Eat (And Grow) More Plants!

<v Speaker 1>Broadcasting from the comfy confines of Studio ay Here at
<v Speaker 1>Proven Winters, Color Joy Shrubs. It's time for the Gardening
<v Speaker 1>Simplified Show with Stacy Hervella Me, Rick weisst and our
<v Speaker 1>engineer and producer Adrianna Robinson. Well, Stacy, we need to
<v Speaker 1>eat more plants. Everybody needs to eat more plants. And
<v Speaker 1>I had so much fun at the greenhouse this past
<v Speaker 1>weekend with the spring season kicking in, selling some of
<v Speaker 1>the Proven Winters edibles like Splendid Blue blueberry. And to me,
<v Speaker 1>a blueberry plant is the perfect example of a plant
<v Speaker 1>that can be functional providing food, but also be esthetically
<v Speaker 1>pleasing with gorgeous fault color.
<v Speaker 2>It's true. They are eminently landscape worthy, beautiful foliage in
<v Speaker 2>the spring and flowers in the spring, and then you
<v Speaker 2>got the fruit, and then you've got amazing fall color
<v Speaker 2>and then those nice red stems, As anybody who lives
<v Speaker 2>in West Michigan and drives literally anywhere can tell you,
<v Speaker 2>they're fabulous even in winter. And Splendid Blue is one
<v Speaker 2>of our newer varieties. It's a blueberry. The blue, of
<v Speaker 2>course comes from the blueberry, but also the foliage is blue.
<v Speaker 2>I mean you've seen it at the greenhouse, isn't it
<v Speaker 2>just absolutely gorgeous?
<v Speaker 1>Gorgeous and people were very excited to see that on display.
<v Speaker 1>Right next to it, Taste of Heaven, thornless BlackBerry, easy
<v Speaker 1>as pie bush cherry.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, I'm excited about this.
<v Speaker 2>You know, so a bush cherry. It's not a plant
<v Speaker 2>that a lot of people are familiar with. Now, if
<v Speaker 2>you fear like a hardcore food gardener, you probably know
<v Speaker 2>of bush cherries, but the average person doesn't. You know,
<v Speaker 2>they grow weeping cherry, flowering cherry. You can't eat those,
<v Speaker 2>they don't produce any fruits. But the bush cherry easy
<v Speaker 2>as pie is a shrubby cherry does not need a pollinator.
<v Speaker 2>It's great for an edible hedge, and it gets bright
<v Speaker 2>red fruits. Now they're quite tart, but not like I wish.
<v Speaker 2>I wouldn't have eaten this tart. They're still good enough
<v Speaker 2>to eat and you don't need pollinator. They're pretty much
<v Speaker 2>pest and disease free. It's just a great way to
<v Speaker 2>have edible fruit at arm's length. You know, in the summer,
<v Speaker 2>I agrease.
<v Speaker 1>They see it's a This is a shrub that I
<v Speaker 1>would plunk smack dab right in the middle of my
<v Speaker 1>landscape and be very happy to do that.
<v Speaker 3>And of course we were.
<v Speaker 1>Busy selling pesto besto basil and a masal basil. To me,
<v Speaker 1>it's just basil instinct, one of the most popular annuals
<v Speaker 1>that you will sell in a greenhouse. Of course, you
<v Speaker 1>think of the versatility in cuisine like manute, while many
<v Speaker 1>dishes like Italian pesto salads thaie cuisine. So you know,
<v Speaker 1>all these great plants essentially add to the landscape. Esthetically,
<v Speaker 1>we want to eat more plants, but at the same
<v Speaker 1>time it brings up the point that we also enjoy
<v Speaker 1>these plants many times for what they visually give to us.
<v Speaker 3>And when we.
<v Speaker 1>Get in a vegetable planting season, that's an intense time
<v Speaker 1>of the year at the greenhouse or a garden center
<v Speaker 1>because it's a short it's similar to the Christmas season.
<v Speaker 1>It's short, it's compact, it's intense, and if you live
<v Speaker 1>in Northern States or into Canada, we have what I
<v Speaker 1>typically call the do over planting season. Some years we
<v Speaker 1>have that where you get very excited about putting out
<v Speaker 1>vegetables and getting your vegetables season starting because we want
<v Speaker 1>to maximize the.
<v Speaker 3>Yield in the garden.
<v Speaker 1>But if we plant a little too early, we get
<v Speaker 1>one of those zinger frosts. People come back and plant
<v Speaker 1>a second time some years.
<v Speaker 2>Which you should do. I mean my all is if
<v Speaker 2>you got overly enthusiastic, you know, I mean, everyone has
<v Speaker 2>their first your vegetable gardening. But if you live in
<v Speaker 2>a cold climate, you're pretty familiar with those cold snaps
<v Speaker 2>come in somewhat time in those two weeks first weeks
<v Speaker 2>to May Mother's Day typically without fail. Last reason, I
<v Speaker 2>have a Mother's Day frost, but that was the rare
<v Speaker 2>Mother's Day they have a frost. But yeah, it's never
<v Speaker 2>too late to start again. I mean, it can be
<v Speaker 2>a little disheartening. You could also protect your plants if
<v Speaker 2>a frost or freeze is called for. But you know,
<v Speaker 2>I think most gardeners who have a little experience under
<v Speaker 2>their belt definitely aren't putting out anything super tender tomatoes, peppers,
<v Speaker 2>egg plant, basil, any of those cucumbers, delicate plants. They're
<v Speaker 2>not going out until third week of May at best.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, No, I agree, And I love planting oregano and chives.
<v Speaker 1>As long as we're talking about eat more plants and
<v Speaker 1>edible plants. Of course, chives mind come back year after years.
<v Speaker 1>Sometimes just let them go to flour and they're beautiful.
<v Speaker 1>Same thing with oregano. Sometimes I just let it go
<v Speaker 1>to flour and it's gorgeous. And I just added to
<v Speaker 1>my landscape drops of Jupiter ornamental oregano chartruse yellow leaves
<v Speaker 1>top with mauve pink flowers.
<v Speaker 3>What a great plant.
<v Speaker 1>Again, Stacy, The point here is when we're landscaping, gardening,
<v Speaker 1>whatever it may be.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, we look at a plot.
<v Speaker 1>Where we want to maximize yields, and there's methods of
<v Speaker 1>doing that, and we can chat about that today. But
<v Speaker 1>to me, edible plants, well, they're just plain beautiful.
