Permaculture and Growing your own food w/ Nicole Schauder

Hello hello, welcome to Episode 56 of Life on the Brink!

Today you’re in for a real treat because I’m sharing a very special interview with a professional gardener (amazing!). You all know I’ve been on my garden journey for the past few years, and I’m always looking to learn more to help maximize my harvest.

I’m joined in this episode by very-special-guest Nicole Schauder, who helps people like me and you do just that! Nicky and her husband Dave are passionate about helping families grow their own food, through their brand Permaculture Gardens.

In our conversation we'll talk about:
-what is permaculture?
-companion plants
-maximizing harvest with less work
-compost TEA (it's a thing!)
-gardening as a family
and a lot more...

Plus, learn about her beautiful Little Joy, and a wholesome album of garden-centered songs.
Find out more about Permaculture Gardens at growmyownfood.com

For the complete show notes, click here!

For full transcript, click here!

Site: lifeonthebrink.live
Social: @anna_on_the_keys

Transcript

Unknown: 0:07

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 56 of life on the brink. How are you? Are you enjoying your summer? I'm officially on break from my schools. And it feels so, so good. We have a very exciting episode today. It's all about the garden. It's also featuring a very special guest. Today I am thrilled to be joined by Nicole shouter. Or Nikki shouter. As you'll hear. She and her husband Dave are the owners of permaculture gardens, which is a really cool brand website. It's a whole bunch of things that are designed to help people normal people like you and me grow food in our own spaces. Currently, when this interview was recorded, Nicole and her family live in a very small space, actually in Northern Virginia, which is cool, less than 1600 square feet. And they currently grow an average of 300 pounds of food per year for themselves and for family and friends. Now, you all know I've been on this gardening journey. So I was thrilled to talk to someone who literally does this for a living helping people maximize their space, and all through very ecological sustainable practices. It's it's really fun, and I hope it's inspiring to you as well. Among their accolades, permaculture gardens has received the most sustainable brand award at the green festivals. And their work has been featured in Huffington Post permaculture Research Institute, mother, Earth News, fair and green america.org. So coming up, you're gonna get to hear our really fun conversation, we just sort of talk about lots of ins and outs of gardening, it gets a little nerdy and sciency, which I love. And I'll of course leave all of the links, we discuss a lot of different stuff. And that will be in the show notes. And be on the lookout for permaculture gardens because she and her family are about to move to a three acre property. If they can do so much in a small space. I'm just really excited to follow along with this experience, and see how much you can grow. And her little joy is just so sweet and informative. And she shares a song and an album at the end of the interview. And I have placed that song in entirety at the end of this episode, so if you wait till the end, you can hear the whole song. It's very cute. And I hope you enjoy if anything strikes you like oh, what what are they talking about? I would just go to the show notes. Check out the her website because this is meant to be inspirational. Not stressful. Don't worry if not everything is tracking. Just make yourself a cup of tea. And maybe you learn something new I am drinking a Paris blend by Harney and Sons what else is new? Go ahead and take a minute make yourself a cup of tea, or an iced tea or whatever you'd like. And here we go. This is my interview with Nicole shouter all about permaculture gardens and growing your own food welcome Nikki, welcome to Life on the brink. It's such a pleasure to have you with us today. I'm so excited to learn like all manner of new gardening things. So before I like jump into my little questions, why don't you sort of share a bit of how you got into gardening as big of a hobby and business as you have. Oh, thanks so much for having me first off Anna and it's equally a pleasure on my end to be on this podcast. And I feel like your brand represents simple living everything that's beautiful in life and that's very similarly my what I wish to express when I when I see people when I meet them and when I talk about gardening so yes. How I got into gardening. Well we started out my husband and I have been married for 16 years and when we first got married and we had our first subsequently had our first child, she had failure to thrive so she was allergic every so many things Wow be If pork, chicken, eggs, dairy, and milk and nuts, tree nuts and peanuts, so all these things were off the table for me and I was nursing her. And so I didn't know what to feed her I didn't know, we were feeding her something called New Trojan, which is like a chemical chemical formula. And she was diagnosed with failure to thrive for a long time. And have It's hard enough to just have your first and I didn't even know how to cook. Husband was how to cook. And so on top of that, to have these allergies persistently, you know, bog us in wonder like what did I do wrong as. And then we had our second child, and it was very similar if you had allergies to. And so we were already already questioning the food system with the first child, we were thinking there must be something wrong with the food system because we didn't have allergies, you know, as many allergies like this. And then the rise and peanut allergies seem to be so so significant among children at that time. And at that time, it seemed like there