THE “WATER-SAVING” LIE MAKING YOUR HOME EVEN HOTTER

A Radio Show Spin-Off Begins

SPEAKER_02 0:05

Okay, so welcome to our podcast. This is a little bit different today because this podcast is a spin-off of our radio show. The Garden Nerd. That's it. What a great name.

SPEAKER_01 0:26

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 0:27

Okay, so let's go. I have a bunch of questions to ask you about your career, your life, your nickname, and how we got here. Okay. What were you saying when you walked in? Because I don't lie, I have this rule. Yeah. And I have this rule on our radio show too. Whenever we have guests in, uh-huh, and it gets kind of awkward, where I'm like, nobody talk. Like we're playing commercials or a song, nobody talk until the mics are live. And that's kind of hard because what happens is things get said, and then they don't get said on the radio, or they don't get said here on camera. And then they'll say, We can do it again. And it never happens. Right. Right? Right. So I get that. So you walked in.

SPEAKER_01 0:59

Yep. And I said, thanks for having me. Like I was like, I'm just going to shoot this guy a message. Cause I always see your podcast pop up. Uh-huh. And I was like, oh, he talks about cool things. I'm just going to shoot him a message. I did not think he would respond at all. And I think like literally half an hour later, you're like, yeah, let's do it.

SPEAKER_02 1:13

Yeah, right on, right? Yeah. Which is super cool. So you shot me a message on Instagram. You mean this podcast pops up in your feed? Yeah. Oh, right on. Yeah. Right on. This podcast is starting to get some legs, man. There you go. It's my little side hustle. Is the garden nerd your job or is that your side hustle?

SPEAKER_01 1:28

It's it used to be my side hustle until three months ago. Now it's my job. It's my career.

SPEAKER_02 1:34

Okay. What was your career before you became and we're going to get into the garden nerd and everything you do? Yeah, yeah. But what was what have you doing all the rest of your life?

SPEAKER_01 1:40

I owned an insurance brokerage for the past 20 years. Insurance? Mm-hmm. So auto home, you know, life, everything. It was a brokerage. Right. Um, great career. Like, don't get me wrong, I feel like it's almost like a first world problem because I'm complaining. I would just wake up every day and I hated it. I did not want to go sit down at my computer. And I had been just slowly starting to build my Instagram and my YouTube, and people really liked it, and I loved doing it. And so I just slowly built that and it got to a point where I was like, I'm I'm just gonna fully jump ship, sell the insurance brokerage, and I'm going full force into Garden Nerd.

SPEAKER_02 2:12

So when you say insurance brokerage, are you talking about like one of those things is a state farm and it has your name on it and you had a building?

SPEAKER_01 2:17

Yeah, yeah, essentially, yes, except we worked

Quitting Insurance For Garden Nerd

SPEAKER_01 2:20

with a number of different insurance companies. Um, so you would call us and we would shop 10, 15 different companies and find you the best price. It was your company? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:28

And you're done with it. You're gone. As of three months ago.

SPEAKER_01 2:31

It still exists. It still exists. We sold it to another agency. They they took over the clients, they own it. Who's we? Um, so I had two other partners. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 2:38

And we Oh, they wanted out too?

SPEAKER_01 2:40

Um, yeah, one of them is my partner in the garden nerd because he lives here locally. The other one lives in Missouri. Um, but yeah, they were they were done with it too. Insurance is draining.

SPEAKER_02 2:48

So when you said you started it as a side project and it took off, what was it? What was your side project?

SPEAKER_01 2:52

So I just I bought a house like 10 years ago, my first house. I started growing stuff and it just kind of became this full-blown addiction. Um, so I went on a mission to Dominican Republic, which is very tropical, right? And I I learned to love all these tropical fruits like mangoes and papaya and things like that. And then I got back home and I realized you could grow those here. So I went and I bought my first mango tree and I planted in my new house. And honestly, from there, I've planted hundreds of fruit trees in my house.

SPEAKER_02 3:20

Can you grow mangoes here?

SPEAKER_01 3:21

You can grow mangoes. I should have brought you one.

SPEAKER_02 3:24

How come there's no mango trees everywhere? How come you see lemons and grapefruits?

SPEAKER_01 3:28

They're a little more frost sensitive than citrus, but they can grow almost as good as citrus. I have like 20 at my house. You have 20 mango trees at your house? Do you know how to cut a mango? That's the hard part too. Yeah, I've experimented a lot. I think I have it down.

SPEAKER_02 3:41

I love mangoes.

SPEAKER_01 3:42

And I tell people if you've only ever had a store about mango, you've never had a real mango. Like getting one off of your tree, it's it's amazing.

SPEAKER_02 3:50

Did you grow up with a green thumb? Like what's your no?

SPEAKER_01 3:53

My parents always made me do yard work and stuff, but I didn't necessarily enjoy it. But once I planted that first tree, it just exploded from there. I don't, I don't know what it is. Other people that get into this hobby, like me, they they say the same thing. It's just like an addiction that catches you.

SPEAKER_02 4:06

So you go to Dominican, you go, Oh, I can grow these at home. So you start growing mango trees. And what's so how what is the side project and how does that?

SPEAKER_01 4:14

So it initially it was just a YouTube channel. I was like, hey, I love talking about this stuff. My kids and wife are tired of me talking to them about it. So I was like, I'm gonna start a YouTube channel, right? Um, that took off well. And but what were you putting on the YouTube channel? How to grow a mango tree or how to properly water like you'd be like, hey man, this is my name's Michael. Whatever. Yep. Here's how you grow a mango tree. Yep. I've never really been scared of just getting on camera in front of people and just talking. So it was horrible, but it was just me talking, showing people what I was doing in my yard and giving tips and tricks.

SPEAKER_02 4:44

And you wouldn't do hashtags, you just put you just like make a video.

SPEAKER_01 4:46

Just posted. I would go in like Facebook groups. Um, there's a bunch of gardening Facebook groups here in the valley, and I would like post my videos in there, and that helped gain some traction.

SPEAKER_02 4:55

Okay, so the YouTube thing starts to get some legs. Yep. And then what do you what is that called? Like how many views did you start?

SPEAKER_01 5:00

What like um I had one video that really took off, you know, was getting me hundreds of thousands. I don't have, I probably only have like 25,000 subscribers on YouTube, but it was a nice. Uh-huh. Okay, that's that's a lot. Yeah, I mean, I wish it were more, but um so people just liked it and it just slowly took off. I had one video that really took off, and I think that kind of catapulted and allowed me to get more subscribers.

SPEAKER_02 5:24

What do you call really taking off?

SPEAKER_01 5:25

Um, I think it's almost 10 million views if it hasn't already.

SPEAKER_02 5:29

Does that translate into money?

SPEAKER_01 5:31

Yes, not a lot. Like, I'll just be transparent with YouTube, I think I make like 200 bucks a month for 20,000 subscribers.

SPEAKER_02 5:39

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 5:39

Um, but it really doesn't go off the subscribers, it goes more off of views.

SPEAKER_02 5:43

But what were you doing in that video?

