The Habit of Yard Maintenance with Nicole Burke

Jessica Honegger [00:00:04] Hey there. Welcome back to the Going Scared podcast. This is your host, Jessica Honegger, founder of the world changing brand Noonday Collection. Join us here every week for conversations that will help you live a life of purpose by leaving comfort and going scared. We are coming up to the very end of our Habit series. In fact, next week we're going to close out this season with the habit of Reflection. But today, I wanted us to talk about a basic habit that I personally do not have, but that I wanted to at least have the knowledge to have. And that is the habit of lawn care and the habit of gardening. I'll be the first to admit to you my husband, he grew up with a lawn care business. That is his domain. He's a bit of a perfectionist. It's not an area that I touch at all. But in true Enneagram seven with a strong six wing, I often think about those things that my husband does that if he were not around anymore, I would need to at least know how to do. And that is what I find about certain habits that if I'm at least empowered with the knowledge of the impact that it can have, and what are the basics that I'm more apt to even implement that habit. AKA Skin Care guys, I am, I'm on week three of a nightly routine. Y'all know you've been with me since the beginning. That I have never washed my face at night we're talking. I am washing my face. I am brushing my teeth. I am putting on retinol and I put on sunscreen in the morning vitamin C, and it was all because I really heard from a professional as a question asker, according to Gretchen Rubin's questions. And so, I really wanted the same thing around lawn care, and I knew exactly who I wanted to have on the show. Nicole Burke. I connected with Nicole at a conference a couple of years ago, and her positive energy is absolutely contagious. Nicole's social media following and influence have grown over the past couple of years because she specializes and talks about gardening. She has two companies Rooted Garden designs, which you'll hear about today. And then where we really spend our time talking about is Gardenary really that each of us can be empowered to grow our own food. Nicole started out as a garden coach, and after she experienced so much success growing that coaching business, she set up the Garden Coach Society to help other gardeners do that too. And to date, this Garden Society has trained more than 700 gardeners across North America. I absolutely loved this conversation. I grew so much from the knowledge that she has, really this whole idea of caretaking the green space that we have if we have a green space. If we don't have a green space, if you live in an apartment and you want to have some green space and have a kitchen or garden, that's what I started this year. It really is a way of living life, a way of seeing life. And I love this idea of growing at the pace of the greens around us who don't strive or toil. But when they're given the right things that they need to grow, they grow in their own time. This was a very, very liberating conversation. Nicole, I'm so excited to talk to you today. You were at the conference. That was my final conference before the shutdown. I bet it was yours, too.

Nicole Burke [00:03:55] It was. I look back on that and I can start. Do you remember that meal? It's like the Last Supper, you know? So, it was. And we had no idea. We're just like the disciples where they had no clue that they had mom.

Jessica Honegger [00:04:10] Mom to mom summit was.

Nicole Burke [00:04:12] And I remember one of the women who was, you know, who hosted us that evening as she was talking about going back home to Seattle, you know, and how it was the epicenter of COVID. And I was like, this is so people are making such a big deal about this. Like, what are we doing? You know? Little did I know I would return home and my kids would literally not go back to school for a year. Yeah.

Jessica Honegger [00:04:34] You're in Illinois. You're in Illinois.

Nicole Burke [00:04:36] Yes. Yes. So, it was such a treat to meet you that day. And little did I know so many people in my community already knew you. And so, I was like, I met this lady. She owns this really cool company. It's like a company for good, you know? And they're like, oh, yeah, I have like, so much of her jewelry. And it was yeah. So, it's been really fun. So, it's so great to reconnect with you now that it feels like we've all kind of woken up out of a really bad nightmare.

Jessica Honegger [00:05:05] Yes, yes, yes. Except it wasn't as bad a nightmare for you and your company. Tell us a little bit about your business and what has been the evolution of it during the pandemic?

