Hello hello, and welcome to Episode 110 of Life On the Brink!
Spring is just around the corner, and if you’re like me it’s during this time of year that I always get excited to get back into the garden. In that vein, today I’m welcoming someone who has made gardening and landscaping his passion and career. Matthieu Mehuys is a landscape architect from Belgium, and we enjoyed a lovely conversation all about regenerative gardening, working with and understanding nature and caring for the foundations of your garden!
In this episode we talk about:
-how to care for your soil
-working with nature to create a flourishing garden
-how to envision and design your garden space
-beginner-friendly plants
-and a LOT more!
For the complete show notes, click here!
For full transcript, click here!
Site: lifeonthebrink.live
Social: @anna_on_the_keys
Hello hello, and welcome to Episode 110 of Life On the Brink!
Spring is just around the corner, and if you’re like me it’s during this time of year that I always get excited to get back into the garden. In that vein, today I’m welcoming someone who has made gardening and landscaping his passion and career. Matthieu Mehuys is a landscape architect from Belgium, and we enjoyed a lovely conversation all about regenerative gardening, working with and understanding nature and caring for the foundations of your garden!
In this episode we talk about:
-how to care for your soil
-working with nature to create a flourishing garden
-how to envision and design your garden space
-beginner-friendly plants
-and a LOT more!
For the complete show notes, click here!
For full transcript, click here!
Site: lifeonthebrink.live
Social: @anna_on_the_keys
Welcome to Life on the brink, a lovely little place filled with inspiration and creativity that is dedicated to enjoying life one day at a time. I'm Ana. And together, we're exploring the beautiful things in this world that fascinate us. And often discovering something new. Hello, hello, and welcome to episode 110 of life on the brink. This is officially the last episode that will air before springtime. So we're very much anticipating spring in this episode, I hope that you're doing well, and that you're staying, staying well. In terms of health, I've been getting over a little bit of something. But in case you hear it in my voice, that's what it is. I'm on the mend, though. And baby girl is just fine. But we're at that time of the year when I get all excited once again, to get out in the garden, I'll tell you, by the end of each growing season, which for me is quite late, like getting into winter, I'm ready for a break, I just sort of don't do anything for several months, sometimes a little planning here and there. But every year when spring comes around the corner, I just get so excited to see what will grow and I have all kinds of ideas. And if you are like that as well, then today's episode is going to be just for you. We have a very special guest today, all the way we have a conversation back and forth all the way from Belgium, I'm going to be talking with someone who has grown up around plants and gardening and has made it his whole life's business. And I would say truly a life's calling for him. His name is now he was very gracious with me when I pronounced it to the best of my ability METU ma haste. And I know that may not be exactly right. But he said I could call him Matthew. So I've done so. And we had a really great conversation about gardening about well, he's technically in landscape architecture these days. And he has an upcoming book called The 12 universal laws of nature. And so he's really going from literally the ground up, we talk a lot about soil and about making gardening an enjoyable thing by truly understanding what's going on. So also if you're someone who would maybe want to get into some gardening, but it's very intimidating. This is a very relaxed environment in which hopefully, you can gain a little bit more confidence in trying to just do something new in your garden, whatever that looks like. So I won't take up any more time. With this intro. We'll just get right into the conversation. So go ahead and make yourself a nice cup of tea. Lately, I've been drinking a lot of very floral green teas. To me that feels like springtime and just get cozy. I'm going to leave links in the in the blog post to everything that we talk about. But feel free to take your own personal notes if if it inspires you. And so without further ado, this is my conversation with METU. All about creating the garden of your dreams. Okay, welcome. I have Matthew with me here today. Welcome. I'm so glad to be able to talk to you all the way in Belgium. Welcome. Yes. Thank you, Anna. It's an honor to be on your show. Yeah, I'm excited to I'd love to know first just like a bit about your background and how you got into this world and how you've developed it over the past couple of years. Yeah, that's a really good question, because that actually explains what I've been or why I'm currently doing what I'm doing today. And it actually all started when I was when I was a child. So I grew up on a family farm. My father and my brother are farmers still today and at a very, very early age. It's one of my first memories that I was on the farm that I was so impressed by how nature functions like I would go out with my dad on the onto the fields in like winter weather or like late winter when spring was going to start. We'd go into out into a field where nothing was growing. We go into the middle of the field and we like my dad has a special knife for this we started scratching the soil and we started looking for seeds that he had sown couple months before And then you could start seeing it sprouting. And this is like, was so amazing for me that the fact that if you have a seed and put it in contact with the soil, that it can