Hurry Up and Grow with Erin Schanen | The Beet

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Well, and I think the lesson is that it doesn't matter.

You know, just go out there and go out there and do it.

I mean, what's your, what you're out a little bit of time?

You're out a few, a few bucks.

Big deal, moving on.

You know, try, you know, try it a different way.

It, I think if people get too caught up in the idea of what if I, what if I screw it up?

Well, yeah, you're gonna.

So if you're not screwing it up, you're not doing it, right?

So it's my theory.

Just get out there and be ready to screw it up.

You'll figure it out.

Welcome back to the beat podcast.

I'm your host today, Jacques.

And today we're speaking with Aaron Shannon, the inpatient gardener,

which I really like that name.

Maybe we'll dig into that a little bit.

But she's a great person.

We actually got to work together up in Maine on this Home Depot project.

And she's always been a great time.

I love chatting with you, Aaron.

So today, I'm very excited to talk to you.

Why don't you give everyone a little background and like where you're growing,

what zone you're in and sort of what style of gardener, I guess,

if you want to define yourself?

Well, hi, Jacques.

Thanks for having me.

Nice to see you again, although virtually this time.

So I live in Southeastern Wisconsin.

I am kind of on the borderline between zone 5B and 6A.

The USD Hardiness Zone map in 223.

Bumped me up to a zone 6A.

It is a highly questionable like like every gardener,

I approach those zone changes with a lot of trepidation and suspicion, frankly.

So, but I live here, I'm a few hundred feet from Lake Michigan,

which provides an interesting microclimate here.

And I do all kinds of gardening.

I grow vegetables.

I do all kinds of, I love container gardening.

I do all kinds of different styles of gardening from kind of a kind of over-the-top

cottage style garden to, I've got another portion of my garden that's quite naturalistic.

So I kind of do whatever kind of gardening I feel like doing,

and I find a way to make them all work together.

Yeah, I have to say I really do love your garden.

Whenever I see watch your videos, I love how

full and layered and sort of multicolored.

Like, there's so much going on that I, for me, I'm pretty much a straight up vegetable

gardener. Like, I grow fruit trees, vegetables, some regular flowers,

like none of the more bespoke stuff, like things that I can't pronounce the name of.

But whenever I see your garden, I'm like, wow, like,

to me, I look at that and I have to think that's a product of some level of time, right?

Like, you've really grown into that space through the years.

Because that's always been one of these tricky things for me when I look at a really beautiful,

I don't want to, like, I'll call it ornamental garden style.

Like, the plants are so big and they look like they fit so well together.

That can't be something that you just kind of figured out at the beginning, right?

Like, for us vegetable gardeners, how does that process work through

when you're building out a beautiful space like that?

Oh gosh, you know, it's, so I've been gardening in this space for 23 years.

It is my first, it's my first and only garden that I've like proper garden that I've ever had.

So it's kind of shocking to go back and look at old pictures. I've been kind of

going back to the years and I don't even have pictures from the very beginning because it

wasn't a thing I was even doing. But it is shocking to see how much it has changed,

even though those changes feel like they've been kind of incremental.

It's really, every time it gets better, there are some spaces, there's a few portions of the garden

that have had complete revamps, probably three times, I would say. Every time it gets better,

but you know, there is definitely some of that, especially like that, that kind of layered look.

Some of that is definitely just being in a, it's the, it's the upside of being in a pretty mature

garden, I think. And it's not always for the best. Sometimes I look at it and go, oh, wow,

we let things go a little, a little long here. And so always a little bit of tweaking, but

it is, it's shocking to me to look back and see when I do get those glimpses of where it came from.

I'm like, wow, it's so much better now. I mean, I think that's really cool. Just the idea of

being comfortable with and expecting to just entirely change the space, even though you've been

there for 23 years doing these like major changes in the garden. I'm sure like, is that something

that like you've had a nagging feeling like, oh, really, just something about the space I don't like,

or is it just like, you know what, I'm going a totally different approach. I just want to change

this whole area up. Most of the time, it's, it's the first of those. In fact, I've just been working

on kind of a design. And you know, I think when, because my process has been to create a garden that

is far bigger than that, God forbid I ever try to sell this house because, because nobody else

wants what I, the kind of labor that I have created here. But because there's so many different

spots in the garden, it's pretty easy to avert my eyes and just kind of pay attention to the

part that I'm liking the most. So every once in a while, you turn around and you come back. And I do

think that because I make these videos on YouTube and share my garden and Instagram and other places,

it does force you to take a look at your garden that I probably would otherwise just kind of have

the blinders on to. And every once in a while, I turn around and go, oh, that, that doesn't really work

at all. So these days, I'm doing more tweaking of areas. And it's almost always for the better.