Nicole Burke [00:05:18] [00:05:18] Yeah, so I am on a mission to get everyone into the garden. My second company, Gardenary, that's literally the meaning of the name is that gardening is ordinary. And so, we're trying to help everyone see that as humans we're meant to be in the garden at least a little bit. And we do that by training gardeners around the world to become garden consultants, to help people in their own local communities and cities learn how to garden. [31.6s] And then my first company is called Rooted Garden. It's based in Houston. We're actually franchising this spring and we're opening up a couple of new locations. And what we do is, is just that we're garden consultants, so we design, install and maintain raised bed kitchen gardens for our clients. So, I started that in 2015 out of my little backyard garden in Houston, Texas. And I started honestly, out of necessity, I needed to make a little bit of money. I had been homeschooling and raised the white flag and I said, I am retiring officially. And so just for a year we had two of my older kids, we transitioned them through private school before we brought everybody to public. And I needed to pay. I just, you know, I needed help that wasn't on the budget that year. So, I thought, well, if anyone will let me help them learn to garden or do some gardening and pay me a little bit for it, that would just be a dream job. And so, I started in the fall of 15 and Jessica was like, probably, I'm sure you've experienced this with your own business is just such a surprise when you get to do your dream job. And so, more and more people Houston was just a fantastic place to grow that company. People were so generous, so kind and so open and welcoming to me, and I was able to grow a really successful business very quickly so that business is still running. My family relocated to the Illinois area in 2018 for my husband's work, so around the time in 2017 when I launched Gardenary. [00:07:28] So the idea with Gardenary is really the education piece. So, to take all the things that I was learning and learning on the ground with our clients and turn it into it's an online education portal that trains gardeners to become consultants. But we also have a membership where gardeners are beginner gardeners from anywhere you included, can log on and watch courses and get coaching from garden consultants. So, we teach salad gardening, herb gardening, kitchen gardening, flower gardening, microgreens all, all the stuff. [32.7s] So yeah, in 2020, everybody, I don't know. Apparently, we were all stuck at home and everybody was like, oh, you know, let's grow some food. So, it was it was a really welcome surprise that year. You know, honestly, it gave me so much hope. It's like a such a sign of the goodness of humans. [00:08:21] I think that when we were in such a hard time and so challenged mentally, emotionally, physically, that our instinct was to turn to nature. And it really it really gave me hope. Like, I was like, we are going to make it, you know, like as people, we're going to make it. We know instinctually the things that keep us going and that help us survive. And so not just for my own business, but honestly, just for for my children, for your children, for the future. It was like, wow, this is this is so hopeful. So, I think the stats are something like 20 million new gardeners in 2020, something like that. So, it's pretty cool. [42.7s]

Jessica Honegger [00:09:04] Yes, that is amazing.

Nicole Burke [00:09:06] It is. It is.

Jessica Honegger [00:09:07] Well, we're doing a habit series, so I'm sure some listeners right now are like, what does gardening have to do with habits? But first of all, to be a good gardener, you have to have good habits. I mean, that's what you hear all the time, right? People that say, oh, I can't keep a plant alive. Well, they need to just say, well, I don't water. I don't have the habit of watering my plants, you know, or whatever. Yeah. So, I and I do feel like people there has been this new trend around plants and cactus and succulents and gardening. And so, I want to just start actually with lawn care because I don't even. Okay. I don't want to out myself. But let's just say my husband is from the Midwest, grew up with a giant garden and absolutely does all of our lawn care. And I had this moment a couple of weeks ago. This is so morbid, but it's not unlike me to have this thought where I was like, if something were to happen to Joe, I wouldn't know where to begin with this. I mean, I know I would just probably hire someone, but what if I didn't have the money to do that, you know? So, I was like, I need to understand what are the good habits for lawn care and it's spring? And a lot of us are thinking about that. So, I was just curious if we could start with lawn care and then I'm so excited to talk with you about gardening as well.