was 15 years ago, there were no allergy free alternatives on the shelves. There were no allergy free cookbooks, there was one and I treasured that one. It wasn't very tasty when I tried it. And then and then our second one, he he was allergic to fish and nuts. And I remember him when he was maybe six months old turning blue, because we the Benadryl or whatever we were trying to give him didn't take effect fast enough after he ate the white fish. And so the paramedics came and everything. So we were like at that point, we have to change something about what we're eating. And so we slowly made the switch to organic, not all at once. But first, the milk also because you know, as a young couple you don't you're you're really saving every penny and so just the milk, and then followed with the eggs, and little by little, the vegetables. And before we know it our grocery bills was through the roof. So we were trying our best, like how can we say how can we? How can we grow some of this ourselves. And and that's when we stumbled upon the word permaculture in one of our bookstore dates, permaculture to us was a revelation really, that it was possible to grow in a holistic, natural way without chemicals. And everything would be abundant. If you apply these principles, so we were so curious because it was used as we were YouTubing it and everything it was used to green, the deserts in China, like over the span of maybe one to three years, a desert became a forest. And then yeah, and in Jordan, there was a desert that became it's now whole food forest called the greening the desert project. So you can totally YouTube that and get inspired. They can do this. They can do this desert, maybe we can do this. So we started dabbling and trying our best and we failed miserably at first, because we didn't know what we're doing. And we many times when you consult, there's nobody to consult, especially for our postage stamp. Here's our gardens very smart, our postage stamp garden. If you talk to like permaculture experts, they focus on large scale agricultural tracts of 10 acres or more. And so our site seemed like such a joke. So we, we got certified like as if we were going to do it for large scale, and then started implementing it in our backyard. And then people started coming to us for advice. And we started a school program at our local elementary school, which happened to be a title one school. Now we have one in the middle schools as well. And so we couldn't spread ourselves too thin. Because in the process, we were also having more kids, and we have six. Wow. Yeah, we have six year the bottom two are twins. So our time we can't just go to a place and consolidate and tell you what to do there. It really is about helping you grow it yourself. And that's where our program was born. So that's the love. No, that's that's fantastic. So, um, what exactly, I'm not quite sure, like the word permaculture. What how does that differ from like home gardening? Just as like, what does that really mean? Yeah, I'm glad you asked that. Permaculture is a design system. Some people say design science that's based on observation, where you work with nature, not against it, and you tie all the elements so you look at instead of Creating one little garden here and saying, I'm going to grow tomatoes. You try to think of your whole property and think, Well, where would the best place for the tomatoes be? And why would it be there and who would the helpers of the tomato plants be as I grow it, so that I don't have to do the work of just fertilizing it artificially, like you do in, even in hydroponics, where you kind of have these, these additives. And then it's like, that's what sometimes that's the approach we take, when we do the gardening is we're trying to limit the amount of effort that we have for the most amount of yield, because a lot of it is already built in in nature, a lot of it God already has this program that's meant to run really elegantly. And we just don't recognize it anymore, because we are so so separated from the act of growing the art of growing and our parents, probably many of us didn't, weren't farmers, maybe our grandparents were if we were lucky. And then that generational knowledge was not passed on. So it's not automatic for us to build upon that knowledge. So permaculture came was a word that was coined by Bill Mollison, in Australia with his thesis student. And it's just like an umbrella term at this point, they first meant it to be used as permanent agriculture. So permanent systems of agriculture that would help humans persist for a long time. And the reason that they were focusing on agriculture was because of what we call the conventional way, the Green Revolution, where you kind of carpet vomit with pesticides, to force it to grow, we will hybridize seeds and make them supposedly resilient against certain bugs. But in the process, they become sterile and you can't harvest from that plant that seed again. And also that sort of way of growing sourced all the seeds from the companies that had a very small inventory of all the varieties that already existed in nature, but that we've lost, we lost the 94%, or something of that story of our seed varieties just in America, from 100 years ago, 100 years ago, we had several 100 varieties of cucumbers, several 100 varieties of tomatoes that we would never hear of now. But because we only buy from burpee are specific companies, you know, and they only sold these five, then we only have like, Atkinson, or whatever it is. And those those other varieties actually came already with those inherent resilience traits against pests against disease. But then, because they're not being grown anymore, then we've lost that. And then we kind of force it artificially with with technology. So yeah, Have you