SPEAKER_01 5:45

Um, in that video, I was talking about the moringa tree. Have you ever heard of the moringa tree?

SPEAKER_02 5:50

No, I think it's a dance.

SPEAKER_01 5:51

The moringa? You would love the moringa because you're always, I hear you talking about health stuff all the time. It's the healthiest tree in the world. It's called the Miracle Tree. It can grow after it's established, no water at all. No rain, it survives off of rainwater, grows 20, 30 feet a year. The leaves are completely edible, and it has like more vitamin C than citrus, it has iron, it has um protein, has everything you need. Wow. People have taken, like they've done a blood test, and then they've only eaten moringa leaves for like a period of time, and then they dump blood tests after, and their blood comes back 100% good. Like it gives you all the nutrients you need.

SPEAKER_02 6:27

How have none of these biohackers been talking about the meringue? The meringa?

SPEAKER_01 6:31

Moringa.

SPEAKER_02 6:32

Moringa, not like a lemon meringue.

SPEAKER_01 6:34

No, no, moringa.

SPEAKER_02 6:35

Moringa.

SPEAKER_01 6:36

Yep, yep. People talk about like you go to sprouts, you can buy a big old bag of the powder. It's really expensive. But I grow it in my backyard. So, how tall is the tree? I cut it down every year because it literally grows 20 to 30 feet a year.

SPEAKER_02 6:47

How did you not bring mangoes in here and merengue

Growing Mangoes In The Desert

SPEAKER_02 6:50

in here?

SPEAKER_01 6:51

I should have. That was my bad. So the tree, that video starts getting took off because it wasn't just local, but it was everywhere. Because people in the Philippines and India and where it grows natively, they love it. And so that that kind of catapulted.

SPEAKER_02 7:06

So have you done a deep dive into gardening now? Like, well, wait, actually, don't have to say yet. So it's your side project. You've got this insurance brokerage. Yep. What what starts happening?

SPEAKER_01 7:16

So people start reaching out. Hey, Michael, can you help me with this? Hey, can you come over to my house and consult me with this? Um, you know, just asking for advice.

SPEAKER_02 7:24

Like how to keep my plants alive? Right, right.

SPEAKER_01 7:26

Okay. Like, hey, I want to grow fruit trees. You know, how do I grow a peach tree? And so I would just go over there and help them. Um, tons of people started asking.

SPEAKER_02 7:33

But at this point, where are you getting your experience from?

SPEAKER_01 7:36

So I was doing it in my in my own yard. Like once I planted that one mango tree, I literally hundreds, I don't live in a, I don't have a huge lot. I planted hundreds of trees. So it's really just trial and error.

SPEAKER_02 7:48

Well, you have hundreds of trees growing in your yard.

SPEAKER_01 7:50

My my yard is a jungle. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 7:53

Front yard, backyard, neighbors don't complain?

SPEAKER_01 7:55

Um, neighbors complain a little bit. They do? Because it's like hanging over, but it's good stuff hanging over. Like I have bananas hanging over on their side of the yard.

SPEAKER_02 8:02

That is so crazy.

SPEAKER_01 8:02

And like mangoes hanging over and tropical cherries hanging over. So I'm like, how are you complaining?

SPEAKER_02 8:06

But that where do you live?

SPEAKER_01 8:08

Mesa. Off of the Malvista. Probably like a quarter of an acre. Don't you need space between the roots of the trees? Tropical trees, they love to be close together. I mean, think about the rainforest. All the trees are so close together. It's just safe.

SPEAKER_02 8:22

How are you the only person I've ever heard doing this? Are there other people doing this?

SPEAKER_01 8:24

There's lots of people. There are? Yes. Yes. I mean, there's this is kind of a nerdy thing. My kids make fun of me. I'm a I'm a nerd and all this, but there's an Arizona Rare Fruit Growers Club. Uh-huh. It's me and a bunch of like 60-year-old men. But there are other people. Yeah. How old are your kids? Uh 14, 11, and 8. Are they into this with you? A little bit. Not really.

SPEAKER_02 8:46

So what happens in your insurance broker? What happens in the side project where you're like, I need to make this leap? Because I'm assuming money's better is starting to come in somehow.

SPEAKER_01 8:54

Right. So, you know, the the YouTube, there's a little bit of money there. Um, even consulting, a little bit of money there, but I'm not doing it officially and I'm not really charging what I should be charging. Um, but my my friend who was a partner in the insurance and still is my partner with Garden Nerd, he started pushing me. And that's that's why he's my partner. He's he's like, hey, you have all this knowledge that you've gained over the course of years. You're helping all these people. We need to start a business with this, and you need to start making money.

SPEAKER_02 9:21

But wait, what so you're you're at work at the insurance brokerage and he's there. What's his name?

SPEAKER_01 9:25

Jeremy.

SPEAKER_02 9:26

So Jeremy's there, you guys are in the cubicles talking, and you just like, as you're typing away, plugging in insurance quotes, you're like, you know, 14 glasses of water can make a banana tree. Like what, like, like like what what is it? It's a good question. You just throw knowledge in his way where he's like, stop it.

SPEAKER_01 9:41

Like, what it's a good question. There's a good answer, actually. So, no, he he bought a large acre lot out in Queen Creek. Um, he's from Washington originally, and he was like, Hey, I've seen you post about this. I know everything you do. I need you to come and help me with my yard. So I essentially helped him design his whole yard and and plant everything, and now it's an awesome oasis jungle. So he he got into it because he was just trying to landscape his yard. And then I started getting him into the more rare things like all the fruit trees and stuff. And so he kind of got addicted.

SPEAKER_02 10:10

So when you plant in his yard, are you planting trees that are already available or just planting seeds?

SPEAKER_01 10:16

Depends. A little of both. You've done it both. Yes. Both ways. Yeah. Depends. Like some fruit trees are going to grow better if they start from seed versus some that you graft. I don't know if you know what grafting is. So if you want a certain variety of fruit, um, let's say you want a specific mango, you can't just take that seed and plant it and it grows that same variety of mango.

SPEAKER_02 10:36

It won't, it won't.

SPEAKER_01 10:37

It won't. Some will, but most won't. Okay. So you take a seed of any mango, it grows, and then you take a branch off of the mango variety that you like, like the existing tree. You take a branch and you fuse it on to that seed that started growing. And then anything above that graft where you fused it on is gonna be the variety that you want.

SPEAKER_02 10:58

Is that the way it happened in nature?

SPEAKER_01 11:01

No, no, no, that's a that's a modern day thing. Back 500 years ago, it was whatever growing.

SPEAKER_02 11:09

It is whatever it is. The mango. So if you grow, if you take a mango seed and you plant it and it grows, that will turn into a mango tree. For sure. Not the one you want, unless that's the one you want. Right. So there's different versions of mangoes?

SPEAKER_01 11:20

There's hundreds, if not thousands, of varieties of mangoes. What that's there's a coconut cream mango and it tastes like oh, just like there's those cotton candy grapes?

SPEAKER_02 11:29

Yes, exactly. Oh, so I don't like that. Exactly. I like a good old-fashioned mango.