Nicole Burke [00:10:20] Yeah. Okay. So full disclosure, I don't do lawn care. I grew up I'm one of two daughters and my father, he definitely, you know, treated us like ladies. But he also was like, you guys are going to do the work of boys. So we literally every Saturday morning Jessica, I kid you not like got woken up by my dad and had like mow the lawn, do the weed eating, sweeping all of it. And so, I swore to my dad I didn't swear like in a bad, you know, like I said, when I grow up, I will have a yard of gravel. I was like, I'm done done done done. Like, I've done all the lawn care remember to do. So that is my disclaimer. I do not mow my yard or anything like that, but I'll give you here my kind of off the cuff tips. So, a huge thing that so many of us miss. And this is actually I put this in chapter four of my book, Kitchen Garden Revival is the theme of Think about Nature. [00:11:20] So because we're such we’re so used to being able to buy solutions, right? Like to go to the store and buy a bag of something that will fix our problem, that we forget that outside in the yard, we're always working with nature. And nature has a mind of its own right, as we know, with our own bodies. And as you're talking about habits, all these things have mechanisms that that help them work and survive. And your yard is that way as well. So, you want to always be thinking about the way nature works. Any time you're doing anything in your yard, whether it's mulching or mowing the yard or weed eating or weeding or planting, if you'll think like slow down for a second before you buy something or do something and think about the way nature actually works, work with it instead of against it, and you'll find yourself much more enjoying the process. [55.3s] So just a couple of things to go with that. One is in your lawn planting, you don't have to do what everybody does, which is like we've, you know, that like the lawn itself, like that whole movement is, is relatively new, like on the, the scope of human development. And there are lots of alternatives. [00:12:38] So if you're in a place where your lawn isn't growing well or you have like a weedy lawn or this and that, like to research alternatives and a huge thing that's happening right now is a return to native plants. And the whole idea there with native plants is it's just things that naturally grow in your area. So, for most of us, like a typical grass lawn is not native, like it's not something that would occur in nature on its own. And so just researching, you can go to a local nursery and ask, what are the native plants, what things grow locally, and you know, in this town and community and they're going to show you plants that don't need because those are natives. They don't need a lot of water. They're going to work with your sunlight. And they're also already acclimated to past pressures and things that often make growing things that aren't native difficult. So, a huge thing is just over time, if you can replace things that you know are not native to your climate with native plants, you're going to find so much more ease in taking care of your space. [67.1s] So my sister's in Dallas. She was texting me just the other day. She's like, I need to put some plants in the front. And she has like bushes and evergreens that are not native to Dallas. And I just encourage her is like I just sent her a list like here's native plants that will be they're going to be so pretty in your landscape. They'll flower naturally. And she's busy, right? She's a mom. She's a nurse. I mean, she's working. And so, it might these are going to mostly take care of themselves. So native plants are number one just as much as you can replace. Second is to, again, just think about nature, like if you are cutting a lawn or taking care of a lawn, these are all tiny little plants. Like it's crazy to think about it, but each little blade of grass is a plant. And I know. Weird, right? And so not to cut it down really low, not to cut it in a time when there is high heat or when there's lots of water. So just being careful, thinking of the plant in its own way that it sustains itself and not like just treating it, I guess gingerly just as you would like a plant in the garden. So, I see a lot of times people cut down will cut down grass really, really low. Well, the way grass grows, you know, as through photosynthesis. And so, when you cut down those blades really low, you've essentially taken away their food making mechanism. [00:15:10] So a couple simple things like that, but just we'll talk about this with the garden. But plants need sun, and they need water, they need airflow, and they need tending. So, all these things that we have in our yard, the work we do with them is essentially like pruning. We'll talk about this with gardening, but pruning is essentially directing plants energy. So, every time you cut a plant in one direction, you're literally telling the plant to go the other way. And so, each time you're working in your yard or doing lawn care, you want to be thinking about that when you're cutting, when you're clipping and cleaning, you know, just remember you're basically directing the plants energy. [39.7s] And then the final thing I would say is, you know, is mulch and natural coverings. So, we are in a that I call it whenever we're working with Rooted Garden with clients. There goes the blow. What is it, mow blow go? The mow blow go team, you know. And so, it's like get all the debris out. You know, the idea is like, we want these perfectly clean, no speck left on the lawn. And if again, if you think about nature, that's really not the way nature rebuilds itself. So, each and every season, a plant grows to its fullness and then it naturally drops all that is grown. Even the fruit, the leaves, everything leaves it at the bottom of the plant. And when we're cleaning those things up, we're thinking about the aesthetics. But for the plant, it's literally next year's food. And so those leaves, the fruit, the twigs, all of those things decompose at the base of that plant. And then will literally sustain the plant through the coming seasons and provide the food for the coming spring or the next time it's going to grow. And so just being mindful of that, like, you know, even though we may not love the aesthetics, just something simple of keeping fallen leaves around the base of a tree, keeping, you know, mulch around your plants, things like that. Every time you do that, you're going to lower the need for water for those plants. You're going to lower the loss of minerals and vitamins for those plants. You just basically create almost like a system inside of it where the plant can take care of itself. And not as much pressure, not as much need is on you because you've set that plant up for success.

