Kat (00:01)
Hi Tiffany.

Tiffany (00:02)
I was still making that face.

Kat (00:05)
It's a little Easter egg for our YouTube watchers. How are you?

Tiffany (00:08)
Mm-hmm.

I'm good. I did just come off. feel like a whirlwind of two weeks. ⁓ Charlie, I now understand the new or the school, like start of the school year stress. I didn't know. I thought it was like, you have to buy some supplies. What's the big deal? Nope. They turn into little balls of hell. Fury. Just.

Kat (00:27)
Yes, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Tiffany (00:40)
Absolute rage. is talking to me. I'm not talking to you, Siri!

Kat (00:44)
⁓

Yeah, he's like, what do you want to do to your toddler right now? It's recording you. Hmm. She's not technically a toddler anymore, is she? my god.

Tiffany (00:48)
Gross.

I don't know when that stops. She's four and a half, so some people would call that a toddler still, but I don't know. She's a kid at this point and she rained fury on our household for the last two weeks. So I was like curled up in a corner and it was like she's finally started and it feels like the dust is settled, but my house is absolute chaos. So yeah, how are you?

Kat (01:00)
I Yeah, yeah.

my god.

haha

thank God. Yeah. Yeah. my gosh. can't even imagine. Well,

I'm fine. You could probably hear it in my voice, but yeah, we went to Europe for our running group and Sean got COVID and gave it to me. And so I'm, if I cough in this episode, that's why I'm, I'm healed. You know, I know, well, I'm not testing positive anymore, but, and yeah, I had a surgery scheduled that we canceled and now I don't know if I need it. So.

Tiffany (01:29)
Awww.

Yeah.

really? ⁓ Well, that worked out.

Kat (01:44)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I was

like, that's $2,000. I don't have to drop on my uterus. But yeah, so we'll see. We'll see if I reschedule it for later this year. Not at all. Just, you know, yeah. Maybe all I needed was COVID. I don't recommend that. Don't get COVID. But yeah. Yeah. We had a nice little summer break there. And I think we'll

Tiffany (01:51)
Yeah, there you go. There you go.

Okay, okay. Well, that's good. That worked out kind of.

You

Kat (02:13)
be releasing this pretty soon after we record it, I think. So we're right there with you in the trenches going into the fall, my friends. And we thought for season eight, our theme this season is, groceries are too damn high, which is my terrible impression of that ⁓ candidate who ran for mayor of New York City and the rent is too damn high platforms several years ago. But I think

Tiffany (02:17)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

you

Mmm.

Kat (02:40)
most Americans do feel groceries are too damn expensive. So that's what I mean everything. Yeah. Like the resounding refrain is it costs $20 to walk out your front door right now. So yeah, yeah, we're going to talk about what you can do in an eco-friendly way to mitigate the expensive groceries. Like is it worth it to do these kind of crunchy

Tiffany (02:44)
Yeah. Along with everything else, but yeah. Yeah.

huh. Yeah. At least.

Kat (03:11)
things at home. ⁓ And this week, you know, well, I'll I'll just get launched into my spiel if that's okay. Okay, so food prices have been increasing since COVID-19. The LA Food Bank reported that between 2019 and 2023, USA food at home prices increased 25%. That's just at home. This is due to a bunch of factors from

Tiffany (03:19)
Yeah, I do.

Ugh.

Kat (03:35)
general inflation, to transportation issues, to supply chain disruptions, to increased demand as more people stay home, and of course plain old corporate greed, which we're not going get into because I would just stand on a soapbox for like three hours. ⁓ Americans have started looking for ways to cut their grocery bills without quitting their jobs to become full-time farmers. But it takes money and time, not to mention water and seeds, to grow food. So tonight we're asking, is it worth it to

Tiffany (03:49)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Kat (04:05)
Grow your own veggies.

Tiffany (04:07)
love this.

Kat (04:08)
Welcome to Greening Up My Act.

So I had a coughing fit and your dog came in. There she is. Hi, Ruby. There she is. Yeah, she's such a sweetie.

Tiffany (04:31)
Yeah. You see her? you can see her,

She's on her way out, as my grandpa would say. So morbid, yeah. Yeah, she has cancer, but she's still alive, so. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Well.

Kat (04:40)
That's a pleasant way to put it. Thanks, grandpa. Yeah.

Yeah, but she's still a babe. Yeah, and she's a good girl. She wants to be with you every moment she can, so, and we'll allow it.

Tiffany (04:57)
Yeah, I was gonna say that's actually not true. think she wants something from me. She's more of a like, I'll lay on the couch and I don't care about you, but, um, she's just sniffing the carpet.

Kat (05:06)
Okay, I was

making this sweet moment out of it you're like, no, she's an old dog, she doesn't care about me. I'm like, okay.

I get it, yeah. ⁓

Tiffany (05:14)
Sorry. No,

she does, obviously.

She's coming in here for something. She's so stubborn. Like I'm just realizing how fricking stubborn she is lately. just been, and also, like I said, I've been coming off of two weeks of just like nonstop, mom, mom, mom. So my patience is gone. Yeah. Hi. Yeah. Yeah. I just like imagine myself as like just a ball of nerves that's just completely frayed.

Kat (05:23)
specific.

Yeah.

Very limited. look, she's like, Hi there, can you throw the ball for me or something? Treats.

Yeah, I can see it. I see that.

Tiffany (05:50)
like just every last nerve ending is frayed. Yeah, I'm gonna need you to go away.

You should see this dumb face.

Kat (05:58)
She wants

to record her own podcast. Thank you very much. It's called...

Tiffany (06:01)
Yes, she does.

Yeah, it's funny because I have other, I listen to other podcasts and their dogs interrupt them and I, that's, well your dogs sometimes interrupt but Ruby doesn't and so I think she needs to go outside so maybe I will have to pause.

Kat (06:12)
Yes. No, this is new for Ruby. Okay, we can pause.

Okay, R.U.B.E.S. Hi, girl. We're leaving this in though, because look at that face. Yeah. I love her. Okay, go let her out.

Tiffany (06:21)
Okay, hang on a sec. You can see her? Dumb, dumb face. Okay.

Alright, hang on. I don't know how to pause, so we're just gonna have to edit it out. yes.

