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I'd like to welcome David the Good.

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So David has a YouTube channel where

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he talks about permaculture and gardening

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and how to grow in the Florida sand,

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all kinds of fun stuff like that.

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He's written like a gazillion books.

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We'll talk about that later on.

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So why don't you tell us, David, a little bit about yourself,

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where you are, what you grow.

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Well, currently I live in Lower Alabama.

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I'm just a couple of minutes north of the Florida border.

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I grew up in Florida.

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I'm a native Floridian.

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I garden in South Florida.

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I garden in North Central Florida.

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And then I moved to Alabama after having lived overseas

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for a few years.

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Came back to the States and moved to Alabama

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because it was affordable.

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And there's still land here in Florida is about full.

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And so I've got a little homestead here.

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I have been experimenting with crops

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that fit this climate zone from around the world

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rather than taking northern crops

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and trying to adapt them down here.

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What I've tried to do is look more to the tropics

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and to the Mediterranean and to Southeast Asia

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and other places where it would have the heat and humidity.

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And then, of course, there's that balance between sometimes

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it's going to freeze here, so the tropical stuff

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doesn't go all the way through.

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And sometimes it's not cold enough for the temperate stuff.

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We're on this edge and the climate

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seems to shift a little bit from year to year too.

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Sometimes you get a really late frost.

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Sometimes it's six weeks of clear, beautiful, warm weather

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and then it freezes.

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And so I have been experimenting with trying

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to figure out which crops can you just throw at the ground

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and have them work here.

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So I have been doing that basically by finding species

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and finding different cultivars and then

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trying to get different seed lines of things that

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had been grown locally or go to the local farmers market.

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And when a guy has a pumpkin, I'm like, oh,

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where did you grow that?

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Oh, I grew that over here.

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OK, good.

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I'm going to buy that pumpkin.

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Not because I even care to eat it,

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but just because I want to grow it.

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And so when I came across your land-raised gardening,

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I was like, there's the final piece

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of taking all these genetics instead of just going,

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OK, I know longevity spinach grows here

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or I know that there are a few varieties of Jerusalem artichokes

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that can grow this far south.

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Now I can kind of look at it and go,

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I could maybe get it even better by taking

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that big Swiss Army knife of genetics

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and putting it into the system.

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So as soon as I, I mean, I had seen your name before.

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I'd seen you at permies.com.

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I knew there was this guy out west somewhere

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that had some seeds and stuff like that.

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But somebody said, you really need to look him up.

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And so then I read land-raised gardening.

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I was like, this is it.

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This is the simplicity that I was really close to grasping.

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And then I found it.

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But then immediately, I was like, OK, I'm

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just going to tell everybody, you've

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got to check out this guy and check out

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the land-raised gardening because it's really

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the final piece of adjusting to your climate.

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So what are some of those tropical crops

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that you found to really do good down where you are?

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OK, in Florida and lower Alabama,

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I have found that de-ascoria yams, the de-ascoria a-lata

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in particular, is just unbelievably good.

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As a matter of fact, it's so good

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that Florida put it on the invasive species

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list, which bugs me to no end.

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Oh, it's food that grows so well.

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It just escapes and grows more food.

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I love that.

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But apparently, they didn't take very kindly to it.

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And it also has a very aggressive cousin

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called the air potato.

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It makes all these little aerial bullbills,

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and it drops them everywhere.

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And kids pick them up and throw them at each other

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and play stickball with them.

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Anywhere where one of these things lands,

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it starts a new vine that will grow 60 feet the next year.

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So they cover all the trees.

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It's kind of like a kudzu type of a thing.

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And so I think they looked at the cousin, and they're like,

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you know what?

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Yeah, let's just get rid of that too.

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But the true yams have done well for me.

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I've had good luck with de-ascoria pentafilla,

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which is not as productive.

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De-ascoria a-lata, particularly the white and yellow type

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versions, or the wilder forms, are just really super

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productive.

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Like a 30 pound root in the second year,

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and maybe four to six pounds in the first year.

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If you leave it in the ground, it perennializes.

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It eats the first root, and then it makes another root.

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It's like that big.

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So you just leave it in the ground.

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It's kind of like your survival food supply.

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And when we grow white potatoes down here,

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we often have issues with the bugs, and with the blight,

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and with the heat, and with fire ants getting into the hills

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and actually chewing the roots of the potatoes up.

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So one day, they'll just wilt.

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And you go over there and go, what's wrong with that thing?

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And you bump the plant, and fire ants will swarm out of it.

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It's just like that sort of thing where it's like,

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potatoes are the stuff of life, man.

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And then they just don't really like it.

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So that was one.

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Cassava, I have found, will push up easily through zone nine.

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It just takes longer because it freezes down

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and then grows back.

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So cassava, AKA yuca, manioc, manahot, escalenta,

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great crop.

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And here, it's a little tougher because we're in zone 8b.

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We lose some of them, and we get tiny little roots.

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And sometimes they freeze to death.

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And so what I did is I took 10 different cultivars

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and I threw them into my garden two years ago.

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And two of them made good-sized roots by the frost.

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And of the one of them, unfortunately, I

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can't land-raise breed them because there's not

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a long enough cycle for seeds to mature on them for me

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to just start planting seed from them.

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So I'm stuck with clonal propagation.

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Taro does well here.

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Mulberries are really easy to grow here.

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We've got a lot of chestnut varieties that do well here.

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We're marginal for some of the other nut trees,

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but chestnuts do well.

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Black walnut, we can get a few here and there.

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Pecans do well here.

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And in the garden, seminal pumpkins,

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the old seminal pumpkin variety, they're

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a long season, really vigorous.

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And there's a ton of genetic diversity inside of it.

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Some of the lines have gotten inbred

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until they're just the little tiny ones.

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But they seem to keep their vigor even with the inbreeding.

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I've experimented with yacan.

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I haven't had great root success on it.

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Unless it's in a really moist, high organic matter

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environment.

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Some people have said it's done well in drought.

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And I think I just have the wrong cultivar.

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And as for tomatoes, the Everglades tomato

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does really well here.

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Cherry tomatoes do well here in general.

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But the Everglades is like a weed here.

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But it's almost just a wild tomato.

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It's itty bitty.

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So it's hard to.

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If we grow big tomatoes, they tend to get split, rot,

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and all kinds of things.

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It gets hot too fast.

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So what we need is basically to get those calorie crops first.

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So we saw our yams and cassavas and stuff like that.

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And then we have some vegetables that do really well.

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Okra, obviously.

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And yardlong beans, those Asian noodle beans,

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they do really well here.

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And I can actually grow them through the summer, which

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is out of the ordinary.

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What I'm trying to do now is to land

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raise some corn by taking a bunch of different grain corns

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and just mixing them all up and letting them cross.

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And last year, we had such a horrible year

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that I only got a few kernels.

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And I put them aside.

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And we had to move.

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We moved to our new homestead.

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I put them aside somewhere.

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And then when I got into them, they

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were all eaten with weevils.

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So I was like, no, there goes my year.

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So I'm starting again.

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I still got the original jar where

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I mixed all varieties, like 20 varieties of corn.

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And I'm throwing them out there again.

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And some people think the idea is great.

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And some people, it just absolutely

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horrifies them that like granny's corn from Missouri

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that was passed down for 13 generations or something,

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some guy's just going to mix it up with like a governmental

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selection from Cuba.

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Like, why would you do that?

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What's wrong with you?

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Like washing your car with granny's doilies.

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Yeah, I get a lot of pushback from mixing up the heirlooms.

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So tell me about that Florida sand and how to deal with it.

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Because that's the number one thing

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that people tell me about Florida is all I have is sand.

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Yes, I'll tell you the best thing for the sand

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is to just simply plant perennials and trees

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and mulch them heavily.

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Like Florida really wants to be forest, particularly

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the middle and then down through the south part of it

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where it's not very heavy and where it's less heavy in pines.

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You can look and see this beautiful green,

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like thick hardwoods, oaks, plums, hickories, wild bays,

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and all kinds of different species.

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But then they'll clear it and put in grass.

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And then the grass is like patchy and weedy

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and it's got stickers in it and little bits of sand

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start showing up.

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Because in this sort of a soil, a lot of the soil,

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as I've heard said by the permaculturists,

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it's bound up in the plants themselves.

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A lot of the fertility is in the plants.

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So they work really hard to get a lot of carbon together.

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If you clear cut it and you try to grow annuals

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and you try to grow grass, it's frustrating.

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And so people come with this idea

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of they're just going to till an area up

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and do like they did in upstate New York where they had

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glacial soil and cool seasons.

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And just plant, I'm going to just plant a row garden.

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And then just every pest in the world

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just comes and shreds the stuff and diseases come in.

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And you think you've done everything,

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you can go out and throw out your triple 13.

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You can go do all the gardening stuff they did up north.

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And it still just looks horrible.

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So one hand is plant the stuff that will actually go with it.

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The yams don't care.

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The cassava doesn't care.

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The roots will push all over the place in that sand.

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They barely care.

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It's when you try to grow something like lettuces

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or beefsteak tomatoes or anything

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that's a little bit touchy, there are some issues there.

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So on the one hand, it's like just plant,

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particularly if you plant food forests.

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Food forests do great in Florida.

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And they start to get stronger as after you get

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for the first two or three years,

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you've got to dump a lot of organic matter in the soil

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and do a lot of chop and drop and use some of your invasive

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trees and just chop them to chunks

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and throw them on the ground.

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That was the best form of gardening

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that I found in Florida.

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But secondarily, we've experimented

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with trying to fix the sand.

260
00:10:19,800 --> 00:10:22,040
And some people swear by deep mulching.

261
00:10:22,040 --> 00:10:24,040
And deep mulching will really fix the sand.

262
00:10:24,040 --> 00:10:27,760
The problem is that it also attracts a lot of pest issues

263
00:10:27,760 --> 00:10:29,720
sometimes, like you get the slug buildups.

264
00:10:29,720 --> 00:10:32,720
And somebody was like, pill bugs are just eating everything

265
00:10:32,720 --> 00:10:33,680
that I put in my garden.

266
00:10:33,680 --> 00:10:34,560
Like pill bugs?

267
00:10:34,560 --> 00:10:37,120
Pill bugs don't normally ever do anything.

268
00:10:37,120 --> 00:10:39,600
But yeah, the pill bugs are like getting hungry for lettuce.

269
00:10:39,600 --> 00:10:43,720
And so if you've got this big mound of organic matter,

270
00:10:43,720 --> 00:10:46,400
suddenly it just breeds up and it fills full of bugs.

271
00:10:46,400 --> 00:10:48,560
And you get all kinds of cutworms and beetle grubs

272
00:10:48,560 --> 00:10:50,760
and stuff in that material because they're

273
00:10:50,760 --> 00:10:51,880
all starving in the sand.

274
00:10:51,880 --> 00:10:53,160
So they move to your garden.

275
00:10:53,160 --> 00:10:55,040
And then next thing you know, you can't.

276
00:10:55,040 --> 00:10:56,320
I talked to a friend and she said,

277
00:10:56,320 --> 00:10:58,480
I can't plant seeds directly in my garden.

278
00:10:58,480 --> 00:11:01,280
I've got to get transplants and get them about that big

279
00:11:01,280 --> 00:11:04,720
and put them in so the bugs won't shred them in the mulch.

280
00:11:04,720 --> 00:11:07,640
And so the mulch works really good for your perennials.

281
00:11:07,640 --> 00:11:09,360
But how do you actually fix the sand?

282
00:11:09,360 --> 00:11:12,040
So we've been experimenting with crushing up charcoal

283
00:11:12,040 --> 00:11:16,360
and soaking it with nutrients and then putting in.

284
00:11:16,360 --> 00:11:18,480
Mixing in organic matter.

285
00:11:18,480 --> 00:11:21,160
If you can get a source of manure that's good

286
00:11:21,160 --> 00:11:24,040
and mix it with the sand to keep the organic matter, that's great.

287
00:11:24,040 --> 00:11:26,120
But nothing really lasts very long term.

288
00:11:26,120 --> 00:11:29,800
Even if you deep mulch here, you have to perpetually deep mulch

289
00:11:29,800 --> 00:11:32,600
because the climate just eats it.

290
00:11:32,600 --> 00:11:34,840
And even your compost here, because there's not clay

291
00:11:34,840 --> 00:11:36,720
to make the compost sticky.

292
00:11:36,720 --> 00:11:38,120
Steve Solomon told me about this.

293
00:11:38,120 --> 00:11:39,920
He's like, if you put clay in your compost,

294
00:11:39,920 --> 00:11:42,600
it makes the humic acid molecules stick.

295
00:11:42,600 --> 00:11:45,440
The humus will actually get stickier and last

296
00:11:45,440 --> 00:11:49,920
and the cation exchange is better and all that stuff.

297
00:11:49,920 --> 00:11:52,200
So I started getting clay.

298
00:11:52,200 --> 00:11:53,760
I would go places where I could dig clay

299
00:11:53,760 --> 00:11:55,000
or have a friend from North Carolina

300
00:11:55,000 --> 00:11:56,560
bring me buckets when he came down

301
00:11:56,560 --> 00:11:58,560
and then spread that over the compost pile.

302
00:11:58,560 --> 00:12:01,040
And it seems to make the compost stickier

303
00:12:01,040 --> 00:12:04,200
and actually makes it last a little better.

304
00:12:04,200 --> 00:12:06,400
The sand is a problem, but the sand

305
00:12:06,400 --> 00:12:08,360
is also really fun to dig in.

306
00:12:08,360 --> 00:12:10,560
Like it's super easy.

307
00:12:10,560 --> 00:12:11,880
If you want to pull something up,

308
00:12:11,880 --> 00:12:14,600
you just grab the entire cassava plant, start pulling it,

309
00:12:14,600 --> 00:12:17,000
and these huge roots will just come out of the ground.

310
00:12:17,000 --> 00:12:20,800
It's not bad.

