just like perceived as, as this magic elixir and we need to add it to our soil. And that's not true. Fertilizer really should be there to supplement what's missing, not to just add it. because we think more is better. In fact, when we add fertilizer, organic or otherwise, we can actually create toxic levels of certain things such as phosphorus, the middle number, which doesn't move through the soil very fast at all.
So if we continue to add 10, 10, 10, which is a standard synthetic, you know, it sounds good, a good balanced fertilizer, 10, 10, 10, that ratio is way too high. In the, in the amount of phosphorus and potassium that's being delivered in concert with that same amount of nitrogen, you know, nitrogen is the nutrient, whether it's, you know, period chemically organic nitrogen and synthetically produced nitrogen are exactly the same.
The plant does not know the difference, but the concentration levels are typically so much higher in synthetically created fertilizer that we're creating these toxic conditions. And in excess, not only does it. Adversely impact your plants, but it harms the biodiversity in your plant. All the living organisms that are there because of the buildup is just toxic to them too. So what we can do to answer your question is first of all, get that proverbial soil test, not, not necessarily to find out.
You know, what you need to add to know what's missing, you know, just, and just supplement the parts that are missing because most people don't understand that if you focus on just building soil with compost and nice organic inputs, the soil pretty much is going to be at the level it needs to be. And when we go and add to that, we're just. Throwing it off. So moderation for sure. Do the soil test and don't blanketly add stuff just because you think that's going to help.
Only add when you know you're deficient in that particular
Yes. I, I love that perspective. I had a interview a couple months ago with Redmond Ag. They've been promoting a home soil test. This is really easy to use. And I had one of their soil guys on and I so appreciated his perspective because he's like, yeah, I get the soil test, but he's like, please don't use it as like this prescriptive, you know, I'm two points low in sulfur. So now I have to go get sulfur. He's like, Think about whole foods for your soil.
He's like, whole food, whole food, whole food. And I'm like, thank you. I, I just, I so respect the integrity of you saying that. Cause I know you could sell all those little additives, but they're not, you know, they're looking at that bigger picture. And so often, like you said, compost fixes it or not fixes maybe is the wrong word, but compost can bring things back into balance. Just those natural additives.
And Jill, to that point I, you know, I make a lot of compost and I add it to my beds twice a year. It's just a top dressing of a one to two inches across the surface. Coming into my summer crops, so like in spring, and then after I pull summer out and get ready for fall, I have empty beds. So I top dress again. Sometimes I don't get it both times a year, but at least once a year. But I got to tell you. I don't have to supplement fertilizing my beds at all.
And in my proof of that, in absence of a soil test, I don't need it because I mean, don't get, hear me out on this. I think soil tests are important for information, but the proof is going to be in your plants performance. And if I haven't added any synthetic or organic fertilizer per se, but my plants are just blowing out exactly how you want them to glow. And your, and your garden is. Disease resistant and pest resistant.
It's a healthy biodiverse environment because you've really focused Your energy on creating that environment through healthy soil via compost. And so that alone for me has allowed me to have thriving plants and abundant harvest in pest and disease pressure. And I really do attribute it to mostly the soil
Yeah. Soil's everything. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So good. Okay, so some organic fertilizer tips. Now let's kind of shift into, I think, one of at least my biggest challenges as an organic gardener, and I think this probably applies to most folks, the pests, the bugs, the insects. You know, So, again, this is one of those where people see bugs on their plants and the accepted path is to run to the garden store and get all of the pesticides and just go like scorched earth on the garden.
So how can we avoid that or what are some alternatives and maybe we could get into also some of the common bugs in particular because I know there's different strategies for different insects. But yeah, kind of give me your overarching philosophy on that maybe to start.
Okay. I had, I kind of had this philosophy when, when my friend, Suzanne Wainwright Evans, who is a really good entomologist, she travels the world advising greenhouse growers and farmers and gardeners in mass about biological control. But in a podcast that I had with her years ago, this is something she told me. I will never forget it.
And I say it to myself and to others is that She asked me if you are said if you want to make your pest problem worse Spray pesticides and I'm like, okay, that's heavy. And then I had her explain it and she said well, here's the thing very few Organic or synthetic pesticides.
I can't think of any synthetic ones are are narrowly focused as in not broad spectrum, not, you know, another, another words better said, is that most of what we spray in our gardens, organic or otherwise to kill pest are not selective broad spectrum. So they're going to hit or kill anything that it hits. Meaning your lady beetles, your lace wings, your assassin bugs, all the good guys out there doing some of that pest control for you are getting killed as well. But here's the rub.