But there's this one little area I created it in 2011. And I'm trying to redo, it's a small

little section I'm redoing. It's probably, it's like maybe 15 feet by 10 feet or so is just

this part of it that I'm redoing. So it's a totally manageable project. But I went back to the

original drawings that I have from when I first did that that garden. And I'm like, oh, I didn't

actually ever have a real plan for this whole garden. I had the major pieces in. And then I guess

I thought I was just going to wing it the rest of the way, which is one of the things I've learned

is that I don't, the winging yet almost never works from a cohesive standpoint. So I'm going to

unwind it a little bit this year and actually fix just this section of it that is, it's gone,

it's gone rogue on me. So I mean, I think as gardeners, we probably all have at least one spot

where we're like, you know, there's plants there. It's like a live, but I'm not, I'm not really

feeling it. Maybe I'll get to that eventually. I definitely have a couple corners of my yard

that I've been pushing off and ignoring that I like some of them are like I have a bird of paradise

that I would have to like entirely dig out, which means that I know I'm going to have to get like a

pickaxe be there for probably a couple weekends. And so I've just kind of been avoiding it. But yeah,

like it's it's fun to evolve the space like that. And especially as you're working in a mature

garden, like I guess it also kind of gives you a project. Like I think we're all as gardeners,

I think we're all licking for a project in the end of the day. Like we're probably never going to

be satisfied with our space anyway. It's the nature of the beast. Absolutely. Yes, it's always

going to change. So my question for you is when you have those little corners, what is the

breaking point for you? What is the thing that makes you finally go, oh my god, I can't stand on

it. Why don't you just go after it? So usually it's funny. It's as you know, we both make YouTube

videos about gardening. And for me, it's like I get to this day where I'm like, I need to do something,

but I also don't feel like filming. And so I tend to do those big projects off camera and just be like,

oh, like guys, I did this thing here. And it's just like I need I just need like a moment to just

like really get in there and garden. So it's I usually kind of leave them aside. And like when I

have a breaking point like where I'm just like, I need to do something outside. I don't really like

want to film it. And this like isn't that important. It's just like a lot of hard work. I just go

and do that. And it kind of like gets it like gets the gardening like bug that I just needed like to

scratch. I just needed to do something, but I didn't feel like recording it. So that's usually my

breaking point. I kind of leave them, especially a little projects for when I really feel like,

I need to burn some energy. And I don't really want to feel like recording it.

It is interesting. I find myself doing a little bit of that same thing. There is something

freeing about. And by the way, efficient because yeah. Oh yeah. And you can move so much quicker

when you're not worrying about filming something. There is something freeing about being like,

it doesn't matter how I don't have to worry about a camera angle. I don't have to I can just get

in there, make a mess of this. And no one will know unless I come back later on and show them the

ugly bits of it. But it's a funny thing because like sometimes people are like, how long how much

time do you spend in your garden? I'm like, it's hard for me to answer that because if I'm filming,

like it might take me four hours to plant a single fruit tree. It's not like it should take me four

hours to plant a fruit tree. It's probably something I could do and well under an hour without a

problem. So it is one of those things where it's fun. I still enjoy it because I think in the end

of the day for doing this, we enjoy teaching. That's part of it. And so, but yeah, like they're just

times where you just need to get out there and just need to get your hands dirty and not worry about

the consequences or what you're trying to do. I am curious on your end, you've been in this space

for 23 years. Did you garden before that or did you have like some connection to gardening that

really like made you want to do this or is it just like, I have the space like I need to do

something and you just started gardening then. Like a lot of people, I grew up, my mom was a

gardener and she came from a family of gardeners. So I grew up around gardens and not necessarily

participating in it that much, but having that concept of it and understanding it. And it wasn't

until I got my first apartment out of college after college that I thought, oh, I should get a

plant or something. And you know, I look back at some of those things and like, I think, yeah,

I made the same, just you screw it all up. And that's fine. It was fun. And you know, I grew a

pepper in a pot on a roof and a squirrel took it and, okay, well, that was my first pepper. That

was probably the first thing I ever grew for myself and then the squirrel ate it. And then I moved

into a different apartment and there was a little terrible, awful depressing balcony. So I've

got off with a window box and well, it was on the north side of the building. So that worked up,

right? And there was another apartment along the way. And it was the apartment that I lived in

before this house and it had a nice little patio. And that is where the gardening bug kind of went

crazy with me. And I filled up that entire patio with containers of vegetables and I mean,

anything I could grow. I just jammed it in there. And my now husband said, time goes, I think we

need to find a place where you can have more plants because we cannot use the patio right now.

So that's how we started looking for looking for a house and eventually ended up at this one.