311
00:12:20,800 --> 00:12:23,440
And up here, I do plant breeding so

312
00:12:23,440 --> 00:12:25,760
that I can not break off my plants

313
00:12:25,760 --> 00:12:29,200
when I try to dig them in the hard clay soil.

314
00:12:29,200 --> 00:12:30,400
Hey, can we for a second?

315
00:12:30,400 --> 00:12:32,000
I wanted to introduce you really quick,

316
00:12:32,000 --> 00:12:34,120
if you don't mind, to my son Ezekiel,

317
00:12:34,120 --> 00:12:35,800
who has been land racing watermelons

318
00:12:35,800 --> 00:12:37,680
after reading your book.

319
00:12:37,680 --> 00:12:38,520
Here, come up here.

320
00:12:38,520 --> 00:12:40,040
Hello, Ezekiel.

321
00:12:40,040 --> 00:12:42,480
So he has, tell him how many years

322
00:12:42,480 --> 00:12:45,560
you've been on the watermelon project.

323
00:12:45,560 --> 00:12:47,800
Probably been about five years now.

324
00:12:47,800 --> 00:12:49,280
I started growing watermelons

325
00:12:49,280 --> 00:12:52,760
and I didn't have very good luck the first year.

326
00:12:52,760 --> 00:12:54,880
I only got a couple that were very good.

327
00:12:54,880 --> 00:12:57,040
And I started doing a couple of years after that

328
00:12:57,040 --> 00:12:57,920
and I found your book.

329
00:12:57,920 --> 00:13:01,520
My dad introduced it to you, sorry, to me.

330
00:13:01,520 --> 00:13:06,520
And I read it and it took me like two days and I loved it.

331
00:13:06,560 --> 00:13:09,160
It was very informative.

332
00:13:09,160 --> 00:13:11,480
And I've been using that for two years.

333
00:13:11,480 --> 00:13:15,240
And it is so much easier to grow watermelons

334
00:13:15,240 --> 00:13:19,760
and any other crop, like by those methods.

335
00:13:19,760 --> 00:13:23,080
Like you don't have to water or mulch every day.

336
00:13:23,080 --> 00:13:25,440
You just breed the right-

337
00:13:25,440 --> 00:13:26,960
Breed for survival.

338
00:13:26,960 --> 00:13:27,800
Right.

339
00:13:27,800 --> 00:13:28,640
Yeah, yeah.

340
00:13:28,640 --> 00:13:30,280
So like we had really bad soil

341
00:13:30,280 --> 00:13:32,040
and he put all these watermelon seeds out

342
00:13:32,040 --> 00:13:34,800
and it was like the march of death.

343
00:13:34,800 --> 00:13:36,040
And he had all these mountains

344
00:13:36,040 --> 00:13:38,960
and he fed the mountains a little bit and watered them.

345
00:13:38,960 --> 00:13:41,920
And it was like too cold and too hot and too dry.

346
00:13:41,920 --> 00:13:44,640
And so a lot of the melons were like rotting

347
00:13:44,640 --> 00:13:47,640
and splitting and popping or not making melons.

348
00:13:47,640 --> 00:13:49,560
But then he saved from them.

349
00:13:49,560 --> 00:13:51,600
And then some of them started

350
00:13:51,600 --> 00:13:53,360
to just get a little invasive almost.

351
00:13:53,360 --> 00:13:56,120
Like they made smaller melons, but they started to recede.

352
00:13:56,120 --> 00:13:58,080
And so we saved from some of the ones that recede.

353
00:13:58,080 --> 00:14:00,560
We had ones like in the fall where they had receded

354
00:14:00,560 --> 00:14:02,440
and then came into the fall, which never happens.

355
00:14:02,440 --> 00:14:04,520
Usually watermelons are just done.

356
00:14:04,520 --> 00:14:06,680
So he's got a patch now and we're on,

357
00:14:06,680 --> 00:14:08,000
we have a little better soil now.

358
00:14:08,000 --> 00:14:10,440
So we might be short-circuiting the process, but.

359
00:14:11,320 --> 00:14:13,600
So how many varieties did you mix?

360
00:14:13,600 --> 00:14:15,840
Probably about 15 to 20.

361
00:14:15,840 --> 00:14:19,000
And I said, is there a type

362
00:14:19,000 --> 00:14:22,240
that you're finding you really like?

363
00:14:22,240 --> 00:14:23,240
Let me think.

364
00:14:24,120 --> 00:14:25,800
I can't think of any now.

365
00:14:25,800 --> 00:14:26,840
The Congo.

366
00:14:27,760 --> 00:14:29,240
I really like Congo watermelons.

367
00:14:29,240 --> 00:14:30,720
Yeah.

368
00:14:30,720 --> 00:14:32,040
They're the ones with the dark,

369
00:14:32,040 --> 00:14:33,600
they were the really dark skin ones.

370
00:14:33,600 --> 00:14:34,440
I think so.

371
00:14:34,440 --> 00:14:35,280
Yeah. Yeah.

372
00:14:35,280 --> 00:14:37,920
And they were pretty big, like usually 20 pounds or so.

373
00:14:37,920 --> 00:14:40,000
But the orange ones were the ones that really.

374
00:14:40,000 --> 00:14:40,840
Yeah.

375
00:14:40,840 --> 00:14:42,440
Like the orange ones are like weeds now.

376
00:14:42,440 --> 00:14:43,440
Right. Yeah.

377
00:14:43,440 --> 00:14:45,280
Who knows?

378
00:14:45,280 --> 00:14:48,120
Maybe the orange gene is linked to survival in this area.

379
00:14:48,120 --> 00:14:48,960
Right.

380
00:14:49,920 --> 00:14:50,760
Yeah.

381
00:14:50,760 --> 00:14:52,200
They didn't taste quite as good I thought,

382
00:14:52,200 --> 00:14:54,720
but like they grew a lot better.

383
00:14:54,720 --> 00:14:58,600
So when I crossed those, then I get like a better tasting

384
00:14:58,600 --> 00:15:02,920
and just very good survival melon.

385
00:15:03,840 --> 00:15:06,160
So you breathe the flavor.

386
00:15:06,160 --> 00:15:09,200
I love combining the traits of two different varieties,

387
00:15:09,200 --> 00:15:12,080
one that grows well and one that tastes good.

388
00:15:12,080 --> 00:15:14,040
Yeah. Yeah.

389
00:15:14,040 --> 00:15:16,000
It's great.

390
00:15:16,000 --> 00:15:18,280
So we've got about two years of selecting for survival

391
00:15:18,280 --> 00:15:21,320
and this year probably select for survival again,

392
00:15:21,320 --> 00:15:22,680
because you mixed in new genes.

393
00:15:22,680 --> 00:15:26,360
And then I know you'll be looking at, from that point,

394
00:15:27,200 --> 00:15:30,360
probably you'll select out, that one tastes good.

395
00:15:30,360 --> 00:15:31,640
Yeah.

396
00:15:31,640 --> 00:15:33,760
It survived and it tastes good.

397
00:15:33,760 --> 00:15:35,440
Thank you. I appreciate it.

398
00:15:35,440 --> 00:15:37,160
I'm glad you came in.

399
00:15:37,160 --> 00:15:38,880
Yeah. He picked it.

400
00:15:38,880 --> 00:15:40,800
I was like, look it, you've already been saving

401
00:15:40,800 --> 00:15:42,040
your watermelon seeds to replant.

402
00:15:42,040 --> 00:15:43,600
And I was like, you've got to read this book.

403
00:15:43,600 --> 00:15:44,800
And he's like, okay.

404
00:15:44,800 --> 00:15:46,040
And he's a bookworm anyway.

405
00:15:46,040 --> 00:15:49,000
So he read the book and he just absorbed all of it.

406
00:15:49,000 --> 00:15:51,800
He's like, all right, yeah, that makes a lot more sense.

407
00:15:51,800 --> 00:15:54,240
And then he went out and he's just gotten

408
00:15:54,240 --> 00:15:56,320
every variety of watermelon.

409
00:15:56,320 --> 00:15:59,120
He's like using his pocket money

410
00:15:59,120 --> 00:16:01,640
and hitting the seed rack for all small ones,

411
00:16:01,640 --> 00:16:02,840
big ones, large ones.

412
00:16:02,840 --> 00:16:05,240
And then every time I was ordering seeds online,

413
00:16:05,240 --> 00:16:07,920
he's like, did you look at the watermelons?

414
00:16:07,920 --> 00:16:10,200
I'm like, all right, I'll look at the watermelons.

415
00:16:10,200 --> 00:16:11,800
You caught me.

416
00:16:11,800 --> 00:16:14,640
Then we ended up with a couple more watermelons in there.

417
00:16:14,640 --> 00:16:15,880
Sweet.

418
00:16:15,880 --> 00:16:17,880
But you got a generational legacy now.

419
00:16:18,720 --> 00:16:21,400
That makes me really happy. Thank you.

420
00:16:21,400 --> 00:16:25,560
So didn't you write a book about foods forests, David?

421
00:16:25,560 --> 00:16:26,440
Yes, I did.

422
00:16:26,440 --> 00:16:28,600
I read a book- Can you tell us about that?

423
00:16:28,600 --> 00:16:30,920
Yeah, it's called Create Your Own Florida Food Forest.

424
00:16:30,920 --> 00:16:35,720
It's for zones eight to 11, focused on Florida, obviously.

425
00:16:35,720 --> 00:16:38,360
I had a volunteer artist for this one.

426
00:16:38,360 --> 00:16:41,680
I just put out an email like anybody who wants to volunteer,

427
00:16:41,680 --> 00:16:43,160
if you can draw,

428
00:16:43,160 --> 00:16:45,120
I'm gonna give you some plant species to draw.

429
00:16:45,120 --> 00:16:48,000
So we have 54 different artists end up volunteering

430
00:16:48,000 --> 00:16:50,000
and we have 200 illustrations.

431
00:16:50,000 --> 00:16:51,040
So it's very interesting

432
00:16:51,040 --> 00:16:52,560
because you've got these really cartoony ones.

433
00:16:52,560 --> 00:16:54,160
And then there was this woman that was an architect

434
00:16:54,160 --> 00:16:57,080
and everything is like super measured out and square.

435
00:16:57,080 --> 00:16:59,600
And then there's this other people with like incredible,

436
00:16:59,600 --> 00:17:02,640
like wrapping around 1920s style,

437
00:17:02,640 --> 00:17:04,000
anime style and everything.

438
00:17:04,000 --> 00:17:07,920
So each plant has its own illustration in the back of it.

439
00:17:07,920 --> 00:17:10,560
There's about 150 plants I cover

440
00:17:10,560 --> 00:17:15,560
for your canopies, sub-canopies, shrubs, herbaceous vines.

441
00:17:16,640 --> 00:17:20,240
And so people all covered these different plants.

442
00:17:20,240 --> 00:17:23,080
So we've got to go to this like book of illustrations

443
00:17:23,080 --> 00:17:26,440
as well as a resource on Florida.

444
00:17:26,440 --> 00:17:31,320
And so the plants that I hadn't grown myself,

445
00:17:31,320 --> 00:17:34,560
I tried to track people down and talk to them

446
00:17:34,560 --> 00:17:35,840
who had grown it.

447
00:17:35,840 --> 00:17:38,560
And I wrote emails to nursery guys and other stuff.

448
00:17:38,560 --> 00:17:40,480
I even called, I was trying to figure out

449
00:17:40,480 --> 00:17:42,240
about sapodilla growing in Florida

450
00:17:42,240 --> 00:17:44,120
because it's very tropical.

451
00:17:44,120 --> 00:17:46,400
And I thought, I know that it grows.

452
00:17:47,280 --> 00:17:49,720
And I've seen them before,

453
00:17:49,720 --> 00:17:52,880
but I found online a picture of a great big one

454
00:17:52,880 --> 00:17:56,320
at the hotel down in the Keys.

455
00:17:56,320 --> 00:17:57,840
And so I called the hotel

456
00:17:57,840 --> 00:18:00,480
and the guy there was like really annoyed at me.

457
00:18:00,480 --> 00:18:03,720
I'm like, tell me about that trees, excuse me, what tree?

458
00:18:03,720 --> 00:18:06,680
And I'm like, there's a sapodilla tree.

459
00:18:06,680 --> 00:18:08,600
And he goes, all I know is that it drops fruit

460
00:18:08,600 --> 00:18:09,920
all over the place, okay?

461
00:18:09,920 --> 00:18:12,080
And I'm like, yes, but I said,

462
00:18:12,080 --> 00:18:13,520
that tree's like over a hundred years old.

463
00:18:13,520 --> 00:18:15,720
You think, I don't know, we just acquired this.

464
00:18:15,720 --> 00:18:19,160
I said, I'm writing a book on fruit trees.

465
00:18:19,160 --> 00:18:21,680
I'm trying to just like tell me any histories.

466
00:18:21,680 --> 00:18:23,080
I don't know, I don't know.

467
00:18:23,080 --> 00:18:26,840
Somebody bought the hotel and I'm like, ah.

468
00:18:26,840 --> 00:18:28,120
I'm like, give me some information.

469
00:18:28,120 --> 00:18:31,160
So I basically put like a short transcript

470
00:18:31,160 --> 00:18:33,400
where I didn't make him look as annoying as he was,

471
00:18:33,400 --> 00:18:35,440
but he was obviously like,

472
00:18:35,440 --> 00:18:37,960
why are you calling me about a tree?

473
00:18:37,960 --> 00:18:39,920
But another guy I called him, I was like, okay,

474
00:18:39,920 --> 00:18:43,240
so you're growing allspice in Florida.

475
00:18:43,240 --> 00:18:45,560
I said, have you got it to bloom?

476
00:18:45,560 --> 00:18:47,360
What uses have you found for this tree?

477
00:18:47,360 --> 00:18:49,160
And he was like halfway up through the state

478
00:18:49,160 --> 00:18:51,480
where I didn't think it would pull it off,

479
00:18:51,480 --> 00:18:52,640
you could pull it off.