<v Speaker 2>They're beautiful, and you know, it really is I think,
<v Speaker 2>and I've said this on the show before, just the
<v Speaker 2>ultimate and luxury to be able to go into your
<v Speaker 2>own backyard and have a grocery store of sorts. You know,
<v Speaker 2>I think if you're growing the right plants for the
<v Speaker 2>food that you like to eat, you know, with trial
<v Speaker 2>and error and expanding your palate every year, you end
<v Speaker 2>up with plants that, you know, it's just I don't,
<v Speaker 2>I just I can't even explain the joy of being
<v Speaker 2>in the kitchen and going, oh, shoot, I didn't buy
<v Speaker 2>any scallions. Well, I can just go back, you know,
<v Speaker 2>outside and pick garlic, chives, or pick you know, the chives,
<v Speaker 2>or you know, any number of plants, and it's just
<v Speaker 2>there's nothing. I'm gonna say this too, there's nothing like
<v Speaker 2>you're cooking and then you're like, oh wait, I need
<v Speaker 2>something from the garden, and so you get your garden
<v Speaker 2>shoes on, you take a little break from the kitchen,
<v Speaker 2>you go out. It's a beautiful summer evening and you
<v Speaker 2>just go out and you pick the stuff and you
<v Speaker 2>bring it back in, and it's just that's what I
<v Speaker 2>wait all year for. That's just the most magical moment
<v Speaker 2>in gardening for me.
<v Speaker 1>I agree, stay see one hundred percent. It's like the
<v Speaker 1>salary said to the carrot, you have a point, and
<v Speaker 1>the point well, and the point is this is that
<v Speaker 1>many people talk about adding edibles or vegetable gardening because
<v Speaker 1>Adriana likes that it was a good one, well thank you,
<v Speaker 1>but many people will think about, sorry, it just came out.
<v Speaker 2>It was good.
<v Speaker 3>Sorry.
<v Speaker 2>Well, you know, as a cucumber said to the tomato,
<v Speaker 2>you threw me for a loop.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah right, we're hot today.
<v Speaker 3>I don't even remember what the point was that I
<v Speaker 3>was going to make it.
<v Speaker 2>Oh yeah.
<v Speaker 1>So the deal is you'll see people on YouTube or
<v Speaker 1>wherever it may be talking about the fact that you
<v Speaker 1>need to grow a vegetable garden because it will save
<v Speaker 1>you money. I'm not so sure about that, because by
<v Speaker 1>the time you've bought the soil, the plants, or raised
<v Speaker 1>bed containers, fertilizer, everything else, those tomatoes can get a
<v Speaker 1>little bit of expensive. I personally believe that edible gardening
<v Speaker 1>and edible landscape is important, not only for the esthetics,
<v Speaker 1>but in addition to that, the health factor and the
<v Speaker 1>taste factor. You're so right, Stacy on a summer day
<v Speaker 1>to be able to go out there, clip a few chives,
<v Speaker 1>grab a tomato plants, some basil leaves.
<v Speaker 3>Wow, it's just a thrill.
<v Speaker 2>Well, you know, I am a knitter in my spare
<v Speaker 2>time when I'm not gardening, and knitting, similarly, is very
<v Speaker 2>much not about saving money. You know, you buy yarn
<v Speaker 2>for a sweater or a pair of socks. It costs
<v Speaker 2>well more than a sweater or a pair of socks
<v Speaker 2>that you'd buy, but it's about the hobby time, which
<v Speaker 2>is so important if you enjoy this having that time.
<v Speaker 2>And it's about the quality and selection because you can
<v Speaker 2>make when you're knitting, you can make everything exactly to
<v Speaker 2>your taste. And similarly, when you're vegetable gardening, you're not
<v Speaker 2>limited by the tomatoes that happen to keep well on
<v Speaker 2>the grocery shelf. Yes, you can go and buy those cheaply,
<v Speaker 2>and they're of course better in the summer. But you know,
<v Speaker 2>I this year am growing eight or nine different tomatoes
<v Speaker 2>that I've never grown before, really unique varieties, and I
<v Speaker 2>am just super excited about having them. And yeah, the
<v Speaker 2>electricity I'm spending right now to have my heat mats
<v Speaker 2>and my fan and my grow lights on everything I
<v Speaker 2>spent to have the plants ship because of course, once
<v Speaker 2>I started shopping for seed, then you get free shipping
<v Speaker 2>at a certain amount, so then you got to add
<v Speaker 2>more till you to that amount. It's not about saving money.
<v Speaker 2>You may save money, and if so, that's awesome, but
<v Speaker 2>it really is about the joy and the satisfaction. And
<v Speaker 2>if you love to eat, and I should love growing
<v Speaker 2>vegetables too, Yeah.
<v Speaker 3>No, I agree.
<v Speaker 1>And when you approach it you have to think about.
<v Speaker 1>I'm going to do this in quotes, your root print,
<v Speaker 1>your root print. In other words, as we've talked about
<v Speaker 1>with landscape plants going vertical or fastigit plants, we can
<v Speaker 1>do the same thing with vegetable plants. I have a
<v Speaker 1>picture for our YouTube viewers of a cucumber that was
<v Speaker 1>trying to escape the compound last year. Oh no, in
<v Speaker 1>my vegetable garden. Yeah, and he got stuck in the fence.
<v Speaker 1>But I grow my cucumbers at a forty five degree
<v Speaker 1>angle allow air underneath. And of course you want to
<v Speaker 1>have lots of flowers around your vegetable garden too, because
<v Speaker 1>it attracts pollinators to the garden and it benefits the
<v Speaker 1>vegetable garden so so much that we can talk about.
<v Speaker 1>We will also in segment four give you some pointers
<v Speaker 1>on achieving this a more edible garden. Let me mention
<v Speaker 1>the eat more plants limb a rick before we go
<v Speaker 1>to plants on trial.
<v Speaker 3>Here. It is my diet.
<v Speaker 1>I need to enhance, not leave my health to chance.
<v Speaker 1>So I might fantasize about a drive through burger and fries,
<v Speaker 1>but my goal is to eat more plants. Some foods
<v Speaker 1>have a real downside. I admit sometimes I backslide. Just
<v Speaker 1>mix up some batter and some oil to splatter because
<v Speaker 1>I like.
<v Speaker 3>My onions and Okra deep Fried and I.
<v Speaker 2>Do yeah, and that's some good stuff. I'm not gonna lie.
<v Speaker 1>Plants on trial. Coming up next here on the Gardening Simplified.