If that wasn't enough, because the beneficials haven't developed a tolerance or adapted as rapidly to recovery from these pesticides. Guess who shows up in the recovery phase first? The bad guys without any threat because the good guys haven't recovered yet. And so now the bad guys. When they had some beneficial insects out there taking them out, now there isn't any of that threat. So, so they can just do what they want without any fear of getting eaten or whatever, not that they're afraid.
But the point is, when you wipe out your beneficials because you're taking matters into your own hands, you've really created the, you've made your problem worse. So that's the first thing, and I hope everybody, no one ever forgets that. Keep that in mind anytime you're applying anything, and I'm talking about organic or synthetic. Now, fortunately, There are some organic controls like biological controls, BT, bacillus thuringiensis, and some other things that are, are narrowly focused.
Like if you have a caterpillar or a worm problem on your plants, BT spray or powder is really a good thing. And it's narrowly focused and it's safe for humans, pets, anything. I mean, it's just amazing. And I even rarely use that. Okay. But, my philosophy and focus is to build, again, that healthy, thriving garden, starting with good soil, and then allowing with patience, the opportunity for the beneficials to come in.
So when your plants are healthier, first of all, they're less attractive to the bit of, to the pest insects because it's not low hanging fruit. It's not easy pickings for them. The, the, the plant leaves are more robust and tougher, so they're not. More as palatable potentially as maybe pest ridden. I'm sorry weaker plants and and then adding You know pollinating flowers, you know, just drawing in beneficials To help do that pest control for you by focusing on not what can I put on my garden?
But how do I make my garden healthier? How do I make my plants healthier? How do I draw in more beneficial and predatory insects and you do that with a diverse garden don't plant?
You know, your entire garden with tomatoes, as much as you may love tomatoes, because that's the monoculture and they're, I mean, you know, a lot of pests are going to come in, that diversity is going to attract a lot of beneficials and some pests, and that's okay because the beneficials, if there aren't anything for them to eat, then. You know, that's not good either.
So it's okay if the if the pests come in if you've got the beneficials They need that food too, but they're also going to keep them in check lastly.
You just need to have some level of tolerance So it's you know, don't freak out just because you see some pest damage plants For example leafy crops can handle 35 percent damage to their foliage before there's even a dent to their productivity And and when we understand that it's like oh that takes a little bit of the pressure off of us to feel like we've got To be out there every day Handpicking everything we see or finding some benign product that we can use.
So patience tolerance and focusing on building overall soil health is going to go a long way pest control.
Yeah. I think that, I mean, it's simple, but I think the reason it's so hard for people to embrace that is because it's not the quick fix. We love, in our culture, we love our quick fixes and our just add this one ingredient and off we go and it's not that. It's, gardening is such. That holistic mindset and it's slow and it's building all these different systems together, but man, it can work when it, when it comes together.
You just add great punctuation points to what I'm talking about. But the quick fix is the downfall really do a truly biodiverse garden because a quick fix isn't how nature would do it. And I always try to put myself in kind of that question. What would nature do sort of, you know, it's like nature doesn't have a quick fix, but it has the systems in place. Through diversity and the insects that are going to take out the bad guys.
If you, again, it comes back to patience and threshold of tolerance, but if you do that and we can let go of that quick fix, we're going to have, we're going to have a long term solution. The quick fix to me talking about the junk food, whole foods scenario, a quick fix is eating junk food to satisfy your hunger pangs. Okay, fine. That popcorn, I mean, that popcorn is not so bad, but the chips and the soda.
Taste good, and I'm not hungry anymore for a few minutes, but then I am, and in the meantime, I added all these calories and carbs and all these things that my body really doesn't want, and now I've got a, I'm hungry again, and, and I don't want to, your body, you're not doing your body any favors with a quick fix, versus the whole foods, you're creating that, solving that hunger pang, longer term, and your body's getting nutrition in the process, and overall, you're, you're better off.
So, take that same analogy and apply it to uh, how you deal with your
Yeah. That's a great analogy. I love that. Yeah. And I think. I think maybe the grocery store has set us up for unrealistic expectations because, you know, we never see lettuce with a bite in it or cabbage with a hole in it at the grocery store because they are doused in chemicals. And so there's, there's such a fear of nature in many folks in our modern world.
And I think when you, we have our spinach with a few holes, I mean, I understand not wanting to eat it if it's just ridden with bug bites, but a few holes, isn't going to hurt you wash it, you know, a little bit of lettuce with a few little marks and it isn't going to hurt you. But I think that maybe we're just so used to seeing it pristine that. that doesn't feel normal anymore to have a little bit of pest damage on some of the vegetables.
absolutely. The uniformity and the perfection of the, what we see in our grocery store, produce aisles is ridiculous. And I love the concept that came out a few years ago, like ugly tomatoes and the, and the, and the produce that you could buy in certain stores that maybe was a little bit off and how it looked, but there wasn't anything wrong with it. You know, it just wasn't a perfectly round tomato. And we, we just need to get over that.