Jessica Honegger [00:17:40] You're just helping me reframe oak season right now because that yeah, everything around Austin right now is yellow. I don't know if you all went through that in Houston. Bad pollen. Pollen. No, it's bad. And everyone's sick right now because of the pollen. And our cars are yellow. Yeah. And it is just a hot mess, but. And we complain about it, but I'm like, oh, this is just nature's way of nurturing itself.

Nicole Burke [00:18:06] Yeah, yeah. It's really a different way. Now I can relate. Like, I literally had to get an allergy shots one spring in Houston. I was taking like six. I was taking like six Benadryl a day. I have allergies and asthma. And I had been there. We'd been in Houston like two or three years. And it just took it was like that third spring. My I mean, it just went crazy. So, yeah. So, the pollen, what you're seeing right now is, is the whole growing stage, right, where the plant is trying to make as much of itself as possible. And it's just really neat to take a step back. And I think we've been groomed. I know I was, you know, to see plants as like, you know, like they serve us basically, you know, like they have to grow a certain way, do a certain thing, and we're going to, you know, basically tell them exactly what they should do. And I have really over the last few years, it's been really neat to kind of step back and see plants as a living, you know, like a what do you call it, like a classification of living things that is equal to animals and really starting to appreciate their wildness and just, honestly, their ability to thrive despite us. And all the things we do to them, but also kind of watching them in or, you know, kind of being an observer rather than kind of fighting it and watching this.

Jessica Honegger [00:19:27] Really, it's a consumer mentality, which I have to tell you. That's why I think I wanted to have you on because I wanting to just my husband is process oriented and I am outcome oriented. So, I'm always the one when we go to the nursery, I'm like, buy the biggest gallon thing possible. Cause I don't wanna have to wait.

Nicole Burke [00:19:45] Me, too. Me too.

Jessica Honegger [00:19:46] And last year, you know, there was this giant freeze, and Texas got, whatever, five inches, 12 inches of snow, and everything died. I mean, it was awful. It was it was quite sad, especially since we were already going through such a hard time. Well, we have clumping bamboo, which is a certain bamboo, I think, that was created for our climate. So, I don't know if it's not native, but I think it was created. I don't, I don't know how that works.

Nicole Burke [00:20:14] Yeah.

Jessica Honegger [00:20:15] And I don't. Yeah.

Nicole Burke [00:20:17] Mm.

Jessica Honegger [00:20:18] Okay. So, we have a lot of that and it just, it died. I mean we're talking, it was just brown cress, nothing there and it's literally what surrounds you know, the fencing of our yard and what helps me feel like we're in a lush place because we're right in an urban area. And my husband, who does all of our lawn care, you know, went out one day and just cut it all down, you know, just because there was nothing there. And I had already been researching how much it would cost to replace. I was trying to, you know, because everyone was rushing to do that. So, I was trying to find people in other states that maybe could get it. And I was ready to just I wanted my green lush yard back yesterday. Yeah, I wanted it back. And I felt impatient, and I felt disappointed. And my husband comes running in to me after he's cut everything down, he goes, it's alive. Oh, that's awesome. And I walk outside, and I am expecting this is actually before he cut it down, I'm expecting that he realizes that it's all alive and it's all just going to go green again, you know? And then he points to this tiny, little, tiny root that's growing out of the ground. And he was he was literally in tears and amazed that this bamboo had survived and it's going to make it. And I was like, forget it. No way. That's just one little, little root. What are you talking about? I want lush yesterday, and he was so upset that I had that reaction. And now one year later, our bamboo is fully back. I mean, it's so that's amazing. It's not a bad story. There really is something about it's a mentality, the gardening mentality actually taking care, you know, how we can take care of our lawns. But I do have a question because I did buy some native stuff for our lawn, you know, post the freeze and it hasn't taken off at all. And I think it's kind of like it's kind of dead. Like officially dead. Yeah, I know about it. Yes, I do. Yeah, I forget the name of it.

Nicole Burke [00:22:28] Oh, is it like a local place?

Jessica Honegger [00:22:30] Yeah. Yeah.

Nicole Burke [00:22:31] Bummer. I would go back to them because they're.