Kat (06:32)
We'll edit this. Okay, you could put a marker on it, I guess.

And I'll just sit here and cough while you let her out.

Tiffany (06:37)
Perfect.

Kat (06:41)
Cough Cough

Tiffany (07:31)
Alright, that worked out. I had forgotten my water in the other room, so here we are. Okay, what were you saying?

Kat (07:32)
better yeah ⁓ perfect okay

Okay.

All right. So my sources. We'll just launch into sources now. I aforementioned LA Food Bank, ⁓ Reddit, the USDA, ⁓ Harvard Health Letter had an older article, the USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map, the Farmers Almanac Planting Calendar, the Ecology Center, which I think we've used before, and then

Tiffany (07:49)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm

nice.

Yeah,

that sounds right.

Kat (08:08)
⁓ I had a link to grow safe, is a bio pesticide. So, ⁓ we'll get into it. Okay. So our first question is how much do vegetables actually cost? So here's the thing. Veggies are probably the least expensive item on your grocery list. Overall. I mean, it depends. So the cost of veggies varies by where you live, what season it is, what you're buying.

Tiffany (08:15)
Okay. Cool.

⁓ okay.

Kat (08:37)
The USDA has a list of average retail costs of fruits and vegetables in the US, although their most updated data is from 2022. Although the file says it was updated in May of 2024, which I don't really understand. I don't know if they just like consolidated data or something. But so I went through it. The most expensive veggie on the list was frozen asparagus at six dollars and eighty two cents per pound.

Tiffany (08:45)
Hmm.

Hmm. Okay.

Okay, interesting.

Kat (09:02)
Yeah, was kind of surprised by that. The cheapest was fresh green cabbage at 80 cents a pound. Okay, potatoes and carrots, raw and cooked, also came in at under a dollar a pound, which I don't think is that surprising. Frozen, dried, or canned veggies were often less expensive than the fresh versions, with a majority of those coming in under $2 per pound. Now fresh asparagus, broccoli, collards, kale, cauliflower, tomatoes, mushrooms, lettuce, spinach, and okra all came in at above $3 a pound.

Tiffany (09:07)
Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Okay.

Kat (09:31)
With spinach and okra, we're clocking in at over $4 and $5 respectively. Yeah, well, of course, like a pound of spinach or kale, that's a lot. So even if you cook them down, you're hard pressed to eat the whole thing in one sitting. it's kind of, you know, like they say, comparing apples and oranges, it's like comparing a pound of kale to a pound of cauliflower or a pound of cabbage is like, OK.

Tiffany (09:36)
Wow, okay, so if you're gonna grow something that might make it worth it, we'll see.

true. That's a lot.

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah.

Kat (09:58)
I was surprised that avocado was less per pound than fresh Brussels sprouts or broccoli. So in this list, avocado came in at $2.67 a pound. canned, I was not surprised that canned beans tend towards the cheaper end at just over a dollar per pound. Now, usually canned beans these days are about 12 ounces. So you're going to pay like 80 some cents. Well, maybe more. Well, again.

Tiffany (10:04)
That is surprising.

Kat (10:22)
You. I think it's probably more of a dollar 19 now, but I'm thinking per pound, you know, can can beans were.

Tiffany (10:23)
Wait, 80 cents for a can?

yeah.

I was gonna say I haven't seen a can of beans at 80 cents in a long time. Yeah.

Kat (10:34)
In a long time, I know. I think

they're about 30 now. Well, I'll go into that a little more. Fruit had a wider cost spread. Fresh watermelon clocked in at 30 cents a pound. Yeah, and dried mangoes were over $10 a pound. Yeah, so this might be unsurprising to any parent who has toddlers, but berries were on the high end of fresh fruit. Fresh strawberries.

Tiffany (10:47)
⁓ that's pretty good.

Damn.

Mm-hmm. ⁓

Kat (11:01)
cost the least of the berries at just under $3 a pound, while fresh blueberries, blackberries, and raspberries came in at $4.15 for blueberries, $6.75 for blackberries, and $7.73 for raspberries. Now that's a pound. Usually you them in pints. But still, for volume purposes, I was watching. Sometimes I've posted him before, but we followed this lawyer comedian named Alex Falcone.

Tiffany (11:17)
my god.

Yeah.

Kat (11:29)
And he recently had a whole thing about how things you didn't realize were expensive when you were a kid. He's like, berries. Why are they berries? He said, children should receive two berries on their birthday that they have to cut in half to make them last longer. I get it. ⁓ Also, the fruit list included juices alongside fresh and frozen fruit. So I don't feel like that's, like there wasn't carrot juice on the vegetable list.

Tiffany (11:29)
yes. Yeah.

Yes.

Hmm.

Yeah, interesting.

Kat (11:59)
kind

of ignored that. But I went on to my own local grocery store website, which is HEB, which is the best grocery store in the world, as everyone from Texas knows. And I just went through some of these prices. So here's what I found for the store brand versions. So not name brand, just store brand, whatever. A one pound bag of fresh kale was $3.48. So a bunch is $1.48. I'm not sure how much that would weigh, but a one pound container in those plastic containers of spinach was $4.98.

Tiffany (12:11)
Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Kat (12:30)
A bunch was 158, so if you don't mind chopping off the ends yourself, I guess. 12 ounces, not even a pound, 12 ounces of frozen asparagus was 348. ⁓ Two and a half to two and three quarters of green cabbage, which is about how much a head weighs is 179, that tracks. Two pounds of fresh whole carrots were 196. A single russet potato, which is a little over half a pound was 70 cents.

Tiffany (12:33)
Hmm. Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Kat (12:58)
A whole watermelon was $7.87.

Tiffany (13:02)
Okay.

Kat (13:02)
But 18 ounces of fresh cut seedless was 498. So that's hard to compare like the cut up watermelon, you know, there's a whole thing about. Dry mangoes kind of track, they're more expensive than the 2022 data, but they were 598 for five ounces. So that's not even half a pound. Six bucks for five, that's more than a dollar an ounce. 18 ounces of fresh blueberries were 448. So that's like a pound and a half of blueberries for.

Tiffany (13:11)
Yeah.

Damn. That's so crazy.

Kat (13:33)
A pound of strawberries was $2.35. Six ounces of raspberries was $1.99. So that's like a third, well, a little under half a pound. And bananas were $1.20 each or 50 cents per pound. So that tracks. It's all slightly higher than the reported numbers from the USA report. It makes sense.