Yes. Yes. Oh, okay. So we've talked about kind of that slow fix, that whole foods solution to pest problems. Let's say someone is listening today and they're like, cool, Joe. But I have no cabbage left because the moths, the little worms have eaten it down to smithereens. Or, you know, I have a horde of aphids in my growing spaces, my greenhouse, whatever, and I can't even harvest a single spinach plant.
Like, do you have any help for those folks in those situations who might need immediate assistance this year?
Yes. And so again, it comes down to what, first of all, it comes down, when you see a bug on your plant, whether it's a beneficial or a pest, no, first of all, whether it is a beneficial or a pest and don't assume that you're guilty until proven innocent, you know, like, like lady beetle larva doesn't look anything like the adult lady beetle, which they're both beneficial.
And the lady beetle larva is a. voracious Consumer of aphids, but when you look at this little black and orange alligator on your plants you go Oh my
It does look like an alligator.
It does it's not so so I beg everybody to start Doing a little homework in their garden. I mean, it's so fascinating What I love about gardening so much is there's so much to know and you're never going to know at all So you're always challenged and always interested. No two days are the same, but you're going to have insects in your garden and some are going to be pests. But the other thing I want people to know is of all the bugs in your garden, only 1% are technically pests.
The ones that are going to do damage to your plants. So that makes 99% either beneficial or benign, not no damage whatsoever. So first of all, if we're going to give credit to one or the other, it should be innocent until proven guilty. You know, just, they're not pests, but to your point, once you identify it as a pest, then you need to understand what are my solutions.
And a lot of us have heard the term IPM integrated pest management, which is a, an approach to pest management that starts with the most benign controls first, you know, like, like, can I hand pick it off? Can I wash it off? Can I provide a. physical barrier, a row cover over that. And you know, if you get past that, then what's the next phase and the next phase and the next thing? And I think step five or so is ultimately, well, we're going to have to use some sort of chemical control.
But when we do, we should be looking at what options do we have for that? And are there any biological controls that may be more narrowly focused where they're going to take out. Aphids are soft bodied pests, such as insecticidal soap or botanical oils, but they're not going to harm our bees. You know, there's options for
the bees. Mm
But, but if we, but, but if we don't know, and we go to the, the box store and we look at the shelf and there's like, you know, insect killer, and it shows the thing that you want to kill on the label, then you're going to, Oh, that's for me, but again, it's those ripple effect unintended consequences keep in mind. So there are, there are levels of. Applications that we can buy and put onto our plans that vary in their reach, their scope.
And we should be looking for, we should be doing our homework. You know, my website, and I know there's plenty of places like that. You can, you can find out kind of what those options are. There's books out there. There's, you know, the information's out there, but again, it requires doing a little bit of homework. Educating yourself as to what your options are, depending on what the pest is, is what I would say.
And more often than not, a lot of times a stiff blast of water goes, goes a long way, you know, but I'll start there.
Yeah. No, that's a great, great suggestion. I think just avoiding that broad spectrum, just like, you know, vaporizing everything is probably a big step for most people. And if they could just start to go a little more targeted, that's going to take them a long ways.
Yeah. Yeah. And then just timing, you know, even, even if they have to get to that top tier, most broad spectrum control, even if they had to get to that, and I can't tell you, I can't even remember or name the last time I ever even thought about that, because you know, the things that you do ahead of that can make those systems work together so that you never get to that point. But even if you did for those that are not there yet, know the best time of day for application.
For example, you know, Middle of the morning is a terrible time to apply anything because look at all the pollinators that are out. The bees have woken up, the butterflies are out, and it's just like, do not spray in the middle of the morning or the even midday, if you had to do anything like that, it would be late in the day after everything's kind of retired for the evening, and then you can get out there and do what you need to do. And you know, that's the lesser of two evils.
I'm not saying that's the that's good to do I'm just saying
Yeah.
take that into consideration as well. Timing has a lot to do with the impact that
Yes, that's a, that's a good point. Easy to miss. I know I've been so intrigued by the idea of bringing more beneficials in as I've dealt with different things. And I had a guest on, I've mentioned this podcast so many times because it was just a great interview Rob Avis of Verge Permaculture. And he was just talking about, you know, just permaculture principles.
And one of the things he said was like, if you have, you don't have a slug problem, you have a duck deficiency, or, you know, in that mindset of looking at the problem as the solution. And I just have been thinking about that so much. And, last summer, I think it was last summer, we had, yeah, we had a horrible infestation of aphids in our greenhouse. I've never really had aphids here, but they got into the greenhouse and just went nuts.