Jessica Honegger [00:22:34] Yeah. So, tell me about that. What do we need to look for when we're purchasing things that we're going to plant?

Nicole Burke [00:22:38] Yeah. So, my, my first answer, typically when someone tells me that they planted something, and it died is usually not always, but usually I can trace it to a big box store. Okay, so our garden industry now this is probably not true if you got it at a local nursery. [00:22:54] But the garden industry, like if you walk to Lowe's, Home Depot, whatever, right now you're going to see flowers everywhere, right? Like all the pots will be just over, like just full of blooms. And most local nurseries may do this as well. And the reason why they do that is because marketing, right? Like no one wants to buy green, they want to buy the color. But what they've done to those plants, unless stated otherwise, like literally, probably unless there's a label on that plant, they have I use synthetic fertilizers to get the plant to bloom in that small pot. And they've basically forced that the growth of that plant at an early point in the plant's life. [40.9s] And so what will happen, and this happened to me all my first plants I ever bought as I started gardening is plant them, put them in this, you know, in the space, in the garden. And they would sit there, they wouldn't necessarily die, but they would never do anything more. And that's because I wasn't fertilizing them with synthetics. I was just either watering them or just taking care of them naturally. And the plants, honestly, they don't know what to do. It's just like, you know, if we take ourselves off of a drug or something that we had grown accustomed to our body having, and then suddenly it's not there. And so generally that's like there's a huge disconnect. That's honestly what started me as a garden consultant is there's this huge disconnect between buying something from the store, which most of us do, and then it actually staying alive.

Jessica Honegger [00:24:24] You know, it's interesting.

Nicole Burke [00:24:26] It's so different than buying a couch, right? Or like some all these other investments we make in our homes. Those things are not going to die. You know, they might get stained or something, but like they're not living things and plants are so different in that way. So, to market them to us, to make them desirable to us, they do a lot of things to them to, to make the plants look desirable. But then because we have no idea the way those plants were cared for, we don't do the same thing. And then those plants, you know, either underperform or die where we've placed them. Now, in your case, since you bought locally from a local nursery, I would go back to them and I would say, like I bought a native plant. This is what happened here is a picture. And ask them, you know, something could have happened, let's say, in the timing of when the plant got transplanted. [00:25:20] All plants, when you bring them into the garden, whether it's a raised bed garden or your ornamental landscape, they're all going to be the most sensitive in the first two weeks to four weeks after planting. It's just like bringing a baby home from the hospital. Those first few weeks are just very fragile, and you just have to watch them and care for them pretty much daily. So, watching the watering that you're doing, making sure they're not dropping leaves like they're transitioning into their new space. [28.7s] My husband and I, we have a joke in night. Plants are called plants for a reason because they like to be planted, you know, like it's like just literally in their genes. They don't they're not like it's not in their DNA to move right. Like they are. If you think about nature, plants never move from a space, right? And so, what we're trying to do as humans, you know, like they're growing these in nurseries, in small pots, potting them up to a bigger pot, then you take it home from a big pot and put it into the ground. And so that's at least 3 to 4 times that that plant has gotten replanted, and it's just really against the plant's nature. So that period of time, that first 3 to 4 weeks is pretty crucial. And then who knows? Like maybe for you, I don't know if it could have been the freeze that even happened this year, but I would definitely go back to the nursery and I encourage anyone anywhere when they're buying any kind of plants, even if it is from a big box store, you should always ask them how they grow those plants. And it doesn't even have to be from like a detective standpoint. It can just simply be from, can you help me understand how I should care for this plant when I get home?

Jessica Honegger [00:26:55] Well, absolutely.

Nicole Burke [00:26:56] Yeah. But I mean, I found out so many things, like when I moved here, I was unfamiliar with the nurseries, and I was doing a workshop at Anthropologie on herb gardening. And so, I went to this local nursery and all these herbs look so gorgeous. And I was like walking through with the lady helping me. And I was like, wow, these herbs look amazing. How do you guys grow them? And she's like, well, do you see that little drip tube up at the top, like all throughout our greenhouses? And my uh oh, she's like, so that's got Miracle-Gro in it. And we pump it out to the plants every single day, like from the time that we start them. And she goes, and that's why we don't drink the water out of the hose. And I was like, okay, I'll be leaving now. But I never would have known that Jessica, you know, like there was no sign. And so, if I had taken those plants home, I would not I would not have treated them in that way. And so, they those plants would most likely just sit there just as they were for the entirety of the growing season.