So it was definitely a gradual, a gradual process. And then we moved into this house and I had no

idea how to garden in the ground whatsoever. I had no, I mean, other than the little bit, I,

you know, fortunately, I had family members who kind of offered some advice, but I had never

planted it myself, anything in the ground. So this has been where I've done all of my gardening and

made every mistake that I could possibly make. And then it still make a few along the way. So

I think that's, I mean, that's got to be like a classic way they get into it. I think

everyone should just jump in and just make mistakes and just be like, oh, that's how it works

and just figure it out as they go. I remember when I first started really gardening was when I

moved into this place, which is right at the round the pandemic beginning. And I remember planting

things like I, my parents always grew tomatoes. That was a big thing, especially like culturally

there from Bulgaria. And tomatoes are a huge thing. Tomatoes and peppers. And then I started

going other stuff because I was like, oh, what about like bush like green beans? And then I grew

green beans. I was like, this plant looks ridiculous. I had no idea that it's just like a couple

leaves and a bunch of beans hanging off like that. I didn't know that until I grew it. And I feel like

there's so many of us who didn't know what even vegetables look like before they get to the grocery

store until we really started to grow them. So I think it's like such an amazing wonderful thing

to just get out there and just basically start making mistakes. Like I don't think your garden

would be in the place it was that it is in today. If you didn't make a bunch of mistakes and

we'll just figure it out as you went basically. I totally agree with that. And I actually think

that I'm really thankful that I didn't get in. But I think it was fortunate that I didn't,

well, YouTube was, I mean, not even a thing or just barely starting then. I think it was great

that I didn't know anything. And I didn't really have a lot of sources to learn much other than

you know, than the library. So because I didn't even realize, I mean, I think it could be very,

you could really get down on yourself. I didn't even realize when I was making a mistake because

I didn't know it was a mistake. And so I just, well, that didn't work. I didn't think of it as a

mistake. It was just like, well, that didn't work. We better try something else. And so that

needs to start talking to people. And it was quite freeing, I think, to feel like I could make those

mistakes without having any care of am I doing it right or wrong? I'm like, Lona, Lona, I'm just

doing it. And that was quite freeing, I think. Yeah. And I actually started off, um, similarly,

somebody just gave us a family member, gave us a gardening book. It was the John Jevin's book,

How to Grow More Food, Biointensively. And I read that and I was like, this sounds cool. I'll start,

we all plan something to made us in peppers. And I didn't even get on to like YouTube or Instagram

until like I started devouring these books. I'm like, there's got to be more information. I need

like some other visuals to see. And then I started looking at YouTube. I was like, wow,

even back then, like in 2020, there, you know, there was Kevin, like Epic Gardening.

There was a few channels that were around, but there wasn't like that much in the way

vegetable gardening, especially if you look at it today. There's so many people out there

who are sharing their gardens. But yeah, it's, I think it's, it's easy to like compare yourself or

compare your garden to other gardens and feel like there's a problem, but there isn't like everyone's

gardens different. And a lot of times, of course, you see what you see. You don't see a lot of the

other things as well that might be hiding and lurking in the background. But you know, in general,

I do showcase most of my garden. And I don't really hide from their problems because I feel like

like that's how we learned. That's how we got into the place that we're in right now. But yeah,

it's being just getting out there and doing it is the most important thing.

And if you don't do that, then you're just always going to struggle. So.

Well, and I think I think the lesson that both of us are sort of getting at here is that

is that it doesn't matter, you know, just go out there and go out there and do it. I mean,

what's your out what you're out a little bit of time? You're out a few, a few bucks.

Big deal. Moving on. You know, try, you know, try it a different way. I think if people get

too caught up in the idea of what if I, what if I screw it up? Well, yeah, you're gonna. So if

you're not screwing it up, you're not doing it right. So it's my theory. Just get out there and

be ready to screw it up. You'll figure it out later. Yeah. And then just learn, try to think

about what went wrong and how you could change it. And then just keep trying.

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Do you still like today grow a decent amount of vegetables? Your garden space is pretty big.

And a lot of it that I've seen is like on the more ornamental side. But I know you also

grow like a decent amount of herbs and stuff. Do you still like, do you have a separate section of

your garden that you grow vegetables in or do you just kind of pepper in a little bit here and

there? No, in 2018, I think. We built sort of my dream raised bed vegetable gardens. So it's

it's fenced in because I deal with a lot of deer problems here. So it's got a fence.

And we built tall raised bed gardens. They're probably like 22 inches tall or something,

which is a, you know, a taller raised bed is great. There's, what do I have? I have

eight four by eight beds and four two and a half by five foot beds in there. And I love it. I

love that space so much. And actually the only sunny spot there was to put that in our property was

kind of right by the road. And it's great because there's so much interaction from like

neighbors driving by and stuff. And, you know, it's, it, it, it became a far more interactive

experience. Anyway, I go out there all the time. So that's like one of my in summer.