480
00:18:52,640 --> 00:18:56,560
And he was getting it to bloom and set sometimes.

481
00:18:56,560 --> 00:19:00,280
And that was just really cool.

482
00:19:00,280 --> 00:19:02,800
I just hug people down and interview them.

483
00:19:02,800 --> 00:19:05,680
But the project took two years.

484
00:19:05,680 --> 00:19:07,680
I started writing it when I was still overseas.

485
00:19:07,680 --> 00:19:09,960
And then I came back to the States

486
00:19:09,960 --> 00:19:13,160
and I finished it during the pandemic

487
00:19:13,160 --> 00:19:14,760
and a little bit afterwards.

488
00:19:14,760 --> 00:19:19,760
And I was like, if we only had one in 10 people in Florida

489
00:19:20,840 --> 00:19:24,560
that would make a food forest in their yard,

490
00:19:24,560 --> 00:19:26,480
it would transform the state.

491
00:19:26,480 --> 00:19:28,320
Everybody is doing the same thing, right?

492
00:19:28,320 --> 00:19:30,960
You move to this incredible tropical climate

493
00:19:30,960 --> 00:19:33,640
where you can grow coconuts and mangoes.

494
00:19:33,640 --> 00:19:34,800
And then what do you do?

495
00:19:34,800 --> 00:19:39,800
You put in St. Augustine grass and a few poisonous oleanders

496
00:19:40,560 --> 00:19:42,720
and like an ornamental spiky palm tree

497
00:19:42,720 --> 00:19:44,120
that you have to mow around.

498
00:19:44,920 --> 00:19:49,680
And I'm like, you paid $500,000 for your house

499
00:19:49,680 --> 00:19:52,400
and you don't even get mangoes out of it.

500
00:19:52,400 --> 00:19:53,640
It just drives me nuts.

501
00:19:53,640 --> 00:19:55,280
And you get up to the center of the state, okay,

502
00:19:55,280 --> 00:19:57,640
it's gotten a little cooler.

503
00:19:57,640 --> 00:19:59,440
You can grow some low chill peaches,

504
00:19:59,440 --> 00:20:01,480
you could grow all kinds of blueberries.

505
00:20:01,480 --> 00:20:04,360
The early strawberry production is coming out of South,

506
00:20:04,360 --> 00:20:05,960
Central Florida.

507
00:20:05,960 --> 00:20:10,960
You can grow, you've got a growing season that's 350 days.

508
00:20:12,320 --> 00:20:15,600
And then in the middle of the state, they're like a big set

509
00:20:15,600 --> 00:20:17,040
and they've got a big grass,

510
00:20:17,040 --> 00:20:20,240
maybe it's Bahia this time or Bermuda.

511
00:20:20,240 --> 00:20:23,640
And then they've got, or Zoysia.

512
00:20:23,640 --> 00:20:25,160
And then they've got some azaleas

513
00:20:25,160 --> 00:20:26,400
because they're at the range

514
00:20:26,400 --> 00:20:28,040
where they can actually put azaleas in.

515
00:20:28,040 --> 00:20:32,280
So you get toxic, non-edible, boring.

516
00:20:32,280 --> 00:20:34,880
I'm like, where's your peach tree?

517
00:20:34,880 --> 00:20:38,360
Or grow some sand pears or something, you can make some pie.

518
00:20:38,360 --> 00:20:42,440
It's like perfect for formless blackberries,

519
00:20:42,440 --> 00:20:44,000
gummy berries.

520
00:20:44,000 --> 00:20:46,000
If you look through the book,

521
00:20:46,000 --> 00:20:48,720
it's just like species after species.

522
00:20:48,720 --> 00:20:51,520
And these are things that grow great in Florida.

523
00:20:51,520 --> 00:20:53,880
And people are just obsessed with like irrigating

524
00:20:53,880 --> 00:20:55,560
and caring for grass,

525
00:20:55,560 --> 00:20:57,360
which doesn't even wanna grow there.

526
00:20:57,360 --> 00:20:59,840
It's literally easier to grow a food forest

527
00:20:59,840 --> 00:21:03,200
after a couple of years than it is to maintain a lawn.

528
00:21:03,200 --> 00:21:05,440
You just go around with a machete every once in a while

529
00:21:05,440 --> 00:21:08,440
and knock a few limbs off to open the light up.

530
00:21:08,440 --> 00:21:10,520
It's, I don't know.

531
00:21:10,520 --> 00:21:13,800
It seems like it's just so simple,

532
00:21:13,800 --> 00:21:15,680
but people are very scared.

533
00:21:15,680 --> 00:21:17,240
So I wanna give people like the idea,

534
00:21:17,240 --> 00:21:19,960
like you don't have to have this huge permaculture design.

535
00:21:19,960 --> 00:21:23,200
This is not a book that's got like lots of little circles

536
00:21:23,200 --> 00:21:26,480
in it and arrows and energy flow charts

537
00:21:26,480 --> 00:21:28,880
and like snakes coming out of things.

538
00:21:28,880 --> 00:21:30,440
I didn't do any of that stuff.

539
00:21:30,440 --> 00:21:31,880
Right, so it's,

540
00:21:31,880 --> 00:21:32,960
Bill Mollison would probably just be like,

541
00:21:32,960 --> 00:21:35,040
well, whatever.

542
00:21:35,040 --> 00:21:38,440
The degenerate generations that have followed me.

543
00:21:38,440 --> 00:21:40,200
But I've told people,

544
00:21:40,200 --> 00:21:42,680
start a bunch of stuff from seed and cuttings,

545
00:21:42,680 --> 00:21:44,560
beg and borrow, don't steal,

546
00:21:44,560 --> 00:21:47,000
but beg and borrow from people like go be in your plant

547
00:21:47,000 --> 00:21:47,920
clubs and stuff like that.

548
00:21:47,920 --> 00:21:48,880
Start a bunch of cuttings.

549
00:21:48,880 --> 00:21:50,280
Start some Mexican tree spinach,

550
00:21:50,280 --> 00:21:53,520
start some cassava, start some pigeon peas,

551
00:21:53,520 --> 00:21:55,600
start some peach trees from pits.

552
00:21:55,600 --> 00:21:57,920
You could get a peach tree from pit to fruit in Florida

553
00:21:57,920 --> 00:21:59,240
in two to three years.

554
00:21:59,240 --> 00:22:00,360
They're so fast.

555
00:22:00,360 --> 00:22:01,440
Nice.

556
00:22:01,440 --> 00:22:03,280
We planted them, stratified them, put them in the ground.

557
00:22:03,280 --> 00:22:04,480
We got all kinds of great peaches.

558
00:22:04,480 --> 00:22:06,880
So you got all this wonderful stuff.

559
00:22:06,880 --> 00:22:08,680
And they're like,

560
00:22:08,680 --> 00:22:09,960
people get paralyzed cause they go,

561
00:22:09,960 --> 00:22:11,560
ah, I gotta buy, I bought a tree.

562
00:22:11,560 --> 00:22:13,440
Where do I plant it?

563
00:22:13,440 --> 00:22:18,040
And he'll walk around his yard for an hour and go,

564
00:22:18,040 --> 00:22:20,080
oh man, it might be too close to that foundation.

565
00:22:20,080 --> 00:22:21,160
Or maybe it'll get into this.

566
00:22:21,160 --> 00:22:22,600
Or maybe I might wanna move it there.

567
00:22:22,600 --> 00:22:24,280
Or maybe at some point I'll put chickens over there

568
00:22:24,280 --> 00:22:25,100
or whatever.

569
00:22:25,100 --> 00:22:27,240
So look, learn how to propagate your own plants.

570
00:22:27,240 --> 00:22:28,440
Plant a whole ton of stuff.

571
00:22:28,440 --> 00:22:29,320
And if you don't like it,

572
00:22:29,320 --> 00:22:32,360
just chop it up and feed it to the other plants later.

573
00:22:32,360 --> 00:22:33,360
Do it like nature does.

574
00:22:33,360 --> 00:22:35,700
Throw 10,000 things out there.

575
00:22:35,700 --> 00:22:37,560
And then if it's not supposed to grow there,

576
00:22:37,560 --> 00:22:38,720
you'll know it.

577
00:22:38,720 --> 00:22:41,360
If it's not happy, yank it out.

578
00:22:41,360 --> 00:22:42,200
If you get a,

579
00:22:42,200 --> 00:22:45,400
if you go to your big peach place down the road

580
00:22:45,400 --> 00:22:47,320
and you start 30 peach pits

581
00:22:47,320 --> 00:22:49,320
and you stick them all over your yard in two or three years,

582
00:22:49,320 --> 00:22:50,440
you'll be like, I don't like that one.

583
00:22:50,440 --> 00:22:51,280
Or that one's in the way,

584
00:22:51,280 --> 00:22:52,680
or that one doesn't look happy.

585
00:22:52,680 --> 00:22:54,260
And you just chop it down.

586
00:22:54,260 --> 00:22:56,240
And you got no loss.

587
00:22:56,240 --> 00:22:58,440
But there's like this analysis paralysis.

588
00:22:58,440 --> 00:22:59,260
And people were like,

589
00:22:59,260 --> 00:23:00,640
would you draw a plan for my yard?

590
00:23:00,640 --> 00:23:03,700
I'm like, I can give you some basics.

591
00:23:03,700 --> 00:23:05,760
If you walk through this area,

592
00:23:05,760 --> 00:23:08,760
obviously don't plant something right in the middle of it.

593
00:23:08,760 --> 00:23:11,700
Don't plant a mulberry directly over your front porch

594
00:23:11,700 --> 00:23:14,200
where it's gonna turn your porch purple every year.

595
00:23:14,200 --> 00:23:18,800
Don't stick bamboo right next to your vinyl pool.

596
00:23:18,800 --> 00:23:20,540
That kind of thing.

597
00:23:20,540 --> 00:23:23,120
But really, Florida wants to be a forest.

598
00:23:23,120 --> 00:23:24,840
So if you plant a whole bunch of species in there

599
00:23:24,840 --> 00:23:27,340
and let them select themselves out,

600
00:23:27,340 --> 00:23:29,040
I call it machete gardening.

601
00:23:29,040 --> 00:23:30,400
You don't like it, you chop it down.

602
00:23:30,400 --> 00:23:32,920
You use it for firewood,

603
00:23:32,920 --> 00:23:34,080
use it for your rocket stove,

604
00:23:34,080 --> 00:23:36,480
use it to feed the other stuff.

605
00:23:36,480 --> 00:23:39,760
But you just let nature be abundant

606
00:23:39,760 --> 00:23:42,320
and then just hack paths through it.

607
00:23:42,320 --> 00:23:43,480
So that's my approach

608
00:23:43,480 --> 00:23:45,120
and create your own Florida food forest.

609
00:23:45,120 --> 00:23:46,640
I just am like totally excited

610
00:23:46,640 --> 00:23:48,440
about all the different species

611
00:23:48,440 --> 00:23:49,760
and different things you could try.

612
00:23:49,760 --> 00:23:51,700
And I give people like a half a dozen different ways

613
00:23:51,700 --> 00:23:54,240
to get started with a food forest.

614
00:23:55,720 --> 00:23:57,160
That's fun.

615
00:23:57,160 --> 00:24:02,160
So Holly's added some links to your books in the chat.

616
00:24:02,800 --> 00:24:04,600
And I wondered if you could tell us

617
00:24:04,600 --> 00:24:07,980
what is your most popular book?

618
00:24:07,980 --> 00:24:11,560
My most popular book is totally crazy easy,

619
00:24:11,560 --> 00:24:12,640
Florida Gardening,

620
00:24:12,640 --> 00:24:15,520
which was the first book on Florida Gardening I wrote

621
00:24:15,520 --> 00:24:17,320
where I basically just threw a bunch of species

622
00:24:17,320 --> 00:24:19,800
at my backyard, the ones that lived.

623
00:24:19,800 --> 00:24:23,200
And those became, I planned my next gardens

624
00:24:23,200 --> 00:24:24,800
around those key species.

625
00:24:24,800 --> 00:24:27,960
So the yams and the yard long beans and collards

626
00:24:27,960 --> 00:24:31,480
and okra and things that really did well in the state

627
00:24:31,480 --> 00:24:32,840
and some of those varieties.

628
00:24:32,840 --> 00:24:34,320
Now, if I was to rewrite it,

629
00:24:34,320 --> 00:24:38,400
I would have a bunch more on the seed saving side of it

630
00:24:38,400 --> 00:24:39,640
and on breeding your own.

631
00:24:39,640 --> 00:24:44,200
But basically it's an overview of if you grow these plants,

632
00:24:44,200 --> 00:24:47,000
you will not fail.

633
00:24:47,000 --> 00:24:48,360
Like you may have some bad years,

634
00:24:48,360 --> 00:24:49,320
but you're not gonna fail.

635
00:24:49,320 --> 00:24:52,440
If you have these plants, they're so close to being weeds

636
00:24:53,360 --> 00:24:56,920
that you can just expect that you're going to get food.

637
00:24:56,920 --> 00:24:58,400
And people that have come down to Florida

638
00:24:58,400 --> 00:25:01,280
and they're absolutely shell shocked by,

639
00:25:01,280 --> 00:25:02,320
they can't grow anything.

640
00:25:02,320 --> 00:25:04,600
It's every trick they have doesn't work.

641
00:25:04,600 --> 00:25:06,240
It's the genetics of the plants.

642
00:25:06,240 --> 00:25:07,600
It's the species of the plants

643
00:25:07,600 --> 00:25:08,960
and the adaptation of the plants.

644
00:25:08,960 --> 00:25:10,520
It's not you.

645
00:25:10,520 --> 00:25:12,600
It's just that your plants don't know how to live there.

646
00:25:12,600 --> 00:25:14,500
They just die.