<v Speaker 2>Show, beautify your home and community with proven Winner's Color
<v Speaker 2>Choice Shrubs. With over three hundred and twenty five unique
<v Speaker 2>varieties to choose from. There's a flowering shrub or evergreen
<v Speaker 2>for every taste and every space. Just look for the
<v Speaker 2>distinctive white container your local garden center or learn more
<v Speaker 2>at proven Winner's Color Choice dot com. Greetings gardening friends,
<v Speaker 2>and welcome back to the Gardening Simplified Show, where we're
<v Speaker 2>talking all about vegetable gardening, because especially if you are
<v Speaker 2>in a cooler climate, it is time to start planning
<v Speaker 2>and planting. Still a little too early for tomatoes and
<v Speaker 2>eggplants and peppers and the like, if that is your
<v Speaker 2>inclination in these colder climates. But of course our warm
<v Speaker 2>climate friends are probably going gangbusters with their tomatoes and
<v Speaker 2>peppers and everything. But it's not too really to do
<v Speaker 2>things like radishes, carrots, lettuce, parsley, all sorts of wonderful things.
<v Speaker 2>And so we want it to be timely and inspire
<v Speaker 2>you to think about growing something, because you know, I
<v Speaker 2>think there's just so much benefit to growing your own vegetables.
<v Speaker 2>You don't have to go crazy, you don't have to
<v Speaker 2>like cord an off a huge part of your yard, exactly.
<v Speaker 2>You can just grow one to mate. Oh, you can
<v Speaker 2>just grow one cucumber, whatever you like to eat. It
<v Speaker 2>changes the way you think about food, It changes the
<v Speaker 2>way you think about plants, It changes the way you
<v Speaker 2>think about gardening. And it's just a wonderful thing.
<v Speaker 1>And when I was a kid in the nineteen sixties,
<v Speaker 1>kids then, you know, people had big plots, big garden plots,
<v Speaker 1>and boy, on a summer day you'd spend your time
<v Speaker 1>picking beans and shocking corn and working on the you know,
<v Speaker 1>you'd be laboring out there, and you didn't like it
<v Speaker 1>so much.
<v Speaker 2>Well, no, And you know, also, just like when we
<v Speaker 2>have talked in the past about how you know, flowers
<v Speaker 2>and gardening was very different because of plant breeding. Vegetable
<v Speaker 2>gardening is very different because of plant breeding. You know,
<v Speaker 2>you no longer need to worry about diseases even some
<v Speaker 2>pests have. There's been varieties developed to be resistant, stringless
<v Speaker 2>peas and beans and all of these things that you
<v Speaker 2>no longer have to labor over, although there is something
<v Speaker 2>to be said about a summer afternoon shelling beans and
<v Speaker 2>that kind of thing, but it's gotten a lot easier
<v Speaker 2>from what you might think back in the day. Now,
<v Speaker 2>I need to change gears here because I want to
<v Speaker 2>share something that I heard last weekend in a video
<v Speaker 2>on YouTube. It just happened to catch this. It was
<v Speaker 2>in a video about an architect in a house that
<v Speaker 2>he had designed, and he says in the video, his
<v Speaker 2>name's Jim Cutler. Creating habitat is a high calling and
<v Speaker 2>that just really stuck with me, and I've been thinking
<v Speaker 2>a lot about it over the last week ever since
<v Speaker 2>I heard that. Because when you garden, whatever your goal
<v Speaker 2>in gardening is, it's because you like flowers, it's because
<v Speaker 2>you want to grow vegetables, it's because all of your
<v Speaker 2>neighbors have plants in your yards looking kind of barren.
<v Speaker 2>Whatever your reason for planting something, you are creating habitat.
<v Speaker 2>Because animals, for everything from birds to bugs, to beavers
<v Speaker 2>and everything else, they are interconnected with plants at some level,
<v Speaker 2>I mean, are all of life depends on plants. So
<v Speaker 2>when we when we plant anything, we are planting habitat.
<v Speaker 2>Now we can make our choices to be habitat for
<v Speaker 2>you know, better habitat for things that we want in
<v Speaker 2>our garden, or we can you know, make them worse habitat.
<v Speaker 2>But there's always going to be something, some birds, something
<v Speaker 2>taking advantage of that habitat in your garden. And when
<v Speaker 2>you are a vegetable gardener, your vegetable garden is habitat too,
<v Speaker 2>and very often it's habitat for things that you don't
<v Speaker 2>necessarily want in there because they are competing with you
<v Speaker 2>for the very vegetables that you are trying to produce
<v Speaker 2>from this garden, and so sometimes those need to be managed.
<v Speaker 2>But very often, you know what I aim to do
<v Speaker 2>in my garden, because no one really wants to use
<v Speaker 2>a bunch of pesticides on that vegetable garden. You want
<v Speaker 2>to look for you know IPM Integrated pest Management alternative
<v Speaker 2>methods for managing it. And one of the ways that
<v Speaker 2>you can do that is to create habitat for beneficial insects.
<v Speaker 2>And we've talked about beneficial insects here and there kind
<v Speaker 2>of name drops some things like lace wings or minute
<v Speaker 2>pirate bugs or parasitic wasps. There's lots and lots of
<v Speaker 2>them out there. Ladybugs of course, probably one of the
<v Speaker 2>most famous praying mantis. Little non discriminating in what it eats,
<v Speaker 2>but still an effective predator. So a beneficial insect is
<v Speaker 2>an insect that eats insects that eat plants at one
<v Speaker 2>of its life stages. So lots of beneficial insects will
<v Speaker 2>only eat insects in one of their life phases. So
<v Speaker 2>you know, insects can undergo complete metamorphosis like a butterfly
<v Speaker 2>where you go caterpillar larva to butterfly, or incomplete metamorphosis,
<v Speaker 2>which is something like oh, a grasshopper, right, so you
<v Speaker 2>would see something a baby grasshopper. It's just a little grasshopper,
<v Speaker 2>and then the grasshopper gets bigger through the season, sheds
<v Speaker 2>its skin and gets bigger and bigger. So sometimes in
<v Speaker 2>that case it would be the smaller versions of that
<v Speaker 2>will eat the insects very often the larger the adult
<v Speaker 2>insects need to feed on nectar, sure, so they are
<v Speaker 2>attracted to nectar in your garden, not the pest insects.
<v Speaker 2>They're eating the nectar, they're eating flowers, their larva, they
<v Speaker 2>lay their eggs if the habitat looks suitable. So what
<v Speaker 2>we really want to do when we're vegetable gardening is
<v Speaker 2>to think about the larger habitat in and around our
<v Speaker 2>vegetable gardens and have plants in it that attract beneficial
<v Speaker 2>insects so we can rely on them to do some
<v Speaker 2>of the work. Not only is that going to help
<v Speaker 2>us from a pest control perspective, but it's just delightful.