Tiffany (13:47)
Okay. Wow.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Kat (13:55)
So this begs the question, like.

Is it?

Is it worth it to grow your own veggies then? Now, I want to say the spoiler alert here is when you ask Reddit what the best veggies to grow at home are, everybody overwhelmingly says herbs.

Tiffany (14:07)
Mm-hmm.

Cheers!

Kat (14:21)
So I looked on HEB

today. So half an ounce of fresh basil is $2.48. Half an ounce of fresh basil is too thin. Little shell, clamshell things, yes. A fresh curly leaf parsley bunch is 88 cents. Fresh rosemary is $2.68 for three quarters of an ounce. Thyme is 2.48 for less than half, like for 0.5 ounces, well for half an ounce.

Tiffany (14:27)
my God, is that like one of those little plastic? Yep.

Mm-hmm.

Whoa.

Kat (14:49)
Dill is also 248 for half an ounce. Those are both only available organic, by the way. And the same with mint, although there was a non-organic version for 268 and it didn't list the weight. So I also have found that it's kind of hard sometimes to find these fresh herbs, like there'd be out of them.

Tiffany (14:54)
Whoa.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah. Mint. I can't find sometimes. I have to go to like the Asian market. ⁓

Kat (15:06)
Yeah, rosemary has been the hardest for me. Yeah, they just don't have it. And the dried stuff

is at least two times as much as well. So when you buy the jar, it's at least two times as much for half an ounce.

Tiffany (15:14)
Okay.

Interesting.

Okay, that's not surprising because that's so expensive.

Kat (15:23)
Yeah, so when we ask,

it worth growing your own veggies, overwhelmingly that Reddit post said fresh herbs are the best plants to grow for a return on your investment.

Tiffany (15:32)
Okay, and it also makes sense because they're some of the easiest to grow.

Kat (15:35)
Exactly. That was the

next I was going to say they're the easiest to take care of. They don't need much space and grow them like anywhere they grow like weeds literally meant is a weed. Like you have to be well, depending.

Tiffany (15:40)
Mm-hmm.

Yes, although no,

no, I was just going to say, I'm just, all I'm picturing right now is I have like a barrel in my deck and it gets really hot. And I think I killed all my herbs. Cause I forgot to, it was like the one thing in the corner that I forgot to water. And I'm like, I went over there yesterday. I was like, ⁓ this is crispy. It has not rained for a minute. So it's fine. It's fine.

Kat (15:53)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, that's the thing.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, that's definitely a thing. But

even if they die, you can dry them and still use them all year round, right? Just those saved jars that you have, you dry them and put them in there. ⁓ Of course, you can't live off herbs alone. ⁓ They're likely just going to be an additive to your diet, but still, this is a great way for anyone to save money on flavor that costs the most at the grocery store. And it's an intro to gardening for almost any living situation.

Tiffany (16:15)
That's true. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Mm-mm-mm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I started with basil and tomatoes and yeah, launched from there.

Kat (16:37)
So.

Yeah, yeah, I think most people do. They're starter plants, right?

Yeah. So berries are another product that people resoundingly say is worth it if you can grow them. ⁓ I have a blackberry bush in my front yard that no one can kill, apparently. Everyone has tried. If I watered it regularly and didn't let my yard guy or my boyfriend weed whack it so much, I'd likely have bushels of berries to eat. And if I had toddlers, I would for sure take better care of this blackberry bush.

Tiffany (16:50)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah, well, you'd say that. I don't take care of my raspberry. My raspberry bush is an absolute war zone right now. Like, it's chaos and I need it's it's on the fall agenda. But my God, it's Yeah, we did. We got a bunch like a week ago. So. Mm hmm. Yeah, yeah.

Kat (17:09)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And he's pruning. Yeah.

But you can get bushels and bushels of berries out of it.

with very little maintenance. And strawberries

are pretty easy to grow in pots, too.

Tiffany (17:39)
Yeah, I've never been successful, but I've only tried once. I do want to try it next year, but lord knows I have enough.

Kat (17:43)
Yeah, I mean, they're a little more

finicky because they're not bushes. They're, you know, but-

Tiffany (17:47)
Okay.

Yeah, they're pretty hearty from what I understand, but I don't know. I will kill them because I killed my Rosemary, which is like impossible to kill.

Kat (17:51)
Yeah. Yeah. Now the question. Yes. my. Rosemary

is so it's so easy to grow and yet so hard. So easy to kill. Like I've planted rosemary so many times. But I used to live in an apartment and there's rosemary bushes on the corners and I would just walk around and like snip rosemary and go home and wash it and use it like when I needed rosemary, because I could never find it in the grocery store and I wanted fresh rosemary. Yeah. ⁓ 100 percent there.

Tiffany (18:01)
Yeah, okay, that makes me feel better.

⁓ huh. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, because sometimes people have like actual bushes and it's amazing.

Kat (18:20)
Yeah, I definitely had one in my backyard in Albuquerque. It was like the size of this room, you know, and I would just go out and snip.

Tiffany (18:21)
I want one.

Wow. Man,

I wonder how fast does it grow? Because I wonder, I have a bush I need to get rid of and I wonder if I could just replace it with a rosemary plant.

Kat (18:33)
Good question. I didn't go into how easy Rosemary is. Because it's hard. It's like an evergreen, you know. ⁓

Tiffany (18:35)
And then maybe like five years it'll... ⁓

yeah, it does die in the winter. No wait, it doesn't. No, mine's just dead because it's too dry.

Kat (18:42)
I think, no, doesn't. It's pretty, yeah,

it needs to be watered. That's the thing. But it grows in New Mexico, which is like, yeah. And you don't have to water it as much as like basil. Basil needs more water, obviously. So if you're thinking about growing other veggies, you have to ask yourself about a couple of factors. Like what veggies do you actually eat the most often? Tomatoes are easy to grow, but I don't eat fresh tomatoes that often.

Tiffany (18:48)
Yeah. Okay. All year, right? Like it's green all year? Okay. ⁓

Yeah. ⁓

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah.