grow into an amazing plant, even in a huge tree. This is like for me, this was one of my first memories, and it was like mind blowing to me. How is it even possible? So, and then from that early age, because I was so fascinated about nature, I said to my parents, I want to have my own vegetable garden. Because you have to think in this way on the farm, it was more like cash crops, cattle, there wasn't really a vegetable production because of the type of soil on the farm. But I said, I want to grow my own vegetables. So I had some early early stage success with radishes and to your listeners as well, if you want to grow a vegetable that is super tasty and very easy to grow. Start with radishes. It's like the easiest thing ever. After a couple of weeks, you have edible vegetables. So I started out with that. And I taught and I had some great success at that. I think it was around five or seven years old. And I was like, wow, now I know how nature works. And now I know how to grow vegetables. So I said, Okay, I'm like, I'm the king. Now I'm going to have my own. Like I my parents agreed to that I couldn't have my own little garden. And I said yeah, we'll just put all kinds of seeds, tomatoes, lettuce, everything. Like I had everything designed as well like in a nice shape. And then I just sewing everything thinking like, this is so easy. And then I guess I was also actually at that time, I was also having my own ag business. I had like 20 chicken I was selling. That was really fun. So what I was doing lots of things on the farm, no go with my dad playing in the forest. So kind of forgot about the garden thinking like, oh, take care of itself. It's just so easy. But then I was on a holiday with my cousin or I visited my cousin for a week over the summer holidays. And then I was gonna go home and I was so excited thinking like, I'm gonna go to my vegetable garden. It's going to be full of tomatoes of lettuce, it's going to be like it's got to be so cool. And then you obviously know what happens next I get home. The whole garden is grow overgrown by weeds, obviously like big, nasty weeds because we put quite a bit of compost into the soil because it was such a hard soil like it was pure clay. So I put quite a lot of compost with my grandmother at the time. And I was just devastated. Like, what, how is this possible? Like, I want I want vegetables? I don't want wheat. And yeah. And that actually started my whole journey in the rest of my life to understand nature. Why is it growing weeds when you like tilled the soil. And we could talk about that more in detail. But it kind of guided me throughout my life. Because then when I was like 18, I decided to study Landscape Architecture, Landscape and Garden Design. I did a bachelor's in Belgium. And then I felt I felt like I need to learn more. So I went to Germany, I did my master Master degree there in landscape architecture and landscape development. So it was like more on a bigger scale. And that was really interesting to me to also work on bigger scale projects, and also think more in systems. And then from that I was finishing my study, I told like I have a master degrees, this is amazing. I'm gonna start my first job in Munich in another country he was was really cool. But then I find myself after a couple months, I got a job and I find myself in a nine to five job. And I kind of got like, depressed because I was like, I was doing my job, something that I learned landscape architecture. And I was learning a lot because in Germany, they really they're really good at doing things in a proper way. So it was a really good experience. But I kind of like this is not for me this is this is not what I want to do. I want to have a bigger impact in the world. So I decided okay, I quit my job after two and a half years. And I said I'm going to travel the world. I took my backpack, I went my sorts of countries to see eco resorts because I was fascinated about projects and gardens that have a positive impact on our planet. So I visit tons of these I did volunteering on farms. So I really started to learn more. I did my permaculture design course in India. So I really dive deep into this realm and I had a job as a freelancer so I could kind of sustain this lifestyle. But then something incredible happens as well. It's kind of crazy, but I was in Ecuador really deep in the Amazon rainforest. One of the greatest experience I've ever had, I can highly recommend it. I was just so in touch with nature there and the funny thing was that I was there for three to five days. When I came back from the Amazon rainforest. I got dangly And then he has like, a disease similar to malaria. Oh, wow, knock me out. I was completely gone. I lost 10 kilos. And then I think what it was it was that kind of nature's told me like, Okay, you have you're on a bigger mission here, you're doing some things, but boy, you have to start doing it. Yeah. From from that thing, like, there's a couple of other things in the story. But I got back to Belgium COVID started and I decided to start my own business. And from that moment on, I said, Okay, I'm really going to dedicate my life now to helping gardeners, farmers, and anybody who wants to do something with other spaces to do it in a way that is in harmony with nature. And that is then also linked to my book that is coming out very soon. That is 12 universal laws of nature. How to get the most potential out of your net. So yeah, that's a nutshell because I could keep talking about Yeah, all of this happened. That is so cool. Like, it's such a, an adventure to get to where you are now. And I'm glad you were able to do all that traveling before COVID. Yeah, those pre COVID. So very blessed that I got to do that. Yeah, yeah. So how you speak about planting and gardening and working with the nature in harmony with nature? How