<v Speaker 2>I know, you know, I'm a big advocate for insects.
<v Speaker 2>It's the reason why a garden. I love to see
<v Speaker 2>insects in my garden. The more the better. They're endlessly fascinating,
<v Speaker 2>and so to me, this is all a very good thing.
<v Speaker 2>Even if you're a little squeamish about them, I think again,
<v Speaker 2>once you start vegetable gardening, your attitude towards everything just changes.
<v Speaker 1>Super important to educate ourselves on these things mentioned in
<v Speaker 1>the first segment. My frame of reference to nineteen sixties
<v Speaker 1>working in the vegetable garden with my dad. But if
<v Speaker 1>you think back to the nineteen sixties, you have Silent Spring,
<v Speaker 1>which came out in nineteen sixty and the decade culminated
<v Speaker 1>with Earth Day. April of nineteen seventy was the first day.
<v Speaker 1>So yeah, getting a familiarization with these types of things
<v Speaker 1>and these methods and using beneficial insects to your advantage
<v Speaker 1>super important.
<v Speaker 2>We become a participant in the ecosystem. So today's plants
<v Speaker 2>on trial are those pollinator plants that you know, again
<v Speaker 2>we're not just doing it because we want them to
<v Speaker 2>pull into our vegetables, although that is important. A number
<v Speaker 2>of vegetables are self fruitful in that they don't need
<v Speaker 2>an insect to come along and move pollen from one
<v Speaker 2>flower to another. But you know, having more pollination in
<v Speaker 2>the vegetable garden is always a good thing. And again
<v Speaker 2>it attracts these beneficial insects, so they will stick around,
<v Speaker 2>have babies in your yard, and they'll give you that
<v Speaker 2>free pest control. Now, I will tell a lie. The
<v Speaker 2>majority of beneficial insects sustaining plants are not shrubs. It's
<v Speaker 2>just no two ways around us. And this is you know,
<v Speaker 2>proven winter's color choice shrubs. So we talk about witty
<v Speaker 2>plants a lot. The best plants that you can plant
<v Speaker 2>for beneficial insects are in the apac family, which is
<v Speaker 2>also known as the Umbelliferae or the umbel family. So
<v Speaker 2>we're talking things like dill, parsley, anything that has that wide,
<v Speaker 2>beautiful kind of flower. Queen Anne's lace is another great
<v Speaker 2>example that people may know and love. Also plants in
<v Speaker 2>the Astoraci or the daisy family. Now what you'll notice
<v Speaker 2>about both of those plants is the flowers are made
<v Speaker 2>up of lots and lots of teeny tiny little flowers,
<v Speaker 2>so these little insects can get in there and get
<v Speaker 2>that nectar. And the other great thing about these is
<v Speaker 2>there great plants to have around the vegetable garden. To
<v Speaker 2>have dial to have parsley, to have sunflowers, to have
<v Speaker 2>zinnias in your vegetable garden. It's just it's beautiful and
<v Speaker 2>it's beneficial. But on the outside of the vegetable garden,
<v Speaker 2>your landscape, any flower garden that you have, there are
<v Speaker 2>actually a number of shrubs that you can plant that
<v Speaker 2>are going to give you a similarly long bloom time
<v Speaker 2>and serve as a really really good source of nectar.
<v Speaker 2>So again, when we think about the choices that we
<v Speaker 2>make in our gardening, you can opt for these plants
<v Speaker 2>create more habitat to create a better environment for everyone.
<v Speaker 2>So my number one choice here without question. If you
<v Speaker 2>live in a cool climate, it's Happy Face Potentilla bet Now,
<v Speaker 2>potentilla's in general are a great plant for pollinators, especially
<v Speaker 2>the herbaceous, but the woody ones are as well. The
<v Speaker 2>Happy Face Potentilla from Privenvener's color choice shrubs, very big flowers,
<v Speaker 2>wide open, tons of pollen and nectar. And what's great
<v Speaker 2>about them they bloom NonStop all summer long. So there's
<v Speaker 2>always going to be that sustained food source. Because when
<v Speaker 2>you're attracting these insects to your garden, you know you
<v Speaker 2>don't want them to say, oh, well, hey, this thing
<v Speaker 2>isn't blooming anymore. I guess I better move on. This way,
<v Speaker 2>you're going to always have that supply of flowers. So
<v Speaker 2>Happy faced Potentilla comes in four colors, yellow, which would
<v Speaker 2>be my first choice for pollinators, white, and then there's
<v Speaker 2>also two different pinks. Very easy plant to grow, full sun,
<v Speaker 2>super deer resistant and very cool deer resist, very dear resistent.
<v Speaker 2>Not your vegetable garden so much you're gonna need to
<v Speaker 2>fence that off if deer resistance is a concern. The
<v Speaker 2>other one that people might be surprised to think about
<v Speaker 2>is roses. Any rose where you can see those interior parts.
<v Speaker 2>All of that pollen and nectar will attract beneficial insects.
<v Speaker 2>There's lots of it in there for them. And similar
<v Speaker 2>to the to the potentilla blooming all summer long, so
<v Speaker 2>you're gonna again have that sustained food source. Another choice. Now,
<v Speaker 2>I know that butterfly bush can be very controversial for
<v Speaker 2>lots of people when we're talking about pollinators, but the
<v Speaker 2>fact is butterflies are not the only insect that can
<v Speaker 2>use a butterfly bush. And much like the last two
<v Speaker 2>plants I mentioned, you're going to have that can consistent
<v Speaker 2>flowering all summer long, absolutely full of nectar. So there's
<v Speaker 2>going to be all sorts of bees and beetles and
<v Speaker 2>all of these wonderful things that will help you out
<v Speaker 2>in your garden and invite more diversity. And the more
<v Speaker 2>diversity you have in your garden in plants in insects,
<v Speaker 2>trust me, the better off you are all going to be.
<v Speaker 2>I could go on and on and on about this
<v Speaker 2>topic because I am so passionate about flowers and insects
<v Speaker 2>in the garden, but we have to take a little break,
<v Speaker 2>so we will do that and when we come back,
<v Speaker 2>we're going to be opening up the mail bag, so
<v Speaker 2>please stick around. At Proven Winners Color Choice Shrubs, we
<v Speaker 2>know that a better landscape starts with a better shrub.