I kind of hide out like come home from work and I like grab a glass of wine and I hide my,

I lock myself in the, in the vegetable garden out there. So yes, I do grow quite a few

vegetables still. I feel like every year I say, this is the year I'm going to really focus on

the vegetable garden. And unfortunately, that almost never happens because I've got it, I've got

it kind of automated over there. I've got everything on timers with drip irrigation. And so like,

I don't have to be in there every day. And so it's pretty easy for me to push that, push that back.

So I miss a lot of like I'm not great at like succession sewing and stuff like that. And I would

every year I try to make it a goal to be better at that stuff. But it's very easy for me to put

that on the back burner when something else in the garden has taken my attention.

Yeah, I mean, that, that one is just especially when you're like where you are, you know, with

you're in Michigan and you have real seasons and real windows of time, you do have to actually be

on top of it to get like a good succession sewing. I can't admit that I could be extremely

lots of fair about it here in San Diego, just because it's like, like let us won't die here.

You know, like it'll bolt in the summer, but I have a lot of flexibility there. And it is

actually incredible to think that that's a pretty big vegetable garden. And your, your

ornamental spaces are also quite large. A lot of them as we've discussed are layered. They've

been there for years. That must take a lot of maintenance. Like is it, is it just me like

misunderstanding? I'm a sure like landscape like that. Or do you have to do like, I would imagine

it would just be a lot of pruning, a lot of dividing, a lot of like resetting things.

I'm not, I wouldn't say that like, that's a problem, right? Like, because that's why we do it,

because we enjoy it. But is it actually as much work as I think it is?

It's almost as much work as you think it is. Actually, if it, because all my gardening happens

in about a six month, we basically have six months of the year to garden. So everything we do

is jammed in. It's all the same stuff you do there. It's just, and it's all jammed in the

six months for the most part. So it's a very condensed gardening season, which mean that

it is like all out during gardening season. It is like full on, all out, just burn yourself out.

And then November comes, and I come inside, and I'm like, forget about it. I'll think about

the rest of it later, because I'm totally burned out. But it is except that I've become a much

for the ornamental spaces that become a much smarter gardener. And so like, for instance,

I am all about ground covers. Like, I don't want bare ground showing, I don't want to have to mulch

plants or mulch. So I really make it a really big goal to when I'm improving these spaces and

tweaking things, to make sure that there's something growing somewhere, because if there's not

then I'm going to have to go weed in there all the time and deal with a major weed problem. So

I feel like I've become a smarter gardener in that regard. And so some of the perennial areas

really are lower maintenance. And I've kind of set up the garden to be the closer you are to the

house are the higher maintenance areas, which is easier for me to do, because I'm among them all

the time. I walk through it, and I see like that needs to be attended to. So anything like

delias, I grow my delias as garden plants usually, not as like for cut flowers. I generally

grow them as a plant in the garden. And those are all right by the patio, because I know I'm going to

have to get in there and dead had those constantly or stake those up or whatever. But as you get

farther from the house, you get into these areas where ideally, I deal with them in spring, I give

everything a big cut back. If I need to go in and put on like last year was one of the years where

I did like pretty much did the whole garden in a couple inch layer of compost, which is something

I should do more often than I do, but it's so much work that I stagger that every few years.

Yeah, just getting it in between mature plants is like really annoying.

Yeah, exactly. So I do that. And then beyond that, it's, it's, you know, a couple hours a

week of popping in there to if something needs to be a perennial needs to be cut back or I have to

adjust something. And so those areas are are kind of low touch areas that more or less manage

themselves with just a little bit of intervention on my part. Yeah, and I'm guessing also just smart

plant selection goes a long way. Like like maybe something that's like dwarfing

instead of like a giant thing that you have to maintain the shape of or I know that there's

just like some flowers like like self dead head. But do consider a variety a lot when you're trying

to like think about the workload or you looks first, who cares? We'll figure out the work later.

That depends how much I want that plant. Yeah, if it's a plant that I really, really want, you can

be a diva all you want. But I generally, I generally try to keep what I consider to be diva plants

to to a minimum for the most part. Anything that's going to, you know, anything that I know I'm

going to be fighting like some sort of insect situation on unless it's perfectly happy like like

I just, I don't, and I'm just like it's you're not worth it. You're not the right. There are way

too many great plants in this world to to be fudzing around with a plant like that. Now if it's a

plant that that I kind of like deadheading actually, I'm actually sort of a, I enjoy, I enjoy dead

heading. I can do it one hand it with a cocktail in one hand so it works out great. So that's sort of

my time to like just kind of put surround and be in the garden. But if it's something where it

needs constant intervention, forget it, get out of here, you're, you're gone. So like I don't have,

I only have maybe, maybe one, maybe two or three roses left in my garden because

they just got to be, they just got to be too much work for me for what I was getting out of them.