And so we brought in some extra ladybugs and then I was keeping the doors open. And every time we'd find ladybugs, we'd kind of take them to the greenhouse. And pretty soon I had stocks with just ladybugs covering all the stocks. And it was so awesome. And I. I sat out there. I told people this and they think it's really weird. Maybe you'll think it's cool. I, I've always wanted to see a ladybug eat an aphid.
So I sat out there forever until I saw a ladybug and it like was cramming an aphid into its mouth. And it was so cool,
I love that
to see the battle. I know. I'm just like, I'm such a nerd. No one thinks it's cool, but this is amazing. So it's cool to see nature, you know, work, work itself out.
Amazing. It's amazing. It's fascinating. So yeah, I'm right there with you. Yes.
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Aphid nerds unite. So yeah.
lacewings. I mean, there's a lot of insects that love to eat aphids. So, you know,
Yes. Here, okay, rabbit trail question, because I've, I've seen this on the internet, but as we were talking about, some of those sites are sketchy. I have, I have seen on the great Google that ants farm aphids, or ants will bring aphids in. Is that true or is that a old wives tale?
you're, you're saying ants will bring aphids in.
Yes, I have seen articles that said that ants actually like manage aphids like cattle. They like the sticky sweet stuff. And I have noticed in my greenhouse when I start to see ants appear, then I have aphids usually following. So I'm like, is this a coincidence? Like what's going on? Do you have any info on that?
Well, yeah, no, I I did. I have not seen it in that order. I've seen the ants show up after the aphids are there to, to, to take up the sweet sugary substance. And so yeah, I've heard that term too, but in, in my real life application and what I noticed, it's, it's I don't notice the ants before I noticed the aphids. I noticed it in reverse. And, and even then it's not as though the ants are doing anything to help cut down on the aphid population. They're just,
No.
to the exudates of the
Yes. Okay, maybe, yeah, I'll have to pay more attention, like, as I had this one bed in my my greenhouse and I had just like little tiny harmless black ants. I noticed they were really prevalent this spring and then all of a sudden in that same bed, like a month ago, I was like, there's the aphids, they're in that one bed near the ants. So I'm, but I, it could be a, which came first. Chicken or the egg scenario too. Maybe I missed the aphids coming in and ants. It could have been either or.
So, more research. I will, I will spend more time watching the bugs out in the garden and get back to you on that. So, yes. Sitting on a bucket watching the bugs. So,
Good.
Yes. Okay, so we talked about fertilizer. We talked about pests. Now I think the other big topic in the world of gardening and that is weeds. That's something we all talk about as gardeners and the conventional mindset is you got weeds, you go get herbicides, whether they're in your yard or your sidewalks or whatever. Funny story. My dad actually, as a child, his career was selling farm chemicals.
And so he worked for companies or he was selling, you know, Monsanto derivatives and all of those mass farm chemicals. And so he has a very much an affinity for those. Whenever we get together at holidays, we have arguments over Roundup and he's always like, you have weeds in your driveway, use Roundup. And I'm like, I will not, I will not use Roundup. Or he'll be like, spray your, you know, the walkways in your garden, spray them with Roundup. And I'm like, absolutely not.
So just kind of funny, but you know, that's the mindset that a lot of folks have. You just go to the garden store, you get the chemical and your weed problems go away. So obviously we're not going to spray our vegetable gardens with those sorts of chemicals, but what are some of your organic gardening solutions for weeds?
I have those. Can I just show you something real quick? I was looking for, as you were talking about that.
Yes,
Have you read this book?
I had him on my podcast. He was so
Chatty, isn't he amazing?
He's amazing.
God, this book. It was a page turner. I could not, I'm like, Oh my God, I can't believe I'm just like, it's like a novel about a case with Roundup.
Yes. Yes. Yeah. It makes you, makes you totally rethink all those, you know, harmless chemicals real quick, real
it does. Okay. So my number one solution to cutting down on your weed problem. Let me also say this. I say I'm fond of saying weeds are like. Death taxes. How do I say this? There's two certainties in life. That's the old expression, death and taxes. But I always say there's three. And I add weeds to that, but my, my somebody on my team said actually there's four. Four certainties in life. Death, taxes, weeds, and Mariah Carey songs at Christmas time. So,
There you go. That's great. Good list. Good list. So
So, here's how we deal with weeds. They're gonna be there. We can't, You know, they are a fact of life, but I have far fewer weeds and the areas of my lawn and landscape and garden when I add a two inch layer of mulch mulch to me is there. There are 10, at least 10 reasons why everybody should be using mulch, natural mulch in some derivative. And one of the biggest is weak suppression because a lot of the weeds that we have anywhere on our property is because the dormant seeds.