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Nicole Burke [00:29:54] Okay. Think about nature. I don't do a lot of fertilizing if I do. I literally just try to imitate nature. So, my favorite, like all my students and gardener, I'm like compost. Compost, compost, compost. Because I really do. [00:30:09] I use compost for everything. I don't use mulch. And like, I'll use mulch in like an ornamental garden. But in a food garden, like in our kitchen gardens, I use compost as mulch. So again, I'm just trying to imitate nature. So, I know that in nature a plant drops, you know, leaves and fruit and those things decompose. And when they decompose well, even when they drop, animals come and eat from them. Actually, I go into this in detail in my book and chapter four. So, you've got this really unique mixture of decaying plant matter, existing soil that already was there and then animal poop. [37.4s] Right. Because you've got like you're going to have squirrels and birds and raccoons and rabbits and all these things. If the plant was out in nature, you'd have those animals come and dig around your plant, eat those, eat the fruit, eat some of the leaves. And then, you know, animals are animals, so they poop. And so that's what you want to think about. Any time you're fertilizing your plant, you want to think decompose, plant mass and animal excrement or whatever the proper term. And that's what we're sounding fancy and we don't say the word poop, but basically you want poop. So, earthworm castings, chicken manure, bat guano, you want to make sure that the manure you.

Jessica Honegger [00:31:29] Where do you get all this stuff from?

Nicole Burke [00:31:30] Well, garden centers definitely have them. You can order online, but I would honestly recommend going to a local center. You're going to save on shipping, and you'll get a more local product. But earthworm castings, I mean, you can make your own so easily just in a simple I mean, we're getting into the weeds here a little bit, but earthworm casting bins is like a super easy way that you can turn basically all of your kitchen scraps into fertilizer, and you can put it on anything like indoor plants, outdoor plants, food gardens. It gets a little dicey there. You know, you can learn a lot more about it, but it can get a little messy. You have to kind of make sure you keep the balance of carbon in there if it's too food heavy, like if you're doing too much kitchen scraps and not enough, say, newspaper kind of thing, it gets a little too mushy, but just simple things like that. But even just looking into local places that have chicken manure, earthworm castings, I mean, the cool thing to think about is like these are these are like natural byproducts of a lot of things that are already created in our food systems. So, like chicken manure, for instance, the other products you can use are things like bone meal and blood mill. I'm not a big meat person and I have some clients who are vegetarians and vegans, and they'll say, you know what? Don't put any animal products in my garden because I'm vegan. And I'm like, well, I mean.

Jessica Honegger [00:32:57] Robbing plants of yeah, well.

Nicole Burke [00:32:59] I'm like, I understand if you don't want to consume an animal I like, but plants have to have animals like plants and animals coexist together. We need each other. Exactly. And so, plants need they need animal byproducts. That's what helps them thrive. So that's just what you want to think about. The quick answer, like if you just want a super easy answer is compost like that is it's such an easy thing. It's such a natural byproduct. And in talking about leaves, you know, as we were mentioning, everyone can pile up leaves in the fall and let them decompose over the winter. And you'll get this incredible compost. It's called leaf mold compost. And it is one of the richest compost you can use for plants. [00:33:43] So there's a whole I mean, you can go really, really deep into fertilizer, but if you just think like I honestly never even hardly use the word fertilizer because it kind of has this, you know, it has this connotation of like miracle gro with it. And instead, I just always talk about just thinking about nature. I think about what a plant would do, how it would break down in nature and feed itself for the coming season. And you just want to replicate that as much as possible. [26.4s]