So the bar is pretty high. And especially because, you know, I'm sure you get to see all these

new plants too. And so when you, when you talk about plants a lot, you get kind of, you get the

Scoobies on the latest new plant coming out. And sometimes you get the chance to grow those. And so

I've a pretty low bar for how a plant has to, I mean, or I should say a high bar for how a plant

has to perform before something else is going to come in and take its spot. And yeah, I can't actually

think of any plant I have that needs a lot of pruning or frequent pruning in part because I'm

in a cool enough zone that things don't actually grow that quickly. So that helps too. Yeah, that's

one of these interesting things where when I post videos about pruning something or showing how it

grows, people are like, oh, that's just not right. Like it won't do that. And I'm like, we're just

in different climates. Like I planted my peach tree and I got fruit the same year, like, like 20

peaches, like, and it was like 12 feet tall. So it's just like, there's different ways every single

garden, even microclimate wise is going to treat like your plants will just grow differently

in different environments. That's just how it is. It's hard to give like entirely true statement

facts on how to deal with plants when you know that somebody might be in a different space. Like,

there are some universal truths, but yeah, that's an interesting thing to think about too is just

the speed at which they grow, depending on the climate, will also drastically affect the upkeep.

Even for myself, like when you mentioned six month growing season, for us, it's like, I could

start planting tomatoes now in February. And in six months and August, I hate myself because, you

know, plant like 30 tomatoes, like 30 indeterminate tomatoes. And then I'm like, oh my god, in August,

I'm like, oh, I have to prune so many suckers, so many leaves, so many things to tie up. And at

that point, I'm like, I wish it would just snow, but it doesn't. So, you know, it's it is sometimes I

I need to remind myself of how long I have a hard time of removing plants basically. Like,

even if I am satisfied with how much I got and I don't need it anymore, I'll just leave it there

because I'm like, it's alive. Like, why would I take it out? And it's a constant battle, the

constant struggle in my head on that one for sure. Yeah, you've just seen a nice hard frost is

what you just need winter comes. Yeah. And then the decision is made for you. I don't, this is a

decision. I don't have to deal with much. It's just whether nature takes care of all the decision-making.

Yeah, I will say also, by the way, if you guys haven't seen Ernst Garden, you guys should definitely

check out her YouTube channel because her plants are gorgeous and the colors are amazing. And even

you're the Dalias that you were growing were like massive like to plant themselves and the blooms.

I don't think I've ever given the Dalia enough respect and given it what it needs to actually

grow them to the level that you have. And so this year, I feel like after you're seeing some of

your Dalias, I'm like, maybe I should actually commit and try to grow this correctly instead of

just shoving it in a tiny pot in the corner and being like, oh, look, I got a Dalia bloom.

Definitely actually speaking on that about containers, the containers that you've put together

have like always blown me away. I don't think I could, something about the way that you look at

the container always like amazes me. So we work together on this project up in Maine that's going

to be coming out in March on the Home Depot channel where we bolt out this whole new garden space.

And Aaron planted some amazing containers and amazing containers with limited amount of plants

this electrum. I'll say that too. And I'm curious because obviously you don't need to grow in containers

in the space that you're in, but you still do have a lot of containers. So is it just what about it?

Talk to me about containers. What brings you in on that?

So that was kind of where I got my gardening start. So I have this like really, it feels very

familiar to me and I like it a lot. One of the things I love about containers is that

they're finite for the most part. So you get a new shot at them every year and you get

in particular where I live, you know, it's one of your places where you can make a very

bold statement very quickly rather than having to wait for something to grow. Because you can just

pack them full and you can do amazing things in containers that would take a very long time to

accomplish in the ground because you can fill it up with wonderful soil and you can fertilize it,

you can water in a bunch and they have everything. It's like the perfect cozy little location for plants

and it's not a situation that you'd probably want to spend your time and energy on in the ground.

And then you just get this chance to play around with new things and

because I rarely repeat things. There have been one or two containers I've made where I'm like

that was perfect. I need to do that again because I feel like life is way too short to just

keep repeating the same things. So by creating this kind of rule in my head that I'm not going to

repeat things, I think it's forced me to get really creative about how to achieve something that

I like in a container. Also, it is a great excuse for me to grow really weird plants and I love

weird plants. Now you mentioned bird paradise, obviously, and you're going to have to take a

pickaxe to it. Well, here that lives in a container, of course, but I grew, I grew a great one in

a container. In fact, and then I saved it for a couple of years and now I had to re-home it

to a friend with a greenhouse. And now it has almost outgrown her greenhouse in a pot. I think

it's in her living room right now and they've got like 20-foot ceilings and it's becoming a problem

in their living room. And I'm so glad I passed that problem along to somebody else. It's older,

I'm like, you can kill it. It's okay. You can put it out of its misery.