Have been exposed to sunlight. And when that happens, whether we do that through raking or tilling or disturbing the soil, when they see the light of day, they're going to germinate. But when you have a layer of mulch that blocks the light from getting to the surface of the soil, besides preventing runoff and erosion and all these other things, it's blocking the light that the seeds need to germinate. So in my raised bed garden.
Anytime I post a picture of it on instagram or whatever, you know Somebody's always going to say how do you keep those weeds? Why are there no weeds there, you know?
And I say well there are sometimes and and you know When i'm when I don't get out to the garden and weed it a couple times a year I get a lot of weeds and then I have to spend two two hours Pulling them out by hand, which is what I do and I don't mind it Especially after rain and I pull them that's very gratifying But then the then all you do the key Is to make sure that you've got the mulch down and then every time you go out into the garden Hopefully it's more often than not If you see a weed
you just pull it you bend over and you pull it out And I have a big raised bed garden and a lot of pathways I I like defy a weed to show itself these days because in spite of how large I have I like It's the key is staying on top of it. So the, the job of pulling them all out one time, making sure you've got mulch on, and then it's just a matter after that of whether it's in the beds, in the pathways, whatever.
Now that said, I've got big landscape beds that I can't get to mulching them enough to keep the soil surface covered all the time, and they, they have weeds and it can be overwhelming, so you have to tackle those. Those areas little by little, like segment out a, a section of your bed or say, I'm going to weed for an hour and then stop. So it's not overwhelming. You know, you're, you make progressions and then and then make sure you get your mulch. But hand pulling is my favorite thing.
Do you, what do you use,
I, I'm also a mulch fanatic. I mean, I think any of my listeners will be like, Oh my gosh, she's talking about mulch again. Like, I just, I just love it. Like it was such a game changer. And like you said, I still have weeds and I've also just had to reframe The, the tasks, like instead of like, oh my gosh, I have more chores and I have to get these garden chores done so I can go recreate or sit on the couch or whatever. It's like, no, I get to go outside.
I'm feeding my, my need for physical activity. I'm getting out in nature. I'm touching soil, which is good. I'm helping my mental health. I often use weeding as like a break when I'm sitting in the office too long. Like I'll go out and just be outside. I'll listen to a podcast or music. And so that's really helped where I see it less is like, Oh my gosh, I have to weed. And now I like, I get to go outside and be in my garden for a while. And I don't know.
It's kind of addictive when you get started. Like it's kind of fun. I don't know. Yeah.
Yep. And especially, like I said, after a rain, you know, when the ground is softer, the roots come out easier and then you hear the sound of the roots being ripped up through the soil. That's always gratifying. I like that
It's so gratifying.
Yeah. And then, and then hand weeding. So if so. You know, prefer to pull weeds out by hand because I actually like it and it's exercise and it's my Zen time. Like you, I like to just listen to the birds or nature early in the morning. But I have a, I have a couple of favorite weeding tools. One in particular, it's just called a scuffle hoe, scuffle hoe or weed winged weeder, which is like sharp on four sides, like a diamond on a long handle with a pistol grip.
And it's, yeah, I just sit there and scrape it along the surface of the soil. And it's severing the roots on those. Shallowly rooted weeds. Now, a dandelion or a thistle or something like that, you know, that's probably going to grow back because the taproot is going to cause it to reemerge. Those are the ones you really need to make sure you're hand pulling. But then you use a soil knife and you get down there deep and you pry it out and you get it all.
So understanding that your tool's a choice, finding what works best for you definitely makes it easy. Like having the right tool for the right job makes all the difference
Yes. And I, there's definitely something to be said as well for staying on top of it. Cause I, I mean, I, I do feel stress if I have a big patch where it's out of control and it's been a month since I've been out there. That's not, I, I feel my stress level rising, but if I can just do a little bit a day, sometimes even 10, 15 minutes on my raised beds, like it, it's surprisingly not that much if I'm on top of it. Yeah.
That's what I say. If you could just incrementally like, like say I'm going to do two beds today, one bed, five beds, whatever, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, giving parameters around what you're going to do somehow eases the tension or the stress or the overwhelm because you know, That's it. And then you come back the next time. That's key. That's really key.
I agree. What's your favorite mulch material?
Shredded leaves, semi composted, shredded leaves. And where I live in Atlanta, I mean, I'm on five acres and I've got lots of trees, but I don't harvest my leaves. I let them fall and let them break down in place. But in the surrounding subdivisions, these HOA subdivisions that are all around me, they gotta bag their leaves up because the HOA doesn't let them just leave their leaves around. And so, Literally, Jill, over the course of three weekends in November, I get in my pickup truck.