SPEAKER_01 11:33

You uh I guarantee if you had a coconut cream mango, you would love it.

SPEAKER_02 11:36

Okay, so wait, so you're at your your buddy's house and you're plant you said there's an oasis of tropical trees in his backyard.

SPEAKER_01 11:42

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 11:43

So did you start them little or uh most of it, yeah, we started little.

SPEAKER_01 11:47

So how big are his trees now? I mean he has some 15, 20 feet uh tall trees. He's getting bananas. He has bananas all surrounding his his pool, and like literally he's getting bananas that you can eat.

SPEAKER_02 11:58

Uh he can just pull a go pull a banana off a tree and eat it?

SPEAKER_01 12:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:01

In Arizona?

SPEAKER_01 12:02

In Arizona.

SPEAKER_02 12:03

That sounds so crazy.

SPEAKER_01 12:04

Bananas are the crazy thing is uh it's not the heat that gets them. That's what people think. Like the tropical

The Moringa Video That Exploded

SPEAKER_01 12:10

stuff, it's the cold. We get too cold. So like if we get below 35 degrees, a lot of most tropicals will just be wiped out.

SPEAKER_02 12:17

How did you not bring me bananas, manges, and mangoes? I know. I so badly want to try that. Does it taste different when it's homegrown? Night and day difference.

SPEAKER_01 12:27

Why?

SPEAKER_02 12:27

So why is it so different? Like when you go to sprouts or something.

SPEAKER_01 12:30

I get it. Yeah. So this is a rabbit hole if you want to go down it. But um they pull it too early. Not only that, but the way that they're farming, like modern day agriculture and the way they treat the soil. So the reason I call myself the garden nerd is I really nerd out over the soil. If you get the soil right, you can grow anything. But they're they're putting down synthetic or fake fertilizers, they're putting down weed killer, they're putting down pesticides, all that stuff is killing the soil biology. Right. And if the soil's dead, whatever you're growing is gonna be lifeless.

SPEAKER_02 13:00

It's like back in the day, I remember in history class, you would learn about agriculture and how you had to plant different plants because they would take up certain nutrients out of the soil and you had to rotate your crops.

SPEAKER_01 13:13

Crop diversity. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 100%. Okay. Yep. And what I do, it's it's all organic. Like everything is organic. I'm all about building the soil. Like I really am a nerd. I have a microscope and I look underneath it and I look at like bacteria and fungi.

SPEAKER_02 13:26

You mean if somebody hires you, you go to their house and do all that?

SPEAKER_01 13:28

Or yeah, yeah. And I also do it just to study and learn.

SPEAKER_02 13:31

Because what like for like random people's yards?

SPEAKER_01 13:34

Yeah, because part of what I do with the garden nerd is I have a monthly fertilizing service where I go around and fertilize all your stuff. Oh. And so I'm constantly trying to figure out what's best to put down in people's yards to get the best results.

SPEAKER_02 13:44

Okay, so now this is split it off in other other things besides okay, so you the YouTube video goes off. Your buddy Jeremy says, You really need to start doing this. Yep. So you're still at the insurance brokerage, then what?

SPEAKER_01 13:55

So it wasn't necessarily that I ever wanted to be done with insurance, um, but it just kind of got to the point as the garden nerd started to grow. So insurance was still my full-time thing. Uh-huh. But on the weekends and in the evenings, I would go out and I would, I would consult and I would go and help people in their yard and I would even do some fertilizing.

SPEAKER_02 14:14

Were you marketing this or is just stuff that just kind of started to happen?

SPEAKER_01 14:17

It's just organic stuff. Okay. At that point, my Instagram, like we can talk about this, but as of like four weeks ago, I had like 2,000 followers. I think I'm up to like 42,000 now. It's exploded in the last month.

SPEAKER_02 14:28

Two weeks? Months? Why? What's what's happened?

SPEAKER_01 14:30

Yeah. Um congratulations, baby. Thank you. Thank you. Um, I started three months ago when the insurance brokerage sold and I was done. Uh-huh. I started just content. Yep.

SPEAKER_02 14:40

And then two videos a day. Oh, so like you have a system, no matter what, two videos a day. Most of the time. You gotta be consistent about that social media stuff.

SPEAKER_01 14:47

And then I I I found what people liked. Like I talk a lot about the heat island effect. And sorry, I know I totally derailed from where um I talked about the heat island effect. I don't know if you know what that is, and that's kind of what has really like exploded. Um, the heat island effect. So here in like Phoenix, the Phoenix metro area, it's all concrete, it's all pavement, it's all buildings, it's all fake grass, it's all like granite rock, all that stuff absorbs heat all during the day and it holds on to it. Plants push the heat away, and all that other stuff absorbs it and holds on to it. So then at 10 o'clock at night, you go outside and still 110 degrees because all that stuff is still radiating that heat at night. Okay. And so over time, it's heated up our city. Like not even talking about global warming, like going down that road, but just over time, our nighttime temperatures have greatly increased and our daytime temperatures are slowly increasing because specifically of the heat island effect.

SPEAKER_03 15:45

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 15:46

And so there's lots of stuff you can do in terms of using plants to plant things and cool down the concrete, cover the concrete, add shade.

SPEAKER_02 15:53

So we need more plants. A lot more plants. So would you say your house is cooler than my house? 100% it is. Yes. Well, because of all the plants in the backyard. I've done studies. So if you go in the backyard, it's not that tropical humid heat.

SPEAKER_01 16:04

No, no, it just cools down a little bit. I mean, we're not humid enough for it to make that big of a difference, humidity-wise, but temperature-wise, seven to fourteen degrees, depending on the day.

SPEAKER_02 16:14

Could you have come here today with a big basket of random fruit from your backyard? Or is it only is right now just bananas?

SPEAKER_01 16:21

Right now, right now, bananas, mangoes, uh, moringas, you're ripe right now that are ripe right now in your backyard? That's why I should have brought you mango. I have one sitting on my counter. That's right.

SPEAKER_02 16:30

But only one? Like you don't have 30 more.

SPEAKER_01 16:31

No, I have I have like 30 more on the tree. So they're not I pick them right when they're ripe.

SPEAKER_02 16:35

So how often are you picking it? Kind of reminds me of like uh people that have their own chickens. Yeah. You get eggs, you just go pull out of your mangoes.

SPEAKER_01 16:42

Yeah, yeah. Like I just check them every day because I know about this time of year they're getting ripe. So I'll just go around and check them.

SPEAKER_02 16:47

So you're doing this stuff, you're you're doing consulting, things start happening. So what at what point do you have to go? I'm gonna quit this insurance and I'm gonna do this full time because you've got to with your income, you probably gotta make right, right.

SPEAKER_01 17:00

Well, with the sale of the insurance brokerage, I got a little bit of money, which which helps. Um, but also I wanted to be fair to both my partners, especially the one that isn't going on in the garden nerd with us. So I didn't want to just say, hey, peace out, you know. So we it it dragged on longer than I would have liked it to. But I just I was very stressed and busy for a while, and

Turning Advice Into A Real Business

SPEAKER_01 17:20

I still am because I'm exploding on the garden nerd. But I was working two full-time jobs for like a year, just grinding it out. So that now insurance broker just sold. I have some money in the bank that'll last me a few years, but I only want to last a year using it. Um, and I'm just grinding away at the garden nerd.