do you go about that? Like, what is it about perhaps some more traditional landscaping or farming that is not in harmony with nature, so and so how do you? How do you bring that element in? Because I'm curious, I wouldn't know. Yeah, that's actually the key question and the whole story of doing it in a way that's also better for nature, better for your own back, as a gardener better, to be like how to become a smart gardener. And it all starts with learning how nature works. Like nature has been working in a certain way. And it's governed by certain laws, what I talked about in my book, that it's been like that for millions and millions of years, obviously evolved and changed. But the current state of how nature works works in a certain way. Now, this is also linked to, if you go out into nature, nature will continuously restore itself, like or become the biodiversity of nature, it always grows, it never stops becoming bigger and better and more diverse. So that's something that also is really important to consider. But the key aspect in that is actually that if you go out and you look into nature, you will never see bare soil. Like, I recommend people to check it themselves. It hardly happens only like when there's a landslide or a big wildfire. And then what actually happens is you you're kind of at levels zero from how nature is or how nature evolves. And then it kind of depends a little bit what your climate is, then. But in, let's say the more areas where there's sufficient water like enough rainfall throughout the year, at several moments in the year, then, if you don't do anything, it will eventually turn into forest. And the first plant that helps that to be like to restore the soil is our annuals, annuals that we call weeds. If you have your soil bare, you're gonna have weeds. That's just how nature works. But then if you know that knowledge, you can actively work with the soil to mitigate the weeds or to even grow or actively grow weeds before you continue to work in your garden. I can explain that a little bit more in depth if you want. Yeah, yeah. So do you recommend growing weeds before growing other things? No, I wouldn't. Well, but it kind of depends. There's two ways you can do it. Like if you have a new garden, and it's like, you want to start from scratch, you can like make like what they call a false bed. So you just put out the soil and you let all the weeds grow. And once the weeds have grown, you just kind of scaffold it and you kind of destroy the weeds and then you plant or seed whatever you like. That's one way of doing it. A second way of doing it is also to work with what's called cover crops. It's more commonly used in regenerative farming. I don't know if you heard about regenerative farming, but it's a way that is also farming that is more in harmony with nature. And then what cover crops are is essentially they are also annuals, but you choose specific annuals that will improve the soil that are not going to be invasive that like you kind of directed in that first phase of the succession. And we've been doing some testing gardens and it's really amazing to see that if like you take half a year For you start planting and you saw the seeds, then and then you start planting that you your maintenance drops drastically. And interesting, okay. And then there's also a third way that I can highly recommend and that's, that's called mulching, maybe that's more common for people but you want you don't feel like your planting. Even with vegetables, you just cover the soil as much as possible. Wherever there's bare soil covered with mulch, we usually like start with with a layer of compost for new plantations, then we add cardboard, then we plant our plants inside of the cardboard, like we make it wet, so kind of, it's easier to dig it in. And then once everything is planted, we finish it off with a layer of mulch. And now we've been doing some tests with the specific mulch from kidney beans straw, the straw from kidney beans, because we grow it on our on our family farm destroy is really good because the balance between nitrogen and carbon is perfect. Oh, okay, you get into like composting and soil improvement, it's important to have a good balance between nitrogen and carbon. And, like sometimes if, for example, let's say if you would you only use wood chips, wood chips, obviously are very high in carbon content. So let's say you put wood chips between all your new plantings, it will actually suck out the nitrogen, it will take out the nitrogen from the soil like, and that's not necessarily what you want, especially for a flowering garden. If you want to have a garden that is more for shrubs, and even flowering shrubs, then it's good to use woodchips, it all boils down to the idea of speeding up the process that like, if you would leave your garden just like that you don't do anything. Nature will turn it into a forest eventually. But you're like becoming part of the system. And you're doing it in a way that speeds up this process. Because this whole process like from a bare soil to like high succession forest, this might take two 300 for under 500 years. But as a gardener, you can like play with it and maintain also certain areas of the succession like because as a gardener, we want the flowers, right? Like perennial flowers are the third phase in the succession. So the first phase is annuals that we call weeds. The second phase is grassland. And the third phase is more perennial glass grassland. And then shrubs start to come in into the grassland and shrubs turn into bigger shrubs. And eventually pioneer trees start to come up like Willow and and then over time, it becomes a high succession forest full of books and these kinds of trees. So that's, that's how nature works. And then you can tap into that to become a more a smarter garden. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, so that that leads me to I have two questions. One I heard last year from someone in my area who was talking about mulching. And that's probably that's definitely the most popular route, at least where I live. And he was recommending using fallen leaves. He said that they would make a great and so I was wondering cuz I didn't think about nitrogen versus carbon content. But I let all of the leaves stay in the backyard this winter and I plan to use them to mulch. Is that anything that you've done before? Or would you recommend? Yes, we do. We like it's quite interesting that you ask them because like we are, our company is a landscape architecture firm. So we design new gardens, but we also consult an existing guards. Like we get sometimes two guards that are under such a stress like my clients call us up like we've been maintaining this garden for 30 or 30 years in a way that has worked like with pesticides, they have like a huge forest and they would just gather all the leaves and and throw them away like they pay like 10,000 US dollar a year just to get all the leaves out of their garden. So they call us up like it worked because we had a lot of rain in the past but now with climate change the systems don't work they have trees starting to die. Other lots of weeds in the garden and we started just to look and we said like okay, why are we actually getting rid of all the all the leaves are they said it's because it's it shouldn't be on the grass. And it's, it's a good thing but then we started to redesign the garden that it became easier to like push back the leaves into the forest, we made like a certain barrier system. So leaves are definitely a really good mulch, but you have to be a little bit wary that you'd mainly use it for, for woody plants. Okay, if you will, like if you put now on your perennial vegetable garden or even on your perennial flower garden, all of the leaves, the plants that will grow, they won't even be able to come out and you're also detracting out too much nitrogen might be good to do it once the plants are established. Okay, and what you could do just to balance the nitrogen as well as to put in a little bit of compost, then that will balance out better. Gotcha, gotcha. Okay. Well, thank you. That makes sense. And then so all of this, if I'm understanding correctly, is to go in the direction in line with how things would grow in nature? Is it a large portion portion of it for the soil, like letting things grow? Like the the annuals the weeds or whatever? It's to replenish the soil? So you have nutrients to work with? Is that generally the idea, okay? Yeah, exactly, exactly what it is about because the soil health is key to anything that you want to do. If it's a farm, if it's a garden, if it's a new public park, whatever it be in like, outdoor space, the soil is so important because the topsoil of our planet, it's actually like the skin of our like our own skin. And, you know, if you have a wound on your skin, it's not, it's not good, you get infections and everything. So we really have to protect the soil and the topsoil specifically. And then what is also very important is that the soil is such a complex system, like they're only starting to understand what is actually happening under the soil. It's such like, one teaspoon of healthy soil has more micro organisms than there are people on the whole planet. Like just like for researchers to try and understand that it's just like, the thing is that if you have your soil and you would like till it each and every year, or you would use chemicals to like because there's pest in your garden and you start spraying on your plants, even though your plants won't die immediately. You're killing the micro organisms in the soil, or you're affecting their their system that they're trying to build a restore. Yeah. So that's why it's so important to focus on improving the health of the soil. And one way of doing that is mulching I just interviewed the farmer in Canada for my own podcast, the regenerative design podcast where he's doing some really cool stuff with compost tea, and other derivatives like you, you make a liquid form of your compost, and then you spray that on to your plants, the plants become so much more healthier soil gets restored so much quicker. Unfortunately, on our global planet, we've been using a lot of chemicals, both in agriculture and other industries, that they don't, they're they're still around, like they're on our groundwater, they are in our air. They're everywhere. So you have to like actively, continually restore the health of your garden and spraying this, this compost is a really good way to do that. Like it's May it started in the 60s with the Green Revolution, the what's called the Green Revolution in agriculture, because then they started to use synthetic chemicals and other things that actually increase the food production like salmons became way, way less because of this, but they were killing the soil at the same time, and now this is what we're we're with and that we have to restore today. Yeah, yeah. Well, I'm fascinated by all of the research and all the work that's going into that sort of really thinking long term longevity and how to, to work with the land instead of trying to get as much as we can out of it. Exactly. So on a on a smaller scale, because most of the people listening to this will likely just have either their yard or a garden, a garden bed or want to get more into it. So how does in all of this regenerative speaking, how is that applicable to someone with you know, just a few square feet or however big it will be? How would you go about that in someone's home or personal property? Yeah, that's, that's a really good question. And well, I teach this in my master class, I have a master class it's