I post on Nextdoor and Facebook and I say, Hey, if you've got bagged leaves, clean bag leaves, let me know and I'll come pick them up. And they're like, wow. And, and within a couple hours I have to cut off the comments because I already know I end up with about 350, 400 of these, you know, recyclable bags, paper bags full of leaves. And then I have a leaf shredder. And so when I get home, I shred half of them and I dump the other half out on my landscapes beds.
Because, you know, frankly, one of the things we've learned in recent years about leaves is that a lot of beneficial insects overwinter in those leaves. And so we want to allow for that to happen. And so. If I'm going around shredding every bag of leaves that I collect, no doubt I'm probably killing, you know, some overwintering insects in there too. Now that said, every bag that was at the curb, whether I picked it up or not, was headed for the landfill.
So I diverted 350, 400 bags from the landfill and released half of them into my beds. And then the other half I do shred with a leaf shredder, put it in a mulch pile and let it break down. And then six months later, I've got the most amazing mulch that I started adding in spring. And then here's the thing, it works so great. It's free. It's plentiful. And then as it's breaking down over the course of the summer into fall, it's improving the soil.
And we already talked about improving the soil and it's a comp, it's a compost like organic material. So I can't think of anything better, but straw would be my second choice if you want another option.
Yes. Yes, I've done, we don't have leaves here because we don't have, we have very few trees and then the trees that we do have, we have like a hundred mile an hour winds regularly. So they blow the leaves away. So I would love leaves. But yeah, I've used straw. I've used hay. I've used, actually, grass clippings are my favorite right now because we, we don't spray our yard with anything. And so I only use my own clippings and we cut it before it gets seed heads.
And so that's worked pretty well. But yeah, I, it's like you said, it's so brilliant. I'm like, you know, it's putting nutrients back in the soil. It's reducing the weeding. It's helping reduce watering. I'm like, It's magic. It's absolute magic. I could just talk about mulch for days.
and you're, you're not buying bags of mulch at the box store with all the plastic and all the stuff that, that went into that. And who even knows if the mulch you're getting like the Cypress mulch, is it even from a sustainable source? Because a lot of the Cypress that's cut down is from wetland areas and Cypress isn't the fastest growing tree and it doesn't. It's not a sustainable harvest.
And so, you know, again, once it comes down to educating yourself about what you're using on your property and where you're sourcing it from and where is it sourced, there's a lot to learn. And it's to me, it's interesting and it's
yeah, absolutely. Yeah, and I think the less we can, we have to bring home from the garden store, the better. It just makes life a lot easier. So that actually segues really nicely into my, kind of my final big question for you. I want to talk about, you mentioned earlier, unintended consequences. And there's one that I know I've struggled with over the years and a lot of folks have. It's becoming more prevalent. Sometimes it comes in, in our mulches. Sometimes it comes in, in our compost.
And it's this idea of persistent herbicide contamination. I've called it aminopyralid contamination. There's all different names for it, but it is very problematic. I have dealt with it a couple of times over the years. I actually still have some residue in one of my beds in the greenhouse. I'm still kind of waiting for it to go away.
And for those of you listening and you're not familiar what happens is that these herbicides You didn't, you didn't spray them, you didn't buy them, but they can come into your garden in the forms of compost or manure or mulches or hay or straw. And it doesn't kill your plants, at least in my experience. It just stunts them. And you'll see the telltale signs, at least in my garden, where the leaves start to get like really twisty.
They almost look sickened and gnarled and you'll be like, what's going on? And so a number of years ago, it set me on this journey to figure it out. But Joe, I know you've dealt with that. Can you give me the rundown of what you do and how you discovered it? It's such, such a devastating problem.
You know, it happens to the best of us, Jill, as you know, and it happened to me. And I even did a blog post on it years ago when it did happen. I called it killer compost. It happened to me. And so I chronicled. Let me just tell you a little more of the backstory on it.
I had my garden, my raised bed garden where I live now, we've been here 11 years, so my raised bed garden has been here 10 years and right after I built my raised bed garden, I put in all of this great soil, compost, great top soil, other organic material, but I saved about 20% of the volume in the bed for our horse manure. We have horses here and we had this amazing pile of compost and manure just waiting to be added to the garden.
I, I speak a lot and for years, even prior to this, I knew about persistent herbicides through immunocloprid and persistent herbicides generally is the, is the term I use because they don't break down. The molecules are synthetically produced and they're so tight and so durable that it takes about five years or more. For those molecules to be deactivated to the point that they're not going to have an impact in your garden. So I knew about this before it ever happened to me.
And so I'd tell, I'd warn everybody about it. You know, usually it's in the whore. We know a lot of us love to use animal waste, horse manure specifically. And let's face it. The number one food that horses eat typically is, Hey, well, how does, how does this persistent herbicide get into the manure? Well, it's because the farmers, in their fields don't, you know, if they were to sell, Hey, they had a bunch of broadleaf weeds in it. It would be of lower value. It wouldn't be as clean.