<v Speaker 2>Our team of experts tests and evaluates all of our
<v Speaker 2>flowering shrubs and evergreens for eight to ten years to
<v Speaker 2>ensure they outperform what's already on the market. For easy care, reliable,
<v Speaker 2>beautiful shrubs. To accentuate your home and express your personal style,
<v Speaker 2>look for Proven Winners Shrubs in the dist of white
<v Speaker 2>container at your local garden center or learn more at
<v Speaker 2>Proven Winner's Color Choice dot com. Gre Readings Gardening Friends,
<v Speaker 2>and welcome back to the Gardening Simplified Show, where it
<v Speaker 2>is our opportunity here to help you with your garden questions,
<v Speaker 2>quandaries and conundrums. And I know they are numerous at
<v Speaker 2>this time of year, so if you want to reach
<v Speaker 2>out to us, you can do so at Gardeningsimplified on
<v Speaker 2>air dot com. We do get a lot of questions,
<v Speaker 2>and of course not every question is suitable for answering
<v Speaker 2>on air because we're limited in our time, but we
<v Speaker 2>do always want to help you, so we are going
<v Speaker 2>to leave you hanging. You can always also reach us
<v Speaker 2>at proven Winner's Color Choice dot com. There's a contact
<v Speaker 2>tab right there that will go to one of our
<v Speaker 2>horticultures and you'll get a personal answer, not from a robot,
<v Speaker 2>but from a real person. And ditto forprefone Winners dot Com.
<v Speaker 2>You can just go to the feedback at the bottom
<v Speaker 2>there and get an answer for your garden questions. So
<v Speaker 2>before we get into some things that Rick has to share,
<v Speaker 2>we have an important event to commemorate. It kind of
<v Speaker 2>slipped in last week but you may not have noticed it. April,
<v Speaker 2>which we're just past right now, commemorates Rick's fiftieth year
<v Speaker 2>in the garden center industry. That is amazing, Thank you,
<v Speaker 2>thank you very I mean, that's hard to believe, right,
<v Speaker 2>we've seen it all. Yeah, you've had the opportunity to
<v Speaker 2>so congratulations on serving the West Michigan gardening community for
<v Speaker 2>fifty years. That's truly incredible.
<v Speaker 3>Thank you.
<v Speaker 1>It's been It's been a fun adventure and I have
<v Speaker 1>so many stories that I can share with people interacting
<v Speaker 1>with people in the garden center. It's just been a
<v Speaker 1>great experience for me.
<v Speaker 2>Well, unfortunately, you've had your excellent sense of humor to
<v Speaker 2>sustain you through even the most maddening moment.
<v Speaker 1>You have to have a sense of humous if you're
<v Speaker 1>going to be in the garden center retail business.
<v Speaker 2>Yes, so what do we got here?
<v Speaker 3>So lotus pods?
<v Speaker 1>Just want to mention we're talking about edible plants today
<v Speaker 1>and I'm walking the beach on Sunday, so live along
<v Speaker 1>the lake shore here in West Michigan, Lake Michigan, and
<v Speaker 1>thousands of these lotus pods. Our YouTube viewers can see them. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>and they're rattles.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, they're getting sand all over me.
<v Speaker 3>But thousands of them.
<v Speaker 1>So I took some pictures, a little bit of video,
<v Speaker 1>put it in social media.
<v Speaker 3>It was picked up by the media.
<v Speaker 1>As a matter of fact, the NBC affiliate here in
<v Speaker 1>West Michigan, Ellen Baka, the meteorologist at Wood TV eight,
<v Speaker 1>picked up on it and people just jumped all over
<v Speaker 1>This number of people had no idea what they were.
<v Speaker 1>They're American lotus pods floated out of the marsh. With
<v Speaker 1>the heavy rains that we had in April into Lake
<v Speaker 1>Michigan and the storm pushes them up on the shore
<v Speaker 1>whil you have these rattles all over the place. And
<v Speaker 1>it was interesting to me. Two things that were interesting
<v Speaker 1>to me, Stacey. One, a lot of people have a
<v Speaker 1>phobia of lotus pods or honeycomb or sponges.
<v Speaker 3>It's quite interesting.
<v Speaker 1>The other is that the seeds within the lotus pods
<v Speaker 1>are edible.
<v Speaker 3>I did not know that.
<v Speaker 2>Yes, the seeds are edible, and also the roots of
<v Speaker 2>lotus are highly edible and delicious. Now I can't speak
<v Speaker 2>so much about the American There are North American native lotus,
<v Speaker 2>but in Japan it's very popular. It's known as rain
<v Speaker 2>rain colon, and I actually ate at a restaurant in
<v Speaker 2>Tokyo that was devoted exclusively to lotus, and so it's
<v Speaker 2>really crunchy, really tasty. You can put it in soups,
<v Speaker 2>there's all sorts of different things that you can do
<v Speaker 2>with it. I'm not sure that the North American lotus
<v Speaker 2>is quite as seculent for its roots, but the seeds
<v Speaker 2>are absolutely edible. And it's really cool that you've seen
<v Speaker 2>these whole because normally when these wash up on the shore,
<v Speaker 2>they're pretty beat up right, and these are like perfectly intact. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>and now is the time you see so many come
<v Speaker 2>up on shore. So if you are anywhere in the
<v Speaker 2>vicinity of Lake Michigan on the east shore or the
<v Speaker 2>west shore, you'll probably see some of these and beautiful plant.
<v Speaker 2>The problem is, you know, we don't really get to
<v Speaker 2>see lotus plants blooming or growing because they grow out
<v Speaker 2>kind of in the middle of the bayous and marshes
<v Speaker 2>around here. So unless you're a kayaker or canoe or
<v Speaker 2>you're not going to get a good look at our
<v Speaker 2>beautiful and amazing native lotus.
<v Speaker 3>And they are gorgeous, you bet you.
<v Speaker 2>And you know the flower, like the inside when it's
<v Speaker 2>a fresh flower is so interesting because it's like a
<v Speaker 2>little miniature green version of this and then it expands
<v Speaker 2>into this. So just a beautiful, interesting plant, symbolic in
<v Speaker 2>North America and super symbolic of course in Asia as
<v Speaker 2>it's associated with Buddhism.
<v Speaker 3>Fantastic.
<v Speaker 1>Let me mention also Stacey for the mail bag. I
<v Speaker 1>had someone stop me the other day, a person who
<v Speaker 1>listens to our podcast, and she said that she goes
<v Speaker 1>to Florida for three months in winter. Her husband does
<v Speaker 1>not want to go. He stays home and she put
<v Speaker 1>him in charge of taking care of the plants. And
<v Speaker 1>under the sink is the water soluble fertilizer for the plants,
<v Speaker 1>but he instead grabbed the bubble powder for the grand kids.
<v Speaker 1>They used to make big bubbles using a wand fed
<v Speaker 1>the plants all winter while she was gone with the.