SPEAKER_02 17:36

Waiting for the grant gardener to take off. But it's taken off.

SPEAKER_01 17:38

It's taken off.

SPEAKER_02 17:39

So it's a business. Like you own, like that's such a great name, the garden nerd. That wasn't taken.

SPEAKER_01 17:43

No. Well, actually, there was, but it was a website that wasn't actually functioning, working at the time. Um, and they wouldn't respond to me because I was trying to buy it. Um, but now they're they're up and running. It's yours. No. So they have the garden nerd.com on thegarden nerd.org.

SPEAKER_02 17:59

Dot org? Yeah. Doesn't that mean you have to donate or something like that? No. Dot org doesn't have to be a few.org.co dot whatever. Oh wow.

SPEAKER_01 18:07

You can buy it from GoDaddy.

SPEAKER_02 18:09

So what is your business now?

SPEAKER_01 18:11

So I do three things. I do consulting, I do planting, and I do fertilizing.

unknown 18:17

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 18:17

Those three things. Okay. But really, like my main, and I truly mean this, it's not like some cheesy like thing. My main goal and what I focus on all the time, and I believe it's why I have exploded, is just getting people excited about planting things and planting trees. I know that sounds really weird, but people love it. And I love inspiring people to go plant stuff. Do you run their garden ever? Like, is that an option? Um, no. So when I first started, I was like gonna be the best landscaper there was. And that that was my idea. I was gonna be a landscaper that knew how to actually plant things, that knew about soil, that knew how to fertilize, that knew how to trim. And then this was last summer as I was working both jobs full time, it was the middle of July. We were doing that. I was out in some guy's front yard pulling weeds at like two in the afternoon, and it was like 115 degrees. And I'm like, why, why am I doing this? Like, I have a good career in insurance. There's no reason I need to be doing this. So I called my partner right there and said, Hey, as of now, we don't do landscaping.

SPEAKER_02 19:13

So there's a line uh between landscaping and what you do because there are landscapers. Right. And yours is different, right, right.

SPEAKER_01 19:20

And landscapers, their main job, they come, they mow, they blow, they cut. Right. Right. We're a step above that. Like if you really want your stuff to look good, if you want to grow some of the more like mangoes and bananas and stuff like that that a normal landscaper isn't gonna know how to do, that's where we come in.

SPEAKER_02 19:35

How many clients do you have right now?

SPEAKER_01 19:37

Um I probably have 50 to 60. And I've done a lot more consults than than that, but like monthly reoccurring 50 to 60.

SPEAKER_02 19:46

So have you recouped your monthly salary? Are you there?

SPEAKER_01 19:49

Not yet. Not yet. But I think so I sold in April the insurance brokerage. By April I I should.

SPEAKER_02 19:54

By next April? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:56

Yeah. But I told my wife, my wife is great, she supports me. Like, this is my midlife crisis. I told her, hey, I'd rather be poor and happy than making lots of money and just dreading every day. And she's like, 100%. Let's do it.

SPEAKER_02 20:05

Yeah, but you probably won't be poor.

SPEAKER_01 20:07

I think I'll make a lot more money with this, to be honest. Do you have a crew? It's just you? Yeah, so I have two guys that go out and do the the manual labor. What's Jeremy doing? Uh, he does kind of like the back end stuff.

SPEAKER_02 20:17

Does he? So it's like you have a system, things are happening, things are taking away.

SPEAKER_01 20:20

Yes. Well, that's with the recent Instagram jumping with so many uh subscribers and like so much business coming in. I've learned I'm very disorganized. So I'm working through like trying to get organized right now because I can't even call people back right now. It takes me like a week because I'm getting so many messages, so many emails, so many.

SPEAKER_02 20:37

How are you gonna fix that?

SPEAKER_01 20:39

Um, so we we have an office admin, which is actually Jeremy's daughter, and she's I I basically just had to put things in place for her. Because right now I'm doing it all, like responding to clients and all that stuff.

SPEAKER_02 20:49

Are you gonna come up with a gardener app or something?

SPEAKER_01 20:51

Is that I I actually would like a plant identifier app and an app that like gives you instructions, like, hey, it's July, you should do this, or it's August. This is what you need to do in your yard.

SPEAKER_02 21:01

Oh, so you mean you're talking about like you you take a picture of a plant and say, What is this? Like, can you tell the plants behind you to do who they are?

SPEAKER_01 21:07

Um, some type of palm. This is bamboo. This is some type of ficus.

SPEAKER_02 21:12

Are they real? No.

SPEAKER_01 21:14

Does that offend you? It does actually. You want to know what gets good discussion online? What and I love to post about is artificial turf. Oh, yeah. I I despise artificial turf. How come? One, because of the heat island effect, it heats up like very, very hot and it releases that heat during the day, which increases the heat island effect, right? But it's also it does not allow water to penetrate and go down and and replenish the groundwater table, which is a huge issue here in Arizona with with water. And then two, it's um I'm I told you I'm all about the soil. Artificial turf is basically just toxins and plastic like poison, and it soaks down into the soil and it kills the soil. But most of that stuff is in someone's backyard. What do they need the soil for? I mean, so There's this thing called desertification. And it's basically where good quality land full of life, like fertile life, it goes away in the in the the the soil just turns to complete dust. Right. And every single year, the world loses the equivalent of Arizona and Texas in terms of desertification. So like the Sahara Desert in Africa, it's slowly but surely creeping down and becoming more and more desert, just sand, just lifeless sand. And so that's what's like heating the earth, heating the world, not allowing us to grow certain things, making the quality of our food be horrible because the soil's dying. But if you allow even residential areas for that to happen from yard to yard to yard to yard, it just increases that desertification process.

SPEAKER_02 22:43

Dang. What do you think about like when you're heading to Yuma, past Yuma, all those sand dunes?

SPEAKER_01 22:47

Yeah. Yeah, that's not natural. That's not natural? No. That's desertification. So there's this thing called the Great Green Wall in Africa. And it's where I said the Sahara is slowly becoming desertified and just creeping down.

Soil Biology And Better Tasting Fruit

SPEAKER_01 23:00

So all of these tribes in Africa across the whole continent, so all these different countries, they're going out in a line and they're digging these swells. It's like U-shaped things that capture the water. So when the water, when it rains, and it rarely rains, but when it rains, the water slopes down the hill and these U-shaped things catch the water. And then the water goes down into the soil and it's and it stays there. Yes. And then they plant native trees along the U so that the trees can grow up. So over time, now the water is really stopping and other things are able to grow there. And you can see on satellite images and pictures where they literally are stopping the desert from spreading by doing that across the whole continent. Wow, I'd like to see that. It's crazy. And they're doing it in China, they've done it in Saudi Arabia, different places.

SPEAKER_02 23:45

So there's something else we have to worry about. Thanks.