It wouldn't be as attractive. And they couldn't get as much money for it. I understood. I get that. So they spray a product called in our case, it's, grazon, Grazon, and the name, the reason it's named that is you know, I don't remember. Anyway, the reason it's named that is because horses can safely eat the hay, even though it's been sprayed with this, this herbicide, because Grazon or the herbicide, and it doesn't break down through the digestive system of the animal.
And it passes out the back end safely. And the animal was never the worst for wear. However, because that molecule is still intact.
The manure that we then let break down and use in our garden still has that same persistent herbicide in it And so when we put it into our gardens unbeknownst to us, it's still active And so some plants are more sensitive than others like tomatoes and peppers and beans And peas and it does I mean it really you'll know when you see it You're like you'll walk out one day and you'll say what the what just happened?
You know, you've never seen anything like it as you described and it's the persistent herbicides every time and it can even be speaking around up again. I mean that can even impact drift in the air your neighbors spraying roundup and the air can carry it onto your plants and then you notice it on your plants that way too, but that's Related, but not. So let's go back to persistent herbicides. So then what do you do? You got some options.
You can either replace your soil and depending on how much of your soil you need to replace, that can be overwhelming and, you know, not doable. Or you wait it out. And in my case, so back to that point, and then I'll take it home from there. We were filming. So I finally filled my beds with that, with that manure, even though, remember I told you that I'd been warning everybody not to do that.
But in the meantime, I've been looking at my manure pile over the months and thinking, Oh, this is looking good. I don't see any signs of anything because I saw. coming out the top and in my head, I was thinking, Oh, that proves that there's no persistent herbicide in there because if there was, there wouldn't be anything green growing out the top of the manure where I failed to make the connection was what was going out the top of the manure was not broadleaf weeds. They were grasses.
Yeah.
And so. The herbicide in the manure was killing off the broadleaf weeds that would have been sprouting, but it's not, doesn't affect grasses. So I forgot to make that association. So when I put it into my garden and then I put my plants in and we're out here filming one day for my show, and we're looking at everything and I'm thinking, and I tell my camera guy, I said, I can't believe what I just did.
I've got persistent herbicides in my soil from the manure I put in here that I've warned everybody else not to do. And I just did it. And now look at my garden. And he said. He said, this is a quote. He said, dude, we can't, we can't show that. We can't talk about that on your, your Joe Gardner. And I thought, actually, I need to talk about this because if it happens to me, who knows better it's going to happen.
I mean, every, it's going to happen to a lot of people, but I need to make them aware of it. So we showed it, it's in a show. And, but it took me four years of turning my soil to the air, watering it. Lot, you know, you go on the websites of these companies that make it and it's like, there's warnings, they're not very prominent about if you're gardening, don't use manure, don't use horse manure, hay, including mulch cause of the risk.
And and then there's not a lot of hope for how you deactivate it quickly. There's not anything out there. It just takes time. UV light, moisture, heat. And it took me about four years to recover from it.
Yeah. And it's, it's so devastating and it's so hard. Like you said, like we want to use the manure, especially when you're doing organic things like we have horses as well. The horses, the horse manure was our issue. Also, and it's like so beautiful. I have a manure pile out there right now. It's broken down. It's gorgeous. I just go out there and I like touch it because I'm like, it looks so beautiful, but I, I tested it this year and maybe, I don't know if you have any other testing options.
I just did, I, I planted a bunch of bean seeds in the compost and I had one seed germinate out of like 20 and I'm like, eh, nope, not using it. So it's still in there. Do you have any other ways to test or people ask me all the time, is there a test you can buy?
I don't know. There probably is. I don't know of it but your, your test is really the simplest thing you can do. It's called a bioassay test, but you're just, you know, the way that I would do it. I like your way, but you want to compare to the way I would do it is get six pots, you know, six pots, three are going to have Hmm. Purchased soil or good soil that you know has no chance of having persistent herbicides in it.
So you fill that with that good soil, and then you get three pots with the questionable soil, like the horse manure. And you can even mix it 50 50 or whatever, because it only takes about five parts per billion of persistent herbicide to impact your plant. So you don't need a lot of this stuff.
But anyway 50 50 will definitely tell you so three three containers of the iffy stuff Three containers of the good stuff plant bean seeds in all six Make sure you keep them separate do not cross contaminate and then see what happens over the next three weeks You'll know
Yeah.
and if if they all look the same and that they're good Then you're you're lucky and you can use that horse manure and one other thing I just want to say jill and that is I I was a spokesperson for the u. s composting council for a long time And I'd sit in on those annual meetings and they kept talking about every year they were having more and more challenges with.