Kat (19:12)
Like I love them, but it's like, don't really use, I mean, I make tomato sauce and like to make tomato sauce, you gotta like cook it and not, you What kind of space do you have to plant veggies? Do you have a backyard? Do you have an HOA that's gonna be pissed if you put planters in it? You know, do you have a patio? Do you just have a sunny window? That's another question. How much sunlight do you get? Is it south facing blasting your plants all day? Some plants like that, some don't.

Tiffany (19:21)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Kat (19:42)
Is your water bill already high? ⁓ Can you reliably water the plants? Like do you travel a lot for work and live alone? ⁓ And do you have time to devote? Because you got to pick the stuff off, you know? If you eat a lot of greens like kale, romaine, lettuce, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, and you have space to make a raised bed, it probably makes sense to grow your own. Yes. Especially lettuces, kales.

Tiffany (19:53)
Mm-hmm.

⁓

Kat (20:11)
spinach, those grow pretty quickly and you can harvest quite a bit relatively quickly. So

Tiffany (20:14)
Okay.

Okay, I am currently growing in my community garden plot. just yesterday went out and actually took care of it and like planted stuff for the fall. Broccoli and kale, I've never done it before. So wish me luck.

Kat (20:26)
nice.

There you go. Okay. Yeah, they're fall, they're fall plants. or winter

blooming. So yeah, those are the best bang for your buck. There are startup costs, you know, like you got to build the raised bed. If you don't already have one, you got to fill it with the right soil and amend it, you know, and you got to buy the right seeds or plants. That's the other thing. But those startup costs, you know, they're just initial.

Tiffany (20:38)
Okay. I did good.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Kat (20:59)
You can propagate plants, like for instance, every time Sean buys a clamshell of basil, he takes a couple and sticks them in water and then they have roots. And so you can grow more. And you just have to amend your soil and do basic upkeep, which is less expensive. ⁓ Seeds are also less expensive than established seedlings or plants, but they take longer to get started and you'll need different containers to grow them in, which is a consideration. They can be.

Tiffany (20:59)
Yeah.

⁓ nice. Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah, and they're very difficult.

I tried and my, the window I tried in does not get nearly enough sun, which I really thought it did. It does not. So it pretty much mostly all failed, but I will.

Kat (21:35)
Yeah, there's a little,

they're finicky. They're like, I want to be outside, but I'll freeze to death. Yeah. So sometimes it's better just, I mean, you can just pick up plants at the grocery store for like.

Tiffany (21:40)
Yes, I know.

I know. And actually, just bought six for a package of six plants. So like six broccoli plants that were already mostly established. It was like $4. I was like, that's really not bad. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Kat (21:59)
Yeah, that's so much cheaper than like frozen broccoli is, you know, six bucks a pound or whatever. So yeah, that's great. ⁓

Now another caveat, sometimes veggie gardens can get out of control. So I've been watching a friend from high school on Facebook ask people for recipes for zucchini because she just has so much. You can only eat so much zucchini. The first time my roommate planted tomatoes here, we had the same problem. So ye-

Tiffany (22:20)
Oh my god. Yes. Yes.

huh.

Kat (22:28)
plant stuff that you're willing to freeze. Zucchini doesn't freeze well or that you are willing to can. Zucchini also doesn't can well because you can't supply the entire neighborhood or your whole office with zucchini bread.

Tiffany (22:34)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, because everybody already has the same stuff. Yeah.

Kat (22:41)
Yes, they're like, no, get it off me. And you

can only do so many jars of tomato salsa. So also we did have an episode a couple of seasons ago on canning and it can be dangerous. So make sure you know what you're doing with that. ⁓ I did want to say also fruit trees. Probably it takes years for fruit trees to become established and they take a lot of water. So you're probably not going to you're never going to grow a banana tree or an avocado tree. I'm going to bet.

Tiffany (22:46)
Uh-huh.

Yeah.

Socialism.

Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Yeah.

Kat (23:11)
gonna guess.

If you live in the right climate, apples, cherries, plums, and peaches are good investment trees. However, they do need to be watered regularly. They are not native. They are domestic trees. They need water. They're not gonna just live off the rain, probably. And they can be harder to take care of in terms of pests. ⁓ And again, you're probably gonna get more fruit than you can handle. I planted a fig tree and a pomegranate tree three years ago.

Tiffany (23:31)
Mm-hmm.

Mmm. Mm-hmm.

Kat (23:41)
The fig does produce fruit, the squirrels tend to eat it before I can get to it, and the pomegranate has exactly two ripening on it right now as we speak. I don't know how they're going to turn out. but yeah, fruit trees are much more of an investment and we don't really talk about how to grow them in this episode.

Tiffany (23:45)
Mm-hmm.

Okay, that's exciting.

huh. Yeah. I don't have any interest, to be honest, because I've just heard that there's so much work.

Kat (24:04)
Yeah, my

dad had, we had a cherry, a peach, ⁓ and my dad still has the apple tree in the backyard and it's so much work. You have to prune them. You know, you can't just let them go wild. You have to prune them. have to fertilize them. You have to water them. There's all this stuff. So he got rid of the cherry tree and the peach tree pretty quickly. But yeah, well, we had neighbors coming over when I was a little girl. They would just come into our backyard and pick cherries for like the whole month of July. And they're sour cherries too. They're pie cherries. So we had.

Tiffany (24:13)
Mmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Yeah, OK.

really? Okay.

Okay.

Kat (24:34)
bags of frozen cherries to make pie from, but you're not just going to eat those cherries, they're sour. another thing people bring up, many people postulate that homegrown veggies are better for you than store-bought. This is hard to prove. ⁓ You will likely get your harvest, your veggies at peak freshness. Whereas factory farmed veggies are often picked weeks before they're truly ripe and forced to ripen in trucks or in warehouses.

Tiffany (24:36)
Okay, right, yeah, yeah.

Hmm.

Kat (25:04)
You also have more control over your soil and the types of fertilizers or pesticides you use if you grow at home. And so that article from Harvard I mentioned, if you grow your own veggies, you're more likely to eat them more often because you don't have to go to the store and pick, you know, you just have them. ⁓ man, that article from Harvard was from 2012 and it was kind of a review of Michelle Obama's book on the White House kitchen garden. And it makes me kind of misty eyed to think about like.

Tiffany (25:10)
Mm-hmm.

Ugh.

my god.