SPEAKER_01 23:46

Yeah, sorry.

SPEAKER_02 23:47

Well, the thing is with artificial turf, is like now that I'm all into trying to be as healthy as I can, and I never, you know, I'm I'm trying to stay away from plastics. Right. Never thought about artificial turf. But artificial turf, I think a lot of people put it in because they think they're saving water because we live in the desert. Yes. Right. So it's like today, I'll give you an example. Um, we have real grass in our front yard, and the dude down the corner in our house is one of those uh, what do you call it, Blake? Irrigation. So he floods his house with water, right? And it's like, man, it's summertime. He's wasting all this water. What are you doing? Yeah. Whereas if he had artificial turf, wouldn't need the water. So it's like it's like, how do you know what's the right thing to do?

SPEAKER_01 24:27

I talk about that a lot. Um so, first of all, that flood irrigation, it comes, it doesn't come from the Colorado, which is where we're having all our issues. It comes from the Salt River. Um, it's very cheap and it's very, if it, if they don't use it, it just floods down and washes away, anyways. But that's besides the point. So a lot of people always say, you know, you put down concrete, you put down asphalt, you put down the artificial turf because it doesn't cost water. But long term, you know, I talked about the heat island effect. I don't know if you did you grow up here?

SPEAKER_02 24:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:54

Okay. You remember the monsoons people always talk about? Almost every afternoon in the summer, the monsoons would would roll in. And now it seems like we can see them building up over there, but then they kind of like disperse and go around us.

SPEAKER_02 25:03

Yeah, it kind of happened last night.

SPEAKER_01 25:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:05

It's because of the heat island effect. That's the main contributor. Bypassing the city because of all the concrete, all that heat radiating hits it and it goes around it. In addition to that, yeah. And so that's costing us water right there because of all of that stuff. Right. And then in addition to that, we're killing the soil life, like I said. And so the water that does fall, it just runs right off. It gets polluted by toxins and stuff, and it goes right into the stormwater and it washes away instead of going into the groundwater table and replenishing the aquifers.

SPEAKER_02 25:36

Dude, you got a lot of information that I mean, I I'm making a prediction here that you'll probably never come back on my podcast again because you're probably going to blow up and be huge. I could see you going on the that guy in London, the the the what's it called? The diary of a CEO and all these. Oh, that guy, yeah. I've never seen this type of interview before or this type of subject before. Maybe I'm I'm No, not many people talk about it. Oh, you see, I'm wearing green. I was doing it for the garden. You think I would think you'd have a green shirt on, but green and the blue. Yeah, you're blue. What's blue?

SPEAKER_01 26:06

I have all different colors. Yeah, not many.

SPEAKER_02 26:11

So is there somebody in your field that is like your idol that you look up to?

SPEAKER_01 26:16

Um, yeah. You know Dave the Garden guy? No. You don't know Dave the Garden guy?

SPEAKER_02 26:21

Do you guys know Dave the Garden guy? You do?

SPEAKER_01 26:24

He's he was on 3TV all my childhood. Okay, okay. Right. And I think I mentioned when I messaged you, I have a monthly segment on 3TV. I just did it this morning. Oh, okay. Um how long have you been doing that? About a year. Oh, wow. Just go on once a month and just talk about today. I talked about house plants. That's cool.

SPEAKER_02 26:40

Good for them for getting all over you.

SPEAKER_01 26:41

That's a great idea. Yeah, they're awesome. Yeah. Um, and so I always watched him. He has a book. I like have his book, I read his book often. Um, and I've met him a few times. And really, the only reason I shouldn't say the only reason, I love doing the news because it's what he used to do, and now I'm doing it. And I loved watching him my whole childhood. That's is he still around? He does a few segments here and there, but not much. But he's still alive. Oh, yeah, he's still alive. He's not in the garden. No, he's not composting feeding plants.

SPEAKER_02 27:13

Are there any good uh garden jokes? I was thinking because as far as plants go in my house, for me at least, you know, I feel like I'm more treating them like that, like I'm a hospice. I take care of their plant hospice, like they're not, they don't really survive.

SPEAKER_01 27:27

They don't. And that's actually a huge thing as well. Like the majority of plants are not landscapers have their place, and I don't want to be a landscaper. I'm not trying to take their jobs, right? Like we talked about, but they don't have a lot of knowledge. They plant things incorrectly, they prune things incorrectly, they kill a lot of plants.

SPEAKER_02 27:45

But where did you get your expertise though? Well, what makes you the expert besides just experience? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:49

Yeah. So I would go to school. I've taken courses. So I went to school, nothing in relation to that. Um, I did the Master Gardener's course. So I took that a few years ago. So I'm a Master Gardener. Um, and I took a soil microbiology class um from a professor at Oregon State. Um, and right now I'm taking an ASU course. It's called biomimicry, where they like teach you how to use biology and nature to learn.

SPEAKER_02 28:14

Did you go to Oregon State or do it online?

SPEAKER_01 28:16

No, online. Online.

SPEAKER_02 28:17

Where do you grew up here though?

SPEAKER_01 28:18

Yeah, I grew up here.

SPEAKER_02 28:19

Where were you at high school?

SPEAKER_01 28:20

Mesa High.

SPEAKER_02 28:21

Jackrabbit?

SPEAKER_01 28:21

Yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_02 28:22

On the channel.

SPEAKER_01 28:23

Oh, you did?

SPEAKER_02 28:24

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 28:24

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 28:25

This is so interesting to me, this whole thing, how it's blown up for you.

SPEAKER_01 28:28

It's it's crazy. Like literally w one or two videos on Instagram. Like I do all reels now because I found that's what Instagram likes.

SPEAKER_02 28:36

Reals? Just reels. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:37

Yeah. I just had one dumb, like spur of the moment video where I was out picking a peach off of my tree, and I just pulled out my phone and I was like, hey, do you know wanna know what the biggest flex a human can do is growing their own food and eating it? And that video just took off.

SPEAKER_02 28:51

You just made it up right there. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:53

Yeah. And it was literally like 30 seconds long and it just took off. And then from there, it's interesting, like playing with the algorithm with Instagram and and YouTube, like you can literally just try something, see what works, and it's like, oh, that kind of worked. Let me try that again. And then it's like, oh, that worked. And then you just slowly,

Heat Island Effect And Cooling Yards

SPEAKER_01 29:10

and then you're like, oh, that didn't work. So don't do that part again. And you can just see as you post different videos and they take off quicker. You can see what works and you just cool replicate that.

SPEAKER_02 29:19

I don't know how to do all that. I just post and post and post. And then I see my followers go down and then I post and I post. I just post whatever I and I gotta figure that out because I think it's more important now than ever for like my job, your job. Yeah, stay connected. By the way, I got a DM from your sister. Your sister messaged me today and said, Hey, you're talking to my brother on your podcast today. And so I looked at her Instagram. That's hilarious. She had some some sort of tallow, beef tallow company or something. What is she? Is she in the meat world?

SPEAKER_01 29:49

No, that's for her son who has like some skin thing where rubbing beef tallow on it. I I don't I don't know all the details.