have you heard of The Story of Stuff by Annie Leonard, The Story of Stuff I don't think so. So it's it's a, it's the, it's a little cartoon, 20 minutes of how, let's say, a plastic toy is produced in China, and how it is done, it's done in a very linear, very directional way, where we extract resources from the environment. And then we create that toy, using fossil fuels, ship it all the way to the states where it ends up in the big box stores. And then we purchased them and bring them in our homes, where we keep them for an average of six months before they're thrown in a landfill. And that's a very, like, linear way of of production. So that's sort of the way that conventional agriculture is, it only gets extractive it'll, it'll take things from from nature to force a product like a tomato and ripen it and then spray pesticides or whatever, and then ship it, and then it ends up food waste. So in permaculture, we try to make that a circular economy, a circular way. So all the ways becomes compost again. And every year your system gets more and more efficient, that your input is far less than your output, your outputs huge and your output provides the input. So you get more and more abundance more and more tomatoes that you have to give away to friends or sell and you get, you know, you increase your own home economy, and so and so forth. So that's that's how Permaculture is in like an analogy, kind of. Wow. Okay, that makes a lot of sense. That's really fascinating. I haven't I'm very interested in the less input more output. Yeah. And having it be more sustainable in that way. So I guess my next question in that would be how, because you have a very small space as well. And how would you go about, I guess, beginning with someone who has a small space or like, I personally, I'm a renter. And so the apartment complex I'm in. There's a little garden bed out front, and they really, for some reason, discourage people Well, from growing food in that bed, I think it's just for the look of it. So I actually have pots of my herbs out there, and they tend to be happy. And I cook with them all the time. And then I have put over a couple years on the side of our building, which is a couple of units away. It's two boxes that are like, two foot by four foot that are raised off the ground so that like, people don't hate me. Yeah. And then one big barrel that is probably like, I don't know, a foot and a half or two feet across, which this year has a tomato plant. And this year, I've added to larger containers where I'm trying to grow zucchini and trying to stake it like I haven't done that before. But I've got it up. And because I did too much last year, I just put a lot of stuff in these boxes, and nothing was really thriving. So I said, let me simplify. I have a tomato, the two zucchinis because we eat those all the time. And I have some carrots and radishes growing a kale plant that's been happy for a couple years. And I think one jalapeno plant. And that's really like the stuff that's going I'd like to maybe I have a little bit of room. But I'm I've been trying to figure out like, I'd love to add more until like, I don't know, let it work for itself, I feel something like I've put seeds in the in the soil, my soil by the way, I tend to use Espoma organics, their raised bed mix, because I figured well, that's what it is. And I will mix in a couple different compost just from the garden center, which I'd love to talk about composted a little bit. But, um, so that's what I've been doing. And this year already, the zucchini plants look way happier than I anticipated probably just because I gave them enough space. But for someone like me who this is my third year growing anything outside, or someone who with even less experience like how do you go about sort of introducing, growing your own food? Or actually, can I start with asking like, Do you how much food do you typically grow you and your family? Like per year? Or do you have any kind of estimation? Yeah, so we do 300 pounds is what are our 1600 square foot? Garden? Can I mean it's less than that 600 square foot is our house can provide. And it's not impossible. So to answer your question, where would you start? Where would anybody start who's just renting or if you're just starting for the first time, we would recommend you starting with microgreens or growing your own microgreens. Okay, that's food. But especially if you haven't been successful before, it gives you a little bit of like confidence because in seven to 10 days, it's done you can harvest it, you put it on your spaghetti or your sandwiches, your alfalfa and your sandwiches and or soups and and you you know you've accomplished it. The first thing the zero thing before I wouldn't say that. Good for you. Congratulations on it. Because that is an amazing feat to already in your small space try to try to do something some people will have that space of yours and say I can't do anything with this space. The HOA will complain or you know, but you've still persisted. And you've gotten away with herbs, right? Yeah, that's right. There's still food if you think about it. And so I just encourage anybody who has a choice, I have an HOA and we still grow strawberries on the outside. When they see a big, you know, obnoxious, very obvious tomato, they will tell you off for it. But if it's something hidden, like the strawberries are kind of hidden, and as soon as they become red, the twins will come and eat it. Or it's like sage, which flowers like salvia, which is an ornamental, then it's not noticeable, right? We start a great frequency. But when you're growing in pots, and then your question was you're growing in pots, how can you do it so that you don't have to? Because you start you wanted to simplify? And that's good. Yeah, and I'm not