647
00:25:14,500 --> 00:25:18,120
Look, if you're from Canada and you go down to Cancun

648
00:25:18,120 --> 00:25:21,440
and you lay on the beach, you will burn

649
00:25:22,320 --> 00:25:24,080
because you're not used to it.

650
00:25:24,080 --> 00:25:25,600
You're just totally not used to it.

651
00:25:25,600 --> 00:25:27,960
And so we always have, we have family members

652
00:25:27,960 --> 00:25:29,760
that would come down from up North and we'd be like,

653
00:25:29,760 --> 00:25:31,000
okay, we're gonna go to the beach.

654
00:25:31,000 --> 00:25:33,240
We're not gonna go to the beach in the middle of the day.

655
00:25:33,240 --> 00:25:35,240
We're gonna take them to the beach in the late afternoon

656
00:25:35,240 --> 00:25:37,720
and the morning so they can adjust to it.

657
00:25:37,720 --> 00:25:40,420
But there are people that live right near the equator

658
00:25:40,420 --> 00:25:42,400
that are super, super comfortable.

659
00:25:42,400 --> 00:25:44,080
It got the skin for it.

660
00:25:44,080 --> 00:25:48,520
It got the genetics to just be in the sun, no problem.

661
00:25:48,520 --> 00:25:51,000
But like my friends down in the islands, man,

662
00:25:51,000 --> 00:25:52,760
if it gets like below 70 degrees,

663
00:25:52,760 --> 00:25:53,760
they're gonna freeze to death.

664
00:25:53,760 --> 00:25:56,240
They're like almost hypothermia when it's 60.

665
00:25:56,240 --> 00:26:00,080
It takes a long time to readjust if you go up North.

666
00:26:00,080 --> 00:26:01,700
So it's not the plants problems.

667
00:26:01,700 --> 00:26:03,640
So totally crazy, easy Florida gardening.

668
00:26:03,640 --> 00:26:07,680
And then after that, I'd say probably the two neck and neck

669
00:26:07,680 --> 00:26:09,800
would be books that I did not write

670
00:26:09,800 --> 00:26:10,960
just for the Florida market.

671
00:26:10,960 --> 00:26:13,280
And that is a complex to everything.

672
00:26:13,280 --> 00:26:15,360
The good guide to extreme composting.

673
00:26:15,360 --> 00:26:17,520
Take the approach of how nature composts

674
00:26:17,520 --> 00:26:19,180
by throwing things on the ground.

675
00:26:19,180 --> 00:26:21,480
Instead of making it super, super complex,

676
00:26:21,480 --> 00:26:24,960
I try to make it really simple and tell people,

677
00:26:24,960 --> 00:26:26,720
this is how you just don't throw away

678
00:26:26,720 --> 00:26:27,980
your food scraps anymore.

679
00:26:27,980 --> 00:26:29,000
Really don't worry about it

680
00:26:29,000 --> 00:26:32,620
if you're not getting exact results.

681
00:26:32,620 --> 00:26:34,200
Like the 5,000 rules.

682
00:26:34,200 --> 00:26:36,440
Throw out that rule book from the extension office.

683
00:26:36,440 --> 00:26:38,760
Here's how you compost everything.

684
00:26:38,760 --> 00:26:40,200
And then the other book is Grow or Die,

685
00:26:40,200 --> 00:26:41,560
The Good Guide to Survival Gardening,

686
00:26:41,560 --> 00:26:45,240
which is basically how do you do a stripped down garden?

687
00:26:45,240 --> 00:26:48,240
If things get rougher, what would you wanna have?

688
00:26:48,240 --> 00:26:49,240
What would you wanna plant?

689
00:26:49,240 --> 00:26:50,200
And how would you do it?

690
00:26:50,200 --> 00:26:52,600
What's your basic philosophy of gardening?

691
00:26:52,600 --> 00:26:54,320
If you can't just go down to Home Depot

692
00:26:54,320 --> 00:26:56,760
and buy a sack of fertility.

693
00:26:56,760 --> 00:26:58,440
So that would probably be them.

694
00:26:59,320 --> 00:27:04,320
So do you follow permaculture principles in your work?

695
00:27:05,360 --> 00:27:06,680
I follow most of them.

696
00:27:06,680 --> 00:27:10,340
Like the zones, I follow the zones.

697
00:27:10,340 --> 00:27:12,120
I do a lot of chop and drop.

698
00:27:13,000 --> 00:27:16,340
I find that permaculture has expanded to such a point

699
00:27:16,340 --> 00:27:18,400
that any kind of traditional gardening

700
00:27:18,400 --> 00:27:20,160
is now called permaculture.

701
00:27:20,160 --> 00:27:22,740
So it's almost hard to figure out where permaculture is.

702
00:27:22,740 --> 00:27:24,000
This is my permaculture garden.

703
00:27:24,000 --> 00:27:25,880
I was like, yeah, but that's,

704
00:27:25,880 --> 00:27:28,680
there were people doing that 300 years ago too.

705
00:27:28,680 --> 00:27:30,560
It just didn't have that name.

706
00:27:30,560 --> 00:27:33,820
Permaculture, like the idea of cycling nutrients, right?

707
00:27:33,820 --> 00:27:34,840
We're gonna go out to the field,

708
00:27:34,840 --> 00:27:36,120
haul a bunch of manure in

709
00:27:36,120 --> 00:27:38,480
and put it into the gardens and then plant in between it.

710
00:27:38,480 --> 00:27:40,320
And you chop this down and you let this rot.

711
00:27:40,320 --> 00:27:41,920
And a lot of these things,

712
00:27:42,760 --> 00:27:46,480
I knew islanders that were practicing permaculture

713
00:27:46,480 --> 00:27:47,940
and they'd never heard of it.

714
00:27:47,940 --> 00:27:50,720
Like this one guy would take all this brush that he,

715
00:27:50,720 --> 00:27:51,600
he would cut all this brush

716
00:27:51,600 --> 00:27:53,800
when he cleared out field to plant his yams.

717
00:27:53,800 --> 00:27:56,820
And he would put it underneath a tree.

718
00:27:56,820 --> 00:27:59,240
And then he would tie his donkey to the tree.

719
00:27:59,240 --> 00:28:01,360
And the donkey would just go around that tree

720
00:28:01,360 --> 00:28:02,940
and crush and manure the stuff.

721
00:28:02,940 --> 00:28:04,960
And he would bring forage to the donkey.

722
00:28:04,960 --> 00:28:07,080
And the donkey was like stomping and peeing

723
00:28:07,080 --> 00:28:09,320
and maneuvering all this brush

724
00:28:09,320 --> 00:28:12,240
and just walking through it and churning it up.

725
00:28:12,240 --> 00:28:14,000
And then he would let it rot down.

726
00:28:14,000 --> 00:28:17,240
And then that was his food for the yams later.

727
00:28:17,240 --> 00:28:20,400
But it was like, that's like a permaculture thing.

728
00:28:20,400 --> 00:28:22,280
I'm gonna find the energy of the donkey

729
00:28:22,280 --> 00:28:24,840
and then join it up with the energy of,

730
00:28:24,840 --> 00:28:27,400
to increase the agitation, whatever.

731
00:28:27,400 --> 00:28:29,160
So now what I don't,

732
00:28:30,040 --> 00:28:31,920
the thing that will get me in trouble with some people

733
00:28:31,920 --> 00:28:34,080
is that I will till if I need a big space,

734
00:28:34,080 --> 00:28:36,140
I will till it up and I will put in food

735
00:28:36,140 --> 00:28:39,280
because I have 10 children.

736
00:28:39,280 --> 00:28:42,360
So gardening for us is really, it's part of our budget.

737
00:28:42,360 --> 00:28:44,800
It's important for us to garden well.

738
00:28:44,800 --> 00:28:46,520
And when we move to a new property,

739
00:28:46,520 --> 00:28:48,160
first thing I do is like that big area

740
00:28:48,160 --> 00:28:51,480
is getting tilled and planted.

741
00:28:51,480 --> 00:28:53,940
Trying to get a dump truck full of wood chips

742
00:28:53,940 --> 00:28:57,640
or straw or something that I know hasn't been sprayed.

743
00:28:57,640 --> 00:29:00,560
I'm better off just tilling the area up, making the beds.

744
00:29:00,560 --> 00:29:03,560
And then over time, I move more and more organic matter in

745
00:29:03,560 --> 00:29:06,520
and I get my compost systems up and you build up.

746
00:29:06,520 --> 00:29:09,400
But I think that like we lose sight sometimes,

747
00:29:09,400 --> 00:29:13,040
we get on a cultish, I will never till the ground.

748
00:29:13,040 --> 00:29:15,160
Like I will never break the earth.

749
00:29:15,160 --> 00:29:18,760
And so some of the no-till people were really,

750
00:29:18,760 --> 00:29:20,400
they get angry at me occasionally

751
00:29:20,400 --> 00:29:22,440
and occasionally I bug them.

752
00:29:22,440 --> 00:29:25,820
I agree in principle with much of what the no-till people do

753
00:29:25,820 --> 00:29:28,840
but I also think that there's a place for just getting food

754
00:29:28,840 --> 00:29:30,440
out of the ground as you grow.

755
00:29:30,440 --> 00:29:32,440
Because even if I'm doing extractive farming,

756
00:29:32,440 --> 00:29:35,460
extracting food from the soil,

757
00:29:35,460 --> 00:29:38,480
like in a way that like, wow, that's harsh.

758
00:29:38,480 --> 00:29:39,800
Like my neighbors, right?

759
00:29:39,800 --> 00:29:43,200
They'll till the ground up and they'll use triple 13

760
00:29:43,200 --> 00:29:44,640
and they'll grow their own vegetables.

761
00:29:44,640 --> 00:29:47,320
And you'd be like, I can't believe they grow them that way.

762
00:29:47,320 --> 00:29:48,240
Yeah, but you know what?

763
00:29:48,240 --> 00:29:51,040
Them doing that with that triple 13 and their tiller

764
00:29:51,040 --> 00:29:54,200
is still better than buying food from around the world

765
00:29:54,200 --> 00:29:58,120
from 5000 miles or 3000 miles.

766
00:29:58,120 --> 00:29:59,400
And you don't know how that was sprayed.

767
00:29:59,400 --> 00:30:00,440
You don't know how that was used.

768
00:30:00,440 --> 00:30:02,520
All the responsibility has been offshored.

769
00:30:02,520 --> 00:30:04,800
And you're like, look at how wonderful and green I am

770
00:30:04,800 --> 00:30:06,480
that I have one pot of herbs

771
00:30:06,480 --> 00:30:08,880
and I've never turned the soil in it.

772
00:30:08,880 --> 00:30:11,240
But they're actually probably doing better than you.

773
00:30:11,240 --> 00:30:14,500
So sometimes it's these subtleties where I'm like,

774
00:30:14,500 --> 00:30:15,800
I'm not gonna get on their case.

775
00:30:15,800 --> 00:30:17,320
They're gardening for goodness sakes.

776
00:30:17,320 --> 00:30:18,600
Most people aren't even gardening.

777
00:30:18,600 --> 00:30:19,440
And if you come over there,

778
00:30:19,440 --> 00:30:21,200
I can't believe you're tilling.

779
00:30:21,200 --> 00:30:23,520
You should quit, kill yourself.

780
00:30:23,520 --> 00:30:24,440
Holy cow, man.

781
00:30:24,440 --> 00:30:25,700
No, wait, calm down.

782
00:30:27,080 --> 00:30:29,160
Like people get really cultish about it.

783
00:30:29,160 --> 00:30:32,760
Another thing that I've done is if I need magnesium,

784
00:30:32,760 --> 00:30:34,620
I'll go get the Epsom salts out.

785
00:30:34,620 --> 00:30:36,400
For some reason Epsom salts are okay.

786
00:30:36,400 --> 00:30:39,240
But like triple 13, that's beyond the pale.

787
00:30:39,240 --> 00:30:42,040
Like it's, I guess it's something you could soak

788
00:30:42,040 --> 00:30:45,040
in a bath with, then it's okay to use in the garden.

789
00:30:45,040 --> 00:30:46,940
I have some salts, that's good.

790
00:30:46,940 --> 00:30:48,760
Triple 13, definitely not.

791
00:30:49,620 --> 00:30:51,760
I've done some soil nutrient balancing

792
00:30:51,760 --> 00:30:56,180
with Steve Solomon where I bought some of the original,

793
00:30:57,480 --> 00:31:02,480
the individual like manganese and phosphorus

794
00:31:02,480 --> 00:31:07,040
in different forms that would be considered elemental,

795
00:31:07,040 --> 00:31:09,400
which you could say that's chemical fertilizing.

796
00:31:10,300 --> 00:31:12,760
But if I see that I have a deficiency sometimes,

797
00:31:12,760 --> 00:31:14,480
I'll just treat it that way.

798
00:31:14,480 --> 00:31:17,360
But I don't ever use pesticides.

799
00:31:17,360 --> 00:31:18,600
I can't stand the pesticides.

800
00:31:18,600 --> 00:31:21,680
I'm like, I don't care if the plant got a little bit

801
00:31:21,680 --> 00:31:26,080
of phosphorus or nitrogen or something,

802
00:31:26,080 --> 00:31:28,120
but I don't wanna eat malathion.

803
00:31:29,000 --> 00:31:32,420
So there's this wall where I'm like, I don't like that.

804
00:31:32,420 --> 00:31:34,600
And I think that it's more ultimately destructive.

805
00:31:34,600 --> 00:31:37,640
And I also think that the more that you intervene,

806
00:31:37,640 --> 00:31:40,680
the more you play God, the less God's design

807
00:31:40,680 --> 00:31:43,580
of all the checks and balances, you've removed that.

808
00:31:43,580 --> 00:31:45,760
And now you've got to be all the checks and balances.

809
00:31:45,760 --> 00:31:49,560
So once you start fertilizing heavily and spraying

810
00:31:49,560 --> 00:31:51,680
and picking everything and doing all this stuff,

811
00:31:51,680 --> 00:31:55,240
like to try and make your garden super, super duper perfect.