SPEAKER_02 29:56

Oh, because I thought maybe you're the plant guy and she's the she's the meat person on top. Man, give me some of that uh grass-fed organic cow meat.

SPEAKER_01 30:03

No, don't do any of that.

SPEAKER_02 30:04

Are your parents still around?

SPEAKER_01 30:06

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:06

And what do they think about this career change for you?

SPEAKER_01 30:08

They think it's awesome. Um, my both my grandmas are still around too. And my grandma's like, you know, nobody watches the news anymore except old people.

unknown 30:17

Right.

SPEAKER_01 30:18

I shouldn't say that because I go on news.

SPEAKER_02 30:20

No, no, let me tell you something. I I have a segment of channel three as well, too. Uh-huh. And whenever I'm around somewhere where there's some pretty old people and they look at me funny and they say, I know you from somewhere, I'm like, do you watch channel three?

SPEAKER_01 30:33

Yes, that's how you know. So my grandmas love it. Like they love the fact that I'm on the news.

SPEAKER_02 30:38

Um have they made any pies from your bananas? It'd be great to have a home.

SPEAKER_01 30:42

You know, so my mother-in-law lives around the corner from me and she loves to cook. It's the best relationship. So I grow stuff and then I just bring it to her house and she returns it to me. Like I grow a lot of uh peppers, jalapeno, she'll turn it into like hot sauce, she'll turn it into jam.

SPEAKER_02 30:58

Oh, it's not just fruit.

SPEAKER_01 30:58

No.

SPEAKER_02 30:59

You're doing all kinds of stuff.

SPEAKER_01 31:00

Yeah, yeah. I give her broccoli, she brings me back like a broccoli casserole.

SPEAKER_02 31:04

What about? I mean, I I think I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't ask you about like, you know, weed and marijuana and stuff like that. You grow that stuff too?

SPEAKER_01 31:10

I don't. You technically can now in Arizona. Just can't go over the fence line. It's pretty tough to grow it outside. You have to put it in the right spot. Oh, right. Um, but I I don't. I actually would like to try just to just to try. Just to try.

SPEAKER_02 31:24

But no, I I I haven't. Um, Blake, what questions did you have? Did you want to sit down and ask him a question? Could you? Instead of doing it off there and talking to the talking to the rest of the audience, our in-studio audience, Tyler. Okay, this is my wife, Blake. Yeah, yeah. She's our garden person.

SPEAKER_00 31:43

My mother was a green thumb, like even like singing to her plants, and every Thursday was like take care of the garden day, like for real. That's cool. She was really good at it.

SPEAKER_01 31:53

From was she here?

SPEAKER_00 31:54

She lived in Phoenix for a long time and then lived in San Diego for a long time. Okay. But yeah, she was, and even like when she lived in San Diego and she lived like in a condo, she had like her whole patio was all plants, and love it. That she was just a very happy plant person. Um, but back to Dominican Republic. Uh-huh. Were you on a mission? Yes. Okay. So our son's best friend is on a mission there right now. Oh, really? Yeah, he's a year in.

SPEAKER_01 32:20

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 32:20

Yeah. And is that where you learned?

SPEAKER_01 32:23

That's that's where I was you found your passion. Yeah, you like lived there for two years. Lived there for two years. Yeah. Yeah, like with the locals.

SPEAKER_02 32:30

Like good, a good catch. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:32

So I think what's amazing is so many people that go on missions. Like, we know somebody who started a pest control company from going on a mission because of knocking on doors and asking for people to join the church. And he had a very successful business and sold.

SPEAKER_02 32:48

He just sold it for 80 million.

SPEAKER_00 32:49

Yeah. It was amazing. So I love it.

SPEAKER_01 32:53

One day of the garden nerd.

SPEAKER_00 32:54

Yeah. Right. So, um, anyway, so I was interested in that. And yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:59

And well, I thought you had something to say about.org.

SPEAKER_00 33:02

Oh, the dot. Well, I thought that.org was interesting because we have lovepup foundation.org and we have the johnjane rich love up foundation.org, but they're both foundations, they're both nonprofit.

SPEAKER_01 33:15

So that's originally how it started. Interesting. Like back when they did it, but now you go to GoDaddy and you can any any dot you can you can buy.

SPEAKER_02 33:23

Oh, that's are you gonna come up with little characters like uh I feel like like a garden gnome? I've thought of that, yeah. You thought of that? The garden nerd? I mean, it's uh like I need a great name.

SPEAKER_01 33:33

I I need something physical that I can sell. I've still been trying to figure out what that is. Um like a bobblehead, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:40

Or like no, dude, hold on. You need a garden nude garden nerd chia pet. That would be cool, actually. Yes, yeah. Maybe you can somehow commission your make those. They do.

SPEAKER_00 33:53

Yeah, yeah, they do. You can have I actually looked into it once.

SPEAKER_02 33:57

You need a hook, you need to have your hair out like this so that people can well, you got a hook, you got a great name and you got a great product. You know, here's the thing you've got a great personality, and I think that is contagious and it makes you very likable. Yeah, you know, like when you DM'd me and I looked at your stuff, I was like, this guy's great. So it's like, I mean, you've got a huge future, man. Thank you. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 34:16

I I actually looked at those geopets to have one made of you and Rich after we got hair transplants. No, hair plugged. No, but I just thought it was so funny that they do um personalized. Yeah, that's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_02 34:31

I had people on the show. I said I'm interviewing the garden nerd uh and I said, um I said, Can you give me some questions? Okay, what's the easiest fruit or vegetable anyone in Arizona can grow?

SPEAKER_01 34:42

So if you want to have a good fruit tree, easy fruit tree, either mulberry or peach. Very easy.

SPEAKER_02 34:49

Really? That's why a lot of these farms have peaches. Yeah, like for Tuccio farms.

SPEAKER_01 34:52

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:54

What's the number one mistake homeowners make with their lawns and trees? Not watering correctly. Correctly? Yes. So is it early morning?

SPEAKER_01 35:02

Um, early morning, but also lots of people water very quickly and frequently. So they water like five minutes every day. And when you water that shallow, the roots, the water only penetrates like that much, right? So the roots of the plant only go down that far because that's where all the water is. So then when it's 115 degrees and the sun is shining on the soil,

Why Artificial Turf Makes Things Worse

SPEAKER_01 35:20

it's like a hundred degrees right there and the roots just fry. But if you water only like once a week for a long period of time, then the water penetrates super deep and then the roots go down.

SPEAKER_02 35:29

So like irrigation. It's a bet it's an argument for irrigation. Yes. Can you actually water too much in the desert? You can. If someone has a hundred dollars to improve their yard, how should they spend it?

SPEAKER_01 35:40

Add mulch to your yard. Really? Yes, cools it down instantly. No, it doesn't add more scorpions. There's studies that have been shown, doesn't add more scorpions, cools everything down.

SPEAKER_00 35:50

Even during the summer?

SPEAKER_01 35:51

Yeah. Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_00 35:53

Because they usually don't add mulch to our yard till October.