always like great with knowing what is a good companion or what to put near. So I would say we have in permaculture something called guilds where things help each other out, like tomatoes will go well with marigolds, and because marigolds deter the common pests of tomatoes, and they attract pollinators so that your tomato is pollinated and then basil around it because they're good to eat tomato and basil, right in the summer. They live at the same time. Oh yeah. So physically you look at that guild. So in permaculture we call them Guild and they have different one element has different functions. So the tomato is I would say it has the function of course the tomato but it's the main star player in that guild. And then you have something that's a pollinator plant like a marigold. Something that's like a basil, which is a great fungicide. The term is bad fungi. But I in my tomato guilds, I always put stinging nettle. And stinging nettle is what in permaculture we call dynamic accumulators. It's one of those hidden things that nobody, nobody believes me when I say this, but I have seen that oh, they're trying to pull it out. Because the next people are not gonna like me for having a stinging nettle in this one. But everywhere I pull that stinging nettle out, the soil is black chocolate crumbly, like it should be, because it's mining the nutrients from the deeper layers of the soil, bringing it up to the surface layers through its leaves. And so when I cut it, or it dies down are its roots, the soil there becomes so beautiful, and it's wherever you grow, whatever you are with it, it's happy. And tomatoes are a heavy feeder plant. So they require more nutrition, they require a little bit of fertilization, compost, even in the middle of the season, like by July. So having a stinging nettle there, I if I need to make a compost tea, I can just remove it from the sea nettle. I don't get to doing that compost, the stinging nettles already there kind of feeding it by itself. So that's one. Those are one of those are one examples of Wow, Mr. Gill. Now, I have to say though, Potts, it's like you're always trying to mimic the ecosystem of the soil. The Eagles, there's an ecosystem below ground that supports the ecosystem above ground, which is the crops that we like to eat. And now we're learning more. Like, if those plants are healthy, they support the fertility of the soil to if you have to take care of both of them in pots, they're not in ground, if they are in ground is always better, because not just because your roots can spread. But because those roots and those bacteria that live around the roots and those fungi that live around the roots are all communicating with each other. They're all an ecosystem already. And in pots, it's kind of artificial, it's like a little, it's a it's not a village, it's just a little so you have to sort of inoculate your pot with a red regular worm, some mycorrhizal fungi. So the good bacteria, the good guys that are in your soil, that's what you're trying to do in each of the pot. Even if you have just three elements there, your tomato, your basil, your your Marigold, I will use a lot of compost for that. And the compost will usually be from my red wiggler worms because I have compost there are you can use it use what you have some other permaculture principles, so wherever you can get it. And that compost will be teeming with life. That's what you want, is teeming with life so that the vegetables there will grow. Well. I hope that's helpful. No, it definitely is. And I guess I'm because of my overloading experience last year, I'm a little bit like leery of putting too much in one area. But like if you if you did have one to plan. Yeah, how closely do you think you could put a basil or a marigold or that other stuff to it without like, I don't know, overwhelming the space. So if you're talking about your wine barrel where you have a one tomato plant, so one tomato plant in the middle, I take this next advice from the floral world where they have this concept of a thriller, a filler and spiller. Are you familiar with that? Yeah, my my husband like he remembered that some years ago and he uses it like all the time. But yeah, I am familiar with with that gun so you can tell him what you're doing with your tomato. Tomato is the thriller. Okay, Basil is the filler or oregano or mints or something like that. That's kind of pushy, but not too tall, not as tall as tomato and then your spiller is the miracle because the marigold does tend to spill or nasturtiums you know, something that will spill out sweet alyssum spills out, then you have like a physical way of seeing whether these things fit now. Yeah, they're like scientific ways. When you get to grow with us like then of course, we will, you know, we suggest like proper spacing and all that score and especially when you get to like corn or spacing, those things are more important, but you can get away with a lot more than what the C packet tells you. Because the C packet and they're written for farms, and we grow in small spaces and we think Oh, that can't be but just experiment Don't be afraid. So you know what doesn't work. You know how many doesn't doesn't work right. Now you're doing root wise, they're occupying different spaces. So the bigger the plant the big deeper the roots. So tomato, you can just look at the opposite like whatever's above ground. That's the opposite that you see as a mirror image and below ground wise. So if you know your tomatoes are going all the way down, but the Feasel in between they're very shallow rooted herbs. And so is the marigold is probably more deep than the basil. You know you can get away with putting in basil or as you learn to do more and more plants or more herbs then you kind of know what herbs do grow Anna. Um, well, I