<v Speaker 2>Bubbles, so it wasn't a one time.
<v Speaker 3>Thing and the plants survived it.
<v Speaker 2>Wow. He must have been a good water then, so
<v Speaker 2>he was like rinsing away all of that soap residue
<v Speaker 2>that would normally not be so right for the plants.
<v Speaker 1>So that's typical of those kinds of stories that I've had,
<v Speaker 1>you know I've heard in the garden center.
<v Speaker 2>Well, no, it's water soluble. For how did it not
<v Speaker 2>bubble up like crazy?
<v Speaker 3>He just used it.
<v Speaker 1>He was instructed to use it, and he grabbed the
<v Speaker 1>wrong container.
<v Speaker 3>And there you go.
<v Speaker 1>And you know, a picture for our YouTube viewers of
<v Speaker 1>those big bubbles you can make with this a picture
<v Speaker 1>I took on the beach last summer. But I just
<v Speaker 1>found that really amusing. And that's what I'm saying, Stacy.
<v Speaker 1>I have hundreds and hundreds of those kinds of series
<v Speaker 1>through the years.
<v Speaker 2>Well, we are glad that you do. Now what we
<v Speaker 2>got in the mailbag this week.
<v Speaker 3>Deb Rights.
<v Speaker 1>I had my yard professionally landscaped a couple years ago.
<v Speaker 3>Three now, I guess.
<v Speaker 1>And a lot of my plants are planted in rocks,
<v Speaker 1>medium sized rocks. I keep losing plants. Is it because
<v Speaker 1>they're planted in rocks?
<v Speaker 2>Oh my goodness. One of the banes of my existence
<v Speaker 2>is a horticulture. So the answer for Deb and anyone
<v Speaker 2>else who is struggling with a similar situation, it's probably
<v Speaker 2>not the rocks. But nine times out of ten, probably
<v Speaker 2>nine point five times out of ten, landscape rocks like
<v Speaker 2>this are paired with soil separator, landscape fabric, weed barrier,
<v Speaker 2>call it whatever you want. It is all bad news.
<v Speaker 2>And I don't know why the rocks and a landscape
<v Speaker 2>separator always seem to go hand in hand. But what
<v Speaker 2>happens is those even though those are well intentioned, you know,
<v Speaker 2>everyone thinks that they're doing a good thing and this
<v Speaker 2>is going to keep weeds down, they do not. What
<v Speaker 2>they do do, however, is they prevent oxygen from reaching
<v Speaker 2>the plant roots and from carbon dioxide from going out
<v Speaker 2>of the plant. Roots, and they create a really unfavorable environment,
<v Speaker 2>especially for sensitive plants. So I have seen so many plants,
<v Speaker 2>especially lilacs in panicle hydrangeas, which are two plants that
<v Speaker 2>are quite sensitive to this situation. Many many plants killed
<v Speaker 2>this way. So the solution, if you have the landscape
<v Speaker 2>fabric underneath, if you're planting into it for the first time,
<v Speaker 2>pull it well away from the plant. You know, I'm
<v Speaker 2>talking a good two foot circle around the plant, so
<v Speaker 2>that there's plenty of open soil for the water and
<v Speaker 2>air to you know, exchange there. If you already have
<v Speaker 2>plants in there, I would just go ahead and cut
<v Speaker 2>away even more. It doesn't hurt.
<v Speaker 3>Now.
<v Speaker 2>The other thing, even aside from the soil separator landscape fabric,
<v Speaker 2>you very often have rocks holding on to a lot
<v Speaker 2>of heat.
<v Speaker 3>That's exactly it.
<v Speaker 1>They generate a lot of or they absorb heat and
<v Speaker 1>they reflect and it creates real problems for the plants.
<v Speaker 3>Stacey. I've always called them riot rocks.
<v Speaker 2>Riot rocks, riot rocks.
<v Speaker 3>You know, the riot rocks.
<v Speaker 2>They're not much of a riot. And you know, no
<v Speaker 2>one thinks about what happens when you're done with the rocks.
<v Speaker 2>And then you've got to somehow wheelbarrow away whatever's left
<v Speaker 2>of the rocks. The rocks are in your lawn. It's
<v Speaker 2>you know, there are certainly plants that can withstand it
<v Speaker 2>just fine. And you know, we've actually talked about doing
<v Speaker 2>a gravel gardens segment in the future, which which we
<v Speaker 2>will we shall probably do this summer. But you know,
<v Speaker 2>the landscape rocks as a kind of mulch can definitely
<v Speaker 2>be problematic. There are plants that will have no issue
<v Speaker 2>with it. So you can either change your planting to
<v Speaker 2>have as that are going to be very tolerant of
<v Speaker 2>that intense heat, that are maybe potentially going to be
<v Speaker 2>tolerant of some drainage issues if you have a lot
<v Speaker 2>of rain and there's that, you know, layer of soil
<v Speaker 2>separator underneath. That's kind of a rough combination, but it
<v Speaker 2>is possible. But really remedying the whole situation favorably is
<v Speaker 2>going to be a very uphill battle. So you kind
<v Speaker 2>of are going to have to work your way through
<v Speaker 2>a combination of proper planting choices that can withstand the
<v Speaker 2>conditions as well as again pulling away that separator, pulling
<v Speaker 2>away the rock. And I have found that you know,
<v Speaker 2>even if you're looking down on the landscape from your home,
<v Speaker 2>you're going to be able to see those big holes
<v Speaker 2>when your landscape is viewed from the street. It doesn't
<v Speaker 2>you know that foreshortening that you have doesn't really make
<v Speaker 2>a different. So it's not like people are like, why
<v Speaker 2>is there a huge moat around that plant with no
<v Speaker 2>rock around it? From the street going perspective, it will
<v Speaker 2>look pretty similar. So definitely keep those well away from
<v Speaker 2>the base of the plant, and you and the plants
<v Speaker 2>will be happier. I know rocks seem like a low
<v Speaker 2>maintenance choice.
<v Speaker 3>But they're not a low maintenance.
<v Speaker 2>They are not a low Speaking of your fifty years
<v Speaker 2>in the industry, aren't you glad that lava rock is
<v Speaker 2>barely a thing anymore?
<v Speaker 1>Oh, my neighbor just brought in a five yard load
<v Speaker 1>of lava rock no landscape. I said, why didn't you
<v Speaker 1>ask me first before.
<v Speaker 3>You ordered this?