812
00:31:55,240 --> 00:31:58,760
But the more you have to do because you've just killed,

813
00:31:58,760 --> 00:31:59,680
like if you go in my garden,

814
00:31:59,680 --> 00:32:01,760
there's holes in all the leaves of plants.

815
00:32:01,760 --> 00:32:04,160
I'm like, I don't care because I could turn the leaves over

816
00:32:04,160 --> 00:32:05,000
and I see the ladybug.

817
00:32:05,000 --> 00:32:06,580
I'm like, there's the answer to the holes.

818
00:32:06,580 --> 00:32:08,280
If I had sprayed for that thing,

819
00:32:08,280 --> 00:32:09,680
then I would have killed that thing.

820
00:32:09,680 --> 00:32:11,320
So generally, yeah, I've read a lot

821
00:32:11,320 --> 00:32:13,480
of the permaculture literature.

822
00:32:13,480 --> 00:32:14,840
I'm a huge book junkie.

823
00:32:14,840 --> 00:32:17,920
And I would hold mostly to permaculture principles,

824
00:32:17,920 --> 00:32:19,360
but some things like that.

825
00:32:19,360 --> 00:32:22,560
I think that as I develop garden systems

826
00:32:22,560 --> 00:32:24,500
that I'm in the same place for longer,

827
00:32:24,500 --> 00:32:28,160
I have less and less where I need to get anything out.

828
00:32:28,160 --> 00:32:30,300
Now that we have enough space for cows, for instance,

829
00:32:30,300 --> 00:32:31,620
we've got dairy cows.

830
00:32:31,620 --> 00:32:34,720
So the dairy cows, I can use the dairy cow manure

831
00:32:34,720 --> 00:32:36,920
and I can feed all the gardens

832
00:32:36,920 --> 00:32:39,080
and I could build awesome compost piles now.

833
00:32:39,080 --> 00:32:42,080
But before, when I was living more in suburbia,

834
00:32:42,080 --> 00:32:43,540
we couldn't do that.

835
00:32:43,540 --> 00:32:46,800
And most of the manure had long-term persistent herbicide

836
00:32:46,800 --> 00:32:48,420
in it, so we couldn't trust

837
00:32:48,420 --> 00:32:50,240
that it wouldn't kill the garden.

838
00:32:50,240 --> 00:32:53,180
So it's really great to talk about permaculture principles,

839
00:32:53,180 --> 00:32:55,320
but practically speaking,

840
00:32:55,320 --> 00:32:57,480
for somebody in a suburban backyard,

841
00:32:57,480 --> 00:32:59,220
a lot of it works, but some of it,

842
00:32:59,220 --> 00:33:01,880
like to get enough materials.

843
00:33:01,880 --> 00:33:03,040
Even if you're reading these books,

844
00:33:03,040 --> 00:33:05,000
it's go and get a wheel of,

845
00:33:05,000 --> 00:33:08,480
if you can get hay or if you can get wood chips or something,

846
00:33:08,480 --> 00:33:10,040
but you can't sometimes.

847
00:33:10,040 --> 00:33:12,320
So that person may just be like,

848
00:33:12,320 --> 00:33:14,600
look, it's still better if you grow food.

849
00:33:14,600 --> 00:33:18,100
It's not ideal and we all work towards the ideal.

850
00:33:18,100 --> 00:33:19,360
It's like sanctification.

851
00:33:19,360 --> 00:33:21,640
You're working towards sanctification over time.

852
00:33:21,640 --> 00:33:23,280
Like progressive holiness,

853
00:33:23,280 --> 00:33:27,080
rather than like where you started, it looks like a failure,

854
00:33:27,080 --> 00:33:29,240
but you're going to be getting better

855
00:33:29,240 --> 00:33:31,080
if you keep working at it.

856
00:33:31,080 --> 00:33:34,900
So yeah, so I'd be 98% permaculture on the scale probably.

857
00:33:36,900 --> 00:33:40,320
I get a lot of flack from the permaculturists

858
00:33:40,320 --> 00:33:42,160
about tilling my garden,

859
00:33:42,160 --> 00:33:44,220
but it's like I'm feeding 20 families

860
00:33:44,220 --> 00:33:46,840
and you grew a rosemary plant without.

861
00:33:46,840 --> 00:33:47,680
That's right.

862
00:33:47,680 --> 00:33:51,040
That's right, that's exactly it.

863
00:33:51,040 --> 00:33:53,620
Okay, so this couple I was talking about,

864
00:33:53,620 --> 00:33:55,760
they were using triple 13

865
00:33:55,760 --> 00:33:57,920
and they use some pesticides,

866
00:33:57,920 --> 00:34:01,880
but they grew like these 100 foot rows of green beans.

867
00:34:02,700 --> 00:34:06,840
And I was like trying to do the lasagna gardening thing

868
00:34:06,840 --> 00:34:08,980
in these little beds and struggling along.

869
00:34:08,980 --> 00:34:11,920
Meanwhile, they had tons of food

870
00:34:11,920 --> 00:34:16,200
and they took baskets and baskets of food

871
00:34:16,200 --> 00:34:18,140
to the local food bank in town,

872
00:34:19,280 --> 00:34:20,920
which is still going to be way better

873
00:34:20,920 --> 00:34:23,580
than beans that have been shipped in from overseas, et cetera.

874
00:34:23,580 --> 00:34:27,120
Plus they're directly giving back to the community with that.

875
00:34:27,120 --> 00:34:31,160
So if I'm feeding 12 people and I'm like,

876
00:34:31,160 --> 00:34:32,320
I don't know if I'm going to get food

877
00:34:32,320 --> 00:34:33,700
if I didn't throw out fertilizer.

878
00:34:33,700 --> 00:34:34,960
Now this is not normally the case

879
00:34:34,960 --> 00:34:36,520
because I've usually got something I can feed with.

880
00:34:36,520 --> 00:34:38,020
I feed with everything.

881
00:34:38,020 --> 00:34:40,920
But if I really didn't know what to do

882
00:34:40,920 --> 00:34:42,160
and I threw out 10, 10, 10,

883
00:34:42,160 --> 00:34:43,760
it's not like you're going to just be banned

884
00:34:43,760 --> 00:34:46,360
to outer darkness or permaculture forever.

885
00:34:46,360 --> 00:34:47,700
You're a terrible person.

886
00:34:48,560 --> 00:34:49,400
There's levels.

887
00:34:49,400 --> 00:34:52,140
It's like if you throw out a plastic bottle,

888
00:34:52,140 --> 00:34:53,800
first of all, you shouldn't have had a plastic bottle.

889
00:34:53,800 --> 00:34:54,640
That's terrible.

890
00:34:54,640 --> 00:34:55,460
You had a plastic bottle.

891
00:34:55,460 --> 00:34:57,040
Somebody gives you a bottle of water.

892
00:34:57,040 --> 00:34:58,120
You throw it out.

893
00:34:58,120 --> 00:35:00,200
Somebody will say, you should have recycled that.

894
00:35:00,200 --> 00:35:01,800
But if you do the research,

895
00:35:01,800 --> 00:35:03,740
sometimes it actually costs more energy

896
00:35:03,740 --> 00:35:06,360
to recycle the plastic than it does to landfill it.

897
00:35:06,360 --> 00:35:07,360
Now what are you going to do?

898
00:35:07,360 --> 00:35:09,120
There are no good options.

899
00:35:10,000 --> 00:35:11,400
There's no good options.

900
00:35:11,400 --> 00:35:13,520
And you can't undrink the water.

901
00:35:13,520 --> 00:35:15,120
What are you going to do?

902
00:35:15,120 --> 00:35:18,240
There's subtleties that people don't get sometimes.

903
00:35:18,240 --> 00:35:21,560
So can you tell us about your YouTube channel?

904
00:35:21,560 --> 00:35:22,920
Yes.

905
00:35:22,920 --> 00:35:24,160
I was a writer first.

906
00:35:24,160 --> 00:35:25,800
And then I ended up a YouTuber

907
00:35:25,800 --> 00:35:27,520
because people kept saying, I wish you'd do more videos.

908
00:35:27,520 --> 00:35:29,040
You should do videos on that and this and that

909
00:35:29,040 --> 00:35:29,880
and the other thing.

910
00:35:29,880 --> 00:35:31,040
So I started to push it and I said, okay,

911
00:35:31,040 --> 00:35:32,720
I'll do the YouTube thing.

912
00:35:32,720 --> 00:35:35,020
And so I'm on YouTube as David the Good.

913
00:35:36,160 --> 00:35:38,580
I don't like to take sponsors.

914
00:35:38,580 --> 00:35:40,800
And I don't really like to,

915
00:35:40,800 --> 00:35:43,760
I don't like to follow the rules all that much.

916
00:35:43,760 --> 00:35:45,180
So you'll see, if you go to the channel,

917
00:35:45,180 --> 00:35:49,760
sometimes video by its nature is not as an intelligent,

918
00:35:49,760 --> 00:35:53,280
it's not as an intelligent medium as writing.

919
00:35:53,280 --> 00:35:57,220
If I write, I feel like I can get the entire thought across.

920
00:35:57,220 --> 00:35:59,960
But when you're on camera, you got to see my ugly face.

921
00:35:59,960 --> 00:36:01,920
You see my garden, see all that stuff.

922
00:36:01,920 --> 00:36:03,600
And you're kind of like, this guy,

923
00:36:03,600 --> 00:36:06,600
do I like this guy's personality or whatever.

924
00:36:06,600 --> 00:36:08,340
If I read somebody's writing,

925
00:36:09,180 --> 00:36:10,920
I'm just getting the pure ideas.

926
00:36:10,920 --> 00:36:13,600
But there's a rhetorical side to YouTube.

927
00:36:13,600 --> 00:36:16,200
And if you don't keep it entertaining,

928
00:36:16,200 --> 00:36:19,560
if you don't do any click bait type of stuff or whatever,

929
00:36:19,560 --> 00:36:21,200
your channel does not grow.

930
00:36:21,200 --> 00:36:22,840
And that's what's hard to get across sometimes.

931
00:36:22,840 --> 00:36:24,380
I would rather just put information off.

932
00:36:24,380 --> 00:36:25,760
So go read my books.

933
00:36:25,760 --> 00:36:27,160
But with YouTube, I'm like, you know what?

934
00:36:27,160 --> 00:36:28,520
It's a rhetorical medium.

935
00:36:28,520 --> 00:36:30,740
People are gonna have to look at me anyways.

936
00:36:30,740 --> 00:36:33,640
So let's make it as entertaining as possible.

937
00:36:33,640 --> 00:36:37,400
And hopefully some people will go read my books

938
00:36:37,400 --> 00:36:38,800
and they'll see that I'm not actually

939
00:36:38,800 --> 00:36:42,160
that insanely goofy all the time.

940
00:36:42,160 --> 00:36:47,160
But if it was not fun for me to do YouTube, I would quit it.

941
00:36:47,160 --> 00:36:49,680
And so when people say, I wish you would do this

942
00:36:49,680 --> 00:36:50,880
or I wish you would do this.

943
00:36:50,880 --> 00:36:54,600
You'll, the amount of comments that I get

944
00:36:54,600 --> 00:36:55,880
and the amount of emails and everything

945
00:36:55,880 --> 00:36:57,760
gets to be completely overwhelming.

946
00:36:57,760 --> 00:36:59,680
And what I've also realized is that people

947
00:36:59,680 --> 00:37:01,680
that are not doing it, who have not figured out

948
00:37:01,680 --> 00:37:04,680
how to make YouTube work,

949
00:37:04,680 --> 00:37:06,720
they don't understand why you have to do

950
00:37:06,720 --> 00:37:07,800
some things that you do.

951
00:37:07,800 --> 00:37:09,680
Like I did this experiment, right?

952
00:37:09,680 --> 00:37:13,280
I did a video called, Comfrey is Terrible.

953
00:37:13,280 --> 00:37:16,120
Talking about how comfrey is not the best plant

954
00:37:16,120 --> 00:37:18,800
for my climate, it doesn't work that great.

955
00:37:18,800 --> 00:37:22,120
Comfrey is Terrible got like 44,000 views.

956
00:37:22,120 --> 00:37:25,320
They were like, oh, comfrey doesn't like comfrey.

957
00:37:25,320 --> 00:37:27,600
How can he be into permaculture and not like comfrey?

958
00:37:27,600 --> 00:37:30,000
Comfrey is like the holy grail of permaculture.

959
00:37:30,000 --> 00:37:30,840
You don't like comfrey,

960
00:37:30,840 --> 00:37:33,280
it's like saying you don't like Sep Holzer.

961
00:37:33,280 --> 00:37:36,200
So comfrey is terrible, tons of views.

962
00:37:36,200 --> 00:37:38,000
I'm like, okay, so three days later I had this plan.

963
00:37:38,000 --> 00:37:40,280
I'm gonna do a video from the opposite angle

964
00:37:40,280 --> 00:37:41,920
on why comfrey is amazing.

965
00:37:41,920 --> 00:37:44,840
And so I talk about back when I lived in Tennessee,

966
00:37:44,840 --> 00:37:46,640
comfrey was an excellent accumulator.

967
00:37:46,640 --> 00:37:49,560
Talked about how I had healed cuts with comfrey

968
00:37:49,560 --> 00:37:52,760
and some of the various uses for it.

969
00:37:52,760 --> 00:37:54,080
First I talked about all the negatives,

970
00:37:54,080 --> 00:37:55,200
how it's not great for our climate

971
00:37:55,200 --> 00:37:56,080
and how it got better options.

972
00:37:56,080 --> 00:37:58,240
Then I talked about if you were in a great climate,

973
00:37:58,240 --> 00:37:59,800
here's why it's an amazing plant.

974
00:37:59,800 --> 00:38:01,360
The one where it's like comfrey is amazing

975
00:38:01,360 --> 00:38:04,960
got like 17,000 views compared to 44,000.