have basil over in the boxes because they were unhappy in a pot. But in the pots I have. sage, mint, lemon balm, cilantro, parsley, rosemary, dill, oregano, and thyme. Wow, that's a lot. How big is your box? The boxes on the sides are two by four and I have two of them. Two By Four. Okay, yeah, that you can get away with that. It just also depends on how many they are right time is like shallow, but it's creeping. It's one of those things that is a great ground cover. Sage is like one big thing or one bush like it's the biggest thing right? From what I'm hearing. Yeah, it's, it's yeah, it's the it's the biggest thing right? Lemon balm to its it might be small, but it's going to be bigger than the sage or as big as the sage eventually. And then you see how different the spaces they occupy at different times of the year to like sage is big. Now lemon balm is small, but will become as big as sage and sage will still keep being big. And then sage becomes Woody. And lemon balm and sage are both perennials, so they'll kind of, you know, stay there, you don't have to do anything to it. Forgot what the other herbs were. But then as you get to attend your plants, you get to know. And as you pull them out, you're like looking at the roots, you know, you get to know their, their effect, like how they, how they sprawl, their spread, and their sprawl and how big they get. And that can inform your next year's design as to what you can do like in in your guild. That's really clever. And thank you. I didn't think about how, how the roots would occupied different levels within the soil, even if they're next to each other, you know, above ground. Yeah, in permaculture, that's a that's a small space way of implementing a permaculture, teaching on food forest, if you want to create a food forest, and then they say that food forest should have at least seven layers and then you have your canopy layer, your tallest trees, your sub canopy layers, these are this is elderberry, or Yeah, the smaller than the tree and then you have your vining layer, you have your root layer, you have your herbaceous layer, which are herbs, there's even like mushroom there. Because mushrooms are so beneficial 80% of mushrooms are in a great relationship with plants. But you know, we've to think of fungi as bad and you need fungicides. Plant layer theory is just really about recognizing, noticing your this is why for me I had this big, big definition of permaculture, right. It's designed science. And for me, it's based on observation. Other people will say different things, which is, you know, each each person has their own, like definition of permaculture when they finished their permaculture certificate. But for me, it's like you have to look at what you see. And you have to learn from that input. And then you got to apply it in a holistic way. So when you see that you've got a spot there that's bare, it can be used because any soil that's better you get more evaporation this oily roads, you can always like think of something to put there to to occupy that growing space and therefore maximize your harvest. Wow. Okay, well, I have a question about compost, and one you use the term compost tea, which I've never heard of, I am crazy about anything you can make into a tea, but something is not to be consumed. What do you mean by that? So I love teas, too. In fact, my my favorite teas come from the garden. And my favorite tea. I saw you with a tea cup. I would love for you to grow Tulsi which is holy basil. Oh, that makes me fabulous. So it grows just like basil. So if you want you can use that as your basil. It doesn't grow just like it goes a little bit taller. Yeah, it's not gonna be that. You can you can substitute it for your basil like Italian Basil with tomato basil. It's gonna be like for the tea. But it's such a restorative tea herbal tea. So compost tea is the same thing. So you get a big sack like a big, permeable membrane. Some people use a pantyhose Some people use Agribon row cover some permeable, big sack and the five gallon I get like I'm looking at my home depot five gallon bucket, and then collect all the nettle or comfrey is another another herb that's good for making compost tea, it just and seep it into a bucket of water for like 12 hours. And then that you, you can use to put in your watering can or your sprinkler, and just even topically, apply them like to the surface of the plants, because they actually receive that fertilization through the somata. Now I'm not I'm not sure about botanical tears through the, through this, it's like the leaves being their skin, you know, so they can so they receive those nutrients, nutritive elements through that way to not just the roots. And usually tomatoes, since they're heavy feeders, they run out of the they've depleted especially in a pot, your pot by late June or early July. So at that we're kind of pumping because we have a little hand pump, pumping these compost teas into them just to give it a boost and some sometimes you can also fertilize with eggshells slurries for calcium so you don't get that blossom Andhra. So why stinging nettle and, and comfrey those are two examples of the dynamic accumulator that I mentioned that sort of in ground fertilizer for your, for your garden. There are other things like dandelion are also great, dynamic accumulators you they make, you know dandelion teas for your plants. So it's like teas for your plastic, you know, when I feel it was from an orchard or was talking about organic orchards, and how he and his wife was an herbalist. And he said he he had this whole spraying formula throughout the year. And it was like giving them teas for every season that appropriately that they needed. And I thought like, wow, it's just like, I was just learning then how teas were really