Jessica Honegger [00:34:10] Okay. So, my son and husband have a raised garden in the front yard. I say my son and husband because I only participate if something happens to grow and I like to harvest things. I love it. And then our next-door neighbor, same right next to us, raised garden. And so, I know they're always out front now. I mean, I definitely go and water if they ask me to or whatever. But we are always perplexed about why isn't this growing and why is that not growing? And, you know, Basil is like so easy, but how can sometimes the tomatoes work and sometimes they don't. And then my best friend lives two block away, says, Same climate. Her garden is gangbusters. But now that you're explaining that it is about sort of the very beginning, she actually harvested her own seeds during the winter in her garage and then planted them directly into her garden. So, I'm wondering if that contributed. But what I don't understand, like why do so many of us that we blame Texas? You know, many of us are just like Texas is just impossible here, you know? Right. Because it's true. Like my family from the Midwest. I mean, my gosh, you throw something in the ground and it's like it's insane their garden come August. It's beautiful. It's wonderful. So, what those of us maybe that are in these tougher climates, and you know, you can compare the two from Illinois to Texas, what do the different climates, you know, what do we need to be aware of, I guess, at the very beginning stages of managing and growing a garden and I know this is a huge question, but maybe just the one on one.

Nicole Burke [00:35:51] Yes, one on one. Okay. So, I have a couple of things. One, I'm going to send you my book if you don't have a copy yet, because that'll help if we're set up if you need it here. So, Kitchen Garden Revival, it will talk it talk to you a lot about set up. I, I tell everyone the garden is first of all, it's very dynamic. So even if you have a fantastically successful year in the garden this year, that does not mean that it will be the same next year. And I've experienced that just in my four years here in the Chicago area, and that is what makes gardening so fun and addictive. Right? Because as humans, we love like my son, he loves a video game. Why? Because he never knows how it's going to turn out. And he's always you know, he finishes a game and he's like, I wonder if I could do it better. [00:36:39] And so one thing to just relax into that I would love to send to your Going Scared people is enjoy the process and kind of relax into the uniqueness of gardening. It is you joining hands with nature and that is going to be a wild ride. And so, I think a big thing we put on ourselves is performance. [22.8s] You know, like we're, we're looking to, we're.

Jessica Honegger [00:37:06] Definitely like, well, joke about being in competition and.

Nicole Burke [00:37:09] Yard gardens. Yeah. And so, I think a lot of people bring that with them from career, from motherhood, from just society and life, you know, our, our bodies, whatever. And we bring that same kind of mentality to the garden. And when we do that, we miss the joy that is there. And so, I would just, I'll preface all these like pointers with that is really seeing gardening as a very unique kind of activity and hobby and thing that we do as humans in that we are, you know, it is it is partly our responsibility, and it is so much more nature's responsibility and kind of letting that be a teacher for you in other parts of your life. So, I'll just put that out there. Okay. [00:37:55] So knowing that but it's dynamic, it's going to change every year. There's a lot of factors at play. I have found over the years that you can tie success in the garden to three things: timing, set up and consistency. [13.8s] So it's habit. That's right. So, the first is set up. I have worked with so many gardeners, beginner gardeners, through British Garden and through Guarneri who've never garden before. And I teach them how to set up their garden in the first place. So where to put it, how big it should be, how to clear the space, how to build the bed, how to create the soil, how to do irrigation. All those pieces and parts and people, Jessica, who have literally never grown like one of my clients, I love her. She's like, my house was known as Where the Dead Fern Grows and her name is Anew. She's one of our rooted garden clients and she's a vegan. She is also a businesswoman, and she cooks out of her garden every night now. Wow. And yeah. And so much of that was the setup like she was trying to what a lot of us do is like buy some plants and just kind of stick them somewhere set up. It's just like, say, for your other habit, I was listening to your interview with like Nicole Walters, you know, and all these other healthy habits. Right? It's all about environment, you know, like she talked about like getting a plan from a doctor. And the garden is very similar. Like, there are people who know how to do it, you know, and who've done a lot of them. And so, getting help and or getting instruction and setting your garden up right in the first place will save you so much frustration, but also time and money. We have so many clients who yeah, they hire us, and we come in and we're like they're like, my yard guy did this and we're like, it's in the wrong place. It's way too wide. It's not tall enough, you know? So. Big. So, if you will slow down and set up right, you'll have so much more time. The next is timing. We all have a very unique season. Like you have really different seasons in Austin than I have in Chicago. And so, like you can be growing tomatoes right now and I can't plant tomatoes outside until after Mother's Day. [00:40:11] So getting the timing right, all plants have in their DNA a little time, a little clock that tells them when the temperature is just right and when it's time to grow to its fullness. And then they also have little clocks in there that tell them when it's time to shut down. And so, the big box stores use zero favors here. I'm guessing I could be wrong, but I know in Houston, like if I went to Lowe's in July, they would have tomatoes and cilantro in the garden center. And neither of those should be planted anywhere near July in Houston. So, cilantro needs to go in the garden around October and tomatoes need to go in the garden around August or February. A lot of times people think it's their fault or they don't know how to grow such and such when really it's the timing. [50.9s] So all of us have you have in Austin like a cool season, a warm season and a hot season, and they're plants that love to grow in each of those seasons. So, getting those plants, I call it the optimal season. So, you really want those plants in very early, as early as possible at the beginning of the optimal season. And then you really want to remove those plants from the garden once they pass the optimal season. So that's timing. [00:41:28] And then finally consistency and you know, plants can't move and so they need us to bring the resources to them. So, it's just like any other habit, you know, just making it a small part of your every day. Like I talked to students about going out there with coffee and you want to have things in your garden that make you want to go out there. [22.4s] So we talk about planting lots of varieties in the garden, lots of herbs and greens alongside your tomatoes so that you want to go out there and pick things. And then while you're out there, you know, picking and harvesting, you're like, oh my gosh, you know, there's a slug or I need to cut this little diseased leaf off the squash or something like that. So, any kind of habit that you already do that you can tie the garden to and just make it a part of, at least your weekly schedule will make a really big difference. So even things like we talked about today, like with compost, just having a schedule where you add compost to your plants every two months or something like that. And then finally I have this continuum that I teach about growing plants. So, if you have someone listening now who is a beginner gardener, this is great for them or experienced. [00:42:45] But basically if you pretend that there's like this diagonal line going up into the air, that line represents plant needs, which includes sunlight, space, time and tending. And the really neat thing to know about that line is there are plants all along that line. So, there's plants at the bottom that don't need a lot of sun, don't need a lot of care, don't need a lot of water or space. And then there are plants at the top that have a lot of needs. And a big mistake a lot of us do as gardeners is we start with tomatoes and those are pretty high up on that line. They need a lot of space. They need a lot of care. They need a lot of sun. [40.9s] And you mentioned it was interesting. You know, you mentioned sometimes our tomatoes don't do great, but our basil does awesome. Well, Basil's at the bottom of that line. It's a plant that doesn't need a lot of space, doesn't need a lot of time and really doesn't need a lot of tending.