976
00:38:05,880 --> 00:38:08,720
And so then after that, when people didn't expect it

977
00:38:08,720 --> 00:38:11,640
and they didn't realize I was running a joke series,

978
00:38:11,640 --> 00:38:13,240
I did a video called Comfrey.

979
00:38:13,240 --> 00:38:15,560
And so I went out in the garden and just started singing

980
00:38:15,560 --> 00:38:18,560
this song about how ambivalent I am about comfrey.

981
00:38:18,560 --> 00:38:21,560
And then it's interspersed with me arguing with my wife

982
00:38:21,560 --> 00:38:24,400
about how I'm really not gonna destroy my YouTube channel.

983
00:38:24,400 --> 00:38:25,520
I'm definitely not.

984
00:38:26,360 --> 00:38:28,480
She's like, sweetheart, how many people are watching you?

985
00:38:28,480 --> 00:38:30,440
You're gonna just make yourself like,

986
00:38:30,440 --> 00:38:32,360
and it's like the camera's pointed at the ground,

987
00:38:32,360 --> 00:38:34,960
shaking around and like looking at nothing.

988
00:38:34,960 --> 00:38:36,640
And it's, we're having this argument.

989
00:38:36,640 --> 00:38:39,360
And it just keeps, it's this really painful video.

990
00:38:39,360 --> 00:38:41,600
You're like, what in the world?

991
00:38:41,600 --> 00:38:44,840
So the Comfrey is so, so got 11,000 views,

992
00:38:44,840 --> 00:38:47,440
but it was an interesting experiment to see people

993
00:38:47,440 --> 00:38:50,320
gravitate towards the negative.

994
00:38:50,320 --> 00:38:52,720
Comfrey is terrible rather than Comfrey is amazing.

995
00:38:52,720 --> 00:38:54,720
Everybody knows, oh, Comfrey is amazing.

996
00:38:54,720 --> 00:38:56,280
But if soon, if you're like,

997
00:38:57,120 --> 00:38:59,440
if you're like, I love Joe Biden, people will be like,

998
00:38:59,440 --> 00:39:00,400
oh, okay.

999
00:39:00,400 --> 00:39:01,560
You're like, I hate Joe Biden.

1000
00:39:01,560 --> 00:39:04,360
People are like, oh, why does he hate Joe Biden?

1001
00:39:04,360 --> 00:39:08,200
So like, it's, you just, you could be something polarizing,

1002
00:39:08,200 --> 00:39:11,280
but the way you approach that polarizing thing,

1003
00:39:11,280 --> 00:39:13,720
of like why I love land race gardening,

1004
00:39:14,600 --> 00:39:17,960
probably won't do as well as why there's no way

1005
00:39:17,960 --> 00:39:20,400
land race gardening would work for me.

1006
00:39:20,400 --> 00:39:23,080
People are like, oh, why?

1007
00:39:23,080 --> 00:39:25,600
It's like they pursue that negative.

1008
00:39:25,600 --> 00:39:27,760
And it's frustrating because when you're writing

1009
00:39:27,760 --> 00:39:30,040
and you're really enthusiastic and you love something

1010
00:39:30,040 --> 00:39:31,880
and you tell people, and then you put it on YouTube

1011
00:39:31,880 --> 00:39:34,920
and people are like, oh, yeah, that's cool.

1012
00:39:34,920 --> 00:39:37,280
You've almost got a couch at, if I say,

1013
00:39:37,280 --> 00:39:40,560
here's how I turn everything into liquid compost,

1014
00:39:40,560 --> 00:39:43,960
doesn't do as well as this ancient secret

1015
00:39:43,960 --> 00:39:45,520
will transform your garden.

1016
00:39:46,520 --> 00:39:50,360
Oh, you type it out and you're like,

1017
00:39:50,360 --> 00:39:53,720
I feel like I'm selling vacuum cleaners.

1018
00:39:53,720 --> 00:39:57,760
But it's true though, so the information gets across,

1019
00:39:58,640 --> 00:40:01,560
but by its very nature, that's the way video works.

1020
00:40:01,560 --> 00:40:05,640
And so I just try to be who I am.

1021
00:40:05,640 --> 00:40:09,760
And I met somebody in person and they said to me like,

1022
00:40:09,760 --> 00:40:11,240
you're just the same in person.

1023
00:40:11,240 --> 00:40:13,560
Like you're as goofy in person as you're on your videos.

1024
00:40:13,560 --> 00:40:14,960
I was like, yeah, except when I'm writing,

1025
00:40:14,960 --> 00:40:16,720
I'm dead serious when I'm writing.

1026
00:40:16,720 --> 00:40:20,320
Totally not really, I have one of the books too.

1027
00:40:20,320 --> 00:40:23,160
One of your favorite videos that our community liked

1028
00:40:23,160 --> 00:40:25,600
was the one about, I am going to destroy

1029
00:40:25,600 --> 00:40:28,680
50 varieties of corn now.

1030
00:40:28,680 --> 00:40:33,680
This man with the corn, like, yeah,

1031
00:40:34,000 --> 00:40:35,440
I love that sort of thing.

1032
00:40:35,440 --> 00:40:38,280
And what I like to do too with the videos

1033
00:40:38,280 --> 00:40:40,600
is to give people things to think about

1034
00:40:40,600 --> 00:40:43,560
that they are not hearing.

1035
00:40:43,560 --> 00:40:45,960
Like a lot of what I notice,

1036
00:40:46,840 --> 00:40:49,080
which you probably notice as well,

1037
00:40:49,080 --> 00:40:54,080
is you've got this like Wikipedia approach to gardening

1038
00:40:55,720 --> 00:40:58,760
where everybody passes the same information on

1039
00:40:58,760 --> 00:41:00,640
over and over again, right?

1040
00:41:00,640 --> 00:41:05,640
Like composting, don't put meat in your compost pile.

1041
00:41:05,760 --> 00:41:09,800
Make sure your carbon and nitrogen ratio is 25 to one.

1042
00:41:09,800 --> 00:41:13,680
Make sure that you don't add bread or oils

1043
00:41:13,680 --> 00:41:15,560
or bones or whatever.

1044
00:41:15,560 --> 00:41:17,080
And so what are you going to do?

1045
00:41:17,080 --> 00:41:20,040
You're going to make, and then it says make a cubic yards.

1046
00:41:20,040 --> 00:41:20,880
What are you going to do?

1047
00:41:20,880 --> 00:41:23,240
How are you going to get enough lettuce scraps

1048
00:41:23,240 --> 00:41:25,640
and make a pile that big?

1049
00:41:25,640 --> 00:41:28,040
And what are you supposed to do with your meat and your bones?

1050
00:41:28,040 --> 00:41:30,080
You're going to throw them away?

1051
00:41:30,080 --> 00:41:32,720
So you're telling me, these rules are telling me

1052
00:41:33,640 --> 00:41:38,640
that I should throw away the rest of that chicken meal,

1053
00:41:39,840 --> 00:41:43,040
but I should compost the parsley.

1054
00:41:43,040 --> 00:41:44,880
But then you go down to the garden center

1055
00:41:44,880 --> 00:41:47,760
and it's like one of the best organic amendments

1056
00:41:47,760 --> 00:41:50,440
you can add to your garden for a quick boost of nitrogen

1057
00:41:50,440 --> 00:41:52,000
is blood meal.

1058
00:41:52,000 --> 00:41:55,680
And if you need phosphorus, add bone meal.

1059
00:41:55,680 --> 00:41:57,560
Bone meal is blood meal or byproducts

1060
00:41:57,560 --> 00:42:00,080
of the slaughter waste in the slaughter industry.

1061
00:42:00,080 --> 00:42:03,480
And I'm like, but we're not allowed to do that?

1062
00:42:03,480 --> 00:42:04,600
Why not?

1063
00:42:04,600 --> 00:42:09,400
What happens if a raccoon dies in the woods?

1064
00:42:09,400 --> 00:42:12,360
Does God send angels down to carry that raccoon away

1065
00:42:12,360 --> 00:42:14,000
and dump it in the landfill?

1066
00:42:15,160 --> 00:42:16,240
It doesn't work that way.

1067
00:42:16,240 --> 00:42:17,680
It's like it gets recycled.

1068
00:42:17,680 --> 00:42:20,080
The trees eat the raccoons.

1069
00:42:20,080 --> 00:42:22,440
And so what I spent like a long time doing

1070
00:42:22,440 --> 00:42:27,440
is trying to figure out what's the basic thing behind this.

1071
00:42:27,960 --> 00:42:29,320
What would happen to this thing

1072
00:42:29,320 --> 00:42:31,440
if I didn't throw it in the landfill?

1073
00:42:31,440 --> 00:42:33,040
What's the worst that could happen

1074
00:42:33,040 --> 00:42:36,080
if I throw a chicken in my compost pile?

1075
00:42:36,080 --> 00:42:37,520
The neighbors complain maybe

1076
00:42:37,520 --> 00:42:38,800
because the dog got in it

1077
00:42:38,800 --> 00:42:40,160
and dragged a dead chicken over the yard.

1078
00:42:40,160 --> 00:42:42,160
Yeah, they probably wouldn't even know

1079
00:42:42,160 --> 00:42:44,320
unless they put it on YouTube.

1080
00:42:44,320 --> 00:42:47,120
But yeah, so to try and look and go,

1081
00:42:47,120 --> 00:42:52,120
why are we saving heirlooms and 200 individuals of corn?

1082
00:42:52,120 --> 00:42:54,480
You got 200 individuals of hickory king

1083
00:42:54,480 --> 00:42:56,560
that you have to have in your yard every year

1084
00:42:56,560 --> 00:42:59,040
to try and fight off inbreeding depression.

1085
00:42:59,040 --> 00:43:00,400
But even if you do that,

1086
00:43:00,400 --> 00:43:03,240
what happens after you saved it for 10 years?

1087
00:43:03,240 --> 00:43:06,480
Why is it that when you look at hybrid corn,

1088
00:43:06,480 --> 00:43:08,440
it's like you've got this gigantic ear,

1089
00:43:08,440 --> 00:43:12,440
but the parents were like these little weenie things.

1090
00:43:12,440 --> 00:43:15,120
Why is it that they can make hybrids, but we can't?

1091
00:43:15,120 --> 00:43:19,040
Why is it that for some reason,

1092
00:43:19,040 --> 00:43:22,000
Granny Smith was able to breed one of the best apples

1093
00:43:22,000 --> 00:43:23,800
that was ever invented for pies

1094
00:43:23,800 --> 00:43:26,440
and one of the most beautiful apples in all of history.

1095
00:43:26,440 --> 00:43:28,840
She could actually breed that apple by saving,

1096
00:43:28,840 --> 00:43:31,800
she was throwing crab apple waste out from making pies.

1097
00:43:31,800 --> 00:43:33,800
She was using sour apples and making pies,

1098
00:43:33,800 --> 00:43:35,160
throwing the waste down into her yard

1099
00:43:35,160 --> 00:43:37,000
and a seedling grew, she didn't cut it down.

1100
00:43:37,000 --> 00:43:38,160
But if you go to the extension office

1101
00:43:38,160 --> 00:43:39,760
or you go to almost any YouTube channel,

1102
00:43:39,760 --> 00:43:42,080
they're like, don't grow trees from seed.

1103
00:43:42,080 --> 00:43:43,840
What you're gonna wanna do is graft on

1104
00:43:43,840 --> 00:43:46,320
and establish variety so you can make sure

1105
00:43:46,320 --> 00:43:47,960
that you maintain something good.

1106
00:43:47,960 --> 00:43:50,240
Because if you plant apples from seed,

1107
00:43:50,240 --> 00:43:52,120
you're gonna get horrible fruit.

1108
00:43:52,120 --> 00:43:54,200
Everybody will tell you that.

1109
00:43:54,200 --> 00:43:55,960
Our ancestors, how long ago was it

1110
00:43:55,960 --> 00:43:58,320
that we had 2000 varieties of apple

1111
00:43:58,320 --> 00:44:00,240
commonly available across the United States

1112
00:44:00,240 --> 00:44:02,640
and now we're down to what, like eight?

1113
00:44:02,640 --> 00:44:04,680
Like eight in the store?

1114
00:44:04,680 --> 00:44:05,880
You went to a different town,

1115
00:44:05,880 --> 00:44:08,280
you would get different apples.

1116
00:44:08,280 --> 00:44:11,640
We've lost all of that regional cool stuff.

1117
00:44:11,640 --> 00:44:13,240
And so when I'm on YouTube, I'm like,

1118
00:44:13,240 --> 00:44:15,320
why do you have this assumption?

1119
00:44:15,320 --> 00:44:17,200
Here, we're gonna plant fruit trees from seed

1120
00:44:17,200 --> 00:44:18,280
and then I'll have somebody write me

1121
00:44:18,280 --> 00:44:20,160
the long scribe inside, no.

1122
00:44:20,160 --> 00:44:22,200
The reason the commercial guys never do this

1123
00:44:22,200 --> 00:44:24,040
is because you don't know what you're gonna get

1124
00:44:24,040 --> 00:44:24,880
and blah, blah, blah.

1125
00:44:24,880 --> 00:44:26,760
I know that, I know why commercial guys do it.

1126
00:44:26,760 --> 00:44:29,800
I know why there's one million navel oranges

1127
00:44:29,800 --> 00:44:32,320
all planted across groves in the center of Florida.

1128
00:44:32,320 --> 00:44:34,520
It's because they want exactly the same thing

1129
00:44:34,520 --> 00:44:36,160
over and over again.

1130
00:44:36,160 --> 00:44:39,240
But you'll often see such and such variety

1131
00:44:39,240 --> 00:44:43,320
was a chance sport that showed up at the edge of orchard

1132
00:44:43,320 --> 00:44:45,400
and it was analyzed by the University of Florida

1133
00:44:45,400 --> 00:44:47,920
and found to have profound disease resistance

1134
00:44:47,920 --> 00:44:49,520
to blah, blah, blah.