helpful for immunity. And you know, at that point, and I didn't realize how true it was of everything that they did, they can use a little bit of a spray. So that's one way another thing in terms of fertilization that I didn't mention was nitrogen fixation. Are you familiar with that term? nitrogen fixers? No, I'm not. So there are plants, mostly the legumes. So those are the ins and peas that have built in nitrogen in their nitrogen capacity in their roots, they have bacteria in the roots that fix the nitrogen from the air or the soil and turn them into a nitrogen format that the plants around them or they they themselves can use. And so that's why if you have an introductory plant to grow, beans and peas are probably because they come with their own little nitrogen package with them. You don't need to add more. But if there's no bacteria connected, sometimes, you know, those, there's no bacteria present. If you have a very sterile soil, there's no bacteria that fixes the nitrogen so that's when peas and beans flop. So if you put a p or A B in beside anything that you know needs nitrogen that's a heavy feeder. That also is a great a great boost. Oh, wow. Okay, that's good. I did not know that. I, I knew it nitrogen was important. Yeah, I never artificially artificially put it in our like NP Ks. But those NPK formulas, they'll do nothing for your soil unless you have the bacteria there are the fungi there to change it into a sap to a form that the plant can uptake because they don't just take it into you know, they they take in an NH for ammonia or nitrates. Wow. Wow. Okay. That's good to know. I have yet to try beans or peas because mostly because don't they also need like a trellis or thing. And I yeah, there are Bush varieties of peas and beans. There are Bush by so if you if you purchase a bean then you just look at Bush type instead of pole being same thing. There's three peas that are very short, or dwarf peas that are for pots. And those are the ones that you can. I remember I had Tom Thumb The first time was groupies was in a pot, Tom Thumb and another one is Penelope P those those guys are right heirloom varieties peas that are short. Wow, that that's good to know. I want to look into those. And speaking of heirloom varieties, I know that you as part of your business have like a seed shop and I'm not sure what what defines an heirloom seed and like what do you provide in that? Yeah, we have a blog on what is permaculture and we have a blog on you know these see definitions and basically for Seeds, it's what is a hot? The question is like what is a hybrid? What is an open pollinated mean, and what is heirloom mean? So a hybrid is one of those seeds that have been genetically treated for whatever resistance or whatever trait that they want a bigger, fatter, shinier tomato, but they're sterile, so their offspring are seeds coming from the tomato, cannot make another tomato. As a result of that. There are varieties that are called open pollinated. And those varieties are varieties of seed where they've been grown, with, say, seven generations, but like seven, yeah, seven seasons, where you picking the seed, and then you're planting that seed, and then throwing it up again into a plant and then picking the seed from that and growing it up. So like seven to make sure that they're a stable. So some people want to maintain the purity of their seed and make sure that they're not a cross pollinated variety. And then there's the third one, which is an heirloom type and the heirloom types are those that have been grown have been passed down from generation to generation. So there's no like governing body that covers them is just like a family, a family variety that has been passed down from generation to generation. So you kind of know, that spoken pollinator has been grown in seven seasons, or what have that. And then, you know, the last member of that family decides I can't do this anymore, but I don't want to lose this seed because it's, it's precious to me. And so they send it off to a seed bank, like seed savers Exchange, or there's several now that that are popping up, because this awareness of seeds is really growing. And those are heirloom just because they have those names. They have that history behind them that it was grown like, I think Cherokee Purple, you know, or if they have like maize beans or something of that sort, you know, they like them. That's contender beans, you know, then then that's it. There's no like governing body that certifies that they're heirloom, it's just there's a story behind them. And we've collected them in the seed bank and, and you kind of know that it's the real thing. It's not carry it wasn't carried before, or it may have been carried before commercially, but it's not normally carried by the conventional growers like birbee or Monsanto because the treasured seeds. Wow, that is so special. I love like the, like the generational and like personal touch that you can bring into it. Not to mention it's like tried and true as well. Yeah, garden. There's a story that I always tell with seeds, when I get really passionate about it. I didn't mention it, but I will now when it wasn't uncommon for a mom on the wedding night of her daughter in America, for a mom like maybe 50 years ago, or I do know 100 years ago for them to give their daughter with seeds, like treasured seeds from their family. And it was as if to say, now you can fend for yourself. Now you can survive. I know that no matter where you go, you have this little part of me with you and you can feed your family. And why don't we do that? That back, right. And so that was just that, for that. And that's how these heirloom varieties came to be. It's because my mom gave it to me. And then I grew it out and so on. So Wow. That is That's