Jessica Honegger [00:43:42] Rosemary. Oh, my God. Exactly. It's like, oh, there it is.

Nicole Burke [00:43:46] Exactly. [00:43:47] So we tell everyone, start with herbs, then move to leave leafy crops like a salad, greens, kale, things like that. And then you move to root crops. Those have a little bit higher level of needs and then those fruiting crops are really last. [15.2s] So it's totally fine if someone wants to start with a tomato, but like to go to your habits, focus here. That's essentially like let's say if we were doing an interview right now about running and I said, all right, everyone go out and do a six miler, okay? Like just that's how you're going to get started. Just go buy your tennis shoes. I know you've never run before. Just walk out the door, do a six miler. I mean, actually, while you're at it, go ahead and do like a half marathon. And that's the equivalent that we're doing when we jump to growing watermelon and tomatoes. And, you know, these bigger plants and fruiting plants, they sound much more exciting and impressive, but it really is equivalent to, you know, jumping into a sport and going all in.

Jessica Honegger [00:44:50] That is so good. Oh, my gosh. This was so helpful. I could talk to you for hours, but I already just feel just a little bit more empowered. And I am not a gardening type. I mean, not that there should be types. It's just, you know, I'm like, but I do know that the practice of it would be so grounding for me. And I think I just always saw it as like my husband and son's thing. And I wanted to feel like it could be my thing too. So that's why that's why I wanted to talk to you. And I was like, oh, I'm sure some of my listeners are also in this position of, you know, what, what are the habits that we can have around the nature that we live? It's literally our plot of nature that we live on, you know, and I want to tend to that and I think that matters. So, thank you so much for joining us.

Nicole Burke [00:45:39] Oh, it was so fun. Thank you so much for having me, Jessica.

Jessica Honegger [00:45:54] I'm curious if you just got curious about gardening. Thank you so much for tuning in to today's show. Our music is by Ellie Holcomb. And I'm Jessica Honegger. Until next time, let's take each other by the hand and keep going scared.