SPEAKER_01 35:56

Yeah, no, you can do it at any time. So I did a video. I go around, that's why I brought this. It's like a temperature gun. So I go around and I do videos of different surfaces in the heat that they retain. In the middle of the day, the sun was shining on the mulch in my front yard. It was 106 degrees. I went back at 10 o'clock at night, 68 degrees. Or maybe it was even 62, but it cools everything down.

SPEAKER_02 36:15

So cover it in mulch?

SPEAKER_01 36:17

Yeah, like bare dirt, soil should never be bare. That's that's when you're desertifying.

SPEAKER_02 36:23

When you have grass, yeah. Cover that in mulch?

SPEAKER_01 36:25

No, not grass. Not grass. I'm talking about just like bare soil. If you're just trying to improve your overall yard, and if you have any types of bare soil, do we have mulch? We have rocks on all our right. What do you think about that? It's hot. It is hot. It's hot and it kills the soil underneath it.

SPEAKER_00 36:41

Yeah, he doesn't like the rocks, so he'd hate our backyard. We'd be in so much trouble. Although we do have three fruit trees. Do you have a just got we have a tangerine tree, a grapefruit tree, and a lemon tree. Okay. And we just got them.

SPEAKER_02 36:54

So they're like, we haven't eaten anything yet, though.

SPEAKER_00 36:58

Like a mango tree.

SPEAKER_02 36:58

Can you show us how to grow mango? Can you give me mango tree?

SPEAKER_01 37:01

I grow mangoes from seed. I have a seedling.

SPEAKER_02 37:03

I would love a mango tree in a grass. I love mango. How many mangoes grow in one tree?

SPEAKER_01 37:07

I mean, once they're ripe, you get dozens every one time? Every summer, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:11

Every so they'd be in the summertime.

SPEAKER_01 37:13

Summertime is when they go ripe. Yep.

SPEAKER_02 37:14

Okay. Tomatoes or citrus?

SPEAKER_01 37:16

Um, citrus.

SPEAKER_02 37:18

Grass or desert landscaping?

SPEAKER_01 37:20

Desert landscaping, but not the way people think desert landscaping is, which is a bunch of rock and just a couple cactus.

SPEAKER_02 37:25

You like natural the way it is out there? Okay. Yes. Compost or fertilizer?

SPEAKER_01 37:30

Um, compost.

SPEAKER_02 37:31

Best smelling plant.

SPEAKER_01 37:34

The crayon soap. That's you know when the rain comes in and you smell that smell of the desert. That's that plant.

SPEAKER_00 37:41

What's it called?

SPEAKER_01 37:42

Crayol soap, C-R-E-O-S-O-T-E.

SPEAKER_02 37:45

What's the hardest plant to keep alive in Arizona?

SPEAKER_01 37:48

Hardest plant. So I've probably avocado. Really? I've I have two avocados growing right now, but never produce fruit. It's tough enough just to keep them alive. Really?

SPEAKER_00 37:58

Did you get the avocado from the seed?

SPEAKER_01 38:01

From a seed. I have done that, but these two that are living currently no.

SPEAKER_02 38:04

Did you do that thing where you put them the toothpicks in the water and then that's how you do it? Yeah. What's the most overrated plant?

SPEAKER_01 38:10

Um that's a oh, ficus. They call them the Hollywood hedge.

SPEAKER_02 38:16

Yeah. Is talking to your plants actually beneficial?

SPEAKER_01 38:20

Um touching them is like scientifically studied to be beneficial. Really? I always thought you're not supposed to touch them.

SPEAKER_00 38:27

Like pat out.

SPEAKER_01 38:28

Touching them, just touching, being in nature, touching them and touching the soil.

SPEAKER_00 38:31

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 38:32

Like there is proven scientifically, there is this bacteria in soil and around plants that when it touches you, it's like a natural antidepressant.

SPEAKER_02 38:41

For you, for the human. For the human. Yes. Well, that's why they talk about um oh my god, what's that called? Grounding. Yes. You're being barefoot walking around.

SPEAKER_00 38:49

Wait, though, I have to tell them about my science project. When I was in like sixth grade, uh-huh, we we had a we had a board and we had like, I can't remember what the plants were, but we had like little plants and we would play rock music really loud. And then we play jazz music. And we did all this stuff. And the the plants that had the jazz music and the lower level music grew better.

SPEAKER_01 39:12

Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, Zach Bushman, he has a he talks all about health stuff. Um, he talked about talks about this study. Plants, your house plants, other plants, they can sense you coming from hundreds of yards away as their caretaker. Like the person that waters them and takes care of them, they like hook up things to the plants and they send out different signals, like happy signals. When they sense you coming, like you're gone at work and you're coming home, they sense you. It's crazy.

SPEAKER_02 39:40

So they must sense when you're gonna pull it off the tree and eat it, murder it.

SPEAKER_00 39:44

And then they're bombed. They're like ice cubes. I'm taking the fruit, I'm not murdering it.

SPEAKER_02 39:49

Does putting ice cubes on plants help?

SPEAKER_01 39:52

Um, sometimes people do it for like house plants to slowly let the water trickle and not but no other benefit than that.

SPEAKER_02 39:58

What about coffee grounds? Great. It is good for you to so don't throw them away or whatever.

SPEAKER_01 40:02

No, don't throw them down around your plants.

SPEAKER_02 40:03

Like around your plants in a front yard or just wherever, you put them in the grass.

SPEAKER_01 40:07

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 40:07

Is organic always better?

SPEAKER_01 40:09

Always, yes.

SPEAKER_00 40:11

What does organic really mean?

SPEAKER_01 40:13

So to me, organic means things that leaves, plant or leaves, uh grass clippings, um, food waste, basically anything that comes from nature.

SPEAKER_03 40:25

Right.

SPEAKER_01 40:26

When you're talking about like organic garden, like something has to be like certified organic.

SPEAKER_00 40:30

Yeah, I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 40:30

There's like 15 different that's why I always wondered.

SPEAKER_00 40:33

Like, you know, uh, do you need to eat an organic banana?

SPEAKER_01 40:38

So I just think organ, like I grow everything organic in my yard, like I use the compost and things like that. But because I tell people it's not because I'm like some hippie, but because it's so much easier long term to grow things and the taste of the fruit and the vegetables so much better.

SPEAKER_02 40:53

What about all the uh insecticides and the wheat and stuff? How do you handle that at your house?

SPEAKER_01 40:59

So

Fast Tips On Watering Mulch Plants

SPEAKER_01 41:00

back when I was doing like solar biology and like going down all these rabbit holes about soil science and stuff, basically the science says if you don't do anything, nature balances out. So for like every bad bug, there's like 2,000 good bugs. But if you're always spraying all the bad bugs, you're also killing all the good bugs. So then when the bad bad bad bugs come, none of the good guys can come and kill the bad guys. So you have to keep spraying. So it's like a self-fulfilling like cycle. That makes perfect sense. But if you don't do anything, it balances out.

SPEAKER_02 41:28

So you don't do anything.

SPEAKER_01 41:29

So five years ago, I decided I'm not gonna do anything at all. And for the first two years, a lot of my crops got destroyed. I had lots of pests, but I just stuck with it. And now nature has balanced out. I do nothing.