<v Speaker 2>I didn't even know it was still around enough to
<v Speaker 2>get five yards. All right, On that note, we are
<v Speaker 2>going to take a little break and when we come back,
<v Speaker 2>we are continuing our conversation on vegetable gardening, So please
<v Speaker 2>stay tuned. Thanks for listening to the Gardening Simplified podcast
<v Speaker 2>brought to you by Proven Winners Color Choice Shrubs. Our
<v Speaker 2>award winning flowering shrubs and evergreens are trialed and tested
<v Speaker 2>by experts with your success in mind. Learn more at
<v Speaker 2>Proven Winners color Choice dot com.
<v Speaker 1>Welcome back to the Gardening Simplified Show as we try
<v Speaker 1>to eat more plants and Stacy. My dad taught me
<v Speaker 1>at a young age working in the vegetable garden with
<v Speaker 1>him that planting depth, properly drained soil, organic matter, and
<v Speaker 1>sunlight were the keys. And my dad is now ninety
<v Speaker 1>six years old at a retirement village and he's very
<v Speaker 1>picky about the vegetables that he eats. I find it
<v Speaker 1>really interesting because edibles in the garden, vegetables you can
<v Speaker 1>steam them, roast them, microwave them, saute them. He wants
<v Speaker 1>them boiled, and he wants them boiled to the point
<v Speaker 1>where they boil the life out of those things. Otherwise
<v Speaker 1>he won't eat it. And I think it's just strange.
<v Speaker 1>And I think back to that time, the fifties and sixties,
<v Speaker 1>the big thing was the invention of Lipton onion soup. Mit.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, and everybody used that.
<v Speaker 1>When there was a radio personality called Arthur Godfree, and
<v Speaker 1>eventually they began to call it the Arthur Godfree dip.
<v Speaker 1>But that revolutionized the way people enjoyed vegetables at that time.
<v Speaker 1>And I just find it interesting that my dad wants
<v Speaker 1>them boiled.
<v Speaker 3>Or he doesn't want them.
<v Speaker 2>Wow.
<v Speaker 3>So interesting.
<v Speaker 1>Now using fish as fertilizer with our edibles, oh yeah,
<v Speaker 1>or fish emulsion fertilizer.
<v Speaker 3>Have you used that? Oh?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, definitely.
<v Speaker 3>How do you feel about that?
<v Speaker 2>I mean, I think it is an excellent fertilizer source
<v Speaker 2>if you want to stay away from quote unquote industrial
<v Speaker 2>fertilizers that are made from minerals in that kind of thing.
<v Speaker 2>It does stink to high heaven, So depending on your dog,
<v Speaker 2>it may or may not be a great choice, but
<v Speaker 2>it's immediately available nitrogen. It does cost a little bit more,
<v Speaker 2>and yeah, mixing it up is not for the squeamish
<v Speaker 2>or weak stomached. But I do think it's an outstanding fertilizer,
<v Speaker 2>and I think, you know, fish fertilizer is much more
<v Speaker 2>common and affordable in areas where there's a lot of fishing.
<v Speaker 2>So if you're on the West coast, if you're on
<v Speaker 2>the East coast, it's going to be very different than
<v Speaker 2>if you are in say the middle of Michigan, where
<v Speaker 2>there's not a lot of that, and it's all going
<v Speaker 2>to have to be shipped in from somewhere else. But
<v Speaker 2>I mean, I mean people used to bury fishbones around
<v Speaker 2>their plants and you know, that kind of thing. And
<v Speaker 2>as long as you aren't gonna, you know, accidentally dig
<v Speaker 2>it up before it's time, that is perfectly fine. But
<v Speaker 2>I have used it before, and yeah, I'm absolutely a fan.
<v Speaker 2>If you want an organic fertilizer, yeah, so.
<v Speaker 1>I think composted manures or fish emulsion fertilizer make great
<v Speaker 1>fertilizers for edible plants. If you think of the Native
<v Speaker 1>Americans and the first settlers, you know, they taught them
<v Speaker 1>to use fish. Another important aspect of an edible landscape
<v Speaker 1>or edible garden is that what you plant or try
<v Speaker 1>to grow has to make sense.
<v Speaker 3>For example, I love celery.
<v Speaker 1>I love celery, but it doesn't make sense to me
<v Speaker 1>to try and grow it in the vegetable garden because
<v Speaker 1>it's like one hundred and twenty to one hundred and
<v Speaker 1>forty days to maturity.
<v Speaker 2>It's not the easiest crap to grow and it's crazy.
<v Speaker 2>There was a day in American history where celery was
<v Speaker 2>the height of luxury, like exactly. You know, you can
<v Speaker 2>buy Victorian celery vases, like it was like the thing
<v Speaker 2>that you did to show everybody, like how wealthy you
<v Speaker 2>were and how yeah that you serve them celery. And
<v Speaker 2>now it's like almost like a punchline and it's so
<v Speaker 2>inexpensive at the grocery store. But yeah, growing it is
<v Speaker 2>not easy. Yeah, I'm actually growing some this year, but
<v Speaker 2>I'm growing leaf celery, okay, So I'm not trying to
<v Speaker 2>get the big stock celery that you have at the
<v Speaker 2>gardens at the grocery store. It's more like a leafy
<v Speaker 2>fin stock for Chinese cooking and for soups and that
<v Speaker 2>kind of thing. So I'm exciting.
<v Speaker 3>I like that.
<v Speaker 1>You know, the bulk of the celery like we see
<v Speaker 1>in stores is grown in California. You have to have
<v Speaker 1>a coolish environment some areas in California because it takes
<v Speaker 1>so long to mature. I guess that's the whole point
<v Speaker 1>for me. I love it in tuna fish, and I
<v Speaker 1>love peanut butter on celery sticks, and people use them
<v Speaker 1>as stirs and bloody Marry ay's.
<v Speaker 3>I think it's a fantastic plant.
<v Speaker 2>Have you ever grown lavage?
<v Speaker 3>No? I have not.
<v Speaker 2>All right, well, I'm starting lovage. See it's for Adriana
<v Speaker 2>this year. And did you know that they say when
<v Speaker 2>you have a mature lavage plant, it's a perennial that
<v Speaker 2>tastes like celery. Once it gets bigger, stems are hollow
<v Speaker 2>and you can use it as a straw for a
<v Speaker 2>bloody mary and it has that celery flavor. So it's
<v Speaker 2>going to be a few years. Some my lavage plants
<v Speaker 2>are at straw level, but I am growing lavage for
<v Speaker 2>a select few bloody marry connoisseurs on staff here at Choice.
<v Speaker 3>I love that.