called the Garden of your dreams master class, to nine week program for people to start from scratch. But what I teach them from a very beginning is that well, first of all, you have to understand what how nature works and it takes a bit of time to really really understand because it has to make a click in your in your way of thinking because once you understand that, you'll be able to maintain your garden so much easier. here. And then another really important aspect is to have a vision, like, you have to like know, what do you want what you're going, what do you want it to be more edible? Do you want more focusing on flowers do you want, what what inspires you, you write out a vision for your garden, we start making like a vision board. This is really, really, really important to do. And then once that is done, we really go deeper into the design aspect of it, because you have to make a plan of your garden, you can also just go around and plant some plants and try again. And but it's kind of become very costly, because especially now when spring is just, it's, I know, in a couple of weeks or months, when when people see that nature starts to grow, my phone will start to ring and everybody's like, I really want to do my garden as well. And it's, it's, it's good, because yeah, it's that's how nature works. But you actually have to be prepared before that, like in ultimate the best way to work in your garden and plant. But essentially, you have to learn to design as well and make a plan because if this is what I wanted to say I was I was drifting off a little bit here. But the thing is that people then spring starts, they think like, oh, this is the moment to start working in my garden, they go to a garden center where you have beautiful plants that are displayed in a greenhouse. But these plants are actually like grown indoors with heating. So these plants are like they're pushed too much. And then you take these plants home, you plant them somewhere in your garden, hoping that it will be the right place, you might be looking at the sign behind it some fool somebody have no, most people have no clue and dig it in the ground. Half of the plants die because it's the wrong soil, it's the wrong condition, it's the wrong. light exposure is so much things that that can actually go wrong. So you need to like make a proper plan, and start to learn about which plants to use, where you will start to learn to like, know what climate you are in what like all the all the information that is important, you will gather all of that it's very easy as well. And with that information, you then start to know what plants you can use. And at the same time you're learning design skills, like can you actually form a garden? Where do you plant trees? Where do you want to have some grass? Where do you want to grow your vegetables? So that's the process of doing it yourself. But it's actually way easier than than most people think. You just need some studying and to do it right? Because otherwise, you probably will do it as well, it will succeed after you'll succeed after time, but you might be losing like 10 years, and a lot of you will have to read a lot of books. And you'll have to pay a lot of plans before it actually before you actually succeed in becoming a gardener. Yeah, I definitely I know some people who have said who I think just sort of have planted something where it shouldn't have been planted. And so then they have in their mind, like gardening is too hard. Like I'm not good at this, like it's this whole thing. Whereas if you just learned the basics from the beginning, it would all sort of make sense. So I am going to I I'm glad you brought up your masterclass, I'm gonna leave a link to that. And so that, if I'm correct, can you just tell me like the different parts of that I know, there are videos and there's like support from you. And because I would love to share for anyone who would like to look into that. So the so the mass class is it's nine weeks. And in that nine weeks, I send you several videos like modules, they're very short, and you get to learn things quickly. And you can apply it immediately. So that's one aspect. And there's also a weekly group call where you can ask me any question. And then there's also WhatsApp support group. So throughout the week, if you have other questions, you just put it in the chat. I look at the WhatsApp every two days, I reply in the group as much as I can. Because you're learning the whole process of understanding nature, creating your vision, doing like a deep analysis, learning how to design how to make a plan of your garden, learning which plants will grow in your garden, how to prepare the soil and how to plant these are basically the main main steps throughout the nine weeks. Yeah, awesome. Okay, well then, yeah, I'm gonna make sure there's a link to to that masterclass as well, because that sounds fantastic. So switching gears a little bit, because you you mentioned even working in, in Germany and you had your job and even if it was in a landscaping field that it was a very depressing job. And it wasn't what you were looking for. I know that I personally And many people that I've spoken to really enjoy working in the garden and being out in nature as of a restorative or a relaxing part of their lives. And so I'm curious what you've discovered, or what research you may have come across, regarding, like, either mental health or just like, how gardening is beneficial to the gardener as well. Yeah, I love this question. And I'll start with with a quote from from, it was actually the grand grandmother of my cousin. So she's not directly my grandmother, okay, that said that, if you have any problems in your life, go and work in the garden, and you have, like your, you'll find your answers. And I find that really interesting, because