Kat (25:34)
They

paved paradise and put up a parking lot. You know, like the Rose Garden is gone and now it's a pavilion of concrete and dick-shaped gold umbrellas. yeah. So anyway, there's Michelle Obama has a book from 2012 about growing your own veggies, which sounds delightful.

Tiffany (25:37)
No.

Horrid, horrid, horrid.

Okay.

Mm-hmm. The good old days.

Kat (25:56)
I know

I'm misty thinking about it, but I think this is a good time to take a break and we'll come back and talk about how to grow your own veggies.

Tiffany (26:03)
Sweet, sounds good.

Kat (26:23)
All right, welcome back. So now we're going to talk about how to grow your own veggies. This is not probably going to be helpful for people who have been doing it themselves. This is very general primer, but I wanted to go over some considerations that you should think about. So first, space. So where do you have space to grow veggies? If you have a yard, consider a raised bed or two or three.

Tiffany (26:37)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Kat (26:53)
Usually it's best to pick spots to get morning sun and afternoon shade. If you tend to have blazing hot summers, it all depends on what you plan to grow. course, tomatoes tend to love ample sunshine. Kale might wilt. You have to make that consideration for the indoors, patios or backyards. Container gardening can be a great idea. It can also be mind-blowingly expensive if you shell out too much. But if you have the time to find free gardening stuff on Craigslist or by nothing groups, it can work like

Tiffany (27:11)
Mm-hmm.

Kat (27:23)
Our neighborhood has a free plant stand where people drop off supplies. So they'll just have the little propagating things. save every time I buy a plant, I save the little plastic things and come it comes in so I can plant things the next season around. ⁓ If you don't need this season's most fashionable gardening gloves and you don't really care what your pots look like, it doesn't have to cost you thousands of dollars. So container gardening I have had less success with and I'll get into that. Well,

Tiffany (27:27)
that's awesome.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Kat (27:52)
I think it's because of the soil. So you have to make sure you use the right soil. Not all soil is created equal. There is a difference between in-ground soil, container potting soil, and raised bed soil. So in-ground soil is usually meant for native plants, right? It's generally heavier. It's best for flowers or garden beds.

Tiffany (28:07)
Hmm.

I don't even know if I've ever seen that before. Not that I've noticed anyway. I mean I've seen like topsoil but that's...

Kat (28:20)
Yeah, raised bed soil. Yeah,

like generally they make, you know, they'll be like, just know the difference between like raised bed or in ground versus container soil. Potting soil is definitely different. So raised bed soil has is lighter and coarser, so it prevents compaction. Potting soil will have the best drainage, so it's made just for pots.

Tiffany (28:36)
Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Kat (28:50)
Now,

if you use raised bed or in ground soil in your pots, it can become more compacted and your plants might not survive, which I did not realize. I was just like, soil, soil, and then I've got all these dead houseplants. yeah. So watch out for that. Community gardens are another way to get a garden going if you don't have your own growing space, which you know, but.

Tiffany (28:57)
Okay.

Interesting, okay.

Yeah, and I'll say I pay 30 bucks a year and I get, we get compost, which I missed. I missed the composting date, but if you are on top of it, we get compost. There's mulch there. and the raised bed is already built and it's 30 bucks.

Kat (29:16)
that's awesome.

And that covers the water too. wow. So that's, I think that's amazing. That's what I was gonna say. You might have to wait. And if it's not like right out your back door, like you have to be committed to taking care

Tiffany (29:35)
Yeah, and water. Isn't that crazy? I did have to wait on the wait list for five years. It was five years.

Yeah, it's...

yes. It's 15 minutes away and I have been an absolute awful steward of my garden, but I'm committed now because now I have things in it, so... but yeah. Yeah.

Kat (29:56)
Yeah, yeah, you care about them. Yeah.

So, I mean, those are all.

Tiffany (30:01)
The bunny's

also destroyed most of it, so I need to build something for next year, but that's my spring goals.

Kat (30:08)
Yeah, that's okay. I go into that too. Okay. Next up I want to talk about briefly is zones, growing zones to help you pick what you're going to grow. You can probably guess not all plants can grow in every place in the United States. ⁓ Growing seasons differ based on how cold it gets, how much sunlight plants get, how moist the soil typically is, what the temperature ranges are coldest to hottest and how humid the air is.

Tiffany (30:11)
Okay.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Kat (30:34)
So the USDA has the country divided into 13 hardiness areas and plants are ranked by that ⁓ hardiness level. So, and they recently updated it. ⁓ It's based on 30 years of data about the coldest temps and the hottest temps basically. And the higher the number, basically the hotter the climate is. And Texas just got upgraded from eight B to nine A. So it's...

Tiffany (31:01)
Ugh.

Kat (31:04)
The coldest temperature has gone up about five degrees in the past few years, which means we have a longer growing season and more hardiness, but it also means that our plants die in the summer. But ⁓ in terms of seasonality and what to grow, different plants grow at different times of the year, not just in zones, but in general. Most of us just zip off to the grocery store and buy apples in April without giving it a second thought, right? But their fall, they ripen in the fall.

Tiffany (31:07)
⁓ my god.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, totally. Yeah. huh.

Kat (31:32)
If you're growing stuff at home, you want to be aware of what season you should be planting your vegetables in. Luckily, there's a handy online resource. You just type in your zip code in the farmer's almanac calendar and you can see what vegetables to plant and when. It's pretty freaking cool. Something they include too is, so this might be something that I was thinking about when you were talking about trying to grow your own seedlings. My dad told me this.

Tiffany (31:36)
Yeah.

Kat (32:00)
A lot of plants when they finally germinate and break through the soil, they do really well if they have extra light from the full moon when they finally come out. So if you plant them on a new moon and they germinate in two weeks and they pop up during the full moon, they'll get more light. So the farmer's all, yeah, the farmer's almanac actually includes that in their planting guidelines. They're like,

Tiffany (32:19)
Whoa, that's crazy.

that is so cool.

Kat (32:27)
you're going to include

the moon planet on this date, you know.

Tiffany (32:31)
my gosh.

Kat (32:32)
⁓ So that calendar also lists what vegetables you should grow in, how long it takes the plant to get to maturity, how frost tolerant it'll be, whether you need to move it to a larger container at what point, stuff like that.