fascinating. And you know, speaking of family and the generational thing, you have six children, you said and have Sutton are always teaching and growing. And so how has the garden? How has it integrated with your family? How would you introduce the concept of gardening to children? Oh, I love your question. So we've always gotten with the children as they were growing up, and I think because at first we didn't know what we were doing. Maybe the older ones don't know. As much as the younger ones. I have a PDF that's like age appropriate garden chores. Oh, there Yeah, zero to 18 months, the four years they can put peas they can start peas. So in a seed flat or on the ground I I'll ask them especially peas or beans that are white and that contrast between the soil and the seed. You know, it's easy for them to see. You put them in like a spacing that you think is appropriate and then you poke them and sweep hope and sweep and so kids love doing that. We started our twins, I guess our best gardeners, they're five now. And just this past spring, I brought them to the school garden where we teach and I asked them to really quickly let's start on this but all these seedlings in the ground, and they were like the fastest seedling. But it's so I feel like the younger you introduce it, the more confident they become in doing it. And of course, stuff gets killed. And the first I have videos of me going no, no, no, no, no. No, when they're, when they're picking up the picking the pee and you're like, pulling the whole plant out. And that's part of it, you know, that's part of the learning. And then you learn from that how to, you know, picky harvesting, for sure. Planting Seeds starting, watering composting, I'm, I'm teaching a summer camp. It's a virtual one. And it's already recorded and everything it was on composting, with worms, and that was just for the younger kids. And then I had another one. Yeah, another one microgreens growing microgreens for business, and that was for older kids. My son he was I was gonna ask him what how he learns how to what do you do in the garden? fills out weeds? Oh, I love that. Okay, well, I think it's, it's fantastic how you have, have made it just a part of your routine. And as a family from such a young age for each of them. i That sounds like just such a fun way to introduce a relationship with food and with with nature. So I love that. So I just very briefly, your your business encompasses a lot of different aspects. So I know there's there's something called the grow at yourself program. There's also the seed. So like, how, how does your business operate? I guess? What are all the facets of it? Yeah, well, we do have the growth yourself program. And now with this new move, we feel like we're reassessing the different parts to just make things simpler. And also, since we'll have a bit more space, and we've grown so much over the years, we feel like we have a lot more to offer in our program, which now includes an app. Yeah, an app where my husband is a software programmer. So he's designed it so that you can figure out your planting window for whatever most of the common crops, no matter where you live in states, so there's a lot. And so because of that, I think our online business isn't changing that much. It's, it's basically, we're a software teaching company, I would think and we do consulting, but we are changing in that our plants in the seed business will probably become more the in person business will become more and that we're still exploring how to do that effectively without overwhelming ourselves. So right now we sell plants, we sell seeds from our online shop, and we sell them in person as well. But in the future we might be we might be exploring other things as well. But online, grow it yourself is a it's a program for one year, where we take you by the hand and help you transform your backyard, into the garden, the edible garden of your dreams so that you're harvesting everything, like the way we we do it, you know, it can't be done, because we're living it like every meal has something from the garden. And that sounds wonderful. Yeah, it can be done. And when we started out, we saw we had so many mistakes, nobody was there to teach us. So we have a heart for people, especially families who want to grow it themselves, to keep them accountable to goals, and to make it stretch strategic and simple. Like we don't want to complicate things with other you know, I've talked about so many aspects of growing podcast, I'd be like, That's not Yeah, that's not how it's gonna be. It's like step by step. And every month we we meet one on one to talk about your garden is very personalized. And then we send you seeds in the mail or plants in the mail. If you finish a module, like as an incentive to keep growing, keep learning. So there's a lot of these a lot of other things plus there's the app, you know, that's included in that and then the app will be a Kickstarter in May of next year. And it's called Sage. And so those are the two things that are on the online platform. And then those are the two aspects of our business the online and then the in person one but the teaching happens online. Gotcha that that's fantastic that it's a sort of a program that will take you step by step because I personally love all The little nerdy scientific elements of it even if I don't understand all of it, but having that, you know, someone to help you along the way. That's, that's such a great such a great idea. And that's that your website is it's grow my own food.com Grow, grow my own food. Yes. Yes, do my own food.com and, and the space the new home that you're moving to how what is the land on that again? It's three acres. Wow. Yeah, it's, it's, it's gonna be exciting and we can't wait to start growing there and