SPEAKER_02 41:38

And everything's perfect.

SPEAKER_01 41:39

Everything's perfect.

SPEAKER_02 41:40

Is there a bug that if you see you freak out about? Like, oh no, um in a good way or a bad way?

SPEAKER_01 41:45

Um, squash bugs, those will like decimate your squash zucchini in like two days.

SPEAKER_02 41:51

Is that something we would all know what they look like?

SPEAKER_01 41:53

Um, if you see them crawling all over your squash plant, that's that's what they are.

SPEAKER_02 41:57

And you've had them?

SPEAKER_01 41:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:58

How do they know to find your squash?

SPEAKER_01 42:00

I that's a good question.

SPEAKER_02 42:01

They just know the gardener, it's got squash. Let's go.

SPEAKER_01 42:04

They just know. What about good bugs? Pray mantis.

SPEAKER_02 42:08

Oh, I saw the video. You're all excited you found a prey mantis. Yes. How come? Why pray mantis?

SPEAKER_01 42:12

They're one of the good guys. They kill lots and lots and lots of pests for you. Them and ladybugs and lace wings. They kill all the bad stuff for you.

unknown 42:21

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 42:21

I haven't seen ladybugs in so long.

SPEAKER_02 42:23

Remember when landed on me?

SPEAKER_00 42:25

I know the other day it landed on you, and I think that's good luck.

SPEAKER_01 42:27

It probably is.

SPEAKER_00 42:28

Yeah. You know what? I thought of another idea for you for um for you to sell. You know those things that you put the water in to see how much water needs to be in the plant?

SPEAKER_01 42:38

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 42:38

Like that could be total gardener. It could, you know, check your water.

SPEAKER_01 42:42

Yeah. I I want to find so on my news segment this morning, I talked about house plants using self-watering plants because it makes it so much easier.

SPEAKER_00 42:50

That'd be cool.

SPEAKER_01 42:51

And I want to find like some person that's manufactured them, but they just don't have good marketing and they want to team up with me and like they could be gardener like pots.

SPEAKER_00 42:59

What if you teamed up with the dog, you know, the dog food or the dog water or the cat water, one of those companies, because they automatic feed.

SPEAKER_01 43:06

Yeah, that's that's smart actually.

SPEAKER_00 43:07

Go outside of the plant world and do that. That's such a great idea when you're out of town. Because you know, people like in Arizona, they leave for months at a time during the summer, and you have a self-right.

SPEAKER_01 43:20

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 43:20

And watering plant.

SPEAKER_01 43:21

That's the number one complaint about house plants is I don't know if I'm watering too much or too little. But without you don't have to worry about it. Yeah, you get a self, so easyplant.com, they sell those pots for you. They're the best I found. And that's what I have in my house. Fill it up once a month, don't touch it, it gets the exact right amount of water.

SPEAKER_02 43:39

How do you water all the trees and stuff in your backyard?

SPEAKER_01 43:42

So for the most part, I have automated irrigation. Um, but there are some things like in my garden beds where I grow vegetables that I hand water. So when I go out of town, I get a nephew or someone that just comes in water. So interesting.

SPEAKER_00 43:54

Do you have dogs and cats?

SPEAKER_01 43:55

I have two dogs, two malty poos.

SPEAKER_00 43:57

Do they like to eat the they don't, luckily? Luckily.

SPEAKER_01 44:00

I teach like when I when I first got them as puppies, I was like on them.

SPEAKER_00 44:04

Boys or girls.

SPEAKER_01 44:05

Um, one boy and one girl.

SPEAKER_00 44:07

So does the boy pee on your stuff?

SPEAKER_01 44:08

Yes, he does. How does that work out? She's the dog nerd. I can tell she knows. Um, so I've just learned to place things in places where he doesn't like to pee on them. But yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:22

Yeah, little dogs do that. We have a couple of those.

SPEAKER_02 44:24

Can you believe he didn't bring us any fruit?

SPEAKER_00 44:26

I know.

SPEAKER_01 44:27

I know.

SPEAKER_02 44:27

I'd also like my own garden nerd t-shirt.

SPEAKER_01 44:30

So next time, I don't know. It's when you're in my area and I'm in your area, you will get all of that. What size do you wear though?

SPEAKER_02 44:36

What's up? What size? Um, I'm a I was a 2X. Now I think I'm an XL, but I've been flying. So I bought an someone sent me an XL jacket the other day, and I I could barely zip it. So I don't know, probably 2x, but you don't have to. I'm just kidding. Um, all right. So how do people get a hold of you? What are some of your social media handles and whatnot on YouTube channel?

SPEAKER_01 44:55

Uh The Garden Nerd on Instagram. Um, if you search on YouTube, same thing, the Garden Nerd, you'll see my face. Um, thegarden nerd.org, which tells about all my services if you want to check that out. So those are the main things. Well, good.

SPEAKER_00 45:07

I got one more idea for you. Go ahead. You should have your mother-in-law show showcase all the food that she makes from your backyard.

SPEAKER_02 45:15

That is a great idea to show the food because those food things blow up. They do, yeah. Those food so good. Those food people, yeah. I know I want to do it.

SPEAKER_00 45:22

And that makes me want to have a garden and do all the things.

SPEAKER_02 45:26

I had someone message me one time, and I I thought after talking to you, it was you, that

How To Follow The Garden Nerd

SPEAKER_02 45:30

said they do gardens and they wanted to put a garden in her house and they would take care of it. That's probably Greeny's garden. Is it?

SPEAKER_01 45:36

Does that ring a bell? I don't know. Okay. They go around, all they do is build garden, raise garden beds.

SPEAKER_02 45:40

But then they also take care of it because I was like, I'm gonna take care of it. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 45:44

See, I could take care of it. I kind of am interested in something like that because we have so many dogs. Like, I just can't imagine.

SPEAKER_01 45:50

I mean it's tough with dogs in my garden beds. Yeah. Yeah. You could build them up and put some security, but then it's just annoying for you to have to go in there and take care of it.

SPEAKER_00 45:59

I remember when my dad, my dad growing up, always had a little vegetable garden and the carrots would be like down in the thing, and we would pull the carrots out and wash them in the pool and eat them.

SPEAKER_01 46:10

Nothing better. Do you do carrots too? Do you have carrots? Yeah, carrots are great. So I'm a picky eater. I go to the like to a restaurant and I say a cheeseburger, no lettuce or tomato, because it tastes horrible to me. Oh in my own garden. I'll be mowing my yard on a Saturday, see a fresh tomato, I'll eat it like an apple. Yeah, the taste is night and day.

SPEAKER_02 46:27

Dude, you are so interesting. You gotta shift things. Well, thanks for coming by, being on our podcast. Thank you. Yeah, that was great. I'm glad you reached out to me and I wish you massive success. Thank you. It's gonna be fun to watch because I think it's coming your way big time. Love it. Thank you. All right, thanks. Yep. Okay, so welcome to our podcast. This is a little bit different today because this podcast is a spin-off of our radio show.