Tiffany (32:49)
You know, that saying, it wants me to log into my account for $9.99 a year. OK. It says members only. That's a daily planner. Maybe that's different.

Kat (32:54)
⁓ mine was free. Did you look?

yeah, I have the link. I'll send you the link directly. The farmer's almanac. It's just almanac.com slash gardening slash planting dash calendar. So, ⁓ so I looked it up. I just typed in my, it was a little finicky. It froze a little bit. So it's

Tiffany (33:04)
Okay. Yeah, I'm just, I'm curious.

Okay. Okay.

Well, yeah.

Kat (33:19)
But it

said for me, for instance, for fall planting, Texas is great for arugula, beets, bok choy, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, chives, collards, fennel, garlic, green beans, kale, kohlrabi, lettuce, mustard greens, peas, radishes, spinach, Swiss chard, and turnips. That's for fall. I can plant them all in September, except Brussels sprouts. I'm a bit too late for that. They take 100 days to grow.

Tiffany (33:41)
That's for fall. Dang.

Okay,

100 years.

Kat (33:51)
But

yeah, and then I would ⁓ harvest them in probably early November. So yeah, I could plant them all in the next week or two. ⁓ So yeah, I like that farmer's almanac for, and then generally you're only gonna plant in the fall and the spring, just because of the way growing seasons happen. ⁓

Tiffany (33:58)
Okay. That's cool.

Mm-hmm.

You can continual plant ⁓ during the summer, but I've never done it. That's a lot of work.

Kat (34:20)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah,

because it's the water and again.

Tiffany (34:26)
Yeah, and the planning, ⁓ my God.

Kat (34:27)
Yes.

Yeah. And you know, the thing I have never gotten the hang of is what goes with what, you know? So they say like corn grows. Yeah. Companion planting for nitrates and stuff. This is, this is again, very basic backyard gardening. So you're going to plant your rows of tomatoes. Yeah.

Tiffany (34:36)
Yeah.

companion plan,

Yeah. But

if you're, you can be basic and actually not that I love AI, but some, was actually talking to my hairstylist and she was saying that for her companion garden, some people recommended that she just use chat GBT to give them, give it like the dimensions and chat GBT will spit out companion, like perfect, not perfect, but a companion planting option with plants. So I don't know.

Kat (35:09)
ideal companion plant.

Well, okay. Yeah. Give it a whirl. mean, again, this is that that's where I get stuck is that like plant stuff that you're going to eat. You know, so and don't worry. Know how did it go?

Tiffany (35:14)
worth a shot. I haven't tried it yet, but I'm curious.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

I tried to plant corn, did I tell you that? not good. The bunnies,

this is in my community garden, the bunnies ate two of them and they need more than one to grow. then the other one just like, it actually looked, cause there's other people with corn. So was like, maybe they will fertilize each other. who knows? ⁓ And it looked good until I came one day and it just had fallen over. So was like, great.

Kat (35:38)
my god.

Right.

The bees got... yeah.

Yeah. We grew corn in my backyard growing up when I was a little girl. Yeah. No. Bunnies. Yeah, we didn't have bunny problem in my... because we had a dog.

Tiffany (35:58)
It was even growing like an ear of corn, it crapped up on me.

Okay, that's awesome. I think it's not that hard. It's just bunnies, know? Mm-hmm. ⁓

yes, we need a dog at our community garden, just like a guard dog.

Kat (36:18)
Yeah.

Another thing, you do have to fertilize plants. ⁓ Most of our listeners probably want to use, your Sean is like, grow, miracle grow them. So yeah. ⁓

Tiffany (36:26)
Yeah, I rarely do, you probably- I've been thinking about it more.

interesting. I've

only ever used this like super organic, it's actually like crab shells or something. Yeah, it works well. Okay. Huh. Okay.

Kat (36:40)
Yeah. Yeah. Apparently, eggshells are great. If you dry them and grind them up, you can add eggshells. They're calcium fertilizer. Mostly it's

nitrogen that plants need. Dog hair is apparently really... Yeah, you can put dog hair. Yeah. Yeah. No. Well, I've read several things about dog hair as fertilizer can be good.

Tiffany (36:53)
Mm-hmm.

What?

That's insane. I had no idea. What about human hair? Maybe.

Kat (37:10)
But it's not good to just leave your dog's hair out in the wild, especially if they take like flea and tick medicine because it can kill, kill birds when they use it to make nests. So mix the dog hair in with your soil. If you do that. the other thing to look out for is with organic. And we went over this, I think in a previous gardening episode, but, ⁓ the ecology center has a video on this.

Tiffany (37:15)
Okay. That makes sense.

Okay, we hear it, okay.

Kat (37:36)
many of these organic or natural or eco-friendly fertilizers contain biosolids, which is treated sewage, human sewage. And that means they contain PFAS, forever chemicals, because we ingest so many, it comes out in the sewage and then it's in that fertilizer. So when you shop for organic fertilizer, look out for

Tiffany (37:57)
That's insane.

Kat (38:01)
labels that say things like biosolids, residuals, or municipal waste. It sounds like it's eco-friendly, but unfortunately, fertilizer gets back into the wastewater, ⁓ especially if you're doing raised beds. ⁓ also have to be so careful about over-fertilizing your plants because the runoff just goes right into our wastewater, and that kills all kinds of animals. So it's not just like, delightful fertilizer. Like, really read the label, be careful about it.

Tiffany (38:20)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm

Kat (38:31)
Even if you're using container plants, if they have any runoff whatsoever, know, feed your plants without destroying the wastewater in your hometown. That's the idea. Also, container plants might need more fertilizer than raised beds because the soil, because of the drainage, it drains out faster. that's another reason potting soil as opposed to raised bed soil should have more nutrients in it, but you might have to amend it more often than.

Tiffany (38:41)
Okay.

Mmm. Okay, that makes sense.

Okay.

Kat (39:00)
It just

depends. Just keep an eye on that. We have talked about compost and you said compost is great. If you have your own compost in your backyard, you can use it to amend the soil. Even if you buy it from the local nursery, you just add it or, you know, when you're doing the soil or, you know, through as you're growing the plants, you can put compost down. have a whole episode on that, so I won't go too deep into it, but it's great for both indoor or outdoor plants. ⁓ You know, and again,

Tiffany (39:22)
Mm-hmm.