1135
00:44:49,520 --> 00:44:51,200
But don't you do that.

1136
00:44:51,200 --> 00:44:52,720
Definitely don't you do that.

1137
00:44:53,760 --> 00:44:55,840
Like the cognitive dissonance there is it's like,

1138
00:44:55,840 --> 00:44:58,640
everybody has the rules following

1139
00:44:58,640 --> 00:45:00,600
and they also want me to make rules for them.

1140
00:45:00,600 --> 00:45:02,400
Tell me how to do this and tell me how to do this

1141
00:45:02,400 --> 00:45:03,440
and tell me how to do this.

1142
00:45:03,440 --> 00:45:04,800
And I'd rather say here,

1143
00:45:04,800 --> 00:45:07,400
I wanna tell you how to think about it.

1144
00:45:07,400 --> 00:45:09,520
So then you can answer the questions yourself.

1145
00:45:09,520 --> 00:45:11,720
If you have an underlying philosophy of let's experiment,

1146
00:45:11,720 --> 00:45:13,320
let's try it.

1147
00:45:13,320 --> 00:45:16,160
Somebody said, will this variety of avocado grow in my area?

1148
00:45:16,160 --> 00:45:17,600
I said, I don't know, plant a bunch of pits

1149
00:45:17,600 --> 00:45:20,360
and then if any of them lives, then yes.

1150
00:45:20,360 --> 00:45:22,480
That's the fun way.

1151
00:45:22,480 --> 00:45:26,400
Now I could go and I could check the frost tolerances

1152
00:45:26,400 --> 00:45:28,240
and stuff and I'll give people that information.

1153
00:45:28,240 --> 00:45:30,880
It says that this variety has survived 12 degrees.

1154
00:45:33,680 --> 00:45:35,280
But if you really want something awesome,

1155
00:45:35,280 --> 00:45:38,720
you gotta do it yourself and you gotta stop fearing.

1156
00:45:38,720 --> 00:45:40,200
It's the same thing with the Shetty gardening,

1157
00:45:40,200 --> 00:45:42,640
just plant stuff all over the place to see what lives

1158
00:45:42,640 --> 00:45:45,040
and then you'll have success.

1159
00:45:45,040 --> 00:45:48,680
Thank you, so we have about nine minutes left.

1160
00:45:48,680 --> 00:45:51,880
Does anyone have a question for David?

1161
00:45:51,880 --> 00:45:52,920
Logan.

1162
00:45:52,920 --> 00:45:55,480
I have two that I hope are quick.

1163
00:45:55,480 --> 00:45:58,320
I'm also in Florida.

1164
00:45:58,320 --> 00:46:02,720
So my two is one, did you have to modify light requirements

1165
00:46:02,720 --> 00:46:05,200
for any of your crops?

1166
00:46:05,200 --> 00:46:08,040
Ones that normally you have to put in full sun,

1167
00:46:08,040 --> 00:46:09,840
for instance, like tomatoes or corn,

1168
00:46:09,840 --> 00:46:13,680
did you end up in Florida putting them under shade

1169
00:46:13,680 --> 00:46:16,040
a lot of times and did they grow better that way?

1170
00:46:16,040 --> 00:46:18,800
And then do you think that using land rice gardening,

1171
00:46:18,800 --> 00:46:20,880
genetics can make up for Florida's sand

1172
00:46:20,880 --> 00:46:22,520
rather than trying to modify the soil?

1173
00:46:22,520 --> 00:46:25,200
Like just leave it the crappy sand that it is

1174
00:46:25,200 --> 00:46:27,960
and then maybe they eventually can find

1175
00:46:27,960 --> 00:46:29,920
that there can be maybe deeper roots

1176
00:46:29,920 --> 00:46:32,680
or ones that are better able to absorb nutrients

1177
00:46:32,680 --> 00:46:33,600
deeper down?

1178
00:46:34,480 --> 00:46:36,400
Yes, yes.

1179
00:46:36,400 --> 00:46:41,400
So on the sand side of things,

1180
00:46:41,400 --> 00:46:46,400
I do think that probably repeated and ongoing exploration

1181
00:46:47,720 --> 00:46:50,080
would find us stuff.

1182
00:46:50,080 --> 00:46:54,480
I started the process by just going to the ethnic markets

1183
00:46:54,480 --> 00:46:57,360
and just buying up all the seeds and bulbs

1184
00:46:57,360 --> 00:47:00,200
and stuff that I could find and then planted them out.

1185
00:47:00,200 --> 00:47:02,400
And now after having done that, I thought, you know what,

1186
00:47:02,400 --> 00:47:04,840
if I had been saving seeds back when I was doing

1187
00:47:04,840 --> 00:47:08,600
that exploration more, I would save seeds instantly.

1188
00:47:08,600 --> 00:47:10,080
Like some of those yard beans, oh yeah,

1189
00:47:10,080 --> 00:47:11,680
we put some aside and that sort of thing.

1190
00:47:11,680 --> 00:47:13,680
Oh, there's some dry ones, I'll just leave a few.

1191
00:47:13,680 --> 00:47:16,040
But it was so easy to just go down to the local market

1192
00:47:16,040 --> 00:47:16,860
and get it.

1193
00:47:16,860 --> 00:47:19,920
But those were probably better adapted to India or Korea

1194
00:47:19,920 --> 00:47:23,440
or wherever that variety had originally come from.

1195
00:47:23,440 --> 00:47:26,320
Yeah, I think there are probably some plants

1196
00:47:26,320 --> 00:47:28,480
that just may not have the genetic ability

1197
00:47:28,480 --> 00:47:31,320
to adapt to Florida and some things that it's,

1198
00:47:31,320 --> 00:47:33,120
that they don't wanna set seed in Florida,

1199
00:47:33,120 --> 00:47:36,400
but they, because they have a tropical life to them.

1200
00:47:36,400 --> 00:47:38,720
And then like they'll grow in Florida,

1201
00:47:38,720 --> 00:47:40,440
they don't wanna reproduce in Florida.

1202
00:47:40,440 --> 00:47:42,120
And then some things when they bring it to Florida,

1203
00:47:42,120 --> 00:47:43,800
you know, like way over reproduced,

1204
00:47:43,800 --> 00:47:45,880
like the Malaleuca trees that they planted

1205
00:47:45,880 --> 00:47:47,280
to try and drain the Everglades

1206
00:47:47,280 --> 00:47:49,080
ended up being a massive invasive problem

1207
00:47:49,080 --> 00:47:51,160
because they made 10 times the seeds.

1208
00:47:51,160 --> 00:47:52,240
They were like, thank you for taking us

1209
00:47:52,240 --> 00:47:54,760
out of Australia, we're glad to be here.

1210
00:47:54,760 --> 00:47:56,920
But so yeah, quite possibly,

1211
00:47:56,920 --> 00:48:00,520
and I wish I had done more with it when I was still there.

1212
00:48:00,520 --> 00:48:03,160
But secondarily on light requirements,

1213
00:48:03,160 --> 00:48:05,880
yeah, if it says full sun for Florida,

1214
00:48:05,880 --> 00:48:07,680
you really probably only need about,

1215
00:48:07,680 --> 00:48:10,040
if it says full sun on the seed packet or something,

1216
00:48:10,040 --> 00:48:12,760
and you probably only need four hours.

1217
00:48:12,760 --> 00:48:15,280
And I did experiments with like how far into the shade

1218
00:48:15,280 --> 00:48:16,360
could I plant things.

1219
00:48:16,360 --> 00:48:18,200
And I found that like citruses,

1220
00:48:18,200 --> 00:48:20,200
I could get the frost protection

1221
00:48:20,200 --> 00:48:21,600
for the occasional cold night

1222
00:48:21,600 --> 00:48:23,560
by putting them underneath the canopy of another tree,

1223
00:48:23,560 --> 00:48:25,400
but they would still produce fruit.

1224
00:48:25,400 --> 00:48:28,040
They might not produce exactly as much fruit,

1225
00:48:28,040 --> 00:48:29,200
but they still produce fruit.

1226
00:48:29,200 --> 00:48:30,840
And that's better than having to go out there

1227
00:48:30,840 --> 00:48:32,680
and cover them with frost blankets.

1228
00:48:33,520 --> 00:48:37,000
And then I found that if my vegetable garden,

1229
00:48:37,000 --> 00:48:37,960
particularly in the morning,

1230
00:48:37,960 --> 00:48:40,680
if you get the morning like sun from the East,

1231
00:48:40,680 --> 00:48:42,480
that's the best for your vegetable garden.

1232
00:48:42,480 --> 00:48:44,560
That early morning sun in Florida is the best

1233
00:48:44,560 --> 00:48:46,000
because by the time it gets to the West,

1234
00:48:46,000 --> 00:48:49,000
usually the temperatures are up to the 90s.

1235
00:48:49,000 --> 00:48:50,680
Sometimes if you're in the middle of the state,

1236
00:48:50,680 --> 00:48:53,200
it's a little more moderate near the coast.

1237
00:48:53,200 --> 00:48:55,720
But the Western sun, like if I have sunlight until noon,

1238
00:48:55,720 --> 00:48:58,560
I would count that as full sun for sure.

1239
00:48:58,560 --> 00:49:00,840
And then if something looks like it's struggling,

1240
00:49:00,840 --> 00:49:02,480
I will chop some branches down above it

1241
00:49:02,480 --> 00:49:05,280
and let some light in and often that fixes it.

1242
00:49:05,280 --> 00:49:06,480
But thank you, Logan.

1243
00:49:06,480 --> 00:49:07,920
Thank you.

1244
00:49:07,920 --> 00:49:09,720
Anyone else?

1245
00:49:09,720 --> 00:49:13,480
Oh, yes, I have two questions for David The Wood.

1246
00:49:13,480 --> 00:49:14,600
Yes, sir.

1247
00:49:14,600 --> 00:49:16,800
All right, I'm glad that you guys can hear me.

1248
00:49:16,800 --> 00:49:18,600
First question I got is,

1249
00:49:18,600 --> 00:49:21,620
I went to all those random Latin stores,

1250
00:49:21,620 --> 00:49:24,360
they had all sorts of dried peppers

1251
00:49:24,360 --> 00:49:26,720
and all kinds of land raised a whole crap ton of peppers.

1252
00:49:26,720 --> 00:49:29,120
They were like dried Mirosol peppers,

1253
00:49:29,120 --> 00:49:30,560
which are actually ajiamurrios.

1254
00:49:30,560 --> 00:49:32,720
Then there were also poblano peppers,

1255
00:49:32,720 --> 00:49:33,640
which are ancha peppers.

1256
00:49:33,640 --> 00:49:36,840
And I'm glad like a whole crap ton of seeds,

1257
00:49:36,840 --> 00:49:39,680
everything I can possibly think of, everything.

1258
00:49:39,680 --> 00:49:42,240
As long as it tasted good, I saved the seeds from it.

1259
00:49:42,240 --> 00:49:43,080
Oh yeah.

1260
00:49:43,080 --> 00:49:46,440
What would happen if I just start land raising all of those

1261
00:49:46,440 --> 00:49:47,480
and letting them all hybridize?

1262
00:49:47,480 --> 00:49:49,120
Well, I create something awesome.

1263
00:49:49,120 --> 00:49:50,960
That's what I'm wondering about.

1264
00:49:50,960 --> 00:49:52,120
There are all different species.

1265
00:49:52,120 --> 00:49:56,040
There capsicum, anem capsicum, bacanthum,

1266
00:49:56,040 --> 00:49:57,200
then there's also pubescence,

1267
00:49:57,200 --> 00:49:58,520
which is that like black seed.

1268
00:49:58,520 --> 00:50:02,200
Probably, yeah, you probably get some chinense.

1269
00:50:02,200 --> 00:50:03,040
Yeah.

1270
00:50:03,040 --> 00:50:03,880
Yeah.

1271
00:50:03,880 --> 00:50:05,480
So some of them will cross and some of them won't.

1272
00:50:05,480 --> 00:50:08,640
Like people know if you put your bell peppers

1273
00:50:08,640 --> 00:50:12,160
and your jalapeno peppers, they'll cross.

1274
00:50:12,160 --> 00:50:15,120
Yet what I think you're gonna end up with

1275
00:50:15,120 --> 00:50:16,720
is you will end up with good peppers,

1276
00:50:16,720 --> 00:50:18,440
but they are going to go towards the hot.

1277
00:50:18,440 --> 00:50:21,260
I think that the sweets are probably gonna be overwhelmed

1278
00:50:21,260 --> 00:50:24,660
and you're gonna end up with spicy hot peppers.

1279
00:50:24,660 --> 00:50:26,520
But what I have noticed is in Florida,

1280
00:50:26,520 --> 00:50:30,680
the smaller body peppers seem to be the most resistant

1281
00:50:30,680 --> 00:50:32,640
to the diseases and everything.

1282
00:50:32,640 --> 00:50:36,200
So like the Thai peppers do great.

1283
00:50:36,200 --> 00:50:37,880
Cayenne peppers did great for me.

1284
00:50:37,880 --> 00:50:38,760
The larger the peppers,

1285
00:50:38,760 --> 00:50:40,760
when I start to get up to bell peppers and stuff,

1286
00:50:40,760 --> 00:50:43,560
I had to really baby them.

1287
00:50:43,560 --> 00:50:45,520
But I had a friend from Puerto Rico

1288
00:50:45,520 --> 00:50:49,560
and he had this giant bush of cayennes in his backyard

1289
00:50:49,560 --> 00:50:51,420
that was like six feet tall.

1290
00:50:51,420 --> 00:50:52,260
And he said,

1291
00:50:52,260 --> 00:50:54,120
David, that thing's been there for three years

1292
00:50:54,120 --> 00:50:55,720
and it just keeps making them.

1293
00:50:55,720 --> 00:50:58,120
Wait, so that's winter there?