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Long story short, it's an opportunity for me to grow plants like bird of paradise. And I have these

and Sensei, you know, ornamental bananas that I love putting in containers and they get

huge. They grow so quickly, they get absolutely huge in these containers. I mean, there's

I'm a believer in big pots because you can pack so much more in them and they don't need so much

attention because I don't even have to water containers daily until usually August or probably August

is the first time I get around to having it and sometimes not even then. So early in the season,

I might water a container once or twice a year or once or twice a year, once or twice a week.

And that's that's not a lot of maintenance. That's like a nothing burger. So you can grow these

amazing cool plants and it just is a I like playing around with stuff and it's a good way to

to stretch the imagination. I also had this weird thing about I really like

surprising people when they walk into my garden. I don't know what I like having weird things

around corners and someone walking, is that a banana in your Wisconsin garden? Why yes it is.

I just kind of like like the idea of doing quirky weird things and I think containers are so

low commitment that you can really play around with stuff and have fun that you wouldn't have if

you felt like you had to nurture this in space in your garden. Yeah absolutely. I saw one of your

videos with your banana leaf, one of the purple ones. I was like I didn't think it would get that big.

That's crazy. Like it was bigger than you like that's wild. They're fun. I enjoy it. I just

and it's a way that I get to try to grow things that that I shouldn't probably be having

business growing. I like to experiment with growing plants. I have neuro fear of killing plants.

I've killed I'm sure you can you can attest to the same thing. I've killed so many plants and I

have no I'm emotionless when it comes to killing plants now. There's there's no fear whatsoever. So

so I have no fear going into plants and we're sitting can happen is it doesn't grow and I'll

take it out and stick something else in there. Yeah I think this this past year I've gone

a lot more comfortable with just like removing entirely healthy plants like it was at the beginning

a huge struggle so I'd have like a bed with like a weird giant mature plant and like a bunch of

young things around it like I clearly didn't want to reset anything because I just needed that one

plant to stay and it made everything about gardening a little bit harder but now like I don't

care I'm like get out of here I'll get another one in a couple weeks or whatever I'll plant it

again next year it's no big deal and I think that's like honestly one of the hardest things as a

beginner gardener is to be okay with destroying or killing your plants or sections of your garden

and just moving on but I totally agree I I think every gardener at some point will want to try to

push what they're allowed to grow especially as you mentioned like the zones at the start of this

conversation like I don't even know like the zone map changes like who cares like doesn't change

how what you know about your garden and what you know you could do in your garden it's just like

a very very loose suggestion and it's actually one of these frustrating things where you know look

at like a plant website I'll put in my zone it's like you can't grow anything 10 a like forget or 10

b like you just can't grow grapes there apparently I'm like what are you talking about I know I could grow

grapes here the grapes grew a fine here and like rhubarb they're like you can't grow rhubarb it only

works up to zone nine but not 10 no you just need to write variety so it's one of these things where I'm

like honestly like sometimes I don't even like to talk about the zone because I feel like it's a trap

but it is a helpful sort of starting point I guess and that's all it is it's a starting point because

the system is it's a totally imperfect system but it's all we have you know it's all it's

all there is and so we work with it but but I do agree I think the sooner you divorce yourself

from the idea that that is the end all be all of what you're gonna be able to grow the more fun

you're gonna have in the garden yeah because like I might be zone 10 a and for example like people

might think oh it's really hot there but it's not Phoenix like you know Phoenix is probably like

zone eight and it's an entirely different situation there so yeah just use it as a baseline

suggestion and don't get hung up on it and I will say also on the container front I also do have

containers but this year I do want to push into planting containers that are simply there I have

a couple ornamental ones I have a couple roses and containers Plumeria but the rest of them

are kind of still edibles and I'd love to plant a couple more of these layered containers because

I do think it's fun I agree with you that having like the control of the soil the nutrition and also

just like it's fun to put plants in there and just know that it's going to limit their size like on

purpose like I don't need my citrus tree to be 30 feet tall I'm okay with it being in a pot and

still getting as much citrus as I need for example so I think like anyone regardless of like well

first of all pretty much anyone could probably have a container but even if you have a large garden

space I think containers are still a great thing to play with just because of that flexibility that

you get and it does help you kind of try things out like you were saying like a little wild card

planting like I don't know if this is gonna work in my space I don't really want to commit to it

just throw any container and try it out and from there you might even find that it works out

and you could add it to your garden yeah absolutely they're also really good you know they can

really help be a problem solving thing for design if you've got a weird spot I mean I stick

some containers right in the middle of the garden so I've got in the middle of my patio bed I've

got this urn because there's this you kind of sometimes feel like you need a focal point in

your garden and you're like well what plant do I like enough that's gonna make that no you stick

a container there and it it serves that purpose and you get to change that out because that's the

other thing is like maybe you just don't necessarily want to look at the same plant all the time

and then you can actually get some repetition going throughout your garden or there's like a reason