thinking of which plants to bring in and bring with us. So very exciting, but so exciting. Well, before I asked like where people can continue to find you, I, I've loved talking about all of this stuff. And it's inspiring me to add more and learn more and do all of that. So before we wrap up, I just want to ask you, every, every episode, I share or ask a guest to share a little joy, which is just like something that has added to your everyday life. So is there any thing or any things that have done that for you lately? Yes, as I was in the garden, now, before my computer overheated, I, I could see the the fruits of the pop poetry that we have. So papa is the largest Native American tree. But we don't yet that fruit, rather the largest Native American fruit that we've never heard of, because their fruit is not commercially viable because it gets bruised really easily. But it's like a cross between a mango and a and a banana. That's how they described it. It's sort of like a leftover from the glacial. Like when the ice, the ice shifted and everything when we were tropics, in the state in this part of the world before. That was the tree that kind of grew. And so it's a very old kind of tree, Asimina triloba. And, and then it's kind of stayed still and adapted. And it's still around. It's called the poeple. And we have two of them so I can see the I can see the fruits coming on. And yeah, the bees just the bees are buzzing. A while ago, there was a bird that was out of the ordinary because her backyard is so full of birds. It sounded like what the twin said nuclear bomb was, we sounded like some sort of an emergency like that kind of sound. It was like, what what is that bird and just that wonder odd wonder of being outside there. I just encourage everybody who's on your show to, you know, get out there and grow. If you're not listening to this while you're in the garden. Tonight. As soon as you can go out there and see and just observe 15 minutes is all it takes our friend Amy stress. Another permaculturist will say that 50 minutes is all it takes to grow a garden every day, 15 minutes and seven of those minutes should be spent observing your garden. Wow. That's beautiful. I love it. Okay, well. Also, if you would like, I tend to share an album or a playlist that is sort of goes along with the theme of the episode. So I will hand that off to you if you'd like if there's an album or something that you'd like to share musically. Yeah. Okay, so it is row a garden. There's this band called formidable vegetable. They're actually permaculture artists. Wow, that is so precious. Yeah. And he does like he does really clever, witty lyrics, other songs that he has. He has a kids kids album. It's so. So funny. Our kids grew up learning about how to grow. Yeah. All right. Well, thank you so much for chatting with me today. Where Can anyone who's listening to this find more information about you? Either website or social or whatever? Certainly. Yeah. grow my own. food.com is our website grow my own food.com We are permaculture gardens. And on Instagram, we're Instagram that Instagram slash permaculture underscore garden. So yeah, I'd be happy to chat about anything gardening related. I want to help anybody, anybody who wants to grow, especially if you're just starting out. So that's our mission to help families grow. Wow, fantastic. Well, thank you so much, and it's been a pleasure. Likewise, And there you go. Hopefully you had fun and you're inspired listening to this interview I since this has been recorded have taken action and I just want to share some updates because I have put my basil in with the big in the big wine barrel with my tomato plant. I have been planting things next to other things so I've got marigolds split up around other things, I've planted beans, I am doing some bush bean plants and I also grew some in my strawberry container because it helps the strawberry soil and I harvested it as beansprouts was very proud of that. I've also planted lavender which is currently in bloom, which is gorgeous, and I've planted Bay right next to that so I'm trying to get a little more in ground trying to help things help each other and oh and I have harvested my first zucchini it I think I harvested it maybe a little too early but if you're interested in all of this, you can follow me on Instagram and I have a story highlight called Garden 22 And that's where I'm sort of sharing along with the season. So again if you are interested in finding out more about Nicole and Dave and their business you can go to grow my own food.com and I will be leaving links to all of that in the show notes which is of course at life on the brink dot live including links to the blog post all about different seeds I hope you enjoyed it I know it was a hefty episode but so full of just goodness so I will see you next week and I'm gonna let formidable vegetable take us out I'll be back next week whenever I come to see you I always find you outside with your hands in the ground down with anything that grows and all I want to do is join you in that mornin sunshine I want to know what to do how you grow your fish because we'd gone abroad God we gonna grow God gonna grow and God will save just some seeds from my pumpkins and peas and I can foresee we'll get them grow in like weeds we could stay up too late and plant them by them and we're gonna make everyone jealous when they see what we got growing on the trellis it will be raining down in our very own food monsoon because we're gonna grow and God's gonna grow and God we're gonna die soon we're gonna grow and God we're gonna go well we've made arrays that squash strawberries gonna grow and we're gonna grow gonna grow and God God God, God you Thank you for tuning in to 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