there's some meditative aspect to working in your garden, that if you're like, stressed, or you don't know what to do, then going out into your garden, changing some things or putting your hands into the soil has such a huge impact on your physical health. And there's evidence that if you put your hands into the soil, all of the microorganisms that I talked about earlier, touching that with your skin, it will actually absorb it into your own body. Wow, it gets even crazier that our our gut health, which is becoming quite a big topic in the health, let's call it the health industry. Yeah, those microorganisms that are in your stomach are actually the same or very similar to the ones that are in our gut. So putting your hands into the soil, helps your gut health directly. This is like a direct benefit. And also your brain health, because our brains are apparently also quite, there's quite a lot of microorganisms in there. So they sustain or they make ourselves healthier. So that's one huge aspect of it. And and that obviously helps you with your mental health as well. And, yeah, I think that that's the main thing related to, to your question. Yeah. Obviously, you're doing a physical exercise, that's usually beneficial. You're learning a new skill, you're not just sitting behind your desk, which it's okay, lots of people have to work behind the desk, but if you can balance it out with gardening, it's, it's something great. And then there's also my Dad, this is quite funny, my dad, he's, he's running the farm together with my brother, and he sees people that go to the fitness. And he's like, Well, they can also just come and work on my farm, they'll, they'll be they'll get very quickly as well. I love that. Yeah, I'm I would much rather have activities that I enjoy that involve a lot of moving my body and physical activity than have to go to the gym. Exactly. Fantastic. Yeah, I love that. And I have found that just even a few minutes, I find in the early spring, there's a lot of like overhaul and I'm working a lot to get things set up. And then as the season progresses, and it just you know, go out and weed a little here and there to trim a little prune a little and then harvesting. It's so so special. And I really really loved the story that you introduced yourself with as a child because I'm, I'm so looking forward to like incorporating that like as a parent to be able to, to show a child this is how nature works. I feel like there's so many of us are detached from like, we don't know where our food comes from, or how things work. And so I just thought that was really sweet how you weren't learning those things. So early. And it's actually linked to one of my earliest school teachers that I had in this is like, in Belgium is the first grade you're like age six. And she was like already an older woman and she's still alive. It's amazing. And she had so much knowledge about plants like in our classroom, it would be full of plants we would learn how to like make cuttings to seed. We even had like, for half of the year we had a vegetable garden in the back of the school. But then sadly enough and I only realized this later that they we couldn't continue to do it because of insurance policies or something like we had to stop gardening because there was no insurance if whatever like the kid would, I don't know break his leg from digging up potatoes stupid. Yeah, because I really believe in and I strongly believe that it should be part of the school curriculum like two hours of gardening learning how to grow food help because This isn't an important skill that is being lost. And I think more than ever, it's really important to have that skill because like the world is going a bit crazy. And we've experienced some things with COVID. And I saw many like Western countries when COVID hit, there was like empty food shows like, what are you going to do if you don't know how to grow your own food? Yeah, if that happens again? Yeah, definitely. I think it definitely put some some of this into perspective for a lot more people. So now I just have one more little question in that vein, which is, you mentioned radishes early on as like a great starter, which I agree I've grown radishes for the past couple of years. And I love how fast the turnaround is. Do you have any other? Yeah, exactly. Are there any others that you would recommend to like begin with either vegetables or flowers that you think would be great for a beginner? It's kind of hard to answer because like, it depends on your soil conditions. But one thing that I find really interesting is to focus on perennial vegetables. And this is linked to the whole area of food forecasting. And there's like a ton of plants that are beautiful, and that you can also eat, like, for example, there's hostess, you know, hostess, the hostess, they're completely edible. Wow, you can well, not completely, you have to like take the shoots, when they grow, before they become like, too big. That plant is edible. Then there's also the daily, daily, yeah, and then the whole flower is edible. Wow. And I was actually interviewing a person that was specialized in this knowledge. And I'm actually going to take get him on board and do some teaching and in the master class as well. Because it's so amazing. And he said like in Asia, they sell the flower buds on the market for for very expensive because it's like part of a soup that they make. China Wow. And then there's all sorts of other plants like there's wild, wild garlic that is now well here because our spring is starting very, very early. It's already out there, there's tons of perennial vegetables that you can grow. And the huge benefit of of perennial vegetables is that you don't have to till the soil every year. Because that's, that's like having a real vegetable garden. If you want to do it, you