Kat (39:32)
Hopefully it's not human waste. If you have your own compost, can control what goes into it. Potato peels, banana peels, eggshells, those things. So not your poop. Not cat poop, not dog poop. Bunny poop, great compost. Another thing is pesticides. Like we're saying, keeping the bugs off. Pesticides are another place home gardeners tend to go wrong.

Tiffany (39:36)
Yeah, that's insane.

Mm-hmm, not your poop.

Okay, interesting.

Mm-hmm.

Kat (40:01)
tend overdo it and not consider the wastewater implications or how it's affecting local bees. We have a whole episode on bees. One of the reasons you want to grow from home in the first place is to avoid pesticides. So there are eco-friendly alternatives. I know you've said neem oil you've tried. One of my neighbors really recommended Grow Safe. So it's

Tiffany (40:10)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Hmm, I don't know that.

Kat (40:27)
It's a corn, soybean, sunflower, and coconut oil mixed with citric acid. And you just spray it on and he says it works like a charm. He keeps trying to hand it over the fence to us and we're like, oh, we're good. Squirrels, rats, and deer, you can also try cayenne pepper around your plants. Cinnamon works for ants, but ants are not going to eat your plants, so that's probably okay. I don't know. Deer spray does work.

Tiffany (40:32)
⁓ interesting.

Okay. Yeah, that's good. I'll check that out.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Deer spray does actually work really well.

Mm-hmm. It's stinky. I don't know. Well, you can make it yourself, and it smells like absolute ass, but that's the point, I guess. It's just got like, it has eggs, ⁓ garlic, I don't know, oil of some sort. It's like a bunch of really disgusting smelling things together.

Kat (40:56)
Eco-friendly is deers fray. Yeah.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

It's like everything some kid is making a witch's brew out of to like scare their brothers and things. Just think of that.

Tiffany (41:21)
Yes.

Yeah, we made it

when I was younger with my mom. We made it once and it got, I wanted, I actually almost puked, but the regular, the stuff you buy in the bottle, I haven't looked at the ingredients, but, ⁓ it doesn't smell as bad. It smells very similar, but it's not like you're not going to hurl. Yeah.

Kat (41:31)
Yeah.

Probably similar. Yeah.

Sulfur, yeah. it

works, you know, obviously having a dog is great for bunny rabbits, so.

Tiffany (41:49)
Yeah, except we have a bunny living in my flower bed and it's been eating all my grasses. I just bought $70 worth of like native grass and it's eating it down to the nothing. like, it makes me so mad, but it's very cute. It's little.

Kat (41:52)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm. it's like, this is delicious. Thank you,

But

yeah, the dogs have brought two possums inside recently. They just bring it in and lay it on the kitchen floor. We've had a dead bird, a dead rat, a dead mouse, a live baby rat, two live possums in the house, and then a couple of lizards. And then outside, Ada has captured

Tiffany (42:11)
my god. Inside?

my god.

Kat (42:33)
frogs and they've captured like a full-size possum which just plays dead and you're like god it's dead but that like Sean just scoops them up with the our broom and chucks them over the side of the house and they just get up and wander away you know but the frogs have all lived so they're like not killers our pets I think the other animals died pretty natural deaths yeah it's kind of which is terrifying my psychopath dogs yeah

Tiffany (42:43)
huh. Yeah.

⁓ my god.

That's interesting. They're just playing with them. Interesting. Yeah, Ruby's a killer.

She is a destroy and end your life kind of dog.

Kat (43:05)
Yeah. Yeah, and it would shake

and it was a break their neck and shake it kind of Archie's a bring it in gently and lay it on the floor kind of dog. And it's just wet and disgusting. But anyway, yeah, get it. Get a dog for pest control. Maybe. Yeah. Yeah.

Tiffany (43:10)
⁓ yeah, yeah,

my god. ⁓

It maybe helps, sort of. Yeah, it doesn't hurt. ⁓

Let me mark this too. Ruby wants back in. So, BRB.

Kat (43:30)
Of course, okay.

Yeah, cool.

Tiffany (44:14)
Okay, I was gonna say should I play the break music? Or not the break, the... Yeah, where is it even? I have it actually still. But I could play it. Meh, it's fine. All right. If you feel like adding it, go for it.

Kat (44:17)
Yeah, or the elevator music.

I can edit. Well, it's okay.

OK. ⁓

OK. Next up, watering is a consideration. So if you can afford to get backyard water collection barrels, if you're doing ⁓ outdoor planning, this can help ease your water bill over the summer when you're not getting enough rain. You have to, it doesn't come with a pump. So you have to like fill something and take it over to and Sean hates it. And it can also be a mosquito collection problem. So think wisely about it.

Tiffany (44:33)
huh.

Mm-hmm. You did a whole episode

on rain barrels, didn't you? Yeah.

Kat (44:57)
Yeah, I did. We have an episode on

rhabioles, but that does help. Also, it might be worth investing in automatic outdoor irrigation systems that connect to your hose if you travel a lot. ⁓ Yeah, many of the ones on Amazon have timers. And some of them have soil moisture detection. I don't know how good they are. But so they want water if it's recently rained, which is good. ⁓ I've tried the little ceramic. They're like this vase-shaped potting

Tiffany (45:05)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, you can get timers, actually.

Interesting.

Yeah.

Yeah, okay. Uh-huh.

Kat (45:26)
looking thing that you put like

an empty, fill in it, wash the wine bottle first, but fill it with water and then stick it in. it's supposed to like, the water is supposed to just kind of water when it needs to that has not worked well for me, probably because I had a south facing patio that blasted sun on, but you might have more success with that. There are ways to water. I use the dog's water when it gets to the bottom and I need it. I just dump that in whatever plant needs water.

Tiffany (45:39)
huh. Okay. Ow. Gotcha.

Okay. Dog's saliva probably has some good properties. If their fur is good.

Kat (45:56)
refill the dog's bowl that kind of stuff.

I don't know, it's probably killing, yeah, I don't know.

But yeah, mean, so in conclusion, growing your own veggies can be highly rewarding. It can give you more control over what you're consuming. It can save you money if you plant the right foods and you have the right space. So if you have the time and inclination, growing at least fresh herbs is probably worthwhile and a good place to start. So, yeah.