The, the people that would dump their their salt, you know, the, the landfills, the stuff that would come in was full of persistent herbicides and the, and the landfill companies had no way of screening to keep it out. So my, the bottom line is it's getting worse and worse and worse because those persistent herbicides are being utilized more and more and more. It's not getting less and less and less. It's getting more and more and more. So we have to be way more vigilant than we
Yes. It's so disheartening. Do you have any tips? Because people ask me all the time, especially like they might not have horses or they might not have their own source of mulch or compost or like, how do I know? Like when I buy it, is there any brands out there if they're, if they're buying stuff at the garden store? And I don't, I don't have a lot of resources. I'm just kind of like, I feel like I'm fumbling along doing my own little bioassay test. Do you have any? tips for them.
Well, I don't, I don't. I don't know that I've ever seen bagged horse manure and I think horse manure is where your highest risk of getting persistent herbicides into your garden So, so my alternative for everybody that wants to use a manure product would be cow manure. Like I know that black, black cow brand out of, I think they're all over the country now. I think they're out of Florida, but, but cows. typically aren't grazing on hay.
They're, they're, they're fed grains and things that just isn't the same thing. And so I've never had an instance that I'm aware of. And I use horse, I use cow manure a lot. Never had an instance with that. So I, I feel like you can be, you can, you can feel safe and using cow manure from a reputable company like black cow. I know there's others and I don't have any affiliation with them, but I just.
I've had good success with them, but I'd go with cow manure or chicken manure or goat manure, some small poultry, some small scale livestock animal manure would be a better chance as long as they're not eating. Hey,
Right. Yes. Yes. I've been we have, my daughter has a few rabbits this year and I've been trying to grab it. So it's ridiculous. I have this giant compost pile and I'm scraping up the rabbit manure in
I know you got
because I'm like, ah, you got to keep it separate. Yeah.
That rabbit manure is great stuff. Great stuff.
yes, yes. I've been quite, I'm like, I don't really want rabbits. She does. But I'm like, we'll just keep them for the manure. That's like enough reason for me to have rabbits.
Same here. Same here. Yeah.
Yep. Okay. Oh my goodness. We've covered some amazing ground. We talked about weeds. We talked about pests. We talked about herbicides. Any other common struggles you see with organic gardening that you'd want to share as we wrap up today?
You know,
Or solutions rather. Struggles slash solutions.
you know, I don't know what people today, you know, Or intimidated by organic gardening because you know, the chemicals that we talked about earlier, the products that we can get off the shelf that are unfortunately skewed towards the synthetic non organic stuff. They make it so accessible. It's in your face and, and you know, the marketing is all behind it and everything. And so then you start to learn about, well, gosh, maybe I should be trying organic or doing organic.
And then, you know, you've got to learn, you got to educate yourself a little bit. So I would just tell people don't overcomplicate it, just. Take take make bite sized steps to seek out somebody like jill or me or whoever that mentor is for you That's an organic gardener and just See what they have to say. See what they're writing about, talking about, you know, just make them your guide and then take it one step at a time. It's not harder. It's you, you're more successful overall.
You just it's a different way of thinking if you've done it at, if you've done it just all synthetically the first time. But if you've never done either, it's not a different way. It's just the way, and it's not hard. And focus on the
Focus on the soil. Yes. And I think so many times when we think something is harder, I've seen that in the kitchen because I also love cooking, you know, people have these perceptions that this is hard and this is impossible and you can only do this if you buy it. And I'm like, no, that's just marketing. You've been marketed to very thoroughly genius marketers who have convinced you that you are incapable and this is out of your reach. And it's really not.
And I think that absolutely applies to so many of the garden aspects as
Yeah, I agree.
Yeah. Well, this was incredible. This was an absolute pleasure to have you on. Can you give everybody a quick rundown of where to find you? Because I know you have so many resources, so much content, you have courses and books. Where is the best place for folks to start with all that you have to offer?
If if there's one place, it's just joegardner. com. That's my brand. That's my that's my Instagram avatar. It's just it all of that stuff is joegardner And i'll just say spell joegardener properly because there's an extra e a lot of people just want to drop that e out of gardener and it's Gardener, but anyway, you'll find me in either way. You spell Joe Gardner on the online. com.
You'll find us, but that's, that's the hub I would have everybody go to because there we link out to our YouTube and courses
Yes. Excellent. Yeah. And go check it out, guys. It's good stuff. It's actionable. It's bite sized. It's, has good depth. So you'll, if you like my content, I know you'll love Joe's content as well. So thank you so much again for coming on. I learned a ton. It was fun to chat with another like minded person and yeah, this was a great episode. So thank you.
Thank you, Jill. Great questions. It was fun to talk to you and look forward to doing more of that very
Yes, absolutely.