to go to a corner of a garden if there's a container there that's doing something interesting that

you wouldn't be able to do otherwise yeah actually that's one of these things that I've been seeing a lot

and like garden design like you know when garden magazines are gardening books that are showcasing

completed garden basically is that they do have these containers mixed in and I'm like oh that's

really really smart because it also gives you a different sort of texture it might give you a height

like in the garden space where maybe you want a plant to be visible but it's just one that doesn't

get that big but you could just throw it in a container and still get that kind of visual anchor

so yeah that's another one of those things where I'd love to play with that a little bit

and then I am curious about something because fortunately at least thus far I have not seen

this as an issue in my space but I've heard that you or I've heard you talk about the Asian jumping

worm so this might be a little triggering I'm sure it's traumatic but I've read about it I've

heard about it but can you tell us a little bit about this pest maybe so that other people might

be able to discover it in their garden and maybe I don't know what the solution is but I guess

let's talk about it a little bit. Sure yeah I have had the misfortune of having those in my garden

since I think I think they got here in about 2016 or 2016 and I'm pretty sure they came in with

the load of soil that I had and this was at a time before we were really aware of this so

this jumping worm there's there's a couple of different species of it but these are invasive

invasive worms earthworms that and actually this is this is the little asterisk I put in much of

the country there are no native earthworms it's just that we have like there are no native earthworms

to my part of the country it's just that the earthworms that are here are from like they came

here like the 1800s or something so there has been some adaptation and we think of them as as

native earthworms although they aren't so many places in the country there are not a lot of native

earthworms but we don't think of them as a problem these Asian jumping worms are a problem because

there is they have no natural predators at this point very few things have

have adapted to be interesting these things so they generally live in the top four to six inches

of the soil and they can have like three generations a year the eggs will overwinter

that the worms will they freeze out so if you get if your ground freezes the the adult worms will

die but the cocoons or winter in up to quite cold temperatures and so then you get all these

generations in a year and what happens is they are so vigorous they're incredibly voracious

eaters and so they churn through the top layer of your soil so quickly that there is nothing

really left in that soil it's it's just devoid of nutrients it creates a lot of times people will

talk about soil that looks like coffee grounds which is primarily that's basically that's that's

worm poop that you're essentially seeing there but that's kind of all that's left and so your soil

loses all its structure sometimes they will eat small roots of plants as well so like last year

was it last year or the year before at some point I noticed a large section of my lawn was like

looking my by the way my lawn always looks bad I'm just not my focus so I don't have a

I don't have any sort of champion American lawn or anything and I it's okay but there was

a section that looked particularly bad and so I went in there and I started I could peel it back

like I was peeling back a sardine can and as I pulled it up there was just worms everywhere I think

we collected I don't know well over a thousand worms in this one little patch of lawn oh that's

wild there isn't a lot of good news with them either because they don't exactly know how to deal

so most of the main research that's happening on him is actually happening at the University of

Wisconsin just helpful so I try to keep an eye on what's happening there and they were found

at the arboretum there I think in 2014 and within five years they had entire

stands of trees that just fell over and they're like like they had a whole line of

varieties that just tipped over in the wind because there was nothing holding those

holding those roots in the ground anymore the real concern I mean as gardeners were worried about

the real concern is like what happens when this gets into forests and agricultural land

which is really you know in the bigger picture scheme those are bigger concerns there's a few

things that people have said you can do about them for the most part those seems to be half

measures the best thing you do is try to prevent getting them so if you live in an area and I think

they've been identified in like 37 or 38 states so far if I'm not mistaken don't quote me on that

but it's more than 30 states that they've been found and they are making their way around the

country and the best thing you do is try not to get them by being really particular about where

you get soil from or if you're sharing plants with people seeing if they know if they have them or

root washing plants at some point it'd be kind I think around here I think I think everyone in my

area is going to have them so I actually don't even know if it's worth spending a lot of time

worrying about that although like my compost source when I brought in purchased compost last year I

actually spent a lot of time on the phone with that company talking to them about what steps they

were to because I don't need to bring more I know I have but I don't need to bring more and so I

spent a lot of time talking with them about what steps they take to prevent them which is the best

thing you can do if you have them it's it's I think what's really happening here is that it comes

down to more of learning how to live with them and adapt how you garden so for instance it's

difficult in some spots and they don't move around too quickly which is good so they they are kind

the worst spots in my garden are isolated but I can't start plants from small plugs in those areas

in a lot of times because they will actually eat the roots of that so I actually have to start with

a more mature plant that's got a bigger root system and I've been looking for plants that are

deeper rooted so like there was an area that was really hit hard by them and so I thought about

things like baptismia that you've grew well there because that's super deep rooted plant and some

of the ornamental grasses that have really deep root systems because they don't go down that far

so those plants can can survive with these so there's not a lot of solutions and the more this goes

on the more I think it's another one of those things that gardeners are just going to have to learn

to adapt their gardening style to and we're all going to learn how to manage it together