Tiffany (46:07)
you

Nice. Okay.

So there wasn't, there weren't any findings of like, it's a big waste of money.

Kat (46:32)
There's too many variables for it to say that conclusively. Like it's a big, yeah.

Tiffany (46:36)
Yeah. Yeah, because I've seen, I've

just seen so many funny Instagram videos where they're like, I spent a thousand dollars and here's my bounty. And it's like one little carrot.

Kat (46:47)
Yeah.

And that's the thing is that, yeah, go with herbs, especially if it's your first time and you don't know what you're doing. And my gram, my grandfather used to say, you know, if it doesn't rain, I just don't get a garden this year.

Tiffany (46:54)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, totally.

yeah, I remember you saying that.

Kat (47:04)
Yeah.

So, you know, be, and he was, you know, tried to be kind of a gentleman farmer. He had quite a bit of land and he could do that. And he grew corn bigger than him, you know, but just again, it's pro you probably don't have the time to feed your entire neighborhood. You know, you're not going to be a farmer farmer. ⁓ it's better to plant what you're going to eat so you don't waste it.

And so you don't feel like, that wasn't worth the money. You know, start small, get better at it. Yeah. Understand the rhythms of things. Figure out what grows well together. Figure out what you eat. Like we probably ought to plant broccoli because we broccoli all the freaking time. So, and Brussels sprouts. So I may give that a whirl. We need to find another place for a raised bed because you can't do those in containers, but we have tomatoes and peppers outside my neighbor.

Tiffany (47:34)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah. Start small. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, yeah.

Kat (48:00)
backdoor neighbor is growing like onions and potatoes and okra and he does really good job and he has but yeah you gotta water it every day and you gotta you know when he's out of town I water for him you know so

Tiffany (48:09)
Yeah.

Yeah, I've seen and I haven't looked into it that much, but one of the people I follow on Instagram, basically are like, it takes less than you think it will to feed your family. But I think like less in terms of space. Like I think you can probably do it in a relatively small raised bed, not small, like, you know, depending on the size of your family, whatever.

Kat (48:25)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah, well, especially tomato things

that grow up tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, obviously. Yeah.

Tiffany (48:42)
Yeah, and you can pack stuff in.

You can really pack it in. I actually think it's probably better because it gives weeds less room, blah, The problem is the time. It's a lot of work.

Kat (48:52)
Yeah, it's the time.

Yeah, just remembering to water them every day can be, you know, so I think, I think, and it does, again, give you a sense of accomplishment that I think is worth it.

Tiffany (48:58)
Mm-hmm.

Yes. Yes. I saw

this couple at the community garden the other day and they were just like, you could tell that that was just what they did because their garden, they had a whole plot because you can get a whole plot, a half plot or a raised bed. And I would start with a raised bed because I'm like, I have too much other shit to do. And ⁓ it was beautiful. my God. The things that they had grown, they had flowers, had, you know, food. Like it was amazing, but it just seemed like

Kat (49:19)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

That's it. They don't, they don't have a, yeah. They don't go do a running club and they don't go on date night and they don't go sing karaoke. They garden. Yeah. Yeah.

Tiffany (49:36)
they were there, you know? They were probably retired, first off. Mm-hmm.

Yes. Yes. Yeah. Yes. Totally. Which is great. ⁓

I saw something that was so funny. was like, you know you're a millennial if you're obsessed with one of these four things. And it was like sourdough running ⁓ plants or pickleball. Yeah. I was like, my god.

Kat (49:56)
Yep, pickleball. Yeah. Or like weightlifting and powder. Yeah, you're

sorted into one of the four houses. A lot of my friends are like, what about knitting? What about knitting? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No. Just one. At least one hobby. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah. Yeah, I didn't talk about weeding. That's another thing.

Tiffany (50:05)
It's so true. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's so true, though. It's quite accurate. Because I'm like, you can't do all of them, but you're probably going to do at least one. Yeah. It's so funny. ⁓ Very cool. That's awesome. ⁓

Kat (50:27)
I talk about that in our zero escaping episode, yeah, got to keep, you don't want to use commercial weed killer weed barriers. Yeah. You're ruining your soil and kill your vegetables and wastewater. Again, weed barriers can work, but pulling weeds is probably the most effective. You have to stay on top of it, you know, so.

Tiffany (50:29)
Yeah, that's a whole thing. ⁓

No, because then you're going to ruin your... Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Or when you're first starting, which is what I just did again, because I had nothing in my raised bed at the community garden. There was like four carrots that I'm just leaving until later. ⁓ Apparently they can store. That's what my hairstylist told me. She's like, just store them in the dirt. And I was like, all right, I will do that. And then maybe they will grow. I don't know. But anyway, I just put cardboard down.

Kat (50:59)
Yeah.

There you go. Yeah.

Yes. Yeah. Yep. Yep. That's the, that's the, ⁓ the lazy man's, yeah, weed barrier. Yeah. Yeah.

Tiffany (51:14)
We've talked about this, I think, like cardboard and then compost on top and then mulch. And then the cardboard breaks down. So it works really well for killing weeds. Yes. It works so well. Yeah.

Why would you ever just like pull all the weeds? Yeah. Unless you have to. Cool. Well, that's exciting. Nice.

Kat (51:30)
Yeah, yeah.

but yeah.

So

next week we're supposed to talk about food dyes, which is full of conspiracy theories and I can't wait.

Tiffany (51:40)
Ooh. Food dies.

Yeah, it's pretty crazy. It's a crazy world out there as we all know. So I'm excited to share what I found. Cool. All right. Well, thank you for this. ⁓ How do we do this again? Like, what do we say? That's right. That's right.

Kat (51:59)
Yeah.

We say you should follow us on Instagram or Patreon. So

yeah, we're greening up my act on all the socials except TikTok. And communicate with us. We'd love to hear from you. Share your garden with us. What are you growing this fall? Perfect. And I'll show you our... Yeah. Yeah. Post those. Awesome.

Tiffany (52:12)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, chat with us. Yes, please do. ⁓ Maybe I'll share pictures of mine because now I'm kind of proud of it. I'm super proud of my flowers. So anyway, I'll share some

and send us yours. Okay. Thank you. Bye.

Kat (52:30)
Awesome. See you next week.