have to know that you have to spend some time and in doing it, it's not like it's not an easy task. Yeah. And whereas a perennial vegetable garden that it can perfectly fit into your flower beds, you just spread out plants, you incorporate a couple that are edible in and you walk around in your garden, and you can eat from Wow, yeah, that is really cool. I didn't know I have some day lilies in my in my garden. So they're so good. Oh, good. I have too much of them. But they're really tasty. And you can actually like fry them as well. Like if you What is it called? Like? You? You better than is that? Or bread them? Yeah, yeah, you bred them. And then you fry them. It's it's super tasty. Oh, that's good to know. I've seen people will do that with squash blossoms. But I haven't seen it with other flowers like that. Yeah. Well, I think if you want to have an easy to grow vegetable, because you mentioned squash, zucchini, is that English name? Yeah, that's one that's so easy to grow. Like it does take like I'd say, one full square meter per plant, you have to what is that, like nine square feet, I think something like that. Something like that. You have to like have quite a bit of space for it. But it like when you start harvesting it it just keeps giving new and new and new. Plants. It's really easy on. Nice. Okay. And then sort of lastly, I'd love to know more about your book that's coming out. What when you think it'll be coming out and what it's about? And I know you said it's the 12 laws of nature. Right? Yeah. 12 Universal Laws of no universal. Oh, good. So yeah, the book is it's actually done now. It's with the editors and like being proofreading and finalizing the last works around it. So it's gonna come up very soon. So the main idea of this book is that similar to what I explained is that nature has been working in certain ways for quite a long time. Now I studied these universal laws and these are actually laws that apply to anything in life. And if you don't understand these laws, and you look at him you have like said, as if you'd have a new kind of eyes, a new set of eyes once you start gardening or farming or, or anything so that's where the idea is thought it. Like one, it's actually linked to quantum physics as well. Like, there's a lot of more research that everything that we see around us is actually waves. There's no actual, like, there's no material or something. Like they looked into atoms, and they look deeper and deeper, there's nothing. So everything is waves. And that's the same in nature like they've done. That there's proves now that say that the birds that chip into a forest actually helped trees to grow, because it kind of lifts up the spirit. And there's other research that shows that if you talk, good to plant like they've done their research. Have you heard about it? I think so. We're people who talk to their plants, like those are the happy ones. Yeah, exactly. Well, that might be true as well. But vice actually the other ways as well, like they put two plants same soil conditions, same, like they made it like exactly the same. And one plant, they would give like bad energy, it's like, they put bad words on it. And every day somebody would come out and like be angry on the plant. And the other plant, they would say nice things give no gratitude and positive energy to the plant. And you could clearly see that there's a difference in growth like, wow, and yeah, that's I think this is something that research also still has to prove, but it's actually catching up on on proving that. Yeah, there's evidence. It's like, that's important as well. I think when you're a gardener, and you go into out in your garden, trying to like, put other good energy to go into it will actually help the plants to grow better. Yeah. And it seems it's, it's easy for me anyway to to get that, that positive. Energy just stepping into the garden as well. So you get it back as well. That's another huge thing. Well, there's like in Japan, they call it forest bathing. Oh, yeah. It's really a thing they go out into nature to because you feel so much better. Yeah. Similarly, you can do it in your own backyard. Yeah, that's one of Okay. Well, I will be on the lookout, and I'll leave a link to your website. And so that if your when your book comes out, everyone will know where it is. Is there any, are there any other projects that you'd like to share about to make sure that everyone knows about? Or I'll make sure to link your Instagram account and your the website? Yeah. Is there anything else that that you'd like to make sure everyone knows about? Well, yeah, I think I want to avoid everybody who's listening here, if they're really interested to start a gardening journey, that what I actually want to offer to your audience is that if they really are like, down to take action, I want to give them a half an hour free training on Zoom. So we jump on Zoom, we we look at what what your current situation is. And yeah, that's something that I want to give to your audience because I'm really committed to, to helping people to become successful for gardeners. Yeah, that's, I think the best way to if people are going to take action Yeah, yeah, well, thank you so much. I I'll definitely leave a link to how they can contact you. That is so generous. Calendly link and yeah, find it there. That that's wonderful. I know some people that that may this might be the year that they want to get things going well well thank you. Like I'm also working on like equal resorts and projects of a bigger scale if anybody feels like there's there's some overlap or some exchange they can always contact me and see how we can work together. That's awesome. Yeah, I I've been enjoying on your Instagram seeing how it goes from a design a plan to then enacting it in lots of different places, both city and