1294
00:50:58,120 --> 00:50:59,380
It will survive winter

1295
00:50:59,380 --> 00:51:02,560
if you are not in an area of Florida that frosts.

1296
00:51:02,560 --> 00:51:05,860
So this was down in South Florida zone 10 slash 11.

1297
00:51:05,860 --> 00:51:07,020
They will survive the winter.

1298
00:51:07,020 --> 00:51:10,140
Sometimes I had cayennes grow back from the roots

1299
00:51:10,140 --> 00:51:11,520
in North Central Florida

1300
00:51:11,520 --> 00:51:14,080
after temperatures that went down into the twenties.

1301
00:51:14,080 --> 00:51:15,960
If I mulched around the base of them,

1302
00:51:15,960 --> 00:51:18,240
like one in four or five of them would survive

1303
00:51:18,240 --> 00:51:20,000
and they would come back and they would grow pretty fast

1304
00:51:20,000 --> 00:51:21,520
and they would start bearing again.

1305
00:51:21,520 --> 00:51:23,720
And how thick was the mulch?

1306
00:51:23,720 --> 00:51:24,560
What's that?

1307
00:51:24,560 --> 00:51:25,760
How thick was the mulch?

1308
00:51:25,760 --> 00:51:26,600
Like, was it, what's that?

1309
00:51:26,600 --> 00:51:27,960
Oh, I just gave them like a couple of inches

1310
00:51:27,960 --> 00:51:28,800
around the bottom.

1311
00:51:28,800 --> 00:51:31,720
Usually if I could get like loose fall leaves

1312
00:51:31,720 --> 00:51:33,920
or dry grass clippings or something like that

1313
00:51:33,920 --> 00:51:35,760
and put it around the base,

1314
00:51:35,760 --> 00:51:37,460
I've kept a lot of stuff alive that way

1315
00:51:37,460 --> 00:51:38,840
that's not really supposed to be alive

1316
00:51:38,840 --> 00:51:42,360
because most of the frosts of Florida are very fast.

1317
00:51:42,360 --> 00:51:43,820
Like they happen overnight.

1318
00:51:43,820 --> 00:51:45,680
It's four hours, it goes below freezing.

1319
00:51:45,680 --> 00:51:47,720
And the next morning it's up to 40.

1320
00:51:47,720 --> 00:51:50,600
And so I got things like moringa trees

1321
00:51:50,600 --> 00:51:52,840
to live up in the North part of the state,

1322
00:51:52,840 --> 00:51:55,000
even though they would freeze all the way to the ground.

1323
00:51:55,000 --> 00:51:56,100
If I left them uncovered,

1324
00:51:56,100 --> 00:51:58,600
I could put a pile of leaves over it and.

1325
00:51:58,600 --> 00:52:00,440
Dang, that is awesome.

1326
00:52:00,440 --> 00:52:02,240
Yeah, you should be able to get perennial peppers

1327
00:52:02,240 --> 00:52:03,080
out of them.

1328
00:52:03,080 --> 00:52:05,920
And if you put your peppers in pots too,

1329
00:52:05,920 --> 00:52:09,400
give them big pots, like 20 gallon pots or something.

1330
00:52:09,400 --> 00:52:12,920
You can drag them in to a covered area

1331
00:52:12,920 --> 00:52:16,260
and probably get peppers for three, four, five years even.

1332
00:52:16,260 --> 00:52:19,800
I had a habanero that did three years for me, no problem.

1333
00:52:19,800 --> 00:52:22,000
Because peppers are already by default perennial,

1334
00:52:22,000 --> 00:52:24,980
just winter always kills them every time.

1335
00:52:24,980 --> 00:52:26,320
Except for the capsicum annual,

1336
00:52:26,320 --> 00:52:29,340
and some of the bells and the jalapenos

1337
00:52:29,340 --> 00:52:32,760
will just die on you and that's it in the first year.

1338
00:52:32,760 --> 00:52:34,600
But a lot of the other ones are definitely perennial.

1339
00:52:34,600 --> 00:52:37,280
And I don't know how much crossing they'll do inside a genus,

1340
00:52:37,280 --> 00:52:39,480
but I think they can hybridize.

1341
00:52:39,480 --> 00:52:40,320
Thank you.

1342
00:52:41,720 --> 00:52:44,720
I also had a second question if you don't mind.

1343
00:52:44,720 --> 00:52:46,020
Sure.

1344
00:52:46,020 --> 00:52:48,440
Yeah, I was looking at,

1345
00:52:48,440 --> 00:52:52,480
I wanna start gardening and going the whole permaculture

1346
00:52:52,480 --> 00:52:54,300
route, but I have no land.

1347
00:52:54,300 --> 00:52:56,120
I'm stuck in the suburbs,

1348
00:52:56,120 --> 00:52:57,760
none of my neighbors are interested in that shit.

1349
00:52:57,760 --> 00:53:00,520
Like, oh man, I was hoping.

1350
00:53:00,520 --> 00:53:03,240
I don't know how to get land, that's the thing.

1351
00:53:03,240 --> 00:53:05,040
At one point I asked a church,

1352
00:53:05,040 --> 00:53:08,040
oh, like if they were gonna use this back area that they had,

1353
00:53:08,040 --> 00:53:09,000
and I was attending the church,

1354
00:53:09,000 --> 00:53:10,360
I said, are you gonna use this back area?

1355
00:53:10,360 --> 00:53:12,280
And they said, no.

1356
00:53:12,280 --> 00:53:14,280
I said, could we put some gardens back there?

1357
00:53:14,280 --> 00:53:15,280
And they said, sure.

1358
00:53:15,280 --> 00:53:17,800
So if you have a community, like that's one option.

1359
00:53:18,600 --> 00:53:21,920
Another option is to just go around the neighborhood

1360
00:53:21,920 --> 00:53:26,880
and like be nice to people and strike up conversations.

1361
00:53:26,880 --> 00:53:29,480
Because at one point, another point I was renting

1362
00:53:29,480 --> 00:53:31,600
when we had moved overseas,

1363
00:53:31,600 --> 00:53:33,480
when we only had a balcony area,

1364
00:53:33,480 --> 00:53:35,900
we had an upstairs apartment with four bedrooms in it.

1365
00:53:35,900 --> 00:53:37,640
So it was big enough for us, barely.

1366
00:53:37,640 --> 00:53:39,480
And then we had this big balcony

1367
00:53:39,480 --> 00:53:41,000
and I grew some plants and pots on it.

1368
00:53:41,000 --> 00:53:42,720
But I talked to the landlady, I was like,

1369
00:53:42,720 --> 00:53:44,120
man, I really wish I had placed a garden.

1370
00:53:44,120 --> 00:53:45,900
She said, well, I don't have any room in my yard.

1371
00:53:45,900 --> 00:53:49,560
But like one of my cousins owns this building lot

1372
00:53:49,560 --> 00:53:50,380
in the neighborhood.

1373
00:53:50,380 --> 00:53:52,640
Maybe she would let you do a garden on it.

1374
00:53:52,640 --> 00:53:54,520
So she called the cousins, I don't care.

1375
00:53:54,520 --> 00:53:55,880
We're gonna clear it in a couple of years

1376
00:53:55,880 --> 00:53:56,780
and build a house there.

1377
00:53:56,780 --> 00:53:59,560
But if he wants to go and knock a couple of trees down

1378
00:53:59,560 --> 00:54:01,640
or something and put a garden in, fine.

1379
00:54:01,640 --> 00:54:03,880
So we did, we went over there and cleared it and used it.

1380
00:54:03,880 --> 00:54:06,600
And it really is like being really friendly

1381
00:54:06,600 --> 00:54:09,080
and making community connections and just tell people,

1382
00:54:09,080 --> 00:54:11,080
I'm looking for a little bit of land to garden on.

1383
00:54:11,080 --> 00:54:13,560
Hey, I don't mind sharing half the produce with you.

1384
00:54:13,560 --> 00:54:14,960
You can try some of my hot peppers.

1385
00:54:14,960 --> 00:54:16,680
Do you like hot peppers?

1386
00:54:16,680 --> 00:54:17,960
So you make the connections.

1387
00:54:17,960 --> 00:54:19,820
But first, if you're really,

1388
00:54:20,700 --> 00:54:23,440
if you're just friendly and trustworthy,

1389
00:54:23,440 --> 00:54:26,480
a lot of times people will open up and return

1390
00:54:26,480 --> 00:54:29,200
and you'll end up, if you bring somebody a gift,

1391
00:54:29,200 --> 00:54:31,040
that's like the biggest open door.

1392
00:54:31,040 --> 00:54:34,200
Bring somebody a potted plant who has a garden

1393
00:54:34,200 --> 00:54:37,320
and that person will be friends forever.

1394
00:54:37,320 --> 00:54:38,800
See anybody gardening?

1395
00:54:38,800 --> 00:54:40,440
Go over and say, hey, how are you?

1396
00:54:40,440 --> 00:54:42,000
I'm so excited.

1397
00:54:42,000 --> 00:54:44,040
It just be friendly.

1398
00:54:44,040 --> 00:54:44,860
I love your garden.

1399
00:54:44,860 --> 00:54:46,720
What are you growing?

1400
00:54:46,720 --> 00:54:47,560
Say, I'm Philip.

1401
00:54:47,560 --> 00:54:49,880
I'm into breeding peppers.

1402
00:54:49,880 --> 00:54:50,780
Oh, breeding peppers.

1403
00:54:50,780 --> 00:54:51,620
Really, how's that work?

1404
00:54:51,620 --> 00:54:52,560
Da-da-da-da-da.

1405
00:54:52,560 --> 00:54:54,000
Next thing you know, you got a friend

1406
00:54:54,000 --> 00:54:56,360
and then you say, look at, I'm looking for some land.

1407
00:54:56,360 --> 00:54:58,320
If you know anybody that's got a little bit of space

1408
00:54:58,320 --> 00:55:01,200
where I could garden, you never know.

1409
00:55:01,200 --> 00:55:02,360
So, you know.

1410
00:55:02,360 --> 00:55:04,000
That is pretty awesome.

1411
00:55:04,000 --> 00:55:06,200
People look for opportunities to be generous.

1412
00:55:06,200 --> 00:55:08,800
If you like, if you have open hands,

1413
00:55:08,800 --> 00:55:10,240
it's amazing how people will just open

1414
00:55:10,240 --> 00:55:11,400
their hands back sometimes.

1415
00:55:11,400 --> 00:55:13,780
Now some people are just jerks and they never will,

1416
00:55:13,780 --> 00:55:15,040
but that's their loss.

1417
00:55:15,040 --> 00:55:16,640
Most people are like- But they're not the majority.

1418
00:55:16,640 --> 00:55:19,240
Most people are blessed to give something away.

1419
00:55:19,240 --> 00:55:20,680
Ah, man.

1420
00:55:20,680 --> 00:55:21,520
Thank you, David.

1421
00:55:21,520 --> 00:55:22,340
That's good.

1422
00:55:22,340 --> 00:55:23,180
Thank you.

1423
00:55:23,180 --> 00:55:24,020
Yeah, thanks, Philip.

1424
00:55:24,020 --> 00:55:25,720
You're the good for a reason.

1425
00:55:25,720 --> 00:55:26,840
Thank you, David.

1426
00:55:26,840 --> 00:55:28,320
And thank you, everyone.

1427
00:55:28,320 --> 00:55:31,960
Thank you, Holly and Julia for facilitating

1428
00:55:31,960 --> 00:55:33,640
our meeting today.

1429
00:55:33,640 --> 00:55:35,680
And it's been a pleasure, David.

1430
00:55:36,560 --> 00:55:37,400
Thank you.

1431
00:55:37,400 --> 00:55:38,220
I really appreciate it.

1432
00:55:38,220 --> 00:55:39,280
I appreciate the work that you're doing.

1433
00:55:39,280 --> 00:55:43,040
And I'm honored to have a chance to talk to you in person

1434
00:55:43,040 --> 00:55:45,840
after having read your books and watched some of your videos.

1435
00:55:45,840 --> 00:55:49,360
And it was just a really great connection.

1436
00:55:49,360 --> 00:55:52,120
And it was interesting that you were over here

1437
00:55:52,120 --> 00:55:52,960
on this journey.

1438
00:55:52,960 --> 00:55:54,200
And I was over here on this journey.

1439
00:55:54,200 --> 00:55:55,400
And it was like, we hit this,

1440
00:55:55,400 --> 00:55:57,360
I was like, there it is.

1441
00:55:57,360 --> 00:55:59,880
He was working on the piece I was missing.

1442
00:55:59,880 --> 00:56:01,340
It's like the great invention happens

1443
00:56:01,340 --> 00:56:04,160
because somebody else finally invented this one piece

1444
00:56:04,160 --> 00:56:05,080
that finishes it.

1445
00:56:05,080 --> 00:56:07,400
They're like, yes, this is it.

1446
00:56:07,400 --> 00:56:09,680
So anyhow, you've been a great encouragement to me.

1447
00:56:09,680 --> 00:56:11,720
And thanks for having me on.

1448
00:56:11,720 --> 00:56:12,560
Yeah, thank you.

1449
00:56:12,560 --> 00:56:16,080
Thank you for responding and being so willing to come on.

1450
00:56:16,080 --> 00:56:18,220
We really have enjoyed it today.

1451
00:56:18,220 --> 00:56:19,060
Oh, you bet.

1452
00:56:19,060 --> 00:56:22,040
Thank you for spending some of your Saturday on me.

1453
00:56:22,040 --> 00:56:23,600
I appreciate it.

1454
00:56:23,600 --> 00:56:25,760
Yeah, thank you.

1455
00:56:25,760 --> 00:56:27,280
Have a good weekend.

1456
00:56:27,280 --> 00:56:28,120
You too, God bless you.

1457
00:56:28,120 --> 00:56:29,120
Bye, everyone.

1458
00:56:29,120 --> 00:56:30,280
Bye.

1459
00:56:30,280 --> 00:56:53,920
Bye.