I think the idea that we're going to come up with some great solution of this to wipe them all

in our gardens is probably not going to happen yeah that's how I kind of feel about root-nut

nematodes here because since we don't ever freeze like they just never really die and also since

we're in a dry climate apparently like tons of rain or like flooded soil will also kill them

so last year we got like four inches of rain in total for the whole year and the root-nut nematode

problem was like it was on everything at first I was like occasionally on a tomato I'd see some

swollen roots then last year we were like pulling lettuce and it had root-nut nematodes pulling

beats and it had root-nut nematodes and I like looked it up I'm like what can I do about this and

not much the only thing like if you wanted to go extreme and like try to find the pesticide the

only thing that exists you cannot even buy is a home gardener it's like you have to have a license

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slash and 365 co-pilot it's just one of those things where I'm like now I'm just trying to adapt

because I know that this problem there isn't going to be a magical bullet like you could put

beneficial nematodes and hopefully they'll out-compete them you could add more compost more water

resistant varieties things like that but yeah it's it's a really frustrating problem and like I think

with the jumping worms right they consume the basically all the organic matter so the leaf litter

the compost like whatever you add and if they don't have that then I guess they're going for the roots

and that's a similar problem when I first started the garden here it was you know when you first

started a place there's an imbalance you don't know what pest you're going to run into and the first

couple years was like crazy amounts of earwigs and pillbox like more earwigs than I could even try

to count like must have been in the tens of thousands and so my adaptation to that was to just put

like mature transplants so I never started from seed I never put in like a tiny actual seedling

I always put it up and then planted and then they would still take damage but then they would be

mature enough to actually grow all the way to maturity and I can still get a harvest now I don't

have to worry about that as much because the garden's kind of balanced itself out but yeah it's one

of these things like we will always have to adapt and change certain things about our garden

and the way we approach it because you just don't know what's around the corner um so that

that sounds very frustrating it is but you know it's well I mean I figured this has been happening

to gardens forever I mean the invasive species thing is obviously worse now because the whole

world is connected and so you get these you get these problems but you know it's going to be this

one year and then it's going to be something else next year and you think back you know like well

it seemed horrible and like you want to cry and quick gardening at the time and then you look

back and you're like well we kind of figured out how to deal with that there's going to be another

thing around the corner and I guess you know problem solving and I guess it's just one of the maybe not

so fun parts of gardening sometimes yeah it is for me it's one of the things that obviously like

sometimes it's very frustrating like last year with the root non nematodes but it is a little bit

fun for me still because I'm like I like having a problem to solve I feel like of gardening was just

like I put the plants in and then I harvest and I'm done I probably would have got bored of it

after the first year the ever present challenges that are always waiting for us kind of keeps

that interesting for me but if I could snap my finger and delete the root non nematodes I would happily

do that yeah that's for sure yeah like I think so for me like after liking a more of your garden

and working with you in Maine on this Home Depot project I want to try planting like a fully stacked

container and actually I'm going to be at the Northwest flower garden show which isn't

mid-cottie right yeah and I'm doing the container showdown the container wars but I'm going up

against Kevin so I feel like I might have an edge over him I don't know his ornamental game I'm

gonna just say it's weaker than mine so I think I'll probably destroy him but I'm going to be

watching some of your videos to pick up some tricks because you know nobody said we can't do a

little bit of homework and studying before this battle absolutely you know just jam that baby

full jam that container full especially for container wars because that's like a one minute you

know that's like yeah it's got to look good in that moment you don't have to worry about how that's

going out that's not what anyone's judging it on so jam that sucker full all right I'm going to

do that I'm going to take your advice for sure and it's been really fun chatting with you today even

with some of our annoyances in the garden and our past issues that we have to deal with but

I do implore everyone to go check out Aaron at the impatient gardener her garden is beautiful

and I love the way that you talk and that you deliver information because you're not here to like

to provide the fluff you're here to give us your thoughts your information and you're always

I don't know you always crack me up so I always enjoy hanging out with you watching your content

and learning from you so oh thanks Jack that's nice yeah we can't take any of this too seriously

right let's not let's not get too sure so it's supposed to be fun yeah exactly that's why we

have the garden is to have fun to entertain and you know to find a little space where it could

bring my cocktail out as well and just hang out on the garden like it's a good time that's why we

have it like it's a nice little fun place so yeah I don't know if you're going to be there but

if you are I'll see you in Seattle if not at some point I'm sure we'll meet again I'm not going

this year but I will be rooting you on I'll be watching the video of container wars and I'll be

rooting you on so go be Kevin yeah awesome thanks Aaron have a good one and nice chatting with you

thanks for having me so much