country and so inspiring. British passions are when I get into designing, it's like I get into a flow state and yeah, it just comes into design is there it's it's really something interesting. That's beautiful. Well, I This has been so inspiring and enlightening and I can't wait to read your book. And so I asked all of my guests who come on the podcast if they would like to share a little joy so something that is either a physical item or a moment or something that is part of your routine. That has just been it elevates your your day or it brings a little moment of joy to just your everyday life. And so if you if you need to think about it, feel free, but just a little joy that is simple, but as impactful to you Yeah, I was actually thinking about it before the interview because he had sent me that question. And I have to say that this moment where he asked me all the questions really stands out, because I love to talk about what I do, I would love to spread the message. I love inspiring people to take action because it's necessary, we'll have to free if we want to keep this planet that is a beautiful planet, and there's probably no other planet like it. We want to keep living on here, we have to take action. And that's something I didn't even say. But if gardeners start working in that way, they will have a huge impact on their local environment. And the more people we can get to jump on board, the bigger the impact will be. So yeah, thank you, Anna. This is this is like a highlight moment of my day. Oh, openly about it. Well, thank you, I this is great. I also because you know, I'm a musician, I leave a playlist or an album of music at the end of every episode. And so if you'd like you can choose the the album or the playlist of music. If there's one that either you really love or you feel would go good with this episode. I'll leave it up to you. I love that. I love that ad. And actually now and you mentioned that what clicks as well as media, other research that's showing that they played classical, harmonious music, gardens, and it would also like elevate how plants grow. Oh, that's the rock or some like, heavy metal it would like it had the other effect. Wow. Look into that. Yeah, well, is there a particular album or composer that you'd like to? To leave? I actually love Ludovico in OD. Have you heard about him? I don't know. I'd say he's Italian modern classic composer and musician. Oh, okay. Well, I'll look that up. And I'll share some of that. Yeah, I think you like it. Yeah. There's a bit of a just side to it as well. Yeah. Okay. Well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. This was delightful. And I'm excited for spring, and, and for following all of the projects that you're a part of this is such a beautiful and an important work that you're doing. Well, thank you very much. It really means a lot to me. And it's been a joy to be on your podcast. All right. Well, I hope you enjoyed my conversation with me too. It was a really inspiring and eye opening talk for me. And as I said, I'm going to leave links in the show notes on the on the blog page, to his masterclass to the upcoming book, to social media. There's lots of resources that you can find. And if you're interested, you can also reach out to him to have 30 minutes to sort of break down what your garden setup looks like. And if the masterclass would be a good fit for you. I also did go listen to that composer Ludovico and Audi I believe it's how you would say it. It's beautiful. He's a pianist and composer. And he writes really lyrical, but ambient music. So I'm gonna leave a link to one of his latest albums called Underwater released in 2022. It's gorgeous, like really, really emotional, but not invasive. Really enjoyable, I highly recommend it. And I also found a nice article that sort of breaks down the the argument of playing classical music to plants, with some good studies to back it up. And so I hope that this episode has overall inspired you to try something new in the garden to take care of your soil take care of your your body and your mind through this beautiful practice that we get every year year after year. I'm still getting myself together a little bit when it comes to that but I think I might have released maybe a mini episode or just something quick, maybe an extra blog post sort of detail. My plans for this second year in this garden. I'm so excited for spring for all the flowers to bloom already you know the daffodils are out and it's a sign of things to come. I do have a couple other episodes that you may enjoy if you haven't listened to them already. Episode 23 was a simple guide to starting your own vegetable garden. And last year, I did share my garden plans for this first year in Episode 86. It was all about books, books and Garden Plans for the spring, and many episodes have a little bit of like garden updates tacked on to them. but those two are are more garden centric. Oh, and of course, how could I forget episode 56 I also had another guest on. We talked about permaculture and growing your own food. So that specifically, I hope that you enjoyed this start to spring, whatever the climate is like for you, and I will be back in two weeks with a brand new springtime episode. Thank you so much. Thank you for tuning into this episode of Life on the brink. If you're enjoying these episodes, please feel free to leave a star rating or even better leave a review on Apple podcasts to help spread the word. For podcast show notes and extra inspirational posts throughout the week. Head to the blog at life on the brink dot live. And if you'd like a little extra dose of inspiration in your life, sign up for the monthly newsletter, which lights up your inbox the first Friday of each month. Thank you so much for listening. And until next time, friends you have a lovely week. Bye