<v Speaker 1>That's great, you know, so you take those things into
<v Speaker 1>consideration because I also believe some plants grow better in
<v Speaker 1>containers than in the ground. If you look, for example,
<v Speaker 1>at flowering annuals like a calibri CoA much better in
<v Speaker 1>a container than it is in the ground. And I
<v Speaker 1>think the same applies to vegetable plants. Growing tomatoes in
<v Speaker 1>containers is huge fun, but you may want to steer
<v Speaker 1>towards a determinate or semi determinate tomato rather than an
<v Speaker 1>indeterminate tomato unless you have an absolutely huge container.
<v Speaker 3>So my point here.
<v Speaker 1>Is this, a vegetable that gives a continual harvest of
<v Speaker 1>something to eat like peppers or tomatoes makes sense to
<v Speaker 1>me in a container, but certainly not celery or our
<v Speaker 1>good friend, the carrot really doesn't make sense in a container.
<v Speaker 2>Not ornamental enough either. Now, of course, if you're an
<v Speaker 2>apartment and you love carrots, or you found a really
<v Speaker 2>cool carrot and that's your only way to grow it,
<v Speaker 2>by all means, do that. But I agree, when we
<v Speaker 2>are looking at containers, we should be thinking of plants
<v Speaker 2>that are going to give us a better harvest and
<v Speaker 2>have significant ornamental appeal. And you know, I said earlier
<v Speaker 2>that I went a little bonkers on the seed purchasing
<v Speaker 2>this year. I bought everything from Adaptive Seeds out in Oregon,
<v Speaker 2>and their selection was just insane. There's so many cool
<v Speaker 2>things that I've never seen. So I could not hold
<v Speaker 2>myself back to the point where this year, probably like
<v Speaker 2>ninety percent of my containers are going to have to
<v Speaker 2>be hot peppers, because really I bought so many, but
<v Speaker 2>I think they're beautiful enough to merit that. I mean,
<v Speaker 2>because they're so colorful. You know, I'm not just buying
<v Speaker 2>like jalapenos, which same like the cellary, like, you can
<v Speaker 2>grow jlapenos, and it is very nice to have an
<v Speaker 2>abundant supply of jalapenos in your backyard, but you might
<v Speaker 2>want to use that space for something a little more interesting.
<v Speaker 2>So I have really cool hot peppers from all over
<v Speaker 2>the world pink, I mean red, orange, yellow, chocolate, purple
<v Speaker 2>color and I'm super excited to see what this is
<v Speaker 2>all gonna look like.
<v Speaker 1>I'm glad you brought this up because I think this
<v Speaker 1>is important. You know, last year you shared some peppers
<v Speaker 1>with me.
<v Speaker 2>Oh yeah, the habanadas.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, and the.
<v Speaker 1>Color in that orange was gorgeous. And it helps put
<v Speaker 1>an exclamation point on what we're trying to say today,
<v Speaker 1>and that is we all should eat more plants. But boy,
<v Speaker 1>aesthetically they are incredibly pleasing.
<v Speaker 2>They are. And you know, I'm glad that you kind
<v Speaker 2>of made that connection to you because for me, you know,
<v Speaker 2>it was a big moment in my personal journey to
<v Speaker 2>grow my own tomatoes and see them get cat faced,
<v Speaker 2>to see them get crashed, and to say there is
<v Speaker 2>no way I am not eating this beautiful tomato I
<v Speaker 2>know where this has been and that really changed the
<v Speaker 2>way that I look at food at the farmer's market
<v Speaker 2>and at the grocery store as well, because it is
<v Speaker 2>a challenge to grow food. If food is too uniform
<v Speaker 2>and two perfect chances are you've given up something in flavor.
<v Speaker 2>So I think it really helps to increase our tolerance
<v Speaker 2>for quote unquote less than perfect produce, which is important
<v Speaker 2>for food waste and everything.
<v Speaker 1>I'm going to be interested to see and I'm sure
<v Speaker 1>our listeners and viewers also the development of your pepper
<v Speaker 1>plantings this year, because you've really gotten me excited about
<v Speaker 1>that and growing peppers for the esthetic value of it.
<v Speaker 1>It's it's a pretty neat thing. Another plant that we
<v Speaker 1>could grow in that way, and it's a perennial, and
<v Speaker 1>that would be rhubarb.
<v Speaker 3>Now, rhubarb is the term rhubarb.
<v Speaker 1>Is tied into a New York sports writer or a
<v Speaker 1>broadcaster in the nineteen thirties who coined the phrase that
<v Speaker 1>a fight or fisticuffs or a.
<v Speaker 3>Brew haha would be called a rhubarb.
<v Speaker 2>What. Yeah, it wasn't called before that?
<v Speaker 3>No? What was no? No?
<v Speaker 1>No, the plant was called I'm saying a fight an
<v Speaker 1>altercation was called a rhuburb gotcha, but what a great
<v Speaker 1>ornamental perennial plant. Many people referred to it as pie plant,
<v Speaker 1>and Rhubarb's popularity grew to a peak before World War Two.
<v Speaker 1>But a lot of people feel because of sugar rationing,
<v Speaker 1>that its culinary use dropped dramatically during and after the war.
<v Speaker 1>So that phrase came along before World Working.
<v Speaker 2>I was real confused. I was like, were they using
<v Speaker 2>the botanical name or.
<v Speaker 3>Now?
<v Speaker 1>Of course, if we're talking about edible plants, and we
<v Speaker 1>mentioned it in the first segment, I mentioned how much
<v Speaker 1>I love oregano and chives, but Stacey herbs are one
<v Speaker 1>of those plants that, in my opinion, are perfectly suited
<v Speaker 1>to grow in containers.
<v Speaker 2>Absolutely. I grow herbs everywhere I can because I love them.
<v Speaker 2>I grow all my basilin containers because I don't want
<v Speaker 2>to have to unlatch my vegetable garden and get in
<v Speaker 2>there into the enclosure the compound, my little compound to
<v Speaker 2>pick that basil. And it's deer resistant. And how lucky
<v Speaker 2>are we that the deer never touched basil?
<v Speaker 3>That's exactly it. So it's beautiful, yeah, exactly.
<v Speaker 1>So have some fun out there enjoying edible plants, eat
<v Speaker 1>more plants, and enjoy the esthetic value of.
<v Speaker 3>Those plants in your landscape. Stacy, this has been fun.
<v Speaker 2>Thanks been super fun. I am ready to get out
<v Speaker 2>in the vegetable garden.
<v Speaker 3>I don't know about you, me too ready to go.
<v Speaker 1>Thank you, Adriana, and thanks most of all to all
<v Speaker 1>of you who tune us in on YouTube every week,
<v Speaker 1>or tune in the radio version of our show, or
<v Speaker 1>look for our podcast. Have yourself a gray week.